Tuesday, September 28, 2021

Scary Movie Double Features

 by Adam Riske and Patrick Bromley

Make your evening spookier with ten double features curated by Patrick and Adam!

Double Feature 1:

Adam: #1: My Bloody Valentine (1981)

Patrick: #2: Curtains

Patrick: Trailers/Shorts: Black Christmas, The Brood, Ginger Snaps

Patrick: Theme: Horrors of the Great White North

Patrick: Canadian horror rules. I don’t know what it is that makes it so good, but I tend to like even the bad horror movies that come out of that country. Some people might call Curtains one of the bad ones, but I’m not one of those people. And won’t it be fun to revisit My Bloody Valentine now that we know Peter Cowper is the nicest person alive?

Adam: I plan to revisit My Bloody Valentine (1981) in October largely because of #CowperBump.

Double Feature 2:

Patrick: #1: Firestarter

Adam: #2: Near Dark

Adam: Trailers/Shorts: The Keep, Spasms, Strange Behavior

Adam: Theme: Tangerine Dream Horror

Adam: Film Twitter loves Tangerine Dream. I do too. This is for Film Twitter. They better attend this double feature. P.S. and a Hot Take: I’ve owned Firestarter for years but have never opened the Blu-ray. I have never loved Near Dark though I’ve tried.

Patrick: I love Firestarter, but I know I’m mostly alone there. I love Tangerine Dream, too. And Near Dark. Screw Film Twitter, this double is for me.

Double Feature 3:
Adam: #1: Arachnophobia

Patrick: #2: Nightbreed

Patrick: Trailers/Shorts: Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part III, Tales from the Darkside: The Movie, Puppet Master II, The First Power

Patrick: Theme: 1990 Scares

Patrick: What a year for horror movies! I sometimes think the genre tapered off at the end of the ‘80s but that’s clearly not true.

Adam: I’ve been beating the ‘90s horror drum forever. Glad it wasn’t just my nostalgia. The trailers alone for this double feature are worth the price of admission.

Double Feature 4:

Patrick: #1: Bruiser

Adam: #2: The 4th Floor

Adam: Trailers/Shorts: The Dark Half, Land of the Dead, Cold Creek Manor, Ma

Adam: Theme: Romero & Juliette

Adam: This is the sweatiest pun of all-time, but I couldn’t resist. I haven’t seen either movie, which makes this pairing oddly appealing to me. The 4th Floor pairs Lewis with William Hurt, which my brain is having trouble computing. Isn’t Juliette Lewis the best? She’s like the Buddy Love version of Angela Kinsey. How’s Bruiser btw? That’s one of my unseen Romeros.

Patrick: I think Bruiser is interesting and I like it because it’s Romero, but it’s not a movie I would blindly recommend to anyone. I’ve never seen The 4th Floor but will definitely second your take on Juliette Lewis. She totally rules and I wish she had made some full-blooded horror movies outside of Dusk Till Dawn.

Double Feature 5:
Adam: #1: Mad Love (1935)

Patrick: #2: The Mummy (1932)

Patrick: Trailers/Shorts: Dracula (1931), Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932)

Patrick: Theme: You’ve Got a Freund In Me

Patrick: I’ve never seen Mad Love! I heard them talk about it on the recent calendar episode of Pure Cinema and I know there’s a Blu-ray coming out, so I’m excited to finally check it out. The Mummy might be too slow to play second.

Adam: I’ve been meaning to watch Mad Love (1935) for years, so I think this is finally going to be the one where I pull the trigger. I saw The Mummy (1932) again at the Music Box a few years back and it played better in a theater, which was great since I was a little lukewarm on the movie beforehand.

Double Feature 6:

Patrick: #1: House on Haunted Hill (1959)

Adam: #2: The Tingler

Adam: Trailers/Shorts: The Bat, The Big Circus, Return of the Fly

Adam: Theme: Vincent Price ‘59

Adam: Vincent Price sure was prolific in 1959. This would be a really fun night. Both House on Haunted Hill (1959) and The Tingler are so easy to put on, especially with their runtimes. I wish I was alive when William Castle did gimmick screenings for these movies.

Patrick: Let’s do them for our screenings! I can’t believe VP made all these movies in the same year. What a run! We picked the two best ones to show, though. I got to see a theatrical screening of The Tingler recently and it still kills.

