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

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Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday morning watches.

Count Yorga, Vampire (Bob Kelljan, 1970) - 7/10

Return of Count Yorga (Bob Kelljan, 1971) - 6.5/10

Scream 5 (Tyler Gillett, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, 2022) - 7/10

The Count Yorga movies are a pretty interesting, aborted film franchise. The original is basically Dracula, but transposing the action of the narrative to late 60s USA (set during the time of its making, like the original novel), and its large box office success relative to its low budget led to a slew of contemporary-set vampire films (also, obviously, a sequel, which is kinda more-of-the-same but still well made). It's not well remembered today because, quite frankly, its successors innovate over its initial innovations so much that it feels somewhat bland and, frankly, it's just a good movie - not a great one. But it is a GOOD movie. Very well made, making the best of its low budget, its contemporary setting dealt with in a manner which almost makes it interesting as a document of its times, and Robert Quarry's titular sanguinarian is arguably underrated in the canon of screen vampires. He brings his own dark wit and charm to the story, and many elements which seem generic now were in fact rather inspired elements in its time. They're both well worth seeing, and if you're a big vampire movie fan, essential viewing if not great movies.

Scream (Scre5m? whatever), of course, was a lot of fun; a bit of a "comfort food" revival of a not-too-old franchise. The meta references to the shallow stupidity of Internet fandom are kind of grating, because ultimately the movie portrays the phenomenon as rather two dimensional which is far too generous - reading some IMDB reviews, and they literally parrot some of the throwaway gags in the film with even less irony. The rest of the movie is also a bit two dimensional, but it rides its cliches, subversions of cliches and smartly dumb humor as well as most of the Wes Craven cycle. I was planning to watch a non-horror movie this morning, but then I managed to buy the 4K of this movie the day before due to it being on sale, and realized I couldn't possibly pass the opportunity up, and I don't regret it. I look forward to Scre6m, or Sc6eam, or whatever. Hopefully they call it 2 Scream 4 U and the Internet becomes obsessed with how stupid it is to title it that, because the audience would have to use basic arithmetic to realize 2 + 4 is 6, and they also make that exact same joke in the movie and it is also the killers's motivations, and maybe there are also two killers this time and four heroes or something (the BIG twist, of course, is that there are acually five killers, subverting epectations). Hollywood, give me a call.

Obvious Scream rankings:
Scream - 8.5
Scream 2 - 7.5
Scream 4 = Scre5m - 7
Scream 3 - 6.5

La Llorona (The good one, not one of the quintillion Blumhouse knockoffs)

Another rewatch. Thought it was well made before but didn't really stick with me. Liked it a lot more this time. Really light on the spooks but a beautiful movie nonetheless. Very atmospheric. Really just a poignant drama but maybe there's a ghost.

The first Mexican horror film is a take on La Llorona. It's not a very good movie, but it's one of the earliest surviving Mexican films and it was popular and well received at the time, so it's a fairly important film - I would recommend a watch. The other two early Mexian horror films I've seen (Dos monjes, and El fantasma del convento) are fantastic, and should be seen by any horror fan. They're much more adult oriented than the horror films coming out of the USA at the time, dealing with psychological and ambiguous supernatural themes instead of, well, monsters in suits and silly magic scientists.

Movie 26- Inferno

This is my favorite Dario Argento movie. Generally people seem to regard it as Suspiria's weird little brother but I feel like that's an unfair assessment of it; I love both of them, but I feel like the things Inferno does with presenting a trippy atmosphere are done far better in this film. This was the movie where he nailed the idea of watching a nightmare down into a movie- at least, for the most part.

The first 45 minutes or so of this movie are the most engrossing thing in any Argento movie to me- due in no small part to the pretty obvious contributions that Mario Bava made to it. The early section of the movie are very obviously his work; you can see the sets he worked on from a mile away. They are always lit with a sickly-but-colorful palette and look very artificial in a way that almost gives the movie the feeling of being a stage play at parts. And the situations presented in them, although feeling very disconnected, all feel like snippets of bad dreams someone is trying to recall. The result is sometimes a little silly, but for the most part I find a lot of what happens in this movie very unnerving and even outright alarming.

