Brunner's Bar

Halloween 1978 There isn't a better movie to end my Halloween week than this one. Halloween Night is the night young Michael Myers snaps and kills his family. Decades later Michael is a patient at an asylum and finds breaks out. He returns home to finish the killing spree he started as a kid. Halloween night is when he returns to Haddonfield. Like Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Friday the 13th, Michael Myers is a giant hulking silent killer. Sure Leatherface does some grunting and  occasional scream he doesn't say anything. Nothing can stop Michael when he sets his mind to something.  I did mention in my Friday the 13th review that it is a lot of fun seeing these big actors when they were first starting out. This wasn't Jamie Lee Curtis's first role but it was very early in her career. She has come a long way since this movie. The was the movie that gave her the moniker of Scream Queen. The thing about Michael Myers is the mask. This is the thing that m

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) This movie has one of the scariest premises ever. As kids do you remember when you would get really scared you would jump into bed and pull the covers over you because if the scary thing can't see you you are safe. I know I did, I felt like nothing could touch me under those covers and when I would gather my courage to peak out, whatever scared me was gone. Not in Nightmare on Elm Street. In this movie a child molester named Freddy Krueger is killed in an abandoned building by the parents of Elm Street. Burned to death his face is horribly disfigured and his evil soul has found a new life. Freddy comes after you in your dreams. The only good thing about a nightmare is that you can wake up and it is gone. What if you couldn't wake up and your nightmare could kill you and you never wake up from it. This movie terrified me as a kid. I remember watching this on my little black and white TV in my room late at night when my parents thought

The Evil Dead This wouldn't be part of my Halloween Week if it wasn't one of my favorites, but I really love these movies. All of these including the Re-Make are ones I watch over and over again. The first of these that I saw was Evil Dead. 2. That one is my favorite and I might just have to review that  in the future or maybe for next years Halloween Week. After seeing that one I had to find this one and watch it too. I ended up finding it at my local Blockbuster (yes I am dating myself since they have been closed for I don't know how long now). My wife and I were just friends then and we would hang out sometimes. I ordered Pizza and and we watched this together. We were huge fans of all horror movies back then and saw everyone we could. I still am a big fan of horror movies but now that we have kids it is tougher and tougher to find time to watch them.  This is the pinnacle of low budget horror movies. Again we have a group of College aged kids heading out to t

Friday the 13th When you think of Friday the 13th do you immediately go to Jason Voorhees? Jason is the star of this franchise but not actually in this movie. Well, he is in a scene or two at the very end but not as the Jason we are familiar with. Jason actually doesn't start his killing spree till the second movie and it is the 3rd or 4th where he finally picks up the Hockey mask. This movie does set up the whole story of the iconic psychopath. Jason is a deformed little boy just hanging out at the summer camp his mother works at. The kids are cruel and he gets pushed into the lake. Normally he would be rescued by a life guard but the camp counselors who should be watching are off having sex, so Jason drowns. This movie wastes no time getting to the hack and slash. In less that five minutes the counselors who should have been watching are killed while fooling around. The difference between this scene in 1980 and the same scene now is the fact that the over the top gore i

Texas Chainsaw Massacre Horror movies have really changed over the years. Long ago horror movies were more about what you don't see. They gave you an idea of what is going on but you had to picture it for yourself. Even the slasher movies were not overly gory. In 1974 this probably was equivalent to Hostel, but your imagination can still be much worse than what you actually see in this movie.  Today movies Like this one are cheesy, horribly acted, and just goofy, but I love them. This is one of several Classic horror movies that I just love. Every year I watch this or the remake in the month of October. It gets me in the Halloween spirit. Just take a look at how different this is from movies today. So here is the low down on this movie. It opens with a decomposed corpse that we are led to believe has been part of a grave robbery. The background news report voice over helps bring a creepy factor. Then the credits begin to roll with this spilled blood look that is

