Lurker > v_charon

Augh, Paramount+

We're about to head off to see something on the big screen called Dancing Village: The Curse Begins. I wasn't aware of this film in the slightest until it showed up on the release radar this week. It's an Indonesian film that's getting a limited theatrical release here for some reason, I haven't read much into why. But I enjoy watching foreign horror films for the most part, and I'm curious to see if there's going to be much of a turnout. When we saw Exhuma in theaters last months tons of people came out for that one, but we live in a pretty densely populated Korean area. Either no one will be in this film but us, or I'll learn something about our demographics I guess. I'm not sure what to expect from it; I don't even know the plot synopsis nor have I seen any trailer for this movie. It's fairly long, which could be a popular thing in Asian countries perhaps since these will be two of the longest horror movies we've watched this year.

We watched something I had been meaning to check out for a few months now last night called The Seeding. It had a limited run at some point early this year but I couldn't find it playing nearby. It's a folk horror movie... which means I didn't care for it much. It reminded me a lot of Midsommar in theming at times, which I also really didn't care for. At least with Midsommar there are some moments, mostly early, where I did feel like I was gonna like it. Here that thought vanished pretty quickly. It's competently made; visually it looks fine, it's acted fine. I just don't like the story decisions; it's bleak, too bleak. Unlike a movie from last year like say, When Evil Lurks, it didn't have any characters I could enjoy that were at the heart of the film. That's why I liken it more to Midsommar because again, the cast is very unlikable. Kind of a disappointment, but at least I finally watched it.

Did anyone go and see Abigail on opening weekend? We saw it last night, pretty good stuff! I'm glad to see Universal able to put out a well-received and universally liked in general vampire film. I personally liked Renfield last year but I know that's a minority opinion. Abigail felt very fresh though, pretty unique stylistically speaking to most any vampire movie in recent memory. I was impressed by the character work of the supporting cast, and there's lots and lots of blood if that's a draw for you.

Watched a few more movies on our return flights. The first is one I had noticed on Prime a while back called A Cold Grave. This is a very low budget found footage style film, generally at least. Like some movies of that genre it betrays that in moments in needs to. Blair Witch inspired for sure, hikers get lost in the woods then a relative of one of those characters gives search. There are a few characters in the movie, but it's mostly a one man show. I don't think this movie will be for everyone, it will hinge on if you find this particular character charming, and I kinda did. He's a bit hammy and over the top but for whatever reason I liked his wit. I've seen a few reviews absolutely hammering this movie but I don't think it's bad. No masterpiece and doesn't add anything new to this subgenre outside of an eccentric lead.

Secondly, I finally checked out T.I.M. featuring one of my favorite up and coming scream queens in Georgina Campbell (Barbarian and Lovely Dark and Deep, subnote to make sure you see that one). If you've seen M3GAN, then you can probably guess how this movie plays out. Not that that is a bad thing since I personally thought it was one of the best films last year. TIM is a bit more violent I think since ratings weren't an issue. Like M3GAN, the guy playing the AI really gives a great performance and along with Georgina helps this movie shine. If you did enjoy M3GAN, this one should push all those same buttons. Maybe it presses them too much sometimes but it's well acted and produced.

I liked it. Didn't deserve to bomb. Not the greatest movie ever but it looked good and was competent.

We watched something called Night Shift. It's about a woman who, of course, begins a new job working a night shift at a hotel that's a little seedy. Supposedly, even haunted. There are a couple of really effective scares mixed in but there's a twist near the ending I personally didn't like too much. It ultimately brought it down a bit for me. Still not bad though.

At 40 films now on the year, so here's an update to my list so far. I'm trying to get Genny to get a list too so we can compare them but it might be a little too late now to get them in proper order I think. Some of the films in the C tier for me I feel end up being pretty forgettable experiences and I'd be hard pressed to rank some of them unless I had a fresh take on them while they were still in the forefront of my mind.

