Good Queens are a dime a dozen. This year, outdo the usual royal variations that make appearances at Halloween parties worldwide.

Who says being a queen means you cannot be a little devious? Let this year’s holiday outfit tell a different tale and prove that even the most beautiful queen costume can be dark and naughty. Relish the power of demanding common peasants to accommodate your every whim and desire, if only for a single evening. The comfortably designed Wicked Queen costume is the perfect look for this year’s Halloween costume party!

The entire garment features a theme that is all brooding black. The long costume gown flows to the floor with a velvety accent in the front and smoky grey silk fabric draped over each hip. The bodice offers a low bust line to almost place this one in with the other sexy Halloween costumes. The sleeves are long and flowing, with excess fabric that drapes over the elbow and bunches at the shoulders to create an appearance of nobility. A choker clings to the neck and wraps around with a short collar, rising up towards the silver crown. No wicked queen would go for a bright golden crown. This wicked queen prefers the color of cold steel, complete with a basic filigree design and a red gem, accentuating the center. This costume is also available in plus sizes.

Director Sam Raimi and good friend Bruce Campbell set out to make a real scary movie…although filmed on 16mm, The Evil Dead is good enough to be your next nightmare and a hell of a lot better than your run of the mill slice and dice. Campbell plays Ash Williams, one of five college friends set out to have a wild weekend in the woods. Two guys…three girls journey to a remote cabin, of course in the middle of the woods. And the woods whisper “Join Us”. The group stumbles upon a book and a tape recorder belonging to the previous inhabitants, warning of evil spirits lurking in the woods. When the dead come out to play, the newest victims turn into horrid ghouls. Ash, who at heart is a cowardly pansy, turns out to be the macho, macho man to the rescue. It takes courage, a shotgun and a chainsaw.

When the flesh-eating demons start their attack, the blood doesn’t just ooze; it splatters, gushes and flows by the bucketful. And there is the scene where one of the girls is beckoned into the woods only to be attacked and raped by a…tree?! Cheap special effects galore decorate this vacation to a little north of Hell. The comedy was unintentional. It is a product of bad acting by actors with little or no experience. But still, Raimi as writer and director has stumbled upon something here. The Evil Dead more than deserves its youth restricted rating.

In a time when we are almost constantly barraged with goofy spoof films, it’s amazing that no one had come out with a spoof of the James Bond films until 1997. Those movies have been coming out and just BEGGING to be spoofed since the early 60s, and Mike Meyers is the one who finally steps forward to do what simply has to be done, and he does a wonderful job at it.

Fans of the James Bond films will have a blast looking for all of the allusions to the old Bond films and trying to determine which Bond film is being spoofed at any given time, but it’s important to keep in mind that the film pokes fun at the Bond series in good taste. Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery is never disrespectful to the films that it makes fun of, which is probably the single most important thing about a spoof film that makes it good. This is why the Scary Movies, as just a couple of examples, were such dismal, hideous failures. They try to be funny by viciously making fun of all kinds of movies, and end up looking stupid because they have such a nonexistent right to do that. You can’t make a stupid, stupid movie and make fun of a lot of great movies (and some not so great, admittedly) and try to pretend to be respectable at the end of it all. That’s the recipe for a crapfest.

While it’s true that a lot of the comedy in the first Austin Powers film is slapstick and obviously contrived, I think it should be a testament to the quality of the film that it is still so funny! We see all of the traditional Bond clichés in this movie, such as the usual one-liners (which are made fun of extensively and with spectacular effect here), the fancy cars, the goofy cockiness, the teeth-grinding theme song, and the occasionally inexplicable popularity with the women (this allusion makes most sense when compared to those Bond films that starred Roger Moore).

The plot involves a rivalry between Dr. Evil, an evil mastermind bent on world domination, and Austin Powers, a mockish caricature of James Bond, bent on stopping Dr. Evil’s world domination schemes. Meyers portrays both characters with hilarious skill, making Austin an awkward womanizer with some serious dental problems, and Dr. Evil an evil schemer with a hilarious cutesy side. Neither character really seems like they belong in the role that they serve (as a spy and a doctor of evil), which is where a lot of the comedy comes in. There is also, of course the fact that they both spend most of the movie 30 years in their future, completely out of touch with the new world that they live in.

Austin Powers is one of the most refreshing comedies to come along in years. It’s true that the movie is immensely immature and that it has unfortunately little re-watch value (one of the biggest problems with the film), but the quality of the comedy is unmistakable.