The 31 Days of Halloween: Day 15

Halloween is the best time of the year. It's a wonderfully indulgent time, where your inner ghoul is given societal license to be put on display. To celebrate it to it's wicked fullest, the Midnight Cheese will be posting every day in October with excellent ways to enjoy the season. Whether it's horror films, video games, books or activities, check back every day for some new Halloween fun.

Michael Jackson's Thriller

Now we're in it. We're half way to Halloween and it's time to kick this count down into overdrive. There's only one right way to do it proper and that's with the most influential and important music video of all time. I don't care if you absolutely hate Michael Jackson (no one did in 1984), you're gonna put that distaste aside for the next twenty minutes and listen to me. This massively influential achievement deserves your love and you deserve it's spectacle.

Thriller is a collaborative effort between director John Landis (of An American Werewolf in London fame) and The King of Pop, Michael Jackson. The singer contacted the director after watching American Werewolf and quite frankly it couldn't have worked out any better. Thriller is really a short form horror piece with a dance number. It's a love letter to horror films wrapped in expensive paper and accented with a schlocky bow.

The opening is in a 50's timeframe, with Jackson in his varsity jacket and his date in a poodle skirt. An excellent touch to this whole scene, a movie within a video, is that there are film damage pops to give it a more stressed look. After the two exchange a promise ring, Jackson transforms into a werecat, giving Landis the chance to show off some of the effectiveness of his on screen transformations. Here we pan to the audience watching this film, in the 80's, with Jackson noshing on some popcorn and his date disgusted by the werecat attack. She leaves and we're treated to the outside of the beautiful Palace Theater, with Thriller staring Vincent Price on the marquee. As you're watching this part, check out some of the excellent vintage posters in the background.

The walk home is where the actual singing kicks in and really, everything is going fine until they decide to walk past a cemetery shrouded in fog. Wouldn't you know it, Vincent Price is on hand to recite his now famous "rap", to which the zombies emerge to stalk out happy couple. Before you know it, they're surrounded. What follows is the most repeated part of the video, the amazingly choreographed zombie dance sequence. So famous that it's been performed by daring wedding parties, repentant prison inmates and creative protesters alike. Just check out YouTube, there's so many that I'm surprised there hasn't been a reality contest show centered around it. So You Think You Can Thriller. (I want a cut of the profits)

Why am I spending so much time discussing a fourteen minute music video? Believe it or not, Thriller might have had the most impact on me as a child as perhaps any other single piece of media. It came out when I was very young, it was in rapid rotation on an MTV that was only in the business of showcasing videos (it played once every hour for the whole first year after it's release), it scared my sister and I (we would hide behind the recliner in the living room- it had a brown, yellow and orange afghan) and it was fun. Always the most important factor. The truth is that both my sister and I still have a lingering fear and a tremendous love of zombies- our favorite flavor of horror. This isn't an isolated happenstance, it's a culturally ingrained dynamic. It was important to me, it still is.

I'm gonna leave you with a link so you can watch it yourself. It's a Halloween treat and like I said, it kicks our countdown into overdrive. From here on out, everything we showcase will have a sharper Halloween focus. Enjoy.

The 31 Days of Halloween: Day 13

Halloween is the best time of the year. It's a wonderfully indulgent time, where your inner ghoul is given societal license to be put on display. To celebrate it to it's wicked fullest, the Midnight Cheese will be posting every day in October with excellent ways to enjoy the season. Whether it's horror films, video games, books or activities, check back every day for some new Halloween fun.

The Last Man on Earth

Ah Vincent Price! I could write about the man all day. Previously we gave him some love here. The man was more than a horror icon, he was a force of nature. Today, we're focusing on The Last Man on Earth as part of our Halloween Advent celebration. I hadn't seen this film in years until it came hidden among some dregs and some gems in one of those cheap multipacks containing 50 public domain films.

Man I miss the pure style of these old posters!