S Tier:

1. Late Night With the Devil
2. Stopmotion

A Tier:

3. Lovely, Dark and Deep
4. Monolith
5. You'll Never Find Me
6. Exhuma
7. Lisa Frankenstein
8. The First Omen
9. Arcadian
10. Destroy All Neighbors
11. Somewhere Quiet
12. My Bloody Galentine
13. Immaculate
14. Double Blind

B Tier:

15. Founders Day
16. Out of Darkness
17. Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire
18. Departing Seniors
19. Baghead
20. Sting
21. Laced
22. Imaginary
23. Last Night at Terrace Lanes

C Tier:

24. I.S.S.
25. Guess Who
26. Stranger in the Woods
27. The Windigo
28. Cellphone
29. Easter Bloody Easter
30. Sunrise
31. Alice in Terrorland
32. Midnight Peepshow
33. Gods of the Deep

D Tier:

34. Project Dorothy
35. Night Swim
36. Punch
37. Skeletons in the Closet
38. Arctic Hollow

F Tier:

39. They Turned Us Into Killers
40. History of Evil

I think it'll be difficult for any film to unseat Late Night With The Devil this year because I can't say enough good things about it. It's out on Shudder now (or soon) and we might even end up watching it again because that's how great it is. I've liked the majority of movies we've watched this year, just a handful of stinkers so far in my opinion.

PrivateBiscuit1 posted...

Yoooo guys, go out of your way to watch You Will Never Find Me on Shudder.

It's a movie about a girl who goes to find shelter in a guy's house during a terrible thunder storm. It's an extremely claustrophobic horror movie that stays in that single set piece and it flew past any expectations you have. Such a tightly wound and clever script that left me thinking I had the answers multiple times. Incredible last act of the movie. And the cinematography on this one is excellent too.

Check this one out. It's really special.

Got around to it.

Yeah, this one is quite good. I liked it a lot; very tense and it was like 50 minutes before I could even tell who the bad guy was. Even though I was able to correctly predict a few things about this movie at that point, I still really enjoyed the presentation. I bet the budget was smaller here with this one, but this is exactly how you do it. I really love these one location horrors lately.

Yeah, it's unfortunate that even with good word of mouth and high ratings The First Omen hasn't arrived with any fanfare. I guess the IP is just too old to get people excited, or Believer might have tainted the idea of old, religious themed horror franchises being very good for most people. It could also be that the Omen films, at least in my opinion, kinda suck after the first one.

Arcadian was a nice experience for sure. Probably the coolest monsters of the year so far, and they didn't shy away from showing them. There's something pretty unique they do that I won't spoil here; the first time you see it I think it's pretty terrifying. It helps this film has some good acting as well; the dynamics between the two brothers is the star of the show I think. Nic Cage of course is always good too.

We actually ended up watching Sting before we left on vacation after I found out we would be able to see Arcadian at a local theater here in Maine after all. It's gonna cost a lot more than usual, but it's a vacation so meh. Seeing that tonight or tomorrow night.

Sting was fairly good. Nicely done little creature feature sort of movie; it's nice to see one that isn't about sharks. I think the first parts of the film are probably better than the later ones. It never takes itself too seriously and there are some humorous parts in there too; I liked the main character, well, I liked her a lot at first but by the end she was just sort of okay. If you like creature horrors, this one should be one you'd enjoy too; it doesn't do anything special or take chances, just a well-done by the numbers experience.

We also watched a shorter horror film in flight called Arctic Hollow; it's only about 70 minutes... and yeah. Just... not good. I would say kinda bad. It's sad because I know this is probably a really low budget movie but it shows. Sometimes when you have a low budget, you have to make a film that hides that fact. It's not hard to do; but it does mean you can't tackle certain concepts and this film is guilty of that. It's basically a "hollow Earth" influenced movie; and this was made with like a shoestring budget and there's just no way it can pull it off. Both the writing and acting are pretty bad... music is kinda out of place a lot of times. I wanted to like it because I would say maybe the first 10-15 minutes so paint this as a slow burn movie with perhaps a way to execute a smart story with a little bit of money, but no. So corny and cringey in the last act.

Still better than calling it Pearl 3 imo

We'll probably watch it some time in the next week. We'll be on vacation, but at night I imagine we'll be watching a film most of the time. Unfortunately Maine doesn't have a ton of movie theaters so we might miss the limited showing of Sting; Arcadian just looks more interesting and we only have time to see one of them before we leave, so we'll be checking out Nic Cage's latest offering tomorrow. I'm a little more interested in Longlegs but this one has good reviews ahead of release.

Watched the Maxxxine trailer. I'm just not sold on it. I was disappointed with Pearl (slightly triggered by it being called "Pearl 3" there; XXX was a great movie that I did enjoy). I mentioned when it came out that I just felt it was a little overhyped and preferred XXX. But since this is a sequel and won't have Pearl in it at all, it might be more for me.

