B.W.'s Top Twenty Favorite Vampire Movies : Twenty to Eleven

Another Top Twenty list from your old pal Dubya, what a dynamic present for me during the holiday season, you've gotta be thinking to yourselves...Yeah. Anyway, it's the fiendish fanged folk that we'll be looking at this time around, and as you'll notice I've chosen my current favorite twenty films that deal with the subject. As you might have expected, Twilight (2008) did not make the list, and the same can be said for Lost Boys (1987), Coppola's Dracula (1992), Interview With the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994), and Fright Night (1985), none of which were really my bag, maaaann. Nonetheless, I've plucked examples from every cinematic era, from Universal to Hammer, representing American studios on to their European counterparts. It wasn't as easy compiling this list as I always seem to make it look (ha!), trust me, there were a few omissions that often occupy a deserved spot here, depending on my mood. Perhaps these are some films that might have earned a spot on some of your own favorites lists, which I expect to hear about, post-haste. We'll start the countdown with...


John Carpenter's Vampires (1998)  Probably the last Carpenter full-length film I enjoyed, to date. Glancing over his imdb page confirms it.


Vampire Circus (1974) Have you seen that screencap? The defense rests.


The Vampire Lovers (1970) A nifty Hammer Films riff on Carmilla, the famous gothic novella by Irish writer Sheridan Le Fanu, and the first installment of that studio's Karnstein trilogy, starring the likes of Peter Cushing, Ingrid Pitt, and Madeline Smith.


Vampyres (1974) Director Jose Ramon Larraz mixes ample doses of sex, sapphic and otherwise,  and violence with trance-like visuals here, and the brutal, bloody beauty of both Marianne Morris and Annulka is in full display throughout.


Twins of Evil (1971) Peter Cushing tries in vain to protect his twin nieces, as portrayed by Playboy's Collinson Twins (yum), from Count Karnstein (the third in Hammer's trilogy of the same name). One is innocent and chaste, the other one's quite taken with the idea of biting chaps on the neck and living forever, and not entirely opposed to getting her loverly bristols out, as pictured above.


Kiss of the Vampire (1962) Hammer Studios represent so many of my favorite movies since childhood, that the film that occupies number fifteen on the list should come as no surprise. Between the lavish gothic sets, the rich palette of colors, an atmospheric score by James Bernard, and that unusual ripper of a climax, this Don Sharp entry stands as an early vampiric masterpiece for the company.


Vampyr (1932) Danish director Carl Theodor Dryer provides us with the fourteenth movie, a dreamily shot, disorienting, often irrational masterpiece of early horror cinema.


Let's Scare Jessica to Death (1971) Nevermind Zohra Lampert's exasperating turn as the titularly unhinged Jessica, this moodily eerie and atmospheric, often dreamlike, low budget psychological thriller from the early seventies has always been among my favorites.


Salem's Lot (1979)  Lance Kerwin says "Pabisciutti Hill" and does magic tricks. Reggie Nalder hisses like a bucket full of gila monsters. James Mason dares you to match your faith against... the master's. Tobe Hooper at the helm of a television miniseries adaption of Stephen King's best-seller.


Terrore nello spazio aka/ Planet of the Vampires (1965) Bava's undeniably important, evocative horror/sci-fi hybrid is both claustrophobic and foggily ominous; brilliantly lit with splashy colors, stylishly framed, with effectively understated performances by the cast.

Honorable Mentions: Ganja and Hess (1973), La notte dei diavoli AKA/ The Night of the Devils (1972), La novia ensangrentada AKA/ The Blood Spattered Bride (1972), The Hunger (1983), Shadow of the Vampire (2000)

