Current Events > ***The 31 Days/31 Horror Movies Challenge 2022 Topic***

(+) Yeah! (+)

1. Frailty
2. Pennywise: The Story of It (doc)
3. Hocus Pocus 2
4. The Mothman of Point Pleasant (doc)
5. Leatherface
6. Willow Creek
7. Grave Encounters
.

Nope 2/10 wtf was this movie Get out was amazing since then very avg to below avg movies

The Empty Man was really good.

Would you consider The Wall or Donnie Darko horror?

Xethuminra posted...

Would you consider The Wall or Donnie Darko horror?

I don't consider Donnie Darko to be horror, but it's a scaryish movie and part of it takes place on Halloween, so.

IShall_Run_Amok posted...

I don't consider Donnie Darko to be horror, but it's a scaryish movie and part of it takes place on Halloween, so.

Cerebral thriller meets coming of age dramedy? Idk

Experimental film? Existential film?

The black phone 7/10 really good didnt think i would like it but i enjoyed it

Swarmed (2006)

As a town tries to get rid of their wasp problem before their big hamburger cook-off, they try a untested pesticide that accidentally makes the wasps louder, angrier, and gives them access to a time machine, and any time they're off screen everyone has to say "where's the wasps?". No but they start wanting to kill people.

Surprisingly enough, this movie was terrible. I feel like it had to have started as like, at least 1/2 of a comedy, since a major point is something just called "tasty sauce" and its about bees killing people. Like its trying to lean in and wink like Shark-nado, but nobody involved is talented enough to pull something that basic off. Don't watch it.

Two scenes did make me laugh in its dumb awkwardness though:

Dumb reporter character: So is your husbands hamburgers the best you've ever tasted?
Wife: *Cries in vegetarian*

Secretary: Finds boss murdered by bee
Also Secretary: Chases Bee with a Rifle

And not like, a recent gun either. Like something out of Gunsmoke.

1. Evil Dead
2. V/H/S
3. V/H/S/2
4. V/H/S: Viral

So never actually saw the original Evil Dead all the way through start to finish, but finally did and it actually exceeded my expectations. 2 gets all the love, but 1 is pretty great. Not a fan of the stop motion stuff at the end. It's neat, but I never like how it looks worked into any live action movie in this way regardless. Still, that's my only complaint. It's a total classic.

V/H/S 1 & 2 were rewatches. Fun to revisit. Still very hit and miss. Honestly should have just rewatched the best segments. 2 especially has some real crap, but it also has probably the best of the bunch with the cult one.

Watching Viral for the first time ever right now and the first part was just awful. So bad I got on here to post this during it. Why even make a half ass attempt at making it found footage? The wrap around story so far is also pretty lame. But this second one with the parallel universe machine actually seems pretty good, so I'm gonna give it my full attention now. I'll share my final judgment next time I update my list.

additions

Scream [5] (2022) - A good "requel." I had much of it spoiled by reckless youtube video viewing about horror movies *sigh* but I do feel like I would have known some of it had I not been spoiled. Overall, it was pretty good. Lowish body count, but it was effective with its selected kills. I guess another Scream is coming out soonish? (like in the next year or two) so... no idea what to expect from that.

Mayhem - Fun as fuck. Great anti-corporate commentary. The primary protagonist pair were amazing individually and even better as a dynamic duo. I would have like slightly less camp (ONLY SLIGHTLY LESS) and a bit more carnage, but overall, it was a hilariously on-point story. Recommend highly.

They/Them - Very interesting. I saw the low ratings and I knew why they were what they were. I enjoyed it overall. A lot of uncomfortable stuff, but the message was on point and overall I think it did exactly what it meant to do and did so very well.

Karen - MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD (nothing that isn't listed in the movie's description). This was a very blatantly made for TV movie. The early dialogue was terribly written. The main antagonists said like 50 words to each other in one scene and 30 of those words were "baby" but overall it had a good message. It just seemed a bit cliche to me with the message but not because of any issue with the message. The message was exactly what it needed to be. I just saw it so late that the delivery seemed derivative of reality... but shitty reality... like "okay this Karen is a shitty cliche racist" but at the time, she would not have been so cliche a few years prior. Kinda scary in retrospect. When a fictitious on-screen Karen is saying things constantly that makes you think "I've heard all of this before irl," you know you're living in a really fucked up version of irl. That's the message. It delivered on that. I would like to see a better story with a higher budget in a bigger studio to really drive the point home since this will be ignored probably.

-

Also watched a youtube video of upcoming horror movies ranging from pre-production to already made (and a few probably already released) and it hyped me up. Another saw, another final destination, another evil dead, another happy death day (lol... but come on now. I want to see how it ends) etc.

I never participate in these because going strictly horror would knock me out of watching films like Ghostbusters, Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein, or Hocus Pocus -- movies that are appropriate for the Halloween season but not horror films. Also, some of the older horror movies don't qualify as horror by modern standards.

So far, I've watched the following:

1st - Horror of Dracula (1958)
2nd - Curse of Frankenstein (1957)
3rd - A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
4th - The VVitch: A New England Folktale (2016)
5th - Frankenstein (1931)

Some of the films I've seen prior to the start of October:

Dracula (1931), Freaky (2020), Black Phone (2022), The Wolf Man (1941), Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943), The Mummy's Hand (1940), and The Mummy's Tomb (1942). These films were mostly in preparation of going to Universal's Halloween Horror Nights. The Blum House haunted house is divided into Freaky and Black Phone sections whereas Universal Monsters: Legends Collide had Dracula, the Wolf Man, and Kharis the Mummy. I meant to rewatch Halloween (1978) as well, but ran out of time.

