Board 8 > I'm going to watch a Horror Movie every day in October

(+) Yeah! (+)

Yeah, I mentioned in my review I loved that the protagonist has a full character arc, and it's probably the best part of the movie. But if you start thinking about the ending, you realize how little it makes sense. Lol Like it's impressively nonsensical once you try to piece it all together.

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Halloween Kills Mini-Trailer!

https://twitter.com/blumhouse/status/1321884508652593154?s=20

Looks like Michael Myers did survive after all, since his hand is bandaged.

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DAY 29.1: Sinister 2
On Netflix

I remember where I heard that Sinister 2 was better than Sinister 1. That girl from What Culture videos who is into horror kept saying it each time Sinister was ever brought up. I kind of refuse to even take that girl's opinion seriously ever again, because WOW.

Sinister 2 is about a mother and her two sons trying to escape from their abusive father. But all the kids want one of the sons to make a spooky movie for Baghuul. Oh, and Deputy So-And-So is starring.

I'm going to start with positives. James Ransone is great as the Deputy. He needs more work. The mother was also great. They put on a compelling performance. There is also exactly one good film in this movie that may be better than all of them.

Okay, I'm done with positives.

This movie makes me mad because it is so inferior in every way to the point is actually almost degrades the original. And it's actually super simple. They take away all the mystery and weirdness of the original movie and what actually happens. They outright show kids making the videos along the way, they have the creepy ghost kids chilling with the children to make them watch the movies, they show the children trying to manipulate the kids.

Then they have these idiotic dream sequences and stuff showing oh ho ho if I made the film then I guess this is what it would be like.

And then the plot with the family is just not interesting, especially with the shit children. Like fuck. What are you doing? The reason the original was so good was because it was so tight and confined on the father that you didn't even focus on anything else that would have seemed stupid otherwise.

And good lord as you get towards the end you see every step of creating the murder video and it's just like god damn this sucks and then it's just... chase sequences? And then suddenly stops being a cryptic murder scene of the family?

And the conclusion is just... sad, doesn't make sense, and they could have done so much more with it. It blows my mind this is their choice. And I was like "Well who wrote this shit?" It was the same writers of the first movie! No doubt being told "Shit out another film" and they were just baffled what to do. But I still think they could have done something else.

Other aspects is that the filming isn't as tight. It's just not. The director wasn't nearly as good as Scott Derrickson and he was trying to make this like every other mainstream horror you've ever seen and it just weakens the original which is almost claustrophobic and unsettling (again by showing EVERYTHING).

And the soundtrack is AWFUL. We have the soundtrack from the first that created such a mood at all times and it really enhanced the movie. In this one it's just... so much worse. I can't begin to describe it. But it's jarring when, towards the end, they take a song from the first one and it feels so out of place. Why not keep with that style of music before?

This movie is a mess, exposes all of the interesting mystery of the original, and does everything worse than the original. It SUCKS. I give it points for Deputy So-And-So and Mother and the one good film. But it's just such a let down from the first.

Rating: 2/10

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Told you it sucks.

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Dude, I remember it sucking but watching it again just makes me angry. lol

DAY 29: The Sandman
On Hulu

I'm at the part of the year that when I cycle to watch a Hulu movie, I've exhausted the movies I'm excited to watch and I'm not just picking the first thing that pops up. Can 100% guarantee you this is a SyFy Original movie.

The Sandman is about a little girl who can summon up the Sandman to murder everyone who crosses her indiscriminately and her aunt that tries to take care of her after her dad dies.

Jesus, what a mess. This girl is a totally unlikeable brat. She never feels cursed to have this power because she dead ass just summons The Sandman to kill people constantly. The drama here sucks and there's no reason that the aunt would want to take care of her, believably.

I was only mildly interested because Tobin Bell of Saw fame was in it but he's some kind of government operative trying to snatch little girls or whatever and he's a bit player in this.