"Vampires"(1998)d/John Carpenter

I didn't think we'd ever get to March here at the Wop, between a week of brutal flu symptoms leaving me sweating and shivering in bed like Regan MacNeil in need of a cruci-fix, and half-assed local DSL connections effectively keeping me off the interwebs when I was coherent enough to get outta bed.Well, that's all behind us now, kiddies.Tonight,we'll take a look at the movie that genre god John Carpenter followed his ill-advised reload of Escape From New York with, already treading dangerously upon the waters of mediocrity with such non-impact fare as Memoirs of an Invisible Man and Village of the Damned under his recent belt at the time.Carpenter, as you'll already know, had a streak of amazing movies not many directors have ever gotten close to, from around 1976 to 1987 or so.When he finally lost his grip on success, his descent from the top wasn't as instant or constant as one might think, as tonight's review should illustrate.He helmed some pretty uninspired pictures during his dry spell, but Vampires wasn't one of them.
Based upon the 1990 John Steakley novel of the same name,Carpenter's Vampires offers some witty dialogue, inventive grue, and much needed new life breathed into the all too familiar(by now,dontcha think?) vampire legend.Two crappy unrelated direct-to-video sequels not withstanding,I have no complaints at all here.My old man, a guy with one of the healthiest fears of fanged bloodsuckers I've ever seen in my life(here's a guy who'll start to backpeddle and shout for help if I pretend to lunge towards his neck), actually took this one in with me at the theater and volunteered for rewatches when I snagged the dvd.Now, that's saying something.If only Ghosts of Mars didn't follow.If only.

Valek(Thomas Ian Griffith) plants an inspired hickey.
Somewhere in a New Mexico dustbowl,Jack Crow(James Woods)and his merry band of vampire slayers have just eradicated a nest of "goons", or entry level vampires, from an abandoned farmhouse.While the team parties it up at a nearby motel that night, Crow ponders the missing piece to the sunlight-deprived, undead puzzle; there was no master vampire at the nest as per usual.That's because the master of this vanquished nest just happens to be Jan Valek(Thomas Ian Griffith), only the pioneer proponent of blood drinking, unwittingly unleashed upon Earth's inhabitants by the Catholic Church in a botched exorcism ritual centuries earlier.Valek crashes the slayer party that night, and at full lunar-powered strength, he effortlessly lays waste to vampire hunters, whores, and lawmen with equal,blood-soaked aplomb, leaving only Crow, Montoya(Daniel Baldwin), and a thigh-siphoned prostitute named Katrina(Sheryl Lee) alive in his vengeful wake.The decimated team scrambles to regroup, with Crow meeting with Cardinal Alba(Maximillian Schell, slightly less ridiculous here than his turn in "The Black Hole"), while Montoya holes up with the hooker who's now psychically linked to Valek as vampirism begins to take hold of her with each passing hour.Gripped in terror, she helplessly watches as he and a group of seven masters brutally slaughter priests and monks alike in search of the famed Berziers Cross, rumored to hold the power to allow vampires to walk unaffected during daylight hours.Yeah,you're probably gonna wanna stop him before he gets a hold of that one, guys.

I used to think I was pretty good at crashing parties...
Crow is paired up with a new priest(seeing as how Valek forced the last one to shotgun his own brains all over the motel room ceiling),Father Guiteau(Tim Guinee), who he indoctrinates as a slayer by wisecracking, punking him out, and kicking him up his ass on the side of the road a little bit.Bullying God's bullies always made perfect sense to me, I dunno.Montoya, on the other hand, is having a rougher time of it with the infected hussy, now having to conceal the bite he's gotten himself in the midst of a spirited melee with his new she-pal.This all culminates in a knock down, drag out showdown in a Spanish mission where we discover the Cardinal(ooh, you bastard!) is in cahoots with the vampire, using the Berziers Cross and the blood of a crusader(a captured Crow) to complete the ritual that would allow Valek to venture out in the sunlight in exchange for eternal life.Montoya gets himself re-bitten by a fully-transformed Katrina, while Guiteau is hemmed in at an abandoned bar, realizing that this game's players are jumping sides faster than you could croon "Someone to care for...to be there for...I have-James Woods" to the tune of "You Two" off the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang soundtrack.Will Valek finally be able to update his Bauhaus video extra wardrobe on a daytime High Street shopping spree?Will Montoya run out of extremely painful and hot things to cauterize his vampire bites on?Will Father Guiteau rescue Crow from his current tight spot,and will Crow kick his priestly ass for his troubles afterwards?Snag a copy and find out for yourselves,kiddies!

A Swiffer prolly shoulda been among the nifty doodads in Crow's(James Woods) armoured vehicle.Just sayin'.
Interesting usage of light filters, classic Carpenter-styled shot framing, heaps of inventive gore ladled on by the KNB masters,and some good performances throughout by a solid cast headed by Woods, who fits pretty naturally here as a master vampire slayer, believe it or not, and Griffith, whose fanged turn is adequate if not a little cliched in design, and a decent soundtrack make for an entertaining and original comic book-esque good n' evil sparring match that oughta satisfy most genre fans(that don't require sparkles or teen angst with their bloodlust).Just steer clear of Ghosts of Mars, whatever you do.Three biggies.