It has been my tradition to begin the Halloween movies with Bela Lugosi's Dracula on October 1st. Since I went to haunted houses in Orlando in September, I watched that one early. I tend to start off with the classics and get closer and closer to modern horror as the season progresses.

Cat's Eye, dir. Lewis Teague, 1985
This Stephen King adaptation - a trilogy-style anthology film - is kinda dumb as Hell, but I don't think I was bored for a second, and I imagine I'll enjoy it even more on a re-watch. I think I was disappointed that it was ultimately more of a comedy than a horror movie, except for the final segment, which pits wee Drew Barrymore and the heroic feline against a memorable little troll (a shout-out to the more genuinely scary Trilogy of Terror?). But I can't really dismiss a movie that disappointed me on the basis of my own false assumption, but ultimately entertained me a great deal (the comic performances in the film definitely stand out) and gave me a couple of good laughs ("Oh, fiddlysticks!"). This is a pretty okay movie, and maybe more. The director, Lewis Teague, also directed the deeply underrated Cujo (whose titular character gets a cameo), which is why I took interest in this movie in the first place, and why I expected a straight up horror movie. That said, I'm pretty confident in saying that Creepshow is the better comic horror anthology, and Cujo is the better animal-themed horror movie.

6.5/10

Movie 6- Pumpkinhead 2: Blood Wings

I haven't seen Pumpkinhead 1 in awhile but I remember linking it as a weird piece of folk horror that was pretty entertaining. This movie? Well... It was something all right. It's got a sort of similar plot thrust to the first, with people wronging a person and Pumpkinhead getting summoned to bring vengence, but it's a lot more scattershot with two groups of people being targeted.One group, the gang of townies that murdered someone years ago as teens, feel like the people the movie was supposed to be about, with the sheriff played by the dude who plays Larry from Hellraiser trying to figure out why. Unfortunately, for whatever reason (probably to get teens in the theater), there's also a current group of teens getting hunted that feel like they barely have any relation to the movie. The plots clash and for a lot of it the teen plot feels completely pointless and detached while Pumpkinhead ganks the grown up greaser guys. They don't converge until like the last ten minutes of the movie and by then it's way too late to make me care.

I remember the first movie looking kind of cheap, I assume because they spent the whole budget on the wicked looking Pumpkinhead suit. This one is even worse though, it's shot like an episode of Are you Afraid of the Dark and even watching it in HD on amazon didn't shake that impression for me. There are some all right kills but they're usually shot with crazy camera angles and irritating flashing lights so they can just show the aftermath rather than the process. The real redeeming (though not intentionally) quality of the movie is the almost entirely stupid dialogue. Stuff like a guy getting found with all his limbs and head cleanly severed and someone suggesting a mountain lion did it, the sheriff doing multiple soliloquies about Pumpkinhead's past delivered with the gravity of a game show host, and a nameless man in a cowboy hat never seen before or after his singular scene hilariously overacting while Pumpkinhead sensually steps on Kane Hodder are some real highlights.

I'm being very negative about this movie, but it wasn't like... offensive? Once Pumpkinhead showed up I was certainly never bored, it's just got an unmistakable feeling of cheapness to it. I think it's because in my mind Pumpkinhead very much debuted as a B-class horror movie icon, and this movie did nothing more except make him even more goofy and scuffed. Maybe watch it if you've got some time to kill and want to watch some hillbillies get wrecked, but don't go out of your way or anything. 5/10

FigureOfSpeech posted...

They/Them - Very interesting. I saw the low ratings and I knew why they were what they were. I enjoyed it overall. A lot of uncomfortable stuff, but the message was on point and overall I think it did exactly what it meant to do and did so very well.

Think the problem with this movie was that it was pushed as like, a slasher movie, the trailer was 100% pushing the horror bit, when the movie is actually a coming of age drama focused on LGBT-youth with a slasher thrown in at the end to cause excitement.

I thought the movie was decent, but if it was advertised as the kind of movie it actually was, I think it'd have been much better received.

Proto_Spark posted...

Think the problem with this movie was that it was pushed as like, a slasher movie, the trailer was 100% pushing the horror bit, when the movie is actually a coming of age drama focused on LGBT-youth with a slasher thrown in at the end to cause excitement.

I thought the movie was decent, but if it was advertised as the kind of movie it actually was, I think it'd have been much better received.

That's fair (and the cringey Pink musical number sequence definitely screams coming of age drama lol. I was like "why?") but I never saw any advertising about it. I went in completely blind, so any of that inconsistency went over my head. The opening kill scene gave me original Friday the 13th vibes and it set the stage really well for me even if it took a while to do so. I can definitely see that I enjoyed it a lot more having been in the dark on advertising. I was trying to figure out who the killer was before there was even a kill (beyond the opening part). It also took me a lot longer than it should have to see Kevin Bacon as a fucking asshole... but maybe that's because I just binged the most recent season of City on a Hill and he's been an asshole constantly for that whole show so maybe I'm desensitized lol

A Quiet Place, dir. John Krasinski, 2018
If anything, the success of this movie proves audiences are, in theory, growing more sophisticated, because its hard to imagine a concept like this becoming a highly successful franchise 20 years ago - and this one is definitely gearing up to being the horror franchise of our time. So that's pretty cool. Or maybe I'm just a jaded, out of touch misanthrope, over-and-under-estimating the intelligence of my fellow man as I die because I forget to breathe. Anyway, I like the movie well enough, and beyond minor nitpicks that don't really matter, my biggest criticisms are that the monster design is rather generic (but still better than some, I guess - I dig the detail in the creature's earholes, and I found myself asking "what if someone jammed a stick of dynamite in there?"), and in our day of thematically meaningful (or ambitious) horror films like Get Out and Midsommer, it feels kinda basic, and it otherwise lacks the kineticism that makes really great horror movies so effective that you don't notice their social message or lack thereof. But it's still good. I'll watch the sequel next week, probably.

