7th Annual Scare-A-Thon Lineup Announced

For those lucky few who get to join me for my annual horror movie marathon, this is the day you've been waiting for all year.  Scare-A-Thon 2011 movie lineup!!!  For those of you I don't know (and therefore 'stranger danger'), feel free to play at home:

9:00am    The Birds (1963) - Horror Classic

The closest Hitchcock came to making a SyFy movie.  Although the special effects are a bit dated (understandably), the movie itself is still effectively creepy and the master of suspense does not fail to create tension despite the hokey storyline.  For those who grew up Amish or under a rock, the premise of this movie involves a sleepy little town that is invaded by thousands and thousands of pissed off birds.



11:10am   Attack the Block (2011) - Horror/Comedy

A rarity for Scare-A-Thon, I'm throwing in a movie that I have not yet seen.  But here's what I know:  brought to you by the producers of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz (though, not the same writer), this British movie is about a group of inner city thugs who face off against some outer space aliens in an attempt to halt an all-out invasion.  The trailer doesn't look all that funny or scary (judge for yourself), but it has potential and I'm hoping this movie comes through.



12:40pm    Triangle (2009) - Horror Obscura

A twisty and twisted little horror/thriller that sadly flew under everyone's radar upon its release last year.  During a yachting trip a group of friends get sucked into a storm in The Bermuda Triangle and in danger of sinking they are forced to board an ominous, abandoned cruise ship.  An immediate sense of deja vu quickly leads into a mind-flip journey of terror!  Visions of The Shining meets Timecrimes (Spanish thriller obscura).



2:20pm   The Fly (1986) - Creature Feature

I've tried to get David Cronenberg's masterful remake of the original classic into Scare-A-Thon for a couple years, but ran into some technical difficulties.  Now this bad boy is queued up on the DVR with a backup on Netflix Instant, so there's no escaping it this year.  Jeff Goldblum plays a scientist playing around with experiments in teleportation when things go horribly wrong.  Effectively gross, scary and at times outright sad.



4:00pm    Uninvited (1988) - Horror B-Movie


This so-bad-it's-good horror movie already stood out enough to deserve it's own review, so I thought I would share it's badness with my friends.  Scientists are conducting insidious experiments on a group of cats, one of which escapes - the ginger, naturally.  After mutating and murdering a couple (no biggie), he finds his way on a yacht of a rich mobster and his teenage spring breaking guests.  Once at sea, Mr. Whiskers (as I like to call him) wreaks havoc on the boat's passengers.  Everything a bad 80's movie should be.



5:40pm  Red State (2011) - Religious Cult Horror

This year's lineup has a second movie that I have not yet seen, but am hoping for something great out of Kevin Smith (Clerks, Dogma, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back) who is taking his maiden voyage into the horror genre.  The story involves 3 high school boys who are on a road trip for a "date" with a woman they met on the internet.  But once there, they are bamboozled and held by an extremist cult who try to force them to repent for their sins.  Obviously Smith's intention is to shock and offend... and be warned:  this trailer has quite a bit of adult language.



7:10 pm  Undead (2003) - Horror/Comedy

Although the trailer portrays this as a straight up horror, I remember this being darkly humorous on top of having a solid zombie invasion story.  A small Australian fishing village is suddenly bombarded by mysterious meteorites that turn many of the town's residents into flesh-eating zombies.  The remaining survivors fight against them to get to safety.  The Aussies know how to make horror and even with this low-budget indie, they prove it once again.



8:50 pm  The Reflecting Skin (1990) - Horror Obscura

During his early career Viggo Mortensen did a lot of horror and obscure movies... this one is both.  So obscure, in fact, that it has still not received a DVD conversion - so I'll be rocking the VHS on this one, y'all!  Though categorized as horror, this is really a dark coming-of-age for a young boy and is shown as he interprets the world around him.  Believing a woman nearby is a vampire, he tries to convince his older brother (Mortensen) not to see her.  Wonderful and intense.



10:30 pm  Troll 2 - Horror B-Movie


It's a double-dose of bad movie for this year's marathon!  Troll 2 is widely considered the best worst movie ever made (although Birdemic: Shock and Terror may give it a run for it's - lack of - money) and even has an entire documentary devoted to how bad this movie is called Best Worst Movie (2009).  Everything about this movie is a disaster, starting with the title which has nothing to do with the original Troll (which was pretty bad in it's own right) and continuing with the Italian production of an English movie, the horrid acting, soundtrack and overall WTF of the whole affair.  Late in the night we should be just punchy enough to really enjoy this train wreck of a film.



Midnight  Witchboard (1986) - 80's Midnight Movie

Capping off the night is one of my lesser known 80's favorites.  Basically, this is just another Ouija board movie, but is directed by Kevin S. Tenney whose M.O. is making cheap or bad or cheesy movies and doing so with some spectacular camerawork.  Although he "borrows" a lot of the visual look of this movie from Sam Raimi's Evil Dead movies, it still allows for a watchable horror flick about a malicious spirit released from using the mystical board.