Halloween Watching Suggestions

            I figured for Halloween I would do one of the easiest hack blog entries a person can do, a series of movie recommendations based around Horror.

 Franchise to binge: “Nightmare on Elm Street”

            I don’t think I am ruffling any feathers in the horror community to say that the Nightmare franchise has the highest overall quality, ESPECIALLY for a series with as many entries as it has.

            A special commendation has to go to the second entry as being the one with the best themes and best blend of creative dream nonsense with actual horror elements, but I am betting that number 3 is the one that most people will list as the high-water mark of the series.  The fifth entry is perhaps the worst, a shame because I feel it brushes against greatness.  There is just something off about it which kills it.

            With 9 entries it is enough for a whole Halloween, and I think that Freddy the character, the implied mythology, and the various missteps I see in the series could fill a book.  I have talked about the franchise some before, but it was only last year that I finished watching all of it.

TV Shows to Watch

            As a Netflix and Amazon guy there is a lot of stuff on Hulu that I am not able to access (but there is still stuff I would recommend).

            The first pick would be “Hannibal” which is a series I watched on a lark thinking, “A prequel series to Silence of the Lambs…. I bet this is a cash grab mess.”  Turns out it is one of the most visually arresting series I have ever watched, and I consider the heroic protagonist Will Graham to be a character I identify with to a shocking level (like, while watching the show, I would finish the character’s sentences).  The first season is fantastic and will hook you for the second.

            The second is one people have probably already seen, “The Haunting of Hill House” (I did a review of the audiobook).  Mike Flanagan is a creative person who has instantly entered into my “I will consume anything and everything they make” category.  And as soon as I have more time I will be binging his latest series, “The Haunting of Bly Manor”.

Cartoons Series and Animated Movies

            I have talked before about my infinite love of the “Ghostbusters” franchise, and I can point to two opportunities to experience underappreciated aspects of the franchise.  “Extreme Ghostbusters” (It has one of the best theme songs ever) the 90’s animated sequel to the 80’s “The Real Ghostbusters” cartoon is probably the most underrated cartoon of the 90’s (plenty of people would point to “Freakazoid”, but that show has gotten a lot more love in the years that followed).  It is currently on Hulu, and I love it.

            Continuing with ghost busting, there is “Filmation’s Ghostbusters”, which aside from having a talking TV, Car, and Gorilla on the team is also one of most fever dream of all the cartoons I have ever seen.  I wish, in the depths of my soul that Filmation had been less of a shit about “The Real Ghostbusters” because I think a crossover animated movie would have been a delightful relic of the late 80’s.  What could have been.

            As far as movies, I have talked about my love of stop motion before, and this is going to be a case of me vigorously pointing at the work of Studio Laika and saying, “Watch their stuff!”  But start with “Coraline” an adaptation of the Neil Gaiman novel of the same name (and I love Neil Gaiman).  But then move onto “ParaNorman” a movie that gets the tears welling up at the climax every time I watch it. 

Most Under Rated Movie

            I find myself mentally revisiting the movie “Underwater” all the time.  It is a mix of science fiction and horror tropes that speaks to me.  The acting is great, the use of claustrophobia and aquaphobia are fantastic when coupled with the simple plot of, “We are being hunted and we have to get out”.

            It has perhaps the coolest monster reveal at the films climax I have ever seen.  I was legitimately filled with dread and awe when watching Kristen Stewart trying to deal with these horrifying things in the dark.

            I would also say that this movie benefits from the audience going into it knowing as little as possible to help preserve some of the set piece moments and plot developments.

           Give it more of a shot than the studios did, when they released it to no fanfare, little promotion, and after having shelved it for years.

 

 

______________________________

            If you like or hate this please take the time to comment, share on Twitter (click that link to follow me), Tumblr, or Facebook, and otherwise distribute my opinion to the world.  I would appreciate it.

 

Halloween Horror Nights 2018

I went to Halloween Horror Nights this year.  I managed to visit all of the houses, the Villains Academy dance show, and pass thru all the scare zones.  I also managed to go on “The Mummy” ride and the Rock-It Roller Coaster (which, while a good coaster, its theme feels like a parody of what “the youth” thinks is cool).

While I can say that the scare zones were fine, and the dance show was… Lame, I am sorry, there were cool things in it, but overall it did not come together… Everyone knows that the houses are what people are there to see.  So, I am going to review them, as I have done in the past.

I was going to put these in no particular order, then afterword I tried to shuffle them from lamest to best, here are my thoughts on each house.