The early movie does a really interesting job of shuffling around between main characters; the only real cracks start to show once it settles on the primary one, Mark, who is sadly one of the least interesting Argento protagonists to me. Once the movie is pinned down in the apartment complex, it has a bit of a lull for awhile while is sort of tries to emulate what Suspiria had with Susie using him. It doesn't work until the end. The last 10 minutes of this movie, rubber grim reaper mask or not, are amazing to me. It feels like a tone that older japanese horror games tried to emulate for a long time and never quite landed.

I love this movie. It's certainly not perfect but I feel like its positives vastly outweigh its negatives. It and Suspiria definitely deserve to be watched; if only Mother of Tears lived up to that description. 9/10

Movie 27- Puppet Master II

Puppet Master is largely a horror blindspot for me. Until I watched this this year, I had only ever seen the first one. Both of these movies, now that I have seen them, have a unifying feature for me: they are dumb as dirt. They basically exist because someone wanted to design cool looking evil dolls, and someone wanted to animate them.

It's been awhile since I saw the first one, but I at the very least remember most of the cast and their unique paranormal gimmicks. This movie's main cast meanwhile is utterly forgettable and disposable. They get a surprising amount of screentime and even some subplots here and there, but almost all of it is pointless nonsense. The addition of Tuluon, who spends the film running around in what is very literally just the Darkman costume with swimming goggles and doing a weird Bane accent, doesn't do much to elevate the plot.

The real star are the puppets, which I mean, fair. You're watching this dumbass puppet movie, I suppose you are mainly here to watch them kill people. On that front, the movie is so-so at best. There's really only so much you can do with these little guys, and a lot of them do little or nothing. A couple of the first movie's puppets do die interestingly (I dunno if they stay dead admittedly. I kind of hope not because one of them was the coolest ones from that movie), but the plot feels so disconnected and scattershot that there never really feels like there is much at stake. When I'm getting kind of bored and forgetting who characters are by the end of the movie there's probably a problem.

Speaking of the ending, it's basically the same as the first movie's. Honestly, the whole movie is basically the same as the first, just slightly remixed; I'm not even sure why they tried to do the minimal tying in as a sequel that they did in it. They might as well have pretended it never happened. I dunno. I've heard these movies get actively worse as they go along, so if these are where they start I can only imagine what they turn into. 4/10

My goal is to watch eight or nine movies from Saturday morning to Monday night. Doing good so far - Scream 5 was watched Saturday morning, and I've watched three more movies since.

The Changeling (Peter Medak, 1980)
This movie is, of course, one of the greatest ghost movies ever made, achieving its well earned scares largely with immaculate, subtle direction of actors (it is arguably George C. Scott's greatest performance), atmosphere and set designs. Where Poltergeist had screaming otherworldly demons, state-of-the-art special effects and high-concept intrigue, The Changeling has soft whispers, a wet ball, and a heavy focus on plot, and it's arguably the better and scarier film for it. You could probably write a whole multi-page essay on the similarities and differences between the two, and for some reason on this viewing of the film my thoughts kept going to Poltergeist.

9/10

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (dir. Rouben Mamoulian, 1931)
The 30s are a pretty fascinating decade for horror; you can practically feel the genre growing up with each film, as technology and film technique evolves and filmmakers become more confident. This movie is an exception; it feels like it could have been made a decade later. It is a surpremely confident film; the way it uses gliding camera movements, and incorporates first person views to get into the minds of characters, is closer to the amazing silent films of the mid-to-late 20s than the stodgy, anchored films of the early sound era, and Fredric March's Hyde absolutely sears into your mind with an intensity that Lugosi's Dracula and Karloff's Frankenstein can not (not just in terms of the performance the transformation scenes and make-up still impress).The only reason this film hasn't been as lionized a part of pop culture as Drac and Frank is because, simply put, the film was unavailable to see for many decades, and it is not part of any larger franchise (like the Universal Monsters or the Val Lewton films). The director, Rouben Mamoulian, was arguably the first great director of the sound era his next film, Love Me Tonight, is the best movie musical-conedy made in my opinion. This was his only forray into the horrific, which is a bit of a shame but also perfectly understandable, since he basically mastered the form in his time. It's only real shortcoming, I would argue, is that so many of the characters are rather unsympathetic except for Jekyll and the two key female characters, so when Mr. Hyde is out wrecking shit, you feel it is often times well deserved, and not entirely on purpose. My favorite Dr. Jekyll film, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Miss Osbourne, manages a wonderful fusion of thrills and queasy discomfort at the anarchic chaos (also Mr. Hyde's penis is used as a murder weapon in that film, it's pretty rad).

