When the news came out that disagreements with the studio behind the Richard Pryor biopic Is it Something I Said? had resulted in Eddie Murphy walking away from the project to be replaced by Marlon Wayans there was a sudden shifting in the anticipation of this movie.

Murphy’s history with Pryor is well known, and the chance to emulate his icon on the big screen would have been an excellent dramatic role to follow his turn in Dreamgirls. Wayans, who had impressed a decade ago in Requiem For a Dream, has had the Scary Movie franchise to pay the bills while roles in the Coens remake of the Ealing classic, The Ladykillers, and G.I. Joe add a little spice to his filmography there’s not much to suggest how Wayans will approach the role of one of the most influential comedians of the twentieth century.

In an interview with the L.A. Times Wayans opens up a little,

He’s huge, there is so much feeling for Richard Pryor…It’s hard to be bigger than Richard Pryor. He changed comedy, and he did it in his own unique way.

This is like an invitation to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro for me, and I’ve never been more excited in my life than when I got the role…I want to be in dramas, I want to produce, I want to write and I want to prove I can handle a role such as this one.

There’s a natural confidence to Wayans, but he seems aware of the enormity of the shoes he is stepping into. With the blessing of Pryor’s widow the project has been waiting for the right man to step up, and in Wayans producer Mark Gordon believes the move form Murphy to Wayans will benefit the final film,

There were discussions with Eddie Murphy . . . Eddie Murphy is a great star, and I have no doubt he would be a great Richard Pryor. But Eddie Murphy is Eddie Murphy in the eyes of the audience. Marlon Wayans is a great actor and will be a great Richard Pryor, but he brings less baggage.

Baggage like Scary Movie 1 to 4, Little Man and White Chicks? Wayans won’t let that hold him back,

Look, I want to be able to make the stupidest movies ever, because they make people laugh and they make money…But that’s not all I want to do. And I think I’ve proven to some people — the ones paying attention — that I can do more. Everybody else, well, they can wait and see and make up their mind.

The film will begin shooting in the Spring, and I can’t wait to see what will become of this one.

There has been loads of buzz regarding Paranormal Activity these past few weeks.  After a massive campaign to get the movie a wide release, the movie went national this past weekend.  I have been following this for quite a while hoping and praying that my town would be one of the lucky ones to get it.  Thankfully, it did. 

Growing up, I have been exposed to my fair share of horror films.  I’m always on the lookout for that ONE movie.  The one that is going to scare me senseless and make me sleep with the lights on.  After I saw the previews and read the feedback that was being posted on Twitter, I thought this might be the one to do just that.

Paranormal Activity follows Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat as they document strange disturbances that are going on in their house.  After Katie starts to experience a presence in the house, her boyfriend Micah, buys a video camera to record 24 hours a day.  Things go downhill from there.  Needless to say, there is something definitely not right going on in that house.

I’m going to stop there because I don’t want to spoil it for anyone.  Paranormal Activity is being compared to The Blair Witch Project, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  The movie is filmed in the same way, using the hand held camera aspect.  If you had a problem watching Blair Witch or Cloverfield for that matter, you may have trouble with this one as well.  A good portion of the film is a scary version of late night drunk cam.  The rest of the film, the camera is either positioned on a tri-pod or it’s just sitting on a counter. 

The film also begins by making it seem as if it’s based on actual events.  The marketing campaign isn’t quite what was rolled out for Blair Witch, but for someone who doesn’t have any knowledge of this film they may possibly think it is indeed a true story.  The way it was filmed adds to that aspect as well as the fear that you see and feel from the actors.

Shooting on a shoestring budget in his own home, Oren Peli does a great job of bringing the scare.  He understands that what you can’t see is scarier than what you can see.  The anticipation and suspense are tangible and even the smallest things, like someone just standing still, is enough to make you squirm.

I also have to give props to Featherston and Sloat.  If you didn’t know any better you would think they were an actual couple and were really going through this horrible ordeal.  The fear, panic, anger and frustration are all conveyed with realism and their performances are authentic.  I simultaneously felt awful for what Katie was going through, while also wanting to give Micah a good ole fashioned beat down.