This is the first of three films based on the novel I Am Legend by the amazing Richard Matheson. The other two, The Omega Man (1971) and I Am Legend (2007) may both be better remembered and carry more of a cult following, but neither stay as true to source material as Price's original vehicle. He plays the last remaining uninfected human, after the world's population succumbs to a plague which turns them into a form of weakened vampire. His days repeat over and over as he ventures out to find food and fuel during the day and bunkers into his reinforced home at night- when the infected dead surround his house attempting to pound their way inside. This life is clearly wearing on him and he can't seem to kill the sleeping vampires, during his day trips, quickly enough to grant himself some safety (and sanity).

Would you like your steak medium or through the sternum?

No, The Last Man on Earth isn't a big budget actioner. It's just the story of a lonely man trying to persevere and carry on the legacy of mankind. It's a solitary existence and the only moments of joy he might encounter are quickly taken back from him again. Luckily for you, this little thought of gem is available on Netflix for instant streaming. If you don't feel like picking up one of those cheapie 50 horror film packs, chill on the couch and watch a film which had an enormous impact on the genre redefining Night of the Living Dead. (Romero himself claims that he partially ripped of this film and Matheson's source novel). If you're one of the whiny complainers who hass shaken their angry fist at that company's price increase, take comfort- you can also watch The Last Man on Earth (for free and in nice quality) on YouTube Here.

If you're unconvinced, check out the trailer first. I know you won't be able to resist!

The (Vincent) Price of Admission

Vincent Price spent many decades in the business of terrifying audiences in low budget horror on the silver screen. With his unmistakable one of a kind voice and that devilishly wicked smirk, which could mean you were seconds from death or just that he found something gruesomely funny, he was a staple of my childhood horror diet.

My top three Vincent Price horror flicks in order? Easy

-The House on Haunted Hill

-The Last Man on Earth

-The Tingler

Oh sure, one of the Dr.Phibes films would be a more popular choice. And there’s room for Phibes love in my heart still, along with all the roles that Price has played. He was a rare actor who could captivate the audience and win them to his side despite the foul deeds he may committing frame by frame in the dark of the matinee.

Have grown up in the 80’s, I’ve seen a good number of Vincent Price schlock films. They were the purview of my Saturday afternoons and my USA Up All Nights. However, I won’t sit here and tell you I’ve seen even half of his films, there’s just so many. This is an excellent gift though as a fantastic number of them are available to stream from Netflix (I call out anyone who says there is nothing good to watch on Netflix instant streaming, you’re either a liar or a fool and Vincent Price does not suffer fools!).

It was thus that I stumbled upon a new Price gem to check out last night: Theater of Blood. From the description, I was expecting a little bit of Dr.Phibes meets equal parts Frederick Loren from House on Haunted Hill with a dash of Professor Jarrod from House of Wax. Oh man was I wrong and it couldn’t have been better.

Theater of Blood focuses on Edward Lionheart (Price), a renowned London Shakespearean actor, who has been unceremonious snubbed for an award by a circle of critics. A year after he supposedly takes his life, members of the critics’ circle begin to die gruesomely and in line with famous deaths from within Shakespeare’s works, spectacularly staged. If this sounds like a lot of Price’s other work, it should come as no surprise. He crafted a career in the Macabre. This is not at all what you would expect though.

There is a sense of black humor infused in Theater of Blood. Many of the murders are played for laughs and Price really gets a chance to stretch his acting chops and get outside of his normal tropes as he moves seamlessly from world renowned Shakespearean actor to sleazy masseuse, shock television show host and even an effeminate hair dresser equipped with an enormous red perm. His character does this all in the name of enacting very elaborate plans for vengeance but even so it’s too much for one man to hope to do alone.

Enter Lionheart’s loyal band of drunk homeless misfits (Every believed dead, vengeance seeking, wounded pride, Shakespearean actor needs one). In what has to be one of the oddest quirks in an already quirky story, there is a group of a dozen or so drunks who follow Lionheart’s orders and don costumes to assist in murdering these critics. They even participate in some of them. He does keep them heavily supplied with booze but it’s still quite strange that they would be complicit in these killings.

If you’re looking for more Phibes or some of Price’s earlier gothic experiences, Theater of Blood will confuse you. But look, if you can relax a bit, withstand the onslaught of outrageous puns, enjoy watching snooty critics get their comeuppance or just really like combat scenes which include fencing whist on trampolines, then you will really enjoy the madcap and irreverent Theater of Blood.