9/10

The Most Dangerous Game (dir. Irving Pichel, Ernest B. Schoedsack, 1932)
This film was made during the down-time of King Kong, utilizing many sets, matt paintings and costumes from that film, but it is by no means a throwaway piece. Like Kong, it seems more like an action heavy adventure film than a horror film, but the genre was ill-defined at the time and the perils and villains are absolutely played for more intense thrills than light-hearted B fare. One area it absolutely has the advantage of, over other adventure/fantasy/horror films of the early sound era (even Kong) is the pacing. The movie is just over an hour long, and doesn't waste a moment of it you're not bored for a second, and those are the slow bits. When the movie really gets going; when the action starts in other words, you're at the edge of your seat until its over, and it is one of the greatest portrayals of survival and man-on-man hunting ever portrayed (only The Naked Prey surpasses it, IMO). Fantastic stuff.

8.5/10

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. Halloween (2018)
10. Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives
11. Halloween Kills
12. The Guest
13. The Beyond
14. Halloween Ends
15. Bodies Bodies Bodies
16. Scream
17. Scream 2
18. Scream 3
19. Scream 4
20. Scream (2022)
21. Army of Darkness
22. Pearl
23. Evil Dead (2013)
24. Barbarian
25. WNUF Halloween Special
26. V/H/S/99
27. Deadstream

So I liked Evil Dead quite a bit, was somewhat disappointed by Evil Dead II after all the hype, but glad to say Army of Darkness was a good ass time. Going full on comedy worked as I found a lot more of the jokes landed for me than 2. Ash's character really worked. The ending got a bit dull with more action than gags, but still liked it a good amount.

So I watched X earlier this year and it was solid, but I was kind of underwhelmed by the end of it. Good setting and premise, decent execution, but some things landed flat and I found the old age makeup distracting. So I didn't have high expectations going into Pearl, but it was one of the best surprises of this month (and year actually). I really liked it. Didn't start out and I thought the tone was going to be too tongue in cheeky, but it had a great ramp up and I loved the last half hour. Mia Goth was fantastic. Check it out, even if you weren't big on X.

And I concluded my Evil Dead run with Evil Dead (2018). I saw the first half hour or so of this movie way back when it first came out, but turned it off cause I wasn't into it. A lot of people praise this movie as an underrated gem, but I just found it boring. It has some good moments and I totally respect what they did in taking a different approach to the remake, but I just thought it dragged.

I saw Barbarian being recommended in a few places, so I went in blind and this was good stuff. It has an ominous start and goes some unexpected places, but I'm not gonna give too much away. Recommended.

WNUF Halloween Special is a different sort of movie. It's a VHS recording of a local news program and paranormal investigation special from a Halloween night in the 80s or 90s complete with commercials and local politics and the weather. The authenticity to it is pretty darn solid. It's a pretty fun light watch. I had to search around to find it for a minute, but it's out there online.

Completing my V/H/S marathon finally, I was kinda hopeful for V/H/S/99. Viral was probably the worst movie I've seen this month, possibly all year which is saying something, but 94 was somewhat a return to form. Well V/H/S/99 is a pile of shit. Hated it. The first segment is incredibly long and stupid. The second one also just goes on forever and isn't any fun. Nothing is scary. The third one has Steven Ogg in it which is something, but still isn't very good. A mix of bad acting and comedy. The wrap around is just a bizarre choice and also doesn't make sense as a framing device. The last one is a little interesting with some stuff going on and a fun performance, but overall this was almost as bad as Viral. Even Viral at least had one half of a segment that was pretty good before turning to shit. This one was just clunker after clunker. Still wasn't as atrocious as Viral...

