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This thread is my favorite thing on the forums these days. I need to make up for my poor showing last year so I’m in for 31 again!
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Sep 28, 2019 05:25
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1. Creepshow -File this one under movies I can’t believe I haven’t seen until now. I love horror anthologies and I wasn't exactly sure if I had seen it before, but it was all new to me. A great collection of zombies, body horror, animal attacks, and gross out. For what it's worth it even featured a torture porn story well before the introduction of Saw or Dee Snider’s Strangeland. This is exactly what I love about horror, unsettling stories and just the right mix of humor without being overbearing. Also, not too many horror movies can claim this, but it even made me close my eyes in disgust during the 4th story. (I hate creepy crawlies and it's why I will never be watching Slugs) Most Manly: The dad who slaps his kid, yells at his wife, and drinks a beer.  Favorite Fashion: Some 70s high-waisted, pleated, Mom khakis. 
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Sep 30, 2019 20:54
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2. Maximum Overdrive All of the movies I’m watching during this challenge are new to me, so when I saw that my local Alamo Drafthouse was showing this on the big screen I didn’t want to miss out. I remember being intrigued this movie’s VHS box in my local video rental store back in the day. Overall the movie was absurd and fun as long as you don’t think too hard about it. It featured Stephen King’s trademark of a group of people huddled together for survival against some external threat. My biggest fault against this movie is that it suffered from not really having a finale. It just kind of felt like King couldn’t come up with an ending so he was just like “gently caress it, let’s blow stuff up.” Most Manly: A Bible salesman with a huge stache who sexually assaulted the leading lady. Sad to say, I’ve met one of these in real life. (He’s in jail now – yay!) Favorite Fashion: A white denim skirt, a bold choice for Laura Harrington
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Oct 1, 2019 03:55
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 Super Samhain Challenge #1: The Best Month3. Vampyre I was originally going to do Videodrome for the 1st Samhain challenge, but I’m already working my way through Cronenberg’s movies and I thought doing this one would be more in the spirit of the challenges to expand my comfort zone of horror movies. I’m certainly glad I did and this movie was a quick and enjoyable 70 minutes. It had a fantastic use of shadow, lighting, and music to convey dread. I also liked the fact that Allan Gray had so few lines of dialogue. This made it easy for me to substitute myself for him and get drawn further into the movie. I was surprised at how intense some of the horror scenes in this movie were for the time, especially compared to universal’s Dracula. For example, shots looking out of a casket being sealed, watching a man be suffocated to death, and even the actual staking of the vampire. One final thought on this movie is how it liked to tease the audience with the appearance of the title character. For the first half of the movie it makes the audience ask the question, “is he a vampire!...nope, just German.” Favorite Fashion: The old man’s fuzzy robe.
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Oct 2, 2019 00:23
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 4. Donnie Darko I don't get it. I think my brain may have gotten this movie switched up with the premise of the Mothman Prophecies. I originally thought I was going to be watching a horror movie about a demonic rabbit who prophesied doom and found out that the real horror is rich people. As it started to get going, I was worried that this was going to turn into a revenge story for an angsty, rich, white guy which isn't fun espeically considering recent real world events. It's the kind of movie that makes me really appreciate that I have family and people in my life who love me. The characters have all of the material possessions they can want but they are all living miserable self centered lives. I didn't really see any character growth from Donnie that would make his actions in the third act make sense. I thought the reveals were kinda blah and didn't turn this into the horror/thriller story I was expecting it to be. When I read all of the reviews of the movie on Letterboxd that say this is a masterpiece, I can't help but wonder if that's more due to a young, attractive Jake Gyllenhaal.
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Oct 5, 2019 02:48
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5. The Borderlands / Last Prayer I thought this was a decent entry into the found footage genre. I didn't feel like there was anything really ground breaking (except the final scene) but it used all of the the familiar devices of the genre really effectively. I appreciated the fact that the characters had a job which gave them a legitimate reason to be filming and a reason to continue sticking around after the average person would have probably noped out of the situation. I remember years ago while attending mass that a priest mentioned that there is actually a group of priests who whose job is to debunk miracles. I guess that was what this team was supposed to be but I wasn't exactly clear if they were supposed to be actual priests, or just contractors for the Vatican. No one seemed to be pious or even really a believer and there were several comments that they made about church doctrine that made me want to go  I guess in a similar manner someone in the the army would groan when the military is depicted in a movie.
