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30: Snuff This is totally a really real snuff film. They really made a movie about some Hollywood actress who goes down to South America and gets wrapped up in a Manson Family style cult's plans. Then, they definitely filmed themselves really killing a lady at the end. The snuff gimmick didn't really work for me considering how shoehorned in it was. The "pre-snuff" movie was funny enough to be interesting, but overall, besides the backstory of how this movie came about, there isn't much that makes it worth watching. 1.5/5 31.Wild Zero It looks like everyone watched this one this year, so I'll skip a synopsis. I loved how dumb this movie was and it's pretty interesting because if it was any other band besides Guitar Wolf, the movie would have been awful. I was pretty shocked that the movie includes a trans woman and not only is she NOT just fodder for lame rear end jokes, but Guitar Wolf almost immediately shows up to explain that it doesn't matter who you're with as long as you love them. It's a great, low budget B-movie that's elevated much higher because of how ridiculous the members of Guitar Wolf are willing to be. 5/5 32.Messiah of Evil A woman visits a small town in search of her father. Very quickly she discovers that there may be something sinister going on with the town's inhabitants. I loved the cinematography in this movie, and it felt almost like an Argento film to me with its use of color. There's a scene in a movie theater that I also loved. Unfortunately, the story is pretty boring, and the movie doesn't do a great job with character building, so I didn't really care much about what happened to anyone. Also, the main bad guy of the film feels crammed in, like they totally forgot to put one in until filming wrapped. 2.5/5 33.Satan's Slave After a young boy's mother dies, he turns to the black arts to process his grief. Unfortunately, things don't go to plan, and people soon start dying when a mysterious caretaker arrives at his house one day. The effects in this one are pretty cheap, but they do their best with what they have and the zombie/ghosts actually look pretty good. There are also a few genuinely creepy scenes involving the boy's dead mother in the woods where she beckons him to come to her. The only thing that hurts the film for me is that it's very clearly a pro-religion movie in a pretty hilarious way, so the ending is pretty underwhelming. 3.5/5 34.Jack Frost A serial killer is sprayed with a DNA altering chemical that gives him the power to turn into water and freeze himself into a killer snowman at will. This is a deeply stupid movie, but luckily it manages to avoid being annoying. The snowman quips the entire movie, and they're all pretty lame, but its not unexpected, so its not unbearable. The movie is also pretty predictable because there's only a couple of obvious ways to kill a snowman. Still, the movie is fine I guess. 2.5/5 35.The Devils Religious hysteria sets in in a small city in France when a bishop and baron in the french government attempt to overthrow a popular priest using the false testimony of a sexually repressed nun. Things get real hosed up real fast. I don't know where to start with this one. The story is great, the acting is fantastic, there are some stunning visuals, and the whole thing gets incredibly horrific at times. The biggest shame is how hidden this movie seems to be. It's obviously blasphemous, but it's not doing it for cheap thrills or titillation; There's deep meaning in it. I could talk about this one for hours. 5/5 36.Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror A documentary about the history of black people in horror. There's not much to say about this. It was a good documentary, and I learned about some interesting concepts and tropes. Mostly I just liked seeing Ken Foree and Keith David reminiscing. 3/5 37.Reanimator Herbert West obsesses over bringing people back from the dead. This is a bad idea for numerous reasons. I've seen this movie six or seven times now, and it's still a ton of fun. It's such a fan-favorite, that I really can't say anything new about it. Jeffery Combs is really funny and I still have a crush on Barbara Crampton. 4/5 That's all for me for this year. This is the first year I went over 31, thanks to Spooky Bingo, although next year I might not try to get multiple spookies as it made me feel a tiny bit constricted. Speaking of... SPOOKY BINGO Here's the final tally: Halloween Is Special: Reanimator Golden Years: Day the World Ended Hausu: House Paperbacks From Hell: The Serpent and the Rainbow Highbrow Horror: The Wicker Man Masters of Horror: In the Mouth of Madness A Perfect Getaway: Tombs of the Blind Dead Scream, Queen!: Monstrous Femme Fatale: Humanoids From the Deep Thrilla In Manila: Satan's Slave Horror Noire: Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror Behind the Screams: Snuff The Devil Made Me Do It: To the Devil A Daughter Yuppie Nightmare: Drag Me To Hell Punk Vacation: Wild Zero They Always Come Back: The Blob (1988) Picnic At Hanging Rock: Sukkubus Zombie Honeymoon: The Mummy Goodnight, Mommy: Deranged Dead & Buried: Whisper in the Dark Children of the Damned: The Snake Girl and the Silver Haired Witch Wild Beasts: Phenomena H20: Jack Frost (I'll admit this one is a stretch, but it's a major plot point that the snowman can turn into a puddle of water at will to sneak through small places) Tales of Terror: V/H/S 94 Origin of Evil: Hard Rock Zombies V/H/S: Spine To Serve Man: The Resurrected Full Moon: Silver Bullet 
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Nov 1, 2022 04:53
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pospysyl posted:39. Earwig (Highbrow Horror) Oh man, I really want to see this. I loved Innocence and Evolution was also pretty good. But apparently there’s no physical release and it’s not available for streaming in the US? I hope that changes sometime soon. 32. Braindead (1992) - 4/5 My first rewatch in over twenty years. I saw this in the theater in the Nineties and had my mind slightly blown by the creativity on display. It seemed so incredibly grotesque and gory at the time and also really funny. I don’t find it quite that enthralling anymore but the zombie house party is still a great set piece and this was a solid way to cap off my Halloween viewing. Once this would have been in my zombie top three; maybe it is still top five after the original Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead, Re-Animator, and The Return of the Living Dead.
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Nov 1, 2022 05:14
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 Suspiria, 1977 It wouldn't be a proper marathon without an Italian movie at some point, and what better one to watch on Halloween than Suspiria? Absolute classic. From the use of colored lights to the overall dream-like feel at times, it is just a beautiful movie. Slowly uncovering the witches' coven at the ballet school and the brutal deaths along the way as we learn more about the horrible secrets of the school is a delight. Not to mention the fantastic score by prog rock legends Goblin. I don't need to sell this movie as a classic to any seasoned horror fan as they already know how great it is. The remake is great too, but nothing can touch the unique feel and look of the original.
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Nov 1, 2022 05:38
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And right at the finish line, here are my movies from the last couple of days. Thanks to those that organized and participated in this, I'll be going through this thread for recommendations for a while as with every previous thread and will be looking forward to next year. This was a bit of a busy month for me, just past halfway through the month I never thought I'd make it to 31. Always like finishing with one or two movies that I know I'll enjoy. Ratings out of five.  26. New Nightmare (Wes Craven, 1994) [Previously viewed; Bingo: Behind the Screams] A pretty clever way to bring back the franchise, even more so at the time when meta-horror wasn't super common (and most of the time it was within horror-comedies). However, I think past the creativity this is kind of stuck between referencing things and rehashing them. Swapping out practical effects for 1990s CGI is also a bit unfortunate, it hasn't aged well and just isn't as cool. Freddy himself just looks a bit different, as well, I'd say it looks more like a costume in this movie than the rest of the series. Heather Langenkamp was always kind of a mixed bag in terms of acting ability, but she really isn't good in this one. I feel I'm pretty poor at noticing those things, so if I saw it then it was really not good. Overall enjoyed this one, it's a recovery from the disastrous sixth movie. 2.5  27. Ginger Snaps (John Fawcett, 2000) [First viewing; Bingo: Full Moon] This one has been in so many queues for me for so long, I think I've had it on my list to watch since Netflix only sent movies through the mail. In a complimentary way, this felt like a 1990s made-for-television high school horror movie, but with the benefit of being rated R. I think the effects are a bit of a mixed bag, but the main two characters are super well done and their journey together is interesting to watch. I can see why this movie has a bit of a cult status and is looked at very fondly by some. I may have been a bit late on this to really enjoy it as much as I could, but it was still pretty enjoyable. 3.5  28. Dark Glasses (Dario Argento, 2022) [First viewing; Bingo: Masters of Horror] I need to watch more of the giallo horror films out there, the handful I've seen I've really enjoyed but I've never consistently made my way through the collection out there. I thought this was a rather enjoyable slasher/thriller, with the two main characters making a nice little unlikely duo to root for. It moves along at a nice, consistently engaging pace, and there are some cool little shots mixed in throughout the movie. The main character was developed at a level that was above average for a horror movie, I'd say, and the brief exploration of adjusting to blindness had me fascinated. Overall, worth the watch. I feel I'm terrible at the whodunnit it aspect of movies, but I thought this one was pretty obvious. Still wouldn't say that detracted from my ability to enjoy it. 3.5  29. Pearl (Ti West, 2022) [First viewing; Bingo: Picnic At Hanging Rock] The same person who recommended X to me said this one was just depressing, and I did not expect them to be so accurate. This is a pretty dark movie and I wasn't really sure what to expect, it definitely left me more bummed out than I expected. It's a pretty unique origin story, since Pearl wasn't the main killer of the first movie and not even the main character Pretty stylish and has some cool shots, nice use of color, and paced well overall even with a pretty quick change in tone around halfway through. I'd say if you enjoyed X this is worth watching. It's definitely a different kind of movie, but I think I actually enjoyed it even more than X. Mia Goth is fantastic. 4.0  30. Jason X (Jim Isaac, 2001) [Previously viewed] From an outside perspective, the "Jason goes to space" angle sounds ridiculous and maybe even from fans of the series, but it's a great sequel and I have a lot of nostalgia for. Jason X was the first of the franchise I was able to see in theaters on the original theatrical run (lucky enough to see the first as well) and the absurdity and spectacle of it all was so much fun. Has a great Jason costume and some great kills frozen head smashed to bits and the sleeping bag kill are some of the best and I don't think it aged relatively as much as first eight. One of the better sequels and truly a piece of cinematic art. 3.0 Holodeck Crystal Lake might be my favorite scene of the whole series.  31. Freddy vs. Jason (Ronny Yu, 2003) [Previously viewed] The main event for my October, this is a pure spectacle of fanservice and it came out at the perfect time for me -- I was hyped. I say that as if I'm so sophisticated now and wouldn't watch this day one. It's essentially a modern minor reimagining of both series and the headline promise doesn't truly get going until an hour into the movie. There are some really cool moments, Freddy and Jason are portrayed and presented great, and I think for anyone who went in with the expectation of just having fun it's not a disappointment. Also have nostalgia for this one as I saw it in theaters as well, hopefully we see Friday the 13th make a comeback and get some new, good movies for the franchise. 3.0 Final bingo card, forgot to update after one of the entries so added everything: 
Orchestrated Mess fucked around with this message at 06:37 on Nov 1, 2022 |
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Nov 1, 2022 05:50
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31. Horror Stories (2012), Tubi Wasn't sure what to expect from this one but I ended up liking it a lot for the most part. The first story about the kids with the (haunted?) home invasion was pretty wild and had a lot of good spooks. I really liked the story about the serial killer loose on an airplane, but I'm also a sucker for thrillers set on airplanes so it was right up my alley. It also had some spooky haunted elements mixed in which felt a little out of place, but on the whole I just kind of rolled with it. The jealous sister story was probably the weakest of the bunch, although things kind of started to fall into place in the very end. The zombie ambulance story was pretty standard "zombie apocalypse" fare but it was well done and it kept my attention throughout. The very end felt like a bit of a "gotcha" but on the whole I still liked it. 1. 'Tales from the Crypt' (1972) 2. 'Trilogy of Terror' (1975) 3. 'Southbound' (2015) 4. 'The Vault of Horror' (1973) BONUS: 'Smile' (2022) 5. 'Creepshow' (1982) 6. 'The House That Dripped Blood' (1971) 7. 'All Hallow's Eve' (2013) BONUS: 'Deadstream' (2022) 8. 'Cat's Eye' (1985) 9. ' The Monster Club' (1981) 10. 'Body Bags' (1993) 11. 'The Field Guide to Evil' (2018) BONUS: 'Hellraiser' (2022) 12. 'The Dark Tapes' (2017) 13. 'Trick 'r Treat' (2007) 14. 'Deadtime Stories' (1986) BONUS: 'Halloween Ends' (2022) 15. 'Black Sabbath' (1963) 16. 'ABCs of Death' (2012) 17. 'V/H/S/99' (2022) 18. 'Twice Told Tales' (1963) 19. 'Scare Package' (2020) 20. 'Twilight Zone: The Movie' (1983) 21. 'Asylum' (1972) 22. 'Chillerama' (2011) 23. 'Dr. Terror's House of Horrors' (1965) 24. 'XX' (2017) 25. 'ABCs of Death 2' (2014) 26. 'The Mortuary Collection' (2019) 27. 'Three Extremes' (2003) BONUS: 'Antrum' (2018) 28. 'Dead of Night' (1977) BONUS: 'Scream 4' (2011) BONUS: 'The Mummy' (1932) 29. 'Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark' (2019) 30. 'Horror Noire' (2021) 31. 'Horror Stories' (2012)
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Nov 1, 2022 06:05
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38: The Exorcist (the version you've never seen) Whispers in the DarkFun fact, this challenge was my suggestion, and it was mainly because this was on TV last month so I recorded it thinking it would be a good choice for Halloween. It definitely was, I mean this is The Exorcist, it's one of the Mt Rushmore movies of horror. Karras is a fascinating character, and it's neat to go back and watch this after watching 3 last challenge (it took me until tonight to realize the cop is the same character as George C Scott's). Now, the problem is I haven't actually seen The Exorcist in several years, and haven't seen it often enough to really know what's different in this cut. From what I looked up it's mostly subtle things, different sound cues and effects, with two larger pieces; the spider walk, and an extended bit of testing in the hospital. The spider walk is cool but it does kind of come out of nowhere at an odd spot, I can see why they lost it originally, but the hospital stuff is good, it provides a different kind of Horror especially as a parent. Anyways that's my card filled, will do a write up tomorrow
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Nov 1, 2022 06:18
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 51. Clearcut (1991) "You're like a fish talking to a loving oil tanker." A sharp, lean film that jabs at office chair activism, the vague unhelpful sympathy for good causes that we all feel, and goads us into considering whether it's principles or cowardice that keep most of us from direct action. Ron Lea plays a white lawyer representing a group of Native Canadians who's failed to stop a logging company in the courts. He feels awful for failing to deliver, and doesn't have much faith that his appeal will do any better, which causes him to grouse insincerely that maybe someone should bomb that lumber mill and skin the drat manager, that might do something. Cue Graham Greene knocking on Lea's hotel door in the night, ready to go skin the manager alive, and he's not loving joking. Greene quickly demonstrates on Lea's noisy neighbors the superiority of force over politeness for getting poo poo done, and then we're off to the races, with Greene dragging Lea along by a strange mix of intimidation and charisma to abduct the mill manager and deliver some violence. Lea is the main character but Clearcut is Graham Greene's movie. His screen presence is off the charts, he is a totally captivating character who is so natural and matter-of-fact, even relaxed, while channeling a deep reservoir of anger. In jeans and a black T-shirt he's a perfect foil to Lea's white collar khakis, pragmatic direct physicality vs. cloudy detached intellectual justifications for inaction. Lea's sympathy for Greene's cause but abject fear of violence makes the dialogues between captor and captives play out in these fascinating triangles, where it's constantly changing who each character seems to hate the most. The whites yell, spar, appeal to reason, insult each other, fall into brooding silence; Greene mocks and domineers, but also probes with plain-spoken questions and observations, and implicitly challenges Lea for the way he chooses to stand by the forces of white destruction when the chips are down. It's simply a great script, well-performed and beautifully scored, totally free of the sad sermonizing tone that movies so often discuss Native issues with when they come up, full of bite and sparks instead.  .5 / 5 
Vanilla Bison fucked around with this message at 06:21 on Nov 1, 2022 |
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Nov 1, 2022 06:19
