WHAT'S YOUR TOP THREE FAVORITE HORROR FILMS? WOLFMEN OF MARS GIVES UP THEIRS!

It's almost here, kids, the big day and all month our pals have been giving their top three favorite horror films, in case you were stumped for the perfect flick for your Halloween night! Well, another one of my favorite groups, Wolfmen Of Mars, have shared theirs. If you don't know Wolfmen Of Mars then you must be new around here. Since 2011 they've dropped a dozen releases on their Bandcamp page, inspired by horror soundtracks of the 1970s and 80s, but with more of a rock vibe. Their latest release, WARP SUBURBIUM, shows an amazing band continuing to evolve their sound, while staying true  to what made them good to begin with. Hit their page HERE and download their catalogue for the perfect soundtrack for your Halloween shindigs!

Confession time kids, WoM have picked two films I have not seen! And frankly, I have no excuse for the first one. Tobe Hooper made two of my all time favorite films, TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 1 and 2, as well some staples of my youth POLTERGEIST, LIFEFORCE, and SALEM'S LOT. In 1981, Hooper made a film called THE FUNHOUSE. In the film, a group of friends try to hide out in a carnival overnight, but wind up bearing witness to a nasty little crime and get discovered by the crooked carnie barker named Conrad and his deformed son Gunther. After that the kids are fighting to survive against this twisted duo. After reading up on the flick and watching the trailer, I'm sorely disappointed in myself for passing up on this...but to be honest, that fucking clown on the cover of the VHS box was rather unsettling to me as a kid and knowing it was by the guy that made TCM? Well, Hooper scared the shit out of me with TCM and now he's going to do it with a clown? I wasn't touching that movie! But I do believe I'll be remedying that soon.

The next one I have not seen is a film called HAUSU. Directed by Japanese filmmaker Nobuhiko Obayashi, HAUSU is about six young girls who travel to one of the girl's aunt's house, only to one by one be devoured by the house. Pretty standard horror fare, I'd say. Produced by Toho, who are probably best known to American audiences for their GODZILLA films, they approached Obayashi to make a film similar to JAWS. Well, I don't know what inspired the tangent he went off on with this flick (which is now available from the Criterion Collection) but the trailer is a delirious two minutes in itself. In fact, I wonder if Sam Raimi saw this movie before making EVIL DEAD, because the mix of genres and mediums just in the trailer are nuts and I can see those same qualities in the first two EVIL DEAD films.

And now that brings us to a film I have seen and hold in high esteem. Would I immediately consider it when looking for a horror movie to watch? No, but would it exist without the horror genre, probably not! THE BURBS, starring Carrie Fisher, Bruce Dern, Tom Hanks, and Corey Feldman is a fantastic, fun, creepy, and wonderful film. I've showed it to my kids and they got a kick out of it. It's probably my favorite thing outside of BOSOM BUDDIES that Tom Hanks ever did. Directed by the great Joe Dante (THE HOWLING, GREMLINS), THE BURBS is about a quiet suburb that gets turned upside down when the weirdo Klopeks move in. It's about neighbors who can't mind their own business and let paranoia run wild, or is it just paranoia? THE BURBS reminds me of a classic TWILIGHT ZONE episode, stretched out with some zany 80s comedy. The cast is fantastic and it's a nearly flawless horror comedy, of course it's way more comedy with the horror being very understated for the majority of the film.