Deadstream follows an intentionally annoying streamer visiting a haunted house. It's a very stereotypical douchebag youtuber that doesn't do that really shit thing where it's clearly made by someone old and out of touch trying to replicate what the kids are into. Doesn't really make it good, it's just kind of mediocre. It's at least found footage with reasoning behind it. It's still recent, so I'll mark for spoilers. I was really expecting a sort of run of the mill twist where it was him faking the whole thing, but then things really do turn out to be haunted. Sort of like Grave Encounters. It plays it straight throughout which is kind of refreshing at this point, but it might have actually worked better with a twist. It's...not toooo bad, but it's also not very enjoyable. The comedy isn't funny, it's not scary and the annoying protagonist is so damn annoying that it can be a rough hour and 20. I can see some people enjoying it though so your mileage may vary.

IShall_Run_Amok posted...

The Changeling (Peter Medak, 1980)

That' a good movie.

the part in the changeling with the little girl walking around in the dark and seeing the ghost in the hole freaked the hell out of me even as an adult lol

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 Footage Phenomenon (doc)
11. Troll Hunter
12. Hellbender
13. Mad God
14. The Last Broadcast
15. The Sadness
16. We're All Going to the World's Fair
17. Halloween (2018)
18. Hell House LLC
19. Deep Red
20. House
21. House II: The Second Story
22. Halloween Kills
23. Psycho II
24. Pyscho III
25. Man Bites Dog
26. The Legend of Boggy Creek
27. Dementia 13
28. The Bay
29. Halloween Ends
30. Salem's Lot
31. Butterfly Kisses

All done, slight chance I might fit one more flick in tomorrow before work but at least hit 31......Happy Halloween everyone!

1- Doom Asylum. (1987) 5/10
2- Kill, Baby, Kill. (1966) 6/10
3- Salem's Lot. (1979) 7/10
4- A Return to Salem's Lot. (1987) 5/10
5- Jeepers Creepers Reborn. (2022) 3/10
6- The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. (1920) 8/10
7- Salem's Lot. (2004) 6/10
8- Werewolf By Night. (2022) 6/10
9- Significant Other. (2022) 6/10
10- Grimcutty. (2022) 4/10
11- Raven's Hollow. (2022) 6/10
12- Critters Attack! (2019) 3/10
13- Extraordinary Tales. (2013) 6/10
14- Halloween Ends. (2022) 6/10
15- The Beyond. (1981) 7/10
16- The Evil of Frankenstein. (1964) 6/10
17- The Black Scorpion. (1957) 5/10
18- Repossessed. (1990) 3/10
19- Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? (1972) 6/10
20- The Thing From Another World. (1951) 7/10
21- Fright Night: Part 2. (1988) 6/10
22- Dead & Buried. (1981) 7/10
23- Horror of Frankenstein. (1970) 6/10
24- Terrifier. (2016) 3/10
25- Rattlers. (1976) 4/10
26- Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker. (1981) 6/10
27- Autumn Road. (2021) 6/10
28- Prey for the Devil. (2022) 3/10
29- Straight Outta Nowhere: Scooby-Doo! Meets Courage the Cowardly Dog. (2021) 6/10
30- Tenebrae. (1982) 7/10

One more to go after these three, and I will have watched 31 horror-or-horror-adjacent films this month. Hot dog.

The Invisible Ray (dir. Lambert Hayler, 1936)
For the most part, this is a very good sci-fi horror film featuring both Karloff AND Lugosi. I do think the first half is stronger than the second half, though (even though the portrayal of the African workers on the expedition is typically cringey). Karloff's character has more, well, character, until the ill-effects of the radiation begin to take over and merely transform him into a grumpy killer with a death ray. That drip, though.