You've got some miserable looking sunflowers coming up out front...

"Prince of Darkness"(1987)d/John Carpenter

Where the strings of classics ended for director John Carpenter is arguable,for sure.Some say its before tonight's entry,some say afterwards.Whatever camp you might have your tent pitched in,you gotta admit,Darkness is a pretty ambitious effort.I think there's only one glaring fault with the film that keeps it out of classic territory,and that's the special makeups in the finale.They're just not all that special.If Carpenter had hired one of the sick and talented fucks like Rob Bottin out there that could have realized a more frightening vision than a jam-faced broad in pajamas.In fact,I hate that effect so fucking much,I'm gonna avoid screenshots of it altogether,despite the fact they'd provide me the opportunity to shit all over it the way it deserves.I'm gonna go so far as to say that the jam-faced broad in pajamas is the precise point Carpenter's work started steadily turning to soft bowel movements,finally hardening into a full toilet bowl yule log/German fetish gold by Ghosts of Mars(2001).
The rest of the movie is pretty choice.The screenplay,written by Carpenter under the pseudonym 'Martin Quartermass',a tribute to the late Nigel Kneale's fictional character, Professor Bernard Quartermass, is frightening on a cerebral level.Every shot is framed beautifully in the tradition and style we've come to expect from Carpenter dating back to Dark Star(1974).The cast is thoroughly solid from Victor Wong as Professor Birack down to Donald Pleasance as Father...Loomis,ahem.Jameson Parker is even pretty good as the lead moustache.There's no noticeably smoking brawdz on board,because,well,they're collegiate physics students,ferchrissakes.The percentage of those that find their way onto Girls Gone Wild:Cabo Wabo is lilliputian,you can bet on it.A very choice movie indeed,I just wish they'd...well you know where I was going again there.

Spare some change for the guy behind "Look at You Over There(Ripping the Sawdust From My Teddy Bear)"?.
Professor Birack(Wong)is invited to a rundown Los Angeles church by Father Loomis(that's right,Loomis),the newly appointed keeper of the key,a position in a forgotten secret religious sect known as the "Brotherhood of Sleep" that stands guard over said dilapidated parish,for in the basement,captured in a large vessel,and held prisoner for thousands of years...is the Devil himself,who has spent an eternity,circularly swirling and glowing inside,sort of like the lava lamp that didn't catch on,what,with ultimate evil in puddle form inside.Birack gathers both his colleagues in science and technology and the best of his quantum physics students to scientifically prove once and for all that Satan exists in the real world, growing in strength with every passing day,and unscrewing the lid of the vessel from the inside,all the while negatively influencing all lesser forms of life around him,like ants,worms,and Alice Cooper.On board for the extra credit weekend from Hell,are students Brian Moustac...uhh,Marsh(Jameson Parker,who you won't remember from Simon & Simon,since nobody watched that fucking show):kind of the human equivalent of Wonder bread,Cathy(Lisa Blount):a flame-headed fuck machine whose morals break down nightly on a sub-atomic level,Walter:a wisecracking Asian version of Mr. Chicken,Kelly:blonde non-factor plain Jane who unwittingly impregnates herself with Satan after bumping the corner of some computer equipment(it could happen),Dr. Leahy(Peter Jason),who brings bouncing fruit on two fingers while smoking and imitating a trumpet with his lips to this gathering of analytical minds,and various other electro-geeks and math-nerds,not excluding Thom "Murray RIPTIDE Bozinski" Bray,to really fill out that who's who of people with nothing better to do this weekend.Science?Satan.Satan?Science.