7/10

Satans little helper 0/10 so bad the only good thing about this is a 26 year old Katherine Winnick she was super hot still is

Movie 7- The People Under the Stairs

I saw this movie for the first time a couple years ago and I've made time for it for the past two because I love it. When people talk about Wes Craven you hear a lot of love for Elm Street or Last House on the Left, but never this movie. That's criminal because it's one of his best in my opinion.

Don't Breathe brought back the idea of a home invasion gone wrong when it turns out the owners are psychos, but this one does it vastly better. The actors that play Big Ed and Norma from Twin Peaks play as a psychotic couple just called "Mommy" and "Daddy" who murder intruders and feed them to the lobotomized abduction victims they keep in their cellar. There's a combination of genuine creepiness on their part as they screech and dance and love on each other like insane cartoon characters, but also of really fun physical comedy in spots. It's got a really wry sense of humor that is balanced unusually well with the horror, and the result is almost like a reverse home alone where the main kid is dodging traps and trying to get one over on the adults while he tries to rob them. This all builds up to a fantastic ending sequence that feels incredibly satisfying after the journey to get there.

There's a nice amount of social commentary here as well that feels surprisingly relevant today that I don't want to spoil too deeply. The film has no love for exploitative landlords and is very up front about that. If you're into that sort of thing, you'll find this is a pretty progressive piece for a movie released in the 90s. But it's never the forefront of things and it manages to stay a really fun thrill ride above all else.

The only real thing I can hold against the movie is there a sort of awkward disruptive middle part that doesn't really feel nessicary. It does let things cool down a bit, and it does give you an excuse to not set the entire thing in the main house, but it feels kind of superfluous. Even then, though, I am reaching for things to nitpick about. This is a top tier horror comedy that keeps itself well balanced between lightness and darkness, and I absolutely suggest giving it a watch if you've never seen it. 9/10

Movie 8- Hellraiser

Some movies don't need sequels, and this is one of them; Clive Barker's adaption of his own short story stands perfectly on its own as a lust-fueled modernization of the age old folk tale of a man who tries to renege his deal with the devil. While I prefer some things about the story over the movie, Hellraiser is great; it explains everything it needs to about its universe and villain and instead of getting muddled in crazy details about hell or the cenobites or whatever else, it keeps itself focused on the four primary characters and that's all it needs.

This movie doesn't get enough love from its visual style. Larry and Julia's house is a great spooky setting that's shot super well, and the brief otherworldly stuff you get to see whenever the Cenobites are affecting things like the spinning pillar room and the stuff that happens in the hospital are really simple but cool. Frank's fucked up half-made body is also really awesome and holds up shockingly well with how gross and slimy they made him look. The scene where he first reconstitutes itself is practical effects that should be mentioned in the same breath as The Thing. As mentioned before, the story is very focused and enjoyable. Frank makes a good straightforward villain because he's a person still deep down and you can understand his thoughts and motivations, as depraved as they are. It's part of the reason those subsequent sequels are a mess; Pinhead and his crew are creatures beyond our comprehension that have experienced things that make them think and act in a way our minds aren't supposed to grasp.

The problem I have with the movie is the last 20 minutes or so. It starts out much the same as the book but with some stuff switched around to dilute the original story. It isn't a finale where Kirsty has to outsmart the villain so much as it is him just fucking himself over in an inexplicable way with her doing basically nothing, and then rather than the Cenobites simply taking their prey and leaving, they behave in a way that make them look more like generic psycho killers rather than otherworldly priests of pleasure. All of the explosions and cube lasers and stuff are completely unneeded B-movie excess that most of this movie was better than. Still, it's not enough to really hit the movie too hard. This is one of the better monster bloodbaths of the 80s even if it trips on itself at the finish line. 8/10

Hellraiser 2022 2/10 so bad man i had hopes for it but it isnt good

ultimate_reaver posted...

Movie 7- The People Under the Stairs

I saw this movie for the first time a couple years ago and I've made time for it for the past two because I love it. When people talk about Wes Craven you hear a lot of love for Elm Street or Last House on the Left, but never this movie. That's criminal because it's one of his best in my opinion.

Don't Breathe brought back the idea of a home invasion gone wrong when it turns out the owners are psychos, but this one does it vastly better. The actors that play Big Ed and Norma from Twin Peaks play as a psychotic couple just called "Mommy" and "Daddy" who murder intruders and feed them to the lobotomized abduction victims they keep in their cellar. There's a combination of genuine creepiness on their part as they screech and dance and love on each other like insane cartoon characters, but also of really fun physical comedy in spots. It's got a really wry sense of humor that is balanced unusually well with the horror, and the result is almost like a reverse home alone where the main kid is dodging traps and trying to get one over on the adults while he tries to rob them. This all builds up to a fantastic ending sequence that feels incredibly satisfying after the journey to get there.

There's a nice amount of social commentary here as well that feels surprisingly relevant today that I don't want to spoil too deeply. The film has no love for exploitative landlords and is very up front about that. If you're into that sort of thing, you'll find this is a pretty progressive piece for a movie released in the 90s. But it's never the forefront of things and it manages to stay a really fun thrill ride above all else.

The only real thing I can hold against the movie is there a sort of awkward disruptive middle part that doesn't really feel nessicary. It does let things cool down a bit, and it does give you an excuse to not set the entire thing in the main house, but it feels kind of superfluous. Even then, though, I am reaching for things to nitpick about. This is a top tier horror comedy that keeps itself well balanced between lightness and darkness, and I absolutely suggest giving it a watch if you've never seen it. 9/10

I'm glad someone is taking these seriously. Great write up.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/270-horror

if you want serious go to the horror board they do it year rd

One Cut of the Dead (2019) (Note: Japanese Movie - be prepared for subs)

Its not really a good scary movie, but its one of those movies where that isn't really the point. But I don't think I can really get away with telling you basically anything about it.