10) Carnival Graveyard: Rust in Pieces

Rednecks/Carnies hold up in the rusting ruin of an abandoned carnival, and they are all dressed to theme… because I guess they are auditioning to be minions for the Joker.

            This one suffered from multiple issues.  While in my mind, scary carnival is easy to pull off (I wrote a whole novelette with that premise) this one was kind of bland with the idea.  I mean killers in carnival garb is fine, could have a lot of visual variety… But it mostly just shook out to the word “trespassers” written in red paint next to a fake dead body with a pitchfork in it.

            The timing on this one was also off for me, I missed a good chunk of the scares.

9) Slaughter Sinema

Let’s take the idea of grindhouse drive in movies and make a series of different spoof films with horror themes.

The potential for visual variety in this one was high, and several of the areas were really cool… I wish that they had managed to scare me more.

            The timing of the scares was COSMICALLY off.  There was a whole area I walked thru with NOTHING moving.  At some points I was literally squinting into the darkness because I wanted to SEE the thing that was going to jump out at the next person in line.

            This could have been my favorite, but failure of execution kept it from delivering.

8) The Horrors of Blumhouse

A split house featuring scenes from “Happy Death Day” (which was a time loop movie with a masked killer) and “The First Purge” (latest in the surprisingly iconic franchise).

            What an odd pairing.  “Happy Death Day” is a comedy about… a masked killer which does not make for an interesting visual experience.  I have to admit, they do something clever with the house, repeating the same bedroom scene multiple times from different angles to simulate the movie… But it is not scary.

            “The Purge” side of things is better, because the killers all wear a range of diverse and badass masks… I will have to talk about “The Purge” franchise one of these days… But, the house doesn’t really work overall.  Two tastes that taste bland together.

7) Seeds of Extinction

Alien plant life is spreading out and unleashing humanoid plant monsters on the world.

            I like the concept and the setting was nice… I think I would have liked the monsters a lot more if I could freaking see them.  The thing was so poorly lit, it was harder to see in this house than the house where going blind is part of the gimmick.

            I feel this is a bit of a letdown, but not actually bad.

6) Stranger Things

Iconic scenes from one of the best shows in existence.

            It’s fine.  I like the show, as a show.  I get a mild mental *ping* from recognizing something from the show as a room in the house.  I can appreciate the cool monster suit.  This is not particularly scary.  My emotional response was quite mellow.

5) Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers

Michael Myers is out and swinging his knife wildly at people yet again.

This was the last house we went to and we almost didn’t bother.  Previous years’ “Halloween” houses have been kind of ‘meh’.  This has more to do with my personal ambivalence toward the series (the first one is good in the sense of being a classic, but I actually like the strangeness of number 3 more).  A masked killer is just not that impressive to me from a visuals standpoint, and not conducive to an imaginative house.

That all being said, this one was pretty good.  The timing hit me multiple times and I think it was just laid out well so that I wasn’t constantly aware of where the scare was coming from.  A well-constructed house makes up for blah source material.

4) Dead Exposure: Patient Zero

World War I era zombie outbreak in France… and you are going blind.

This was a surprise highlight for the evening.  The use of lights coming up and fading out, odd flashes, mirrors, and holograms they were able to put a good spin on what could have just been a zombie house with a period setting.

Not everything about it worked, the speakers going in were too loud; one room was just flashing bulbs; but, it had one of the best singular rooms when the lights come on with a zombie, and then go out, only to then return without the zombie.  Cool effect see that is hard to explain the interesting aspects of in words.

3) Poltergeist

A family is haunted by a variety of strange occurrences.

“Poltergeist” is one of my favorite scary movies.  It is well paced, has numerous interesting set pieces and has a likable cast of characters doing their best.

This house was kind of great.  With several HUGE items showing off some of the scariest images in the movie.  I find the use of that clown toy to be a bit much, a consequence of that remake NO ONE SAW.  But, if you have to grab onto memorable things… the clown is memorable.  My biggest complaint is that the house starts at the end of the movie, with coffins and dead bodies erupting out of the ground, like… why?

This might be the best house.  Really the top 3 are all pretty even with one another.

2) Trick ‘r Treat

Based on a movie more people need to watch.  A series of different horror stories weave in and out of one another on Halloween night.

This was conducive to lots of visual variety, undead children, vampire, serial killer, werewolves, and Sam, the creepy sack boy mascot character.

