Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Night 4 of "Attack of the 31 Nights of Halloween"

It's Night 4 of "Attack of the 31 Nights of Halloween". Tonight we have a new featured shop from our upcoming GIANT Giveaway. You'll get a little sneak peak at what waits ahead. We also have the review of the next movie on our Halloween Movie List. But first off is our featured item of the night from Laughing Vixen Lounge. Enjoy!

Tonight's featured item - Zombie Charm Bracelet

Zombie Charm Bracelet $45
The perfect piece for any fashionable Zombie Hunter. Purchase this bracelet from Laughing Vixen Lounge during October and get 10% off. Use code OCTOBER10
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Attack of the 31 Nights of Halloween Shop Features - Deep Midnight Bathery

Deep Midnight Bathery is run by Cat who lives in Minneapolis, MN. Her shop is filled with some amazing sounding perfumes. How about a little Blood and Donuts, Tea with a Dragon, Sleepy Hollow or Goblin in the Gears?


So where does the name Deep Midnight Bathery come from? Cat tells us "Deep Midnight comes from a line in a vampire novel referencing that the darkest hour of the night was not really midnight, but more like the hour of 2 am being the darkest where not even shadows fall. I always loved that name/term/definition and thought it was perfect for my shop".




Cat's shop is full of fun scents. I asked her what inspires her perfumes. "One of my college degrees is in History, and I am inspired by many historical eras, the costumes, customs, peoplels, and cultures in general. I am inspired by the fantasy, science fiction, romance, and horror novels I read. I am inspired by real people from the past and present and literary characters also".




Why did she decide to create perfume? "I love scents and I dislike department store cookie cutter alcohol ridden perfumes. I grew up wearing perfume oils like musk and opium and later developed a minor obsession for bath and body products in general. I started my shop making perfumes, lip balms, and soaps.... but moved on this past spring to only perfumes so I could concentrate on just making fabulous unique oils for my customers. Someday I will perhaps go back to other products but for the time being I am concentrating on the perfumes only".




In the spirit of the season I had to ask the shops what their favorite horror film is. Cat says "I have so many favorite scary movies :) I do love the old Hammer Horror classics with Vincent Price or Christopher Lee. I really love Dracula with Gary Oldman. I always watch that around Halloween. It's not really scary...it's more that I love the period costumes, the tragic romance, the camera angles, and the whole Gothic feel of the movie".

A big thanks to Cat and Deep Midnight Bathery for joining in the giveaway. Take a moment to peruse her shop and see at what you might just win.
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Now for tonight's movie. Make sure to leave a comment below. Anyone who leaves a comment, with their opinion of the movie, for each of the 31 movies will get an extra 10 entries in our GIANT Giveaway.