The plot sucks, the drama sucks, for the most part the action sucks. The only good thing about this movie is probably the monster itself, which looks pretty cool actually.

But it's a bad movie. You don't need to watch it.

Rating: 1.5/10


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Random story but I met Tobin Bell once when I was bartending a party. I was taking a break, sat down on a bench and there he was. I kind of stared for a second, started to go "Aren't you..." He smiles, goes "Shhh" and leaves

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At least he didn't ask you if you wanted to play a game. That's really cool though!

Also, I decided to jump into another found footage movie with the criminally underrated The Taking of Deborah Logan.

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Movie #29, American Werewolf in Paris. In which I'm immediately distracted by the fact the main character looks just like Ramsay Bolton

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How many streaming services do you have Biscuit? I'm at 3 with Prime, Netflix, and Disney+, plus I have cable, and I feel like I spend a LOT on entertainment.

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I pay for Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, and Shudder. I use my girlfriend's HBO Max, Disney+, and her family's cable which includes AMC (among other stations). I haven't purchased a Peacock subscription and all of the movies I watched from that are completely free.

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I want Shudder, but my wife told me I had to drop Netflix for it :(.

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Just drop Netflix for a month, they'll probably offer you a free month, and then pick up Shudder for a month!

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Netflix is raising prices also.

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Yeah, that's the second price raise in less than 2 years, and it's getting a bit unnerving.

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What a weird movie Werewolf in Paris was, lol. I thought it was chugging along nicely for the first hour or so, then it jumped off a cliff so hard it left a Wile E. Coyote shaped hole in the ground

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PrivateBiscuit1 posted...

Friday the 13th is a series that I really never loved, but I enjoyed well enough I guess? They all sort of blend together for me

That's how I am pretty much, especially with the first 5. At around 6, they started adding a gimmick to each film, which made some of them stand out, for better or worse. 3 and 6 feel the most iconic with their portrayal of Jason to me. But honestly, the only one I can say I really enjoyed was X, which a lot of people disagree with, but I thought it was a fun parody of the series, and made the journey worth it.

Corrik7 posted...

Netflix is raising prices also.

Gotta make money after all those cancelled subscriptions from Cuties.


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I'm on 8. I stand in awe of the boxing match.

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That is definitely the best death in the series

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DAY 29.2: The Taking of Deborah Logan
On Amazon Prime

This movie might actually be my favorite found footage movie.

The Taking of Deborah Logan is about a college student that conducts a medical study filming Deborah Logan, a woman with Alzheimer's. That's all that really happens.

I meeeeeean, more happens. And you can probably guess what by the title. This movie does such an awesome job though. By framing it as a school project on Alzheimer's, this makes it seem so real. It does an awesome job immersing you into the story and buying into this elderly woman with Alzheimer's.

The realism aspect is why I kind of fall out with a lot of found footage movies, but when the scares and creepiness begins to happen, it just works so well.

And the scares and creepiness are done so incredibly well as it slowly ramps up towards the finale where shit gets absolutely insane.

The plot is also extremely compelling to me. So much utter strangeness as the real story begins to unravel, with everything done so perfectly in this format and none of it even feels contrived at all.

The effects and make up are easily the most impressive part of this. Deborah Logan decays in such a grotesque way. It's perfect.

It's also another one of those stories that mixes real life with horror in such a way that it's scary. Alzheimer's is scary already, but then it gets mixed with horror and it just hits hard.

If you want to watch an extremely good found footage movie, this is it. I think it's awesome and does almost everything right.

Rating: 8.5/10

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Recommend: Happy Death Day & Happy Death Day 2 U
On ???

I would hate myself if I didn't discuss this series a bit, because it's one of my favorites. Happy Death Day is a Groundhog Day movie, but also a slasher movie. On a college girl's birthday, she gets murdered, but she has to relive that day until she finds a way to survive.

It's awesome. It's funny, it takes the piss out of the genre, and it has loads of heart put into it too.