It's my favorite time of year again. Halloween is quickly approaching and I am doing my Halloween Week again this year. I had so much fun reviewing horror movies that are part of my Halloween tradition that I am doing this again. The second annual Halloween Week has officially begun.  Last year I reviewed the Remakes of all my favorite Horror films. I reviewed Nightmare on Elm Street , Friday the 13th , Texas Chainsaw Massacre , and Halloween . This year I have an extra day in the week leading up to Halloween so I am adding the review for Evil Dead. Last year I reviewed the remake of Evil Dead when it came to Blu-Ray so I am adding the original to this week. I have been re-watching the classics all month getting ready for the next few days. It has been a good while since I have had a new post every day but this week is special. Well, the pumpkins are carved and my kids have their costumes., They are all ready to go Trick-or Treating. I'm as always excited t

The Halloween Tree I'm a big fan of Ray Bradbury. My favorites of his are Fahrenheit 451, and Something Wicked This Way Comes. When I saw this available at the library I was so excited to have another Halloween themed book by Bradbury. This one will need another read. There were a few things that I was a little confused on.  The thing I love about Badbury's writing is that it has this timeless feel to it. I picture the scenes in this book like they have walked out of a Norman Rockwell Painting. He does a great job with explaining a scene or setting with amazing detail without being boring or beating you over the head with words. I have read books that get so involved with trying to explain what the grass looks like that I loose interest. Bradbury doesn't have that problem.  This is another book about a group of boys who are out for fun and mischief on Halloween night. Dressed in their best costumes they go house to house trying to get as much candy as possibl

Injustice: Gods Among Us Year 2 I'm going to be honest here. I haven't read this series yet at all. I saw this on Netgalley and decided I was going to throw my name in for it and see what happens. Well, I was fortunate to be selected by DC to review this and I couldn't be more thrilled. I have hear a lot of great things about this series and I really have loved my Injustice game app for my iPad. The graphics and game play are amazing.  I have had the First Year vol 1 for my kindle for awhile but I just haven't' had the time to read it. After reading this book the graphic novel that started it all has moved up on my to-read list. I can't wait to read the way all of this starts. Here is a brief little overview of the way things are in this world.  The Joker has gotten bored with the way things are in Gotham and travels to Metropolis. Chaos follows and Superman snaps. Batman's greatest fear that one day Superman would loose control has happ

The Flash (2014) The series so far.... There was a lot of hype behind this series. This was first hinted at the the Second season of Arrow when Barry Allen shows up in Star City to help with a very strange break in at Queen Industries. The second episode that he appears in this season ends with Barry being struck by lightening. Season one begins with Barry as an young boy being picked on by bullies. We see a very happy and supportive home life with a loving mother and Father (John Wesley Ship) and then Bang!!! Things get bad in a flash of yellow and red light. Barry's mother is killed and his father blamed for the whole thing but Barry knows what he saw and there was a man in the lightening. Flashing forward the show picks up right after Barry gets back from Star city just before he is struck by lightening.  So far there have only been two episodes with the next one airing tomorrow night Tuesday Oct 21st.  These are awesome and I am loving the show so far. These epis

The Walking Dead This was AWESOME!!!! Well worth the wait from last seasons cliffhanger. As those of you who read my blog regularly would know that my wife and I spent the summer catching up on all of the graphic novels of the Walking Dead so we were ready to go when this season started. We had a ton of ideas of what was going to be pulled from the comics to be used in the opening episode and I couldn't wait to see this.  Not going to lie to you all, but I didn't watch this till Monday night. I avoided all social media and write ups of the season premier so I didn't spoil anything. The Cardnials were playing the Giants in the NLCS and it was a close game so that won out. My DVR caught the first episode anyway so that meant we could fast forward through the commercials. Last season ended with a big cliffhanger and no idea what to expect since the show is much different from the books at this point. for the last few months there have been these teasers floating aro

NOS4A2 What is my deal this Fall? I have read one disappointing book after another with no end in sight. This book was kind of my fault in a way. I tried to read this right after it came out and couldn't get into it. I made it about a quarter of the way in and just gave up. I feel bad about not liking this in a way because almost everyone I know who read this book just raved about how amazing it is and Joe Hill is the new great writer of all time. I don't have a problem with Joe Hill. I loved his Locke and Key series as well as his novel Horns. I have not really been a far of the rest of his work. The issue is with me, I can't stop comparing him to his dad Stephen King. His writing is just different but I can't seem to separate the two.  This was another book that sounded so good from the summary but fell flat for me. Here is the Goodreads description: NOS4A2  is a spine-tingling novel of supernatural suspense from master of horror Joe Hill, the  New York T

