Expelled Grey Matter

Young Harry and Phil Stadling's (Gus Salud, Wally Moran) parents decide to put on a little show for their kids, with Dad (Brian Hartigan) dressing up like Santa Claus and putting presents under the tree. Later, Phil is more skeptical, telling Harry it was just their father. Harry, however, believes that it really was Santa, and goes back down to check - only to find Mom (Ellen McElduff) getting her garters sniffed by Old Saint Nick. Fast forward to Christmas 1980. Harry (Brandon Maggart) has just been promoted to a lower management position at Jolly Dream, a manufacturer of cheap, useless toys. His apartment is decorated for Christmas at all times, and he even sleeps in a Santa suit and keeps Naughty and Nice lists of the neighborhood children. Phil (Jeffrey DeMunn) is married with two kids and thinks his brother is just this side of retarded, while Harry doesn't understand why he doesn't fit in. After being tricked into working the production line by the obnoxious Fra...

The village of Covington appears to be idyllic. However, there are a few problems - namely, "Those Who We Do No Speak Of", strange creatures that prowl the said woods. Also the village has medical and technological infrastructure on par with the mid-19th century, leading to some birth defects and early childhood deaths. As we are first introduced to this community it is at the funeral for the son of August Nicholson (Brendan Gleeson), one of the town's elders. Due to this situation and his concern for the mentally handicapped Noah (Adrien Brody), blacksmith Lucius Hunt (Joaquin Phoenix) makes an appeal to the elders, led by Edward Walker (William Hurt), to let him cross through the woods and visit "The Towns" for medicine. This is despite concerns that the creatures in the woods have been crossing the boundary into the village and killing livestock, despite a long-standing truce between the settlers and the creatures to leave each other alone as long as the s...

Tom (Cliff Gorman) is a New York beat officer who tries an experiment. One night he walks into a liquor store and robs it while dressed in full uniform. And he gets away with it. About a week later he tells his colleague Joe (Joseph Bologna), a detective in the same precinct, what he did. Together, the two hatch a plan to do one big heist while dressed as police officers and stash the money away for their retirement. Weeks go by with the job just being a pipe dream until opportunity arises. Joe has big-time gangster Patsy O'Neill (John P. Ryan) brought in on a minor charge to check him out, and later goes to meet with him at his mansion. O'Neill, thinking the two are bumblers who will never pull off the job, says that he wants them to steal $10 million in bearer bonds, for which he will pay them a million dollars. However, Tom and Joe are dreaming big. The opportunity to commit the robbery comes with a parade honoring Apollo 11 astronauts. A larger than usual police presen...

A Nightmare on Elm Street went from being an independent horror film from a penniless director and a near-bankrupt studio to being one of the most recognizable horror franchises ever, with an iconic villain in Freddy Krueger. He has weathered six direct sequels, a rather interesting meta-movie, a duel with another horror icon and a remake. After 27 years it is still a part of our cinematic history. That is why I'm glad that Daniel Farrands and the rest of the people responsible for this documentary didn't half-ass it. Original Nightmare heroine Heather Langenkamp narrates this four-hour look into each of the original films the short-lived (but much-maligned) television series. It also manages to leave almost no stone unturned to interview cast and crew, although Johnny Depp and Patricia Arquette were both conspicuous in their absence. The parts that will be of most interest to viewers I think is about how the original got made, the homosexual subtexts of the second (which,...

Vincent Smith (Rory Calhoun), proprietor of the Motel Hello and famously known as Farmer Vincent, the guy who makes the best smoked meats in the state, turns on the "No Vacancy" sign and goes out hunting. Lying in wait, he hears an approaching motorcycle, and he shoots out the tires as it goes by. Both rider and passenger are still alive, but he decides each will have different fates, as he is immediately smitten with the young blonde Terry (Nina Axelrod). After waking, she finds out her boyfriend Bo (Everett Creach) is dead, and she decides to stay on with Vincent and his sister Ida (Nancy Parsons) while she recovers. She also starts a friendship with Vincent's younger brother Bruce (Paul Linke), who also happens to be the county sheriff. He also has a thing for Terry, but it is quite obvious after awhile that she prefers Vincent, who has promised to show her the secrets of smoking meat. Ida, however, is not too happy over the affection Vincent is lavishing on Terry, ...

A couple returns home from partying on Halloween night. The wife is not too amused, and can't wait to get her costume off and clean up the decorations so she is not embarrassed when her mother shows up in the morning. She blows out the Jack-o-Lantern despite her husband's warning that she should have kept it burning. Turns out for once the wife wasn't right. That's because the town of Warren Valley, Ohio, has a number of creeps taking advantage of the holiday, both supernatural and frighteningly real. We are introduced to a father and son who have a strange idea of how to carve a Jack-o-Lantern, a group of women on the prowl who have a special "taste" for men, a group of kids who unwittingly raise a 30-year-old legend from the dead and an old grump who gets his come-uppance for not getting in the spirit. There is no underlying or wrap-around story other than the fact that it is Halloween and all this strangeness tends to happen in one town. Thus, it is di...

Documentary film maker Iris Reisen (Iris Bahr) has been invited by charismatic pastor Cotton Marcus (Patrick Fabian) to expose exorcism for the fraud it is. Marcus has been performing exorcisms for most of his adult life, knowingly faking the events but writing it off as giving families some peace. His attitude has recently changed after reading about deaths that have occurred due to other people attempting the same thing. In order to show the tricks of his trade he chooses a letter at random so he can do one last exorcism. This letter turns out to be a plea for help from farmer Louis Sweetzer (Louis Herthum), who is losing livestock and believes his daughter Nell (Ashley Bell) may be possessed by a demon. Her brother Caleb (Caleb Landry Jones) is dead set against it, but quickly figures out Marcus is a fraud and not much harm can come of it. After performing the rites and collecting his fee, Marcus and the film crew retire to a hotel in town for the night. However, they are awake...