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

(+) Yeah! (+)

Because it's always Jason Blum.

S Tier: (100-95)

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

A Tier: (94-85)

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

B Tier (84-70)

29. 65
30. The Boogeyman
31. The Last Voyage of the Demeter
32. V/H/S/85
33. Sorry About the Demon
34. The Pope's Exorcist
35. Infinity Pool
36. Cobweb
37. Stalker
38. From Black
39. Inside
40. Nefarious
41. The Puppetman
42. The Exorcist: Believer
43. The Nun II
44. Slotherhouse
45. Clock
46. Natty Knocks
47. The Ghost Within
48. Til Death Do Us Part
49. They Wait in the Dark

C Tier (69-50)

50. Huesera: The Bone Woman
51. There's Something Wrong With the Children
52. Malum
53. Bird Box Barcelona
54. Five Nights at Freddy's
55. The Devil Comes at Night
56. Meg 2: The Trench
57. Kids vs. Aliens
58. Enys Men
59. Candy Land
60. The Royal Hotel
61. You're Killing Me
62. Zombie Town
63. Baby Ruby
64. Blood Flower
65. Run Rabbit Run
66. The Strays
67. Consecration
68. The Tank
69. Soul Mates
70. The Offering
71. Hunt Her, Kill Her
72. Dark Nature
73. No One Can Save You
74. Trinket Box
75. Spoonful of Sugar
76. Unwelcome
77. Unseen
78. Don't Look Away

D Tier (49-30)

79. Elevator Game
80. The Black Demon
81. Bad Things
82. Leave
83. The Headmistress
84. Children of the Corn
85. Fear
86. Alone At Night
87. Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey

F Tier (29-0)

88. The Outwaters
89. Perpetrator
90. The Unseen
91. Skinamarink

New on List: The Tank, Sorry About the Demon

The Tank: A pretty standard creature feature. I was initially excited for this one when it first came out; it had a limited theater run apparently but I couldn't find it nearby. It eventually made it onto Hulu so we were able to check it out there. Again, it's a pretty standard monster flick. The characters aren't super interesting but the acting is fine, so it's more of a thin script than the performers faults. The creature design is at least pretty unique and nice, and the fact they are a big colony rather than one big monster was something a little different. Ultimately, it was just an inoffensive film that didn't really create that many new ideas though.

Sorry About the Demon: This is a fun horror comedy about a pretty common sort of horror film; home possession by a demon. It stars a main character so pathetic the demon gets angry about the previous family trying to "gift" him this particular sacrifice, and he decides he doesn't want this guy at all. It's easy to like this character because I feel he's pretty relatable; he's a hobby driven person but he's all over the place, spread too thin. The self-deprecation humor here hits pretty good. The supporting cast is pretty good too, and the interactions with the demon and associated spirits he controls is well done. Again, I was surprised with how much quality was here in this horror comedy. Maybe I like these more than I thought I did... also apparently the director has been at it for almost 20 years; and she's only 31.

Tag

Tonight's movie is going to be The Unheard on Shudder. Lately, it seems that whenever it's my turn to pick a movie I pick either a meh one or a crap one, and Genny always manages to find B tier and up. I picked this one so I'm sure it won't be very good.

Planning to see It's a Wonderful Knife in theaters on Sunday night.

2024 here we come - tag!

The Unheard: Good premise. The main character is deaf and she begins receiving treatment for the condition, which begins to work though it comes with some auditory hallucinations (maybe?). It was interesting to hear the film through the ears of the main character early in the goings, but they quickly abandon this feature way too soon in my opinion. I feel what stops this movie from being any better than decent is that eventually, it just devolves a bit into something that isn't very special or interesting, and also something that isn't properly built upon so it feels rather forced when it happens. It's a bit of a letdown considering how unique it started out as, but ultimately nothing bad. Watchable.

Tag

Been a little hectic lately so no time to really binge stuff.

