“My Bloody Valentine”…Less Cut means more Cutting!

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“Beware the 14th!” hisses a cantankerous bartender working in the small mining  community of “Valentine Bluffs”…and not just because you’re about to get fleeced by The Hallmark Greeting Card company! The 1980’s were, without question, the golden age of the “slasher movie”; with particular emphasis on any special day on the calendar that could provide an excuse for some maniacal killer to start hacking away at horny young people. HALLOWEEN, FRIDAY the 13th, and GRADUATION DAY were just a few of those special occasions when you’d be better off locking your doors and hiding under your bed as opposed to going out and being festive.

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10 Things you never knew about “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians!”

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With the Christmas holiday less than a week away, we Daves thought it was time to highlight one of the season’s guiltiest film pleasures. This Friday, our weekly Horror Host report will, no doubt,  feature a few hosts airing it as well. I am referring, of course, to SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS. Just as the name implies, it is an absurd, camp extravaganza featuring some of the most hilariously bad scenes in film history along with a theme song (“Hooray for Santy Claus”) that will have you wanting to club yourself with a Yule Log!

Here are some fun facts surrounding this unlikely classic….

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Holiday Horror Films Redux

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Last year we posted this but, since our readership has grown considerably since that time, we’d thought we’d give it another posting! If anyone out there knows of any other Killer Christmas movies, we encourage you to let us know in the comments! Maybe next year’s Holiday will bring a NEW batch of films we can fill your TERROR DAVES stocking with!

It’s that time of year again…the weather is cold and people are dreading maxing out their credit cards while purchasing gifts they can ill afford. Though commercialism seems to have destroyed the Christmas spirit in many people, certain traditions still hold true. Like, for example, Christmas music played by local radio stations the week after Halloween, the customary office holiday party, and the myriad of television specials hitting the airwaves. Fortunately, amid the forgetable new ones, you can still find such timeless staples as Rankin Bass’ RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER, THE YEAR WITHOUT A SANTA CLAUS and SANTA CLAUS IS COMIN’ TO TOWN.

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It’s a Bird!…It’s a Plane!…It’s Sventa Claus!

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National Horror Host, Svengoolie, made his annual holiday appearance at the “Comic Collector” in North Riverside, Illinois this past Friday and marked the occasion with an ALL-NEW Sventa Claus suit! The Comic Collector has been a popular location for many Chicagoans to get their comic book fix for over a quarter of a century and its owners, Rich and Regina Lukes, have been Svengoolie fans for just as long!

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Killer Santas & Christmas Slasher/Horror Films!

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It’s that time of year again…the weather is cold and people are dreading maxing out their credit cards while purchasing gifts they can ill afford. Though commercialism seems to have destroyed the Christmas spirit in many people, certain traditions still hold true. Like, for example, Christmas music played by local radio stations the week after Halloween, the customary office holiday party, and the myriad of television specials hitting the airwaves. Fortunately, amid the forgetable new ones, you can still find such timeless staples as Rankin Bass’ RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER, THE YEAR WITHOUT A SANTA CLAUS and SANTA CLAUS IS COMIN’ TO TOWN.

As adults, we can still enjoy those shows along with an entirely new holiday tradition…the Christmas horror movie. As mentioned In our earlier piece regarding Thanksgiving films, Christmas has an impressive array of its own entries in the holiday slasher sub genre. Naturally, these movies often garner bad press for portraying the holiday’s most endearing figure, jolly old Santa Claus, as a sadistic killer. While also promising lots of nudity and gore to accompany the “blasphemy,” the controversy rarely, if ever lived up to the hype.

Aside from that, a bit of parental “common sense” would go a long way. These films were obviously never meant to be seen by kids and certainly not intended to be seen as a double feature along with IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE or A CHRISTMAS STORY (even though the director of A CHRISTMAS STORY, Bob Clark, also directed the zombie classic CHILDREN SHOULDN’T PLAY WITH DEAD THINGS and the 1975 Christmas horror movie BLACK CHRISTMAS).

What we now present to you is a list of some of the most noteworthy Christmas horror movies to get you back into the Christmas spirit.

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Carving up some Thanksgiving Horror Movies!

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Hollywood has a long standing tradition of taking those special days on calendar and using them as a backdrop for horror films. Of course this bloody holiday craze began with the immortal Halloween which not only inspired its own sequels but set into motion the ’80s golden age of slashers which were often to a special occasion. Friday the 13th, My Bloody Valentine, Graduation Day, Happy Birthday to Me, New Years Evil, and Mother’s Day are all examples of the trend with Christmas inspiring its own numerous blood-soaked entries as well. There was even a film titled The Day After Halloween (which I guess sounds a lot more ominous than “November 1st”) that had absolutely nothing to do with Carpenter’s classic while cleverly riding its holiday-themed coattails. But what about Thanksgiving? Did America’s “Day of Thanks” offer us horror fans anything to be grateful for? Continue reading →