Blogtober Day 13: Top 5 Horror Movie Villains

Yesterday, I discussed my favorite horror movies. Today, I'd like to talk about my five favorite horror movie villains. Because, while not every great horror movie needs a great villain, they tend to go hand in hand. And a good villain in an otherwise mediocre movie can elevate it to being good. Anyway, here are my top five horror movie villains.



5) Annie Wilkes Misery

Misery isn't the scariest movie I've ever seen by a longshot, but it does have a very memorable villain. Annie Wilkes is just a little bit of a huge fan of author Paul Sheldon's works, so when she finds him unconcious and wounded in the snow, of course she helps him. Then, he wakes up and starts to wish she'd left him to die of frostbite. Annie's villainy comes not from any one act that she does, but from the situation as a whole. Paul is completely at her mercy and his "number one" fan knows exactly how the story for his next book is supposed to go. Annie is just downright creepy and the scene with the sledgehammer is one I can't watch, even to this day. Bravo to Kathy Bates for such an amazingly creepy portrayal in the film.



4) The Xenomoprh Alien

The Xenomorph is the perfect sci-fi horror monster. It has no grand scheme beyond wreaking havoc and finding a way to wreak more havoc. With no apparent weakness and a level of intellect that rivals, and in most cases exceeds, those of the human character, its downright terrifying. Not to mention the pure creepiness in how more Xenomorphs are created. From the facehugger to lay eggs inside of humans, to the chest buster killings its human host, and finally, the fully grown alien ready to cause some chaos. Every part of the lifecycle is disturbing and perfect for horror.



3) Pennywise IT

Is anyone not terrified of clowns these days? Clowns in general are creepy. Clowns that are actually shape-shifting aliens trying to feast on the fear of local children are even worse. Kudos to Stephen King,and the actors and directors of IT, because they took an already creepy concept, clowns, and found a way to make it even scarier and make me hate clowns even more.



2) Chucky The Child's Play Series

As you might've guessed from the above entry, clowns freak me out. You know what freaks me out even more? Dolls. Especially dolls that are possessed by a serial killer's soul and enjoy killing people. Now, while "creepy murderous doll" sounds bad enough, its the humor in the Child's Play series that puts Chucky on this list. He's a creative killer, and unpredictable. Most movies with creepy dolls stop at the "there's an evil entity possessing it" stage, but not Chucky. He's killing, and he's having fun, but the films are also surprisingly entertaining and enjoyable. Most of them, anyway.



1) Leatherface Texas Chainsaw Massacre

He isn't just a serial killer, he's also a cannibal. He doesn't have a larger goal or bigger plans beyond finding more victims, and thus more meat to eat. His victims are random and he doesn't care who he's carving up. He sees his victims not as people, but as livestock and he can't be reasoned with, can't be talked down. He's the archetype of the unrelenting, seemingly unstoppable terror that slasher films rely on.

Blogtober Day 12: Favorite Scary Movies

As I once told a friend, a good horror movie is hard to find. With today's oversaturation of the horror film genre, there are plenty of "horror" movies that come out each year, but only a few that are actually good or actually scary. I feel like some of this was due to horror moving away from suspense-driven scares and more towards just making a gore-fest and not trying to build a sense of dread among the viewer. Movies attempt suspense, but few modern horror films manage to pull it off. Today, I'd like to discuss my favorite horror movies. To make this easier, I'm selecting my favorite in each category of horror film.



The Shining- Favorite Psychological Horror

The Shining is a great suspense film. What I mean by that is this: from almost the very beginning, the viewer gets the feeling that there's something off about the Overlook Hotel. As Jack unravels, the question isn't what's going to happen, but when. It's a great psychological horror film and the intensity of the final confrontation sticks with you. The film is also the reason why I can't watch Jack Nicholson do comedic roles.



Alien- Favorite Sci-Fi Horror

Despite the dip in quality for the series as a whole, the original Alien film, and its immediate sequel Aliens were both entertaining and scary. The original film gives almost nothing away. The viewer only sees what the characters themselves witness, as they witness it. When they find the room filled with eggs, they are clueless as to what it is. The same is true for the face-huggers. We don't see the alien until it bursts out of Kane's chest. It isn't until far into the movie that we see the fully grown Xenomorph. The film did an excellent job of balancing the sci-fi aspects with the horror elements, keeping the suspense for both.



The Conjuring- Favorite Supernatural Horror

While I enjoy classics such as The Exorcist and Poltergest, they aren't my favorite. Genre-defining, yes, but I don't find them particularly scary. This may be because when I saw them, they were a few decades old and horror had become a lot bloodier and scarier. In fact, my enjoyment of The Conjuring comes in part from how it uses a number of tricks and traits from the two other films. The film relies on old school scares rather than having a jump scare every few minutes. There are truly tense scenes that build towards a scare rather than having a ghost pop out of nowhere, scare the character and race off. I keep mentioning film building tension, and that's because suspense is the key to horror, not monsters or gallons of fake blood.