Lisa Blount stars as carrot-coiffed Celt-cooze(thanks,Phe!),Sleeps O'Round.
Lisa fucks out Brian for the price of a cup of coffee,(god,I miss the sluts of the Reaganomics era)then we settle in for the investigation and subsequent unholy rebuttal by Lucifer.Some stumblebums under evil influence shank the kee-rist outta one of the team,after which the dark lord and master puts him back together into a hand puppet using live beetles,The Coop runs Murray Bozinski through on a bike frame(at his suggestion and right outta his live show),and inside the church,Ol' Scratch drips upward to the ceiling,occasionally firing unholy water in a psionic blast into the team members' unsuspecting mouths,turning them into zombies.The closer everyone is to the vile vessel,the more frequently their dreams are invaded by a tachyon broadcast from the future where a hulking dark figure emerges from the same church.Meanwhile,the priest and Birac formulate a scientific/holy theory that if there's a God,there must also be an Anti-God,who's just as powerful,and much less likely to help blind people to see.Kelly undergoes a weird metamorphosis after her bump where her whole body undergoes remarkable physiological changes(translation:her skin becomes patchy with a jam-like substance),ultimately transforming her into the titular Prince himself(who's apparently cool with walking around as a jam-faced broad in pajamas).After more members succumb to the Satanic Super Soaker yap-squirt,only Marsh,Birack,Loomis,Cathy,and Walter stand in the way of Satan pulling Anti-God into the human dimension through a full-length mirror(an earlier attempt with a compact mirror fails.Silly Satan.).Just before Satan can lend his father a hand,Cathy selflessly sacrifices any future nights of getting bottomed out by random mullet-headed guidos,and gives Satan a shoulder tackle into the mirror that would give Barnaby Jones a full mast erection.The mirror smashes,trapping Satan,Anti-God,and Cathy on the other side.That night at home,Brian's sleep is interrupted by a tachyon broadcast from the year one-nine-nine-nine,but instead of the ominous dark figure emerging from the church,this time it is Cathy.He wakes up in a puddle of sweat,then turns to his own bedroom mirror,reaching out,his fingers mere millimeters away from the reflective surface...

Give that thing a phattie bowl and glass pull-up carb,blast some Sabbath over the loudspeakers and we're talking epic partyage.
Carpenter followed this up with They Live(1988),which we'll dissect here very soon,also a pretty solid movie in its own right,that sadly didn't slow the overall quality descent that followed.Parker was spotted most recently on Jag(did anyone watch that show either?WTF),while the late Wong will be remembered for such titles as The Last Emperor,Bloodsport,and Carpenter's own Big Trouble in Little China.Sadly,Lisa Blount,a rad actress who played a similarly ruthless and memorable bitch in An Officer and a Gentleman,passed away a little over a month ago at the age of 53.Her character,Cathy Danforth,is a paen to Jim Danforth,who did matte work on this production,and is legendary for his stop-motion work of the sixties and seventies.Donald Pleasance would continue to portray the OTHER Loomis in inferior Halloween sequels up until his death in 1995.All jokes aside,this movie delivers the goods on a number of levels,it's smart,creepy,funny at times,and is a good time when you throw it in every once in a while.On the scale,Darkness reaches into the mirror and pulls out three wops.Choice.

Wilt Chamberlain transmits from the future a horrifying message,indeed:The mullet and porn stache are doomed,and NOTHING will save them!

"Halloween"(1978)d/John Carpenter

Truth be told,for the longest time,this was my favorite horror movie.After seeing it opening night at the Gateway Twin Cinema back in 1978 with my father,I have seen it almost four hundred times to date.Arguably creating the motivation for the modern slasher movie wave that followed,Carpenter draws his inspiration here from Hitchcock and Bob Clark,among others,and crafts a beautifully composed,brilliantly simple film,packed with tension and jump scares,and whose terror stems not from body counts or elaborate gore effects,but from implied violence/visuals,first person killer's eye view camera work reminiscent of "Black Christmas"(1974),and a gripping,unforgettable score penned by Carpenter himself.Word of mouth quickly earned tonight's entry a heavy reputation,and before long,the little independent film made for three hundred and twenty thousand dollars went on to gross nearly fifty million at the box office.Regardless of where it happens to fall on your list,surely it deserves rank among the greatest horror movies of all time.Jamie Lee Curtis,a nineteen year old relative unknown at the time,would secure her place as the top scream queen of the next decade with her talent and tonsils both receiving ample screen time here.The cast,made up mainly of Carpenter regulars and unknowns was led by the late,great character actor Donald Pleasance(who shares a birthday with your humble N,by the way),who signed on for twenty thousand dollars,in place of Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee,who both declined the role,with Lee later admitting that doing so was his biggest career mistake(!).What follows is the legend of the indestructible evil from behind the two dollar William Shatner mask,and the legacy that grew out of it...