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Finished my 31 movies (and writeups, which were all short but I still procrastinated like hell) just barely in time. It was a fun challenge that got me to sit through a lot of movies I've been putting off (but also a lot of 2022 films since this year was stuffed.) Also a fair amount of trash. 29.) Hellraiser (1987)  Huge blindspot on my part, and as it turns out, an utter masterpiece. I have always appreciated how the cenobites were a whole new genre and aesthetic of horror monsters, and spawned countless imitators and iterations of unfathomably depraved, fleshy demons standing around in industrial hellscapes. Frank, Larry and (especially) Julia are fantastic characters, and aside from some awkward dubbing on Frank, flawlessly performed. The climax where Kirsty runs around shooting lasers at the box to kill cenobites was pretty goofy, but I understand they ran out of money and it’s no big deal. One of the more notable aspects of the film is that it’s wall-to-wall memorable dialog. Pretty much everything Pinhead says has become a trope, and Frank gets in some real winners too. Come to daddy… 5/5 30.) Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988)  This one is always spoken of so highly and I came away disappointed. It’s an interesting concept that maybe could have worked with Clive Barker’s guiding hand, but the movie we got is borderline incoherent like it had an hour of footage cut out. Characters transport from location to location with no connective tissue, or make bizarre decisions (like Kyle’s entire last sequence.) Beyond that, there’s way too many jokes and puns for my liking. The original movie had precisely 0, but now Julia is late-stage Freddy Kruger. Apparently, Julia will resurrect out of a random mattress, and Kirsty is aware of this? Was it even in the first movie? Also, how could anyone ever be scared of cenobites again after what happens to them in this movie? That’s not to say it’s a bad movie; it just doesn’t hold a candle to #1. There’s some very cool sequences and imagery, mostly taking place in the labyrinthine hellscape. The doctor is a fun villain, even if his dialog turns into all bad puns by the end. 3/5 31.) Mandy (2018)  The movie I was most looking forward to for this challenge, so I saved it for Halloween day. Did not disappoint. A failed musician starts the least appealing cult of all time, bolstered by some demonic bikers (appropriately, heavily inspired by cenobites) and makes the mistake of wronging a lumberjack and his titular wife. It’s a slow, moody, colorful trip that rarely lets you in on what it’s thinking, instead opting for surreal imagery and primal grunts. This is one of those movies where you can tell the director had a vision and stuck to it like a pitbull. It uses Nicholas Cage perfectly, without feeling like it’s trying too hard (Willy’s Wonderland being the worst example of that) and it’s hard to imagine anyone else playing that character. There’s so much red in this thing that I set my bedroom lights to red to complement the atmosphere. 5/5
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Nov 1, 2022 06:26
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10. Barbarian (2022) A film being hyped up for its twists, but its real staying power in the long run will be its black comedy. Justin long with a tape measure is the funniest scene in a movie I saw this year. It just keeps going!! Some nifty ideas going on here. I found the movie's before and after of the house and surrounding neighborhood striking. When the movie first starts the neighborhood is the source of fear. But that gets flipped. We see the home in the 80's, and it used to be a needle in a haystack, but now we know there is something wrong with the place because its not rundown like the rest of the neighborhood... Well that and the mommy monster. 11. A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)  I was hoping Johnny Depp would die quicker in this, oh well. Anyway the dream imagery is cool and Nancy is a good final girl. Everyone else is always letting her down, poor girl is the only one actually putting in any work with dealing with Fred. She makes booby traps! Oh joy. Glad I finally got around to seeing this one. I should watch more of these. 12. Ghostwatch (1992)  this is a serious program I didn't realized Kairo has a prequel. I assume Pipes eventually escaped onto the internet and told the other ghosts how to do it. This switches back and forth from SpOoKy vibes to effective horror that gives some whiplash but its all fun enough that you just end up going with it. Escalated way more than I was expecting lmao. Feels like the perfect thing for a group watch and I'll keep it in mind for next October. 13. Razorback  Man's inhumanity to man. Dog food. Animal rights. Animal wrongs. Razorback  Barbarian for Yuppie Nightmares, Elm for Masters of Horror, Ghostwatch for Terrorvision, and Razoerback for Wild Beasts 
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Nov 1, 2022 06:55
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Bonus: Halloween Specials It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (1966) A slice life story about all the various peanuts characters adventures on Halloween. My fiancee loves Peanuts stuff so we watch most of the specials every year. So I've seen this a lot, it generally enjoyable. This year I noticed I really liked the some off the silly faces the kids make.  Werewolf By Night (2022) The leader of a monster hunting club has died and all it's members have been recalled for a battle royale hunt which will result in the new leader being chosen and being given a magical artifact. I didn't love Werewolf By Night, Im getting a bit cynical about Marvel properties. It's a bit slow but a the same time I would probably like another 20 minutes of something? Maybe more to the hunt. 30. Puppet Master 2 (1990) A government paranormal agency is sent to investigate where the previous movie happened. Originally this year I wanted to watch all the puppet master movies because there's a ton of them, but it turned out I had watched one a few years back and had no memory of it. The special effects are top notch, it's a shame the plots kinda whatever and the music feels like it's from another movie. Possible recommendation. 31. Werewolves Within (2021) A park ranger is sent to town in the middle of nowhere. The town is full of drama because of an oil pipeline that has been proposed which has split the town down the middle. Meanwhile there might be a werewolf. I wanted to like Werewolves Within but it seemed like everyone was screeching the whole movie, it was really hurting my ears. The whole twist was pretty obvious. I vaguely liked that everybody was a weird quirky character but I can't see that's grating on others. Not recommended. Bingo stuff: Peanuts + Marvel, for Halloween is special Either Puppet Master 2 (full moon pictures) or Werewolves Within for Full moon That's 2 bingos  And I'm done thanks for reading this year. See you next year.
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Nov 1, 2022 06:57
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 [REC], 2007 I think this is my favorite found footage movie ever and it was a real nostalgia trip since I haven't watched it in so many years. A local reporter has a TV segment on what goes on during the night and she is filming at a fire station. The alarm goes off and she and the cameraman follow the firefighters to an apartment building on what should just be a routine job of helping some old lady that's fallen. Turns out the old lady is quite feral and soon they find the building sealed up by the authorities and quarantined. No one gets to leave. We are talking about the fast kind of rabies inflicted zombies here that 28 Days later popularized a few years earlier. By the end of the movie, we find out it might be more than just some virus. [REC] is a real blast of seeing everything from the involuntary cameraman's perspective. He is a pro, so unlike some other found footage movies, there's some logic behind the filming. Of course this is the original Spanish version. Just a year later, there was an American remake called Quarantine. It's poo poo. Don't watch it. It is pretty much [REC] beat for beat, just inferior in every way. If you want some first person fast zombie action, then this is the film to watch.
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Nov 1, 2022 07:32
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October was a crazy month both personally and professionally so I’m writing these all up at the last minute. Let’s go! #1 Bride of Chucky (1998) BINGO: Zombie Honeymoon My first goal was to finish off the Child’s Play series. I recently stopped at Child’s Play 3 to save the rest for this challenge, so I knew it was all clear sailing from there. Bride had a great sense of humor, a fantastic Chucky reveal (love his pillow throne of murder as he casually kills a person ten times his size), and nice cinematography. The main human characters were total duds though, though I did like the gay friend to the male lead. I felt John Ritter as the cop uncle should have been an antagonist for much longer. Going in I had no idea who Jennifer Tilly was and now she’s one of my favourite actresses. 4/5 #2 Seed of Chucky (2004) BINGO: Children of the Damned While Bride chased the zeitgeist of Scream, Seed feels like it used American Pie and that era of raunchy gross sex comedies to sell itself but oops oh wait it was a bait and switch and actually its a campy queer comedy more akin to John Waters (who makes a cameo in case it wasn't obvious enough). The humor is quite a bit weaker than Bride and sometimes gets way too gross, but anything to do with Jennifer Tilly is hilarious. Other than the pee jokes, I liked Glen and hope they show up again (I haven't watched the series yet). 3.5/5 #3 Ghosts of Mars (2001) BINGO: Masters of Horror A buddy insisted I watch this one, this is his fault. The sets, special effects, script and acting are very not good. I would have thought the whole possession deal would create a The Thing situation were a saboteur is hidden in their midst, but victim was always immediately obvious. There are Scheherazade levels of flashbacks within flashbacks. I did appreciate any time the circular saws came out and how nihilistic it was when anyone died and no one reacts or mentions it again (main characters that get possessed don't even reappear in a dramatic fashion, they just disappear. Kick rear end by Anthrax, Buckethead, and John Carpenter combined is a good tune. Stunningly bad ending, those chrome guns are bullshit. 2/5 #4 Curse of Chucky (2013) BINGO: Hausu Weakest since Child's Play 3. The first act was the strongest and I loved the russian roulette soup table. Chucky's updated look was super creepy, I appreciated the modern rubber vs hard plastic, so I was disappointed quite a bit when his face was torn off to reveal the old look. I appreciated the haunted house feel, but think it needed something more; I'd have preferred if Chucky made use of Nica's handicap and felt safe to reveal himself to her, perhaps "help" her with her family, with or without her agreement. The movie also didn't know how to end. 2.5/5 #5 Cult of Chucky (2017) BINGO: Scream, Queen! A bit better than Curse. I enjoyed the stark white setting, frozen in the middle of Manitoba. Finally realized Fiona Dourif played Bart in Dirk Gently, she does a great job playing her dad's character. Alex Vincent returns as Andy and is thankfully better than his acting in Curse's post-credits but nothing in his plan makes any sense. The "cult" part in this movie doesn't make a lot of sense, I anticipated half the institution allying with Chucky one by one as he manipulates them and takes over the hospital. Though short the multiple Chuckys interacting was fun. 3/5 #6 V/H/S/94 (2021) BINGO: Tales of Terror Best VHS entry since #2. Nothing beats the cult camp in that one, but overall average collective strength of these entries is competitive. The framing sucks and the first section is the weakest, so I was worried that this would be even lower budget/effort than VHS 3, but then the other 3 main segments look great, fit well within their scope and are nice and creepy. 4/5 #7 The House That Jack Built (2018) BINGO: The Devil Made Me Do It Those poor ducklings!  Jack is a right bastard obsessed with murder and art, bumbling his way away from any consequences. Some parts were funny, other parts were grim, a lot was both. The third incident with the family at the shooting range was most effective and sending me chills. Jack in his reminiscing is paired well with Virgil as his co-narrator to rebuff and reject with authority Jack's bullshit on their way down to Hell ala Dante's Inferno. Well done but didn't have that special something to stick with me. 3.5/5 #8 Fright Night (2011) BINGO: They Always Come Back I heard this was a decent remake but it's not! I watched the original recently and loved it, but right off the bat this one presents its premise in a most lifeless box-checking sort of way not even toying for one second with the idea that Jerry isn't a vampire. Charley and Amy had a healthier relationship that was cute I guess, but everything else moves from one stage to the next with zero flow. The Las Vegas suburb setting feels empty and lifeless (which might be on purpose but I didn't enjoy it). The 3D effects are a poorly aged relic. Colin Farrell is menacing, but has no room to breathe and is given zero of the charm and personality of the original Jerry. David Tennant as a Criss Angel-type Peter Vincent is the only bit that feels inspired, and there was some camera work during the climax that was neat, and the fight with Evil Ed was kinda fun. But really there's nothing here. 1.5/5 #9 Mimic (1997) BINGO: Glitches Guillermo del Toro has a way of luring me in with his imaginative designs and bold ambition and leaving me disappointed time and time again. Also I heard that some kids get hosed up in this and they do. Another standard story of the dangers of playing God and unforeseen evils of genetic engineering upon nature. This movie is Jurassic Park plus Aliens minus any of the charm. I was terribly bored. This movie looks competent enough, but it bounced right off my mind and heart. I don't like the monsters, the whole mimicking humans doesn't work, isn't used in any meaningful way, and the reasons behind it is dumb. They're just giant praying mantises. And in most creature features, there's something outrageous and distasteful about a dumb, greedy, unthinking animal eating folks so that it can continue perpetuating its destructive existence. But these bugs are even less than that - they mostly kill because of territory, to protect their colony - and so their lives and antagonism is so mechanical that there's no emotional investment to see them destroyed. There's so many fake-outs in this movie and the bugs don't follow their own rules that it feels like characters live and die merely because the script says so. 1.5/5 #10 One Cut of the Dead (2017) BINGO: Behind the Screams Watch this movie. Do not read anything about it. That was the advice I was given and I'm glad I followed it. If you need something, it's about film-making and zombie attacks. There are twists and turns, so if the first 20 minutes don't catch you, stick with it. Alright, this movie was fantastic, I loved all the layers and details and recreations that went into this one dumb little zombie flick (the end film, the pre-production, the chaotic filming, the actual filming of the original film, gah!). It really presents a joyful look at the messy birth of a collective piece of art, no matter how "fast, cheap but average", passion can make something clumsy and trashy beautiful. It left me with a big goofy smile on my face. 4.5/5
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Nov 1, 2022 08:04
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 #55: Mad God (2021) A stop-motion film of a soldier descending into a surreal hellscape. Phil Tippett started making this back in his RoboCop 2 days but it was only recently finished. Dialog free and with only the skeleton of a plot, this is all about the atmosphere it creates. The world is hellish, grotesque, and filled with violence both purposeful and casual, driven by the bizarre logic of a cruel machine. I found this captivating.  #56: The Medium (2021): Spooky Bingo: Thrilla In Manila A false-documentary following a medium in Thailand as her niece shows signs she might share her gifts. Fun and interesting. A bit flabby in the middle with too much time spent on low-grade horror once the basic supernatural scenario has unfolded, but the build-up at the start is compelling and the climax gets impressively bonkers, so overall I liked this a lot. Seeing this sort of scenario drawn from a foreign culture was great, so I'm happy this challenge encouraged me to watch it.  #57: Trick 'r Treat (2007) Spooky Bingo: Tales of Terror Intertwining tales of terror on Halloween night. Feels a bit like a Sam Raimi fan made a kids movie that was allowed to have lots of blood and a little nudity, which makes for a pretty fun movie. Has one of the better werewolf transformations of an October I watched a decent number of werewolf movies and Sam is a neat design. And that finishes the card!  Horizontal-P and Vertical-Y champ: One Cut of the Dead Second-Vertical-O champ: Orphan: First Kill Horizontal-K champ: Trick 'r Treat
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Nov 1, 2022 08:44
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#39 - Halloween Ends Not what I was expecting at all and not sure how to feel about it. Lacking in kills and focused on something completely uninteresting make this a tough sell, but I do appreciate the attempt to do something new. It kinda works, but just isn't what I am looking for in a Halloween movie. Bonus points for that absolutely brutal DJ kill. At least it had a fitting title for my last October movie  #1 - Orphan: First Kill #2 - Beast #3 - The Source of Shadows #4 - Saloum #5 - Bloody Muscle Body Builder in Hell #6 - Predator Shorts #7 - Slash/Back #8 - Veneciafrenia #9 - Dead & Buried #10 - Bait #11 - Bodies Bodies Bodies #12 - Dummie the Mummy and the Golden Scarabee #13 - Zombie Honeymoon #14 - Night of the Werewolf #15 - I Sell the Dead #16 - I Blame Society #17 - Skull: the Mask #18 - The Devil's Backbone #19 - Werewolf by Night #20 - Rawhead Rex #21 - Watcher #22 - We're All Going to the World's Fair #23 - Two Evil Eyes #24 - Noroi #25 - The Exorcist 3 #26 - The Blue Hour #27 - The Ranger #28 - The Dungeonmaster #29 - Goodnight Mommy #30 - Lord of Illusions (Director's Cut) #31 - Threads #32 - Deadstream #33 - You Won't Be Alone #34 - Dread #35 - The Nightmare Before Christmas #36 - The Fearless Vampire Killers #37 - The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 #38 - Godzilla #39 - Halloween Ends I am out, see you all next year!
