I Can Be Your Best Friend Or Your Worst Enemy: The Cable Guy (1996)

You know what the trouble about real life is? There’s no danger music

This movie is really creepy! Jim Carrey is awesome as a creepy freak. If you have ever seen Batman Forever, you would know that, but this is the clincher.

The saddest thing about this is though, when I watch this film I see myself. The way he talks about films and TV; I just know that if I was a psychopath I would be Chip Douglas. Or Billy in Scream.

So the film is directed by Ben Stiller and also stars Matthew Broderick. [You know with all those comedians it just has to be good]. And this is considered a black comedy, like Heathers, by most, but to me it definitely is a Horror-Comedy, or just down right horror film with comedic moments.

So Matthew Broderick’s character, Steve, had proposed to is girlfriend, but she turned him down. Steve then moves into his own apartment. He is depressed and about to get cable when his friend, played by Jack Black, tells him to bribe the cable guy and have him hook him up with all the premium channels.

Steve does, but that is his big mistake. Chip hooks him up, making him one of his VIP customers.

Ouch

All of a sudden Chip starts running into Steve, ALL the TIME. And it isn’t pretty.

Chip starts calling him all the time, sabotaging his cable when he doesn’t get a reply.

“Chip Douglas: Hey Steve I’m on a pay phone, so if you’re there pick up, pick up, pick up, pick up, pick up, pick up, pick up, pick up, well OK, call me back.”

Steve wants to have his cable fixed, so he makes up with Chip.

Chip in turn takes him to Medieval World, we see the psychotic and neurotic side coming out even more.

Things start getting worse. Chip wants to help Steve get back with Robin and ends up beating up her date, Owen Wilson.

He gives Robin free cable “on Steve”, and Robin gets back with Steve.

Steve doesn’t want to be friends with Chip anymore, but Chip doesn’t like that answer.

Chip ends up kidnapping Robin, and he and Steve have an epic fight at the end where Chip says my favorite line:

“Chip Douglas: You know what the trouble about real life is? There’s no danger music”

This something I agree with as I think that life would be so much better if it did. Imagine if the Jaws theme song played when bad stuff was going to happen. Or a love song played when you met the perfect person for you.

You should check this out, although just so you know I saw this film on TV so I’m not quite sure how graphic it is.

That’s today’s post, more to come! 9 Days ‘Till Halloween!

Here’s a little cover photo I made for my facebook page.

To start Horrorfest from the beginning, go to I Don’t Belong in the World

For the previous post, go to You’re Gonna Need a Bigger Potato

For more Horror-Comedy, go to Someone Very Special

For more on psychopaths, go to It’s Alive, It’s ALIVE!

For more on obsessed individuals, go to I Saw Goody Osburn With the Devil

For more in stalkers, go to The Only Thing That Matters is the Ending

Quite A Horror Story: Agatha Christie’s Poirot Hallowe’en Party (2011)

She is…a teller of the tall tales, a boaster, a little liar. So when she claims to have witnessed the murder, nobody believes her. And yet, she is… dead. 

So this was a film done by the BBC based on Agatha Christie’s novel, Hallowe’en Party. I think David Suchet is a perfect Poirot, as he looks just the way I always imagined Poirot to look like. However, something I don’t like about the modern retellings, is that  they tend to change a lot of the plot lines of the novel, and usually not for the better (Third Girl was awful. They didn’t use the best twist from the book). Rarely do I watch the film version before reading the book, which I did here, so I didn’t have the same unpleasantness as seeing them change plot lines that I thought were crucial in the book.

So the film starts out with Poirot’s friend, and mystery writer extraordinaire, Ariadne Oliver helping with a children’s Halloween party. All the kids are playing around, laughing, bobbing for apples, eating candy, etc. A little girl named Joyce starts talking to Oliver, telling her that she once witnessed a murder. Everyone makes fun of her, teasing and insulting her as she tends to always tell “tall tales”. No one believes her.

Later the children are all playing snapdragon, which they make sound so creepy. Instead of playing background music throughout the film, they play the children’s voices chanting the song in unison. It is as creepy as The Crucible scene when the girls are all “possessed”.

After the game is done, they are rounding up the children and discover Joyce missing. She is found drowned in a bucket that was used for bobbing for apples.

Oliver wastes no time at all, but immediately calls in Poirot to solve the case.

Poirot immediately looks into which murders in the town are unsolved, to see which ones have the potential to be the one Joyce saw. Many try to discourage him from doing so, telling him that Joyce was a liar and a storyteller. She did it to feel important and show off. Poirot is firmly decided that whether or not Joyce was telling the truth, someone out there is guilty of murder and thinks Joyce was a witness.

The possibilities of who Joyce might have seen are Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe, the aunt of Rowena Drake’s late husband, apparently died of a heart attack. Her death is suspicious because of her will, it said that her au pair was to inherit everything over the family. Authorities believe that it was faked by the au pair, Olga Seminoff, who mysteriously disappeared after the forgery was discovered. Other candidates for murder involve Charlotte Benfield, a sixteen-year-old shop assistant found dead of multiple head injuries; Lesley Ferrier, a lawyer’s clerk who was stabbed in the back; and Janet White, a schoolteacher who was strangled.

Which one is the murder Joyce saw? Who committed it? Did Joyce even see a murder occur? Just like The Bad Seed, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, and The Secret Window, this is one you have to check out for yourself and see where the truth lies.

The only thing I don’t like about this film, is the fact that Poirot disapproves of those who take enjoyment in such a holiday as Halloween. He thinks the macabre is not something you should be so joyous about. Well, I don’t; I love watching horror movies and getting into Halloween. That’s why I did my 31 Tales of Terror and Woe. In fact today marks 11 days left to Halloween! 😀

Here’s today’s scary post. More to come!

To start Horrorfest from the begining, go to I Don’t Belong in the World

For the previous post, go to I’m No Warrior, I’m an Assistant Pig-Keeper

For more on murder, go to Camp Blood

For more on Masterpiece Theater, go to A Hunky Helping of Manwich

For more on Halloween parties, go to A River of Candy Corn Runs Through It

For more film adaptions of books, go to I Bid You Welcome

For more on bobbing for apples, go to A Halloween Hello from the Austen Men