Watched two of Shudder's original films from 2024. I had been meaning to start on them for a while, especially since @PrivateBiscuit1 has been saying good things about the two most recent. But I felt I needed to watch one that came out a couple of months ago now, History of Evil, first. So last night we did just that... and boy oh boy, this did not leave me feeling that Shudder was on the right track with their originals at all. I have no idea who signed off on this.

To start, the film has an interesting enough premise, even if it does make me feel a certain sort of way. If you've seen the trailers for the upcoming movie Civil War, then it's basically that. You have this setup to where the government has been overthrown or perhaps just changed into that of a heavily Christian authoritarian state, at least that's what the movie tells you at first. But what it actually seems to be is more based on race, because any time a non-white person is on the side of this new government, they're referred to as "converts" specifically. Like only white people were originally part of this new order, even though that's never explicitly stated. Anyway, the horror aspect of this film is that a wife, husband and their daughter are on the run and part of the uniquely named "The Resistance", and while on the run they take refuge in what's essentially a haunted house. The wife is supposedly this big time leader of the group and she's recently escaped prison, though the way this film is written you'd never know she was supposed to be any sort of leader. Her relevance to the plot amounts to making two speeches over the radio that could have been easily created better by AI. Hollow nothingness.

The actual main character is her husband, and well, this is one of the worst written characters in horror recently. It's sort of like someone watched The Shining and then did a supremely shitty job of copying it. There's no nuance, no building of character, nothing. Just total horse shit and forced everything. It's infuriatingly bad writing to a level that's hard to put into to words. There is nothing good to say about this movie after the first 15 or 20 minutes. Plot points are introduced and go nowhere, but time is devoted to them anyway. Ghosts appear with no sort of explanation about who they are or what they represent; the one ghost that does get the most screentime just makes no sense. It's so poorly explained and again, the writing is just so shit it's hard to believe anyone put money into making this movie. I feel bad for everyone who was involved in making this. One of the worst horror movies I've ever seen.

The second one we watched is Baghead, though it's the newer of the other Shudder films it's what Genny picked so after me having picked what I did, I couldn't make any argument. It's a pretty good offering, definitely needed after what we had to watch before it. It was successful with some good jumpscares, especially early on. I did like the "villain" here the film has a 'dark end', which is something I typically don't like in my horror movies. But with this one I felt the 'witch' had really been screwed over here and didn't deserve to spent centuries locked in a basement and abused for her powers. So looking at it from her point of view, I suppose this wasn't a 'bad ending'.

But yeah, very competently done and definitely solidly enjoyable.

Just got back from it. Good stuff. After having seen Immaculate just recently, it's interesting to note how many parallels there are between the two films. I did say when I talked a little about Immaculate that it did a good job of subverting expectations that it would be a ripoff of The Omen franchise. Even so though, there are still a lot of things in common between these two films.

On the whole, I give the slight edge to The First Omen. Both are good movies, but I think only Sweeney was stellar in that movie whilst there was a higher amount of quality amongst this one. I think both films sort of go off the rails just a little around their endings, but there was really only one way for First Omen to end I guess since it's a canonical prequel to a nearly 50 year old movie. There are some really good scenes sprinkled throughout that are pretty unnerving and visceral. You can sort of see the plot twist coming from a ways away but I don't think it takes away from the film too much. Definitely not the bumbling of a historic horror IP that Exorcist: Believer was. I still don't think that movie is as bad as most do. There's a clear step down though.

The First Omen is out to pretty good reviews so far. I'm surprised.

Seen the trailer in front of a few recent horror trips to theater. A couple of the scenes they use gave me chills, really looking forward to it. Sadly I read recently it's had its release date pushed back a few months to August.

Frozen Empire was pretty good. What you would expect from the franchise if you watched the previous film; good quality, family-style entertainment with horror themes. I feel like Frozen Empire is a bit darker than Afterlife on the whole; there are a few actual deaths of humans sprinkled around (though not nearly anything to write home about) and probably more uses of swear words as well. The main villain has a really cool design I liked.

