Night 7 of "The 31 Nights of Halloween Film Fest"

I've joined in the fun over at Domestic Witch's October Blog Party. You can find a list of participating blogs that are having fun celebrating the season of Halloween. When you're done here take a broom ride over to her site and you'll see the list of blogs on the right side bar.

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Here at The Lounge we will have a "31 Nights of Halloween Film Fest". Check back each day to see which movie is featured and some days you may get more than one. They will be a random selection of my favorites. You can see all past selections on the sidebar.

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Make sure to leave a comment for each movie as one lucky person will win their choice of pendant from Laughing Vixen Lounge at the end of the film fest. Please see rules at end of post.

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Night 7...."Cujo"

Too bad Cujo did not have a catchy theme song. I've had The Blob stuck in my head all day!!!

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Lewis Teague (Alligator, Cat's Eye and The Jewel of the Nile) directed this film based on the novel by Stephen King. Released on August 12, 1983 by Warner Brothers Pictures. Donna (Dee Wallace) is married to Vic (Daniel Hugh Kelly) but having an affair with Steve (Christopher Stone). Tad (Danny Pintauro) is Donna and Vic's son who is very afraid of the monsters and the dark. Vic goes out of town on business and Donna and Tad take the family car, a Ford Pinto that's on it's last leg, out to the Camber farm to get it fixed.

Earlier that week, the Camber's dog Cujo was happily chasing a bunny rabbit until it ran down a hole. Unfortunately for Cujo the hole was a cave filled with rabid bite-happy bats that chomp on his nose. Cujo's owners are a sad sack of losers that are too preoccupied with their sad lives that no one notices that their dog is becoming an ooey gooey angry mess.

Fast forward back to present date as the Pinto drives up the Cambers driveway and dies. Stuck in the middle of nowhere, no one is home and Cujo is not a happy camper. How will Donna and Tad get home?

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I grew up with a mom who read lots of Stephen King books so I suppose that is where my interest in his stories started. While a lot of his stories started to get a bit silly the older ones are still much fun. Cujo may not be the scariest but it's a good one.

It's a bit hard for me to hate the villain here because it's just a poor puppy who nobody loved enough to see he was sick. I find it kinda sad. On the other hand, he does make for a big scary mass of yellow and red slimy goo covered moose of a dog! There are spots in the showdown between him and the Pinto that really are suspenseful. I'll admit it did get me once and made me jump.

It really all works because it's back in a time with no cell phones. If you got stuck out in scary land there really was no way to contact anyone for help. And well, they still had Pintos. Enough said. 8)

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Some trivia about the movie....

1. To make the St. Bernard's attack the car, animal trainers put the dog's favorite toys inside the car so the dogs would try to get them.

2. The foam around Cujo's mouth was made of a concoction of egg whites and sugar. The dogs caused problems on the set by constantly licking the tasty stuff off.

3. After the film Dee Wallace went on record saying she hoped she'd never see another Pinto in her life.

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Rules for pendant giveaway...

(1) comment about a movie per movie.

(1) extra entry by following this Blog and (1) extra for following on Twitter (You can only take the blog and twitter entries once for the whole contest).

(1) extra entry for Tweeting about this. Please use this message -Check out the "31 Nights of Halloween Film Fest" to win your choice of pendant from @LaughingVixen http://tiny.cc/s9msy 3 Tweets a day max and no more than 1 an hour!

(1) extra entry for guessing the next film. I will tweet hints on Twitter about the next days movie and you can post your guess as a comment. Doesn't have to be right just your best guess.

Make sure to post each entry as an individual comment on any of the movies comment pages. You can comment on past movies. Make sure you can be contacted from your post.