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Nov 1, 2022 08:56
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Today was awful at work so sorry for no fancy formatting. Tonight, you get the L-L-L-Lightning round!!! #43 The Wolf Man Larry Talbot returns home and starts wooing a girl. They go out and cross paths with some fortune tellers. The one teller is a werewolf that kills their friend and bites Larry, turning him into a werewolf too. Great make up and visual effects for the day. I love Lon Cheney Jr as a very schlubby, average man. He’s very sympathetic. The story is kinda average though. Great but not perfect. 4/5 #44 Cannibal Girls Challenge: Dead & Buried A young couple get stranded in a Canadian town when their car breaks down. The manager at the hotel tells them a tale about three cannibal girls, which we see as a lengthy flash back. The couple goes to their house, now a restaurant where a creepy man and three girls work. The cannibal girls are hungry again! Paced horribly with a huge flashback. It’s obvious a lot of the script was improvised. Amusing to see Eugene Levy, Andrea Martin and Ivan Reitman’s early work. 1.5/5 #45 Bone Tomahawk Challenge: Osteology Two thieves try to rob a grave site in Wild West times. One is killed and the other flees. He winds up in a small town and spends the night in jail. The group of cannibalistic cave dwelling troglodytes he pissed off kidnap him, the doctor, and the deputy. Now the sherif, the other deputy, the doctor’s husband and a gunslinger must try to rescue them. Love how this looks, very dry and harsh. I can understand some being uncomfortable with “savages” as the baddies, but the movie does a decent job saying “they do not represent any Native American culture”. Would have really liked to see a prominent Native American hero character. 3.5/5 #46 Something Wicked This Way Comes Challenge: Something Wicked This Way Comes Adapted from a Ray Bradbury story. A carnival comes to town. Many of the townsfolk get enchanted by it when it seems to give them their biggest wishes and fix their regrets. Two boys sneak around and figure out what the owner Mr Dark wants them too. The two boys team up with one of their dads and a lightning rod salesman to stop Mr Dark. A morality tale on not holding onto your regrets. Decent frights for kids without being disturbing. Johnathan Pryce as Dark is a delight. It’s alright, nothing special. 3/5 #47 The Amityville Horror Challenge: Hausu The Lutz family move into a new house. Strange things keep happening: windows slamming on fingers, voices telling them to “get out”, an invisible friend named Jody, and more. The husband George grows increasingly hostile to his family. His wife, Kathy, discovers the DeFeo family who owned the house before them died when the husband murdered them all. Great vibes in this one. Just spooky throughout without too many big shocks or big revelations. It’s surprisingly cozy for a haunted house movie, but there’s not much substance. 3/5 #48 The Bride of Frankenstein Frankenstein and his creation live! The doctor reluctantly starts a new female creature at the request of his mentor Dr Pretorious. The monster is tormented by the town before finding a blind man who teaches and befriends him. Their paths cross again as the try to make a bride for the monster. A masterpiece. Karloff portrays the monster with so much sympathy. When even the female monster rejects him, it’s truly heartbreaking. Everything great from the first one is back with so much more. 5/5 #49 Creature from the Black Lagoon Archeologists in Brazil find a strange webbed claw. They travel down the Amazon in search of the ret of the skeleton. They are stalked by the claw’s descent, the Gill Man! He’s fond of the only woman in the group, Kay, and is determined to kill or scare away the men and take Kay to his fishy lair. Some of the most stunning underwater photography, doubly cool for the time it was filmed in. Gill Man is such an incredible and life like design. Story itself is only okay. It’s just a jungle adventure film with a cool monster. 4/5 #50 Censor Challenge: Behind the Screams It’s the 80s and Enid is a censor for the BBFC, banning all the video nastys. Her sister disappeared a long time ago, but a new film that she was requested to review seems to parallel her memories of her. She grows increasingly paranoid and tracks down the director to save the woman she thinks is her grown up sister. Neat movie. A lot of meta tricks and frights. It’s one of those movies that’s kind of ambiguous on what’s really happening, but it’s shot really well and is surprisingly gory. I will probably enjoy it more on repeat watches. 3.5/5 #51 Friday the 13th Part II Another trip back to camp blood. Years after the first movie, a new group of kids come to camp and start being murdered. However, it’s not Mrs. Voorhees, it’s her baby boy Jason, seemingly back from the dead and ready for revenge. I like this much more than the first. It works pretty well as a decent little teen summer camp dramadey with a serial killer dropped into it. The main girl, Ginny, is a particularly good character. Also love how we have a character in a wheelchair and it’s not that big of a deal. 3.5/5 #52 I Know What You Did Last Summer A group of high school grads hit a guy while boozin’ n cruisin’ on the 4th of July. They think he’s dead and dump his body. One year later, they get mysterious notes saying “I Know What You Did Last Summer” and get picked off one by one. Who could the killer be? Written by the same guy who gave us Scream, Kevin Williamson, and it kinda feels like the beta version of it. Still devilishly fun, but not as clever or endearing. You’d hope there’d be a mystery that you can solve along, but it’s kinda muddled. 3/5 #53 Psycho Challenge: They Always Come Back The OG Slasher. Marion Crane steals a wad of cash from work and drives off to California. She stops at the Bates Motel where she is murdered, seemingly by the hotel owners mother. Her sister, Lila, is worried about her missing sister and eventually comes across the Bates Motel and it’s eccentric caretaker Norman Bates and his rarely seen mother. Absolute classic. It’s shot magnificently. The soundtrack is iconic. Performances are spot on. You don’t need me to tell you this is a top to bottom banger. 5/5 #54 Halloween Ends It’s been sometime since Michael slipped away from the clutches of Haddonfield’s vigilante mob. Now the town turns it’s ire towards Corey, a guy who accidentally killed a kid he was baby sitting. After being tormented by bully kids, he finds Michael living in the sewers and starts his own revenge killing spree. A lot of people will hate this, but I thought it was alright. I can see what its trying to say about society needing someone to hate. It’s a little clumsy, but I get it. Not a lot of kills, but what’s here is great. I’m sure this will get better with time. 3/5 #55 Psycho Challenge: They Always Come Back The Remake! If you want a synopsis, scroll up. It’s the same movie, often shot for shot. Just doesn’t quite work. Vince Vaughn as Normal is horrible casting. Vigo Mortensen and William H Macy though are brilliant. Honestly, watch this just for those two. Everything else is Psycho, but kinda worse. 3.5/5 #56 House on Haunted Hill Another Remake! Geoffrey Rush is Steven Price, an amusement park mogul who hates his wife. She wants him to stage her birthday party at an abandoned hospital. The guests that arrive however aren’t the ones either are expecting. Either way, Price keeps the game he planned, who ever can stay all night gets $1,000,000. Cowards forfeit their prize. However, not all the frights are simple smoke and mirrors, some appear to be supernatural. A buck wild reimagining of the Vincent Price classic. Really chaotic and over the top in that late 90’s X-Games, MTV style. I was kinda hoping that it was all parlor tricks and no ghosts, but it’s still fun. Geoffrey Rush is always good. 4/5 #57 Corpse Bride Victor is about to wed Victoria, not out of love but for the sake of their two families to have better class status. Victor is a nervous wreck and runs away. He practices his vows alone in the woods and accidentally weds himself to a corpse, Emily. She takes him to the land of the dead. He must now try to flee his new marriage and try to stop Victoria from marrying a dangerous con man. Obvious comparison is to Nightmare Before Christmas, and this just feels a lot stiffer. Depp and Carter also feel lifeless in their roles. Richard E Grant though is amazing. Songs are okay, except for Remains of the Day. Banger. 3/5 #58 Deadstream Disgraced streamer Shawn plans to stay overnight in a spooky house for his big comeback. He’s got his crazy stream set up all ready to go. However, he’s not the only one there. First it looks like just a crazy fan, Chrissy, but now it looks like something more sinister still lives. What a fun, modern idea. Joseph Winter really nails the whiny YouTuber attitude. Editing to make it look like one continuous stream is very good. It’s also freaking hilarious too. Definitely going to be a new horror mainstay for me. 4.5/5 #59 Drag Me to Hell Christine is a bank loan officer and is gunning for that promotion. When an old Romani woman comes in and begs her for one more extension to her mortgage, she callously dismisses her. The old woman attacks her later in the parking lot and places a curse on her. Now she must try to break the curse or else be DRAGGED TO HELL! This feels very much like an Evil Dead soft reboot. Has a lot of that slap stick and gross horrifying stuff you’d expect from Raimi. Too much CGI though. It can feel a little mean at times, but I feel the movie makes a great case on why Christine actually kinda sucks. 4/5 #60 Rec A Spanish TV reporter is doing a segment on what fire fighters do overnight. They get called into an apartment building when the neighbors here banging and screaming from an apartment. When they arrive, the old woman attacks. Now the building is on lock down and the people attacked are starting to act different. What a great way to do a zombie-like story. There’s a definitive reason for the found footage style photography. The enclosed space ratchets up the tension to an extreme. They dole out just enough information to keep things just mysterious enough, until the end. Kinda lame ending, but the rest is great. 4/5 I’ll get more reviews and my finished bingo card up tomorrow. Good night spooky friends.
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Nov 1, 2022 09:17
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 35. Resident Evil: The Show, Episodes 1-4 2022, Netflix Landed with a dull wet thud in August and was quickly cancelled. This despite being the best Resident Evil anything in terms of shows/movies, probably ever. Which is enough to bring it to a 3/5 for me. The production values are high, the acting is good, the style and plot are extremely over-the-top, if predictable. Mostly a minority cast as a welcome change of pace, headed by Lance Reddick, who can make any line sound profound. Reddick is in place as a reluctantly very evil Albert Wesker. The story describes two concurrent but asynchronous plotlines. One is in the "present day" in Umbrella's company town that slowly explains how the apocalypse happens. The other is the post-apocalyptic zombie and monster-infested future, complete with giant spiders, caterpillars, and the odd video game callback monster here and there. Both rely on the acting (and over-acting) to sell the fairly predictable but fun material. It's not revolutionary, but after 20 years of lovely movies and anime CG video game tie-ins with little reason to exist but to maintain the sales strength of the IP, it comes off relatively well as a fun time. And that does it for me this year! First year I've done 31 in a while. Had trick or treaters for I think the first time in my life this year, so a good Halloween all-around. 1. The Amityville Horror (1979) 2/5 2. Alligator (1980) 4/5 3. The Entity (1982) 3/5 4. Near Dark (1987) 4/5 5. Prince of Darkness (1987) 2/5 6. Tremors (1990) 4/5 7. Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995) 2/5 8. Tremors 2: Aftershocks (1996) 3/5 9. Halloween H20 (1998) 3/5 10. Frailty (2001) 4/5 11. Tremors 3: Back to Perfection (2001) 2/5 12. Halloween: Resurrection (2002) 0/5 13. Tremors 4: The Legend Begins (2004) 3/5 14. Halloween (2007) 2/5 15. 30 Days of Night (2007) 5/5 16. Let the Right One In (2008) 5/5 17. Fright Night (2011) 4/5 18. Tremors 5: Bloodlines (2015) 3/5 19. Halloween (2018) 4/5 20. Tremors 6: A Cold Day in Hell (2018) 1/5 21. The Wind (2018) 3/5 22. Rim of the World (2019) 3/5 23. The New Mutants (2020) 1/5 24. Tremors 7: Shrieker Island (2020) 3/5 25. Candyman (2021) 3/5 26. Mad God (2021) 4/5 27. Day Shift (2022) 3/5 28. Halloween Ends (2022) 3/5 29. Hocus Pocus 2 (2022) 3/5 30. Morbius (2022) 1/5 31. Mr. Harrigan's Phone (2022) 3/5 32. The Munsters (2022) 3/5 33. Old People (2022) 5/5 34. Resident Evil (2022) 3/5 35. Slash/Back (2022) 3/5 Name Change fucked around with this message at 18:46 on Nov 2, 2022 |
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Nov 1, 2022 09:30
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Here comes the last minute lightning round! 28.) Night of the Comet Thom Eberhardt | 1984 | Blu-ray I enjoyed this movie, but I expected more from it. I felt the same way about Night of the Creeps, where it just didn’t hit the way I was expecting it to. As a zombie film it’s a little lacking, but there are some performances and the ending is pretty cute. I guess your mileage may vary. Rating: Franchescanado posted:
 29.) Night of the Demons Kevin Tenney | 1988 | Blu-ray Now this was an absolute blast! I know it doesn’t really reinvent the wheel, but the film feels like Evil Dead meets Return of the Living Dead which is an A+ in my book. There’s also some pretty fun kills and gore here. Honestly, the extra half-star is for the ending. Rating: ½  30.) Blood Feast Herschell Gordon Lewis | 1963 | Kanopy This film feels way ahead of its time. The amount of gore is pretty cool, and the copy on Kanopy looks spectacular. The acting is kinda wonky, but that adds to the charm. Rating: ½  31.) A Bucket of Blood Roger Corman | 1959 | Prime Video As I was watching this, I was initially put off because it felt too similar to Little Shop of Horrors (1960). However, I quickly snapped out of it, because this is much more fun mainly due to Dick Miller’s performance. Additionally, some of the pokes at beatniks and artists were pretty funny considering some of them are still apt today. This was really fun. Rating: And that’s it for me, hope you all had a Happy Halloween my Spook-a-Doodles! Final Total: 31/13 New: 28 Rewatches: 3 My Letterboxd list (COMPLETE!) Final Bingo card:  Greekonomics fucked around with this message at 21:04 on Nov 1, 2022 |
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Nov 1, 2022 09:54
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#11 Lord of Illusions (1995) BINGO: Paperbacks From Hell I watched the director's cut, as was recommended to me. If you're looking for a detective film set in a Lovecraftian/Delta Green world, this is it. Scott Bakula plays a Constantine-like detective who trusts his gun and fists more than any spells, but he knows what to look out for. After getting caught up in the bloody underbelly of hardcore illusionists (WHO DEMAND TO BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY), and the repercussions of a Manson Family-like cult, we comfortably peter around with the help of some unnerving Clive Barker flavourings, until we finally reach the climax. And what a glorious thing it is. This movie end on an absurdly high note, with action and visuals and special effects that blew me away. An undead skeleton is pushed into a hole and falls down until it reaches the Earth's molten core and explodes. That's just fantastic. 4.5/5 #12 Near Dark (1987) BINGO: Origin of Evil Other than the bar and police shootout scenes this movie left me a bit cold. Watching the Red Letter Media re:View helped me appreciate it a bit more, and grasp its contrast to other modern vampire tales. These vampires have no glamour or sophistication and nothing to envy. Their murderous lifestyle and deadly aversion to the sun means they can never ever have stability or build upon their lives, no matter how long they live. They will always be dirty parasites on the run and have no choice to be anything else. Would make a good intro to Vampire: The Masquerade. Too bad the two main romantic leads are dead weight. Everything interesting happens at, or around, or despite the main guy, and yet his indecision and inaction is aggravatingly presented as a virtue. The whole blood transfusion is bullshit, I thought it would be his way of coping with his condition with the support of a loving family, but instead it's a miracle cure. This movie inevitably gets compared to The Lost Boys, and while I don't love the latter I do currently prefer it. 3/5 #13 Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City (2021) I've watched the Paul W. S. Anderson films. I've watched some of the CG films. I played RE 0 through 4 religiously as a kid. I was interested when it appeared like this would be a more faithful adaptation of the original games. I was expecting something gutless and pandering, like the Warcraft movie. Instead, what I got was more akin to a Neil Cicierega remix - it gathers an encyclopedic expertise of all the games' little references, characters and niche details, as though a fellow die-hard fanboy, only to then twists those expectations on a dime like a cat playing with a mouse before biting its head off. Claire and Chris were raised by Birkin in his orphanage (WHAT). Claire's childhood friend was Lisa Trevor, still covered with human faces (WHAT). Raccoon City isn't a northwest metropolis like Seattle or Portland, it's a small dying industrial town that's about to be decommissioned (WHAT). S.T.A.R.S. aren't a worldclass SWAT team, they're an overfed smalltown police force made up of idiots, burnouts and losers that's been stuffed with too much military surplus (OKAY THAT'S ACTUALLY REALLY CLEVER). Wesker isn't a brilliant mastermind who wears his sunglasses at night, he's the local star quarterback who let every opportunity pass him by and settled for coasting into being the police captain of a dying town because he's a total blockhead (WHAT). Goofier music cues than that one moment in IT Part 2. Chief Irons is a corrupt piece of poo poo in a normal way and not the creepy cartoon taxidermist way and gets some of the best lines and scenes. The infected citizens starting off as half-zombies because of their slow long-time exposure to Umbrella's toxic waste was effectively creepy. The Spencer mansion is underutilized (this movie simply doesn't have enough time), I would have liked a box to be pushed, or a crest to be planted into the base of a statue, or a crank to be a vital object, but an entire keyring of the card-suit keys show up and more/most importantly they hint that a future movie would heavily feature CODE freakin' VERONICA (WHAAAAAT). Unfortunately the ending is a bit weak, but... I think I loved this movie. 3.5/5 #14 Demons 2 (1986) BINGO: Punk Vacation Second verse, same as the first (Demons 1). Just like the first one, a meta film precedes the demonic infection clawing its way into the real world. I enjoyed the claustrophobic yet expansive apartment setting, filled with many more trapped victims. Bobby Rhodes returns as a gym owner even though his other character died in the previous film; glad to have him back. I liked Demons 1 more overall, with the fast as a shark, helicopter crash, but the nihilistic parking garage seige scene was sure something. I could do without the baby demon's endless screeches, and the ending was a bit of a dud. Those punk characters sure were something though. 