We did end up watching the Easter horror movie I mentioned. Schlock. But it's one of those fun films that's aware enough to know that's all it is. So long as you approach it knowing that's all you're going to get, you'll probably think it's pretty funny and have a good time with it. It's no Thanksgiving, and really no My Bloody Galentine either, but it's okay. Probably not worth the time out of season but I enjoyed it.

Finally watched Afterlife, so we're seeing Frozen Empire in the morning. Considering Ghostbusters horror is still not something I'd personally do, but thematically it fits fine. I did watch that Goosebumps movie last year and didn't bat an eye about putting it on my list, and essentially the Ghostbusters franchise is just a higher quality version of that I think. They even both have Dan Aykroyd.

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/easter_bloody_easter

Considering watching this tomorrow night for the holiday. It doesn't seem as bad as one would think, and it's kinda a fun tradition we're building watching these holiday horror flicks around the time of the holiday season it's based on.

Blood and Honey II is officially out in theaters now but we're not gonna be seeing it this time. I can't rationalize paying money after that first money, at least not more than $6-8 once it's available on Prime.

That being said... I'm checking now and... the movie has a 100% on RT and a 82% audience score. Limited critics so far, but how could this be possible?

Immaculate was pretty nice; definitely didn't correctly guess what this movie's twist was going to be when it happened so kudos to them for creating something a lot more original as The First Omen's release draws near. Definitely wasn't just a carbon copy of a movie from that franchise. Despite a really terrible theater-going experience, I did enjoy it. A few of the jump scares got me and I agree with most of the critics I've seen praising Sydney Sweeney's performance, she did indeed do a good job with the role.

Exhuma was pretty great, not perfect by any means, but a very different sort of horror movie if you desire something very different. I enjoyed the presentation of the team of four here and the way each of them have a special skill that brings something to the table, and it's an interesting look at Eastern culture in terms of burial and the dead which is something that I once considering making my life revolved around until I realized how unfeasible it would be to do so.

Apparently this movie is a huge hit in its native country, already becoming the highest grossing film of the year there so far even over Western powerhouse films like Wonka and Dune. It seems poised to even overtake Parasite in terms of box office gross in South Korea. I'm unsure if this film will find the success and admiration that Parasite did here in the States, but it's something to keep an eye on.

I always try to watch all the Shudder films. I'm one behind still though, never watched the one they put out before that one still. It didn't look all that interesting so I've neglected it for a little while now.

I'm pretty surprised Immaculate is as good as people are saying it is; I wasn't expecting that at all. It'll probably be Monday until we get to see that one though. Exhuma, that South Korean horror film I mentioned, actually was in theaters THIS weekend so we're catching an early showing of it tomorrow at 11:30am. Our typical Sunday movie day is probably off the card this week so Immaculate will have to be pushed back. Still haven't watched Afterlife, so no Ghostbusters just yet. I'll try to get to it though, it's the one I know will be in theaters the longest.

LightningStrikes posted...

Surprisingly had a packed house and there were gasps in the audience at points.

We had a pretty full theater as well, though they did put the showing we saw in one of the smaller rooms for some reason.

Late Night With the Devil lives up to all the hype. What a unique and crazy film. Go see it immediately, probably my favorite horror movie since Hereditary (maybe, I'd have to check what came out in each of the years between them).

Sunrise was... kinda underwhelming. I wanted to like it more but by the end I was just a little bored and confused by some of the plot points. It's a pretty slow-paced film, and it doesn't help that there are 3-4 flashback scenes that occur throughout the movie to tell you how the protagonist is related to the villain. I don't feel that aspect of it was done very well; gave it a really disjointed feeling. The acting is pretty good. But the writing and direction suffer a bit; it's not a difficult story to tell but for some reason I felt they made it out to be. There are tons of plotholes that made no sense to me as well, mostly all to do with the motives of certain characters. Pretty meh.

We also watched a Tubi original tonight released in January called Guess Who. Initially, this movie had a ton of stuff going for it and I was really liking it. It's based on this tradition I hadn't heard of before called "mummering", basically it's kinda like Halloween and Christmas together. You dress up so people don't know who you are, and you go door to door like caroling except you tell a riddle and people have to get it right to know who's under the mask. It's an interesting concept that lends itself well to horror, and to start out with there's a ton of promise. The film's first half or so sets an ominous atmosphere where you don't quite know what's going on; sadly I remarked that I hoped this film didn't turn into movies such as The Invitation, Ready or Not and Till Death Do Us Part just to name a few and sadly, that's exactly what happened. It really, really lessens the impact of this one for me because I've kinda seen too many like this before. Certainly these people are watching each other's movies right? Why does this movie keep getting made? Again, like 2 of those 3 movies I mentioned in those spoilers, it isn't a bad film (one of those 3 certainly was though). It's just not as good as it could have been if they hadn't gone this route; I had this one pegged a lot higher on my list through the first act or two.