28 Days Later- Favorite Zombie Horror

I'm pretty sure this was the first zombie movie I ever saw. If it wasn't, it was definitely one of the first few ones I saw. I love a good zombie movie, and this one brought something new to the table: fast zombies. Until 28 Days Later, zombies normally shuffled around and it was a little hard to believe the characters couldn't stop them or escape. (Yes, I know I'm trying to apply real world logic to zombie movies and how ridiculous that sounds). Fast zombies though, they open up a whole new world of story-telling and I like it. The film's a little gory, but that comes with the territory. They are dealing with zombies after all.



Scream Favorite Slasher Horror

I won't lie. The meta-ness of Scream is part of why I enjoy it so much. It's a slasher movie that is aware of, and comments on, the tropes slasher movies. Any time a film has a character explain how to survive the film, without it seeming ham-fisted in, that's a yes in my book. It's a slasher film that's aware of it being a slasher film, while at the same time subverting only some of the tropes it pokes fun at. I like it when films are self-aware. I like it even more when the narrative doesn't seem to brag about how smart it is about being self-aware. Scream strikes the perfect balance between being meta and patting itself on the back for being meta. The kills are also interesting  and entertaining to watch.

Those are a few of my favorite horror films. What are yours?

Blogtober Day 11: Books I Meant to Read, But Didn't

Has there ever been a book that you meant to read, but you just didn't? Everyone kept telling you to read the book, the premise sounded interesting, and then you just didn't read the book. Maybe you started it, but found you couldn't finish it. Maybe you didn't get a chance to read it because you outgrew the genre. I have quite a few books like that. Today, I'd like to talk about them.

The Divergent Series

Let's start off with an easy one. In a post-Hunger Games world, I feel like plenty of readers were looking for more dystopian YA. Many gravatated towards Divergent by Veronica Roth. It seemed to hit many of the same beats as The Hunger Games while at the same time, not being too similar. Many websites and blogs suggested the series for fans of The Hunger Games. Yet, I wasn't able to get past the first few chapters. It felt like a story I'd read before and nothing stood out to me. I stopped reading and decided maybe I should give myself some time, reading something a little different and try again later. By the time the series was finished, and I considered going back to give the series a second chance, I realized I was over YA dystopia.

The Sun is Also A Star

I wanted to read this book. I still want to read it. I own it, it's on my bookshelf, waiting to be read. Yet, for some reason, every time I finish one book and try to decide on the next thing to read, The Sun is Also A Star gets glossed over. I can't think of an exact reason why I keep choosing other books over it, but hopefully one day, I can cross it off of my TBR list.

The Perks of Being A Wallflower

This is an interesting one. A friend recommended this book to me before the movie was made. She said I'd enjoy it, knowing I was a fan of the genre. Then, the film came out. The film came out, teens on the Internet gravitated towards it and certain aspects of the plot were glossed over or became cringe-worthy. I realized I didn't want to read the book any longer, since I already knew major aspects of the story and didn't want to read a story with those themes.

Me Before You

When I heard this book was going to become a movie, I thought to myself "maybe I should read that." Then, I started seeing trailers for it and I realized the book wasn't about quite what I thought. Or, I guess it would be more accurate to say, assuming the movie was marketed correctly, it didn't have the tone I thought it would. After seeing more trailers, I realized the story just wasn't for me.

The Mortal Instruments series

I'm not the biggest fan of paranormal romance/urban fantasy, but I was willing to give these books a shot when the first one came out. Then, I went through my  "I'm different from other girls, I don't read the dumb books that they read" phase and decided to forego reading them based on that. I completely forgot about the series until ABC Family/Freeform created the television series. I started the first one and couldn't get very far, because the author's writing style wasn't something I liked or could even tolerate. So, I stopped reading before I got too far in. The television series isn't bad, all things considered.

Those are some books I meant to read, but didn't. Are there any books like that in your life?

Blogtober Day 10: Characters with bad luck

Ever notice how often luck comes into play in stories? It's rarely ever commented upon, but in traditional literature, films and television, the protagonist usually has good luck. They reached their destination, or complete their journey relatively unscathed. They usually end up finding a mysterious stranger with all of the answers at the right time, or in the case of TV or film, they find a helpful newspaper or turn in the TV and see a news report related to the exact thing they're after. Some characters have all of the luck.

Others do not and they're on this list. Aside from Halloween, the most superstitions seem to revolve around Friday the 13th. Since this year, October 13th isn't a Friday, I've decided to discuss unlucky characters today instead.




