Predator is cult classic and a great movie to draw from when it comes to fun Halloween costumes. The original Predator movie spawned a few sequels starring the Predator, a lizard like alien life form. The Predator is a great Halloween costume that will help put anyone into the Halloween mood. The original movie starred future politicians Arnold Schwarzenegger who went on to be the governor of California in addition to an action movie legend and pro-wrestler Jesse Ventura who ended up serving as the governor of Minnesota. The movie came out in 1987 and was panned by critics for its lack of a storyline and the absurd premise. The bad reviews didn’t stop fans from seeing it, and they loved the special effects and the grisly fighting scenes and Predator become a horror and action film cult classic.
In the beginning of the film viewers see a spaceship approaching the Earth, and then there is an abrupt cut to the Guatemala coast. Viewers then meet Major Alan “Dutch” Schaefer who is the head of a military task force group that has been sent into Guatemala to rescue a member of the presidential cabinet who has been kidnapped and is being held in the rainforest of Guatemala by guerilla fighters opposed to the sitting government. Traveling with Dutch to help him are some of his oldest military friends like George Dillon, a CIA agent and Blain Cooper.
When the team is dropped by helicopter into the rainforest they find the remains of a crashed military helicopter and the skinned bodies of several Special Forces soldiers. The task force finds that strange but continues on with their mission. The team quickly overcomes the guerilla force, killing them all, and takes prisoner a woman who had been held by the guerillas, Anna. With Anna and the cabinet minister in tow they start out to get to the rendezvous point where they will be picked up by the military. At that point the viewers see the group being scanned by a thermal imager, which is the Predator. The Predator begins to hunt them, skinning anyone it kills and taking trophies. At that point the bodies that were found when the team first dropped into the area make sense and they realize that the creature has been hunting them and others in the area all along.
One by one the members of the task force drop, until only Dutch Shaefer and Anna are left. Realizing that the creature won’t attack someone that isn’t armed Dutch sends Anna to the rendezvous point to get help. In one of the most famous fight scenes of the movie Dutch and the creature face off and Dutch, badly hurt, accidentally falls in deep mud. When the creature can’t seem to find him he realizes that the creature is following his body’s heat signature and with that signature dampened by the cold mud the creature can’t find him. Dutch uses that to his advantage to fight back. The creature challenges Dutch to a hand to hand combat fight to the death, which Dutch accepts. After a violent battle Dutch manages to kill the Predator and is rescued by Anna and the rendezvous team.
Some of the most sought after Halloween costumes this year are sure to be characters from the sequel to the hit Transformers movie. The sequel, called Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, was eagerly awaited by fans and released in the summer of 2009. The production was almost delayed by the Writer’s Guild strike and the threat of an Actor’s Guild strike but in the end the producers and directors managed to pull the film together in time to meet the expectations of fans. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was one of the most anticipated movies of the summer along with movies like Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.
All of the fans favorite characters are back in the sequel, and there are some new characters too. The sequel picks up two years after the original film. Sam Witwicky the lead male character, is heading off to college while his girlfriend Mikaela stays behind and works in a motorcycle shop. The Autobots, led by Optimus Prime, have partnered with American and British forces to form NEST, a group that seeks out Decepticons who are hiding around the world. Joining Optimus Prime in this mission are Arcee, Jolt, Sideswipe and twins Skids and Mudflap. There is some opposition to NEST, and not everyone in the American government is convinced that NEST is a good idea. The Decepticon Demolisher is killed by Optimus Prime but predicts that the Fallen will rise up again to try and rule the world. In the meantime a Decepticon named Soundwave has discovered the location of Megatron’s corpse. Ravage, one of Soundwave’s henchmen, is sent to retrieve Megatron. Contructicons and a robot surgeon named Scalpel work tirelessly to repair Megatron and ultimately end up bringing him back to life. Megatron is sent to a Decepticon spacecraft hovering around Earth where he meets up with Starscream and the Fallen.