All of the reviews have told me the movie is so much better going in basically as blind as possible, and I really have to agree. The very basic summary is a film crew is making a zombie movie - which then gets attacked by zombies. Its also a single cut too - hence the title.

Just, its such a good movie, I can't recommend it enough.

Dog Soldiers, dir. Neil Marshall, 2002
A belated, Scottish-set dive into the werewolf genre, that reached its height way back in 1981 with the one-two punch of The Howling and An American Werewolf In London, that (much like Aliens to their Alien) takes an action packed, slashery approach to the horror of the lycanthrope. And (again, like Aliens) while it can't really quite measure up to their heights, it's definitely a lot of fun, and trods on well-worn genre grounds with intelligence and competence. And the werewolves themselves look really cool. If this doesn't sound enthusiastic or interested, it's because I watched a non-horror movie this morning - 1965's Fugitive From The Past - and it's easily the best movie I've seen all year, and I don't expect to see another quite on its level. Whatever grip Dog Soldiers might have on my brain simply can't compete.

7.5/10

Resident Evil: Extinction (2007)

As the T-virus sends the whole world into disarray, Alice reunites with some old friends to try and find a safe haven for them. Apparently the world starts to desertify, but I think Alice just doesn't know what a desert is considering they're around Las Vegas. Also superpowers. idk why, they just are. Didn't want to make Milla Jokovich look like Nemesis I guess.

Really, I don't need to talk about how the RE movies are bad. We all know they are. But I think this one could fall under the "still worth watching" category. Its got a couple cool scenes with the zombie attack in Vegas, the crow zombies, and the opening scene in the hotel has probably my favourite Zombie scare scene ever. Where they start clearing a hotel out fr supplies, and one of our characters sees a zombie distracted by something else, so we sneak up on him just as the zombie stands up and BOOM ITS A MIRROR THE ZOMBIE IS RIGHT BEHIND YOU!

idk, I haven't really gotten to the "actual horror movies" part of the month yet I guess.

Movie 8- A Bay of Blood

I like Mario Bava from what I've seen of him, but my experience with his filmography is a bit spotty and less informed than it should be for someone that really likes Italian horror and exploitation movies. When having a discussion with someone about the first Friday the 13th movie being very similar to a giallo, and this movie came up as something it clearly took a lot of inspiration from. So I gave it a watch.

The idea of it being like a F13th movie is well-founded.The first fourty five minutes of it, if you just threw in a few Jason noises in the background, could be mistaken for a movie from that franchise just in terms of how it's shot. Ill-defined Teenagers and weird locals are hanging around a scenic woodland bay, and someone is annihilating them with yard tools. It's gloriously violent, well above similar movies of this type at the time. The kills are brutal and very visceral, and not just for something made in 1971; this is gorier than a lot of 80s slashers I've seen. It's also a Bava film so it's very very pretty with interesting composition and neat spooky sets that look simultaneously cheap and artificial but also very atmospheric.

The last 40 minutes of the movie however seem to remember that it's supposed to be a giallo, and this is where the movie starts to suffer because... It's not a very good one unfortunately? Giallo is at its most fun where the kills are balanced by you slowly uncovering a mystery amid the violence and Bay of Blood is... Well, it's difficult to talk about without spoiling the plot, which I don't want to do here. But there is a point in the movie where it feels like you kind of know what's going on and then the movie not only goes off the rails, but it flips onto new sets of rails and then subsequently goes flying off of those as well. There's a lot of weird nonlinear storytelling and retroactive character development that only comes after you're confused for minutes at a time as to why people are doing certain things; that can be okay in some things but it's not pulled off very successfully in this. And then there's the ending, which... I don't know. As it happened I literally had my arms outstretched like I was waiting for someone to pop out of my TV and explain what the fuck just happened and why.

I think this movie is worth it if you'd like to see some prototypical pre-Halloween slasher stuff, or just in general for gorehounds. Even when the movie goes nuts, there's great kills and buckets of blood to keep you entertained. But if you're expecting a smart mystery plot because of the giallo label, just temper your expectations. The bizarre conclusion is what dinged this movie for me hard, but the violence and atmosphere keep it elevated to good movie status . 7/10

2 more

Jennifer's Body - I struggled a lot and then gave up. The dialogue was stupid. The characters were annoying. I stopped caring kinda before I started caring. It felt like some bullshitty gen Z horny teen movie and apparently that's what it was marketed as... only it apparently was not that at all but was marketed as that. I did not see any of the marketing so I had no idea. It felt cliche, the acting was not good and the writing was much worse. If it didn't have a Dead Meat Kill Count, I likely would never have even bothered with it. Also, Chris Pratt was in it. I didn't notice until the credits. Amy Sedaris was also in it (I liked her show Strangers with Candy back in the day) but again, I didn't notice until the credits.

Speaking of strangers with candy

Candyman (2021) - I didn't like it as much as the original, but it was pretty good. Those paper cut-out sequences were very effective and well done. The story itself worked but it seemed a bit inconsistent. There were several characters that could have been better developed and better utilized imo. I would say it suffered from blatantly not enough Tony Todd but also I would shamelessly and proudly admit that I'm a Tony Todd fanboy so fuck it. I'm biased.

I think this puts me up to 15?

Around halfway and probably slowing down lol so I might hit the 31 mark but I might not.