Like Blair Witch, Paranormal Activity may not get to you in the theater, but it will creep up on you later.  As you’re laying in bed your mind inevitably wanders to a scene in the film that sends you to the edge of panic while you try your hardest to think of good things like cupcakes and puppies and rainbows.  Then you think you hear something or feel something brush by you and you’re in the throes of panic again.  One of my friends that I saw this movie with slept with all the lights on that night…..and we went to the an early afternoon showing.

Surprisingly this film has been around for a couple of years, but is just now finding it’s glory.  Total Film did a great feature on the story behind the movie and how it came to be.  The final page of the article talks about the ending so consider yourself warned if you haven’t seen it yet.  If you’re interested in checking out feedback from other movie goers, check out the Twitter feed that has been running almost non-stop.  You are encouraged to tweet your reaction to the film to @TweetYourScream.  Reading the different responses has been interesting and has helped build buzz so be sure to check it out.

To wrap it up, I really enjoyed Paranormal Activity.  I was able to sleep but it took effort to get it out of my head before I crawled into my bed for the night.  Like I said at the beginning of this post, I have been longing for a film to scare me, and while it didn’t scare me senseless, it definitely delivered.  The feedback I’ve read is that the best environment to experience this film is in a full theater.  Unfortunately when I saw it, the theater was somewhat empty.  The gasps we heard were mostly coming from me….I’ll admit it. 

If you like a good horror movie…especially at this time of year, then I would highly recommend Paranormal Activity.  Hopefully you’ll get the scare you’re after and you may also just walk out with a new found respect for ouija boards and things that go bump in the night.

A good while ago we  reported on Paramount’s venture to tell the life story of a comic legend, the late, lamented Richard Pryor. Eddie Murphy was attached to star and, with Pryor’s wife on board to advise, this film looked set to rejuvenate Murphy’s career with a serious comic role playing one of his heroes.

Sadly this s not how it will play out. Anyone who has seen Murphy talk of Pryor can see the respect and love he has for this man, a Black American comedian who changed the world for people like Murphy, and the adulation would have made Murphy’s depiction of Pryor an interesting one.

Disagreements have apparently curtailed Murphy’s involvement Sony (the project’s new home) have approached Marlon Wayans to step into the role. Wayans, known in the main for his work on the Scary Movie installments, can play a decent serious role. Empire, who reported the news here, cite his role in Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream as proof, and talk of his transformation into Pryor which convinced the studio bods.

I’ll still want to watch this film, titled Is it Something I Said?, when it’s released, however I can’t help be a little sad that we won’t see Murphy embody the man he saw as a mentor.

It’s that time of year again.  The pumpkins are out, the leaves are turning colors, the air is brisk and chilly.  It’s time for the spooky stories, the frightening films, the maybe not so scary but at times certainly inventive costumes and that most important element…..candy corn.  Yes folks, Halloween season is upon us once again.

My yearly tradition on All Hallows Eve is to hole up in my house, turn off all the lights and settle in to a nice good ole fashioned Horror movie.  What other way to celebrate right?  I figured this would be the perfect time to run down a list movies that fit this time of year perfectly.  Let’s run them down by letter shall we?

H - Starting with the obvious,  Halloween.  John Carpenter’s fright fest with a score so simple, it’s frightening….literally.  Laurie Strode agrees to babysit on the scariest night of the year.  Little does she know what Halloween has in store for her.

The original version still holds up and I still get goose bumps when I hear that infamous tune start to play.  One of the freakiest scenes was after Laurie thinks she has bested Michael Meyers.  We see Laurie in the foreground, and Michael laying flat in the background.  Just when we think we can take a breath, we see Michael sit up straight.  I have two thoughts that run through my head each time I see this scene. 1) Tony Moran has amazing core muscles, and 2)Why did she stick around…get out…get out of the house!  Jamie Lee Curtis was great as babysitter Laurie.  She was able to make you feel her fear and make you jealous of her pipes all in the same scene.  She didn’t earn the moniker The Scream Queen for nothin’ folks.