7/10

Black Friday (Arthur Lubin, 1940)
The original title for this movie was Friday the 13th, but Universal decided...I dunno, maybe it was about 40 years too early for that sort of thing? It's not REALLY a horror film, either, rather another science fiction film with horrific implications that are also really silly. Apparently a brain transplant saves the life of a doctor, but flashes of the brain's previous owner - a hardened criminal - keep coming out, and inevitably manifests in a transformation into said owner. It's...dumb. But I have to give the movie credit for a few things. It has Karloff and Lugosi in it, which is a delight. Also, the doctor-with-criminal-brain's transformation is quite impressive. I thought it was two different actors playing different characters, but no, it's the same actor, he just adjusts his hair, wears glasses, and, you know, acts like two different characters, and it works. They fooled me. Good job. It's alright. The director, Arthur Lubin, directed a number of films of some minor interest, like the 1943 Phantom of the Opera (you know, the worst of the Universal Monsters), but his crowning achievement is the underrated period thriller Footsteps in the Fog, a rare color-noir made in England.

6.5/10

The Strange Door (dir. Joseph Pevney, 1951)
Yet another "not really a horror film, but..." blah blah, whatever. It was marketed as a horror film back in its day. This one is a neat little gothic period drama, and would be rather boring if it weren't for some lively direction and two of its actors. It's got Karloff himself, which is also nice, as well as Charles Laughton, gobbling up as much of the scenery as possible, which is well deserved considering he's one of the best actors of the 20th century, currently at a lull in his career. He's one of the few actors who would ever appear in a Karloff film and utterly blow him away. Lucky him! It's another "pretty alright" movie. Also, yes, the director is THAT Joseph Pevney. He was very early in his career still, and would later go on to helm 14 episodes of the original series of Star Trek.

6.5/10

1. Paranormal Activity
2. Paranormal Activity 2
3. Paranormal Activity 3
4. My Best Friend's Excorcism
5. Swarmed
6. One Cut of the Dead
7. Resident Evil: Extinction
8. Ginger Snaps
9. Ginger Snaps 2: Ginger Snaps Back
10. Train to Busan
11. Train to Busan: Peninsula
12. Scare Package
13. Nightmare Cinema
14. Til Death
15. The Poughkeepsie Tapes
16. Terrifier 2
17. Paranormal Activity 2: Next of Kin
18. Wrong Turn
19. The Babadook
20. Monsters
21. Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City
22. Scooby Doo on Zombie Island
23. Pearl

Honestly surprised I got this close. knew like 2 weeks ago I wasn't gonna reach 31, but pretty pleased I got 2/3 through. Probably one or two more tomorrow too, but I'm not hitting 31.

Night of the Living Dead (dir. George Romero, 1968)
I don't think there's anything I can really say about this one, at least nothing new. It's one of the top tier classics of horror, a bona fide milestone that changed the way movies were made, and all that stuff. I can certainly say that every time I see it, because I see so many more movies made before and after it, my appreciation for it grows, both as an achievement in its own right, and as a turning point in the medium as a whole. It was actually one of the first horror movies I saw, and I didn't really need that much experience with the genre to appreciate just how amazing the movie was, but all that experience certainly deepens my appreciation.

9.5/10

That probably concludes the festivities for the year, because I have work today. If I get off early enough, I may be able to squeeze in one more film. We'll see?

Movie 28- Halloween (1978)

What can really be said about this movie that hasn't been said already? It's one of the tightest, most well put together horror movies of all time. It did things that slasher movies have tried to emulate since it was released and just.. Never quite managed to do it? No slasher that I've ever seen has given the constant sense of dread and paranoia that this film gives with the extended sections of Michael Meyers stalking around. And while Michael himself is kind of nothing (and IMO should have stayed that way, every attempt to give him backstory and explanation has always been dreadful), he doesn't need to be for this story. What Halloween did that its copycats didn't quite understand was a giallo-like idea of the killer being less scary than the situation in which the killer exists. This isn't a story about Michael, or even really a story about Laurie, it's a story about a serial killing.

