Yeah I know it's Saturday, but what was I going to do, leave all of you hanging on a Top 5 List? Halloween has come and gone for another year and during it I was kind of busy, so I don't need people bullying me about not getting a list up. For this Top 5 Fridays.... On Saturday, I figured we'd keep the Halloween spirit alive a little longer and look at some horror flicks that for one reason or another decided to have comic books in them. I'm going to run down this list of my personal favorites and I also suggest that you watch these.... well because I love horror flicks and I think everyone else should too. I'll talk a little about them and tell you where they decided to have a pointless inclusion of a comic book or where they really used the comic for their favor. Okay this is really a hodgepodge list, so let's just get to it.
#5. A Nightmare On Elm St. 5: The Dream Child
I'm a huge 80's slasher fan and Freddy Krueger took that era by storm with his elaborate kills, trippy dream sequences and his classic horror quips. I guess the production team had something to do with it, but the hell with it, we're giving full credit to the Nightmare man himself. For this spot on the list we need to talk about the over the top creative guy character, who just can't tell the attractive girl in the group that he likes her - Mark Gray, who seems to be an aspiring comic book artist and who's room is in a warehouse........ Yeah, his room is in the warehouse that his father owns and I'm not sure if Mark just likes his space and stays there, or if his strange family just lives in different sections of the warehouse. Either way, Mark loves comics and when Freddy Krueger comes along during his nocturnal comic book submission, Mark makes himself into his comic book character the Phantom Prowler, who just screams the late 80's early 90's ultra violent era of comics. Too bad though that this Punisher like character is no match for Super Freddy. Yeah, that's right Freddy becomes Super Freddy and tears Mark a new one........ No seriously, Mark becomes a 2-D drawling and Freddy literally tears him apart, thus ends any kind of comic book talk from this movie. The reason that this film only makes the #5 spot is because, while yes it has a lot of comic book fun, it's also the weakest of the Nightmare series next to Freddy's Dead and Nightmare 2. I still expect all of you to watch this flick because it really ends what I consider the the Nightmare series. Part 1, Part 3, Part 4 and Part 5 are all a ongoing story line and while you might consider Freddy Vs. Jason the conclusion....... Well I just don't like what they did to Jason in that, so I don't include it. Check it out and get your horror on.
#4. Elvira Mistress of The Dark
While you might scream that this isn't technically a horror flick, it does however feature the horror hostess with the biggest.......... audience. I'm adding this to the list because I've loved Elvira most of my life, hell I'm not ashamed to tell you that I had my first sexual dream about Elvira when I was 5 years old. Now what I knew about sex at 5 years old I couldn't tell you, but I've remembered it my whole life and my obsession with Cassandra Peterson's character hasn't faltered since. Yeah this technically can be called a comedy, but it's filled with horror elements so think of it like a Shawn of the Dead if it helps you. Anyway the scene that allows this flick to be on the list is after Elvira moves into the sleepy Massachusetts town and goes to the bowling alley looking for a good time....... because apparently this is the hot spot for the town. There we meet two dimwitted hillbilly characters...... or rednecks if you prefer and the one happens to be reading a Spider-Man comic and says to his friend that couldn't give a shit that "I am so sure. They're gonna kill Spider-Man with plutonium..... He's got radioactive blood." As a young boy, who read comic books this was just something funny that I've always remembered.... because it was just cool hearing anything to do with comic books in a movie even if it comes from a nimrod like this character. Another reason this is a great part of the movie is because this almost immediately leads to a nip slip when the two guys accost Elvira and while that might sound awful.......... I was a teenage boy once and nip slips like this were very important to me, well that and squiggle vision, which really trying to pause and look at something on a VCR was pretty much the same. If you haven't seen Elvira Mistress of The Dark, shame on you. Rectify the situation immediately.
#3. Tales From The Crypt: Demon Knight
Demon Knight came out in the mid 90's and at this point I was obsessed with Bruce Campbell and the Army of Darkness and with that obsession I was looking for any other bad ass heroes that happened to fight monsters and demons and such. So imagine my surprise when one of my favorite television shows, Tales From The Crypt put out a movie with just that. William Sadler is one of the most underrated actors in my opinion and he played the immortal hero Frank Brayker who was tasked with keeping the blood of Christ safe within a key and that's no easy task especially when Billy Zane is on your ass. This movie also holds a special place in my heart because it's the first time that I saw Billy Zane and his big beautiful bald head and I realized at that moment that he'd be a perfect Lex Luthor. So far my dreams of this coming true have been crushed, but I still hold out hope....... Yeah, it's never going to happen. Besides for the fact that this movie is called Tales From The Crypt off of the EC Comics horror series from the 50's, it does belong on this list because at one point in the flick the child character Danny finds a Tales From The Crypt comic in the attic and it serves as a conduit for the Demon Knight: Billy Zane to get a hold of the child's soul and make him an agent of evil. I guess Fredric Wertham's book Seduction of the Innocent was right. Just an all around cool movie that features great actors, a great story and everyone's favorite Crypt Keeper who bookends this movie with his classic ghoulish puns and deadly sense of humor. On top of this being your homework to watch this week, I think I'll break out my copy and give it another go, it's just such a fun horror flick that is Bordello of Blood's superior in every way......... Especially since it doesn't have Dennis Miller in it.
#2. CreepShow
If you love horror anthologies, George Romero, Stephen King, crate monsters and bastards getting their just desserts than this movie is definitely for you. Creepshow is so good at recreating the the fun of the EC Comics Anthology Horror series like Tales From The Crypt, The Vault of Horrors and The Haunt of Fear, that it gives us five tales of terror that are bookended with Tom Atkins as an abusive father and a young Joe Hill who besides for being a great horror author of his own, is also the son of Stephen King. This young boy is pissed that his dad won't let him read horror comics anymore and to get back at him for tossing his latest issue of Creepshow in the garbage, he uses the voodoo doll he bought out of the old adverts section of the comic, which I miss by the way and then with a few pins and needles, he make Tom Atkins feel how important comic books are. The first story is about a rich spoiled family who gets together for Father's day because of their crazy aunt..... Who, don't know wills it? But we learn throughout the story that the aunt killed her father and eventually for no reason at all, the father comes back to life and kills the rest of the family while yelling about his cake. Then it goes to Stephen King himself playing a hillbilly character who finds a meteor and becomes Swamp Thing. I hope Alec Holland doesn't decide to do what he did. Next we've got Frank Drebin killing his wife and her boyfriend and them coming back from the dead for revenge. Then with the next story our main character realizes that Adrian Barbeau isn't really as hot as people in the 80's thought she was and he decides to kill her with a crate monster and finally a germaphobe, insect hating Scrooge of a character is killed by cockroaches. Yeah I did a poor job conveying how fun these stories are, so it's up to you to check them out and see for yourself. Now I love this movie but the best story has to be from Creepshow 2 called The Raft. Creepshow 1 is the superior flick in every way, but The Raft is the scariest of stories to be told in this series.
#1. The Lost Boys
That's it for this week's Top 5 Friday....... Or Saturday. Now you might know of other horror flicks that have comic books in them and if you personally think you have better ones than the ones I've put up, then by all means let me know of it because frankly, I just love horror flicks and wish that this site would allow me to talk about them more. Hopefully in the future DC Comics will start putting out Friday the 13th comics again, but I doubt it. I'm serious when I say that you all should watch these flicks because really they're just good fun and if you've been toying with the idea of getting into horror, then these can't hurt either. Check them out and I hope you had an excellent Halloween and continue having an excellent Halloween weekend. Be safe and I'll see you back here in seven. Boosh!
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