3/5 #15 Incantation (2022) BINGO: A Perfect Getaway I'd never seen a movie from Taiwan. Deals with hauntings and parenthood and mental illness, so it reminded me of Hereditary and The Babadook, but stands out on its own. I was expecting a bunch of cheap jumpscares and was revealed to find it has very few. It's spooky enough without them. After an idiot group of self-proclaimed and self-righteous "ghost busters" trash a religious site for the likes and subscribes, a mother tries to reconnect with the daughter she'd abandoned after succumbing to superstition and paranoia. Then the spookies start up again. I appreciated that the buddhists have their own version of antichrist symbolism, with sacrilegious lotus imagery equivalent to upside-down crosses. Takes the found footage genre to new (to me) heights of meta; the inverted afterimage shot of the incantation on a blank screen after tricking your eyes to let it burn itself in is so cool. Left me shook and satisfied. 4.5/5 #16 Nope (2022) BINGO: Horror Noire @ThePunnyWorld tweeted: "My girlfriend broke up with me when she found out I only had 9 toes. She was lack toes intolerant." Pretty good pun right? I thought so, until someone pointed out it has nothing to do with milk. That's what this latest from Jordan Peele feels like. A bunch of clever wordplay and directorial choices that don't actually connect or amount to anything. One of the characters is named Emerald. One of the characters is named Angel. After watching the movie I go "okay, I get it, but why?" This movie has to do with black culture and history, it has to do with film-making, it has to do with animal wrangling, but beyond the crisp spectacle, none of it felt very cohesive or relevant. It's also way too bloated and long for what it is. My buddy joined me an hour in and told me afterwards that he didn't feel like he missed a thing and honestly I'm positive he had the better viewing experience (he loved it way more than I did) - to him the "version" he saw was tightly edited and presented. I'm envious. Despite all the time spent, the last act is a muddled mess where the stakes and motives are unclear. Are they trying to film proof to get rich/famous? Are they trying to prove this threat exists to the authorities/populous? What victory is gained from the wishing well photo if the monster is dead and presumably no longer emitting an EMP? Frustrating. 2.5/5 #17 Thir13en Ghosts (2001) I love the House on Haunted Hill remake to bits, so I decided to check out its sister film from Dark Castle Entertainment. It's... okay. The opening with a rich ruthless ghost collector, mercenary physics, BLOOD TRUCKS, and People for the Ethical Treatment of Spirits all combine for a bombastic intro that the rest of the movie doesn't really live up to. Tony Shalhoub is great but he has no other character of substance to bounce off of. Murray Abraham's character shouldn't have faked his death and instead have been a companion and foil throughout the film. Them being in desperate financial stakes but also having a sassy nanny doesn't make any sense. The highlight is that all of the production, set and prod designs look fantastic. The house looks amazing. But it's also so disorienting that it all blends in together. I do like the finale, while the rest of the CG hasn't aged well, the spinning rings look great. 2.5/5 #18 The Mist (2007) BINGO: Spaced Invaders Sought out the black & white version, naturally. The B&W I'm pretty sure helped the CG creature effects age gracefully. Tense and creepy. As a person of faith, Mrs. Carmody drove me up the wall with her love-less braindead authoritarian pharisee scrapbook-style appeals to scripture (which is true enough to life, since there's no shortage of wicked charlatans like her IRL). The monster designs are wonderful and horrific, especially the spiders[/spoilers]. If you told me this was a secret [spoiler]Half-Life adaptation, I'd believe you. The ending well, there are very, very few actors who can pull off grief of that magnitude. Thomas Jane is not one of them. Should have kept the camera off his face. Instead, it became comedic and I started imagining the Curb Your Enthusiasm theme when the tanks showed up. Youtube informs me I'm not the only one. 3.5/5 #19 V/H/S/99 (2022) BINGO: V/H/S So 90s it hurts. None of the frame narratives in the VHS series are very strong, but this one is so toned down that I didn't realize the first film had started. Much weaker than VHS4, none of them are particularly great, the first is the most stylistic, and the 5th ends the movie well with its ambition heading into Hell and back. The third is the weakest and bafflingly focuses around a fake gameshow digestive system set and no one gets eaten in the end (though I do appreciate a man being repeatedly threatened by a beaker of acid. Shooka shooka!). Overall pretty weak, comparable to VHS3. Every segment does stick to the theme though, making it a greater period piece than any of the others. 3/5 #20 The Church (1989) BINGO: Something Wicked This Way Comes After watching Demons 1 and Demons 2, I was not prepared for this gigantic leap in quality. This is a beautiful looking film. And one of the most comprehensive scripts to come out of Italy (again, by Italian standards). I think I might have enjoyed this more than Susperia. It starts off with a bang, as historic crusaders slaughter a village of witches (or diseased villagers?) and seal their corpses away to prevent the end of the world. It's so brutal and over the top, already more ambitious than Dario Argento's previous films. What comes after feels like an Italian imitation of Roman Polanski, but in a good way. Classy, slower paced, but still unique and strange. I feel Argento must have been a fan of blacksploitation films because in each of this "trilogy" features a strong, determined, proactive black man who takes command when the poo poo hits the fan. Hugh Quarshie is quieter than Bobby Rhodes but just as steadfast, he even becomes the main hero/"hero?" The soundtrack by Goblin is a treat. The ending is bonkers and took my breath way (pretty sure there's a good chance that pile of bodies inspired Legion from Castlevania, Italian horror was huge there). There was a death that really shocked me: the subway train. And I appreciated the ambiguity whether the events were to due witch ghosts summoning Satan or a hallucinatory plague driving people insane, and whether it made any difference in its results (or maybe a bunch of innocent sick people were tortured and killed for little reason). 4.5/5 Edit: whoops wrote the wrong review for the wrong movie. Come And See fucked around with this message at 10:52 on Nov 1, 2022 |
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Nov 1, 2022 09:59
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Fast as a Shark, now that's a classic metal tune.Orchestrated Mess posted:And right at the finish line, here are my movies from the last couple of days. Thanks to those that organized and participated in this, I'll be going through this thread for recommendations for a while as with every previous thread and will be looking forward to next year. This was a bit of a busy month for me, just past halfway through the month I never thought I'd make it to 31. Always like finishing with one or two movies that I know I'll enjoy. Me and my friends were hyped for FvJ too, that movie is a lotta fun. Classic 2003. Place your bets... and giallo rules for sure, especially the classic Dario run for me. This post inspired my last pick I threw on tonight too, Jason X! Was looking for something perhaps dumb yet genius. Movie 12. Ghostbusters Can't go wrong with Ghostbusters, and I was overdue for a rewatch. Such a cool movie, not just the great make it look easy comedy performances and writing, but the world and the vibe, that imagination. I become more and more of an Akroyd fan over the years too, he's such a funny and unique presence. Everybody rules in this. That's a big twinkie. I actually heard the theme to this on the radio yesterday too, always good. Movie 13 of 13. Jason X Pretty much my first time seeing this, I saw bits and pieces of it before. When I was getting into the series around that time I thought Jason X looked not so good. Like maybe say Leprechaun 4 which I found kind of boring. But turns out it's been a fun ride all along. Definitely a charming movie, the acting is really fun, the seemingly low effort script with its fun cliche lines. A few good zingers, but mainly it's just that pleasant campy low budget vibe, but done pretty well. Here's an excerpt: He's done with the campers. Wow. He's good. He's too good. He's coming back. Okay, try it again. It's engaged! The door's engaged. Brodski, you are the man. Hey, are we gonna see you sometime soon? I'm on my way. It's just non-stop low effort banter the whole movie, but I say that in a positive way, since it's pretty amusing. It almost feels like hey, any of us could've written this. It's like a DIY Jason in space script. But it's almost like a cozy film, like they say with mysteries. This is a cozy Jason in space film. It's pretty funny. Another fun one this year, happy Halloween everybody!
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Nov 1, 2022 10:02
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41. Halloween (1978) Nearly fifteen years after suddenly and inexplicably murdering his sister, Michael Meyers escapes from a mental hospital and returns to his home town of Haddonfield, Illinois (the part of Illinois that's adjacent to Southern California), where he fixates on young Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis). Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasence) is in pursuit, but can he track down Meyers in time? Probably not. It's hard to talk about this film. It's the movie that crystallized the slasher genre- there were other slasher films before it, but this was what opened the floodgates and made "shadowy figure kills teenagers" the definitive template for indie filmmakers to prove themselves with. It's a masterpiece of precision, Carpenter makes it as slick and graceful as possible, perfectly turning an average block of households into a nightmare. There's a few things going on here, one of which is famously the film's refusal to "explain" Meyers or give him any kind of reason to kill. He simply does, robotically, and the relative lack of blood and gore renders him an almost supernatural, ghostly figure. But another, almost paradoxically, is that the killer does have a story, and it's the kind of myth that seems to exist everyplace- on one house in this very block, many years ago, something terrible happened, and things have never felt safe since. Also have to love the allusions with both The Thing From Another World and Forbidden Planet playing on TV (the latter apparently letterboxed? In 1978?); both movies are about monsters we rarely see, and both being from space adds an interesting quality to Michael's boogeyman (especially when Planet's electronic soundtrack plays over a scene of him carrying a body.) The movie looks amazing, Jamie Lee Curtis is both very grounded and somehow wise beyond her years, Pleasence is having a time, Nancy Loomis and P. J. Soles both make a great impression, look, you know all this. A triumph of independent filmmaking and always a grand time, with a soundtrack that's an eternal earworm. 42. Satan's Storybook Spooky Bingo: V/H/S This category was hard to define since it's hard to tell which of the many movies most people likely only saw on home video had like a brief theatrical run in Oxnard, so I stuck to SOV and this was the first on the list I found that I hadn't seen. This is a two-part anthology, with the framing device set in some kind of fantasy world where Satan's bride (Leslie Deutsch) has been kidnapped by a holy warrior (Ginger Lynn) in an attempt to stop her from giving birth to the Antichrist, and in the midst of some battle sequences shot in a state park Satan's Jester (Michael David) tells his master (Ray Roberts) a couple of encouraging tales of evil. In the first, an edgelord serial killer calling himself the Demon of Darkness murders a goth girl's family before being caught, and said goth girl (Leesa Rowland) casts some kind of ritual just as he's executed, which goes awry. The second is about a clown (Steven K. Arthur) who after being fired for drunkenness, commits suicide and meets the Clown version of Death and takes a significant amount of time to process the fact that he just committed suicide and is now dead. Look, I didn't come in with any expectations, and it's not like I was surprised at how bad this was. The needlessly elaborate framing device actually shows a lot more effort than the stories within it, it was all clearly shot in the same few yards of forest but there's an attempt at a mythology and action and at least one monster with a decent prosthetic head. The stories themselves are INCREDIBLY generic; the first actually feels like it was written by a 15-year-old, it's that teenager's concept of a serial killer as someone who's just an edgy dude who chooses victims by looking in the phonebook. A bunch of people scream a lot, and there's a lot of business leading up to the killer's execution with him sassing the sheriff while a priest tries to read the last rites. The second story, well, I just described pretty much all of it, there's literally nothing to it besides "a clown hangs himself and then Clown Death appears." Like we learn the clown once stabbed a guy for booze money, and then he stabs Clown Death, but then Clown Death shows up in front of a black background and that's the end of the story? And then the framing story ends in a weird vague way, which is fitting given how much of it is characters declaring exposition. This is just one of those films where you wonder how it happened. This can't have been the filmmakers' intention, they must have run out of money or time or something. It's pretty awful, but I can't say I didn't know better. 43. Skull: The Mask Spooky Bingo: OsteologyThis category was actually kinda hard to find stuff for. Dammit horror filmmakers, make more skeleton movies. Archeologists in Brazil dig up a skull-like mask reputed to have been the vessel for an ancient Incan god. Soon enough both the museum curator (Guta Ruiz) and her girlfriend (Lívia Inhudes) have been gruesomely murdered, and the mask latches itself onto someone and goes on a seemingly random killing spree. Indigenous worker Nobuto (Tristan Aronovich) seems to know what the god-mask is after, but nobody believes him, and the only other person on the trail is a corrupt cop (Beatriz Severo) who's being blackmailed by one of the museum sponsors (Ivo Müller), a German man who seems to have his own agenda. This is an odd movie, it is on the one hand a very up-front and gory slasher, but it's also kind of conceptually ambitious, touching on themes of colonialism in Brazil's history and the role of Christianity and fascism in suppressing native beliefs, as well as things like police corruption (refreshingly, the main cop isn't portrayed as "a good cop gone bad" so much as someone who's already done some nasty poo poo and is being led to do even nastier poo poo.) There's honestly some of this I'm not sure I know enough to unpack, really. The film is not entirely successful realizing all these concepts in the context of what is, again, a very bloody slasher. The tone's kind of inconsistent, it's mostly played straight except for when the Skull-mask killer is on screen, when it veers into more grindhouse-homage action and macabre humor. The digital photography is also a bit of a problem, everything has a weird slightly-overlit tinge. I'm not entirely confident in the subtitles either, especially the native chanting which gets a bit word-salady. On balance I think I enjoyed this, there's a certain charm to it. It's socially subversive, has some very interesting gory imagery (as well as a few good kills), and its failings are understandable given how much it's got on its plate; it's the sort of thing where I get the feeling the filmmakers are still learning a few of the ropes and refining their approach. Definitely creative enough to be worth a look. And, finally... 44. Day of the Dead (1985) In past years I've watched and written about NOTLD and Dawn, so this was a natural choice to end things on a comfortable, familiar note. The living dead outnumber humanity by 400,000 to 1. A small government research operation, situated in an underground complex in a remote part of Florida, continues researching the zombie plague that's overtaken the world, in total isolation from anyone else (if there is, in fact, anyone else.) Sarah (Lori Cardille, daughter of "Chilly Billy" Cardille who was in the first movie), a researcher, tries to keep her head as the military branch of the operation- led by the hotheaded Captain Rhodes (Joe Pilato)- demands more control and more results. The brilliant but eccentric Dr. Logan (Richard Liberty) is less interested in defeating the undead than in making them "behave". As Sarah's soldier boyfriend Miguel (Anthony DiLeo Jr.) breaks down due to stress, she finds her only allies are radio operator McDermott (Jarlath Conroy) and helicopter pilot John (Terry Alexander), both of whom are looking to make a break before things get out of hand. George A. Romero originally had a different plan for the third in his trilogy of zombie films, a much more ambitious story of a tinpot dictator with an army of trained zombies at his command, but he couldn't raise the money, so had to dramatically scale down his ambitions. What we get is a more claustrophobic and talky picture than most expected/hoped for, and this was long regarded as the least of the trilogy; I always liked it, but even then considered it a tier below the other two. Over time, well, Night of the Living Dead is still the original classic and Dawn is still the best horror film ever made, so I guess this is still third, but the gap has shrunk considerably. This feels the least like a "horror movie" of any of his zombie films, and instead has a unique, tantalizing atmosphere, a sense of human life fully transformed by catastrophe. Like Dawn and Creepshow this has a very comic-book feel, sharp and starkly drawn characters conflicting in Big Dramatic Moments, the story mostly just being how everything is breaking down. I used to think the military characters were maybe a bit exaggerated, acting more like overgrown frat boys, but, well, time has altered that observation let's just say. They are very over the top but it's appropriate for this story, and for Romero writing in the depths of Reagan-era America. Pilato is great fun as Rhodes, and his dynamic with Logan is incredible- Liberty shuts him down so wonderfully sometimes, but it's clear Logan doesn't have the fullest grasp of everything either and often loses rhetorical ground. And while on the subject of acting it'd be criminal not to talk about "Bub", as played by Howard Sherman- possibly the best zombie ever. Sherman's physical work is just terrific, and he seems so soulful and sympathetic while trying to follow Logan's instructions. Tom Savini got to do some really great work with the zombie makeup and gore effects, it's some career-best stuff. John Harrison's synthesized, Carribean-influenced music score is wonderfully lush and adds to the film's unique feeling. The setting and tone could easily have made the film sterile, cold, and bleak, but there's a certain beating heart to it. It's at turns very cynical (again, the peak of Reaganism and a lot of Cold War brinksmanship had a lot of filmmakers thinking we weren't gonna make it out of the 20th century) and very sincere, Romero willing to show the best of humanity alongside the worst. It's been five years since we lost Romero, and his work is still so vital and relevant. Day of the Dead was from some accounts his favorite of the original trilogy, and I can see why; it's very refined and skilled work, making the best of limited resources. There's something very pleasurable to it, which is an odd thing to say about a film about the last survivors of an apocalypse realizing they'll never get the old world back. We need more filmmakers- more artists, hell, more people- with Romero's sense of humanity. FINAL SPOOKY BINGO CARD:  I didn't get everything but I got more than before. Some wrap-up and final thoughts later. Hope you all had a wonderful Halloween.