The sequel picks up from there, and even though it's much less of a horror, it's still an extremely fun time.

If you have a way to watch Happy Death Day, do so. It's easily one of my favorite horror comedies.

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DAY 29.3: Absentia
On Shudder

So I decided to watch Mike Flanagan's first feature movie and then that means I've seen every major movie/tv series he's ever done.

Absentia is about a woman whose husband disappeared for seven years without a trace. She is now pregnant and lives with her sister, but she still thinks he must be out there still, and perhaps closer than she imagines.

The story behind this one is that this is Mike Flanagan's first ever major movie he had kick-started the movie to create. And boy oh boy, this is like prototype Flanagan in every way. It's actually pretty interesting to watch this after seeing everything else he's created and just seeing his style and how he eventually got to fulfill it with a big budget.

It's a creepy story that doesn't go the way you expect. When there are scares, the scares are surprisingly good. Like I said, it's Flanagan style, and he's effective at it even with a shoe string budget and a crappy camera. The acting is fine for what it is for a bunch of nobodies. In fact, it's better than it should be.

He was always a gifted director with a mind for horror, and he even knew how to make a compelling plot too. This movie keeps you guessing until the very end. While I say the ending is a bit disappointing, it was still good.

The thing with Flanagan though is that he has a strong understanding of making his characters feel human here and getting us invested in them.

If you want to see the proto-Flanagan movie, check it out. I think it's interesting and unique enough to give it a viewing.

Rating: 7/10

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I really like the first Happy Death Day. The only nitpick is that the characters entire personality changes pretty drastically. It seems very jarring in retrospect.

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I did something different today. I bought and did a blind playthrough of The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan.

I loved Until Dawn, and somehow I hadn't even heard of this game until KCF did a recent Until Dawn playthrough topic. So naturally, I had to give this a go.

It's basically a movie... lol. In my blind playthrough, I lost two characters, Conrad and Julia. Conrad was from failing a QTE near the end as he's running away from "something," and fell to his death after two failed QTEs on a ladder, and Julia was at the VERY end of the game because of a poor decision on my part while playing Alex. Those who have played will probably know what caused the deaths.

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DAY 30: Thinner
On AMC

Thinner is another Stephen King film, and it's alright.

When an obese lawyer runs over an old gypsy woman while getting a BJ from his wife, he uses his connections in the legal world to get off without punishment. The gypsy's husband then puts a curse on him that has him rapidly losing weight until he withers away to nothing.

It's an alright Stephen King adaptation. It doesn't feel like a particular enthralling story and while it has some good moments, I feel like it could have been a lot more. It had a lot of very Stephen King-isms in it. You know the kinds. I also felt that it didn't go too much on the creepy stuff in the movie, which it definitely could have.

I don't know. It feels like an adaptation that didn't really need to be made. It did nothing for me. Sorry. I don't feel inspired to talk about it more since it's just not that good.

Rating: 4/10

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I literally got everyone killed in my one playthrough of Man of Medan, lol. Conrad to falling off the boat (actually I jumped. Kind of thought he'd land in the water, he...didn't. Then I managed to lose the boat's spark plug to a failed QTE. Then I called for help on the boat radio, *that* went poorly

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DAY 30.1: Mara
On Netflix

So to continue my whole thing about "I love when horror movies take something that is real and makes it horrifying", Mara does this perfectly.

Mara is about a criminal psychologist that investigates the murder of a husband and the prime suspect in the case is the wife. When speaking with her daughter, she claims a monster killed him while he slept.

This is an awesome freaking movie. It takes sleep paralysis and uses that idea to perfection, creating a terrifying monster that slowly shambles it's way towards you to murder you. It's never quick. It's always agonizingly long, and it just continues to make this monster a complete terror.

The idea of using sleep paralysis in this way is awesome. The drama that ensues, trying to just stay awake to keep from being murdered by this horrible creature is just super compelling. The movie keeps you on edge as well, letting you think they're awake or asleep or vice versa.

