Board 8 > 2023-24 Horror Topic: Executive Producer - Jason Blum

(+) Yeah! (+)

S Tier: (100-95)

1. Scream VI
2. M3GAN
3. Talk to Me
4. Saw X
5. Godzilla Minus One
6. Evil Dead Rise
7. Totally Killer

A Tier: (94-85)

8. Re/Member
9. Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead
10. Influencer
11. The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster
12. A Haunting in Venice
13. Satanic Hispanics
14. When Evil Lurks
15. Hell House LLC Origins: The Carmichael Manor
16. The Cello
17. Thanksgiving
18. Beau is Afraid
19. The Blackening
20. She Came From the Woods
21. Knock at the Cabin
22. Bunker
23. Brooklyn 45
24. Birth/Rebirth
25. Cocaine Bear
26. Insidious: The Red Door
27. Final Cut
28. It Lives Inside
29. We Have a Ghost
30. Appendage
31. Jagged Mind
32. Sister Death
33. Haunted Mansion
34. Renfield

B Tier (84-70)

35. 65
36. The Boogeyman
37. The Last Voyage of the Demeter
38. V/H/S/85
39. Sorry About the Demon
40. In My Mother's Skin
41. The Sacrifice Game
42. Blood
43. Cobweb
44. Infinity Pool
45. Stalker
46. The Pope's Exorcist
47. From Black
48. Inside
49. Nefarious
50. Play Dead
51. The Puppetman
52. The Exorcist: Believer
53. The Nun II
54. Slotherhouse
55. Clock
56. The Communion Girl
57. Little Bone Lodge
58. Nightmare on 34th Street
59. Natty Knocks
60. The Ghost Within
61. Til Death Do Us Part
62. They Wait in the Dark

C Tier (69-50)

63. Huesera: The Bone Woman
64. There's Something Wrong With the Children
65. Malum
66. Bird Box Barcelona
67. Night of the Hunted
68. It's a Wonderful Knife
69. Five Nights at Freddy's
70. The Devil Comes at Night
71. The Unheard
72. Viking Wolf
73. Meg 2: The Trench
74. Kids vs. Aliens
75. Nightmare
76. Enys Men
77. Candy Land
78. The Royal Hotel
79. A Creature Was Stirring
80. You're Killing Me
81. Zombie Town
82. Baby Ruby
83. Blood Flower
84. Run Rabbit Run
85. The Strays
86. Consecration
87. Haunting of the Queen Mary
88. The Tank
89. Soul Mates
90. The Offering
91. Hunt Her, Kill Her
92. Dark Nature
93. No One Can Save You
94. Trinket Box
95. Spoonful of Sugar
96. Unwelcome
97. Unseen
98. Don't Look Away

D Tier (49-30)

99. Elevator Game
100. The Black Demon
101. Santa Isn't Real
102. Bad Things
103. Leave
104. The Headmistress
105. Children of the Corn
106. Fear
107. The Fearway
108. Alone At Night

F Tier (29-0)

109. Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey
110. The Outwaters
111. Creepypasta
112. Perpetrator
113. The Unseen
114. Skinamarink

New on List: The Fearway, In My Mother's Skin, Haunting of the Queen Mary, Sister Death, A Creature Was Stirring, Santa Isn't Real, Nightmare on 34th Street.

I decided to sink Pooh into the F tier; it's just a really bad movie and even if some of the kills were pretty neat, that's not why I like horror films generally.

Haunting of the Queen Mary: This was something we watched a little while back before Christmas that I forgot to make note of. I just spent forever trying to figure out why my numbers weren't matching on my lists and this was the one I forgot. Says a lot, I guess. It started out with so much promise and has a cool aesthetic and setting, but it doesn't do a lot with it. The most interesting of the characters is basically out of the film for the majority of the time and unfortunately this is another film that's trying to be The Shining but in way too short of a runtime to do it. It's not a bad movie or anything, it's just really middling and doesn't do a lot with what it has and feels like it's too short whilst also dragging on for too long. I felt like it had more story to tell to make things make more sense, because ultimately it often didn't by the end. Since things weren't piecing together very well it made the film feel long near its conclusion because the middle of the film was too short.