I hope it is.

Big weekend for horror with Immaculate, Late Night With the Devil and Ghostbusters all coming out. Ghostbusters is pretty fringe horror for me, and admittedly I did not watch Afterlife so if we do plan on seeing it, I will definitely have to watch it before we go for that one. Tonight we're watching something called Sunrise; looks like a vampire movie featuring Guy Pearce

Watched a movie on VOD called Stranger in the Woods. It was pretty decent. It had a similar story to a lot of other movies we've seen recently, but it felt well produced and I thought the actors did a nice job. Essentially the film is what you might expect to get if you asked someone to make a horror movie and told them it had to be based on r/niceguys. There are so many things that happen in this movie that make you feel like you're listening to one of those videos of someone reading from the subreddit. There are a few nice touches though, Genny and I both liked that the black couple in this film were just eventually like, "Yeah, nah. We're leaving" and could not be coerced into staying and actually DID leave and survive just fine.

As for Thorns... I'll see it, eventually. Only Regal continues to carry it and I'm not gonna pay like $30 for us to go watch that. I like Doug Bradley and all, but the dude was in The Asylum's knockoff of the Exorcist last year and this film doesn't have very good review scores from what I've seen.

Came here to post that. I'm still unhappy with Spyglass though, they are unequivocally wrong. I'm torn on how to feel about one of my earliest character crushes returning and with Kevin Williamson at the director's chair too.

Eh.

I just don't know how to feel.

There's also a limited release South Korean horror-sounding film coming out as well called Exhuma. The plot sounds pretty horror adjacent and related to me (not TO me), though it's billed as Thriller. Only two theaters nearby have it starting Friday.

Looks like it's playing here too, but only at Regals, which I try to avoid because I have an AMC membership and it's hard to drop that much money on one film.

Still kinda baffled at that and Immaculate coming out within weeks of each other.

Imaginary watched.

From what I've seen online, it seems a lot of people either are giving it a 1/5 or a 5/5 for some reason. It isn't that divisive of a film, at least not in my opinion. I'd say it's a good offering, certainly a heck of a lot better than Night Swim as far as Blumhouse is concerned. I think from a concept standpoint it's great, and the first half or so of the film does a great job with the ominous world building and subtle spooks tossed in. The knock I have on this movie is that it wants to tell too much of a story in a small amount of time. That forces it into an exposition dump at one point, and it's not something I found to have been very well done. The movie was at its best when it wasn't holding your hand and just letting you draw your own conclusions, because they aren't hard to make. One of the characters also has a drastic personality change around this same time, and it's kinda hard to ignore.

But ultimately I did enjoy my experience with it. It does a lot of things I like such as the trope of "you haven't escaped, you're just imaging you did". I really like when I see this trope, it's one of my favorites and I think it was set up nicely here. Not quite on The Descent level obviously, but again, I'm a sucker for this.. Monster design if good, of course, it's Blumhouse. Child actor is also really pretty good too. Solid B film for me.

Doesn't seem like it's proved a hit with critics or audiences unfortunately. That's kinda sad, but I'll make my own judgement on Sunday I guess.

We watched our first anthology of the year last night called Midnight Peepshow. It's... a bit crass for my tastes. The overarching story is that of a businessman who has invested in this company which is essentially a dark web torture porn site. Each of the shorts that make up the film in large are closely connected, and really some of the stuff is a bit too much for me. I guess the concept itself was never going to hit a homerun with me, but it's well made enough for the most part I suppose. There are some oddities here and there but I wouldn't say this movie was "bad", just definitely not my cup of tea.

Was hoping for better since there were some good to great anthology films last year with VHS 85 and Satanic Hispanics.

Anyone seeing Imaginary in theaters this weekend?

I know I've seen the original but I couldn't tell you anything much about it, I found it to be entirely forgettable. Prey at Night was easily one of the worst horror films of the year when it came out, only reason I remember that one better.