I thought It's a Wonderful Knife was fine. Pretty good, but definitely flawed too. I think Justin Long's overacting does a lot of the heavy lifting here. The lead character (Jane Widdop) was fairly good too, but I was underwhelmed with the supporting cast, especially realizing that Cassandra Naud was barely in the movie as her character wasn't used much and they killed William B. Davis almost immediately. For whatever reason, I really did not vibe with Jess McLeod's character. I wouldn't categorize it as her fault, it's more of a fault of the writing. It's not really spoilers so I'll just say it. Her character is meant to be the "weird girl no one likes"... but why? It's just like, there are all these far more strange and ugly characters bullying her for undetermined reasons. Then there's a revelation later that she was going to kill herself this Christmas too. I just don't see it. The writing for this character was just not working for me and it felt so ham-fisted.

But it's still an enjoyable experience, just not on the level I was hoping it to be.

Anyone planning on seeing Thanksgiving in theaters? Most likely on the menu for Sunday. Did you know that 1 year ago today The Menu came out? I mean it's a sign right... I'm sure this movie will be every bit as good as that one. There are characters, horror and food.

Oh yeah, I'm doing everything in my power to see Thanksgiving in theaters.

I might try to see it in theaters actually.

S Tier: (100-95)

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

A Tier: (94-85)

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

B Tier (84-70)

30. 65
31. The Boogeyman
32. The Last Voyage of the Demeter
33. V/H/S/85
34. Sorry About the Demon
35. The Pope's Exorcist
36. Infinity Pool
37. Cobweb
38. Stalker
39. From Black
40. Inside
41. Nefarious
42. The Puppetman
43. The Exorcist: Believer
44. The Nun II
45. Slotherhouse
46. Clock
47. Natty Knocks
48. The Ghost Within
49. Til Death Do Us Part
50. They Wait in the Dark

C Tier (69-50)

51. Huesera: The Bone Woman
52. There's Something Wrong With the Children
53. Malum
54. Bird Box Barcelona
55. It's a Wonderful Knife
56. Five Nights at Freddy's
57. The Devil Comes at Night
58. The Unheard
59. Meg 2: The Trench
60. Kids vs. Aliens
61. Enys Men
62. Candy Land
63. The Royal Hotel
64. You're Killing Me
65. Zombie Town
66. Baby Ruby
67. Blood Flower
68. Run Rabbit Run
69. The Strays
70. Consecration
71. The Tank
72. Soul Mates
73. The Offering
74. Hunt Her, Kill Her
75. Dark Nature
76. No One Can Save You
77. Trinket Box
78. Spoonful of Sugar
79. Unwelcome
80. Unseen
81. Don't Look Away

D Tier (49-30)

82. Elevator Game
83. The Black Demon
84. Bad Things
85. Leave
86. The Headmistress
87. Children of the Corn
88. Fear
89. Alone At Night
90. Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey

F Tier (29-0)

91. The Outwaters
92. Perpetrator
93. The Unseen
94. Skinamarink

New on List: The Unheard, It's a Wonderful Knife, Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is pretty solid. Captures that classic feel of like a 90's-00's era teen slasher film that picks a theme and runs with it. The kills were a lot of funny, the directing, acting and sound design all worked well. Probably the best thing I've seen from Roth, whom again I usually don't care much for. I will say that I feel the characters of Bobby and Ryan seemed a bit misused and ended up lost in the shuffle. Really the only criticism I can think of to levy against this film though.

RIP scream

Holy shit, so just supporting the Palestinian people is considered antisemitism now?

v_charon posted...

Holy shit, so just supporting the Palestinian people is considered antisemitism now?

Not even that.

Speaking out against genocide is considered antisemitism. She's not the only one and she won't be the last, and it's really sad.

Nothing she said was even controversial. It's just fucking absurd. There's a chance this can be changed, and hopefully they hear everyone who is saying this is outrageous and the fans who are already saying they're boycotting it. I have no interest in watching it if they're going to get rid of Melissa Barrera like this and ruin all their plans.

Apparently a bunch of other celebrities are deleting their posts about the war too.

Apparently Jenna Ortega is also not expected to be in Scream 7 too, which was being negotiated before the strike and had nothing to do with it.

What are we even doing here?

Core... two?

jasmin savoy brown has also made pro-palastine posts in the past so maybe we're looking at another full reboot

(though maybe this is why they were so quick to fire Barrera if they knew Ortega wasn't coming back it didn't really matter)

Looks like the franchise belongs to Neve Campbell again. Not sure where else they can go; I had thought this was intended to be a new trilogy, but perhaps it isn't going to be anymore. I have a feeling we won't be seeing Scream VII next year like most people were thinking...

