The Midnight Warriors Return Triumphantly!

I asked, and you responded! What followed was nothing less than brilliance (except for the bad puns I'll probably use to describe them and their articles). Please welcome to FMWL, a guild of Midnight Warriors - both new and old. For those who haven't been round these parts recently, the question I posed to them all was....

"What's guaranteed to make you happy when it comes to Horror, Genre, or Cult cinema?"

Leading off, from the most wonderful blog From Beyond Depraved, the one and only Joe Monster with his take on the joy of Werewolfs. (Thankfully, Taylor Lautner makes no cameo appearance!)

Returning for a second tour of duty is Jinx, hostess with the most-est over at Totally Jinxed, who offers up a gleeful glance at five things that bring her happiness, including The Mike faves like setting a film on a spaceship or an old-fashioned whodunit! (Note to self: Whodunit...on a spaceship. Someone book it now!)

Another return participant is Enbrethliel who blogs fromage-style over at Shredded Cheddar. In response to our query she offers up a thrilling list of her top five "priest figures" in horror, a list I heartily approve of!

Participating in her first turn as a MW is AE from over at emma blackwood, which promises "A garden of man-eating plants and scary movies."! Not only that, but her list of 10 Horror Happy-makers had me dancing the Charleston - REALLY!

Also stepping in for the first time at FMWL is Stacia from the wonderful (and also freakin' gorgeous) blog She Blogged By Night. Her simple answer to my question is a fine one - Bela!

Our final return participant was one of my first blogging acquaintances, who can probably be blamed for me getting in way over my head in this blog game. She is none other than Nicki Nix from Hey! Look Behind You, and she offers up a Top 10 list that should make any Midnight Warrior proud. Seriously, it's got DVDs on it. The Mike and DVDs are like ham and cheese.

Last but not least is a blogger who's quickly become one of the most prolific viewers I've seen, Emily C from The Quest to Watch Every Movie Ever Made. She's sent over a Top 5 List which covers a ton of horror happy...and I'm gonna let it take this post home. Before I go, one last hearty THANK YOU! to all of the Midnight Warriors out there who're reading this. Until we meet again, keep finding whatever it is about flicks that makes you happy - no matter where you have to go to find it!

With no further ado, here's Emily C's rocking list........

5. Tom Atkins - Whenever I'm watching a movie and I see that Tom Atkins is in it, I find my heart melting, and I know that no matter what, whether I like a movie or not, Tom Atkin's presence will make it better just by his being in it. Seeing his face on screen makes me instantly happy, whether he is playing a douche (Creepshow) or an awesome dude. He's not the typical Hollywood leading man type that you picture in your head nowadays (you know, 20-something with a 20-pack), but something about him is so charismatic and so charming, that he wins my heart over whenever he's on screen.

4. The Fog - I read a post on Kindertrauma just the other day about The Fog, and what's not in The Fog, and it embodied everything I absolutely love about this movie. It's a movie that I was initially slow to warm to, as when I first saw it, it wasn't "exciting" enough for me (I was in that dumb teenage stage), but over the years it was grown on me, and now it is one of my absolutely favorite horror films. It's not actually my number one horror film, but it's the film that I reach to in my DVD collection the most. Whatever kind of day I'm having, or whatever kind of mood I'm in, The Fog seems to always be the perfect fit. It's one of those films that I could watch every day for the rest of my life and not get tired of. Its spooky story and haunting music just lull me into a trance of happiness that nothing can shake. Oh yeah, and Tom Atkins is in it of course!

3. Likable and Relatable Characters - Not to be negative in this post on happiness, but there are so many movies nowadays where the characters are just unlikable scumbags and that's really a downer. I love it when horror movies actually have characters that I like, and that I can see myself being friends with if they were actually real people. That's not to say that these characters have to be perfect, in fact flaws are good and these flaws contribute to their realism. I know that many horror films have an abundance of characters that are just fodder, and in a slasher for example, will become victims of the killer anyway, but if the characters are likable, and we have the chance to get to know them a bit, then when the killer is coming after them, it makes the movie more suspenseful. If you have some kind of investment in the characters that might possibly become the killer's next victims then you actually feel like shouting at the screen telling the character to look behind them. Having a jerk in a horror film is fine, but they all shouldn't be jerks, and when I find myself liking the characters that I'm watching (take Halloween '78 for example), I am a very happy camper.

2. Awesome Music - I love it when there is good music in a horror movie, whether it be a score that was composed specifically for a movie, or previously written songs that were chosen specifically for a movie. For example, many of John Carpenter's scores are entirely haunting, and simple, and fit his movies perfectly to create a specific mood, being used to enhance tension, or whatever he wants you to feel. On the other hand, in The Devil's Rejects, previously composed songs were selected for the soundtrack, and they work just as well to create a specific mood. I can't listen to "Free Bird" now without picturing the spectacular shootout between the Firefly's and the police, and for a specific song/scene combination to be that memorable is awesome.

1. Awesome Dancing - Usually "awesome" dancing for me has a humorous side to it, and dances like the disco dance in Prom Night, or Crispin Glover's improvised dance in Friday the 13th Part IV: The Final Chapter, are guaranteed to make me happy. The goofier the dance, the better in my opinion, whether at the time it was supposed to be serious or not. I know that Prom Night isn't the best horror movie ever (although I have a nostalgic fondness for it), but when the disco dancing starts, and the "Prom Night" song comes on, I can't help but smile. Similarly, when Crispin Glover turns on "Love is a Lie" and starts his totally '80s dance, any frown that I may have had on my face vanishes. Whether it be doing the robot in Friday the 13th Part V, or demonic dancing in Night of the Demons, awesome dancing is something that always makes me happy and puts me in a good mood!