Evil personified or trick or treat candy sugar-induced violence,you decide.
The sleepy little suburb of Haddonfield,Illinois is forever marred by the brutal stabbing of Judith Myers on Halloween night,1963,by her six year old brother,Michael(Will Sandin),who spends the next fifteen years in Smith's Grove Warren County Sanitarium under the watchful eye of Dr. Sam Loomis(Pleasance),who recognizes the catatonic boy for what he really is,the living embodiment of pure evil.Just before the fifteenth anniversary of the murder,Loomis is called upon to transfer his patient,so that he can be tried as an adult,but in the midst of a violent thunderstorm,Michael escapes into the dark night,stealing the very vehicle intended for his transfer.The doctor knows exactly where the silent killer is headed,and follows the bloodtrail(a mechanic with his head twisted around)and morbid clues(Judith's tombstone has been stolen) to Myers' hometown,enlisting the local sheriff, Leigh Brackett(Charles Cyphers) who's investigating a hardware store break in where knives,rope,and a mask have been stolen,to assist in the manhunt,though plainly,this isn't a man they're after...
Laurie Strode(Curtis),a bit of a wallflower compared to her sex-starved girlfriends Annie(Nancy Loomis)and Lynda(PJ Soles),promises her father she'll drop of the keys to the Myers house on her walk to school,immediately overcome by the feeling she's being watched by...somebody.While daydreaming during class,she notices a station wagon parked outside the school with a state seal on the door.When she looks towards it again,it has gone.After school,as the girls walk home planning their Halloween festivities around Laurie and Annie's babysitting gigs at the Doyle and Wallace residences that night,they're interrupted by the same station wagon playing tricks with them before screeching off.Later on the walk,Laurie notices someone up ahead hiding behind the bushes,but by the time the girls investigate,the figure is gone.

"Before we pull up to the main gate,Marion,wanna do some thorazine and hit the back seat?"
At the Myers house,the doctor and sheriff find the mangled remains of a partially-eaten dog,but little else,as Michael has been watching Laurie as she babysits Tommy Doyle,and later Lindsey Wallace,who gets pawned off on her while Annie drives to pick up Paul,her boyfriend who's been grounded from car priviledges for egging and soaping.Her red Monte Carlo will never leave the Wallace garage though,as she's strangled by Michael from the back seat,before he cuts her throat.When Lynda and Bob show up,they find an empty house,and after finding out Annie's alleged whereabouts from Laurie,they go upstairs and fuck in the Wallace's bedroom.When Bob goes downstairs for beers,Michael bounds out of a pantry door,pinning the boy to a wall with a one-handed chokehold,then lifting him off the ground,and pinning him to the wall with a knife.When the bedroom door opens,Lynda is surprised to see a silent figure covered with a bedsheet and Bob's glasses,but when she calls Laurie to check in,the shape strangles her to death with the phone cord.Laurie,concerned by the gasping and abrupt end to her phone call,puts both children to bed and decides to walk across the street and find out what's going on for herself.To her horror,she discovers the scare-traps Michael has set up for her in the upstairs bedroom involving the bodies of her friends and his sister's headstone.She narrowly escapes back to the Doyles,and after believing she's killed her masked attacker,sends the kids screaming out into the street for help,drawing the attention of Dr. Loomis who's been wandering around looking for signs of his patient's presence.As he rushes up the Doyle steps,he finds Laurie struggling with Michael,pulling his mask off in the melee,which he sheepishly pulls back over his face,as the doctor empties his revolver into him,the force of the bullets sending the killer off an upstairs balcony onto the lawn below.Laurie tearfully asks the doctor what the boogeyman is,to which Loomis replies,"As a matter of fact,it was."He looks out the balcony window to where Michael's body lay,but it's gone,as he knew it would be.Reading the doctor's expression,Laurie sobs uncontrollably.