Literally the only issue I had is that right in the front the path splits, I was unsure which direction to walk down, and ended up on a dead-end that should have had a staff member to point me in the right direction.  Aside from that there were plenty of cool images and my friends held it as one of the highlights of the whole visit.

Watch this movie.

1) Scary Tales: Deadly Ever After

Evil interpretations of fairy tales. 

A series of fairy tales, with the wicked witch, humpty dumpty, the three pigs, goldilocks, Rapunzel, and others.  All of them done as horror monsters.  I loved it.  Only one of them did not make any sense to me and that was Humpty Dumpty, but I don’t know what they could have done… That’s not true I immediately have an idea just saying it out loud to myself.  But, that is fine.

Perhaps the most visually interesting of all the houses.  My personal favorite.

Conclusion

I liked Halloween Horror Nights this year more than last.  I got to take in everything, spend plenty of time with most of my friends from grad school, and really the spending time with friends was the core appeal here… the park was just an excuse to see people I used to either live with or live a 5-minute walk from.

I had intended to do this review in multiple parts, but I was busy mentally gearing up for a big test (probably write something about that later) and this just slipped down the priorities list as frivolity is wont to do.

As a side note, why don’t they bring back “Rocky Horror Picture Show”?  I liked it.

______________________________

            If you like or hate this please take the time to comment, +1, share on Twitter (click that link to follow me), Tumblr, or Facebook, and otherwise distribute my opinion to the world.  I would appreciate it.

Best Disney Character Designs

            I have not been posting nearly enough this year and I want to steer back from that.  To that end I have found a 30-day blog challenge and fluffed it out to 31 entries (since December has 31 days).  I have done a 30-day challenge before for movies, though that one was poorly executed (I started it in the middle of a month, at one point I posted 2 entries on one day, it is a mess).  I did another one just this year in August on Video Games, that one was better, go read it after this one, all of it.  Or don’t, no pressure.

            Today is day 16 and the topic is “Best Character Designs”.

This movie took second place in the “Favorite Setting” entry, and edges out “Inside Out” for best character designs.  The glowing embodiments of emotions found in “Inside Out” are rather hard to top, but this movie has an element of that concept—embodying something—and has the advantage of sheer numbers as a good chunk of the opening musical number is introducing the various creative nightmares that populate this little corner of the world.

This thing is an avalanche of fan artwork.

“The Nightmare Before Christmas” was not the darling of Disney when it came out, but due to having strong appeal for the two most profitable holidays on the calendar it has met with enough replay to attain an iconic status.  The unique imagery and strange designs allow it to exist on its own grading scale of style and fashion, allowing it to be the un vivisected golden goose of Hot Topic and a touchstone of modern gothic aesthetic.

Most of the rest of this blog is not about character design but related topics to “The Nightmare Before Christmas”.  Just FYI.

Compare and Contrast

I would say that what makes “Nightmare” work so much more compared to its contemporary counterpart, “James in the Giant Peach” is the mean spirited tone of “James” while “Nightmare” is idealistic and hopeful, in spite of the main character being the villain of the movie.

And before you object, Jack is definitely the villain protagonist of the movie.  Jack kidnaps Santa Claus to steal his place in the pantheon of holidays, that is an evil and selfish act, the Grinch was a villain and he didn’t even kidnap any people.  Sure, Oogie Boogie is a more transparently dangerous threat, but he is not the inciting incident and mostly serves the narrative as a final threat to overcome rather than an insidious force.

BUT, that being said, the idealism shines thru when you see that Jack doesn’t take over Christmas out of malice but because he thinks he could do well at it and wants to grow beyond his personal limitations.  Jack’s character arc is realizing that his limitations exist and that he should embrace his talents.

I also just don't really like the taste of peach in general.
Watching them eat this thing made me kind of sick to my stomach.

Meanwhile, Spiker and Sponge, the villainous aunts in “James” are so transparently vile and have no reason for abusing James beyond just being assholes that the film feels dirtier and more unpleasant for them being in it.  Which is the point, but I am saying that is why it is a less well remembered movie overall.

Another contrast that can be drawn to “Nightmare” is its younger sibling, “The Corpse Bride”.  Made by mostly the same team, both are musicals with macabre subject matter, and both use stop motion animation.  What allows “Nightmare” to stand out in this comparison is how it has a light side to juxtapose with the darkness.  Christmas Town is a bright happy place covered with snow and happy décor, by showing it after showing Halloween Town the creative division is all the more striking and interesting.

