Well, now that Halloween is over, we can all go back to our normal routines. Actually, since our routines were totally not disrupted by the holiday except for picking up a couple of bags of candy for our Panhandlers-Of-The-Future, life will continue pretty much as normal. Except for the fact that there will be less horror movies in our lives.
See, that's one of the benefits of the Halloween season, the amazing selection of quality terror available on your cathode-ray tube/screen of little tiny mirrors. There's nothing like shitting your pants in fright on a lazy Tuesday night, or just sitting back with a nice glass of The Red Swede and exploring the surreal. We here at WDR have all become quite the fans of The Horror, gathering together to watch such classics as "Welcome to Prime Time, Bitch" and "Why the hell is Saddam protecting us from zombies?".
Sadly, this hasn't been the case this October. For some reason, the cable channels have been extremely lacking in the horror department. There hasn't been a single showing of "The Shining" to my knowledge. I mean, how am I supposed to get through my Halloween season without shots of men dressed in bear suits performing fellatio? It's damn hard, I'll tell you that much. And why only one showing of "Children of the Corn II"? It's only the movie with the most brilliant exchange ever.
Frank Redbear: It means life out of balance. My ancestors would have told you that man should be at one with the earth, the skies, and water. But the white man has never understood this. He only knows how to take. And after a while, there's nothing left to take. So, everything's out of balance. And we all fall down. John Garrett: Wait a minute... so that's what happened here in Gatlin? Frank Redbear: No... what happened in Gatlin was, those kids went apeshit and killed everyone.
So I'm writing here in mourning. The movies that fill the cineplex now are pale imitations of better movies from the past, or just veiled excuses for torture porn. And we are NOT cool with that. Seriously, "Saw" had the worst twist ending in recorded history, yet it spawned 3 sequels, with 3 more sure to be coming out (thanks America for going out to the theaters in droves for those!) And cable has filled its hours with Law & Order spinoffs for far too long, neglecting our need for horror movies in marathon form.
In order to rectify this, I rented David Cronenberg's "The Brood", looking for a good scare on Halloween night. I had spent the last two months going through the entirety of Cronenberg's oeuvre, in preparation for seeing "Eastern Promises" in the theater (and of course, I just found out yesterday that it left theaters last week), so I felt that I was prepared. Stomachs that doubled as Betamaxes, biological extensions that are video game systems, nightmarish gynecological instruments, and even exploding heads were all handled with ease. Surely I could handle this movie.
Because it's Wednesday, and we all need a pick-me-up to make it through the rest of the week in our respective hells, WDR is providing some fun.
WDR loves Halloween so much, that it would like to take it back behind the middle school and get it pregnant, despite the obvious constraints of Halloween not being an actual entity, but merely a concept. We of course laugh at such constraints, because we are not tied down by the laws of physics or logic. We exist beyond that crap. The point is, today we're going to combine two of our loves, music videos and Halloween (or, in other words, "weird shit").
In the past, we've showcased in our Hump Day Helper some strange videos, like Interpol's "Evil", and last week, we gave you a taste of the scary with a kickass song from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Now it's time for the main course, as we pick random videos that we enjoy as a collective whole and attempt poor commentary on why they make such worthy Halloween choices.
The Underrated Creepy Video Band We all know that Queens of the Stone Age has produced some of the most badass rock of the past decade (you will find their albums in constant rotation at WDR headquarters, especially R), but what has been overlooked is the crazy videos that these guys make. People remember the goofy Deer-Comes-Alive video of "No One Knows", but little else. What they're neglecting is stuff like the twisted cannibal horror of "Sick Sick Sick", the legitimately creepy violence of "Burn The Witch", and the terror that is a tranny scorned of this video, "Monsters In The Parasol".
Unfortunately, the scariest video of them all, "Everybody Knows That You're Insane", seems to be absent from the Interwebs. That being said, if you ever saw the original video with the deranged naked Japanese guy running around an apartment, you'd probably be scarred for some time.
The Ironic Scare Back in the day, this video seemed to scare people a lot. But these days, if they shot the video without all the makeup, but just as the performer is now, people would literally crap their pants in fear. That's all I'm going to say.
The Hipster Horror Video This song gets me pumped, and the video has a great style to it, from the grainy video quality to the ridiculous stop-motion attackers. Plus, the ending title cracks me up.
Gotta bust that box, gotta gut that fish!
The Video That Shows The Downfall Of The Second Album I'm including this video because it shows everything that went wrong with Sam's Town--overindulgence (see: giant gospel choirs and horns?!?!) and no sense of style. Plus, retardedly creepy lyrics--"Don't you wanna feel my bones on your bones" defies all previously held conceptions of terrible writing.
The Category for "I Know Too Much About Horror" We all know about Rob Zombie and his deal, and though I would much rather have a White Zombie video instead, we have to realize that this video was quite creepy to come across at 3 in the morning. Who said that a knowledge of horror movies was useless?
The "I Just Watched This A Minute Ago and I Had To Post It" Video Daft Punk are awesome, and though they venture quite often into the realm of the strange, they never had a video as terrifying as this one.
This is actually a Snuff Film Nine Inch Nails is of course very well known for their videos, though there was one set of videos that was deemed unworthy of airplay. Instead, it was sold on home video, where one could enjoy torture scenes and a trip down a toilet pipe in peace, with the fantastic ability to rewind. I'm only going to link to it, because frankly I don't want our blog to be investigated for anything. Mr. Zhuang has business contacts that the government DOES NOT NEED TO KNOW ABOUT.
Instead, let's just watch the perfectly stylized horror that is "The Perfect Drug".
Trent Reznor has stated that he is not a fan of his video, but dammit, it's sweet. Plus, we didn't want to go with the obvious choice of "Closer", even in all of its uncensored glory--though strangely enough, I appreciated the "Scene Missing" titles for giving it an even more mysterious air)
The "Holy shit, what happened to our instruments" Video I will never turn down an opportunity to post this video.
Yes, it was only a dream. But Steve Perry's crotch has been the stuff of nightmares for years.
The WTF Video Thanks for the heads-up in the comments section for this one. Glowing eyes, Urine-soaked fencing masks, SPEEDOS AND GYMNASTS--Good Christ, this video is terrifying.
We'll need the Dan Band to clean up after that one.
The Known Known Tool is world-famous for their horrific, yet brilliant videos. The only problem was choosing which one to feature--do you go with the psychological trauma of "Prison Sex" or the purgatorial angst of "Sober"? You can't go wrong with the out-and-out weirdness of "Ænema". Well, I'm going to have to go with the videos which might be described as "Fun With Tumors" with naked people.
Mr. Zhuang's Choice Well, he's a connoisseur of the Manson, so this choice is all his. I remember "Sweet Dreams" terrifying me as a child, and though it was responsible for one of the 3 funny things that David Spade has ever said ("Satan called, and said your videos are giving him nightmares"), this one is truly creepy.
(Note from Mr. Zhuang: This song and video are based off of Marilyn Manson's recurring nightmares. This should explain why it's pretty damn creepy)
Joe Reefer's Choice Joe has led a terrifying life.
The Indisputable Champ There is one man to turn to when it comes for the scares, and it's a guy that lives in a hollowed out former bank and drives a tank (at least that's what I hear). While "Windowlicker" has its own special kind of horror, I'm going with the video that has a demon shouting at me that he will eat my soul, and evil midgets terrorizing old ladies. Now that's fucking scary.
Well, enjoy your Halloween, everybody. And please, feel free to let us know what we missed in the comments.