I probably would have used something different to choke Lynda(PJ Soles).Ahem.
As another film with loads written about it already,I'll entertain you with bits of Wop-based Halloween trivia instead,as nauseatingly fan boy as that is,this time around.Halloween was the first vhs tape(of thousands)I ever bought,for fifty bucks,back in 1981.Being brought up in an Italian catholic household,I spurred on the wrath of my uncle,who was my sponsor,when I took Michael(after Myers,of course)as my confirmation name,which I use as my middle initial to this day.When I turned sixteen,my parents got me a jack o'lantern shaped cake for my birthday,as I had reached my two hundredth viewing of the film shortly beforehand.Fittingly,for one Halloween(the holiday,not the movie,in this case) party,I did the whole to-the-letter Michael Myers right down to the coveralls and Don Post mask from the original mold,and stayed in character the entire evening(if you wanted to talk to me,you had to wait for me to take the mask off haha),even when doing shots,beers,and bong hits(I also went down to dinner one night with the damned thing on,while under the influence of a certain three lettered hallucinogen,and ate with my parents who barely noticed).At one point I could recite the whole movie,down to the credits,as they rolled,and probably still could if I gave enough of a shit(Fear not,I don't.).I still have loads of memorabilia,scripts,foreign release posters,novelizations,etc.,and though I've gotten over my adolescent obsessions(mostly) with said film,it retains a spot in my Top list forevermore,regardless.It spawned a slew of unwarranted and mostly forgettable sequels,and...a dogshit remake by a blowjob hack,which I'll finally be shredding here sometime next week.The original,of course,merits the highest possible rating,and remains necessary viewing for all.

I'm your boogeyman,I'm your boogeyman,turn arouuuuuuund...

"The Fog"(1980)d/John Carpenter

I wanna thank all the faithful readers out there for making this current month the most popular in the three years since the inception of "Wopsploitation",my ugly little bastard child seems to be catching on big time.You guys and gals are truly as tits as a Russ Meyer movie.And sexier,at that.I promise you,I've got no shortage of titles to give the once over,and I've also been thinking about bringing in a guest reviewer or two on occasion,just to add a little spice to the mix.We're gonna look at some real classics this week,and a forgotten gem or three while we're at it.So,pack one up,sit back,and get yourself a piece of the Wop.
In the late seventies and early to mid eighties,John Carpenter could do no wrong.He had an impressive streak of classic films,running from "Assault on Precinct 13" to about "Prince of Darkness" or so,the endpoint of his brilliance is arguable.Today's entry,often referred to as a "minor classic", is one of my favorite Carpenter films of all,and a stellar example of the director at his very best.Shot anamorphically to hide the low-end budget,the film boasts of an excellent cast of characters,sparse but effective makeup work by Rob Bottin(who plays pissed-off leper-ghost,Captain Blake in the film),and yet another memorably creepy Carpenter soundtrack.Though about a third of the film stands as reshoots and new scenes,as the director hated the first cut,the finished product is a surprisingly effective ghost story.I remember the way the audience freaked the fuck out in the theater during the trick ending,and thinking to myself,"Goddamn!That was cool!",and saying it repeatedly after shelling out 92 samoleans for the Magnetic Video VHS release afterwards.Looking back,it's painful what a guy had to pay for quality horror entertainment back in the early eighties...

John Houseman earns money the old fashioned way...in CAMEOS.
The night before Antonio Bay's centennial celebration,old Mr. Machen(Houseman)tells the local boys the lurid history of the town over a crackling campfire.At the same time,Father Malone(Hal Holbrook)has discovered the town's shameful secret hidden away in his church's walls,in the form of a huge gold cross,and the revealing diary of his grandfather.Do priests write diaries a lot?If so I'd imagine most of 'em would be pretty lurid and shameful...It seems a hundred years earlier,Malone's grandfather and five other conspiritors shit in the collective mouths of a leper colony led by the captain of a clipper ship called the Elizabeth Dane,named Blake who was looking to establish a settlement nearby.The six men lit a campfire on the rocky coast to simulate a lighthouse's beacon,and during a foggy evening,sent the ship full of lepers to an icy premature death.The town was then settled using the stolen gold and the incident hiden away from the light.That night,three fishermen are engulfed by an unearthly,glowing fog on the ocean,and when the men on deck see a ghostly clipper pull alongside their own boat,they are dispatched by shadowy killers.Meanwhile,Nick Castle(Atkins) picks up a hitchiker named Elizabeth(Curtis),and the two manage to get a horizontal bop in amidst the town coming unglued from midnight 'til one in the morning.Back at the church,Malone drunkenly tries to convince Kathy and her assistant(Leigh,Nancy Loomis)to cancel the celebration,telling them of the bloodshed Antonio Bay was founded on.At the old lighthouse where deejay Stevie Wayne(Barbeau) broadcasts her sleepy jazz show from,things are getting weirder.A piece of driftwood her son brings her begins to drip water before catching fire,and changing from reading DANE to 6 MUST DIE.And you thought jazz was boring.