Tried to watch The Medium and The Addiction. Couldn't finish either. The Medium turned into a generic found footage possession movie very quickly and Addiction tried way too hard to be arty and meaningful.

I rather love the ending of Bay of Blood, though it's been over a decade since I last saw it. If I could poorly sum it up in two sentences, it would be "Humanity sucks, but the kids are alright. And they'll freaking shoot you lololol." It's probably the purest expression of Bava's odd mixture of mirth, mischief and misanthropy, with all the evils of the film's story ultimately being vanquished by hearts so innocent that they don't realize they've killed their own parents. And since the movie is over, they never will.

He did another film called Five Dolls For An August Moon shortly before, and it has a bit of this mirthful misanthropy as well, though it doesn't quite work as well because Bava readily admitted he hated the script and shot the film in such a fashion that basically trolled its very existence - whereas there is none of this antagonism towards Bay of Blood. I still like it somewhat.

IShall_Run_Amok posted...

I rather love the ending of Bay of Blood, though it's been over a decade since I last saw it. If I could poorly sum it up in two sentences, it would be "Humanity sucks, but the kids are alright. And they'll freaking shoot you lololol." It's probably the purest expression of Bava's odd mixture of mirth, mischief and misanthropy, with all the evils of the film's story ultimately being vanquished by hearts so innocent that they don't realize they've killed their own parents. And since the movie is over, they never will.

He did another film called Five Dolls For An August Moon shortly before, and it has a bit of this mirthful misanthropy as well, though it doesn't quite work as well because Bava readily admitted he hated the script and shot the film in such a fashion that basically trolled its very existence - whereas there is none of this antagonism towards Bay of Blood. I still like it somewhat.

That makes sense, and yeah that was ultimately the explanation for the ending I settled on more or less. Its just so abrupt and the way the music kicks in that the absurdity made my brain do a backflip

i think Ill go back to it after a few months. Im interested in how knowing about the second half will make me think of it as it plays out before that point

Offspring, The Woman, and Darlin

An interesting trilogy. They're all really different stories dealing with the same character and those around her. None of them are great but they're all decent enough for what they are. Offspring is a fairly straight Hills Have Eyes deal. Overall enjoyable. The Woman was a bit slow for how campy and weird it was supposed to be but came to a nice bloody finale. It also had a lot of (seemingly intentional) awful acting. No idea what that was about. Darlin is easily the weirdest plot, but it's still serviceable. Probably doesn't stand on it's own without the other two though.

1. Frailty
2. Pennywise: The Story of It (doc)
3. Hocus Pocus 2
4. The Mothman of Point Pleasant (doc)
5. Leatherface
6. Willow Creek
7. Grave Encounters
8. Birth of the Living Dead (doc)
9. In Search of Darkness II (doc)
10. The Found Foorage Phenomenon (doc)
11. Troll Hunter.

Movie 9- The Amityville Horror (2005)

Amityville movies are a bad movie guilty pleasure for me. The early ones made before this one are a collection of weird, often goofy movies that aren't generally very great but usually have a ton of something I love in B-horror, ghosts picking on people. The ones after this are almost universally a collection of stinkers but occasionally you get a really bad one that's almost hysterical in how poorly made it is, with The Amityville Haunting from 2011 in particular being basically the found footage horror version of The Room.

This movie is an in between that I hadn't seen since it came out in theaters. Revisiting it, I found that I didn't really like it; in fact, watching it kind of put me in a progressively more and more bad mood. The original Amityville Horror is no masterpiece in my opinion; it's kind of plodding and snoozy in parts and in my opinion if you want to hear the """true""" story of the Lutz family you're better off reading the novel, which is quick and pulpy. This movie, though, has the exact opposite problem. As soon as the family moves in from the word go there are ghosts running around in plain sight, the house is shitting blood everywhere, kids are repeatedly emperiled and rescued in scenes that feel like they were pulled from an action movie... It's a very loud, stupid movie that is throwing ghosts at your face as hard and as fast as possible rather than trying to build up any sort of atmosphere.

The best part of this movie is probably Ryan Reynolds. I am pretty neutral on him as an actor but he was interesting to watch in this because he doesn't usually play characters like this. The "dad going crazy" plot is not executed very well in this (the movie thinks you're so stupid that every time he leaves the house they make sure to have him say "WEIRD IM FEELING WAY BETTER NOW"), but he himself is surprisingly menacing and creepy in this movie for what it's worth.

In a way, despite my distaste for this film, it almost feels kind of ahead of its time. The thing it makes me think of the most is The Conjuring, which was pretty big in forging out the face of haunted house oriented horror after its release. Outside of a few good moments I don't really like those movies either though. I prefer either moody atmosphere or goofy weirdness to my ghost movies, so this isn't my cup of tea, but if you like things like The Conjuring or Insidious you might find this interesting as an early example of that style. 5/10

I just wish I had free time to watch movies right now :(

Movie... 8? I don't think I'm hitting 31 this month.

Ginger Snaps (2001)

Classic Halloween movie about two sisters, Bridgette and Ginger, some teens with a fancy for the macabre, and the latter of whom is attacked by a werewolf. Some very obvious links to puberty and the like, and the crux of the movie is definitely based on the relationship between the two sisters. Nothing incredible or anything, but I would consider it a halloween classic. Top tier B movie.

Movie is totally carried by the two leads, bit of a shame neither has really done much noteworthy since.

Also, its not a movie, but since its basically a movie, Instead of another movie yesterday I played Oxenfree - a game about a couple teens going on a coming of age party on the nearby island, while accidentally waking up the horde of ghosts that live on the island. They threaten to take the kids souls, and you and a radio are the only things that can save the day while messing with some added time loop shenanigans.