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Nov 1, 2022 10:03
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 Demons/Demoni, 1985 Now this is the good poo poo the horror genre was made for. Someone driving a motorbike through a movie theater killing demons with a katana while Fast as a Shark by Accept is playing. There's also Save Our Souls by Mötley Crüe and Night Danger by Pretty Maids playing during the movie. Bunch of people get free tickets to a movie premier, only for the demonic curse in the horror movie they are watching to manifest in reality. The demons sort of work like zombies in that anyone bitten turns into one. Everyone is trapped in the theater and poo poo gets nasty with some fun gore. Despite how fun I make it sound by describing it, this is far from a classic, but still something any horror fan should check out.
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Nov 1, 2022 10:23
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My original plan was to finish up with Sissy at the movies, but it was only on for one night and other plans got in the way. Anyway, I figured that since the point of this thread is to hear about movies from others, I'd just go with the first review that grabbed me, which happened to be this one, so: 31 Night of the Creeps (1986)  "Look, detective, I don't mean to be rude or anything, but, other than just wanting to confess to a murder, is there a point to this story?" A small town is terrorised by alien brain-slugs. Loved it. How did it take me this long to find this movie? Had no idea Slither was a spiritual sequel to anything. I've had some great luck with horror-comedy this month, between this, Freaky, and Vampire's Kiss. The characters are just immediately likeable - well, Chris is a bit of a wet blanket, but JC makes up for it - and there's so many great lines. And yet there's a couple of emotional beats that are played straight, and just totally work somehow. I'm gonna double-feature this with Killer Klowns next year. Detective Cameron - Tom Atkins - is just a delight, a man who has spent the past thirty years trying to become a stock hardboiled protagonist, and has finally found a chance to really let loose. The cops in general make no secret of how much they love getting to investigate some actual murders in their small town, it's very endearing. "Crestridge", by the way, is a nice understated dumb town name. The one thing I didn't much like is it does the same thing as Death Machine, where half the characters are named after cult horror-directors of the '80s. Like c'mon, you can put in one of those, you can't do Raimi and Carpenter and Cronenberg and Hooper and Craven and Landis and Romero and Bava. Anyway, I'm finished with the Spooky Bingo, but you could watch this for Scream, Queen! or Spaced Invaders. Connective tissue to #30 Viy: villains bursting through poo poo wood. With that being the end of it, here's what I watched. Highlights are bolded. 1. Saint Maud 2. The Devil's Door 3. Come True 4. Who Invited Them (Zombie Honeymoon) 5. Vampire's Kiss (Yuppie Nightmare) 6. No One Gets Out Alive (Hausu) 7. Savageland (V/H/S) 8. Good Madam (Horror Noire) 9. Ghostwatch (Terror-Vision) 10. We're All Going to the World's Fair (Scream, Queen!) 11. In the Earth (Highbrow Horror) 12. Scanners (Masters of Horror) 13. Dawn of the Dead (2004) (rewatch) 14. The Invisible Man (1933) (Golden Years) 15. Q (Short Cuts) 16. Friday the 13th (2009) (They Always Come Back) 17. Lifeforce (Spaced Invaders) 18. Halloween Ends 19. Freaky (Femme Fatale) 20. The Thing (w audio commentary) (rewatch) (Whispers In The Dark) 21. The Wolf House (A Perfect Getaway) 22. Barbarian (Goodnight Mommy) 23. The Collingswood Story (H20) 24. Antlers (Paperbacks from Hell) 25. The Spine of Night (Osteology) 26. V/H/S/99 (Tales of Terror) 27. You Won't Be Alone (Something Wicked This Ways Comes) 28. From Hell (Dead & Buried) 29. Alien (rewatch) 30. Viy (Picnic at Hanging Rock) 31. Night of the Creeps Great month. Lots of new stuff, and only a couple duds. I feel like my horror backlog hasn't really shrunk at all.
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Nov 1, 2022 10:56
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22. Evil Dead II This is my only rewatch this year but I was in the mood for something familiar for my last movie on Halloween. This is one of my all time favorite movies, close to perfect. Bruce Campbell is incredible and Raimi's directorial style is great. It's one of the most fun movies ever made and it never fails to entertain me.
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Nov 1, 2022 11:55
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No further movies in the last few days; I got distracted by del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities (which I recommend). Still, made my target of 31 and got two bingos.  Final ranking S-Tier (must watch) The Cremator; The Host; Peeping Tom A-Tier (highly recommend) Mad God; Lake Mungo; Dead and Buried B-Tier (worth checking out) Scream 5; Scream 4; Childsplay 3; Black Sabbath; The Curse of the Cat People; The Company of Wolves; Goosebumps; Alligator; Hausu; The Howling; The Blood on Satan's Claw C-Tier (not bad, not great) Pet Semetary; Boris Karloff: the Man Behind the Monster; Piranha (2010); Hack-O-Lantern; Strip Nude for your Killer; Vampire in Brooklyn; Rubber D-Tier (don't bother) Burke and Hare; Season of the Witch; The Wizard of Gore; Carry on Screaming; Rawhead Rex; Zaat Nothing I outright hated this year at least. Thanks as always for organising this Fran.
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Nov 1, 2022 12:08
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#21 Freaky (2020) I enjoyed both Happy Death Days and this was more in the same vein, though Jessica Rothe is irreplaceable. Good, gory kills, I just wish the movie was funnier. I'm not a huge fan of Vince Vaughn (see: True Detective S2) but he does a good job here and is the main source of comedy. I'm not saying I wanted to see Vince Vaughn make out with a 18-yo boy, and I don't want to see it again, but I'm glad it happened. 2.5/5 #22 The Invisible Man (2020) BINGO: Femme Fatale The opening scene and the silent storytelling of this woman putting it all on the line to escape this monster of a man and their abusive relationship is an absolute highlight. Then in the aftermath where she's haunted by his memory, making every negative space a threat, is bone-chilling. Having all her relationships, her life, torn from her hands really puts you in the shoes of the actual horror real women face every day. The dinner scene with her sister made me gasp. The movie loses a bit of momentum when Adrian is seen by other people and the ending didn't quite work for me, Adrian's invisibility is a metaphor for how powerful abusive men aren't acknowledged by those around them, ie. Crosby, Weinstein, despite acting in plain sight. As a metaphor... that power/male privilege isn't really available to Cecilia. I feel the movie should have ended at the house with both brothers, and/or have Cecilia weaken Adrian with media exposure (ie. #MeToo, a bit on the nose but it fits the theme). 3.5/5 #23 Men (2022) BINGO: Goodnight, Mommy Men men men men, manly men men men! Going from Invisible Man, which delivered its themes and message powerfully and effectively, to this was a bit of a whiplash. I appreciate that each of these caricatures are true to life and occur every day, and the performances are all well done, but each encounter before the final act was presented with so little insight beyond stand bad behavior that they all became dependably predictable. And then it became farcical. And it doesn't help that the film's title sounds like a campy b-movie creature feature. I know the themes and aims are important... but once I started giggling I couldn't stop. This is a very silly film. Alex Garland can sometimes present a lot of visual spectacle and technical marvels, with very little substance. And then the ending is just flabbergasting with the Green Man birthing himself over and over (motherhood!), tortured because he's imitating but cannot comprehend the holy essence of womanhood (BTW I don't exactly trust TERF island with this subject material). Dumb, well made, might be worth seeing without thinking. 2.5/5 #24 Mad God (2021) BINGO: Wild Beasts Feast for the eyes (and torture for the stomach). This stop-motion passion project of Phil Tippett must be seen to believe. Scene after scene of madness, carnage, meaningless death, all life reduced to mindless beasts. Perhaps it's Hell. Perhaps it's Earth turned Hell. As well follow the gas-masked assassin and then a second one we watch them indifferently pursue their end goal, unfeeling to the horrors that swirl and erupt around them, their journey very much like Dante's Inferno. Every 5 minutes is a new glimpse of damnation and nihilism, often filled with crazed animals that might have been human at some point but certainly aren't anymore. These hellscapes are filled with ever-changing life and will perpetuate forever. There is no quiet, there is no calm, there is only endless rage and victimizing. This movie is a fervor... until the last third: when the second assassin drives down the well and out of this film. After that the viewpoint is unanchored and more omnipresent as we watch an alchemist play God. But with a greater perspective results in no change of tone or understanding or clarity, not that one existed to be had, but something is lost when we no longer have an audience surrogate to witness the incomprehensible alongside us. 4/5 #25 12 Hour Shift (2020) BINGO: Picnic At Hanging Rock A dark comedy that could be funnier, Angela Bettis and Chloe Farnworth both do a fantastic job as a sardonic nurse and murderous ditzy airhead respectively. Regina is a great antagonist and force of chaos. Takes place in 1999, but other than the lack of cellphones and the TV worrying about Y2K not sure what making it a period piece added. Not much else to say, just a small fun movie. I know a few nurses and I'm sure they'd love this. 3.5/5 #26 Hellraiser (2022) A very gory, gruesome moody slasher. Easily one of the best Hellraiser sequels. But I still prefer 1 & 2, where the Cenobites were not just pure evil torturers but instead had a cause and a code. They were dangerous sure, especially if you got in their way or broke a deal with them or caught their interest too closely, but they only gave their "gifts" to those who wanted them or appeared to secretly appreciate them. Pinhead was a bastard, and obsessed with his passions and profession, but he wasn't pure evil or at least wouldn't consider himself as such. His tastes and thinking were too extreme and alien to fit into that spectrum. He could crack a joke. He could be reasoned with. He expressed admiration and familiarity. Now that there was a cenobite you could really have a beer with. But these cenobites today, well they're just pure capital-E Evil and the movie says as much. Which keeps them at the level of mere slasher villains, the same as Part 3 and onwards. Which is too bad. The movie looks great and Riley has a pretty good arc of being a selfish prick to someone who takes ownership of their mistakes. 3/5 #27 Barbarian (2022) Was told to go in blind, so I did. The opening act was great (reminded me of Men!). The twist and narrative shift were surprising, Justin Long plays a shithead slimeball really well. So did those cops. Good mix of comedy and creep. "The Mother" was better unseen than as a prolonged presence. Overall this movie is carried by its twists, so I'm doubtful it will be as entertaining a second time around. 3/5 #28 Martyrs (2008) I remember when this was the boogieman of the SA Horror Thread in its infancy. People kept saying "It's torture porn... but really good!" I might have left my guard down when I finally stepped up to it. It really did earn its reputation. It's well acted and well presented and the violence is excessive, grueling, memorable and purposeful. I appreciated that the movie reinvents its base premise several times over the film. First its a crazy stalker, then its a family home invasion, then its a ghost story, then its a killer family with a secret torture dungeon, then its a secret worldwide torture organization, then its a Rocky montage of misery, then its a bunch of rich old fucks paying for the secrets of the afterlife in their country club, then its haha gently caress you lol, the end. My favourite part was the home invasion, it's the tightest segment with the fastest pacing and it hits the gas and does not let up. The rest is quite a bit slower, especially when our main protagonist dies and we're left with her friend who doesn't have much motivation, development or agency and becomes a literal object by the end. I will say Martyrs kept my aghast attention all the way through. 4/5 #29 Come To Daddy (2019) BINGO: Yuppie Nightmare Rich, nebbish, out-of-touch yuppie Elijah Wood responds to a letter and meets his estranged dad and it all goes to hell. Like Barbarian, this film's strengths are in its twists and I'm not so sure a second viewing would be as strong. But the one I had was funny and kooky and bloody. Elijah Wood and Stephen McHattie play well off eachother until they don't. I'm pretty sure when Jethro was telling Wood's Norval that his mom fooled around and they had sex together, and then exhaled "Arthur...!" (a name never mentioned elsewhere) when he got stabbed in the brain and died, it was to hint that Jethro was Norval's real father and his real name was Arthur, just to throw yet another wrench in the themes of fatherhood. 3/5 #30 The Paloni Show! Halloween Special! (2022) & Garfield Halloween Special (1985) BINGO: Halloween Is Special I was interested in the former purely for the Megg, Mogg & Owl section (which came out of nowhere as a total surprise. The best adult alt comic of the past decade suddenly has a short on Disney+? Sign me up!). Thankfully the rest of the shorts were all pretty good. Some had crazy animation. Some were really funny. A lot were Youtube stars I was already familiar with and now they're on the big stage (all it was missing was JackStauber). It had one segment that was pretty much an authentic flash cartoon circa 2006. The frame narrative was pretty good, my favourite part was when a dying crazed killer starts doing an "Ade due Damballa"-like chant... but then they point out "just like Chucky!"... Twice. Just let a good joke sit, jeeze. They also go too far villainizing a mentally-challenged child in a way that wasn't funny. The actual MM&O segment was... fine. David Foley is a bit too old to play Owl now. Whoever was Mogg was terrible. Jon Glaser as Werewolf Jones was pretty good. The flash animation was stiff, and there wasn't enough time for the tragic subtleties of the comic, but Simon Hanselmann's backgrounds were gorgeous as ever. 3.5/5 & For Garfield this was my first time revisiting the special in over 20 years and... well the nostalgia didn't quite hold up. Garfield in the meantime since my early childhood has been meme'd to death and changed so much. There's no feelings left for the unironic brand mascot. I will say hearing Lorenzo Music's voice is always a treat. The animation is not great and everything feels empty: empty house, empty street, empty neighborhood. Which is not great when you're trying to capture the busy energy of Halloween. It becomes more forgivable once they break off from known society and jump on a boat for some reason. Then Garfield and Odie's isolation makes more sense. The ghost pirate section is the best part, some neat animation effects there, especially when the beams of light come through the windows at odd impossible angles. I'm not sure which came first, but I wish the skull on Garfield's hat mugged faces and silently reacted to what was happening like in the printed comic, would have been nice to have an extra character present. I will say the special ends with one banger of a sea shanty. 2.5/5 #31 Little Shop Of Horrors (1986) BINGO: Highbrow Horror What a delightful film to end on! I love horror and have grown to enjoy musicals so it was about time. Rick Moranis and Ellen Greene do a great job but so do Steve Martin and surprise appearances from John Candy and Bill Murray (who in particular, as a willing sub to Martin's dentist dom, cranks the sexual subtext to 11 and is absolutely hilarious). The puppetry for Audrey II is famous and for good reason, a treat for the eyes that cannot be found anywhere else. The songs are good (though not as catchy as Rocky Horror or Phantom of the Paradise). I watch the "director's cut" and the ending is bombastic, but I can also see why they changed it. I chased down the theatrical ending on youtube but might have missed a song. I should edit it myself by adding in the intertitle from Clue so I can enjoy both endings at once. The film deserves it. 4.5/5 DONE!  Two lines! (All 31 movies were new other than the "rewatch safe" Garfield Halloween Special.) Come And See fucked around with this message at 07:25 on Nov 4, 2022 |
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Nov 1, 2022 12:09
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Recap 1)The Munsters, 2)Color Out of Space 3)Living Dead Girl 4)Collingswood story5)Mr. Harrigan’s Phone 6)Werewolf by night/halloweenies 7)Hellraiser 8)My Best Friend’s Exorcism 9)Deadstream 10)Candyman 11)47 meters down uncaged 12)Watcher13)Dark Glasses14)Halloween Ends 15)The rental 16)Terrifier 17)Isle of the Dead 18)A quiet place part 2 19)the blob 20)v/h/s 99 21) Bad Moon 22)Scary stories to tell in the dark 23)His House24)Black Phone 25)Vast of Night26)Hack-o-lantern 27)Trick or treat 28)Hobgoblins Shot for 16, hit 28 Best Movies-Candyman/His House/The Watcher/Deadstream Worst movie-Terrifier Most disappointing-My Best Friend's Exorcism Goopiest-The Blob '88 Best bad movie-Hobgoblins Well, that's another year in the bag. Lots of solid movies this year, only a handful of great ones. On the plus side, only a handful of bad ones, and most of the bad ones weren't too unbearable (aside from Terrifier).