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Oct 6, 2019 19:17
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6. Nosferatu Just got back from watching this at an Alamo Drafthouse with a live score performed by the Invisible Czars. The band did a great job, and the music drove home how intense this movie is. One of those movies that you’ve seen quite a bit of, even if you’ve never purposefully watched or heard of it. While everyone is familiar with the monstrous appearance of Count Orlock, I was particularly impressed by how many horror elements they were able to include onscreen for a movie released in 1922. (deaths/rats/murder and even vampire feeding) I also liked how they handled the effects during the movie to show supernatural speed, strength, or ghostly projections. Were these all double exposure tricks? (I’m not too familiar with cinematography terms) Even without a live band, I would still highly recommend checking this one out if you haven’t seen it.
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Oct 8, 2019 04:47
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 SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #2: Dead & Buried 7. The Stuff - Larry Cohen It seems like my ulcerative colitis is starting to flare up, so over the next few days I get to experience real life body horror while I’m watching movies about body horror! Um yay?  On the surface level it’s a movie about evil yogurt, but just a little bit deeper and you realize that it’s  the horror movie. It was insane in all the right ways: body horror, some comedy, some political commentary without being overbearing. Just don’t think too hard about the plot, because sometimes the script meanders and things just kind of happen. I would love to see someone do an updated version of this concept after the invention of Social Media. It also turned out that picking Larry Cohen and this movie was perfect for the challenge due to the pretty blatant self-insert of the main character, Moe Rutherford. He’s sorta suave, gets the girl, always does the right thing, and punches all the bad guys in the face. In a parallel universe I imagine an entire series of Moe Rutherford mysteries as he goes around punching people, sleeping with women, and investigating the paranormal. Favorite Fashion: Swimsuits and Fur Coats...sure why not.
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Oct 16, 2019 00:58
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Would Joker count for the challenge?
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Oct 16, 2019 05:14
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8. Joker If this doesn’t count then I have no problem excluding it from the challenge, I just felt like I had to do a brain dump after watching it. Does Joaquin Phoenix’s naked, contorted, and bruised body while wearing tighty whitey’s count as body horror? Or could it partially count as horror due to the decent amount of kills, blood, and gore? Even Phoenix’s laughter that turns to sobbing tugged on my heart in much the same way that Ari Aster’s patented “grief wail” does in his movies. A whole lot to unpack. Overall I liked it. The movie kept me engaged and stretched my emotions all over the place by the time it was done despite not having a lot of action. When I saw the opening scene where the Joker has his sign stolen and he is beaten up for no reason reminded me of when I visited Coney Island and was waiting in line for the Cyclone. I could overhear some kids around me and was shocked by of their comments. Where I grew up I was used to mischievous fun making but what these kids were saying were just nasty. Very real anger in general seemed to be center stage during this movie. While GBS joked about this moving being an incel revenge story, it really seemed to be about class disparity and the treatment/neglect of the underprivileged by those in power. Pretty much the same undercurrent of growing anger that I’ve been noticing on the forums for the last couple of years. Even killing the three guys on the subway seemed to be a direct callout to the real case of the New York subway shooter who open fired on 4 people on a subway car and claimed his extreme actions were due to previously being targeted by muggers. Representation of this very real pent up anger and how the internet encourages us to distance ourselves from other people made me appreciate the sentiment that we all need to show some empathy for others. Maybe the point of the movie is that the real horror is…Us? (I should probably get around to watching that movie next) Shankel Magnus fucked around with this message at 06:02 on Oct 16, 2019 |
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Oct 16, 2019 05:55
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 SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #3: Horror Noire 9. Us Believe it or not, I’ve managed to completely miss out on Jordan Peele’s horror movies. I was overseas when Get Out was released and I was in the hospital earlier this year when Us came out. I decided to start with Us since Get Out was so widely praised that I’ve already had most of the story accidentally spoiled. When I first started watching this I was worried that it was just going to be merely a home invasion movie. I liked it a lot more when I realized the scope was much larger then it originally appeared to be. Being in the military, I’m already familiar with the “hands across America” concept when cleaning up an area to pickup any loose pieces of trash. When I first saw the tethered in a line it gave me a great “oh! hands across America haha…oh crap!” moment of realization of what they were doing. Winston Duke as the Dad was easily my favorite character in the movie, both before and after the tethered arrived. I got some great (unintentional?) laughs when he had his low speed limping chase with his doppelganger. I also loved the looks and eye rolls his daughter would give him. One thing that held me back from liking this movie even more was that I really didn’t seem to understand the rules that it operated under. Young Adelaide was able to come to the surface through the house of mirrors, so why didn’t surface Adelaide do the same thing after she was kidnapped? What kept the rest of the tethered from coming to the surface earlier? I could see surface Adelaide’s reason for seeking revenge on her clone, but why did she want to take it out on everyone else? Where did they get the supplies for their scissors and red jumpsuits?