Army of Darkness, dir. Sam Raimi, 1992

Fright Night, dir. Tom Holland, 1985

Two quintessential 80s cult horror classics on Sunday. I mean, obviously Army of Darkness came out in the 90s, but it also feels like it's the last movie of the 1980s. Long story short, it's my least favorite of the Ash trilogy, but I can certainly see the appeal, and it's always very fun to watch. It's just a bit disjointed for my taste - Evil Dead is a pure, go-for-broke exploitation film that learns all the right lessons from its predecessors and goes for broke to the point that it's almost a parody, and Evil Dead II fully embraces the parody and becomes the closest thing we'll ever get to a Tex Avery directed horror film. Army of Darkness just feels slight by comparison. Fright Night, on the other hand, is definitely a classic, with Tom Holland's fine script being further elevated by wonderful character performances. It's pure fun.

Army of Darkness - 7.5/10
Fright Night - 8/10

I won't be watching horror movies for the next few days, but they'll be back with later this week. I have three horror movies lined up before Sunday is out, and at least twelve more before the end of the month.

Prisoners of the Ghostland

Not really horror, but it's on Shudder. It's fucking awful. Stopped halfway through. It's like if Adult Swim made Escape From LA. All style and no substance. I'm just so over Nic Cage's scene chewing antics.

Werewolves Within

not really scary, but it's a horror comedy. never heard of it before but I saw it on amazon and it was a fun movie with a pretty good ending. the werewolf depiction was truly amazing

Movie 9- Halloween (2018)

With Halloween Ends coming out on the 14th, I'm rewatching the first two parts of the new trilogy leading up to it.This is a movie I really enjoyed upon release but haven't seen since then, and with mixed feelings about Kills I was wondering how much I would find it holds up.

Thankfully, for the most part, it does.In all honesty, I believe this is probably the best slasher made in the last ten years or so. It's a well shot movie that doesn't look like the dearth of boring static gray-and-blue horror movies that have taken the genre by storm as of late.The pacing is perfect; it takes a bit of time to let you get resettled in the modern setting before loosing Michael on people. Once he's at it, it's the most thrilling and grim version of MIchael since the original movie. The kills are neither the goofy Friday the 13th excess that the dull 90s sequels eventually descended to, nor are they simple and easy; they're this neat in between where he's doing genuinely henious stuff that still stays somewhat within the realm of believability (for the most part). It's got callbacks in it, but never enough to make you role your eyes and groan, and it even does some creative stuff with them here and there that I really enjoy.

The big flaw of the movie is the characters, though I have seen some people absolutely shit on this thing for them and I question as to whether they've ever actually seen a slasher before. They are not amazing, I will agree with that much. Jamie Lee Curtis is the high point of the movie from beginning to end. The high school plot doesn't really go much of anywhere and its characters feel kind of superfluous, but it provides increased bodycount and tension here and there. Judy Greer spends much of the movie being aggravating, but that's nothing super out of left field for a slasher character and I'll be damned if I didn't have a big grin on her face for what she does near the end.

The worst part of the characters for me is probably the Doctor Loomis replacement guy, who more than anything is there to kind of be a fakeout. He feels like he could have been an interesting character if he lasted longer but his plot begins and ends so fast that it feels entirely pointless even if he does get an awesome death. Even then, though, none of these annoyances are enough to sour me on the movie as a whole. Slasher movie characters are not meant to be lovable and wonderful for the most part; it makes seeing them sliced to ribbons less upsetting.

This was a fun movie that I have a hard time finding fault with. I could nitpick and whine about random bits and bobs of the plot that don't make sense, sure. It's not a perfect movie, sure. But it is definitely the best movie to feature Michael Meyers in it since 1978 and the best slasher since... God, who knows? I weep for the genre in modern times. Either way, it was nice to see that the fondness I had wasn't misplaced. 8/10

Movie 10- Nightbreed

This weird little movie was not well received on release and I kind of understand why because it isn't a conventional horror movie by any stretch of the imagination. It's a weird marriage of a slasher, a monster movie, and an almost whimsical fantasy tale.

Essentially the core of the story is that a man is framed for murder and killed by said murderer, but is brought back as a monster. He and a group of good guy monsters have to prevent the killer from doing any more harm. Phrased that way, it sounds almost like this could be a kids movie of some kind from the 80s. At times, it actually feels a lot like that; it reminded me of episodes of stuff like Amazing Stories. Then, a scene or two later you'll see a ton of blood and guts, or a monster who actually looks particularly fucked up instead of silly as the majority of them do. There's a huge mood whiplash problem with this film that it never quite manages to surmount.

I don't actually have a huge amount to say about this one. It's not terrible, but it's very weird and not charming enough to carry the weirdness in my opinion. The ending also left me feeling pretty cold because it's sequel bait and it's never getting a sequel. There's some cool visual stuff in this (same special effects company as Hellraiser), and the central conceit is kind of cool, but it just didn't hold my attention very well and I was certainly ready for it to be over by the time it was. 5/10

Ginger Snaps 2 (2004)

Holy **** She-Hulk is in this.

So after being infected with Werewolf-ism in the previous movie, Brigette accidentally is brought into a youth rehab centre, who mistakes her Monksweed dependence (acting similar to wolfsbane - helping her keep not werewolfing) for like, real drugs. Little odd how they immediately noticed she wasn't on any actual drugs and was still like "ehh okay", or how Monksweed was a cure in the first movie and a depressant in this movie, but probably just needing to make a sequel.

She makes unlikely friends with a quirky insane baby She-Hulk while a male werewolf stalks them, looking to probably make some werewolf babies, but the male werewolf never actually says anything.

Not as good as the first movie, and Tatiana Maslany hasn't really learned how to act yet, but still. Worth a watch I think.