MORE GREY!

Conversely, “Corpse” is grey and dower the whole way.  The underworld presented is actually more lively than the living world which is perhaps the moodiest film location I have can recall.  That lack of contrast makes the movie, literally and figuratively duller in the mind’s eye.

Stop Motion Animation

            I have a particular soft spot for stop motion animation.  The idea of bringing toys to life via the magic of photography makes my brain light up.  Unfortunately, even though Disney has made use of the technique in the past it seems to be the forgotten tool in their shed at this point.  While they have expanded in breadth and depth their Intellectual Property stable and have kept the pokers hot in numerous techniques (CGI, hand drawn animation, live action productions, MUPPETS, and news/sports) they have not been supporting stop motion as much as I think they could.

            In comes Studio Laika, creators of “ParaNorman” (which I love), “Box Trolls” (which I love), their adaptation of “Coraline” (Which I love both as a book and movie), and “Kubo and the Two Strings” (which came out this year and I did not have an opportunity to see yet, but I will probably love it).

I love this stuff.

Laika has also produced “The Corpse Bride” which (as mentioned above) I did not care as much for, but that was in 2005, 4 years before “Coraline”, so it is fair to say they are a different company now and that project was very much emphasizing the creative vision of Tim Burton.

Laika is the big dog on the field concerning stop motion animation and THEY DO NOT GET ENOUGH ATTENTION.  Even though their movies are made relatively inexpensively, to an average of $40 million, a steal by animated feature standards, and they consistently produce strong writing and animation they do not get the commercial and critical attention they deserve.

            I actually envision a future in which Laika is bought out by Disney and turned into a stop motion Pixar, running themselves but having the advertising and merchandising empire of Disney to make them much more known and profitable.  I do not know if that will happen, but if it did, I couldn’t see it as a bad thing.

            Share your own thoughts on this in the comments.  I know I am not the only person out there who is nostalgic for Disney products, and I am sure many people disagree with my selection for today’s entry. 

I picked Disney stuff just because I knew there was so much of it to talk about and it lends itself to discussion in the comments.  So please, tell me how my opinion about cartoon movies is biased and how your opinion on cartoon movies is objectively right.

______________________________

If you like or hate this please take the time to comment, +1, share on Twitter, Tumblr, or Facebook, and otherwise distribute my opinion to the world.  I would appreciate it.

Halloween Horror Nights XXIII, pt 2

            "At the late night, science fiction ooh-ah-ooh, Double Feature, Picture Show."

            While at Universal Studios some weeks back now I went to a lot of effort to talk about the Haunted Houses which were the main attraction, but there are of course other points of interest, two of which are stage shows, the first being the "Rocky Horror Picture Show" and the other, "Bill and Ted's Excellent Halloween Adventure", whose west coast counterpart has been taking heat for being homophobic.  There were also rides which I had never been on: Despicable Me, The Mummy, and Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit.

            Starting with the rides and speaking as a man whose last trip to the studios included "Jaws", "King Kong" and "ET" all of which are now gone I was a little blown away by their replacements.  "The Mummy" is huge fun and has some meta humor and is actually an indoor roller coaster rather than just a tour of the movie, ending with Brendan Fraser being charming.  It is a lot of fun.

            "Despicable Me" has a cute little story and the same cute characters that work in the movies... Movies I have not scene.  I got the dynamic and the setting and it too was fun, it was a 3D immersion ride that had the audience bouncing around with the smell of banana all around.  Again, fun enough.

            I like roller coasters and the Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit was very cool.  Pick a song to listen to on the ride, I picked Kanye West's "Stronger" and it made things move at a good pace... What am I talking about I was on a roller coaster, it did nothing to the pace.  The pace was already fast.  That was the point.  I barely heard the music because I laugh like a fool on coasters.  Still immense fun even if that particular gimmick has less impact on me than it might others.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

            The real highlights were the shows, The first being "Bill and Ted's Excellent Halloween Adventure at Universal Studios", or as my brother called it, "Bill and Ted's Halloween Topical Reference Musical Number".  I really had no idea what to expect from this, apparently it just takes a lot of pop culture references (mostly memes) and some legitimately good group performances of pop music and strings them together.  Lot of fart jokes, lot of stupid crap... and yes I know it is "Bill and Ted" but those movies, cartoons, and TV shows were more clever than just fart jokes and references, they were more like retard "Doctor Who" (There was a live action "Bill and Ted" show.  Seriously.  Do you believe that?  It looks and was terrible).  I guess it was worth watching, but once they had a "Sharknado" costume walk out to help fight Selena Gomez and Miley Cyrus (the obvious missing joke for me was not having the actor playing Robin Thicke in the black and white stripe suit turn into "Beetlejuice").  I was just thinking of "Epic Movie" and "Meet the Spartans" and wanting to strangle someone.  It bounced back with the final pop music mash up though.