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Nov 1, 2022 12:44
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 Bad Taste, 1987 Normally I like to finish the marathon by watching either Braindead/Dead Alive, Evil Dead 2, Army of Darkness or any other real fun movie like that. This time I'm finishing with one I haven't seen in ages. Bad Taste was Peter Jackson's first feature film that took him four year to make as he and the cast did the filming in their free time. It is a simple story of a tiny New Zealand village that's been exterminated by aliens who turned them into goo so they can be sold as fast food on another planet. A small task force is investigating the whole thing and it gets gory right away. I've forgotten how creative and fun the splatter effects were in this one. It is quite the minimalist movie with a bunch of people killing each other, and that's all it needs to be. Quite a fun finish to my marathon.
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Nov 1, 2022 13:05
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13-31, with a bingo hat trick. 13. The Lighthouse (2019) (challenge: H20) "Doldrums, doldrums. Eviler than the Devil. Boredom makes men to villains, and the water goes quick, lad, vanished." A psychosexual nightmare drama draped in references to Greek mythology and old paintings, all in black-and-white and a gloriously claustrophobic 1.19:1 ratio. Pattinson is good (release the Dick Cut) and Dafoe is incredible. Difficult to describe, has to be experienced to be believed. It's a nice touch that for all the escalation that occurs, things are off the rails pretty much immediately. 8.5/10 14. Slash/Back (2022) (challenge: Spaced Invaders) "Not Ijiraq, no. But aliens? Oh yes. Aliens for sure. Probably." Echoing previous reviews here, this is fun if a bit uneven. I'm taking it as an intentional joke that the characters directly discuss The Thing at length but then the movie directly lifts a major plot point from Attack the Block instead. Remove the unfulfilled promise of a big-rear end monster and give it one more editing pass, and you'd have greatness here; there's great potential in the concept of phone-obsessed Inuit teens getting back to their roots to drive off aliens who wear cops as uniforms. Special shout-out to the contortionist who really sells the aliens' freaky movements. Breaking my usual half-point rating system to give this one a 6.75/10 for heart and effort 15. House (1986) (challenge: Paperbacks from Hell) "Just a senile old hag, really. Wouldn't be surprised if someone just got fed up and offed her, you know what I mean?" "She was my aunt." "Heart of gold, though, just a saint really." This is essentially Sensible Chuckle: The Horror-Comedy. Lots of situational humor arising from the main threat to our main character being not the house itself, but the potential for him to get caught looking insane by the cops/nosy neighbor. The monster costumes are delightfully bad, there's some fun use of extradimensional spaces, and while the Vietnam subplot generally meanders, at least it does more with the idea than X did, and the gag of his book having the most generic title ever is pretty good. A generous 7/10 16. mother! (2017) (challenge: Goodnight Mommy) "Wow, you really do love him. God help you."  If your idea of horror is having to stop a guest from lighting a cigarette in your house, only to have them casually toss the entire freshly-lit thing just out the front door, you're going to love/hate this movie. Half of the movie is similar "social anxiety horror" like I've never seen before of people casually violating social norms while our main character (and Jennifer Lawrence absolutely smashes the role) just has to deal with it. Things escalate and ebb and flow and escalate and escalate and escalate until we reach a sequence that I am dubbing "Children of Women"; the less said the better, another one of those that must be seen to be believed. I was so engrossed for the entire runtime that a number of allegorical elements flew right over my head and I was slapping my forehead afterwards. 8/10 17. The Curse of La Llorona (2019) "You don't need to be religious.,.,,.,.!.,.,,...to have faith." Watched because I was in a place with only a DVD player nearby and it was the only horror DVD around. This is certainly a movie. A waste of a good cast. I've actually never watched any of the Conjuring movies, but this certainly didn't need to be a part of them and it suffers from a hamfisted Annabelle reference. There are like 2 good shots where the eye is drawn to one part of the screen and then a ghost jumpscares you from another part of it. That is the only compliment I can give this movie. 5/10 18. The Dark and the Wicked (2020) "The worst thing in the world to me is for a person to die alone." The undisputed feel-bad movie of 2020. The worst thing is that it's not content just to wallow in bleakness, misery, and inevitability, but that it also delivers some horrific gore with startling and devastating efficiency. So...great movie. Only complaint is that while there's enough of some sort of moral substance to the movie as if it is meant to teach some sort of lesson rather than reveling in pure nihilism, the why of it all isn't exactly clear, except perhaps the references to the fact that the family doesn't believe in God. That'll show em, I guess. 8.5/10 19. Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) (challenge: They Always Come Back - remade in 2005) "There are no heroes anymore, Bishop, only men who follow orders. I feel inclined to complain about this, namely about how the two big plot threads that lead to the Assault interact awkwardly with themselves and each other. The father character has an entire arc of his own culminating in him leading the gang to the precinct, and then is literally catatonic the whole rest of the movie. There's plenty of poo poo-talking about cops and the precipitating incident at the start of the movie is depicted essentially as a mass execution by police, but then the gang members attack the building like zombies. Even the plot thread of the one prisoner being sick seems like a set-up by Wilson to give him an opportunity to escape, but it turns out that no the guy was actually just sick. But you know what, Wilson rules, even the early Carpenter score bumps when it kicks in, and there's a charm to it that's undeniable. 7/10 20. The Strange Color of Your Body's Tears (2013) (challenge: Zombie Honeymoon) "What has this got to do with my wife?" Good question! I found this strongest at the start where it's essentially a slickly-shot anthology of sexy murder stories, but it quickly drifts away into pure imagery as it both narrows in on the core narrative and scrambles itself into incomprehensibility. I found myself completely lost by the end; I think our main character gets murdered in the climax and then keeps on trucking a few seconds later, but I'm honestly not sure. I suspect that the reason this movie's plot summary on Wikipedia is 3 sentences long is because nobody knows what actually happens or how exactly the mystery resolves. But I suppose that's giallo for you. I should probably start judging giallos by whether or not I can figure out what the title of the movie is supposed to mean by the end of it, and for this one I have a pretty good guess. 10/10 for putting on in the background at a Halloween party, let's go with 7/10 overall 21. Society (1989) (challenge: Yuppie Nightmare) "Paranoid? I'm not paranoid. All my fears are real." There are more quotable quotes in this but they're a bit spoilery, and by the time things really ramped up I was too busy going  to note them down. Cocaine is a hell of a drug.8/10 22. V/H/S99 (2022) (challenge: Tales of Terror) "What's a party without a little bit of violence?" A serviceable contribution to the V/H/S franchise, not the worst, certainly not the best. For all the complaints about most of the series' wraparound segments, I was disappointed by the relative lack of one here; the idea that filming paranormal stuff creates cursed video tapes that themselves generate paranormal phenomena is half the fun! In accordance with tradition I shall break this down by segment: Shredding: Okay, even though I preferred the Bitch Cat demo reel to the actual horror parts. That said, the "Get off my loving stage! beat really landed for me. Suicide Bid: Very good! But I had some issues with the pacing; by my memory we spend a lot of time before she gets in the coffin, and then the time between "gets in the coffin" and "freaks out about being in the coffin" is almost instantaneous. Contrast with 94's The Empty Wake, which is a slow burn but steadily becomes a conflagration. The box full of spiders gag is hilarious. Ending is unnecessary. Ozzy's Dungeon: Act 1 is 10/10. Act 2 becomes a bit of a slog; we didn't need 2 full runs of the course. Huge fan of the design at the very end, wish we got to see more of it, but I'm not sure I "get it". The Gawkers: Great potential squandered. Would have been top-tier if someone got turned into stone via webcam at the end; I would have bet a large sum that that was going to be part of the payoff. To Hell and Back: the most consistently entertaining of the lot; the similar tone and shared actors/directors with Deadstream make this a good appetizer/dessert depending on which one you watch first. Set design kicks rear end. As much as I love the V/H/S series I can't give this more than a 7.5/10 and that's a stretch. 23. Decision to Leave (2022) "I wish I could figure out the pattern." Sneaking this in as a "romantic thriller". I previously described this as a perfect movie with a good sequel grafted on, and even that second part might just have been due to fatigue from the runtime, which is about the same as The Matrix but at least twice as intricate. The cinematography is jaw-dropping, with every shot calculated for effect and with the occasional flourish like a phone call shot as an in-person conversation, or a tracking shot of a rooftop chase that holds on just long enough for it to feel like a flex by a seasoned filmmaker. The plot itself goes through a number of twists and turns, a story built of stories that themselves have their own twists and turns and layers and layers, but at the heart of it all is the connection between our two leads where it's unclear not just whether they will live happily ever after, or whether they will ever be together at all, but rather who they believe themselves to be, and who they are. 9/10 24. Raw (2016) (challenge: To Serve Man) "Open up. You'll be happy you did it." Even knowing the general idea of what this was about, I was surprised by the presentation. The coming-of-age college setting gets a lot of mileage, with our main character not only having to deal with fitting in and dealing with cravings of various kinds, but also occasionally getting doused in paint and other various fluids, the hazing rituals themselves also exciting and discomforting in turn. It certainly makes an impression, but it will take repeat viewings for me to judge whether all the imagery and metaphors amount to something with real meat or if it's just flesh and bone in a pretty - and squirm-inducing - package. 8/10 for now 25. Berberian Sound Studio (2012) "Horror film? This is not a horror film...it is a part of the human condition." Meditative-meta-existential horror done right, the less said the better. I wasn't expecting to recognize anyone in this so I'm glad it only took me a couple minutes to remember how I knew the main actor (it was from Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy). The foley artist characters were hilarious so it was great to find out that they're actual experimental sound artists IRL. I keep thinking about this one, perhaps because of how it is boldly brave enough to make its plot completely inscrutable. 8.5/10 26. Saint Maud (2019) (challenge: Femme Fatale: directed by Rose Glass) "It takes nothing special to mop up after the decrepit and the dying. But to save a soul...that's quite something." Astonishing that this is the director's first feature film. The tension and interplay between Maud and her new charge felt juicy enough that I expected the whole movie to just be about that, so it was a nice touch to have things shift gears - and devolve - halfway through. And of course she circles back around at the end. It's one thing to present such a compelling character study of someone with a religious obsession that the viewer themselves might begin to think they're right; it's another to decide that the final fraction of a second of the movie is a good time to answer that question. Morfydd Clark knocks the lead role out of the park. 9/10 27. The Return of the Living Dead (1985) (challenge: Punk Vacation) The events portrayed in this film are all true. The names are real names of real people and real organizations. Hell yeah. For as much of a comedy this is, it's also downright horrifying, just with its cynicism wrapped in a sheet of humor. The idea of a zombie that straight-up cannot be killed is as scary as the depiction of three guys beating the poo poo out of one while it's tied down is hilarious. It's telling that two elements of the zombie mythos as presented in this movie (namely the idea of painfully zombifying while fully conscious the whole time, leading into the reason zombies eat brains) are so hosed up that they're not seen even in most grimdark zombie media. Get you a movie that can do both. 8.5/10 28. Slumber Party Massacre 2 (1987) "You are so weird sometimes." The other one besides #20 that I made sure to watch this month thanks to Allyn's recommendation, and my favorite of the two. I didn't particularly like the first Slumber Party Massacre, finding it to be mostly a vehicle for tits and murder with a boring killer. SPM2 feels directly targeted to spice up these aspects and is a hell of a ride. There is precisely one (1) shot of boobs and the killer is The Coolest Guy Ever, even providing his own soundtrack. And he doesn't even actually show up until the third act! Before that the movie is a character-focused exploration of trauma and mental health stigma punctuated by wild dream sequences. The final confrontation itself is abrupt even though the chase leading up to it is exciting, and the ending itself kinda goes off the rails and muddies any message one might take away from the movie (though even leading up to it, even to the unobservant viewer the jig is up by the time the killer flips a light switch in the house to activate his mood lighting and music... But at least it's drat entertaining. 7.5/10 29. Chopping Mall (1986) (challenge: Glitches) "They remind me of your mother. It's the laser eyes." By reputation I thought this was a fun and goofy B-movie; nobody told me that it legit rules. It fully commits to the aspects that could be hacky, bringing them around to pure entertainment (like setting up the conflict to be the robots being hostile because their programming is not fail-safe...and then instantly showing them to be straight-up evil), the writing is surprisingly clever, and while the robots make nice slasher villains and there are some truly horrifying deaths, it's a nice touch that half of the robot encounters in the movie are the people throwing down and just all-out brawling with the fuckers. 8/10 30. The Queen of Black Magic (1981) (challenge: Something Wicked This Way Comes) "Her feet are on the ground. That means she's not a ghost. Besides, ghosts don't go out in the afternoon." Come for the interpersonal and political tensions of a small village, stay for the various practical effects of varying quality depicting black magic, including some sweet gore. Nearly every scene has some flavorful witchery imagery, like a makeshift hanging crib revealed to have constrictor snakes wrapped around it just chillin. Special shout-out to the gymnast brought in to do flips and back handsprings for 2 separate characters, even if the "witch floating and dancing in front of the moon" shot was obviously just them bouncing on a trampoline. The story has some nice progression, including what had been our primary antagonist getting killed off at the start of the 3rd act, leading to a climax built around the remaining characters (including one who doesn't show up until halfway through) and their interactions with one another. Unfortunately, while in the home stretch the story completely jumps the tracks with a completely unnecessary incest sub-plot, and then it abruptly ends while you're still in the middle of trying to process that. Fucks the whole thing up. 6.5/10 31. The Spine of Night (2021) aka "Wait, is that...yes, that's Patton Oswalt's voice" (and Lucy Lawless) (challenge: Osteology) "Listen, that you might know how I came to find you, and hear the fate of the world." I liked this better than the one other person who watched it this month, but discussion of it can be split firmly into "pros" and "cons". Pros: -Every single background and other static image is absolutely beautiful. -The story is incredibly ambitious, covering everything from an awe-inspiring creation myth to the rise and fall of empires to the dawn of a new world, and so on, following a number of different characters and yet with a solid through-line. -It's written like the greatest D&D home game ever animated, with everybody saying the coolest thing possible all the time. -The voice acting from the main characters is fine. -The cel-shaded animations for characters work very well half the time, with facial expressions especially conveying surprising depth. The creation myth is beautifully put together. Cons: -The animation really does not work well the other half of the time. Fight scenes, for example, would look great except for the fact that everyone looks like they're moving at half speed. -Speaking of "D&D campaign put to film", the voice acting for many of the side characters is rough. For example, the title of the movie comes from a sequence where two lovers stoned on cosmic flower accept death while contemplating the universe, and while it's a potentially incredible sequence, the voicing makes it absolutely dire instead. -After such a wonderfully sprawling story, there is a second climactic final battle and rather abrupt finish instead of a proper send-off. An epic tale that shoots for the moon, misses, and drifts among the stars. Could maybe be made into an excellent silent film. 7.5/10 
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Nov 1, 2022 13:53
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Time for a wrap-up post! In total, I watched 39 films (34 for the bingo card challenge), 3 shorts and 2 specials - I met my self-imposed challenge of at least 31 new watches and filled the bingo card. Definitely a slower year than my last two or three Octobers, but I had more work/family stuff going on this year than the previous ones, so I expected that. I still managed to get to a few films that have been on my watchlist for the last 3 or 4 years so that's progress in my book. SPOOKY Bingo Card Challenges  1) Frankenstein (1984) Dead & Buried -watch a film that has had a major contributor (director, composer, actor, producer, etc.) pass away since last October. (David Warner, who died in July 2022) 2) The Last Horror Film aka Fanatic (1982) Behind the Screams -Watch a film about or featuring filmmaking 3) The Norliss Tapes (1973) TerrorVision -Watch a made-for-TV film 4) Death Spa (1988) Hausu -watch a Haunted House film -watch a Ghost movie 5) Invaders From Mars (1953) Golden Years -Watch a movie released before 1960 6) Monsterland (2016) Tales of Terror -Watch an anthology film 7) Demonoid (1981) The Devil Made Me Do It -watch a film about possession -watch a film that features the Devil, or Satan, or demons. -watch a horror film heavily featuring religion or religious themes 8) Cannibal Apocalypse (1980) To Serve Man -Watch a film that features cannibalism 9) Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead (1994) Masters of Horror -Pick an objective Master of Horror. Watch a film of theirs you've never seen. (Don Coscarelli) 10) Mansion of the Doomed (1976) Origin of Evil -Watch a film from your birth year. 11) Monstrum (2018) Picnic At Hanging Rock -watch a period piece film 12) Wicked Little Things (2006) After Dark -watch an After Dark HorrorFest film (or After Dark Original) 13) The Taking of Deborah Logan (2014) V/H/S -watch a Found Footage film 14) Fright Night (2011) They Always Come Back -watch a remake, reboot or a prequel to a film 15) The Invisible Man (1933) Paperbacks From Hell -Watch a film adaptation of a novel or short story 16) Equinox (1970) Highbrow Horror -watch a film featured in the Criterion Collection 17) The Watcher in the Woods (1980) Children of the Damned -watch a film that is family-friendly 18) Daughters of Darkness (1971) A Perfect Getaway -watch a film from a country you've never seen a film from. -watch a film about a vacation gone wrong 19) Jakob's Wife (2021) Femme Fatale -Watch a feminist horror film. You need to including in your review how the film qualifies as a feminist film. 20) Blue Velvet (1986) Yuppie Nightmare -watch a film that qualifies as a Yuppie Nightmare 21)Re-Animator (1985) Whispers in the Dark rewatch safe -watch a film with a commentary (filmmaker, fan, special features, podcast) 22) Sweetheart (2019) H20 -watch a film that features a lot of water (the ocean counts) -watch a film about underwater creatures/monsters 23) May the Devil Take You (2018) Thrilla In Manila -watch a Southeast Asian film 24) Spring (2014) Zombie Honeymoon -watch a film about relationships or love 25) Vampire Circus (1972) Something Wicked This Way Comes -Watch a film about an evil carnival, fair, or circus 26) Marabunta (1998) Wild Beasts -Watch a film that features killer animal(s) 27) Brainscan (1994) Glitches -watch a film heavily featuring fears of technology, fears of the internet, or devices failing/becoming possessed/dangerous. 28) Flesh Eating Mothers (1988) Goodnight, Mommy -watch a movie with a scary/killer mom Short Cuts -Watch 60 minutes of short films. Write a review for each one. (Please write them in a single post, and try to provide links where possible.) In Between - 14:06 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUv6AGNl4-0&ab_channel=CosmicFilms Sound from the Deep - 28:52 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ti231UvSvfQ&ab_channel=SoundfromtheDeepProject Exit - 20:19 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mh60Z8KC1Tw&ab_channel=ALTER 29) Get Out (2017) Horror Noire -Watch a film directed by a Black filmmaker -Watch a film with themes that predominantly relate to POC. You will need to write about these themes in your review. 30) Class of Nuke 'em High (1986) Punk Vacation -watch a film that heavily features punks 31) Bone Sickness (2004) Osteology -watch a movie with "Bone(s)", "Skull(s)", "Skeleton(s)", or other osteological terms in the title. 32) The Deadly Spawn (1983) Spaced Invaders -Watch a film about extraterrestrial life 33) Night Tide (1961) Scream, Queen! -Watch a horror film by a LGBQT+ director 34) Bloodstone: Subspecies 2 (1993) Full Moon -watch a Full Moon Pictures film Halloween Is Special rewatch safe -Watch 60+ minutes of Halloween specials. Muppets Haunted Mansion Werewolf by Night Non-challenge watches/rewatches with daughter: 35) Hocus Pocus 2 (2022) 36) Dracula (1931) 37) Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954) 38) House on Haunted Hill (1959) 39) The Wolf Man (1941) Favorite five: Blue Velvet, Watcher in the Woods, Spring, Death Spa, The Deadly Spawn Bottom rung: Bone Sickness, Flesh Eating Mothers, Monsterland Widest acting range for the same actor: Dennis Hopper, from sensitive romantic lead in Night Tide to unhinged fucker's fucker in Blue Velvet Best super strong telekinetic ghost: Death Spa Most teeth on a low budget: The Deadly Spawn Best monster name: Sparkles (from Monstrum) Thanks to Fran for organizing the challenge and bingo card and for everyone posting their reviews, definitely added a few to my list for future watches.