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Oct 17, 2019 03:22
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 10. As Above, So Below I thought this was a good movie, not amazing, but its premise worked for me. The opening scene established the mystery behind the plot and gave me a key bit about Scarlett’s character. She's not afraid of breaking the rules and comes away mostly unscathed and all the better for the risks that she takes. So of course she won’t bat an eye at getting herself into the trouble that makes up the rest of the movie. I appreciate when a movie gives me a reason why someone won't just give up or leave when the average person would have noped out of the situation. I think most people posting here are already aware that the movie was shot on location in the real catacombs of Paris. The found footage here did the trick of making me as the viewer feel like I’m truly along for the ride. The close shots did a great job of conveying the claustrophobia of the situation each minute that the group was underground. I also liked how the Indiana Jones-esque mystery made me want to go deeper into the catacombs with the characters to see what exacting was down there. The happy ending was a nice surprise for a change. I was fully expecting to see the characters all die and get stuck in hell. It subverted my expectations and actually rewarded the characters for being brave, which is something I would like to see more horror movies do. Modern horror movie fans are smart these days and we can all pat ourselves on the back by saying “I wouldn’t get in that trouble, because I wouldn’t be stupid enough to keep going deeper.” In this case, the risk adverse viewer would have remained trapped, and at least some of the group who took the risk would survive. I also like that the ending had a second subtle nod to Dante’s Inferno as Dante managed to escape hell by climbing downward.
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Oct 18, 2019 01:20
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SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #5: Tourist Trap 11. Jeruzalem I lived for a little while in Israel, so I figured I would check and see if they had any locally produced horror movies. It turns out that the first full length Israeli horror movie was only released in 2010. Taking this into consideration, I thought that Jeruzalem did a pretty decent job for a found footage movie made only 5 years after the official creation of Israeli horror. The gimmick this time around is that one of the characters receives a pair of Google Glasses before they leave on a trip to Israel. If actual Google Glasses were this functional then I think we’d all be wearing them today. The characters make a detour to Jerusalem and then get trapped in the old city as supernatural events start to ramp up. The movie brought back some fun memories, having visited Jerusalem myself and getting to do a lot of the touristy stuff in the old city. The movie also had a subplot revolving around Jerusalem Syndrome, where supposedly otherwise normal people visit the city and then start to behave bizarrely and claim that God is speaking to them or they are a returned prophet. I hadn’t heard of this before, but I thought it was a cool touch. I think the film had some cool ideas that they didn’t really get to flesh out because of the limited budget. It teases at the beginning being a story about cooperation between the three major religions found in Israel but this isn’t really followed through as the movie progresses. The CG wasn’t that great, but they were also smart enough to keep it hidden, or only in the shot for seconds at a time. The ending was cool and maybe even a happy ending depending on how into metal you are. 