Stevie Wayne(Adrienne Barbeau)can deejay into my microphone all night long,baby.
The next day Nick and Elizabeth charter a boat to search for his three missing fishing buddies,stumbling across an unresponsive boat housing the eyeless cadaver of one of the men,who at the morgue,momentarily springs to life,grabs a scalpel and carves a number 3 in the floor tiles.That night as the centennial begins,Stevie hears the death of her weatherman,as he investigates outside his post and is overtaken by hooks that dig into him out of the glowing fog.She frantically calls the babysitter,who is enveloped by the fog,and dispatched by the leper-ghosts.Just as they're about to add Wayne's son to their bodycount,Nick and Elizabeth rescue the boy in his pickup,and speed away from the swirling bank of death.The pillowchested deejay warns her listeners to stay out of the fog,leading Kathy and assistant,Nick,Elizabeth,and young Danny to the safety of the church,just as the unearthly fog creeps down upon the lighthouse where she's broadcasting.The group fends off the ghostly attack at the church,while the deejay corners herself on the lighthouse roof,battling back the vengeful lepers with their own crusty weapons.Malone brings the hulking gold cross out to Captain Blake,and offers himself as the final conspiritor,but the crew and the fog disappear in thin air with their stolen treasure returned.Wayne,still in one piece,warns her listeners to watch out for the fog,which reappears,sliding back under the church doors,and surrounds the priest who is abruptly beheaded by the leper captain.

"Roll the window up and hit the gas,he's just gonna squeegee the windshield and ask for change!"
Many of the character names are movie and book-related inside jokes(Nick Castle,Dr. Phibes,Dan O'Bannon,Mr. Machen)you'll be able to notice as the credits roll.Carpenter drew his inspiration for this project from a British horror film from the 50's that dealt with monsters that hid in cloud-cover.His next film would be the excellent "Escape From New York" a year later,which we'll look at at a later date.His marriage to the the lovely Barbeau came to an end in 1984,his credibility stuck around quite a bit longer,at least until he helmed the god-awful Ghosts of Mars in 2001.Still one of my favorite directors of all-time,without question.Coincidentally,tonight's entry stands at the sixth highest box office gross of all his films,which probably explains why they'd rape his cult classic with an unneccessary and overwhelmingly panned remake in 2005.Ironically,his own remake of The Thing(1982) is probably the greatest ever made.The Fog breaks through the stained glass with an ectoplasmic fist holding three wops under the cover of vengeful mist on the ratings scale...

Insert obligatory vengeful leperous apparition with glowing eyes and an itchy scabbard finger joke here.

"Halloween II"(1981)d/Rick Rosenthal

"Heyyyyy,man,this ain't H2!"Fret not,Rob Zombie fans,when I choose to tear apart your favorite dreadlocked egg-purse's sorry excuses for remakes here at the Wop,you'll know.Tonight we examine the real sequel to Carpenter's 1978 horror masterpiece,which might not be all that great of a movie,but it's still light fucking years ahead of anything Zombie has the balls to slap the Halloween title upon.So we're still talking the original faceless Boogeyman and living embodiment of evil here,and not the abused,mutant piece of white trash with the mask fetish,to set the record straight.
Despite a few spirited moments of hilarity(mostly unintentional,and Loomis-based) peppered throughout the production and Alan Howarth's excellent electronic collaboration on Carpenter's superlative original score,ultimately,this sequel falls flat.Despite the fact that sequels rarely live up to their preceding films,there are a few glaringly obvious reasons that tonight's entry only manages to be average at best.In the original film,Nick Castle portrayed Michael as the ultimate evil with a child's perspective,on a perpetual and deadly trick or treat,hiding in the shadows,setting up horrific scares for his victims,looking on with wonderment at his trophies as the night progressed.In the sequel,Dick Warlock clocks a lot of on-screen time,methodically plodding through victims,churning out a lot of on-screen violence,where the original implied most of its kills,relying instead on good old fashioned white-knuckled suspense and jump-scares.That suspense is non-existent here.Sadly,it all seems like a contrived,punch the clock affair in the end.