Nightmare on 34th Street: Surprisingly enough, the best of the Christmas horrors I watched this year. Of the 4, I wouldn't classify any of them as especially great but this one is probably the one I felt had the most going for it. It is an anthology style horror film, featuring 3 self-contained stories amongst a larger overarching one with the narrator and the boy he's telling the story to. The first story is about a ventriloquist with a snowman, which I found to be the most interesting of the tales and had the most unique premise. The second featured Krampus and was blah, as most things I have ever seen Krampus in are. It's a shame because it seems like it ought to be easy to make a movie about Krampus, but every time it fails to me. This time for instance, the people being tormented aren't "deserving" of it; Krampus should be more of an anti-hero style entity, because he's supposed to only visit "naughty" children I thought. But in like every instance I seem him in that's never the case, and here was no different... even though the mother in the story was "Krampus" all along and there was no real Krampus to speak of, so there's that. The final story is again pretty unique; it features abused altar boys from a choir, one of which is a ghost that had been killed by a corrupt father. It doesn't have a great conclusion though, and again I found the villains to be interesting but also their motivations seem flawed with whom they decide to punish.

Ultimately, it's fine. It's a bit long at 2 hours and 10 minutes but I found it to be the best offering this year. None really come close to Thanksgiving though.

Watched Quicksand on Shudder. Not great...

A separated married couple visit the Colombian rainforest because of circumstances, and they become stuck in quicksand while there. Basically it's akin to a lot of movies that take place in one confined area, this one just sort of fails where I've seen others like it succeed. My immersion was broken quite a bit by certain things... for instance, a very toxic breed of large snake that also is a constrictor. It's never once said that this is a supernatural monster or something; we're just supposed to believe it's a snake. And our characters are both doctors too, and they treat it straight up like they know what they're talking about too. Yet no such snake exists in reality; also the wife shoots the snake in the side yet it seemingly has no lasting effect on the creature. It has ideas, but it just doesn't really execute it very well to me.

The Conference was solid. Netflix has been keen on delivering pretty good to great foreign language horror films this year (edit: LAST year, gonna be a tough habit to break) in my opinion. This one isn't quite in that A tier for me, only because the killer is a little weak and nothing special or new. But this is a really solid slasher film nevertheless; it's billed as "horror comedy" but I wouldn't go that far. It's much closer to Scream than Scary Movie. The ensemble cast is pretty good and there are a few super over-the-top detestable douches that get theirs which is always really fun. Plenty of creative kills too. The story is again not the strongest, it's a little vanilla but sometimes it's best to play it safe with something that will easily make sense than go all in on something that's not going to hold any water at all. So long as you shoot the film well and have good actors, a plot that's been seen before in some ways before isn't a sin in my book. I like films like that usually; can't go wrong with a tried and true formula.

Last 4 films to complete my list from last year are: Attachment, The Devil Conspiracy, The Mill and Sick. 120 seems like a round number to end on. We're probably watching Sick tonight.

Tomorrow we'll be watching our first film of 2024. Anyone else going to catch Night Swim opening weekend?

Ironically, I got pretty Sick myself so I think I'm cancelling my plans and just ending on that note so we don't start the year off behind. If there's ever a lull I'll try to get back to those 3 films.

All throughout watching Sick, I kept thinking to myself "This really seems like something Kevin Williamson would have written" and well, turns out there was a very good reason for that! Ultimately I thought the movie was really pretty good. Some of the moments throughout the film sent me into some horrifying flashbacks. From wiping down groceries to the time when anyone coughed or sneezed, everyone would immediately turn to look at you like you had committed the foulest of sins. I liked the film mostly for these reasons, though I felt the middle of it started to shy away from it a bit. The reveal on the killer and motivation was interesting and definitely something I can see as justified in some way. I'm always reminded of that one beach bro in Florida made famous for "If I get corona I get corona :B". But like I said, it's a very Kevin Williamson film which I consider a good thing because I have always loved his work. I'd place it in the high B tier.

We ended up seeing Night Swim on its release night... and well, it's a movie. I don't think it's as bad as people are making it out to be, though I would never go so far as saying it's good either. It has a few effective jump scares tossed in, but the film is riddled with plot holes too. Like the other victims of the water... why was only Rebecca wanting to help the protagonists out? Also, if she was helping then why did earlier she try to scare/hurt one of them? Or perhaps that was just the "entity" itself... but even then, if you are to believe that only once you're in the "deep water" that the people there are real, then again most of them seemed like demons grabbing at our main characters. I thought Wyatt Russell's performance at times was... off. Just a few times, like one line he says something like "oh he's okay" but the way he says and the look on his face... not many people were in the theater but I hard audible noises from others when he uttered that line.

Two new horrors dropped today on Prime. They Turned Us Into Monsters (with Scout Compton and many other horror staples, including Michael Berryman whom I'm interested seeing in something) and The Windigo, which initially seemed like it was going to have a late 2023 theatrical debut but it seemed to have gotten cancelled in favor of straight to streaming. We actually saw the trailer for Windigo several times at the tail end of last year. It's likely we watch that one tonight.