Watched two new films. Both were surprisingly sort of about the same type of subject matter: Guilt.

The first one we watched was Monolith. It stars Lily Sullivan of Evil Dead Rise. She's actually the only physical actor that you see in the entire movie. It's about a disgraced journalist that begins a new career as this sort of conspiracy podcaster, though at first her heart isn't really in it. It's definitely more along the lines of a slow burn horror, but I think the reveal is really worth it and it ties everything together really well. She's really great here, definitely a film that needs someone that can have enough presence to act by herself. It's another one of those films that critics seemed to praise and audiences especially disliked it for some reason. Again, I think this is one of those films people here should enjoy.

The other was Cellphone. Based on the title and synopsis, which is basically a woman suffering from the loss of her fiance sees weird images and her cellphone, I was pretty sure this would be hokey and awful. While this is not a great movie, it's far from terrible either I thought. Now it has some plotholes and by the end the cellphone part of the movie is kinda irrelevant and you're wondering how the protagonist is at all connected to the sequence they use to open the film, but it's alright enough. Mostly I'll forget this movie existed, if not for one specific character. One of the most bizarre characters in a horror movie I think I can recall. Genny said he was like an anime character who had somehow found his way into the wrong film, and yeah, I think that's the best way to describe this dude. If you ever watch this, you'll know who I'm talking about the first scene he's in.

Strongly recommend Lovely, Dark and Deep. New horror film from the writer of The Wind, which was a few years ago and had a video game developed by Airdorf to go along with it. It stars Georgina Campbell as well, so she's been pretty busy lately. The film is about a park ranger who gets a job in the rural wilderness of a national park; basically it's about people who go missing in the vast expanse of the parks and what happens to them. I really like the tension, acting, storytelling and there are some good scares and disturbing scenes mixed in too. This is another one where the critics seemed to have praised it but the audiences didn't like it; typically movies like that I lean with the audience score, but they're definitely wrong on this one in my opinion.

We watched something last night called Alice in Terrorland. Based on the title alone, I was sort of expecting a Blood and Honey style knockoff with that similar vibe it has, but this movie is actually not that at all. Not saying it's great either, but it's definitely never in your face or too over the top. Sometimes it doesn't make very much sense and all, because it is pretty short and some things are just glossed over. At the end, it's a pretty simple story with a "twist" you can see coming from miles away early on, but I give it credit for not just hamming it up ala Pooh.

And with that, we're at 20 films watched so far this year. And this is how I'd rank what I've seen so far:

S Tier:

1. Stopmotion

A Tier:

2. Lisa Frankenstein
3. Destroy All Neighbors
4. Somewhere Quiet
5. My Bloody Galentine
6. Double Blind

B Tier:

7. Founders Day
8. Out of Darkness
9. Laced
10. Departing Seniors
11. Last Night at Terrace Lanes

C Tier:

12. I.S.S.
13. The Windigo
14. Alice in Terrorland
15. Gods of the Deep
16. Project Dorothy

D Tier:

17. Night Swim
18. Punch
19. Skeletons in the Closet

F Tier:

20. They Turned Us Into Killers

It seems sort of on pace with last year for me. At this time last year, there was also one film I ranked as an "S" (M3GAN). A handful of pretty good indie films; the theatrical films are mostly fine. There have been some duds, though only one I'd rank as without any redeeming qualities whatsoever.

Shame it didn't have a wider release. It'll probably contend for best horror film of the year with a lot of people, I imagine. It's early on obviously but it should definitely fit that niche of a film beloved by many, but also despised by others. I always get a little nervous when I see a sky high critics score on RT next to a very meh audience rating, but this time I feel like the critics are correct.

What to say about Stopmotion...

I don't think I can find the words really. Try to see it ASAP, I think a lot of people that frequent in here will love it.

Departing Seniors watched. Fairly good offering. I like some of the characters here, the actors do a nice job of bringing them to life. For a shorter film I think they got the pacing right; often times with these films that don't even quite reach 90 minutes things can feel rushed but I never felt like they rushed any with this movie. The general concept for this film is that it's a horror-comedy style teen slasher at a high school; lots of homage was paid to Scream here, several times directly by names or references. The twist in this film is that the main character experiences an injury during the story that causes him to be able to see the future, partially. The only weaker part of this movie is probably the villain and the reveal because it's really easy to see and figure out. I think the movie knows this though so they attempt to paint two of the other characters as the potential killer but I never bought it for a second because how obvious it was who it was going to be. It's a solid lower B tier film though.