It's a really, really good movie, and the way it takes this terror and keeps you guessing is so good. Huge recommend for Mara!

Rating: 8.5/10

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DAY 30.2: Texas Chainsaw (3D)
On Hulu

Fuck this movie.

This picks up after the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre and they kill the entire redneck clan of horrible monsters who torture and kill people to tell the story of a girl who inherited the mansion and takes a roadtrip with her friends and older Leatherface is there too with a chainsaw.

Seriously, fuck this movie. They try to make LEATHERFACE a hero. I get that people are like "Oh he only kills when he's scared" which I don't prescribe to since he chases a girl with a chainsaw for like an hour in the original, but how the fuck do you have the STONES to try to make Leatherface a hero?

This is like the movie ACAB before ACAB. They do everything in their power to make you think the terrible, awful, redneck serial killer is a hero from making his whole family die, making a family member instantly fall in love with him, and having cops be dicks TO THE HORRIBLE MURDER MAN.

Like fuck. It's just insulting. Completely insulting. This man and his family were horrible, deplorable pieces of shit to the nth degree. You can't even begin to defend their actions in the original movie. They're MONSTERS. And we're supposed to feel bad for them. Like fuck you they kill random people, cut them up, eat them, play with dead bodies.

And then the protagonist watches him KILL HER FRIENDS ONE BY ONE. Yeah, two of her friends are complete pieces of shit, but the movie makes it clear she doesn't know that and never finds out, so why is she suddenly okay with murder man killing the people closest to her in her life?

Who is the fucking idiot who thought this was a good idea? It's inexcusable. And to make it worse, they add in drama with the police, have scenes in large crowds, running around in the city, subterfuge--fuck give us redneck murder family. Why are we conflating all this shit in the movie? Do you guys even REMEMBER the movie? You have to, because you did a montage of it at the start of this film!

There's maybe one or two good scenes in here too and it's all really just who gives a fuck. It's awful. It's bad. And it just spits in the face of the franchise.

Rating: 1/10

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Movie #30, Last House on the Left. Uh...well, it's weird, gross, 70s as fuck. Two hippie girls end up abducted by a small group of knockoff Mansons, raped, tortured, killed

....I was expecting them to survive and go on a big revenge spree, but no, they just kind of stab the one girl and shoot the other one. This takes up the *first hour of the movie*. Then the Not Mansons are dumb enough to brag about what they've done in earshot of Girl A's parents and the movie finally picks up a little with their very creative revenge. But fuck it took a long time to get there, enough so it can't begin to justify the trip

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DAY 30.3: Lake Mungo
On Amazon Prime

So this movie isn't really scary, but I will say it's a good ghost story.

Lake Mungo is about a family who has a daughter that passes away after drowning in a lake. It's done in documentary style and it appears that the daughter is still around the family.

I don't have a ton to say about this aside from it's a nice little ghost story. It didn't blow me away or anything, but I enjoyed the documentary style as a change in pace. The story goes in some unexpected ways and does a good job keeping you surprised.

It plays as extremely down to earth and personal, despite being a ghost story, and I feel like it does a good job doing what it set out to do. It's nice, condensed, and a bit charming in its storytelling. I don't really have much else to say, but it has a really good credits sequence and post-credits scene.

I'd recommend it if you're looking for something that won't really scare you too much, but it does tell a nice story in a documentary format.

Rating: 6/10

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Huh, I think you're the first person I've seen who didn't find Lake Mungo totally traumatizing!

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I mean, it's a chilling story but I think the same at in which it's told and how it happens makes it... Less traumatic by the end and more just a downer? I enjoyed it well enough, and I think it's a great ghost story!

Watching The Void now though.

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DAY 30.4: The Void
On Shudder

This is one trippy movie that I really, really enjoyed. Shudder wins yet again!