Glad to hear you enjoyed Sick! I was pleasantly surprised because I feel like most movies that are COVID related are pretty bad, but I felt this one somehow handled it well and made it all make sense. It doesn't feel like it takes itself fully seriously, but the tension is all there and I was pretty hooked for the whole thing. The reveals all felt satisfying too. Enjoyable flick!

The Windigo is a decent flick. The premise is interesting in that a modern day family visits an older native woman who is very traditional in the things she believes in. Interestingly enough though, the titular windigo is intentionally summoned by one of the protagonists to protect them against some meth heads they come across the lab of. The best part of this film has to be the monster design; it's on the screen a lot and the effects are all practical. It looks pretty darn good. There's one moment they do throw in something that seems to have been created with Powerpoint though... no clue why they did that, was no necessary. It's not particularly inventive or anything, but I found it to be a likable watch.

The Turned us Into Killers... different story though. Don't let someone fool you into watching this horseshit. Total garbage, which is a lot coming from me since I ranked very few films as F's year and I watched well over 100 of these. This is definitely going into the F category for 2024 though; just a steaming heap of garbage. It starts out in a way that makes you believe maybe it won't be, but by the mid-point there will be no mistaking that foul aroma. Bad acting, atrocious writing and I mean some of the worst ideas ever. This just stopped being believable as a film any adult could have written. The story is so disconnected to itself and the characters therein; characters are just referenced by name and for whatever reason we are expected to just know. It's like someone's ideas just manifested themselves on screen, but half the information is just contained in their own brains and never relayed to the screen. Remember I said Michael Berryman appears in this picture? I know him best from a role he played on the X-Files; he has a condition he was born with that makes him great in horror films and the like. Most probably know him from the original The Hills Have Eyes as Pluto; he's on the box art. Well guess what they did... he appears in a photograph and that is fucking it!. They even billed him over the top of actors with scenes of dialogue in the credits too (these were the two detectives though, who are awful, I have no idea who cast the female detective in this). There's one part where the detective utters the line, "And he's dead too!" ... right after the other detective just put down a picture of the guy she's talking about with a hole in his head. No shit, I thought this guy was just taking a nap. This was hot ass; I'm in shock of how they convinced all these at least somewhat well known people to be in this movie. Kane Hodder is in here too, as a character who appears only in brief flashbacks and is already dead.

Destroy All Neighbors was fantastic, really high quality horror comedy film. It's Shudder's first original of 2024 and they got things off right this year in my opinion. The film is about a prog rock musician who has been struggling to complete his album for years whilst working a job he's not appreciated at and living in a slum essentially. A new neighbor moves in and causes him grief, then he accidentally kills him and hijinks follow. It's costarred and produced by Alex Winter and he just does a fantastic job here. Everyone does great but surely Alex Winter steals the show here; glad to see him succeeding. Definitely the first film of the year I'd go out of my way to recommend watching.

Watched Laced. This one is streaming VOD, watched on Prime. It's a little more expensive than I'd like to see but that being said, it's an above average movie. The premise is that an abused wife is plotting to poison her husband whilst they are trapped in their home during a blizzard, but her plan goes awry. The film takes place entirely within this home and features a cast of just 4 characters. I feel like most of the characters here are all pretty bad, aside from Austin whom is the only one of the 4 with any sort of moral compass. It's debatable how bad of a person Charlie really was, since the perspective is all Molly's and personally speaking, I didn't find Charlie to be that bad of a person. He's not shown on screen ever being physically or emotionally abusive; just a little bit of a drinker and easily loses his temper, but it's not over anything important. Victoria is really awful though, and it kinda sucks she's the only character who gets to live especially since she either murders the rest of the cast or causes them to kill themselves. But not every horror movie has to end happily I suppose.

Acting is pretty top notch here, especially considering the people in this film have very few or no other credits to their name. The films I've watched so far this year are interesting in that they (almost) fall into every tier of ranking I did last year (A/B/C/D/F, so S aside). Ultimately I doubt I place Night Swim in the D category though, it's more likely a C-.

There are a few more films that came out today or over the weekend I need to check out. There's one that came out today starring Danielle Harris as an AI (Project Dorothy) and another than came out last year, but only in the UK. It's made it's US debut early this year and stars Georgina Campbell from Barbarian, whom I really liked in that, though Bird Box Barcelona was mid. It's also about artificial intelligence it seems (T.I.M.), though she plays the human character unlike Danielle.

I watched Night Swim yesterday.

It was, in fact, bad. But not terrible. It's just... a movie that you shouldn't try to make a feature length movie. It has some good visuals but nothing feels... good? Interesting? Extremely forgettable.