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Oct 21, 2019 22:17
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SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #4: Inktober- Watch a horror movie that heavily features art or the main character is an artist  12. Suspiria (1977) If I was in Suzie’s place and someone kept waking me up to spout exposition at me, I would have off’d her long before the coven. I thought this was good, but I don’t think I’m ready to jump on the “best of all time” bandwagon. That said, the lighting, sets, and mood were really well done and I can see where the movie's praise comes from. Suspiria featured a decent amount of gore and I completely didn’t see the concertina wire kill coming. I did think that some shots, like when the blind guy is killed seemed to linger a little too long. The music took center stage for me with its haunting earworm of a melody. There was a great buildup of suspense in the “bomb under the table” sense. I also particularly enjoyed how the head mistress would offer students a way out of their situation, but hand wave it away as an unreasonable thing to do. “Of course you can leave, but it’s late already and it’s only for one night.” Fashion Thoughts: If you are going to go sneaking about your wood floored school at night, maybe you shouldn’t wear high heels. Also, every gentleman should own a lime green sportscoat.
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Oct 22, 2019 04:07
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SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #7: Monster Mash-up 13. Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein Loved this movie especially because it is incredibly in line with my personal sense of humor. Jokes and one liners are delivered so sharply that if you blink you could easily miss them. I personally loved Lou Costello’s quick 4th wall breaking glances at the camera. Just long enough to get a laugh, but not so long as to take the audience out of watching the film. I thought that the horror elements worked well considered when this was made. Bela Lugosi was fantastic and menacing as always. I like that he actually got included in the action/fight scenes at the end considering the most aggressive thing he did during the original Dracula was sissy-slap a mirror. The whole movie is building to the final fight/chase at the end and I think my only complaint is I wish that it lasted a bit longer.
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Oct 23, 2019 04:13
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SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #10: Navel Gazing 14. House Holy crap! What a ride! I was familiar with the horror movie House from the 80s but I never heard of this one before the thread. It felt like someone wrote a script for an anime and afterwards decided to use live actors instead. This movie is about 7 Japanese high school girls, each with a name that matches the 1 personality trait they’re each allowed to have. One girl’s personality is fat (shamefully weighs in the triple digits), and is constantly talking about food. They get invited to one of the girl’s aunt’s house for a vacation and you can figure out the rest. The movie was a mashup of horror, comedy, melodrama, and absurdity until things looped back into comedy again. It was so insane that it actually worked. I kept watching just to see what crazy new thing it would come up with in the next scene and the movie did not disappoint. House also reminded me of a story of how the band Cheap Trick got their name. After attending a Slade concert, one of the members remarked, “they used every cheap trick in the book.” This is exactly how I felt after watching this movie. Every cheap editing trick, transition, or special effect was crammed into this movie without any rhyme or reason. That being said, I have to recommend this insane masterpiece if you haven’t seen it.
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Oct 28, 2019 01:15
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15. Rabid:  I’ve been keeping up with my movie watching, but I’m starting to really fall behind on getting my reviews posted. So I plan on getting them up in a little more rapid fashion. This was my favorite of the three Cronenberg movies I’ve seen so far. (The other two are Scanners and Shivers) It felt like he took some of the concepts and lessons learned from Shivers and made a tighter, more effective movie. Much like Shivers, it’s still effectively a zombie movie. People are infected, spread the disease, panic sets in, and then cops just start doing cop things. Marilyn Chambers did an excellent job as Rose. I thought it was interesting and fairly progressive for 1977 that her whole hunting plan was be an attractive women, go somewhere and wait for about 2.5 seconds for a guy to creep on her. Her condition basically shifts the power dynamic of that typical situation back in her favor. As I was watching it, I thought it was a little weird that she kept finding reasons to take her top off. It made a little more sense when I went on Wikipedia and saw that she was an adult film star prior to acting in this. Favorite Fashion: Bellbottom Overalls. My dream is one day that bell bottoms will truly come back into fashion.