Anyway, watched Brooklyn 45 on Shudder last night. Really good one, solid A tier film for me. The film is about veterans from WW2 gathering to console a friend whose recently lost his wife to suicide. The film then sort of beings this half horror, half tense drama film where the acting really shines through. It's such a tense film, and the characters really are pretty interesting. When the film decides to remind you of the fact it's horror, it's usually pretty quick and for that reason, can often really get you when you don't expect it. It's easy to forget about the horror element because of the character work that's done here. It's another one of those films that takes place 95% in one room, which have often been really well done lately. Good stuff, check it out if you haven't.

I finished up the new Goosebumps series! It was a really, really good show with outstanding effects given what we're dealing with here. You can tell there's a lot of love and care for the series in this, and I think what I like most is that they don't just give us the same adaptations of the stories, but they give us a new adaptation of them that fits inside the framework of the overarching story they tell here. It's a show that has a bunch of twists and turns and it's ultimately just a great show to watch. Season 2 seems likely, so I'm looking forward to it!

Lmao the new Night Swim trailer. I know it's going to be so dumb but oh my god how did they make it seem like it might be good? Like it seems a lot more creative and better directed than I would have expected.

https://youtu.be/PhlLO3Nb3sY?si=lEYJiaBCt8_P_RAc

Yeah that movie looks... a little dreadful. 2024 really gonna get off to "a start" with that one.

Year is winding down, one more month to go. We've watched two new movies recently from 2023:

Blood: Checked this out on Hulu. Pretty solid offering. It's a well-acted bit of "how far will you go for your kids" bit of dramatic horror. The ending is pretty shocking, considering that even in this genre a lot of films shy away from such a downer ending with the forced murder of your own child. Plus repeating the bedtime rhyme right before, yeesh. The only real knock against it is the main character can be... rather unlikable, but eventually I understood perhaps she was intended to be. There's also a little issue of "can law enforcement really be this inept?". But I've watched a lot of true crime, and I guess the answer to that in reality is in fact, "yes".

Hell House LLC Origins: The Carmichael Manor: I was told I could watch this even though I am unfamiliar with the series as a whole and haven't seen the rest of the franchise. I really liked this one thought; great found footage horror film. I'm not sure if the others are of the same caliber (quick research leads me to believe this is the best film in the franchise, generally regarded as such at least). I enjoyed the documentary style cuts; really well done and felt very authentic to the effect they were going for. This one also had a lot of really good horror bits that got me on the edge of my seat and had my skin tingling, pretty surprising win with this one.

We're planning to see Godzilla Minus One tomorrow night. I don't normally regard Godzilla much in the way of horror, but apparently this one is meant to be scary and a return to the original roots of the franchise, where it's much darker and foreboding of a tale. It's being billed as horror, so I guess I'll treat it as such and check it out. It has stellar reviews from both audiences and critics so far.

Yeah, Hell House LLC Origins is absolutely the best in the franchise. I really enjoyed my time watching that one. It felt a lot more creative and interesting than the other entries and included characters you could actually care about for a change, which is a major plus. Quality found footage movie.

Taking a quick look over my notes before we go watch Godzilla Minus One; to complete what I wanted to do, we'll need to watch (at minimum... discounting any releases in December) 22 films from the various streaming platforms. Most are now on Prime. Again, this is only the "included with Prime" ones. There are several I would like to see that are Prime+ features that you need to pay a few dollars for, and it doesn't count anything on Tubi either. I'll probably set a hard stop time for myself that will be in the first week or so of January to "complete" my 2023 horror rankings. I will make an effort to make the 2024 list even larger by getting an earlier start on than I did this year, but that means I can't waste too much time next year watching stuff from 2023.

We'll be only 2 away from 100 films after tonight, so 100 is definitely already being surpassed so I don't have any sort of cool looking number I can think of to shoot for. I was pretty amazed what trying to do this opened my eyes to though; previous years of just watching the mainstream titles in theaters seems pretty closed minded looking back now.