I feel like a better movie could be made out of this, but I don't get paid to know how. I wasn't bored, at least. I grant it that.

Founders Day is out in theaters this weekend but the release is far more limited than I had imagined. I did find a local AMC with it however, so we're planning on seeing it Sunday night. I.S.S. is also out this weekend, though I really discount that being a horror film despite a few sites I use to monitor releases listing it as such. I think it's a really light January and they're kinda pushing anything remotely thrilling into the category... that said, we'll probably end up seeing it anyway at some point (probably Monday).

Founders Day: Competent to good political themed slasher. It's directed by the same guy who did She Came From the Woods, which I thought was one of last year's hidden and overlooked gems a lot of people didn't see for some reason. You will be hard pressed to guess the big reveals this movie does with the killer; there's almost zero chance you will get it entirely correct, which I guess is pretty cool though it does start to border into convolution as well. But this is a pretty good movie really, I liked it. It feels of a good quality and the actors go over the top with their performances (which they were meant to in the cases that happened).

I.S.S.: Borderline horror, but I think it's adjacent enough. Moreso than another film we watched last year (The Royal Hotel). I tend to get my horror info from UHM more often than not, in terms of keeping track of what's coming out. I do my own dives to make sure the release dates fall in line with the correct year I feel they belong to. Anyway, it's a very tense thriller and there's no shortage of ominous moments. It should keep you on the edge of your seat at moments, and I enjoyed wondering who was going to survive and what partnerships would form. I feel like it's a film worth seeing since it's produced by a smaller studio with a small budget, but it's able to carry itself pretty well to mask all that too.

A few new movies:

Punch: This is a very, very British horror. It's almost offensively British in nature I think. It's not a terrible movie, but it's also pretty forgettable. The main character is super annoying once the horror starts and the way she acts can be really infuriating. The ending is at least somewhat interesting I guess, and there are a few kills here and there. However, the subject matter seems really loosely based on what it's attempting to mimic. I'm obviously not British so I'm fairly unaware of Mr. Punch as a character, but from I've read online this movie is pretty far away from that portrayal being accurate or even inspired. Seems sort of a random idea to have.

Last Night at Terrace Lanes: This is a pretty short film at just 75 minutes, but I think it does a lot with the time it's allotted. It's a comedy-ish slasher film with some trope characters here and there to make things fun. The killers are not super interesting but I did like the lead characters a good bit, and there are a lot of creative kills. I guess I never thought about what sort of creative ideas you could come up with about a horror movie that takes place in a bowling alley, but there's apparently tons of stuff you can do.

I forgot to mention but I also saw Founder's Day around a week ago, though I think I was less into it than Charon was

It's fun in a kind of so hammed up it's goofy way sometimes, but I could never really tell when it was being intentionally funny or accidentally funny. Like, at times they try to play it straight like a regular horror movie, or at least a spoofy horror like Scream (which seems to be the main inspiration) but other times it's just ridiculous. I'm sorry Mr. Jackson, I've learned my lesson!

Then by the end every single named character beyond the main girl and her dad is either killed or a killer. The motivations are almost entirely shallow and inconsistent, to the point that it feels like the writers just kept hitting plot holes and were like "oh, just make them the killer too."

also, my biggest problem with the movie, WHY WAS THE BATHTUB IN HER BEDROOM? WHAT ARE THE LOGISTICS OF THAT??

Yeah I feel like Scream was a big influence on the movie; certainly from the tone and the characters. I do agree it was a little overboard at times and convoluted, but I did like what they were going for ultimately. I don't think it's quite as good as the film I mentioned that's directed by the same guy. That one is similar in tone to this one I think; they're both billed (on some sites anyway) as "horror comedy", but I don't really agree with that assessment because the films just have these moments of what could be called "accidentally funny" I think.

Has Snake or anyone else played Killer Frequency? It's heavily inspired by Pontypool and even references it directly. Pretty well done.

I really liked it. Great voice cast.

It's been in my wishlist for a while; I've heard good things

Only the demo awhile back, still have to get to the full game.

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.

I know folks here don't like horror TV much, but The Terror is getting a third season, surprisingly.

https://twitter.com/BDisgusting/status/1754983174025642255?t=EKGmP13O-QeUK7HEKfi7uQ&s=19

Hey I like horror TV just hard to find time to watch every show that comes out sometimes! But the first two seasons of The Terror are masterpieces.

I also like horror TV what the heck. BTW Fall of the House of Usher is a solid frontrunner for best show of 2023 imo

The Terror s1 was excellent but never got around to watching s2

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.

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.