Laurie Strode(Jamie Lee Curtis) wanders the halls of Haddonfield Memorial,the emptiest hospital in cinema history.
We pick up with Michael leaving the scene of the Doyle house,casually strolling through the neighborhood,helping himself to a kitchen knife at the Elrod's household(and bleeding on Harold's ham sandwich)which he uses to slash the throat of some local young gossip hound,while avoiding Dr. Loomis'(Pleasance) and Sheriff Brackett's(Charles Cyphers)bickering pursuit.The two men come upon a faceless shape walking down the sidewalk,but after he walks out into the street,he's pinned between a squad car and a delivery van,and is burned to death by the ensuing explosion.At this point,Deputy Hunt(Hunter Von Leer) arrives on the scene to inform Brackett that several teen bodies have been discovered at the Wallace house,one of which being his daughter Annie(Nancy Loomis).At this point,Brackett disappears from the story,leaving Hunt to assist the doctor in hunting down his former patient.Meanwhile,Laurie Strode(Curtis),the only survivor from Myers' bloody onslaught earlier that evening,is whisked away to Haddonfield Memorial Hospital,in shock,with a fractured ankle,and in need of stitches.The hospital staff,who seem to be the only other people in the place,are comprised of bubbleheads,sex maniacs,pot smokers,neglectful maternity ward nurses,incomepetent night watchmen,and one drunken doctor.Michael intuitively heads towards the hospital in pursuit of the one that got away.You know where this is going...

Michael helps the marshall unlodge a pesky candycorn stuck in his throat.
When the coroner examines the charred corpse of Loomis' suspect,the dental records show that the body most likely belongs to teenaged Ben Tramer(so much for Laurie going to the dance,afterall,eh)and not the Boogeyman.The good doctor and deputy investigate a break in at the school,where "Samhain" is written in blood on the chalkboard,and a crayon drawing of a family is skewered to a desk,right through the sister.Apart from obviously being a big proponent of Glenn Danzig's side projects,what's this evil son of a bitch trying to say anyway?Back at the hospital,Myers eighty-sixes nearly everyone,with hammer claws to the skull,hypodermic needles to the eyes and temples,scalpel impalings,blood drainings,strangulation with stethoscopes,boiling bobblers in overheated therapy pools,while Strode goes in and out of consciousness,amidst dreams of her adoptive parents taking her to see a young boy in an institution.Hmmmmm...Nurse Chambers(Nancy Stephens) arrives with a marshall to escort Loomis back to Smith's Grove,but when she inadvertently blurts out that Laurie is in fact Michael's other sister,the doctor forces the marshall to return to the hospital at gunpoint.In a final standoff in a room full of explosive gases,Laurie manages to shoot Michael in both eyes with Loomis' pistol(beginner's luck?),as the wounded doctor opens all the tank valves.As Laurie limps out to safety,Loomis blows the room sky high,killing himself and his murderous patient.A figure engulfed in flames stumbles out of the fire,burns for about four hours,and collapses.Laurie is whisked away to yet another hospital,cueing shots of a burning Halloween mask and the Chordettes' "Mister Sandman" for whatever reason.

Dr.Loomis(Donald Pleasance)flicks his Bic just in the nick.
Originally set to take place years later in a high rise apartment building,this sequel was a financial success,though panned almost universally by critics for its rigid slasher foundation popular in the early eighties,instead of following the successes of the original.Carpenter who declined directing here("I had made that film once and I really didn't want to do it again."Good for you,John!)in favour of producing,continued to enjoy huge success throughout the eighties with The Thing,Escape From New York,Christine,etc.Jamie Lee Curtis,a continuity no-no here with her hair still partially bleached from her portrayal of Dorothy Stratten in "Death of A Centerfold" a year earlier,went on to enjoy a fruitful career in movies and television,even revisiting her Laurie character in later retarded cash-in sequels, H20(1998) and Halloween:Resurection(2002),before mainly focusing on her family instead,in 2006.The excellent British character actor,Donald Pleasance,continued acting up until the end,in 1995,reprising his Loomis character in the fourth,fifth,and sixth movies of the series.It'd be virtually impossible to match Carpenter's original groundbreaker,but Halloween 2 stands alone as a fairly average slasher pic,with several enjoyable moments,despite its shortcomings."I'll shoot it two Wops!I'll shoot it two Wops!I'll shoot it in the heart!This film...this movie isn't human!" in my best Donald Pleasance impersonation.

We sure see a whole helluva lot of Michael Myers(Dick Warlock)in this one.