Meanwhile at college Sam Witwicky finds a piece of the shard of AllSpark, which gives the Transformers life. He begins to have a mental breakdown and sees Cybertronian text everywhere. Bumblebee and Mikaela try to help him but they are unable to. They do end up saving him from a Decepticon named Alice who tries to get the shard from him. The complicated storyline of the movie continues to follow the main plot of the conflict between Optimus Prime and Megatron but it also contains several different complicated subplots that don’t seem to have a lot of connection to the rest of the movie until the end, when it’s revealed that the Transformers and humans share a common history that has never been revealed. Optimus Prime declares that the robots and the humans need to put aside their differences and live together using their common history as a starting point.
Fans of the original Transformers movie will be happy to see all their favorite robots and humans are back in the sequel, and the new characters provide some interesting new storylines. Dress up as your favorite Transformer this Halloween and let the world know which side you are on, Autobot or Decepticon.
Halloween can be just as much fun for infants and toddlers as it can be for older kids, but when you’re choosing costumes for your little ones it’s important to take into consideration some of the special needs that infants and toddlers have. Here are some things to think about and fun costume ideas for infants and toddlers:
Weather – if you live in an area where fall is in full swing by the time that Halloween rolls around you should pick a costume for your infant or toddler that comes with some layers or is thick enough to keep your child warm without having to put a coat on the child. If you live in an area that is cold by Halloween some good costumes for little ones are: a pumpkin, an Easter egg, a punk rocker, an elf from Santa’s workshop, a dragon, a bunny, a teddy bear, a fish or dolphin, or other animal costumes. If you live in an area that isn’t quite so cold during the winter then you can choose from costumes like: a mermaid, a hippie, a flapper, a fairy, or another costume that isn’t made of heavy fabrics.
Ease of Movement – Even though infants won’t need a lot of room to move in their costumes you should pick infant costumes that are easy to get on and off to make diaper changes easy. A good choice for infant costumes is to pick one of your child’s favorite TV or book characters like Blue from Blue’s Clues, Bob the Builder, Dora the Explorer, a character from Sesame Street, Curious George, or one of the Teletubbies. These costumes usually are made up a single piece that zips which make diaper changes and getting the infant in and out of the costume easy. For toddlers look for costumes that won’t restrict their movements or make it difficult for them to walk with tripping. Superhero costumes are great choice for toddlers because they usually have tights and leotards that make movement easy but keep kids warm. Ballerina costumes, cowboy costumes, and animal costumes that have sturdy feet also are good choices for toddlers.
Minimum fuss – If you’re looking for a costume for an infant or toddler look for costumes like a cat, a bat, a puppy, a policeman, a witch, a bug, and other costumes that don’t have a lot of pieces or require a lot of makeup. Chances are good your infant or toddler isn’t going to sit still while you dress him or her up in a fussy costume and will end up wiping off any makeup you put on them. So choose a costume that is fun but also simple. That way the costume will look just as good at the end of the night as it did at the beginning of the night.
There are a lot of adorable infant and toddler costumes you can pick from so remember to have fun and pick a costume that reflects both your personality and your child’s personality. It won’t be hard to find a costume that is safe, weather appropriate and fun for both you and your child.
Batman is a cultural icon. From its beginnings as a comic through many incarnations on TV and in movies the Batman character is a perennial favorite for Halloween. Some Batman costumes are based on the famous TV show from the 70s and are easy to identify as the TV Batman based on the costume style. But in the past few years there have been new, more modern Batman costumes created that were inspired by the Batman film character that has been shown in the recent Batman films. Even the Batman films of the late 1990s had a slightly campy feel to them and the costumes of characters like Batman, Batgirl, Mr. Freeze, The Joker, The Riddler, and Poison Ivy seemed like costumes straight out of a comic and the characters themselves were never fully developed.