Really looking forward to Stopmotion. Luckily, our local theater picked it up at the last minute so we'll be seeing that tomorrow. Delightfully creepy looking movie from the trailer.

Film last night watched called Gods of the Deep. I'm sure you can guess what's it's about. It's sort of feels like The Meg meets Alien; I feel strongly both of those movies served as inspiration for this one. Obviously it's not Alien level or anything though, probably not even Meg (the first one) level either. Kinda forgettable and eh, but to its credit I think it has decent special effects and acting for a lower budget project. The shortcomings mostly lie in the story and pacing, but it's a rather short film at under 90 minutes so I guess that's understandable. The film attempts to give a few of the characters backstories but it's hard to do with such a limited amount of time and a crew style cast setup. I doubt many Lovecraft fans will like how the Deep One is portrayed here either really, though it's never explicitly said what it actually is, you just guess at that based on the design choice.

Definitely skippable, but there haven't been a lot of films from this subgenre lately that I've seen so it might be able to scratch that itch, mildly.

Checked out a film called Double Blind. There was was a small limited release theatrically apparently but nothing around us, so this was watched On Demand.

The premise of this one is that a group of strangers convene for a double blind study of a drug, of which they're at first led to believe is relatively harmless and used to treat things that aren't life-threatening. In actuality, the pharmaceutical company behind the test is seemingly running a sleep deprecation trial and testing a drug for that purpose. Their drug is not a success however, and though it initially can keep you from being tired at all, the effects won't last and if you fall asleep after that, you will die.

There's something to this movie I think. There are plenty of tense moments and the film does well when it gets to employ sleep-deprived induced hallucinations on the cast of characters. Not every one of them hits the same, but a few hit pretty hard. There are a couple of pretty disturbing moments and images I'll probably remember for a while from the movie. It's pretty good stuff, I'd recommend it.

I'm glad to see others have enjoyed Lisa Frankenstein. It might not be the greatest film of all time or anything, but I'm pretty concerned about how poorly it's performed in theaters. I really hope the cult classic tag will get put on this one some day. Thankfully it's a small budget project but it might not even be able to make that back, which I find pretty surprising.

Wanted to watch a Valentine's themed horror on the day of, but the timing didn't quite pan out. We did watch it last night finally however, it's a new Tubi original on their platform called My Bloody Galentine. The title and general premise made me assume this would be garbage, and I still kinda associate Tubi with subpar quality for whatever reason so my hopes were pretty low heading into this one. The movie is about 3 fashion workers whom are all dumped shortly before Valentine's Day, and they plot revenge against the men for this. I entered assuming they would be plotting their demises, but this is actually not the case. They are actually just "getting even", in fairly harmless ways (though they do all have these over-the-top dream sequences that shows them killing the guys). However, someone is wise to their plan and they want to go all out and actually murder these ex-boyfriends.

The movie has no right to be as good as it is. It's funny, well shot and acted and it feels like a very original concept I haven't really seen before. I gotta say I was not expecting to find a gem hidden like this, but I really do endorse this movie if you're seeking out horror films that are themed around non-horror holidays. This is a good one to check out.

I'll be posting my running list of films less because well, I don't like how it looks clogging up this topic since the post rate isn't super high. I will post what I've watched so far, ranked, once we hit 20 films watched. At 15 right now.

Skeletons in the Closet: Man... I really wanted to like this film, I really did. If you were ever wondering what Cuba Gooding Jr. and Terrence Howard have been up to, well, it's this movie. I feel bad for them really, because the shortcomings of this movie aren't their fault. The acting, for the most part at least, is fine. Some of the supporting cast isn't great; the child actor isn't very good, honestly. But the real problem with this movie is the script; the disjointed nature of this movie leaves a lot to be desired. They create subplots that just go nowhere and are resolved in 5 seconds or so with a phone call, when you think they'll have some bearing on the climax of the film. This film also has a trope which I despise, which is kinda a spoiler if you were ever thinking of checking this one out: The scary ghost is your friendly relative trying to talk to you. I hate this because half the film the specter spends all its time scaring the shit out of the protagonist, screaming and wailing and lurking about menacingly. Then once it's revealed it's her mother, she just is all angelic like. WTF guys seriously stop doing this shit. Also there are a lot of bad, bad effects used. Especially the fire effects. If you can't afford to do a stunt with real fire or have a great CGI department, then just don't have fire. Really, really let down by this movie. It starts out making you hope it'll be something good, because it has a decent setup and they've got well known actors in some roles. Then it just all goes to shit.