Odysseus from The Odyssey

Odysseus is known for two things. One is that he came up with the idea of the Trojan Horse. The second, and more well-known, achievement of his was that it took him an obscenely long time to return home after the Trojan War. The Trojan War ended and it took him 10 years to get home. The man suffered way more crap than anyone could've or should've been forced to endure. He dealt with cyclopses, giants, witches, siren, and multiple shipwrecks, just to name a few obstacles. Yes, he brought some of that on himself by angering Poseidon,  but he still had to go through way more trials and tribulations than was necessary. I'm pretty sure Odysseus earns the gold medal for "Most Unlucky Protagonist"



Sansa Stark, A Song of Ice and Fire

I could put any of the Starks on this list and it would fit, but I feel like Sansa deserves the title more than the others. From the beginning of A Song of Ice and Fire, it seems like the universe has it out for the Starks, but it seems to hate Sansa the most. Her father is killed, her family is broken apart, she's held captive by her father's killers. The rest of her family is missing, dies or is reported to have died. She's abused by her fiance, before getting cast aside and betrothed to a series of men, each worse than the last. Sansa has to deal with way too much, and all because of a mistake she made as a child and the machinations of others.



Winston, Nineteen Eighty-four

Winston lives in a dystopia, and he seems to be aware of it. Yet, despite his family all disappearing, having thoughts counter to what the Party tells him is true, and living in an actual dystopia, he's surprisingly optimistic. He believes one day, the Party and Big Brother will be overthrown and something better will replace it. And in return for hoping there will be a better world, Winston is tortured, forced to betray his lover and then released, knowing soon, the Party will kill him.



Primrose Everdeen, The Hunger Games

I know Katniss seems like a more likely choice, but hear me out. Prim's name gets called at the Reaping, and Katniss volunteers. Some would say that makes Prim lucky, but now she needs to worry about her sister possibly dying in her place. Then, her sister becomes a symbol for the revolution, leading to an attack on, and the destruction of, District 12 which means Prim is forced out of the only home she's ever known. Thrust into the rebellion without much of a choice, Prim becomes a nurse and while helping the injured during the final assault on the Capitol, she's killed in an explosion. Katniss had some bad luck, but she played more of an active part in her fate than Prim did.



The Baudelaire Children, A Series of Unfortunate Events

Violet, Klaus and Sunny go from one terrible situation to another, chased all the while by Count Olaf, in the series. Their parents die in a fire, they are sent to live with Olaf, but even after they get away from him, he continues to pursue them. From one bad living situation to another, these kids can't seem to catch a break.



Arthur Dent, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Arthur Dent just wanted to prevent his house from getting bulldozed. Instead, the entire planet Earth gets destroyed, leaving him as one of the last humans in the universe. He then spends several years flying around the universe, never fully understanding what's going on or why his planet was destroyed. Other characters I mention had bad luck, but they didn't lose their whole planet in the process. 

Blogtober Day 9: Favorite Vampires

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There are a lot of vampires in fiction. This is mostly because of vampires, or vampire-like beings, having a noticeable presence in folklore. Some are demons that are completely terrifying. Others sparkle in the sunlight and seem to wander around high schools. Some are made of felt and teach children to count. Others sell cereal. My point is, we've made and remade the vampire more times than I could count. Yet, with so many vampire characters, and so many different types of vampires in fiction, everyone has to have a favorite. I'm going to talk about a few of mine since we're getting close to Halloween and vampires fit into the spirit of the season.

Count von Count, Seasame Street

I'm starting off with the first vampire character I, and many others, ever see. Count von Count, the friendly vampire resident of Seasame Street. Yes, he's a Muppet who teaches children to count, but given his general appearance and the fact he's a parody of Bela Lugosi's Count Dracula I'm counting him (pun intended). The Count loves counting and he'll always have a special place in my heart for that. Also, I'm a math nerd, so me liking Count von Count really isn't shocking.

Spike, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel

Spike was a great character on Buffy. Angel was as well, but sometimes he was a little too broody and that annoyed me. He wasn't explicitly a "I want to kill you" type of vampire, but he also wasn't like vampires in Twilight, The Vampire Diaries or True Blood who just wanted to fit in or be normal. There was no desire to pretend to be human, or more disturbingly, hide as a high school student. He was a token bad boy, but also not completelt evil. Spike was cool and added something to vampire mythos that was missing, a sense of humor.

Count Dracula, Dracula

I can't reasonably talk about my favorite vampires without mentioning Dracula. While vampires had been part of folklore for centuries, Bram Stoker's novel was what brought them into prominence. He's the archetype vampire that later characters were based off of, with a number of his strengths and weaknesses being used in later characters. There is a reason why when most people hear "vampire" they picture someone who looks like Dracula, and not Robert Pattinson. Dracula is a classic vampire. He defined the genre. Without Dracula, we might not have Buffy, True Blood or the dozens of other vampire characters or stories that we do,

These are my three favorite vampires, what are yours?