A – The Amityville Horror (1979 & 2005)
Starting with the 1979 version starring Margo Kidder and James Brolin as a newly married couple who find, buy and move into their dream house.  Of course the house was witness to a heinous crime and the evil that lurks there starts to wreak havoc on the poor unsuspecting Lutz family.  The standout here was James Brolin.  His transformation from loving husband and father to evil, mad husband and father is subtle, but effective.  Moving over to the remake, or rebake, I should say.  The 2005 version was rebaked to a nice medium rare.  It was easy to chew on, and I enjoyed it.  The casting of Ryan Reynold in Brolin’s role was interesting but he showed his chops and made it his own.  The real star, after thinking about it, is the house itself.  That house gives me the creeps just looking at pictures of it.  It’s freaky!  I would never go there…..ever.   The standout scene in the 2005 version is when the priest comes to bless the house.  He ends up locked in a room with a swarm of flies.  I believe his last line of dialogue is “Your house scares me”.  Buddy, you’re not joking….it scares me too.

The orignal had the stigma attached to it that the story was based on actual events.  It came out several years ago, that it was in fact fiction and the events that transpired in the house didn’t actually happen.  Both films still have the ability to leave you a bit restless.

L – The Lost Boys (1987)
Ok, so not so much a “horror” film, but it has Vampires.  And that is always a good thing.  Michael and Sam are brothers who, with their divorced mother, move to the coastal town of Santa Carla.  Things from strange to freaky when Michael gets mixed up with bad seeds of the town.   Michael finds himself walking the fine line between human and vampire and Sam tries to help get his brother back by enlisting the help of the Frog brothers. 

Comedy ensues, and vampire guts fly.  Death by stereo was invented.  And as far as I’m concerned, anything with Keifer Sutherland, is bound to rock.  This is a Vampire film made for an MTV Generation.

L – Last House on the Left (2009)
I have to go with the remake on this one since I’ve never seen the original.  I know I know, bad Tracy!  I went to see one because my Aunt called in a marker.  I drag her to a load of crap movies, so this was her pick.  I came out surprised.

After a family tragedy, Mari Collingwood goes to spend the summer with her parents at their summer home.  After visiting with a friend in town, Mari gets caught up with nasty group of people.  Violence, trauma, death, the usual stuff ensues.  Tony Goldwin and Monica Potter play Ma and Pa Collingwood and the leader of the bad guys is the stellar Garret Dillahunt.  You may not know the name, but you’ll know him when you see him.   This film has plenty of jumps and couple of parts that made my jaw hit the floor.  Not so much in the horror veins as the other films on this list, but it has just enough of that uneasy feeling to warrant a mention.

O -The Others (2001)
“I am your daughter!” Oh how I love saying that to my mom.  And she gets it, which makes it even better.  Having seen the movie with her, I pull out that line when appropriate.  The Others, starring Nicole Kidman as a wife and mother who is trying to raise her kids while her husband if off fighting in the Civil War.  Her kids have a condition where they can’t be exposed to sunlight, and loud noises bother them.  This film is typical, with the suspense and creepy factor.  I mean, the movie has Fionnula Flanagan in it.  And that woman knows how to serve up some creepy. 

There is a bit of a twist which I’m ashamed to say I didn’t see coming.  I’m normally quite good and spotting those kinds of things.  Perhaps I just wasn’t paying attention.  Anyway, if you watch it alone, with all the lights off and you start to hear noises, I would say one might be a bit unnerved.  I think I’ll call my mom right now and tell her once again that I am, indeed, her daughter.  It gets an eye-roll, but her response to this is nothing compared to her response to my next entry.

W -The Wizard of Oz (1939)
I know. You’re scratching your head thinking “what the hell is she thinking??”.  Wizard of Oz isn’t a horror movie!  I beg to differ.  This movie has been dishing the creep my entire life and then some.  A green witch hell bent on revenge!  Flying evil monkeys! Lions and tigers and bears oh my! Flying evil monkeys!  All of that is downright scary stuff.

