Happy All Hallows Week, everybody! Jason from MNPP here - you know how demons on Buffy the Vampire Slayer would always take Halloween off because of what a cliche it seemed to be, attacking that night? I've found myself battling the same kind of fatigue this season - I haven't got the spirit, I tells ya! I'm having to work hard at it - last night I actually carved a pumpkin while watching The Nightmare Before Christmas (which is the horror fan equivalent of Mrs. Claus taking a peppermint bath while making the Elves sing her carols from the foot of the tub) but it still didn't take. Maybe seeing Vincent Price's daughter at a screening The Abominable Dr. Phibes (my fave VP flick!) tonight will help? If that can't nothing will, I fear! Well here, another stab at it -- this week's edition of "Beauty vs Beast" is going all classic Universal Monster on ya...
PREVIOUSLY Two weeks ago we primed ourselves for Guillermo Del Toro's Crimson Peak (which I adored and which I will forgive you all for not going to see if you go this week for Halloween) with his film Pan's Labyrinth, facing off sweet little Ofelia and her Fascist Step-Dad Vidal -- y'all a buncha softies; Ofelia took it home with 3/4s of the vote. RobMiles makes the best case for her, especially the last point:
"I think the point of Ofelia eating the grape is that as well as not having had supper, she doesn't always do what she's told, which also happens at the end of the film, when she doesn't let the Faun hurt her baby brother. That is linked to the Doctor in reality, who doesn't obey Captain Vidal and euthanizes the captured soldier instead of keeping him alive for more torture.
Plus without her eating the grape, we wouldn't have had one of the most thrilling scenes in any film I've seen, when the Pale Man awakes and chases Ofelia. I was literally gasping for breath when I first saw it."