The Void is about a group of people who end up trapped in a hospital, surrounded by men in hoods. But then even more strange and violent things begin to happen.

So this is a gigantic body horror, Lovecraftian, cult nightmare. I'll break it down.

The plot is really good. It takes you on twists and turns while you never know what's coming because everything is so mind-bendingly crazy.

There are some body horror things that are just so grotesque and awesome, and adding in the Lovecraftian nature of them too is just awesome. They do a great job with all of the monsters in this movie. The cult elements are really strongly done too, and lead to a lot of incredibly creepy things.

It has a strong 80's movie vibe to it and it really leans on it well too. Basically, almost everything about this movie is done so well. I really recommend it.

Rating: 7.5/10

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DAY 30.5: Drag Me To Hell
On DVD (But it's also on Starz!)

Man it has been freaking forever since I've last seen Drag Me To Hell and it is still just such a fun movie.

Drag Me To Hell is about a loan officer who denies a loan extension on a gypsy woman's home to try getting a promotion, and the gypsy woman gives her a curse that she will be drug to hell in a few days.

This movie is a dark comedy and intense drama rolled into one. It's by Sam Raimi, so it has a lot of his fingerprints all over it. But he crafted a movie that constantly keeps you guessing, laughing, leaves you uncomfortable, and gets your adrenaline pumping with action.

Sam Raimi just set out to give people an entertaining movie, and that's exactly what it is. An entertaining thrill ride. Alison Lohman does such a great job in this film, able to flawlessly go through an entire gambit of emotions.

It's got a lot of campiness to it, but that's fine. You're having so much fun that you don't really worry about it. The pacing is just incredible as well. You're never bored. You never know what any scene will end with, all the way to the very end. This unpredictability with the movie is just such talented script writing.

I daresay that Drag Me To Hell may be one of the best horror comedies ever. I wish I could re-watch this for the first time all over again, because I remember how much I loved this on the first viewing.

If you haven't seen Drag Me To Hell before, do yourself a favor and watch it. It's just really a ton of fun.

Rating: 9.5/10

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DAY 31: The Conjuring
On AMC

This has always been one of my favorite horror movies and it still stands strong each time.

The Conjuring is about a husband-wife pair of demonologists who must exorcise a house of a family.

It's one of James Wan's absolute classic films. This does everything pretty much perfectly. It does an amazing job building up the relationship between the Warren's and really works well to suck you into their own personal drama they have besides the main plot and merges it seamlessly into the main plot.

And the way that James Wan is just so good at scares, which I don't need to tell you. He has a way of subtly pulling your eyes and taking his time with it. He doesn't rush with scares. He builds them up. Feeds you information beforehand so you know when something is coming. He's just a master.

It's a trip to watch every time, taking this really humanistic approach to these terrible, real life hauntings. The movie has tons of heart. And when you get to the finale, everything is going crazy, and it's still heart that pulls the movie through.

It's an absolutely must-watch if you still haven't seen it.

Rating: 10/10

The Nun Spoilers:
Also upon rewatch after watching The Nun, I noticed the part about "Maurice" they neglected to mention at the end of The Nun that Maurice blows his brains out during his possession. Which makes it so much more depressing.

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DAY 31.1: The Babysitter: Killer Queen
On Netflix

I decided to finally watch this follow up to a movie I actually really, really enjoyed. I am shocked it's as good as it is.

The Babysitter: Killer Queen picks up two years after the last one left off. Cole goes on a trip with his friends, but whoops more cult murder.

For real, this movie is hilarious. I laughed constantly during it. After it was over, I immediately wanted more. I don't feel that way about a lot of comedy movies, but for this one it's so good I'm praying for a sequel.

If you've ever seen the first one, you kind of know what to expect. And if you haven't seen the first one, see the first one. It takes the piss out of a lot of horror stuff and finds ways to make them hilarious. It has a bunch of over the top gore shots. It just gives you more of what you had in the first movie. It's hilarious.