Dorothy and her little dog get caught up in a tornado and ends up taking the yellow brick road trip of a lifetime with a couple of high maintenance companions.  You’ve seen it, you know the story.  You must also see the creepy too right?
Not to bring my mom into this again but, she hates this movie.  With a passion.  So of course, every time  it’s on TV,  I call her and tell her to flip it to whatever channel, which then leads to about 3 minutes of cursing in my ear.  Then I giggle and hang up.  It’s not nice, but it’s fun.  I watched this so much as a kid, I’ll probably never watch it again.  The thought of it creeps me out.

E – The Entity (1981)
Even though it’s been ages since I’ve seen this one, I can still recall certain scenes and they still freak me out a bit.  Barbara Hershey is Carla Moran.  A single mother who finds that the nighttime visits she is being paid, isn’t coming from a friendly, or human for that matter, source.  Carla finds herself the focal point of an entity that forces itself on her continuously.  Thinking that she is going mad, she enlists the help of a paranormal research team.  After a plan to rid Carla of her attacker goes awry, but seems to work, Carla and her family bail from the house they were living in to start fresh.  At the end Carla still experiences the attacks but with less frequency.  Pretty messed up right?  Word on the street is that this film is based on actual events and experiences of the main character. 

Given the subject matter, it’s probably not a proper movie for a youngster to watch….which is exactly what I was when I saw it on HBO.  Anything that says it’s based on fact, or actual events, or inspired by true events shines like a beacon to me.  I’m instantly curious and must see it.  Call it morbid curiosity I guess.  I don’t have a particular need to re-watch this one however.  Just the thought of it being based on fact is enough to give me goosebumps!

E -The Exocist (1973)
Growing up I never had any restrictions about what I was allowed to watch.  As evidenced by my previous entry.  The Exocist was the one film that was forbidden.  I asked and asked and begged and pleaded with my mom to let me watch it.  Every time I got a stern look followed by “ABSOLUTELY NOT!”  It wasn’t until I was 18 and legally an adult, although still living at home with mom, that I brought it home from work.  She asked me what movie I rented and I proudly stated “The Exorcist!” After enduring another stern look, she turned around and walked out of the room leaving me to my scare fest.  After watching poor little Regan turn into something evil and do some not so nice things with a crucifix, I understood my mom’s reluctance. 

I actually didn’t think the film was super scary either.  Even though I may never look at pea soup the same way again.  I guess the issue here was that since it was so forbidden, I had it built up in my head that this was the movie that I was going to lose sleep over, and I felt a little bit let down.  Several years later when it was re-released in the theaters, I went with a boat load of friends and felt the effect to a greater degree.  Seeing Regan do that crazy spider walk down the stairs on the big screen genuinely freaked me out.

N – Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
1, 2, Freddie’s comin’ for you……3, 4, better lock your door…..5,6, grab a crucifix…7,8 gonna stay up late…..9,10 never sleep again.
Freddie Kruger.  The best villain of the 80′s horror movies.  He was so much more effective than Jason or Michael Myers.  I attribute it to the fact that Freddie had a quality that the others didn’t…..personality.  Freddie was such a menacing figure, but he terrorized with panache.   And you have to give kudos to Robert Englund for pulling that off.  Freddie runs around and wreaks havoc on the kids whose parents yanked him out of the living gene pool years prior.  The twist, he’s offing these kids by way of their dreams.  Nancy is the one smart teenager who puts it all together and fights Freddie to the bitter end. 

The remake is currently in post production with Jackie Earle Haley donning the infamous striped sweater.  I think it’s a perfect fit, no pun intended.  I recently watched the trailer and got a bit excited for it, so hopefully it’ll do the original justice.  Whether or not they decide to continue on with the sequels is anybody’s guess.  I stopped watching after Dream Warriors.  It just got plain silly after that.  I was impressed with Wes Craven’s New Nightmare however.  I thought that was an interesting spin on the story.  Nightmare is a must see for anyone who digs the scary movies.  When this film came out, it was a rare occasion where you simultaneously laughed and screamed at the same time.  Good ole Freddie just had that effect on people.

Well folks, that sums up my list.  I hope I’ve given you all some ideas on what movie you’re going to watch on Halloween.  So go get your loved one, hunker down and grab a wubie, turn off the lights and put in your favorite scary movie.  That’s exactly what I’ll be doing on October 31st.  Let us know what scary movies you love and why in the comments.