Friday the 13th 2009 3/10 man this remake was shit who thought yeah this is good idea lets make it

My Bloody Valentine 2009 6/10 much better supernatural brother movie i enjoyed this one the original is better but it wasnt to bad

more

Beast - Decent overall. Basically Jurassic Park but with a pissed off lion instead of dinosaurs (and one of Idris Elba's daughters was wearing a Jurassic Park t-shirt >_>). Well paced. CG lions looked better than I was expecting.

13 Fanboy - This one was weird. It felt very low budget, but had a ton of original actors from the Friday the 13th franchise, including 2 Jason actors, all playing themselves as a scorned franchise fan started targeting them. Again, felt low budget and rushed, like some kind of shared passion project, but the acting was very subpar (maybe it was supposed to be because they were playing themselves?) and the pacing was all over the place. Red herrings were too over the top and obvious. Overall, it was not good. Dead Meat James (Kill Count youtuber) was actually in the movie as himself, along with a few other horror youtubes in cameos, so that was unexpected and neat at least. Also Corey Feldman was in it and his character was insufferable.

The House that Jack Built - This one was very bizarre. Same level of disturbing as Maniac which I mentioned before, though more psychologically disturbing whereas that one was more body horror disturbing. One kill in this was particularly brutal and terrifying but it was done off screen. Had lots of Greek mythology themes to it which I liked.

Pet Sematary - (Remake) I liked the pacing and storytelling better than the original. It felt more slow burn, which I liked. Gonna have to tag this part because I can't not discuss it but it has to be spoiler-tagged... the trunk scene tension and fake out with the son only to kill the daughter instead was a good touch imo. The misspelling of Cemetary has always bothered me but it was addressed nicely in this one >_>. I liked John Lithgow as Jud.

Also rewatched a few movies I've already seen but I want the 31 to be all new to me, so I'll only include those as bonuses assuming I go over 31 in time.

God Told Me To, dir. Larry Cohen, 1976
If you've never seen a Larry Cohen movie, you probably owe it to yourself to see one (I've seen two but I still feel very strongly about this - also watch The Stuff of course). What a weird and wonderful movie this is, in particular - a hybrid of sci-fi and supernatural horror and grungy 70s crime movie, that seems to be influenced by a lot of films that hadn't even come out yet. It's better than such an absurd jangle of high-concepts has a right to be. It feels right every step of the way, even though it has a story that a less mad person might have asked himself if it were a good idea. Not Larry Cohen, apparently, and thank God for that.

9/10

1. Evil Dead
2. V/H/S
3. V/H/S/2
4. V/H/S: Viral
5. The Void
6. The VVitch
7. Evil Dead II
8. Friday the 13th: A New Beginning
9. Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives

So V/H/S Viral was terrible. Also watched the 4 mini episodes for that show they made for something? Very bad. Hopefully 94 and 99 are better.

The Void was good stuff. I really enjoyed the first half. Good ass characters and a simple setting and premise. It never gets bad, it just gets more of a grander scale which I personally find less interesting than something smaller and condensed. But yeah this was a good ass watch. Glad to finally have gotten around to it.

I usually say the VVitch is my second or third favorite horror movie, but damn maybe it's #1. I just love it. It's so tight. The ramp up in stress and everything just falling apart is just so great. I love everything about it. Other great horror movies I love all have some weak points. The Thing has a very slight somewhat dull part before the ending. The Shining's very end isn't great. But I don't think the VVitch has any holes in its game.

First time seeing Evil Dead II in full and was somewhat disappointed. This has just been talked up so much that it's hard to meet expectations. Can still appreciate it and it is good shit, but a good amount of the humor just wasn't funny and I wasn't big on some of the slapstick. Think I actually preferred the first.

Friday the 13th: A New Beginning...biggest surprise of the month thus far in that it was a lot more fun than I remembered. This was always one of the worst ones to me and it's still not top tier, but man the side characters are great and a lot of fun. I also liked this version of Tommy more this time through. The biggest sin here, even more so than the twist is that the kills suck bad. Haven't seen this since I was a teen, but overall was pleasantly surprised.

Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Live. Not shocking at all. This was money. Hands down top 3 Friday movies and very possibly #1. The balance between horror and comedy and camp is great. The kills are really good. Most of the side characters are pretty nothing which is actually a step down from 5, but the main cast are strong. Jason is just awesome.

Start of this month was a lot of rewatches and a lot of classic stuff.

The Last Matinee

A decent little slasher. Nothing special in any column but it kept me entertained. I liked that most of the characters were just in one room together for most of the movie but they didn't really play around with it being in a theater or anything. Worth a watch.

GameGodOfAll posted...

Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Live. Not shocking at all. This was money. Hands down top 3 Friday movies and very possibly #1. The balance between horror and comedy and camp is great. The kills are really good. Most of the side characters are pretty nothing which is actually a step down from 5, but the main cast are strong. Jason is just awesome.

My man. Jason Lives is the perfect middle ground between a movie knowing when it's silly but not drowning you in annoying jokes. Whenever people ask me what F13th movie they should try if they've seen little or none of the series, I always tell them to try Part 6 it hasn't failed to get them into the series once yet

Movie 11- Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City

I'm an enormous Resident Evil fan, mainly of the older entries of the series. The original Resident Evil 2 is my favorite video game of all time, with the REmake coming in very close behind it. What I am not, however, is a fan of Resident Evil media outside of those games. The Paul W Anderson movies suck. The 3d movies are a little better, but not by much The Netflix series was a total mess and deserved its fate. And then, lost in a sea of all that crap, there's this movie which I didn't even try to watch because of the reaction to it when it came out. However, I got a good deal on a STARZ membership recently and this was on there in their Halloween section, so I finally decided to give it a try.