Bee isn't in it as much, but it does a lot of good stuff with her story still. Hell, it does great stuff with the stories of the characters overall while providing a ton of laughs. And holy shit, Robbie Amell. I love that man. Everything that man did was positively hilarious in this movie.

The script writing in this movie is just absolutely insane, tight, and it lands almost every single joke. If you liked the first movie, you'll love this one. If you never saw the first movie, watch the first movie and then this one.

Rating: 8/10

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The Conjuring is fantastic. Wan is so great at making these technically small intimate horror movies feel like the most grand epic tentpole events ever.

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For real. Every James Wan horror movie just feels like something so special. I love it. Yes, even Dead Silence, which I think deserves more praise for the visuals alone.

Also, change of plans. I may end up extending this another day because it looks like my girlfriend and I are going to go see Come Play in theaters tonight and it is doubtful we'll have time to watch what we originally were going to watch tonight: Ringu and Psycho.

Actually, I'll probably just extend this for as long as the topic lives and I happen to watch a horror movie which I anticipate cutting back on a lot after the freaking blitzkrieg I went on this month.

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I have heard the unfriended sequel is better than the original. Yes or no

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Haven't seen it but my answer is still who cares watch Host on Shudder

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DAY 31.2: Oculus
On Hulu

This is Mike Flanagan's first actual major movie with a budget, and it's what made me fall in love with him as a director.

Oculus is about a pair of siblings who, after a tragedy with their parents when they were young, decide to return to the house with a haunted mirror that they believe was the cause of it. The mirror then begins to make them see things, making the task of destroying it much more difficult.

So this movie is brilliant to me. They just need to destroy an evil mirror. That's it. That's literally all they need to do, and yet they created an interesting narrative around it. It flawlessly intercuts the pair of siblings and their story as kids with them as adults. It's honestly a chilling story that has added disturbing imagery that sticks with you.

But just the idea of something that provides you with so many hallucinations that you just don't know what's going on, and you just can't fight it. How do you win? How do you overcome something that literally detaches you from reality? It's haunting and sinister all in one, and it keeps you guessing until the end.

It laces a humanistic story in here as well about obsession and an attempt to move on, tying it with a sibling bond that is always at odds. And you can't help but be on the edge of your seat, knowing both seem to be going down a dangerous path.

Oculus is incredible and I recommend everyone check it out.

Rating: 9/10

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Aaaaaand that's all I have time to watch on my lonesome.

Expect Come Play tonight, then potentially Psycho and Ringu tomorrow and then I'll put this month of horror madness to rest. There were I think a couple of movies yet that I wanted to watch that I didn't get around to, but oh well! We'll see what happens.

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DAY *: Ghoul Log
On Shudder

It's a Yule Log, except with a Jack O'Lantern. There's two other ones. I haven't checked them out.

But it's just a jack o'lantern with a bunch of spooky noises. It's very cute and works for an idle thing.

Rating: Happy Halloween/10

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I watched 3 movies today.

The Thing and it's prequel, my favorite horror franchise, and Halloween (the original).

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Movie #31, The Thing. What a goddamn great movie, just insanely creepy and builds up this sense of paranoia that never goes away

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I wasn't able to find a way to watch the original The Thing, but it was one I was hoping to watch this month along with the 2011 version!

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The Thing is great. Amazing that the same man brought us both The Thing and Big Trouble in Little China.

Also I still recommend watching One Cut of the Dead sometime!

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I have just watched Ringu. The America version is so much better like wow.

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I definitely like the American version better, but the original is extremely terrifying in how minimalist it is. The lack of special effects makes Sadako seem more real. The remake does have great effects though, and one of the best horror scores.

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Another quick review--Come Play was a lot better than I expected it to be. Legit reviews tomorrow!

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My official final tally of horror in October:
https://letterboxd.com/crossbonesgt/list/horrortober-2020/

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