Night 1 of the Attack of the 31 Nights of Halloween

Welcome to night 1 of the second annual Attack of the 31 Nights of Halloween. Make sure to stop by our Giveaway Post and enter to win a goodie bag full of frightfully good treats from 12 different shops! Tonight we have the first movie review off our Halloween Movie List. Follow along for an extra 25 entries in the giveaway. But first lets get to our featured item of the night from Laughing Vixen Lounge.

Purchase any item(s) from Laughing Vixen Lounge through October 31st and get 10% off your order. Use code OTOBER10 at checkout.


Attack of the 31 Nights of Halloween Movie List.
Follow along with us for a month full of classic and fun spooky movies. Each night there will be a movie review of the next movie on our Halloween Movie List. Leave a comment on each post with your opinion of that movie. On the last day you will find the magic phrase you will use to unlock the entry worth 25 entries in the giveaway. You must comment on each post.


Night 1 - Cujo

Tagline - Now there's a new name for terror
              Unleash the terror

Directed by Lewis Teague (Alligator and The Jewel of the Nile) and released on August 12, 1983 by Warner Brothers Pictures (Rated R). 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. Donna and Tad are about to find out just how unhappy Cujo really is!

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 kind of 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 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)

Take a look at the original trailer...

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.

4. Five St. Bernards were used, one mechanical head, and a guy in a dog costume.
5. A rumor has circulated that "Cujo" is an ancient Indian word meaning "unstoppable force." In reality, Stephen King made it up himself when writing the novel.
6. Stephen King contributed substantially to the script but eventually declined Writer's Guild credit   
7. A Rottweiler was used for some of the scenes because they couldn't get the St. Bernard to look mean enough.   
8. The dogs featured in the film would often have their tails tied down to their legs because the dogs would be enjoying themselves so much that they would wag their tails during filming.   
9. The story was inspired to Stephen King when he met his mechanic's intimidating dog while having his motorcycle repaired one day.
10. Shot in the same Mendocino, California community as the film Dead & Buried. In fact in one shot the Pinto can be seen driving past the same church, with the 'reaper' shaped steeple, that's featured in Dead & Buried.
11. The scenes where Donna and Tad are trapped by Cujo are suppose to be sweltering hot and appear that way on film. Yet the conditions were actually very cold during filming. At one point it got so cold inside the car that heaters were placed inside to keep the actors warm, but they would have to be turned off for shooting to prevent their sound from interfering.   
12. The exterior of the Trenton house was a facade.
13. The fog in the scene where Brett encounters a sick Cujo was created by a naval fog machine. The smoke brought out the local fire department who feared the woods were burning.   
14. A number of cars were used for the filming, each was disassembled for specific camera shots.   
15. The original novel was a sequel of sorts following The Dead Zone. Since killer Frank Dodd was killed he became a kind of bogeyman in Castle Rock and supposedly haunted Tad. It is hinted that Dodd possessed Cujo. Sheriff George Bannerman, played by Sandy Ward here, makes specific references to Dead Zone hero Johnny Smith. Both this movie and The Dead Zone were developed at the same time, with this film released two months before, by different studios so the references were removed.   
16. Stephen King has admitted several times that he was so into his alcohol addiction at the time that he does not remember writing the book.   
17. In the original Stephen King novel, Tad Trenton dies of dehydration while Donna contracts rabies from her fight with Cujo.