Radio of Horror Podcast Network

Even tho she was not as well-known as her co-star of the hit Clueless Alicia Silverstone. BM is best known to horror fans as the heroine in the movie Cherry Falls a Direct to DVD movie about a serial killer that kills virgins trying to lose their virginity.  Her co-star in the movie was Micheal Bien of Terminator fame.  Her cause of death is unknown.  This and Don’t say a Word with Michael Douglas was her two only horror movies. She will be sadly missed.

The Nightmare Before Christmas

In 1993 we were brought to a world not seen since the days of stop motion animation and claymation. Tim Burton meshed two of the biggest Holidays together in a wy no one thought possible. Nightmare before X-mas stared Chris Sarandon and Catherine O Hara. It was about a lovable townsman named Jack Skelington who lives in the town of
Halloween and discovers Christmas and wants to bring it to all the people of Halloween. In doing so he gets Santa Claus kidnapped and nearly destroys Christmas for the rest of the world.  The music is done by Danny Elfman and does  superb job of it. In later years Fall out boy and Marilyn Manson and many others have covered the songs on the soundtrack. The two biggest songs you may hear on the radio a lot are Whats This and This is Halloween.  The film has been released on dvd several times with loads of great bonus material. The dvd even includes a short called Frankenweenie which is about a Frankenstein type dog. The animation is early use of the style found in Nightmare.

There has been no sequel but Jack does show up in Kingdom Hearts video games for the PS2 and Nintendo DS. In 2004 Nightmare returned to the big screen for a 3-d showing. It was such a huge hit, every Halloween it is shown in 3-d in theaters that carry it.

Black X-mas 

In 1974 a little Horror movie from Canada came out that predates Halloween for the beginning of the slasher film genre called Black Christmas.  This film was directed by Bob Clark the same guy who directed The Christmas Story. Weird huh???  The title was changed to Silent Night Evil Night but changed back to Black X-mas. This was due to the political bs involving the word Black and how it related to African Americans.  This had nothing to do with the movie so they changed it back. This was  dark grimly shot little movie staring nobody other than a young Margot Kidder, and directed by Bob Clark. It’s about a group of sorority girls trapped in the house during Christmas eve  and a serial killer who used to live there is making absence phone calls and stalking them.  The creepiness of this film lives on tody and even watching it for the first time  few years ago I generally enjoyed it. It really gave you a sence of the danger these girls were in. The language used in this film is so off the top for 1974, with the way the killer talks to these girls its just too dirty to even repeat.  The tag line “If this film does not make your skin crawl its on too tight”, comes from the first victim being choked to death with wrapping paper and X-mas lights. The film did very well only costing 600,000 and grossing 4mil. This was the first in a long line of killer holiday films. I highly recommend it. The dvd has a decent amount of bonus material. I recommend the one from 2006 it really cleaned up the film quality and sound.

In 2006 we got  a dreadful remake staring Mary Elizabeth  Winstead Lacy Chabert Michelle Trachenberg and Katie Cassidy.  This time they explain WAY too much of the killers back story and they make the movie way too glossy. This was also made in America this time not Canada. So it has that really Hollywood appeal to it.  It failed at the box office and should not be watched. It’s on dvd with moderate bonus material. It’s a good example of why certain horror movies don’t need to be remade.