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Nov 1, 2022 14:31
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It's my birthday, and to celebrate, I'm going to write about some spooky movies I watched last night. Hooray! #41. Resurrection (2022) (Shudder) A woman becomes convinced that a man from her past is stalking her and her daughter. What secrets from her past does this man have? Needed to find something suitably spooky to throw on that would also be suitable to have on with my mother, so I went for the option that seemed like it would also be a tasteful dramatic thriller. And that's what this film mostly was - less a "true" horror movie than an acting showcase for Rebecca Hall that also served as a slow-burn psychological thriller. The storyline is mostly told to us through dialogue, but Hall is an impeccable actress, so it didn't detract from the experience that much to not have a more visual way of relating information. The ending, though, ends up detracting from the experience, mainly because it seems like the filmmakers couldn't decide if they wanted a Taxi Driver-style "it's a dream but it validates the protagonist's worldview" ending or not, so they tried to ride the line and make it obvious that it was both. I kinda figured we were in "psychological distress" territory when she actually did cut open Tim Roth's gut and find a perfectly preserved infant, but the fact that the ending starts out in super-obvious "it's a dream" territory - what with the blown-out lighting and the distortions on the voices - before gradually shifting back to a harder reality right before the final cut still shows that the filmmakers didn't know what they wanted to really say here. Is Hall permanently ruined by the experiences from her youth? Is she capable of moving on? Is she choosing this dreamworld? The film seemed like it was leading itself to those conclusions beforehand, with the idea that she wasn't going to be able to actually commit to it, but the way that the ending tries to play it both ways seems to me that the filmmakers didn't have a solid grasp on what they wanted to say. I still think that it ends up being a good movie overall - anything that lets Hall go off and show how much she's capable of will never be terrible, because it'll have that going for it - but I think that the wishy-washy ending ends up keeping it from being great.  /5 #42. Halloween (1978) (4K Blu-ray) An escaped mental patient in a stolen mask stalks and murders teenage babysitters on Halloween night. Speaking of something being great, what struck me most about this most recent viewing of John Carpenter's seminal film was how drat gorgeous it looks on a proper 4K tv with a proper 4K UHD Blu-ray playout. I grew up with this film on VHS, and revisited it in college during the early days of DVD, so while I respected what Carpenter was able to do with setup and pacing and everything, I don't know that I ever really respected what cinematographer Dean Cundey did with the lighting and shot composition. But man that Scream Factory 4K disc is beautiful. (I picked up the Halloweens 2-4 4K discs during their recent sales, so hopefully next year I'll be able to revisit those and have a similar revelation.) As for the rest of it, the film is a model of restraint and a testament to how simplicity can be its own virtue in films like this. It's suitably creepy seeing Michael appear and disappear from the background of frames, or becoming our main POV when the camera gets stationed over his shoulder while the main girls are oblivious to his - and our - presence. The acting is corny and wooden for the most part, and the script is fairly tin-eared, but none of that matters when Carpenter is able to grab your attention and keep the tension slowly ratcheting up all the way until the conclusion. I don't think it's his masterpiece - that would still be The Thing - but it is an incredible film and one of the most important films to come out of the late 1970s, a boon time for American filmmakers. You really can't let a season go by without it. /5Watched so far: The Empty Man, Hocus Pocus 2, Smile (2022), It Came From Outer Space, Watcher, The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb, Bats, Choose or Die, The Curse of the Werewolf, "Werewolf By Night"/various Halloween episodes, The Thing From Another World, Hellraiser (2022), Knife + Heart, A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 5, The Innocents (1961), The Bone Snatcher, The Blob (1958), Friday the 13th (2009), We're Going to Eat You, various shorts, Waxwork, Halloween Ends, The Revenge of Frankenstein, Tales from the Darkside: The Movie, The Thing (1982), Hotel Transylvania: Transformania, Bait (2012), Elvira's Haunted Hills, God Told Me To, Birth of the Living Dead, Alligator (1980), Halloween: H20, Them!, My Best Friend's Exorcism, The Ranger, Night of the Creeps, Sissy, Blade, The Final Destination, Deadstream, Resurrection (2022), Halloween (1978)
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Nov 1, 2022 14:54
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Wrap-up post time! I managed 51 movies which is incredible given I was worried I wouldn't make 31. This list of movies is thus: Scary Movie, Final Destination 4, Happy Death Day, Final Destination, No One Gets Out Alive, Smile, Freaky, Body Bags, Alien Psychosis, The Invisible Man, The Last Exorcism, Final Destination 2, Werewolves of the Third Reich, Unfriended, Final Destination 3, Hellraiser (2022), Deadstream, Final Destination 5, Village of the Damned, Piranha 3D, The Awakening, The Ruins, Sissy, Happy Death Day 2 U, Crush The Skull, Hell Fest, Diary of the Dead, Trick 'r Treat, Swimfan, Slumber Party Massacre (1982), The Ranger, Evil Dead (2013), Halloween Ends, Ouija: Origin of Evil, Parents, Duel, Tiny Cinema, Shutter, Evil Dead (2013 Extended Version), Dark Circles, The Woman in Black (2012), 78/52, Dead & Buried, Underwater, Tales from the Hood, Eyes Without A Face, Wrong Turn (2021), His House, Barbarian, Return of the Living Dead I also knocked out every square on the bingo card, which was a great way to watch some stuff I'd have never watched otherwise. My top 3 for first-time watches are Barbarian, Trick 'R Treat and Evil Dead 2013, all three of which totally lived up to the hype. In fact, Evil Dead 2013 in particular doesn't get the hype it deserves, and I'm so glad it reassured me that there are no bad Evil Dead movies. As for hidden gems, Crush the Skull is a lot of fun for something clearly made on a budget that might have been three figures, Freaky has no right being as entertaining as a movie centered around Vince Vaughn pretending to be a teenage girl should be, and Parents is a movie I hadn't heard of at all until I watched it, and I'm now going to inflict that horrible little movie on everyone else. Happy Death Day is also incredibly silly but uses its concept to an absolutely perfect degree, I've already recommended to a lot of my "I want to watch something horror-ish but I don't like HORROR" friends that we all have. Deadstream is incredible, as I'm sure everyone reading this already knows, given it was the breakout hit of the season on here, for good loving reason. As for disappointments: Alien Psychosis is the worst movie I've ever watched. I gave it a 1 out of 5 review, but I'm revising that to 0 out of 5. Werewolves of the Third Reich was a bingo card filler and nothing else, but it's also the worst parts of low-budget films. 78/52 is also an exercise in padding for running time with talking head interviews about too narrow a subject. I don't like giving bad reviews though, I'm just not that kinda person. And just to double check my working on my bingo card:  Halloween is Special: Final Destination series, Golden Years: The Invisible Man, Hausu: Ouija: Origin of Evil, Paperbacks from Hell: The Woman in Black, Highbrow Horror: Eyes Without A Face, Masters of Horror: Diary of the Dead, A Perfect Getaway: The Ruins, Scream, Queen!: Freaky, Femme Fatale: Slumber Party Massacre, Thrilla In Manila: Shutter, Horror Noire: Tales from the Hood, Behind the Screams: 78/52, The Devil Made Me Do It: The Last Exorcism, Yuppie Nightmare: Swimfan, Glitches: Unfriended, Punk Vacation: The Ranger, Something Wicked This Way Comes: Hell Fest, They Always Come Back: Hellraiser 2022, Picnic At Hanging Rock: The Awakening, Zombie Honeymoon: Halloween Ends, Osteology: Crush The Skull, Goodnight Mommy: Smile, Whispers in the Dark: Evil Dead 2013 Uncut Edition, Dead & Buried: Dead & Buried, Children of the Damned: Village of the Damned, Short Cuts: Various Youtube Shorts, Wild Beasts: Piranha 3D, H20: Underwater, Spaced Invaders: Alien Psychosis, Tales of Terror: Trick 'R Treat, Origin of Evil: Body Bags, V/H/S: Deadstream, To Serve Man: Parents, After Dark: Dark Circles, TerrorVision: Duel, Full Moon: Werewolves of the Third Reich Gyro Zeppeli fucked around with this message at 15:05 on Nov 1, 2022 |
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Nov 1, 2022 14:57
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Well time to wrap things up for this year I did 31 movies Amsterdamned Deep Red Phenonmena A Lizard in Womens Skin Bay of Blood All the colors of the Dark Stage Fright Torso The Town that Dreaded Sundown Chopping Mall Death Spa Child's Play Child's Play 2 Razorback Mr. Harrigans Phone Hellraiser 2022 Beast Waxwork Waxwork 2 Deadstream Hellraiser Evil Dead 2 Halloween Ends Re-Animator Bride of the Re-Animator Hellraiser 2 The Church The Seventh Curse Encounter of the Spooky Kind Invasion of the Body Snatchers 1978 The Omen Unmasked Part 25 And I completed my bingo card twice! Halloween is Special Simpsons Tree House of Horror S3 4 and 5 Golden Years Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein Hausu House Paperbacks from Hell Invasion fo the Body Snatchers High Brow Horror Island of Lost Souls Master of Horror The Amusement Park Zombie Honey Moon Unmasked Part 25 VHS VHS 99 Spaced Invaders Deadly Spawn Full Moon Project Metal Beast Goodnight Mommy The Brood Scream Queen Night Tide 
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Nov 1, 2022 15:19
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Wrap Up Post 22 films this year, definitely more than I thought I would be able to manage. In terms of the movies themselves I watched some good stuff this year and discovered several new favorites. Excluding Evil Dead 2 (due to it being a rewatch) my top five in no order from this year were: People Under the Stairs, Taste of Fear, The Body Snatcher, Dead & Buried, The Lair of the White Worm. My full list of films with Letterboxd ratings: 1. Black Sunday 4/5 2. Cannibal! The Musical 3.5/5 3. The Flesh and th Fiends 4/5 4. The Lair of the White Worm 3.5/5 5. A Bucket of Blood 3/5 6. A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors 4/5 7. Waxwork 3/5 8. Cat People (1942) 4/5 9. Crimson Peak 3.5/5 10. Basket Case 3/5 11. Tenebre 3.5/5 12. The Body Snatcher 4/5 13. The Raven (1963) 3.5/5 14. Dead & Buried 4/5 15. Taste of Fear 4/5 16. Dracula (1931) 3/5 17. The Blood on Satan's Claw 3.5/5 18. The Skull 3.5/5 19. People Under the Stairs 4/5 20. The Fog 3.5/5 21. The Raven (1935) 3.5/5 22. Evil Dead II 5/5 I also hit bingo this year! I continue to really like this format for the mini-challenges and especially liked the Halloween Specials square:  It was, as always, a lot of fun and a huge thank you to Fran for running it again!