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Oct 28, 2019 01:41
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 16. One Cut of the Dead Another movie I never heard of before starting this challenge. Got to see this one on the big screen and holy crap it was awesome. This was so much fun and I felt like I was truly watching something fresh. I make a point of not rewatching movies because I feel that there are still so many amazing films I haven’t seen yet. This movie is one of those rare exceptions where I could see myself gladly sitting down to watch it again. I’m not the biggest movie buff, so I’ve never seen a movie done in one shot before. I loved how the script allowed the movie to cover up for mistakes, like the camera man falling down while running through the field, by just explaining it away during its second half. Harumi’s “POM!” as she was escaping everyone trying to hold her back had me laughing out loud. It was a perfect mix of humor, horror, and clever movie making. 5/5
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Oct 28, 2019 21:25
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 17. Ginger Snaps Ah yes, the age old question of puberty or werewolves. With the title and the box art, it could be easy to mistake this for a PG-13 teen “horror” movie in the same vein as Twilight. Thankfully, I decided to check it out based on a recommendation earlier in the thread. It sort of reminded me of The Lost Boys. A character is slowly seduced by the powers associated with becoming a supernatural creature, mixed with the horrific realization of the monster she becomes. Along with that, there was a lot more gore in this movie then I was expecting. I enjoyed the relationship between Brigette and Ginger and how they had an “us against everyone else” mentality. I’ve definitely known my fair share of girls who fit into this same angsty mold. At parts, I couldn’t help but think of the goth kids from South Park. It even includes a “get out of my room, Mom” scene.
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Nov 1, 2019 01:48
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 18. The VVitch – More proof that Puritans and having a vagina don’t mix. Beautiful looking movie and I really appreciated how the characters all started out “good” or at least well intentioned. After a series of unfortunate events and slowly they start a witch hunt without even really realizing it. Well intentioned people are trying to weed out evil in the name of a greater good. Innocent people get caught in the crossfire. People are forced to do extraordinary things to prove their faith and loyalty. If anyone dares to raise their voice to call for moderation, or to reconsider the groups actions then they are labeled as evil as well. There are parallels to the events in this story even today. One last thought: So nowadays, instead of asking someone to sign a book does the devil ask you to like, link, and subscribe? #hailsatanlol
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Nov 1, 2019 01:58
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 SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #6: Sometimes They Come Back19. The Blob This is one of those VHS boxes that freaked me out whenever I happened to stray into the horror section of the video rental store when I was younger. I just somehow never got around to watching it until this month. This movie is 80s to the core, right down to the hair metal song during the end credits. It did decent job of trying to show the town itself with some character as a down on its luck ski town. As far as the Blob itself, I wasn’t expecting it to be so fast moving. At points this almost felt like The Blob by way of John Carpenter’s The Thing. I thought the leading man kill/fakeout at the beginning was great and helped create an air where no one really felt “safe.” (except the final girl of course) There were so many good kills during this movie. The phone booth kill was loving awesome! Shower thought: So was the Blob supposed to be the good guy? I mean it kills a date rapist, a guy talking in a movie theater, a corrupt government official, and a macho mustached cop.
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Nov 1, 2019 03:21
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SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #9: Hackers 20. Videodrome I was working my way through Cronenberg’s filmography, but I decided to skip the Brood so I could do this challenge. Cronenberg definitely feels like he’s found his footing with his trademark squishy gore. The writing and the pacing felt stronger as a whole compared to his earlier films. There was just enough mystery about what was going on to keep me intrigued. It’s just a shame that this movie didn’t deliver at the box office. I’m sure a lot of other people have already made this observation but the film in a way predicted the SA Forums – “soon we will all have special names.”  It was an interesting examination of how violence or depraved content can desensitize someone and lead them to seek out even more depraved content. My mind kept hearing Tool’s Stinkfist as I was watching this, “soon you will not want me any other way.” After watching this movie, I also realized where Devin Townsend of Strapping Young Lad came up with the song title, “All Hail the New Flesh.”
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Nov 1, 2019 04:01
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21. Rocky Horror Picture Show Saw this one at an Alamo Drafthouse movie party. The audience was encouraged to do shout outs during the film, but because there were no live actors the crowd was fairly subdued. (for a Rocky Horror crowd). I kind of wish that the Goon who said he didn’t have a good time at his live showing could have seen this one. There were just enough call outs to make it a special event and add some extra laughs without getting obnoxious. It’s been a few days already and I’m still catching myself singing lines from it. I love it. It’s something everyone should do at least once before they die.
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Nov 1, 2019 04:41
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 22. Demon Knight This one kicked off the 4 horror movie marathon at the Alamo Drafthouse called, Dismember the Alamo. This was my first rewatch of the challenge and coincidentally it would be my pick if someone asked me to give them a recommendation for an intro to horror. Billy Zanes knocks it out of the park as the collector. The script was solid with great humor and one liners. The bigger budget allowed the movie to really go all out with practical creature effects and gore. It’s just a good time all the way through. My only really minor complaint is that I seem to remember most of the Tales from the Crypt TV shows had twisted endings where the hero almost never survived or is messed up in some way. I was a little surprised when I watched this the first time and that wasn’t really the case. Not a deal-breaker at all.