This movie is a mess, but in a very strange way that doesn't apply to any of the other RE films, or even more recent video game adaptions. It's maybe the only piece of live action Resident Evil media I've seen where it felt like the person who made it was more than slightly aware of what the series is beyond seeing pictures of main characters or monsters and trying to make their own original shit around it, which makes it even more confounding that they attempted to squash together Resident Evil 1 and 2 into one concurrent storyline. I suppose that's not a thing that would be entirely impossible; tough, and you'd have to write out a whole lot of things, but doable even if you probably shouldn't. Just... Not this way.

The two plots are not only separate, they are very distinct from each other. The main thrust of the film overall is definitely the RE2 stuff set in the city, and it really feels like that's the story they WANT to tell. On its own it would be a serviceable adaption of the story but it's forced to spend time huddled against a more aimless slapped together RE1 adaption which gets a lot less affection and is mostly people running around in the dark shooting zombies. Because of this, neither of them gets the time to breathe at all, and they feel like a lesser product as a result. Characters skip large portions of their arc (if they get one at all) and when they say or do things intended to be revelatory or important, you're left wondering why you should care at all.

I think there was a good movie in here. Outside of some real cringy moments (usually involving them trying to use music diagetically and coming off really stupid) there's some all right scenes here and while they are fast and loose with plot specifics, it's not in an obnoxious way. It kind of reminds me of (ironically, considering who made it) the old Mortal Kombat movie. But its spinning about a thousand plates over its head and by the end I don't think it manages to keep a single one of them from dropping and breaking by the end, so any potential it could have had is squandered. Too big a cast, too many subplots, too many big moments to cover, not even a quarter of the time needed to do so in a way that's satisfying. Avoid it. 4/10

The Scary of Sixty-First

That was... certainly a movie. If you watch it go in completely blind. The acting is terrible but that feels on purpose... for some reason. It's got a really low key schlock vibe and the turns it takes are something to be seen. It was a lot.

specialkid8 posted...

The Scary of Sixty-First

That was... certainly a movie. If you watch it go in completely blind. The acting is terrible but that feels on purpose... for some reason. It's got a really low key schlock vibe and the turns it takes are something to be seen. It was a lot.

Went into that blind and boy oh boy was that something.

Liked it quite a bit. It's out there.

Movie 12- Halloween Ends

Halloween 2018 is a wonderfully fun movie that remembers what made slashers good and presents a modern version of that. Halloween Kills (which I didn't have time for a rewatch for this year but remember well enough) attempts to take what happened in the events of that first movie and ratchet up the tension stakes, and does to a degree, but I felt it had a lot of stumbling points beyond the thrilling parts and super good kills. Not my favorite Halloween movie by any means, but I was hoping it was a sophmore stumble and the third movie would provide a thrilling end to the way the stakes were supercharged by Kills. I don't know how to talk about it without spoilers, so here it goes:

Halloween Ends makes the bold decision to completely toss all the tension and stakes from Kills eout the window by skipping forward by four years. Michael is just gone, seemingly, and Laurie and Allyson are living together. It attempts to present them as damaged survivors but both of them have very unconvincing arcs in this movie. Similarly, it attempts to present Haddonfield as a town damaged by the terrors Michael brought but they mostly feel like the exact same shitty townies that they were in the first two, they've just come up with new things to yell at Laurie about.

The first 70% of the movie is not a Halloween movie at all; you could have called it Corey: Portrait of a Serial Killer and nobody would have blinked an eye. Soooo much of the runtime is a bad relationship drama with this new Corey character and Allyson. It's dull, overlong and it's almost wholly predictable except for the brief apprearances here and there of Michael. His presence in this movie feels so poorly explained, underwhelming and ultimately pointless that I thought for the majority of its runtime that they were doing some kind of weird Fight Club thing where he was never actually supposed to be there, and we were just seeing Corey's delusions. That honestly would have been bad too, but it would have still managed to be more interesting than Corey's plot which ends exactly how you expect it to before being brushed aside. The writer remembered they had two whole stories about Michael killing people and decided they maybe should fucking finish that in the last movie of their trilogy.

Corey, the shitty townies, Michael, and everything else are narrative tools for what this movie is dedicated to being at the end of the day: an examination of how people deal with the kind of tragedy that could break normal people. The problem is, in addition to that not being what you should be doing at the end of a trilogy, it's just.. badly told. I'm not the kind of person that normally docks points on a slasher for bad dialogue but this thing is so lost up its own asshole that it has no right or excuse to having everyone being giant hams. From Laurie holding up a skull and doing soliloquies about violence every time she's on screen, to the bullies that spend the whole movie acting like characters from the flashback section of It, to Corey trying to be scary and intense and constantly coming off as lame. Special (negative) credits to the guy who plays the dad of the kid Corey kills at the beginning of the movie when Laurie talks to him in the bar who spends that scene telling his story roughly on par with a reenactment actor from an episode of Unsolved Mysteries.

This is my biggest movie disappointment in a long time. I really had my fingers crossed that they could put something on par out with that first movie again, but... Fuck. They blew it at almost every turn. A total loss of story momentum, a dull as fuck plot, maybe a single good kill in the entire movie. The only truly worthwhile part of the whole movie is the final confrontation between Laurie and Michael , but by then the damage had been done and the movie was bleeding out like Michael on that kitchen counter, and like Allyson, I was happy to get the fuck out of Haddonfield by the time the credits rolled. 4/10

I also saw Black Phone and thought it was pretty good. Not perfect, but definitely worth checking out, especially if its free (it was on Xfinity for free). My only issues were that there were a few if this happened, then how did this happen? moments.