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. Thanksgiving
17. Beau is Afraid
18. The Blackening
19. She Came From the Woods
20. Knock at the Cabin
21. Bunker
22. Brooklyn 45
23. Birth/Rebirth
24. Cocaine Bear
25. Insidious: The Red Door
26. Final Cut
27. It Lives Inside
28. We Have a Ghost
29. Appendage
30. Jagged Mind
31. Haunted Mansion
32. Renfield

B Tier (84-70)

33. 65
34. The Boogeyman
35. The Last Voyage of the Demeter
36. V/H/S/85
37. Sorry About the Demon
38. Blood
39. Cobweb
40. Infinity Pool
41. Stalker
42. The Pope's Exorcist
43. From Black
44. Inside
45. Nefarious
46. The Puppetman
47. The Exorcist: Believer
48. The Nun II
49. Slotherhouse
50. Clock
51. Natty Knocks
52. The Ghost Within
53. Til Death Do Us Part
54. They Wait in the Dark

C Tier (69-50)

55. Huesera: The Bone Woman
56. There's Something Wrong With the Children
57. Malum
58. Bird Box Barcelona
59. It's a Wonderful Knife
60. Five Nights at Freddy's
61. The Devil Comes at Night
62. The Unheard
63. Meg 2: The Trench
64. Kids vs. Aliens
65. Enys Men
66. Candy Land
67. The Royal Hotel
68. You're Killing Me
69. Zombie Town
70. Baby Ruby
71. Blood Flower
72. Run Rabbit Run
73. The Strays
74. Consecration
75. The Tank
76. Soul Mates
77. The Offering
78. Hunt Her, Kill Her
79. Dark Nature
80. No One Can Save You
81. Trinket Box
82. Spoonful of Sugar
83. Unwelcome
84. Unseen
85. Don't Look Away

D Tier (49-30)

86. Elevator Game
87. The Black Demon
88. Bad Things
89. Leave
90. The Headmistress
91. Children of the Corn
92. Fear
93. Alone At Night
94. Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey

F Tier (29-0)

95. The Outwaters
96. Perpetrator
97. The Unseen
98. Skinamarink

New on List: Brooklyn 45, Blood, Hell House LLC Origins: The Carmichael Manor, Godzilla Minus One

Minus One is probably the best Godzilla I've personally seen. I'm not a massive fanboy for kaiju films so I probably haven't seen the majority of them, but from what I have seen I'd say this was the best of the lot. It reminds me a lot stylistically of say an early Studio Ghibli film or other older Japanese animation; it captures the bleak aftermath of World War II very well and shows the struggles of the ordinary Japanese citizens in the wake of the war. Like those films it introduces characters for you to care about, from main characters the film focuses on to a fairly large cast of side characters that gain enough distinction to know their stories too. The parts with Godzilla himself are pretty terrifying and this particular subgenre of horror is easier to get away with having that PG13 tag and still having that sense of terror without showing very much blood and gore. I think I read something about how the director of this film wanted to recapture the dread and terror of Godzilla by doing a lot of shots from the ground looking up at Godzilla to better showcase just how frightening the concept would be, and I think it works well.

The story is gripping; the main character here is really a great lead. Amazing sound wise too. Ultimately, I think this is just a great film, horror or otherwise. It doesn't jump fully into being a traditional sort of horror film, or even just a monster/kaiju film. It uses the elements to create a perfect storm of a finished product.

It finally happened; I watched a movie and forget to add it to the list.

Movie in question is Little Bone Lodge, also known as The Last Exit (for some reason; that title has nothing to do with the film...). The reviews for this one were pretty strong so we bravely waded in the waters of Tubi for a second go with them. It's a solid film; the acting is great and it does a good job at creating a protagonist from an antagonist. It doesn't really earn that perfect Rotten Tomatoes score, but it is with a small number of reviews. That said it's still an above par offering; it's one of those films you can kind of guess what's going to happen, but the lead up to get there is still engaging enough.

Tonight's movie is going to be Viking Wolf, a Norwegian horror that Netflix distributed here back in March. I have a great interest in Scandinavian folklore and the horror potential it has, though I don't really think this will have anything to do with the region; it's just a werewolf film that just so happen to be from Norway. But we'll see. This will be the 100th movie on the list either way.