Double Feature 7:
Adam: #1: The Ring

Patrick: #2: TerrorVision

Patrick: Trailers/Shorts: The Video Dead, Shocker, Videodrome

Patrick: Theme: TV is Bad For You

Patrick: I like when horror movies, the most widely-derided genre there is, are like “You think we’re bad? TV is way worse!” TerrorVision is probably too silly to realistically follow The Ring but I don’t totally love The Ring so it should at least make a good palate cleanser.

Adam: I’m due for a rewatch of The Ring, which really worked for me the first time I saw it (my peak crush on Naomi Watts probably helped) but hasn’t on subsequent viewings. I also need to get around to TerrorVision one of these days. I have it on a Scream Factory double feature disc with Bad Dreams but have never pressed play.

Double Feature 8:


Patrick: #1: Dark Night of the Scarecrow

Adam: #2: Madman

Adam: Trailers/Shorts: Alone in the Dark, The Burning, Eaten Alive, Just Before Dawn

Adam: Theme: Backwoods Slashers

Adam: These are two movies I’ve only seen partially. I remember a Music Box horrorthon where Dark Night of the Scarecrow played at like 5am and I wound up tapping out to go home in the middle of the movie. It wasn’t the movie’s fault at all. I used to listen to a horror podcast in the 2007-2010 era (era) that was obsessed with the movie Madman and I remember putting it on but not liking it. This double feature is a good excuse to give both films second chances.

Patrick: That’s what’s great about these double features: they make us watch stuff we might not watch otherwise and sometimes movies can play better alongside other movies. Larry Drake’s performance in Dark Night of the Scarecrow is...problematic... in 2021, but it’s a really creepy, well-made horror film, especially for a TV movie. My love of slashers probably makes me enjoy Madman a little more than you, but we’re probably not too far off. I would still sit through this double bill in a heartbeat.

Double Feature 9:
Adam: #1: From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)

Patrick: #2: Maniac (1980)

Patrick: Trailers/Shorts: Martin, Planet Terror, The Sadist, Robin Hood: Ghosts of Sherwood

Patrick: Theme: Savini Acts!

Patrick: I really like Tom Savini as an actor. He steals all his scenes in From Dusk Till Dawn -- a movie that rules -- and is a really effective screen presence in just about everything. He makes a lot of junk according to his IMDb. My absolute favorite performance of his is one that I can’t program because it’s not horror, and that’s George Romero’s Knightriders. Have you seen it? It’s so, so good.

Adam: Knightriders is one of my few remaining unseen Romeros. I need to remedy that soon. I also haven’t seen the original Maniac surprisingly, especially since I’ve seen the Elijah Wood remake (which I thought was good). I’m afraid to meet Savini at a con.

Double Feature 10:

Patrick: #1: Deathdream

Adam: #2: Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things

Adam: Trailers/Shorts: Black Christmas, Cat People (1982), Popcorn

Adam: Theme: Clark & Ormsby

Adam: I really like the Bob Clark/Alan Ormsby pairing. They make creepy movies. I rewatched Deathdream last Scary Movie Month and it’s a good, underseen flick with some emotional resonance coming from its post-Vietnam themes. Like Dark Night of the Scarecrow, the second feature I programmed here (Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things) was a movie that played in the early morning during a Music Box marathon while I was half asleep, so I’d like to try it again. My memory is that the first hour drags but the last act really picks up and is actually pretty scary.

Patrick: That’s my exact memory of Children, too, which I also haven’t seen since that early morning Music Box Massacre screening. I like that this double will force me to revisit it because I’ll bet I like it a lot better this time around.

3 comments:

  1. Mad Love is a terrific film. Peter Lorre got a chance to shine as the crazy surgeon, pushing the premise of the film as far it probably could have gone at the time. There is one scene in particular with Lorre and Colin Clive that is still creepy almost nine decades later.

    The Dark Night of the Scarecrow is once in my October watch-list. I will see if I finally get to it this year.

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  2. I've realized I've only seen 6 of these and I need to remedy that!

    I love the categories you have... especially the Tangerine Dream one! That band is one of my faves. :)

    ALSO! The Mummy is my favorite Universal Horror, so I'm happy you all gave it some love.

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