This, like the next movie from this year, is something I imagine most people have seen. But if somehow you haven't, do so. It's an incredibly simple movie that cut away all the existing ideas in the genre it existed in like mystery and complex storylines, and just presents a scary scenario that could feasibly happen to anyone unlucky enough. The best Carpenter movie and one of my favorite movies period. 10/10

Movie 29- Predator

I love predator because it's very backloaded with what it really is. Just like with Halloween, everyone has seen Predator, but it's interesting as a concept to me to imagine what it would be like for someone who just walked into this movie blind back when it came out. A good amount of the runtime is basically like a really fun jungle action movie with just a hint that something is unusual until a good 30-45 minutes into it when it reveals itself to be not an action movie anymore at all, and in fact intent on murdering a bunch of genre stereotypes mercilessly. It's really cool to me that this is one of the few movies where even Arnold seems conventionally powerless against the threat of the film, and has to rely on his brain for once.

I struggle to think of flaws with this movie. It's amazing, and it kind of makes me sad that none of the sequels are close to it. Even Predator 2, which I like, just isn't even the same galaxy as this one. I haven't seen Prey yet, I should really get around to it. But even then, from what I've heard, it sounds cool but just not on the same level. 10/10

Movie 30- City of the Living Dead

This is a really fun movie and probably one of Fulci's best, if not the best. It's a very strange little movie that borrows liberally from John Carpenter's The Fog; imagery is snipped right out of that and crammed into this, almost wholesale at times, but as usual, he remixes and introduces new bizarre plot elements at a rate that it almost becomes unrecognizable by the end. Particularly the zombies, which are just... I don't even know how to describe them? This movie has the most bullshit zombies in anything ever who can just teleport and pull your brain out, or kill you just by looking at you if they really feel like it.

While bizarre and confusing in its overall ideas, it has a lot more structure than most other supernatural Fulci movies; you can follow what's going on a lot easier than stuff like The Beyond or House By the Cemetary, it just requires you to turn your brain off and pretend anyone in the situation they are in would ever have a chance to survive. And the ending is... Well, I'm not sure I've ever seen an ending where the production more obviously ran out of money. But there's something about it that makes me smile all the same.

It's got a few plodding segments, especially towards the beginning. This is something you need to buckle in and wait for the shit to hit the fan for. When it starts it doesn't stop being insane and fun. 8/10

Just gotta do one more tonight, havent decided what yet. Glad I am finally caught up tho

1- Doom Asylum. (1987) 5/10
2- Kill, Baby, Kill. (1966) 6/10
3- Salem's Lot. (1979) 7/10
4- A Return to Salem's Lot. (1987) 5/10
5- Jeepers Creepers Reborn. (2022) 3/10
6- The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. (1920) 8/10
7- Salem's Lot. (2004) 6/10
8- Werewolf By Night. (2022) 6/10
9- Significant Other. (2022) 6/10
10- Grimcutty. (2022) 4/10
11- Raven's Hollow. (2022) 6/10
12- Critters Attack! (2019) 3/10
13- Extraordinary Tales. (2013) 6/10
14- Halloween Ends. (2022) 6/10
15- The Beyond. (1981) 7/10
16- The Evil of Frankenstein. (1964) 6/10
17- The Black Scorpion. (1957) 5/10
18- Repossessed. (1990) 3/10
19- Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? (1972) 6/10
20- The Thing From Another World. (1951) 7/10
21- Fright Night: Part 2. (1988) 6/10
22- Dead & Buried. (1981) 7/10
23- Horror of Frankenstein. (1970) 6/10
24- Terrifier. (2016) 3/10
25- Rattlers. (1976) 4/10
26- Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker. (1981) 6/10
27- Autumn Road. (2021) 6/10
28- Prey for the Devil. (2022) 3/10
29- Straight Outta Nowhere: Scooby-Doo! Meets Courage the Cowardly Dog. (2021) 6/10
30- Tenebrae. (1982) 7/10
31- Nope. (2022) 7/10

Happy Halloween!

bumped up my totals a little bit in order to try and get closer to 31, but I'm not gonna hit it anyways.