I watched Monstrous on a plane ride home last night starring Christina Ricci, that came out last year and I just never heard of it. It's about a mom in the 1950's who moved away from her ex-husband with their son, but a monster from the lake keeps coming into their house.

It was... pretty good. I think it might be interesting to watch it a second time because there's a late film moment that changes everything about it. But overall, it was a pretty basic story that is elevated by the ending. It's not really that special on the way there though. Some effects were also great to questionable. But it has Christina Ricci in it, so it's easy to stay engaged because she's awesome.

Viking Wolf: Well made, though fairly standard-fare werewolf film. The film's strengths are definitely in the visual department, because despite this being a seemingly lower budget film the CGI for the wolf itself is quite impressive. At first, I wasn't sure this was even going to be a werewolf story since there were hints more at this being a hellhound creature and they were introducing some viking lore backstory. But by the end, it was just a typical werewolf with all the typical fixings. That said, it is a competent film as far as this type of movie goes. I didn't really care about the backstory behind the characters unfortunately, that's kinda where it loses me a bit.

Creepypasta: I guess I knew what I was getting into with this one. What can really be said here? It's an anthology setup to tell a good deal of creepypasta style stories. The intro (well, outside of the narrator who is awful from start to finish) makes you believe you might see some cool things, you know, from better known/loved creepypastas. The TV displays a game being played called "Ben Drowned", of course a reference from one of my very favorite stories. But... that's largely where any good will is abandoned. The overarching storyline between the shorts is a huge load of "who cares", and the stories themselves range from a mix of "meh" to "wow, this is bad". There are just a few of them that I'd call effective, nowhere near enough to make up for the poor state of some of the others. This was just... bad stuff.

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. Thanksgiving
17. Beau is Afraid
18. The Blackening
19. She Came From the Woods
20. Knock at the Cabin
21. Bunker
22. Brooklyn 45
23. Birth/Rebirth
24. Cocaine Bear
25. Insidious: The Red Door
26. Final Cut
27. It Lives Inside
28. We Have a Ghost
29. Appendage
30. Jagged Mind
31. Haunted Mansion
32. Renfield

B Tier (84-70)

33. 65
34. The Boogeyman
35. The Last Voyage of the Demeter
36. V/H/S/85
37. Sorry About the Demon
38. Blood
39. Cobweb
40. Infinity Pool
41. Stalker
42. The Pope's Exorcist
43. From Black
44. Inside
45. Nefarious
46. The Puppetman
47. The Exorcist: Believer
48. The Nun II
49. Slotherhouse
50. Clock
51. The Communion Girl
52. Little Bone Lodge
53. Natty Knocks
54. The Ghost Within
55. Til Death Do Us Part
56. They Wait in the Dark

C Tier (69-50)

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

D Tier (49-30)

90. Elevator Game
91. The Black Demon
92. Bad Things
93. Leave
94. The Headmistress
95. Children of the Corn
96. Fear
97. Alone At Night
98. Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey

F Tier (29-0)

99. The Outwaters
100. Creepypasta
101. Perpetrator
102. The Unseen
103. Skinamarink

New on List: Little Bone Lodge, Viking Wolf, Creepypasta, Night of the Hunted, The Communion Girl

Night of the Hunted: I liked this one a lot more to begin with. It still ended up being pretty good I thought, but I preferred when the killer was more mysterious, clever and menacing. Unfortunately he sort of devolved into this far-right trope of a character, which I mean is fine since he was playing a villainous role, but I thought the protagonist here sympathized with him waaaaay too much for my liking. There are people beyond speaking any amount of sense to, and clearly this guy was one of them. Then at the end he shows up in person and tries to do a "who am I" game with her; dude, you are clearly the far-right wing nutjub you literally just portrayed yourself as not too long ago. The mystery around your identity is over now. Still, I did like the resourcefulness of the main character and a lot of the heartbreak involved with her situation.