Fear Nothing I have only read a few books by Dean Koontz but the ones I have read were awesome. Tic Tock and Life Expectancy were great books and I couldn't put them down. My father-in-law and I were talking books one day and I got on my high horse about how awesome the Stephen King book I was reading was and he said this book was really good. I put it on my to-read list and forgot about it. Well tis the season to be scared and I needed a new book to read for the RIP Challenge. I figured I would give it a read. I wasn't a fan.  I don't know what my deal is this year but all but one of the books I have included in the RIP challenge have been disappointing to say the least. At leas this book had likable characters that I could at least be interested in seeing how their stories played out. The rest of the plot just dragged on for me. I couldn't wait to get to the end of this book. There wasn't a lot of action in this book which made the downtime seem so much

Scowler This fall I haven't had this big list of horror books to-read for the Halloween season. The RIP challenge finally started up for this year and I really didn't have much read to go.Thank you to my library and the Overdrive app on my iPhone to supply me with a steady stream of audio books. I decided to pull up the Horror genre and see what was available. Right away this cover caught my eye. Reading over the summary I started to think this was really interesting and I was going to give it a shot. Again, I had no idea this was a YA title until half way through the book so my trying to aviod YA titles for a little bit wasn't going so well.  Here is the Goodreads description: Nineteen-year-old Ry Burke, his mother, and little sister scrape by for a living on their dying family farm. Ry wishes for anything to distract him from the grim memories of his father's physical and emotional abuse. Then a meteorite falls from the sky, bringing with it not only a fr

All Out War Part 2 Well I'm finally caught up on the series from a Graphic Novel stand point. It is really kind of bitter sweet in a way. I'm really bummed that I have to wait however long for the next volume to be released because I want to know where our characters go from here. At the same time it has been such a challenge to write these reviews back to back and not spoil something for future readers. I want people to be able to read my reviews and see what I felt about a book and why I felt it without giving anything away in case I can encourage someone to read the books I review.  The calm before the storm is over and it is time to end this once and for all. Rick is working a plan to take out Negan but is beaten to the punch. Negan brings the fight to the community and things get interesting. There are a few slow spots and a good but of wore is me from our characters which seemed out of place in a story like this but over all the battle was a good one. Just when

I'm a big fan of The Flash but that wasn't the case till the Rebirth story line came out. As I have mentioned Geoff Johns is a genius of a writer in the comic book world and his run on the Flash was amazing.   I was hooked on the whole story and the idea that there is this singular force the grants the few members who have worn the red suit incredible speed with limitless possibilities. There have been several men who have been called the Flash and most of them are still around and the world has several speedsters. The Golden Age Flash is Jay Garrick, and then we Have Barry Allen, Wally West, and Bart Allen. Barry Allen is the one that usually is refereed to when you think of the Flash. He is the one who has had his own show and is returning to the screen for the CW in the newest incarnation of the Flash.  I was a huge fan of the show back in the 90's. I was really bummed when it only got one season. I'm still upset about it to this day because even though it

Captain Underpants 11 I'm always digging through Net Galley to find comics and books that I really want to read in hopes of being selected for a review. I also enjoy looking through what is available from Scholastic. Now that I am only working one amazing job I am home in the evenings and can read to my kids again. I love looking for books that I think my son will like. I have seen these books for years and always thought it might be worth reading. Now that my son is almost 5 I figured now would be a good time to start. Scholastic and NetGalley were kind enough to allow me to read this to my son and review it here.  Now I don't recommend starting here in the series. There is a lot that happens before this that kind of leaves gaps in the story, but for the most part there was plenty of explanation as to who everyone is and how things got going. This book is one solid story, but the way it is told it almost feels like two stories in one. At the very beginning everyth