Adequate!

            The real-real highlight was the other show, which was a bit less packed but a hell of a lot less crap.  I had never been to an audience participation presentation of "Rocky Horror Picture Show" and it was a lot of fun.  Water guns, corsets, and a lot of very fit dancer/singers playing it up with real reverence toward the goofy material that they were performing.  "Rocky Horror" is a legendarily "bad" movie, a "Sharknado" of its time, but was made with zero cynical mindset and the people who made it had a soul.  If nothing else you can say, "it is like nothing else".  That is what sets it apart from "Bill and Ted".  Both are musical, but one is a quick and legit presentation of material that is original and heartfelt, the other is a cynical chain of, "that thing, and that other thing, and that other-other thing", which is not all that fun.

 

Seriously, everyone had a six pack.  So many crunches must have been done in preparation for this show.

(Next will be on the subsequent trip to Disney's Hollywood Studios, and the Epcot World Food Festival)

Halloween Horror Nights XXIII, pt1

            Last week I and some friends went to Halloween Horror Night 23, it was the first time I had ever been there and the first time in maybe a decade or more that I had gone to the Studios side of the Universal parks (For instance, the last time I went the highlights were still King Kong, Jaws, and E.T.).  We hit up Islands of Adventure first and did the big rides (I had no idea that the park had upgraded Spiderman so much, Hydro-Man, Hobgoblin, and Doctor Octopus all had character model upgrades and everything looked a lot more fluid).  We finished up at the gate Horror Nights and thanks to two of my friends superpowers, speed pass from one of them, and copious knowledge of Orlando parks from the other we were able to blitzkrieg the entire thing, visiting each horror house at least once, and some multiple times.

            Because I like to I will now rank the 8 of them from worst to best and express my happiness for having went to the thing overall.  It was a lot of fun.  The Walking Dead theme for the majority of the park was cute with zombies randomly yelling and shambling all over the place (one of our party members is a five foot tall woman who looks about 14, conversely I am 6'1", so she got targeted almost to the point of inspiring pity, while I just laughed like a mad scientist in the face of each actor trying to scare me).

Apparently I was laughing my ass off through the whole thing because I like getting spooked.

8) "Resident Evil"

            The lowest was not by any means poorly executed, it had its charms, but someone has to be the bottom and since "Resident Evil" is more of a B-Movie hokey horror action thing it wasn't about the scares as much as the others.  It was fun to see the health spray and ammo under tiny spotlights making them stand out like they would in the game, but since "RE" does not illicit any nostalgic feelings in my soul the whole thing was just sort of 'meh'.

Mad science can be scary, but this just isn't to me.

7) "Havoc"

            This is an original story concocted to create a house at the park and it is alright, maybe it was just fatigue in that this one came later in the night and was only okay but nothing about it was especially memorable.  A train loaded down with deranged super soldiers crashes and they begin rampaging against the troops trying to contain the threat.  It doesn't really sound like the plot to a horror movie, really more of a Sy-Fy action movie, so it didn't get any points for tone either.

It is not a bad idea for a very small scale thriller movie, like "Predator" or "Alien".

6) "Evil Dead"

            My brother, who was part of the troupe, tells me that this was a very faithful adaptation of the movie, it is all there.  I didn't see the movie.  And I have no intention to as my brother told me the movie was not very good, and I am not a fan of gore as a selling point.  That all being said it does have HORROR as a central theme which puts it above the other two.  Though I must say, putting it in the same show as "Cabin in the Woods" seems to be the biggest possible handicap because "Evil Dead" plays the idea of stupid isolated kids attacked by monsters straight, and that whole idea was put to death by "Cabin".  It is an odd mood killer for "ED".

I don't even have all that much affection for the original and that has Bruce Campbell in it.

5) "The Walking Dead"

            This was the de facto theme for the whole park with shambling undead actors everywhere and the remnants of a military resistance to the horde left broken and empty all over the place, the house itself takes you back to societies downfall, with military fighting zombies and losing.  If you don't mind zombies still being a thing (and I kind of do, because seriously "Dawn of the Dead" was 10 years ago this stuff should have boiled off to a new fad by now) then you will get more mileage out of it.  It might actually be ranked higher just because it was the first house we went through and so got me at a fresher state of mind.