Since Jason Blum is in the topic name, I saw Get Out for the first time last month and was very impressed by it...but I also think it's a bit of a joke the movie could win an Oscar for its script when movies in the past like Jaws, Halloween, Alien, and Predator couldn't even get nominated. Not really a referendum on Get Out itself, more on the cinema landscape of the time - am I the only one who thinks 2015-2018 might be the absolute worst four-year stretch of time for movies?

On the contrary it's probably one of my favorite time spans for movies ever.

Yeah I think I'm probably just not into most of the movies that hit it big either financially or critically at the time. Not entirely relevant to this topic but over the past two years I've seen a bunch of late 2010s movies for the first time - other examples being Wonder Woman, The Shape of Water, and Parasite. I did like all four of the movies in question to be fair.

Yeah the back half of the 2010s has had some really excellent stuff

And tbh I would take Get Out over Jaws, Halloween and Predator though that's subjective

What's not subjective is the cultural phenomenon that Get Out was and the effect it had on the horror landscape

Yeah that's like much of the reason I checked it out.

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.

Nah not Jaws, the story is very strong and Quint has some really great dialogue. Probably not Alien either.

Honestly that is the level on which I really appreciated Get Out. As a "simple" movie in the vein of the four I mentioned. I just have a tendency to view Jaws, Star Wars, Halloween, and Alien as collectively the four high-concept genre movies that upended the Hollywood landscape at the time.

I really liked Get Out but c'mon it's not in the league of the others mentioned. Well honestly I found Jaws boring, but I legit enjoyed Halloween and Predator apart from been icons.

I don't put it on the same level as Alien but definitely the others. Predator and Halloween are good for their monsters primarily, but Get Out was smarter and more interesting imo

Alien destroys the lot of them though.

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.

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.

Lisa Frankenstein was a really fun time! Just a fun, silly little gothic romance. Nothing too mindblowing about it, but I greatly enjoyed my time watching it. A lot of cool directorial choices from Zelda Williams here too. I'd be interested to see what she does next. Give me more of these freaking weird movies though. It really scratched a niche for me.

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.

can't speak for anyone else but basically all my horror watching right now is the 80s horror list which I can't speak much about.

I DID watch Lisa Frankenstein though (which isn't really horror comedy in the tradtional sense as much as horror-inspired comedy a la Ghostbusters)

There was a very strong Edward Scissorhands/Beetlejuice vibe to it in the way that I think it's going to be a really big cult favorite in like 20 years with whatever replaces the Hot Topic teens at that point. Very weird and silly with weird pacing and writing (not bad, just odd). I had a great time with it

also I don't think I ever did a year-end ranking for 2023. Italicizing the ones that aren't quite horror but are tangential

New Favorite
Beau Is Afraid
The Fall of the House of Usher
Saltburn
Infinity Pool
When Evil Lurks

Great
Godzilla Minus One
Knock at the Cabin
Talk to Me
The Blackening
The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster
Eileen
Totally Killer
Scream VI
Missing

Good
Influencer
No One Will Save You
Saw X
Sanctuary
Re/Member
Evil Dead Rise
They Cloned Tyrone

Ok
Leave the World Behind
The Last Voyage of the Demeter
The Killer
A Haunting In Venice
Cocaine Bear

Bad
Renfield
Five Nights at Freddy's
M3GAN (not really bad but really not my thing)
Hypnotic

Among the Worst of All Time
Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey

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.

Johnbobb posted...

can't speak for anyone else but basically all my horror watching right now is the 80s horror list which I can't speak much about.

I DID watch Lisa Frankenstein though (which isn't really horror comedy in the tradtional sense as much as horror-inspired comedy a la Ghostbusters)

There was a very strong Edward Scissorhands/Beetlejuice vibe to it in the way that I think it's going to be a really big cult favorite in like 20 years with whatever replaces the Hot Topic teens at that point. Very weird and silly with weird pacing and writing (not bad, just odd). I had a great time with it

Tbh, I will say on this topic that Get Out did a really good job balancing horror and comedy and even intertwining them both together. Honestly regarding the earlier movies I brought up for comparison, I'm probably just more into the subject matter.

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.

Just watched Thanksgiving now that it's on Netflix! A very fun little Eli Roth slasher. I immediately hoped for a sequel, and Eli Roth has already confirmed there will be one in 2025! I love it. Give me more of these quality, silly slashers please.

I also still need to see Thanksgiving

Ideally in a way that doesn't give my money to Spyglass

You miffed at Spyglass for the Scream problems or them being borne out of the Weinstein Company? Wait no doesn't it only own their assets? Uh I'm confused.

The Scream problems primarily

Yeah I heard about them.

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.