Out of Darkness: A good chance of pace from the last film. It doesn't really break new ground or anything, but the setting is gorgeous and there's plenty of tension to be had especially in the first half of the movie. If you haven't seen the trailer for this, essentially it bills itself as "stone age horror". They speak what AMC billed as "artificial languages", so I'm assuming it's a custom language created for this movie. There are of course subtitles in English. It's a small cast of characters so you won't get overwhelmed with a lot of fluff getting in the way, and it's acted fairly well. But I think the setting is what sets this movie apart; apparently it was shot in the Scottish highlands and there's this untamed wilderness feeling that captures so very well. There's a twist near the end, which can probably either turn you off from the film or make you appreciate it more. For me, I lean to the latter because it offers a message that's relevant today. It's not a groundbreaking message or anything like that, but after watching what I considered to be a mess of a movie, something that was tightly written and wrapped up felt so nice.

It's a time period thing, and nostalgia too I think. I love the Halloween franchise; even the ones that are most assuredly bad. Each of those films are classics because at the time of their releases, they were groundbreaking and nothing else existed quite like them. And in general, they still hold up pretty well today. But the complexity to their scripts is simply not there compared to Get Out's. You can argue for them being better films overall if you'd like, but script wise if those films were brand new today, would people still feel the same about them? I just feel the cleverness and how well it resonates with the time we live in currently puts Get Out on top.

No offense to those movies; they are classics and all. But to compare their scripts to Get Out's is laughable. Get Out blows them out of the water in that department.

Lisa Frankenstein and Out of Darkness are both in theaters this weekend. Shudder also has their second original film of the year out as today as well called Skeletons in the Closet.

We saw Lisa Frankenstein tonight. Cute and charming horror/comedy/romance film. It's Zelda Williams's directorial debut, has this offbeat zany style to it. Sort of seems pretty inspired aesthetically by Edward Scissorhands; which makes sense because it's set in the year just before that film was made. I think if you liked a movie like Warm Bodies, you should like this one too. Obviously the plots of the films are very different, but you still have the same dynamic of human/undead relationships, though things go much differently. I think I liken it to that film also because it's also very character interaction driven. It doesn't reinvent the wheel or anything, but I enjoyed my time with it.

Yeah, there's just not enough time in my life for everything I'd like to have time for unfortunately. Kinda have to pick and choose what to do. We only now just finished watching the last season of the original Castlevania anime on Netflix, and Genny watched Usher without me because we just don't have time to fit everything in.

We did watch a new movie last night on demand though called Somewhere Quiet. I read the premise and idea for this film and was really hyped to check it out. Basically the idea of this film came about when the writer was thinking "what happens to the 'final girl' of a slasher after the movie ends?". We don't get to see that often, except in a franchise like Scream where there is just a continuous Ghostface presence. This movie is definitely a horror film, but it's very psychological in nature, truly exploring how the survivor of a horrific event deals with the fallout and attempting to return to the life they had before. While the main character was not a victim of a slasher, she was kidnapped and tortured for quite some time until she managed to escape. The film deals with how she and her husband cope with that event. It's really very good, one of the best films so far this year in my opinion. There have really been only two films I'd go out of my way to recommend this year so far, and this is one of them.

Mr. T and Lawrence Taylor weren't competing for the top belt in the company. It's fine to have part-timers and non-wrestlers on the show, just not competing for a top title.

Finally checked out Project Dorothy featuring Danielle Harris. It's... underwhelming. There's a good premise here but I feel like the film might not have had the budget to do it justice perhaps. There's so little actual violence or on screen drama for a horror film in my opinion. There's a lot of backstory but rather than using flashbacks or showing what happened, we can only hear it which kinda deflates it. There's also some really weird and random camera shots throughout the film which I don't understand, because the rest of the time it feels shot fine. But every so often we get these slowdowns and they don't really even fit with the scenes they're used on.

I wouldn't go out of my way to recommend it sadly. I always want to like Danielle Harris stuff but this wasn't it.