But the recent Batman Begins and Batman: The Dark Knight films were much darker and more action oriented than the Batman movies in the past. In these films the Batman character is portrayed as much more conflicted emotionally. Batman’s dark side and the conflict he faces in being suave Bruce Wayne by day and Batman by night is more evident. In addition to a Batman with a dark side and a lot more depth moviegoers got to see several new villains like Ra’s Al Gul and The Scarecrow. The Joker, played by the late Heath Ledger, stole the show in The Dark Knight with his riveting portrayal of the infamous villain. The Joker as played by Heath Ledger remains an extremely popular Halloween costume.
The story of Batman is a story of loss. Bruce Wayne’s parents were murdered when he was just a small child, which left him a wealthy but lonely child looked after by a devoted servant and family friend. He develops an alter ego, Batman, who fights crime and fights to make the world a safer place. Throughout his many adventures Batman fights with the darkness inside himself and his own emotional conflicts. He comes across many enemies in Gotham City who have been portrayed on TV and in movies by many different well known stars. Some of those villains like The Riddler, Catwoman, The Penguin and Two Face have appeared in several movies being played by different stars.
Christopher Nolan, who directed both Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, is in talks to direct a third installment of the Batman saga but he has not committed to doing another film just yet. Even though no third film has been confirmed there have been rumors of a third installment featuring stars like Angelina Jolie playing Catwoman and Johnny Depp playing The Riddler, although British Doctor Who star David Tennant, who also made an appearance in a Harry Potter film, has expressed interest in playing the Riddler if a third film does take place.
Regardless of who directs the next Batman film it’s certain that there will be one. Batman remains one of the most popular characters of all time and is beloved by fans of comics, TV and movies all over the world.
Kids love dinosaurs, and there are plenty of dinosaurs making appearances in Land of the Lost that be fun Halloween costumes. Originally Land of the Lost was scheduled to be released as one of the summer blockbuster movies in July of 2009 but once the release date of the Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince movie was pushed back to July of 2009 the movie studio producing Land of the Lost changed the release date to June of 2009. The movie studio didn’t want Land of the Lost to be competing with the Harry Potter film for an audience. Land of the Lost is an updated remake of a 1970’s television series that followed the adventures and mishaps of a scientist and his two children who were sent back in time to the Pre-Historic era when dinosaurs roamed the Earth. The updated version is slightly different than the original and is written with many satirical references to the television series.
In the new film the main character Rick Marshall loses his job as an academic scientist because of his theories about time warps and time travels. He ends up teaching a science museum where he continues to work on an invention that he designed to trigger earthquakes which would in turn trigger a time warp. Instead of bringing along his children, as was the case in the original TV series, in the movie Rick Marshall ends up dragging with him the tour guide at a roadside attraction where he sets off his device named Will Stanton and a friend who had encouraged him to continue making the device named Holly Cantrell. After the device, a tachyon amplifier, is set off they end up trapped in a time warp. They also lose the tachyon amplifier as they are transported into a parallel world.
The parallel world contains dinosaurs like the T Rex, Allosaurs, and Velociraptors. It also contains cave men like the one that the three find to act as their guide, named Cha-ka. While they are running from a T Rex that they nicknamed Grumpy and looking for the tachyon amplifier so that they can return home they stumble into a evil plot to rule the world. The Zarn, played by Leonard Nimoy in the film, is thought to be the villain for most of the film but ultimately it is revealed that Enik is the actual villain who has been using an army of creatures called Sleestaks. Enik tries throughout the film to steal the tachyon amplifier for himself. In the end the trio of Rick Marshall, Will Stanton and Holly Cantrell find the tachyon amplifier, defeat both the T Rex and the evil Enik, and return to their time with proof of the existence of time warps which leads to the restoration of Rick Marshall’s career as a paleontologist.
Land of the Lost has lots of great characters that would be fun costume ideas for kids and adults for Halloween. If you live in an area that is cold by the time that Halloween rolls around a dinosaur costume is a fun way to stay warm and look great when it comes time for trick or treating.