Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things (1973)

"I peed in my pants!"

I have a couple of films I like to watch around Halloween. Not always every year, but as often as I can. There are some obvious titles that many horror fans go to without fail; John Carpenters Halloween, The Exorcist, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, to name but a few. Those definitely qualify on my top ten horror films of all time, but they aren't the first films I turn to at this time of year. Nope, when the leaves are turning brown and the sound of fireworks grows steadily over the days, Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things usually pops into my head.

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Spookies (1986)

"Uuuuuuhh, look at me: I'm Duke, the horny ghost!"

Sporting some of the finest video art that the 80's had to offer, it wasn't hard for Spookies to stick out on the shelves, promising mucho monster action and terror. However, when watching the film, you get the feeling that something rather peculiar is going on, but for some reason you can't figure out what it is. The monsters are there. The awful acting is there. The requisite creepy house is there. Even the death-like demon on the back cover is there, scythe and all. So why the hell is my brain so confused?

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Who's Harry Crumb? (1989)

"Not so fast. I've had my eye on you for a while, lady. I knew you were up to something, and here's my proof: it was you who was having an affair with your husband all along!"

After his daughter has been kidnapped from an exclusive health spa, millionaire P.J Downing (Barry Corbin; Critters 2, The People Across the Lake, Ghost Dad)  turns to his close family friend, Eliot Draisen ( Jeffrey Jones; Beetlejuice, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Easy Money) who happens to be the president of esteemed detective agency, Crumb and Crumb. Unfortunately for Downing, there is nothing esteemed about Harry Crumb (John Candy; Uncle Buck, Armed and Dangerous, Summer Rental), the oafish detective assigned to the case. Harry apparently comes from a long line of great detectives; sadly the genius gene seems to have skipped a generation. You see, Draisen himself is actually the one behind the kidnapping, and putting Harry on the case is only to cover his own ass, figuring he will never solve it anyway.

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Flowers in the Attic (1987)

"Look at us mother. How could you do this to us?"

I was never allowed rent Flowers in the Attic when I was a kid. My parents had either enough sense to have heard of the source material, or figured if I wanted to rent it that badly there must have been something really awful in it. I'm not sure what it was that even appealed to me about the video box. Maybe it was the unusual title, or, the fact that it 'shocked 40 million readers'. Or maybe I thought I was gonna see something nasty happen to a bunch of kids, which was usually enough to send me running. Whatever the reason was, the film slipped out of my memory until the last few months when I stumbled across the tape. Was it worth the 25 year wait?

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Hell Comes to Frogtown (1988)

"Eat lead, froggies!"

You ever get the feeling that the film you are watching most likely started out as a porn script? The non-existent budget, the minimal sets and cast, sub par acting, the dodgy sex related plot...These are the factors that set the alarm bells off in your head. It all just seems so, well, porn-ish.

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