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Nov 1, 2019 05:05
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Maxwell Lord posted:Never fully bought into the first, because Yeah it kills the date rapist and also the girl he was molesting. A flawed hero to be sure.  23. Centipede Horror This loving rocked! I say this as someone who hates creepy crawlies. Yes there are centipedes, and yes there is plenty of horror but it has so much more to offer. It was made in China and is supposed to take place in “Southeast Asia.” I’m not sure exactly where because no one is ever more specific then that. The movie follows a guy as he investigates the mysterious illness and death of his sister. This leads to some cool scenes depicting various forms of Asian mysticism. The movie eventually becomes Dragonball Z by way of Asian mysticism and it is awesome! Oh yeah and there are also centipedes. How can you not love that an actress swallowed live centipedes and vomited them on camera. My final stupid thoughts: Clearly this movie was made with the use of time machines as the male lead is wearing polo shirts with Vineyard Vines logos even though the movie was made in 1982.
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Nov 1, 2019 15:27
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 24. Death Spa I think they were trying to go for the record of having the most bewbs per capita in a horror movie without just being straight up soft core porn. It’s filled with pure distilled 80s gym fashion including leotards, spandex, headbands, and of course even more bewbs. The script managed to take a fairly simple premise of a Spa that kills people and make it overly complicated. Were people dying because of a computer malfunction, insurance fraud, a creepy nerd, ghosts, or satan? After watching this, I’m still not exactly sure myself. It did feature a guy getting killed by a Pec Fly machine so that was pretty rad. It also featured my new favorite 80s burn:  “why don’t you show off for me?” “I never waste effort in the gym, besides I’m Betamax, you’re VHS.” 25. Phantasm The final movie of this year’s Dismember the Alamo and my second rewatch of the challenge but I’m not complaining. Phantasm stills holds up as good as the first time I saw it. It finds a sweet spot for me between teen action/adventure and horror. One thing I noticed on this viewing was the lighting. There were several scenes where everything is black with the exception of a small area in the middle of the scene where the actors are. I thought this was a really cool way to create a sense of isolation and dread on a limited budget. Another thing I noticed this time around was how frequently the characters’ plans involved splitting up, only to immediately get into trouble. Then as soon as the trouble is resolved, everyone wants to split up again. I wonder if this was intention to go along with the dream-like atmosphere of the movie. I felt similar to this in a dream last night where I kept doing the same thing over and over again.
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Nov 1, 2019 16:07
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 SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #12: Cavalcade of Creepiness26. XX I feel like another title for this Anthology could have been “Mother’s Day” as three of the four stories seem to be horrific spins on the depths of a mother’s love for her children. I thought 3 of the 4 stories were excellent and I would highly recommend this one. In the first short I noticed that the mother is initially depicted as uncaring as she brushes off what's going on with her son. However towards the end of the short you can see her fantasizing about how she would literally give an appendage if it meant nourishing and protecting her family. The Birthday Party depicted how even though a Mom isn’t perfect, she will still go through pretty much anything to protect her kids. Even despite not getting the respect or anything really in return. The third short, “Don’t Fall” is the only one that fell a little flat for me. It seemed like it was a pretty paint by numbers story. Kids go somewhere they shouldn’t and they’re killed because of it. Unless there is some serious subtext that I’m missing, this one didn’t feel like it fit with the rest of the anthology. My favorite short of the 4 was “Her Only Living Son” which returns to the theme of motherhood. I thought it was beautiful how it depicted the mother’s love for her son, even when anyone else would have run away and left him to his fate. I love how at the end she tells him that she did everything for him - was there for him when he was sick, helped him through his troubles, and even ran away from a satanic cult. In short, Mom’s are awesome.
