The first annual "19 Days until Halloween during which I will write up one movie every day for the rest of October Spectacular!"

I'm back just in time for some sort of Halloween type feature. I figured I'd be original and do some sort of thing where I write about a different horror movie every day until the 31st. Here's the original part: I'll start on the 12th! Ok, I'm just incredibly lazy and haven't been able to write about shit lately. Here are the parameters: Each day from now (the 12th) until Halloween (the 31st) I will choose a horror movie to write up. That's pretty much it. I'm not watching a movie every day. I'm not writing about a picture extensively every day. Hell, there might be a day where I'm lucky to give you a paragraph. Hopefully, that won't happen, but there are some days when I work 15 hours, get home at 11:30 with a wake up scheduled at 7:30 the next morning. On those days, I probably won't give you much. I'll give you something though, which is more than I've been doing lately. I have no idea what movies I'll include. Hopefully, they'll be something I've watched recently. No guarantees. Hell, perhaps I'll give up after a couple days. Hopefully, I'll be able to recommend the shit I write about. Anyway, here it is....the first ever...sort of....list...on moving picture trash. Really, it's just a list of movies in no order whatsoever.

19 Days until Halloween: Deadgirl (2008)
It's scary what disillusioned, angry young men will do under the influence of each other. Usually, we got a leader, a follower or two, and mayhem. Sometimes it's innocent mayhem; some vandalism, drinking, skipping school, talking back to parents, etc. Other times it's something worse; school shootings, home invasions, panty sniffing. Most often, it's just staying up late and playing video games. Probably less often than anything, it's breaking into an abandoned mental hospital, finding a zombie girl strapped to a table, and raping her. I'm not sure this happens very often so I can't say if the picture that portrays these events (that would be deadgirl) is based in any sort of reality or not.

Anyway, this picture will kick off my countdown to Halloween and it's a pretty good choice if I do say so myself. Basically what we got here is the story of two such teenaged boys. School's not for them. They don't fit it, jocks make fun of them, girls ignore them, blah blah blah. We got Rickie, the overly brooding emo type, and J.T., the more charismatic leader type. One day, they decide to skip out on classes, drink some brews, etc, eventually making their way to an abandoned mental facility where they drink some more brews, vandalize some shit, get chased by a demonic dog, and eventually head down to a basement where they find some girl (seemingly dead) tied to a table, covered in plastic. The girl moves. J.T. gets excited and says "let's keep her". It's pretty clear who the monsters are in this type of scenario.

Of course, the audience sorta needs to identify with one of these numbskulls so it might as well be Rickie. He's not really into it. He leaves. J.T. stays and gets to know the girl carnally. Later, he begins whoring her out to another boy from school, Wheeler. Wheeler is even more of an outcast than J.T. and Rickie. I guess it's good these guys are staying away from the school. Of course, it's pretty weird that the girl is dead. We figure this out not because she's decayed (she isn't) but because J.T. kills her a few times that first night after she tried to bite him (strangulation, face bashing, he shot her a couple times). If the girl was alive we got an exploitation film here. With her dead, it's pretty much the equivalent of Dracula whoring out the Wolfman...or Quint catching and whoring out Jaws. Any such scenario fits. Go ahead, give it a whirl. Ripley whoring out the queen alien, etc. Fun stuff.

I don't know, it's a fucked up scenario but it's believable in the sense that I believe a couple of asshole, emo-teens, capable of this shit. The performances are all pretty good, especially Noah Segan (Brick) as J.T. Shiloh Fernandez as Rickie just has to brood. He's James Dean minus the cool. Rickie also has an unrequited crush on a girl from school named JoAnn. JoAnn dates the quarterback. The quarterback eats guys like J.T. and Ricky for breakfast. Rickie's home life sucks. His father is non existant. His mother works nights. His only father figure (mother's jobless boyfriend) is an alcoholic. His only friend is a necrophiliac. Things are pretty bleak. That's high school for you.

This picture is creepy without being too scary. Violent without being overly gory. There's a naked dead girl who isn't particularly sexy. Is she a zombie? It's never really made clear. I mean, I think she's dead but maybe she's just impervious to death. She gets shot, but keeps living. I think there is implied penetration of bullet holes. We feel for the girl, want her to escape, have vengeance, and so on. J.T. rarely leaves her side and towards the end of the picture lounges about in the basement wearing a Hugh Hefner type smoking jacket. Her bite seems to transmit her "sickness". One unfortunate character has a disgusting mishap in the mensroom after being bitten. Things get out of hand.

The picture is advertised as being from the guys that brought us Hellraiser and Heathers. We got sick perversions of the flesh crossed with High School, so I guess that makes sense. I liked it. Good music that perfectly fits the mood. Some black as tar humor, some dead girl nudity. What's not to like? Eventually, things come to a head. Rickie stands up to J.T. Some jocks get mixed in. Rickie is forced to make a horrific decision. Yup, this is high school alright.

In closing, I can only imagine that this movie will do for having sex with zombies what Jaws did for going into the water.