Joey Fatone, moments before getting eaten by shark
Now I know what you’re asking. Does this scene, from the 2012 SyFy original film Jersey Shore Shark Attack, really count as a horror scene?
It does if you’re the one getting eaten.
Just ask Joey Fatone.
Don’t worry…he’s okay!
Incidentally, this film started my current love affair with SyFy original movies.
“Party’s over!”
[spoilers]
The latest “Scenes I Love” is from a horror-comedy classic from the early 90’s.
Before Peter Jackson traveled and chronicled Middle-Earth he was a Kiwi filmmaker who dabbled and had fun with low-budget splatstick horror. One such film was the horror-comedy zombie flick Dead Alive aka Braindead. The scene in question happens in the extended climactic third reel of the film and has to go down as the goriest and bloodiest film sequence ever shot.
Watching this clip makes one wonder how Peter Jackson was the same person who made this film and the Tolkien films.
William Peter Blatty took on the directing reins for the third film in the series. I’m going to take a huge leap of faith that he was none too happy with how the first sequel turned out.
The latest “Scenes I Love” the Horror Edition comes from Blatty’s The Exorcist III and it’s actually a very effective jump scare that truly comes out of nowhere. I chose this particular clip because of how well Blatty frames and sets up the pay off. Some may argue that this third film in the series was a mixed bag but one thing it had was genuine scares making up for not being as disturbing as the first film.
I recommend watching this particular scene in a darkened room with headphones on to better appreciate the sound.
I always thought that Joe Dante’s 1981 horror film, The Howling, has been overlooked just a little bit due to it’s release being the same year as John Landis’ own horror film, An American Werewolf In London. Both were werewolf films and both were good in their own right.
Dante’s film has been called silly by some critics, but it was the more serious of the two with Landis’ own film mixing in more black humor in the narrative than Dante’s which took on a more traditional approach to the werewolf horror. Even the transformation scene from both films took on opposite sides in terms of mood and tone. Where Landis’ film treated the scene with both a mixture of horror and camp (due to the music playing in the background) in The Howling the scene went for full-on horror.
This has been one of my favorite horror scenes and it’s all due to the work of the very person who made John Carpenter’s The Thing such a memorable piece of horror filmmaking: Rob Bottin.
This man should be handed every award for every effects work he has ever done and will continue to do. It’s a shame that he hasn’t done anything of note since 2002’s Serving Sara, but until Hollywood decides that if they want great practical effects paired with advancing CG ones and hire Bottin once again we can always fall back on his past work such as the one’s he did for The Howling.
SPOILER ALERT
For those who have played the Xbox 360 exclusive game Alan Wake should remember this scene I have chosen. It comes right at the end of the game where the title character has finally figured out the secret of what happened to his missing wife and how to save her from the game’s main antagonist.
This antagonist is not some psycho killer or monomaniacal villain. It’s a villain that’s more akin to an evil entity. In fact, we learn throughout the game that the villain, known as the Dark Presence, is like something out of a Lovecraft story. It’s an evil intelligence that has spanned eons and yearns to free itself from it’s watery prison.
Alan Wake realizes that the only way to save his wife was to take her place and fight the Dark Presence from within and this is where the brief scene begins. It’s a scene that starts creepy enough until the very end when the real payoff arrives.
Have I mentioned just how much I love the anime series Nichijou? If I haven’t then this latest “Scenes I Love” should provide a fine example why this anime series has pretty much captured my otaku-heart and has now made it into my top 10 best things I’ve ever enjoyed watching.
It’s well-known amongst fans of anime that Nichijou is just so random an anime series. While it might confuse the uninitiated for the most part everyone who watches anime just rolls with it. I love this particular scene involving two of the show’s leads in Mio and Yuuko because of just how it escalates so quickly from a misunderstanding into a full-blown mutual assured destructions conflict in so very little time.
This scene illustrates how the series takes very normal and common situations that happens in every high school kids life and just ramps it up past 11. I know that I’ve had arguments and fights about something so innocuous as getting the wrong lunch. Yet, despite the over-the-top nature of the scene and how hilarious each lead takes their argument to the nth-degree it ends in a way that makes one feel good about things.
Amazing, indeed.
I’ve spent the last two weeks sharing with you some of my favorite cinematic dance scenes. I hope you’ve enjoyed them. While this particular series of scenes that I love is ending with this last entry, I do hope to share some more in the future. For now, what better way to end this series of dance scenes that I love than with the ballet from the classic 1948 film, The Red Shoes?
There’s no way that you can post a series of classic dance sequences without including at least one scene from Saturday Night Fever. Even though this scene is nearly 40 years old, it still perfectly captures the excitement and the promise and the pure exhilaration of spending a night out dancing.
That said, I still don’t understand how anyone could mistake John Travolta for Al Pacino.
Today’s dance scene that I love comes from one of the first movies that I ever reviewed at this site, the psychedelic classic Ghetto Freaks!
Today’s dance scene that I love comes from Spike Lee’s frustrating yet brilliant 1998 film, Summer of Sam. In this scene, a perpetually unfaithful husband (John Leguizamo) dances with his wife (Mira Sorvino). In this scene, Lee establishes the dynamic of Leguizamo and Sorvino’s troubled marriage. Leguizamo may be the man but Sorvino is definitely the star.
Through the Shattered Lens 