WHY ARE ZOMBIES STILL A THING?

4) "After Life"

            This one will hurt your brain.  Using laser and lighting effects combined with 3D glasses there are neon ghosts EVERYWHERE, and I got so lost in the crazy hellish imagery that I had to be pointed in the right direction by helpful park employees several times.  This actually works to its advantage because it is the most visually distinct thing in the whole park and getting literally lost in the visuals is kind of awesome.  And it is really creepy as you are going through hell.

MY EYES!  THE GOGGLES DO NOTHING!

3) "An American Werewolf in London"

            I find this movie to hit that sweet spot between overrated and classic.  Yeah it is a little slow by modern standards but the effects are still good today, and it is still studied in film classes and special effects workshops for its cutting edge practical effects and makeup.  You can tell the people who made this house loved the movie and have a great familiarity with the material, the house moves through the story and has some great scenes on display, it is a lot of fun.  Probably will rank lower for people who haven't seen it, in which case I would recommend watching the movie.

It will not measure up to its classic status, but totally measures up to its status as a classic.  It is a paradox.

2) "La Llorona"

            This is a hispanic legend about a woman who murdered her own children to be with the man she loved, only to be spurned by him, go even more crazy and start kidnapping and killing more children.  Since this was a legend I had not heard before, and it has a legitimately creepy aspect with very vulnerable victims and great images of a murderous woman in a wedding dress and drown kids the house works really well.  I think it actually worked even better on me because I seemed to be going through it at just the right time.  Actors who had just finished jumping out at the people 10 steps ahead of me would be discretely hiding and slipping into shadows, which made them much more ghostly, fleeting from vision, then something would jump out or move just enough so that I could become aware of it in the shadows, it was less jump scare and more just unnerving.

Totally did not expect anything from this, and it ended up getting a silver medal.  Good job guys.

1) "Cabin in the Woods"

            I love this movie, and apparently so did the prop and make up department because they were able to go bananas with the 50 different monsters coming from every direction.  Two of my friend with us had already gone to an earlier weekend and went through "Cabin" without having seen the movie, and had no idea what was going on, but it inspired them to go see the movie and they loved it, and they then loved the house more as a result.  It is a wonderful tour of a great movie that shows the full range of horror's creative nature, FANTASTIC.

It is so god damn good.

(Part 2 is on the other rides and shows...)

Halloween Costumes 2011

            I have been considering what to be for Halloween.  And have come down to about 4 options.  Each has some cost though, trying to spend as little as possible while getting a complete look will be challenging.

Halloween is cool.

             Possibility 1: Matt Smith's portrayal of the Doctor from "Doctor Who".  No TaRDiS necessary to pull this off really, and I already have the boots, but damned if his nerdy get up doesn't require some pick up.  Bowtie, red fine stripped shirt, tweed jacket with elbow patches, and black slacks with suspenders.  All of that and his flashlight sized Sonic Screwdriver, which is a bit pricey in my opinion, though it is a fun little prop if I want to cos-play as the character at a convention at some point.

Maybe the hair would be a concern too.

             Possibility 2: Superman from the New 52's "Action Comics #1".  This is Superman as he was at the beginning of his crime fighting, when his costume was a Superman shirt, jeans, boots and a cape.  Biggest problem here is the cape, which while cheap has no function beyond this costume.  I will never again wear a bright red cape.  So the last son of Krypton is cheaper than the last son of Gallifrey, but I think they are both out.

In like Flynn.

             Possibility 3: Robin Hood.  This mostly comes down to my ability to cut my goatee into a Robin Hood look, and wear some green along with it.  I will need a hat, and I think I will not go for tights, instead going for more of a green shirt, outdoor pants, and a toy bow and arrow kind of thing.  Since there is no medieval fair in this area before Halloween this one would be hard to do convincingly.

dum dum dum dum dum dum dum FLASH!  And yes, this is the only picture aside from those on IMDB, which I can't copy paste and then link to.

            Possibility 4: Flash Gordon.  This is actually the front runner because it has several advantages.  The most expensive part of the costume is the single T-Shirt, which I would but and wear anyway, and having to bleach the shit of my hair.  And yes, I will bleach the shit out of my hair because I actually considered doing that earlier this year just to see how it would look. And it is apparently easy to accomplish.