The FOG

11:55, almost midnight. Enough time for one more story. One more story before 12:00, just to keep us warm. In five minutes, it will be the 21st of April. One hundred years ago on the 21st of April, out in the waters around Spivey Point, a small clipper ship drew toward land. Suddenly, out of the night, the fog rolled in. For a moment, they could see nothing, not a foot in front of them. Then, they saw a light. By God, it was a fire burning on the shore, strong enough to penetrate the swirling mist. They steered a course toward the light. But it was a campfire, like this one. The ship crashed against the rocks, the hull sheared in two, mars snapped like a twig. The wreckage sank, with all the men aboard. At the bottom of the sea, lay the Elizabeth Dane, with her crew, their lungs filled with salt water, their eyes open, staring to the darkness. And above, as suddenly as it come, the fog lifted, receded back across the ocean and never came again. But it is told by the fishermen, and their fathers and grandfathers, that when the fog returns to Antonio Bay, the men at the bottom of the sea, out in the water by Spivey Point will rise up and search for the campfire that led them to their dark, icy death. 

Rituals...we finally found those shoes...

Rituals DVD by next Tuesday?  By golly!  The original release date from Code Red had it coming out on my birthday, and what a spectacular gift that would have made, but alas it wasn't meant to be.  Criminally underrated and overlooked, Rituals recounts the brutal tale of survival a group of doctors must undergo when they get stuck in the wilderness and hunted by forces unseen....

RITUALS

Rituals is a gritty survival tale about a group of educated physicians struggling in the untamed wilderness against a mysterious woodland foe who steals their shoes.  It’s a rugged, ugly, raw film about the length that people go through to survive and how the ritual of survival disintegrates moral integrity like a Martian laser beam.  It’s a movie reel I could imagine finding in a tackle box in some tool shed rubbing elbows with rusty fishing hooks and worm bait. The print looks like someone actually traveled through the “Green Hell” with the group of main characters.  It’s scraped up, beat up, and smeared with black fly guts; my kind of delectable visual feast.  Slasher flicks don’t need to be pretty to work and the ugly aesthetic of the movie compliments the gritty tale of survival and slashing.

Despite the consistent downbeat mood of the film some hot liquid cheese manages to slip into the cracks of the foundation. I can’t help but laugh at expressions like “gentle boob” or chuckle at the morbid pleasures of seeing Hal Holbrook toss a decapitated head off the side of a mountain like a stinky bag of fermented cow dung.  I loves it, and you should too...seek it scum!

The ghost of Bob (Halloween)

The scene were THE SHAPE dons a sheet and pretends to be the ghost of Bob always tickled me with irony, considering Michael killed him in the previous scene....

...Halloween (1978) is a film I return to time and time again and see something slightly different with each viewing.  Definitely my favorite movie of all time...and moments like "the ghost of Bob" are reasons why.  I can imagine THE SHAPE did this kind of thing on purpose...like his own personal inside joke...another mind game...another terror unfolds...another trick...another treat...the ceremony of Halloween will never end!