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Nov 1, 2022 15:31
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 Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, 2004 The marathon is over and it was about feature length movies, not TV-series, and we are past Halloween by now, but I want to officially end my marathon by talking about Garth Marenghi's Darkplace. I watched three episodes yesterday and three just now. Garth Marenghi is a horror writer whose work outshines both Stephen King and Clive Barker in both talent and quantity in horror books, as well translating their work to the visual medium. Back in the 80s, Garth Marenghi got to put his vision on film through the British TV-network Channel 4, only for them to shelve the show due to how far out and radical it was for its time. It wasn't until in 2004 that they showed six of the episodes for the first time with Garth Marenghi and cast adding commentary tastefully between the scenes. I first discovered the show back close to 2004 and I've often revisited over the years since then. Garth Marenghi's Darkplace is on the surface level a monster of the week TV-show, but has such amazing depth. It is very much classic horror in a modern setting, dealing with the supernatural such as the forces of Hell, ghosts, psychic power and creatures from mythology (Scottish people). But at the same time with both the hospital setting and the main cast being doctors, it is just as much a sci-fi show, and not just soft sci-fi, but hard Science Fiction in the topics it handles. The show was (if it had been broadcast in the 80s as planned) one that wasn't afraid to deal with women's issues, and in the iconic episode Scotch Mist, racism. It is incredible how much they did with those six episodes and Darkplace hospital as a setting is one of the greatest settings for both the absolute horror and deep science fiction subjects. As you explore both the cast and setting, it becomes a beloved setting like the starship Enterprise from Star Trek or the entirety of Middle-earth. "You and he were...buddies...weren't you?" is a line that will forever haunt me. Hot Dog Day #89 fucked around with this message at 15:51 on Nov 1, 2022 |
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Nov 1, 2022 15:47
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I always forget to do this, so this was a first time for me. Only managed 11. The good- Nope Fresh You Won't Be Alone The rest- Censor Men Hellraiser (2022) Detention Malignant Bodies Bodies Bodies Halloween Ends The Black Phone And a bunch of Twilight Zone (60's) including watching a remake of a serling ep, done in the 1985 series, and boy was that rough
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Nov 1, 2022 15:57
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 18. Anchoress (1993) This one is about a girl who becomes an Anchoress at a local church. An anchoress is a woman who is locked away in a cell in order to devote her life to serving God and the Holy Mother. Christine finds herself in this position because she is trying to escape her current life but also because she seemingly has a very deep connection with a statue of Virgin Mary. This film is slow and quite thin on plot but heavy on close-ups and abstract photography (a lot of it is very horny abstract photography). For some reason I really loved what this film was trying to do. At its core Anchoress is simply a view of the church through a feminist lens, and how their misogyny can harm woman. It was very meditative and gave you a lot of space to ponder things on your own. The ending for example made me really mad at first, but as the credits rolled I started thinking about it and began to realize how beautiful it was. Anchoress feels hard to recommend because it's very much a vibe movie and if you aren't on its wavelength you're probably going to hate it. bingo: Femme Fatale  19. Penda's Fen (1974) The story of a young man coming to terms with his sexuality, religion and overall conservative worldview. His worldview pretty much starts shattering after he has a dream about a hunk. This is definitely one I need to re-watch because I was really not in the head space to parse much of the metaphorical imagery and language. I went into this hoping for something much dumber and got a really smart film I'm hoping to give a better shot at in the future. It felt like a series of vignettes each neat in their own right and some really visually interesting, but until I give it a re-watch I'm having a hard time connecting everything together. Still I feel confident recommending this to people that enjoy slow burn occult horror, and extra recommend if they enjoy slow burn queer occult horror. bingo: Scream Queen  20. Robin Redbreast (1970) This a wonderfully creepy made for television film. A woman seeks isolation after a long term relationship ends so she goes to live in a cottage near a small village. Things start off okay but after a date with one of the locals paranoia really starts to take hold in the main character. I really enjoyed how the film slowly builds up the creepiness and paranoia in a way that makes you empathize with the main character's situation but still unsure weather any of it is really happening. This one definitely gets a recommend from me. bingo: TerrorVision  21. Trauma (1993) This film somehow manages to be one of the most normal Argento films I have seen while also being one of the strangest. To start the main character is a creep and I'm so confused about why his and Aura's relationship even needed to be in the film. Then I learn that Aura is played by Argento's daughter and my confusion levels exploded. Outside of the interactions between Aura and main guy it's just a solid Argento film featuring a killer with a cool wire weapon that removes heads, some fun first person stalking, and a fun twist. It's weird because I would totally recommend this film to any fans of Argento but I'm not going to lie and say I'm not a little creeped out by the very odd daughter stuff going on. bingo: Masters of Horror 22. Bingo: Halloween is Special a. Malcom in the Middle S7.E4 'Halloween' Rewatch. Malcom in the Middle was one of my favorite sitcoms growing up and this episode is a great example of the show being really good all the way into Season 7. Reese and Malcom find out that their home was the setting for a grizzly multi-murder suicide which causes Hal to slowly meltdown over the thought of ghosts. The back and forth between Malcom and Hal in this episode is really great. Meanwhile Reese and Dewey throw eggs at the wrong person starting off an exciting chase sequence. Lois is just a full on heel in this episode, something that I think started happening more and more towards the end of the shows run. Overall a really fun Halloween episode. b. Fraiser S5.E3 'Halloween' Might be a rewatch, Fraiser was one of those shows that the family would just watch if it came on after something else we had been watching. In this episode Niles is hosting a costume party and Roz has a pregnancy scare. I don't remember a lot about Fraiser as a show but I'm guessing this a decent reminder of what it was like -- a mundane mixup leads to many whacky situations for all the main characters when it could have all been solved if they just took a minute to be upfront and honest with each other. Was fun seeing all the Halloween costumes and watching Fraiser for the first time in like 25 years. c. Hey Arnold! S2.E7 'Arnold's Halloween' Hey Arnold! was a big time favorite of mine and it holds up so well. In this episode Arnold and Gerald put on a fake broadcast to convince their building that aliens are invading in an attempt to scare Arnold's grandpa. Grandpa thinks that scaring people is the best way to spread Halloween cheer. The whole prank gets out of hand once UFO Tonight host Douglas Cain gets wind of the fake invasion and thinks it's real. Douglas Cain is voiced by Maurice LaMarche who also voices Brain from 'Pinky and the Brain' and the voice sounds almost exactly like Brain. Apparently this is because both characters are based off Orson Welles, and Welles delivered the 'War of the Worlds' radio broadcast which this whole episode is based off. Pretty cool! This is definitely a fun episode of Hey Arnold! and tbh made me want to revisit the series entirely. recap/bingo:  1. Eyes of Fire (1983) | 2. Leptirica (1973) | 3. Witchhammer (1970) | 4. Viy (1967) | 5. Lake of the Dead (1958) | 6. The Dreaming (1988) | 7. Kadaicha (1988) | 8. Celia (1989) | 9. The Wolf Man (1941) | 10. Alison's Birthday (1981) | 11. She-Wolf (1983) | 12. Lokis, a Manuscript of Professor Wittembach (1970) | 13. Clearcut (1991) | 14a. Tilbury (1987) | 14b. Dirt Dauber (2009) | 15. The Demon (1963) | 16. Dark Waters (1993) | 17. A Field In England (2013) | 18. Anchoress (1993) | 19. Penda's Fen (1974) | 20. Robin Redbreast (1970) | 21. Trauma (1993) | 22a. Malcom in the Middle (S7.E4) | 22b. Fraiser (S5.E3) | 22c. Hey Arnold! (S2.E7) CRAYON fucked around with this message at 00:06 on Nov 2, 2022 |
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Nov 1, 2022 16:10
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#44: Frankenstein (1931) A mad scientist obsessed with creating life goes too far. I threw on a bunch of the Universal classics Halloween morning to watch while I worked. One notable thing about this adaptation is how it lets Dr. Frankenstein off the hook for what he does. Here's a guy who rants about being God as he creates a new life form that he immediately mistreats and chooses to kill, and by the end of the picture you're supposed to feel bad for him. It's a testament to Karloff's performance that the monster still comes off as the more sympathetic character despite the script's insistence on Henry being a victim. .5 out of 5#45: The Old Dark House (1932) Weary travelers get stuck in the middle of some weird-rear end family drama. Man, I forgot how much fun this one is. Great performances from Ernest Thesiger and Eva Moore as the creepy elderly siblings. out of 5#46: The Wolf Man (1941) A man returns to his ancestral home only to be stricken by an ancient curse. Still not one of my favorite Universals, but the mood worked better for me this time around. Something about those foggy forest sets seems extra Halloweeny by virtue of being so obviously artificial. out of 5#47: Bride of Frankenstein (1935) Henry Frankenstein gets pulled back into the life of a mad scientist. Again, Henry gets to avoid taking full responsibility for what he's done. Even the monster, who is now completely suicidal, gives him a pass at the end. I'm a bigger fan of Peter Cushing's complete bastard version of Dr. Frankenstein, but aside from the kid-glove treatment of that character this is one of the absolute best of these. out of 5#48: The Invisible Man (1933) A scientist becomes invisible so the world will notice him. I can't say anything else about this movie that hasn't already been said. It's a masterpiece in pretty much every respect, from the special effects that still work today to the unhinged performance Claude Rains gives. Not just one of my favorite horror movies — one of my favorite movies, period. out of 5#49: Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man Larry Talbot does his own research on the cure for lycanthropy. The final fight at the end doesn't have the punch it should — it seems like it's over in less than a minute. The rest of the runtime is given over to Lon Chaney moping around. Still not bad, especially compared to what would come later, but just a bit disappointing. out of 5#50: Night of the Living Dead (1968) The dead rise from the grave and the living fail to rise to the occasion. My go-to Halloween night watch. Maybe I'm terminally doom-brained or whatever, but what stuck out for me this time watching it was the idea that the situation was not going to get better even as society appears to have the zombies under control at the end. It's a bummer not only because of what happens to the main characters, but also because there's no real resolution to the zombie problem. The radiation levels are still increasing, the dead will continue to return to life, the rot is already taking hold. Of course Romero would follow up NotLD to show things getting worse, but even on its own the movie lets you know the end of the world is already there. It's hard for me not to feel something similar just looking at the news. Anyway, Happy Halloween, Charlie Brown! out of 5Final Tally: 1. Dracula (Spanish)(1931) 2. Trick r Treat (2007) 3. Ghost Ship (2002) H20 4. The Devil Within Her (1975) Goodnight, Mommy 5. Ghost Story (1981) Paperbacks From Hell 6. Nomads (1986) Punk Vacation 7. Mad Doctor of Blood Island (1969) Thrilla in Manila 8. Skeleton Man (2004) Osteology 9. Muppets Haunted Mansion/Simpsons Treehouse of Horror XXXI Halloween is Special 10. Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf (1985) 11. Werewolf of London (1935) 12. Cat People (1942) Golden Years 13. Mortuary (1983) 14. Unmasked Part 25 (1988) Zombie Honeymoon 15. The Alien Factor (1978) Spaced Invaders 16. Deadstream (2022) Glitches 17. Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989) Whispers in the Dark 18. Fury of the Wolfman (1975) Full Moon 19. Night of the Howling Beast (1975) To Serve Man 20. Elvira’s Haunted Hills (2001) Scream, Queen! 21. The Mummy’s Ghost (1944) 22. The Child (1977) Origin of Evil 23. Coven (1997) Dead and Buried 24. Carnival of Souls (1962) Highbrow Horror 25. Maximum Overdrive (1986) 26. The House Where Evil Dwells (1982) Hausu 27. The Addams Family 2 (2021) Children of the Damned 28. The Tomb of Ligeia (1964) Masters of Horror 29. Jungle Woman (1944) 30. Friday the 13th (1980) 31. Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982) 32. Amityville Horror: The Evil Escapes (1989) TerrorVision 33. Suspiria (1977) 34. Baron Blood (1972) 35. The Flesh and the Fiends (1959) Picnic at Hanging Rock 36. Frankenstein Created Woman (1967) 37. Demons (1985) 38. Assignment: Terror (1970) 39. Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972) 40. The Return of the Vampire (1943) 41. Dawn of the Dead 3-D (1978, 2013?, 2022) 42. Spirit Halloween the Movie (2022) 43. 976-EVIL (1988) The Devil Made Me Do It 44. Frankenstein (1931) 45. The Old Dark House (1932) 46. The Wolf Man (1941) 47. Bride of Frankenstein (1935) 48. The Invisible Man (1933) 49. Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943) 50. Night of the Living Dead (1968) Movies That Were New to Me I Will Be Watching Again: Ghost Ship The Devil Within Her Cat People Fury of the Wolfman Deadstream The Child Carnival of Souls Baron Blood Assignment: Terror Movies That Were New to Me I Never Want to See Again: Skeleton Man Jungle Woman Amityville Horror: The Evil Escapes Final Bingo Card: 
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Nov 1, 2022 16:11
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Russian Guyovitch posted:1. The Empty Man I went to an all-night movie marathon Saturday night into Sunday morning and saw a few more new-to-me movies on the big screen to log. 38. Brides of Dracula - Peter Cushing returns as Van Helsing in this Hammer vampire film, but this time there's no Christopher Lee to be found as Dracula. It's got the lavish set design and costuming that you come to expect from a Hammer production, and Cushing is excellent as always as Van Helsing. However, this one is let down by the lack of Lee's portrayal of Count Dracula. The replacement vampire in this film, Baron Meinster, lacks Lee's imposing physical presence and is simply not an intimidating figure. It's no surprise that Hammer realized their mistake and brought Lee back in for the next film in the series. 2.5 Wines Of The Valley out of 5 39. Scream Blacula Scream - After his defeat in the first film, Prince Mamuwalde's bones are given to a voodoo priest looking to usurp control of his church and take revenge on his archrival, after he's denied leadership of the church following his priestess mother's death. The priest performs a ritual to resurrect Mamuwalde to do his bidding, but upon his resurrection, he bites the priest and turns him into his servant. This was a step down from the original, which I quite enjoy. William Marshall is still fantastic as Mamuwalde and Pam Grier is a solid addition to the cast, but overall this film suffers from some serious pacing issues. In particular, the final confrontation just feels like it goes on for ages. At best, this is so-so. 2.5 African Antiquities out of 5 40. 30 Days of Night - The residents of Barrow, Alaska are getting ready for a month long stretch of darkness as winter sets in and the sun stops showing itself in the arctic circle. As the last plane departs the airport for the season, the local sheriff gets a report that the town's sled dogs have all been killed in their kennel, and another report that the local helicopter guides helicopter has been trashed. Soon, cut off from the outside world, the town finds itself under siege. Having read the comic already, I never sought this one out when it was released, because while I enjoyed the graphic novel well enough, I just assumed that the inevitable decline in quality of an adaptation would bring down to the point of not being worth my time. As it turns out, that was a mistake. This isn't a great film, but it's a fun ride. The film manages to do a good job of amping up the action in the initial vampire attack and not letting the film get bogged down during the prolonged siege. All in all, a fun action-horror romp. 3.5 Giant Backhoe-Mounted Chainsaws out of 5
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Nov 1, 2022 16:18
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As usual, my score is way high because I like anything horror, so here's my 2022 marathon: Friday the 13th: A New Beginning, 1985 3/5 Terrifier, 2016 4/5 The Curse of the Werewolf, 1961 3.5/5 Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, 1958 3/5 Man Bites Dog, 1992 4.5/5 The Wailing/Gokseong, 2016 4.5/5 The Masque of the Red Death, 1964 4/5 Hobo with a Shotgun, 2011 4.5/5 Tales from the Crypt, 1972 4/5 Train to Busan, 2016 4.5/5 Assault on Precinct 13, 1976 4/5 Apollo 18, 2011 4/5 Black Swan, 2010 4.5/5 Dr. Terror's House of Horrors, 1965 4/5 Horror/The Blancheville Monster, 1963 2.5/5 Eden Lake, 2008 5/5 The Girl with All the Gifts, 2016 5/5 Final Destination, 2000 4/5 Les lèvres rouges/Daughters of Darkness, 1971 4/5 The Most Dangerous Game, 1932 5/5 Tower of London, 1939 3.5/5 The Man Who Changed His Mind, 1936 4/5 Dr. Cyclops, 1940 5/5 Climax, 2018 5/5 Man in the Attic, 1953 2.5/5 The Abominable Dr. Phibes, 1971 5/5 Dr. Phibes Rises Again, 1972 5/5 The Phantom of the Opera, 1925 5/5 Mad God, 2021 5/5 Barbarian, 2022 4.5/5 Nope, 2022 5/5 The Rocky Horror Picture Show, 1975 5/5 Little Shop of Horrors, 1986 5/5 Suspiria, 1977 5/5 [REC], 2007 5/5 Demons/Demoni, 1985 4/5 Bad Taste, 1987 4.5/5 Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, 2004 6/5
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Nov 1, 2022 16:33
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| # ? May 31, 2024 09:31 |
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Round up: 1. Who Invited Them 2: Escape Room 2: Tournament of Champions 3. Barbarian Goodnight Mommy4. What Lies Beneath Zombie Honeymoon*Short Cuts 5. My Best Friend's Exorcism Paperbacks From Hell6: Memory, The Origins of Alien Behind the Screams7. Dark Water (2002) H208. Prey Spaced Invaders9: Primal Wild Beasts10: The Guest Yuppie Nightmare11. Noroi The Curse V/H/S12: Night of the Comet Origins of Evil (1984)13: Skull, The Mask Osteology14: Werewolf by Night/Treehouse V Halloween is Special15: Hocus Pocus 2 Something Wicked16: Woman in Black Hausu17: Addams Family 2 Children of the Damned18: The Possession Devil made me do it19: Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 To Serve Man20: Superhost Perfect Getaway21: Saloum Horror Noire22: The Cell 23: Studio 666 Dead and Buried24: Halloween Ends Femme Fatale25: Freaky Scream, Queen26: The Ranger Punk Vacation27: The Medium Thrilla in Manilla28: The Night Stalker Terrorvision29: The Invisible Man Golden Years30: Shin Godzilla They Always Come Back31: Child's Play Masters of Horror32: Deadstream Glitches33: Lake Mungo After Dark34: The Wolfman Full Moon35: The Cursed Picnic at Hanging Rock36: Nightmare Cinema Tales of Terror37: Pan's Labyrinth High Brow38: The Exorcist (the version you've never seen) Whispers in the DarkHot drat, 38 movies and only 1 (technically 2) rewatch(es) Best: Barbarian and The Medium Worst: I loving hate Deadstream Thanks as always Fran. I will reiterate how great it is to have the challenges up front. I was running a pop up store on my own this month so I worked 10-6 every day except Thanksgiving, so being able to make my list right away and just follow along is huge. 
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Nov 1, 2022 16:44
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