24) Zombie: I Eat Your Skin (1971)

• Tropical Island, zombies want a virgin, some mad science going on. I could go into more detail, but I think then I'd be putting more effort into this movie than the people making it did. Something about radioactive snake venom possibly curing cancer, classic old-school B-movie stuff.
• The "zombies" kind of look like if you imagine the cartoon of someone being hit in the face with a pie. Some classic low-budget production there.
• Note: These aren't really "modern" zombies, but the pre-Romero ones where it was like crazy voodoo slavery. Apparently the movie was made in like 1965, but couldn't find a distributor. Old school zombie movies are always kind of interesting to me, just because this whole concept doesn't really exist anymore.

idk like a 6/10. I didn't feel like I wasted my time, but not worth going out of your way to find.

25) Let Me In (2008) (The American one)

• Cute little horror-romance about a little kid that's bullied a lot making friends with the kid vampire next door. I read the book like, 5 years ago but other stuff kept coming up so today is really the first time I've seen the movie. Definitely a movie to recommend, though idk if the original Danish (or whatever) movie might be better since this is a remake of that a la Quarantine vs. REC.

Like an 8/10. I really enjoyed it. Not very scary tho.

26) Pontypool (2008)

• shock-jock style radio host Grant Mazzy is doing his midnight-shift of a small town radio station. Some kind of The Crazies-style zombie outbreak starts and the radio crew has to figure out what's going on while trying to stay on the air.
• I think this is a really cool concept for a movie, and I think that the entire movie being pretty much only in the one location is also really cool. I think it started out really cool when they were trying to figure out wtf was going on but it lost me a bit when it turned out to be some kind of auditory virus based around the English language. though it makes it even better when we learn what is happening and get the twist that they've kind of been making everything worse. Still would recommend. Definitely a fun idea, and think this was definitely a unique twist on the whole thing.
• Also the doctor shows up about 1/2 way through the movie and he's clearly having fun. He's like eating popcorn and like, making jokes while one of the radio crew are going all zombie. In the movie this is like the 100th time he's had to deal with this so he's not taking it nearly as seriously as the rest of the cast, but its still pretty fun. Otherwise he's just here to spout exposition, so good on him for enjoying his role.

Another like 8/10. Enjoyed this one way more than I was expecting to.

Finishing at 84% through. Better than I was expecting tbh.

Proto_Spark posted...

Definitely a movie to recommend, though idk if the original Danish (or whatever) movie might be better since this is a remake of that a la Quarantine vs. REC.

The remake is pretty solid but the original is definitely better.

got caught up doing stuff with friends, not gonna have a chance to fit a movie in before midnite but it was a valiant effort. 30 isnt bad

happy halloween everybody

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)
6th - A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (1985)
7th - The Werewolf (1956)
8th - The Silence of the Lambs (1991) *theater*
9th - An American Werewolf in London (1981)
10th - Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (1922)
11th - Creature With the Atom Brain (1955)
12th - A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987)
13th - Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
14th - The Phantom of the Opera (1925)
15th A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988)
16th Pumpkinhead (1988)
17th Halloween (2018)
18th Halloween Kills (2021)
19th Halloween Ends (2022) *theater*
20th White Zombie (1932)
21st A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (1989)
22nd Ghostbusters (1984) *theater*
23rd The Lost Boys (1987) *theater*
24th - Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) *theater*
25th - Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991)
26th - Silver Bullet (1985)
27th - Trick 'r Treat (2007) *theater*
28th - Trick or Treat Scooby-Doo! (2022)
29th - Fright Night (1985)
30th - Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)
31st - Hocus Pocus (1993)

Not all of them were "horror" movies. I feel they were all Halloween-centric though. Hocus Pocus makes a good movie to end on since so much of the film takes place after midnight. It pretty much suggests that Halloween isn't truly over until dawn the next morning.

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. Halloween (2018)
10. Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives
11. Halloween Kills
12. The Guest
13. The Beyond
14. Halloween Ends
15. Bodies Bodies Bodies
16. Scream
17. Scream 2
18. Scream 3
19. Scream 4
20. Scream (2022)
21. Army of Darkness
22. Pearl
23. Evil Dead (2013)
24. Barbarian
25. WNUF Halloween Special
26. V/H/S/99
27. Deadstream
28. Goodnight Mommy
29. Werewolf by Night
30. Nope
31. Black Phone

Bonus: Smile

Woo. Made it. First time actually going for 31. Granted a good chunk were rewatches, but I enjoyed the variety.

