Music:
MANOWAR, DETHKLOK, plague bringer, rwake, the makai, (lone) wolf & cub, 3 Inches of Blood, Daath, virgin steel, carnal forge, andrew wk, lair of the minotaur, older metallica, maiden, priest, nile, megadeth, unearth, slipknot, sabbath, ozzy, slayer, pantera, crue, children of bodom, edguy, dream evil, amon amarth, dragonforce, cougars, mountain goats, bright eyes, mirah, old weezer, local h, okgo, and superdrag.
Movies:
#5 - The Lost Boys - now i'm only counting this because you'd usually find it in the "horror" section, but as larsen and i discussed, if i'm thinking "i want to watch a horror movie," i'm not going to think of Lost Boys. that said, it's one of my favorite movies of all time. kiefer and haim give the best performances of their careers, the makeup was great, it was funny at the right times, and it always used to creep the hell out of me.
#4 - Nightmare on Elm St. pt. 3: The Dream Warriors - i don't get people who claim the sequels to these franchises aren't as good. the Dream Warriors (both the kids and the movie) kicked ass, and i thought this one had the best deaths and the funniest one-liners.
#3 - Sleepaway Camp - great movie. the shot of angela at the end is one of the creepiest things ever put on film. plus "M-E-G meg" rules. also, honorable mention to Sleepaway Camp 2, which is one of the most fun slashers i've ever seen. truly excellent deaths in that one.
#2 - Night of the Creeps - i just saw this for the first time a week ago, but it floored me. it was hilarious, the gore was awesome, the plot was classic 80's teen comedy stuff, and the constant allusions to other horror movies were truly choice. if you've never seen it, i highly recommend it.
#1 - Friday the 13th Part 3D - my favorite film of my favorite horror franchise of all. these movies used to scare the shit out of me as a kid. i like 2 because it's actually Jason (anyone who likes 1 best i'll never understand), and i like 4 except for how feldman gets Jason (come to think of it, this is also where i really dislike pt. 2), but part 3 is my favorite. i pretty much like this for the same reasons i like the first two movies listed above -- funny, good scares, good deaths, the cheesy 3-D stuff that isn't in 3-D any more, and part of a great franchise.
other favorites of note include Halloween 3 (the only one of the series i really liked, plus the only sequel that tried to continue the tradition carpenter originally envisioned), carpenter's Thing, Near Dark, Child's Play 1-3, Dawn/Day, Return of the Living Dead, Nightmares 2, 4, 6, and 8, all Jasons, Hellraiser 1 and 2, and for modern era stuff, only Saw 1 and 2, Final Destination 2, and the Hills Have Eyes remake make the grade for me. plus about a hundred more i'm probably forgetting.
how could i forget Slaughter High!? anyone who has seen this and likes slashers should fucking love Slaughter High.
Television:
METALOCALYPSE, king of the hill, 30 rock, the office (both), tim and eric awesome show great job, frisky dingo, wrestling, and wrestling tapes.
Books:
this guy jeffrey brown writes comics like "unlikely" and "any easy intimacy" and it's all really great. other stuff too. all of sandman, all of preacher, gatsby, catcher, and martin eden by jack london are all really good. david foster wallace. thompson.
Heroes:
RED DEER -- The metal gods were smiling on Jesse Maggrah.The 20-year-old man was walking beside railway tracks on Sunday, the Norwegian heavy metal band Gorgoroth cranked on his portable CD player, when he was hit by a freight train.Maggrah said he did hear the blast of the train horn just before he was hit."I tried to jump out of the way, but I guess not in time," he said yesterday from his bed at Red Deer Regional Hospital Centre."It was just instant. I was just walking and then I was on the ground. I wasn't sure what happened. Then I saw the train stopping up ahead. I thought, 'Holy crap, dude, you just got hit by a train.' "Police say the engineer and conductor on the northbound Canadian Pacific Railway train saw the man on the tracks several kilometres south of Red Deer. The crew blew the whistle and attempted to stop, but they were only able to slow the train to about 50 kmh before hitting him.Maggrah was thrown four to five metres from the tracks. Stunned, he moved his arms and legs to check for damage."I knew I was alive, so that was good."He has several broken ribs, one which is poking into a lung, his doctors have told him. Maggrah is also very sore and stiff, and is having trouble walking.Maggrah said he didn't hear the train over his music and he didn't feel anything through the ground."Maybe the metal gods above were smiling on me and they didn't want one of their true warriors to die on them. Otherwise, I'd be up there in the kingdom of steel."Police say no charges are pending against the man.