Night 4 - Shaun of the Dead




Taglines - Buy Milk. Ring Mum. Dodge Zombies
               Shuffling into theaters September 24th.
               A romantic comedy. With zombies.
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Directed by Edgar Wright (Spaced and Hot Fuzz) and released on September 24, 2004 by Focus Features. Shaun (Simon Pegg) and Ed (Nick Frost) are happy to spend their days at dead end jobs and their nights at The Winchester Pub. That is until Zombies threaten their safe and comfortable lives. Now they must try to save their friends and family from the undead masses.
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This is one of the best movies to come along in a long time. It is a perfect blend of witty and smart comedy and outright horror. These guys are such huge Romero fans that the jokes are loving and the horror is spot on. There are plenty of inside jokes for those who follow the Living Dead/Horror genre movies but lots of laughs for the casual viewer too. I could go on and on but you know what I'm talking about. And if you don't know...go watch it now!
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Some trivia about the movie...
1. Frequent references are made to Big Al's claim that dogs can't look up. This is a reference to the commentary to the second series of "Spaced" (1999) in which Simon Pegg (Shaun) and Edgar Wright talk about Nick Frost (Ed)'s claim that the difficulty in shooting a scene with a dog was due to the fact that dogs can't look up.
2. The zombie that Shaun (Simon Pegg) and Ed (Nick Frost) find in their garden is Mary, the checkout girl from the film's credit montage. A short story detailing her transformation into one of the undead was featured in issue 1384 of the classic British sci-fi comic 2000AD. The issue went on sale 7 April 2004. The strip was called "There's Something About Mary" and was written by Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright (the film's co-writers) with art by Frazer Irving.
3. Because of the timing and the indisputable similarity of the names, the distributors were forced to hold the film back until two weeks after Dawn of the Dead (2004) was released in the UK.
4. While Shaun (Simon Pegg) and Liz flick through TV channels, a voice can be heard saying that claims that the epidemic was due to rage infected monkeys have now been dismissed as b... Liz turns off before the voice can finish the sentence. The voice is referencing 28 Days Later... (2002), another British zombie movie, in which the word zombie is never used, and, perhaps, Braindead (1992) ("Dead-Alive") from New Zealand as well.
5. When Shaun and the group are running out of Liz's flat they are all carrying weapons of some kind, but only Shaun actually hits any zombies. This was because only the cricket bat that Shaun was carrying was a padded fake, all the other items were real and would have hurt the extras playing zombies if they had been hit with them.
6. John and Bernie run the Winchester. These are the real names of the landlord and landlady who used to run Simon Pegg's local pub, the Shepherds in Highgate. John used to make toasted sandwiches for regulars, hence the reference to "the Breville out back." Pegg and Nick Frost were regular attendees of the Shepherd's Thursday night quiz, hence the line "we do the quiz" when Shaun is knocking on the Winchester's door. Chris Martin of Coldplay, who plays a zombie in the film, also used to attend quiz night.
7. Shaun berates Ed for calling the creatures zombies (which they are, of course). This may be referring to the fact that many zombie movies (including Night of the Living Dead (1968) and Resident Evil (2002)) never mention the word "zombie" at all. More likely this is a reference to Danny Boyle, director of 28 Days Later... (2002), and his insistence that it isn't a zombie movie.
8. When Shaun walks to the shops before heading to work when everything is normal, Shaun passes a road sweeper. On the road-sweeper operator's radio one can hear a news bulletin detailing how a space probe called Omega 6 entered Earth's atmosphere several days early over the southwest of England and broke apart over a well-built area. This a direct link to Night of the Living Dead (1968), in which a space probe breaks up over a small town in the USA, and the resulting radiation causes the dead in the local graveyard to come to life.
9. Night of the Living Dead (1968) director George A. Romero was given a private viewing of the film near his home in Florida. During the scene in which Ed (Nick Frost) yells into the phone, "We're coming to get you, Barbara," Romero was oblivious to the fact it was a direct lift from his film Night of the Living Dead (1968) and only found out later after a phone conversation with director Edgar Wright.
10. According to writer-director Edgar Wright in the DVD commentary, when Ed attempts to cheer Shaun up at the Winchester with plans of binge drinking, he is actually summarizing the events of the next day (Z-day) entirely in drinking references.
11. George A. Romero, creator of the films that this movie pays homage to and lampoons, was so impressed with Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright's work that he asked them to appear in Land of the Dead (2005), the fourth part of his Dead series, in cameos as zombies.
12. In the scene where Shaun discovers the Pete zombie in the bathroom, Shaun is talking and says the words "join us" - a well known quote from Evil Dead.
13. There are also multiple references to the scenes in Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness (i.e. where Ash replaces his severed hand with a chainsaw and dismembers Evil Ash respectively), where quick edits focusing on important objects (i.e. the chainsaw, the chains, etc.) are used in order to speed up and intensify the actions taking place. In the film these edits are seen when Shaun makes breakfast, whenever he uses the toilet, etc
14. Shaun tells Liz that he's going to take her to "the place that does all the fish". When he opens the phone book you can see that the restaurant is literally called ‘The Place That Does All the Fish’.
15. First part of Simon Pegg's and Edgar Wright's "The Blood and Ice Cream Trilogy". The other two parts are Hot Fuzz (2007) and The World's End (2013).


18 comments:

  1. such an awesome movie! although i did feel bad when shauns' mum & stepdad bit the dust. what i have wondered relates to the bit where the cute brunette wants shaun & co. to follow her to safety (which, naturally, they don't)...was this bit lifted from another movie as well?

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  2. I just got into zombie reads, so now I need to adventure into the world of zombie movies. I need to go rent this baby, it sounds great.

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  3. This one of my all time favorite movies! It is so campy and fun. I never got all the references to other zombie flicks..will have to try and catch them all as I watch again. A great addition to your list! LOVE IT!

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  4. Simon Pegg is funny no matter what he is in, but Shaun is the best!

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  6. Great trivia facts! I didn't see Shaun of the Dead right away but after i watched it,i didn't know why i waited so long..funny movie!
    On my way to check out those way cool shops..thanks!

    cyclona66 at aol dot com

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  7. Excellent post! Shaun of the Dead is a cloassic. And looove Deep Midnight's scents! Very soothing yet stimulating & I always get compliments on them.

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  8. I watched Shaun of the Dead and quite honestly, didn't think it was so funny or good. Just saw Paul with the same actor/writer, Simon Pegg, and did think much of it either, but my dad raved about it.

    acm05atjuno.com

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  9. That's "didn't" think much of it either.

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  10. I don't really like zombies, but this movie was still right up my alley!

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  11. tongue in cheek awesome zombie movie, they did a bang up job!! fave line: He's got an arm off!!!
    earthdancedaph@yahoo.com

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  12. Campy and goofy (a little gross) and fun...

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  13. Not so funny as I hoped...


    DESPINA
    deb_oro@yahoo.gr

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  14. Heard it was pretty funny but keep putting off watching it.
    :)

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  15. Dracula is one of my favorite movies. I think Gary Oldman is the best vampire ever. Shaun of the Dead very clever movie.

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  16. A good zombie movie, like it though it's not my favorite...

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  17. I love a good zombie movie so of course I loved this one because it was also funny. One of my favorite parts was when they started throwing records at a zombie and argued about which ones were crappy enough to throw.

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