The Communion Girl: This is a Spanish horror also released on Shudder; and by Spanish, I do mean it is from the country of Spain in this situation because I guess I was assuming this would be more Mexican in style but definitely not. I didn't have that high of hopes for this one coming in, but it's a pretty good ghost story style horror film. It definitely gave me vibes of The Ring several times, and I feel that was probably a big influence on this film. It's obviously no Ring, but it holds its own and I enjoyed it. Sometimes you need a more standard, by the books horror film that might not do anything new, but doesn't do anything terribly wrong either. I was sort of craving such a film before we watched this, so I'm glad it lived up to the task.

Yeah, Night of the Hunted sort of lost me with the sniper character. Which is a shame because I liked most everything else with it and thought they did creative stuff with it.

We caught a late showing of The Cello last night. It's a Saudi Arabian horror film starring Jeremy Irons and Tobin Bell, so it is also partially in English as well as the native Arabic language. It's directed by Darren Lynn Bousman, who also directed 4 of the SAW franchise films (II-IV, and Spiral). I really liked this film. Jeremy Irons is so delightfully devilish here and I thought the rest of the cast did a good job also. It's interesting to see a film from this country, especially a horror film. Not to get too political, but you'd almost be tricked into believing Saudi Arabia was a western nation given how this film goes. The horror feels quite western, and for a country so well known for being overly religious and has a bad reputation when it comes to women, you wouldn't know it from this film. There's even a brief mention by one of the characters of an older male character not being fair to women. It feels pretty progressive.

There are a good number of scares and there's no shying away from gore and violence either, which is again, something I found really surprising given the country of origin and how quick they seem to be to ban certain western films. The premise of this cursed musical instrument and the chaos it brings work really well I think, though I didn't really understand why it ended the way it did. That being said, I won't dock it too many points for that. Really great experience in my opinion.

Last night we watched Nightmare, which is a release from this year on Shudder. It's a Norwegian horror that's a cross between the genres of pregnancy and folklore. I've seen a little too many of these baby related movies this year I think, but this one was a little more interesting because it adds the wrinkle or some local supernatural myths into the mix. I do wish the idea was explored in a little more depth is all; I'm interested in the concept but the execution is a little flawed in places. I think it's decent overall, even though it has one of those endings that will just leave you scratching your head and wondering what just happened.

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. Haunted Mansion
33. Renfield

B Tier (84-70)

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

C Tier (69-50)

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

D Tier (49-30)

94. Elevator Game
95. The Black Demon
96. Bad Things
97. Leave
98. The Headmistress
99. Children of the Corn
100. Fear
101. Alone At Night
102. Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey

F Tier (29-0)

103. The Outwaters
104. Creepypasta
105. Perpetrator
106. The Unseen
107. Skinamarink

New on List: The Cello, Nightmare, Play Dead, The Sacrifice Game

Play Dead: This stars Jerry O'Connell as the main villain, which is something that I didn't think I'd really be able to see but he actually pulls it off quite well. When I hear his name along with a horror film, I can't help but think of Scream's most innocent and honest character. Anyway, the film has its flaws and I can admit that. It feels like it moves too fast sometimes, and you do have to suspend your disbelief quite a bit for the setup to the plot to even work but... I just found this to be such a fun movie to watch. It's a cat-and-mouse style horror and the main two characters just do such a good job at making this an enjoyable watch in my opinion. If you think about things too much I feel it's a detriment to the experience, so it's just one of those you have to roll with the punches on.

The Sacrifice Game: This is Shudder's newest original film; it's a Christmas set demon-summoning style film with some twists. Chiefly, the antagonists become the pursued eventually when they inadvertently fall into the hands of the demon they believe they're summoning. I wish a few of the characters had been around a little longer, but mostly it's a pretty good offering. Seeing Aladdin ham it up as a super cheesy, delusional villain was pretty hilarious. The demon itself is rather affably evil to a degree; we know that it is a demon and apparently does take delight in evil things... yet it also seems to have a moral compass too. There are some pretty creepy moments that only young girls contorting in strange ways can pull off, and amongst films of this type, it's above average to most.