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Nov 1, 2019 16:37
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 27. House of the Devil This is the only one of the challenge so far that didn’t do it for me. I like a slow burn horror movie that builds atmosphere. Heck, Midsommar is my favorite new horror movie of the year. The difference here, is that I didn’t feel that the build up paid off. All we got was maybe 10 minutes of action followed by yet another Rosemary’s Baby setup. These cults really have to come up with some new material other then birthing the anti-christ. The other thing that bugs me was the amount of red flags that would have made a reasonable person in that situation “nope out.” Contrast that with Midsommar where I can see the characters getting pitched the idea of – “hey, let’s go to my village in Sweden, do some shrooms, and party on our spring break wooooo!” The characters there don’t know they’re in a horror movie and its reasonable for them to go. In this movie the red flags include: the guy hanging up and not meeting her, getting her home phone number even though she didn’t give it to him, the house being in the middle of nowhere, the guy saying he doesn’t have much money then 5 minutes later offering $400 to baby sit for 4 hours, the guy refusing to allow a second person around, lying about having a child and claiming he needs elder care, the guy not even showing her to the older woman she is supposed to care for.. Holy crap! Was this all intentionally bad, to go along with the retro film making or was this just lazy writing? I did enjoy the fact that it was filmed in retrovision and the house it took place in was gorgeous. One last odd thing I noticed was that the director made frequent use of a still camera. This resulted in the effect that made me feel like I spent an unusually long amount of time looking at Jocelin Donahue’s butt. Each scene the camera would wait patiently as she would take a long walk to exit the shot. At about the halfway mark I was thinking that it was getting a little excessive.
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Nov 1, 2019 16:51
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SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #8: Happy Holidays! 28. Prom Night I saw this was another Jamie Lee Curtis horror movie but I can’t say I ever had an incredible urge to seek it out. So another Samhain challenge success! It kicks off with the creepiest game of hide and seek ever that leads to a girl dying. “We can’t tell anyone because they will say it was our fault.” Yeah, because it was. Fast forward six years later and none of the actors look like they are even remotely near 16 years old. Overall the movie feels like a quaint throwback to a time when if you were a masked killer seeking revenge on high school kids you had to stab them instead of shooting them. My favorite subtle 70s touch was the Kiss poster in the school cafeteria. SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #11: All Hail The King29. Dreamcatcher – Hail to the King It started out as such a good horror movie, then it became a stupid science fiction movie. I loved the isolation of the cabin in the woods. It had a great build of suspense with the animals getting red spots on them and running away in droves. The snake monsters were horrific even though the CG doesn’t really hold up by 2019 standards. I love the scene with Beaver sitting on the toilet containing an alien and trying to fight the need to pickup a toothpick. I totally believe that someone with severe enough OCD would eventually let this overcome his survival instinct. Then the whole thing falls apart and we lose all that great tension that was built in the first 30 minutes. I think it would have been a much better movie if it just stayed horror and the script let the intentions of the aliens remain unknown. 30. Elvira Mistress of the Dark It’s not really a great comedy. I felt like most of the jokes fell flat and the horror elements were relatively light. I was just about ready to write this one off…then I got to the last scene. It rocketed this movie back into my good graces. 5/5 Twirling Tassels
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Nov 1, 2019 17:03
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| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 13:37 |
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SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #13: Maniac 31. Braham Stoker’s Dracula It’s funny, I never really thought of this as a guilty pleasure, but in the last few years I’ve noticed a lot of people badmouthing this movie. I get it, the movie took a lot of artistic liberties and as a result the title’s not really accurate. Upon rewatch, it's still visually stunning even today. It hits a sweet spot between the 90s “sexy vampires” and the classic horrific vampires. Gary Oldman’s portrayal of Dracula captured the suave of Lugosi while being about to show the horror of Dracula using the updated practical effects of the time. I even liked Keanu Reeves’ as Jonathan Harker. I remember when I read the book that Harker came off as pretty clueless, despite all of the creepy stuff that was happening around him at Castle Dracula. Reeves’ confused and semi-reserved portrayal of the character worked perfectly for me. After the rewatch, I think this movie is great and I don’t really get the hate it receives. 31 movies watched. 13 Samhain Challenges completed. Oh my God it's over. But as any good horror fan knows... it's never really over. Now I need a rap song to sum up the plots of all the movies I've watched.
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Nov 1, 2019 17:10
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