Watched the original subtitled Goodnight Mommy and it was okay. Saw the twist coming after the first 10 minutes which kind of hurt the overall experience, but they did take things further than I was expecting and that was at least worth a little something.

Werewolf by Night was alright. I'd go so far as to call it good. Big MCU fan and liked how it was pretty different. Wouldn't mind seeing them do more of this.

Watched Nope which was a mostly positive mixed bag. Enjoyed all the characters, dialog, performances. I just think the last 40 minutes dragged on for far too long and just wasn't interesting or entertaining. I'd probably put it above Us, but neither are anywhere close to Get Out. Judging Nope on its own though, I liked the stuff that was there, but wish it was better done in the last third or fourth.

I put off watching Black Phone until Halloween Night as I usually try to save a few big ones for the night of. So made it a triple feature between Nope, Smile and this. It was good. Totally solid time. Enjoyed the acting, especially Ethan Hawke who I always like. Glad they didn't fuck around with the super natural, psychic stuff. They put it right up front to let ya know what kinda movie it was. Pretty good performances by most of the child actors more or less. Good time.

And the final movie of the month (though it didn't get over till after midnight on the East Coast, but fuck off I'm counting it) was Smile. Perfect ending to the list as I thought Smile was great. Really damn good. Won't spoil anything since it's super new, but this was the best 2022 horror movie I've seen so far.

Happy Halloween everyone!

Finished on Sat or Sun but I haven't logged in since before that. Last 2:

Amityville Awakening - It was meh. I expected that given the ratings I saw, but I chose it because Cameron Monahan is in it and I really liked him in Shameless and Gotham. Plus Kurtwood Smith had a small role. It didn't really do anything wrong but it was just sort of a predictable story that felt close enough to the original that it didn't really even need to be made.

And to go out on a high note

Barbarian - Bulk of this will be in spoiler tags. First, I went in knowing absolutely nothing at all except for a super ambiguous one-sentence mini-summary and 2 recognizable actor names as cast members. That's it. I didn't even know at the time that it was made by Zach Cregger, which would have added a lot of hype because I'm a big fan of Whitest Kids U Know. Holy shit though. This movie started out suspenseful and very slow-burn feeling, but the turns it took. Not even twists, but turns, like not "I didn't see that coming" but "I didn't see the plot taking this drastic of a turn." The other guest being weird and creepy and being played by Pennywise really set him up to be the bad guy and he only got sketchier. I only slightly believed that was a red herring until just seconds before the reveal. Then it blacks out. I know the movie isn't over. But now the scene is Justin Long cruising down the Pacific Coast Highway? What? I knew it would be all tied together, but it was just turn after turn. . My only complaint was that I had questions about how the killer/rapist and his inbred daughter (and any victims as long as they were alive) were able to survive down there. There was enough information to speculate and theorize but it was never explained.

(next part doesn't contain any real spoilers, just a summary of my opinions of various characteristics of the movie. I would suggest skipping it, reading the part after without the tags, because I have strong feelings about the italicized part >_>)

Very well done. The pacing was great. The storytelling was great. The character development, self awareness and trope usage all felt right. The setting was perfect. Technically it was the 30th that I watched for this, but I wanted to put it last on the list because it was my favorite of all the 31 that I watched for this topic. If you haven't seen it, watch it, and don't look up anything about it. Go in as blind and expectation-less as you can.

Only made it to 17 movies this year. Didn't help that I was basically the busiest I have ever been in my entire life this October. Oh well, I got free time now, so I'll just continue to watch horror movies the rest of the year.

billcom6 posted...

Only made it to 17 movies this year. Didn't help that I was basically the busiest I have ever been in my entire life this October. Oh well, I got free time now, so I'll just continue to watch horror movies the rest of the year.

Might do that as well.went to cancel my free month of Shudder before they charged me this Friday and they offered another free month onto December