The Fearway: This felt pretty low budget and overall, poorly done. I keep it just out of the F tier for the idea behind the film since I find the concept pretty interesting. Essentially, the film tells a story about two characters who are having a near death experience. The place they're in is not purgatory because they've not died yet; time passes differently in this realm and it's meant to signify their fight for survival in reality. That is, sadly, when anything good about this movie comes to an end. The acting here is rigid; at times it is fine, and at all other it's very wooden and robotic. I'm not sure if I should blame the cast or the writers; considering very few of the people involved with this project have Wikipedia pages it's probably a combination. It's a shame too because this idea is an interesting one, but the characters just aren't interesting, especially the supporting cast. I have no fucking idea what the point of them is, they seem to change their opinions at the drop of a hat and for no real reason. They also do an awful, awful take on my account's namesake in this film too. One of the worst portrayals of Charon ever.

The Scream franchise is absolutely cooked now.

https://twitter.com/creetureshow/status/1738657872349892731?t=8FAQkKJ1AM0h409EfCAvQA&s=19

triple oof

might as well shelve it at this point

Some didn't want him directing it anyway, though I didn't have much opinion one way or the other. The last two Screams were too well received and made too much money, so something will be done. It will most likely be inferior to what we had before, but oh well.

He clearly had a vision for a trilogy, and I think the last movie set up for a lot. I just don't know how you go forward without seeing that trilogy through.

they have to dump a bunch of money into neve's living room in order for them to pivot to a new set of people at this point

you can't finish the trilogy without either of the sisters, and I wouldn't be surprised to see mindy dip either

or just try and hard reboot, but I think that would collapse catastrophically

Well Ortega, at least she says, pulled out due to scheduling conflicts. They could always delay the film so those conflicts are resolved, though I'm not 100% sure that's 100% of the reason why she really pulled out. I'm not really sure how you can make the movie without either of the main characters, even if you were to bring back Sidney they really seemed like they were moving away from that. I was already a bit concerned for how this film would work; Landon didn't have anything to do with the first two films so him exited isn't that big of a deal in terms of that planned trilogy.

It's also a bit of a problem that you only have 2 of the 3 stars left alive in the film canon now. A reboot would have been easier if you had all 3 I think.

I suppose you can slide Kirby in to fill that void but it would still be off.

Ya know Scream rebooting only to release two great movies and then fully drop the ball with the third is pretty on brand on a meta level

If nothing else I'm glad for the posts so I'm able to put down more thoughts for films we've watched.

In My Mother's Skin: This was billed as a Filipino folk horror, available exclusively on Prime. I somehow missed this one when it first was launched back in October but I stumbled across it somehow. It falls into the same sort of bleak category as films like The VVitch and When Evil Lurks. It uses local folklore to weave a pretty dark, dreary tale where no good will come to the protagonists. It's definitely not a film that's heavy handed with its terror, but there are some pretty shocking scenes which again reminded me of ones I had seen earlier this year with WEL. I wouldn't quite put it on the same tier with that one, but it's a very solid offering nevertheless. The set pieces and locations in general are pretty awe-inspiring, and since it's in a foreign language I can't 100% be sure of the acting but it seemed pretty well done from what I could gather of it.

Merry Christmas!

There are some Christmas horrors out there but I am not sure I am going to spring for them or not. The ones released this year all look pretty darn bad, and considering I already saw the big named one they released in theaters (again, kinda underwhelming) we might just stick to watching something for free on Prime.

Last night we watched Sister Death. Another surprisingly good offering distributed by Netflix. They don't put out much, but when they have something it is seemingly all quality this year. This is a prequel to another film, which I have not watched, but it isn't necessary to have seen it. It's a bit like The Nun and The Conjuring; not totally necessary to have seen both to understand what's going on in the plot. Unlike The Nun, this particular movie gives main character status to our side character and makes them the protagonist of the story, which turns out to be a great idea. It takes a little while to figure out just what the plot of this film will boil down to, but once it does, I feel it tells a concise and tight story. The only thing I really didn't get was why the ghosts felt they needed to kill Rosa, if they were out for revenge against the school then why punish a character that's also being mistreated... anyway, there are a couple of really gnarly death scenes late in the movie (one is REALLY cool, in my opinion). I was fairly impressed by this one.

I don't know if you're aware, but Sister Death is a part of the Veronica Cinematic Universe. Veronica is probably worth checking out if you enjoyed Sister Death.

Yeah, I remember when it first came out you mentioning that fact. I didn't read up on Veronica too much, just that obviously the older version of the main character (that we see at the end) plays a role in that movie. This one is that character's backstory essentially; I'm not sure I will ever watch Veronica because of the time limitations watching the current stuff puts on me. I'm going to try again next year and have a better jump on things, maybe.

We ended up deciding to watch the Christmas horrors that are out this year. One last night, one tonight and one tomorrow. Those 3 films are A Creature Was Stirring, Nightmare on 34th Street and Santa Isn't Real. Those last two just look super cheesy and bad, so we started with the one that seemed more respectable on Christmas Day itself... and well, it was a movie that exists. It has Scout Taylor-Compton but she's woefully miscast in her role and also that guy from Friend Request I think as a really weird dude... it stars Chrissy Metz of This is Us fame but I have never watched that show, though I have heard of it. She does a pretty good job here, and for the most part this movie is okay. There's a decent creature design here, though the origin story is really wonky and later on we find out why that is. This is one of those... the main character is delusional movies. At the end, we find out in about 2 minutes the entire film was in her head. There weren't four characters in this movie, only two. And her daughter was never a monster, she was just on heroin and made it all up. Eventually this led to her daughter trying to escape from her and dying in a blizzard in front of her house. This creates several plotholes in the movie though, of which I'm not going to get into because my brain will hurt.

It wasn't great, firmly middle of the road film for me. It's really let down by the final act though, this could have been better. I still have zero hope for those other two movies.

Oh I watched It's a Wonderful Knife. I appreciated how they used the premise of It's a Wonderful Life for a horror movie, and I thought the characters were fun too. I didn't love it, but it was good and I enjoyed my time.

I have good tolerance for dumb kids in horror movies.

But Talk to Me? Man they should all die for all I care, that was way too much. Good premise I guess but that wasn't fun (or scary).

Talk To Me is one of the few great new IPs this year I think; less than half the films in my S tier for 2023 are new/stand-alone IPs.

Anyway we watched Santa Isn't Real. As the name might suggest, this isn't a good movie but it also wasn't quite as bad as I was thinking it would be going in. For whatever reason in this film, Santa is both good and evil. I guess he turns into Krampus if he thinks you're on the naughty list... he also for some reason wears a Santa mask... you know, even though he's implied to actually be Santa Claus at the same time. It could be that underneath the mask he's not actually what people think he is so he wears this as a front? Who knows... the main character spends most of the film posing as the killer anyway. There's some contradiction as well because one of the side characters gives her baskstory quickly and basically says that one time Santa gave her family a ton of gifts when they were bad off and couldn't afford anyway, so when the main character says she's been attacked by the real guy, this person believes her. Then again... she doesn't find it strange that Santa is evil. He always for some reason makes the attack look like a suicide attempt; I suppose to not draw suspicion... I'm probably thinking about this too deeply.

It's schlock and not very good, but at the same time it's shot fairly competently (except when they're in the forest, some weird shadow keeps appearing out of nowhere without a light source since they're supposedly in a heavy blizzard). The acting is fine; no one seems like they really suck so it's why I'll end up placing it above a handful of films that do have poor acting. One more Christmas horror to go tonight, and it looks like an anthology style horror. It's the longest of the 3 films as well.

After these, the only films left for me in 2023 will be Conference (Netflix), Quicksand and Attachment (Shudder) and The Devil Conspiracy (Hulu). I've given up on completing Prime, so if anyone has any suggestions on films released in 2023 that I simply must have on this final list one way or another, please let me know. @PrivateBiscuit1 I feel like next to me you've probably seen the most. Let me know if there's anything I should add to this list. I remember you mentioning Sick earlier this year; it was initially exclusive to Peacock but it is available for a price on Prime now as well.

I think Sick came out last year, but I really enjoyed that one too! I think the only other one that you may have missed was The Mill on Hulu. I can't remember if you saw that. But that one isn't really blow away or anything. I gave it a 7/10.

Sick is listed as 2022 but that's a film festival release. It debuted for regular audiences on January 13th this year.

Oh then yeah, go for it. As far as COVID-related movies go, Sick was actually pretty solid. I probably would've given it a 7.5 or an 8.