October Horror Challenge 2017 #100: "Split"

Somehow, and I have no idea how this happened, but somehow it totally escaped my knowledge that M. Night Shyamalan had a new movie out. I tend to like his movies even when other people don't like them (hello, "The Village" and "Lady in the Water") but some of them even I couldn't stand (goodbye, "The Happening"). I almost feel like he gets too caught up in the formula of his movies, where everything is about the twist at the end, so he throws the rest of the movie away because the twist is the only important part. It's like he doesn't know that the REASON "The Sixth Sense" was so shocking was because people cared about his characters and the story behind their struggles. The plot matters too, dude. Focus on the story, the first hour and a half of the movie, not just the "gotcha" in the last 20 minutes. All in all, though, I've liked his movies more often than I haven't, so I'm excited to give this a chance.

I really don't want to give too much away (read: anything) but the story centers on three teenage girls who are abducted by a guy with split personalities. Now if you know me, you probably know that I don't like the way most media portrays "multiple personality disorder," more accurately known as "dissociative identity disorder" because it's usually played for laughs or for dramatic affect, so accuracy gets chucked out the window in favor of the most sensationalized bullshit that's not even within shouting distance of what the condition is like for real people. I bitch about it a lot. I don't think it's too much to ask that the filmmakers have some idea what the hell they're talking about before they use a real mental illness as the main plot point in their movie.

I will say that of all the portrayals of dissociative identity disorder that I've seen, this one does come the closest to the behavior and experiences of the people I know who actually have the disorder. It was nice not being so pissed off by the acting that I was unable to concentrate on the movie through the clouds of my rage. James McAvoy is a good actor in general, so I shouldn't be surprised that he plays the role so we'll, but I'm so used to seeing movies screw this plot up that I forget there's any other option. Anna Taylor Joy is a pretty good actress, too. She was the best thing about the movie "The Witch" that I saw last year for the challenge, and it's nice to know she's not afraid to star in more horror movies. Scream Queen status is just around the corner for you, lady, and I have to say it looks good on you.

So how does this movie stack up in the end? Is the whole as good as the sum of its parts? Can I answer these questions without spoiling the whole movie for you? Let me try. First, I have to say that this movie shares a lot of similar ideas with other movies that I love, in that the messed-up characters are the most interesting. "The broken are the more highly evolved," as this movie says. I will also say that while I have generally enjoyed most of Shyamalan's movies, there is one that will always be my favorite, and this movie gives a nod to that movie at the end, which makes my heart do a happy dance. Stay tuned after the "end," because there's more to come.

I mean, I'm not sure what else to say. This movie is twisty and weird, and honestly I could tell you right now how it ends and I'm not sure that would spoil it for you, only because what makes this movie good for me is watching it play out, watching good actors act their asses off. If I read the script, I'd probably throw it across the room at the end and demand my money back, because it's ridiculous, and yet it works for me, much the way 'Lady in the Water" did. That one didn't even really have a twist ending in the strictest sense, just a kind of fairytale story that worked in a way watching it play out that I don't think it would have worked any other way. I'm not sure if I've answered the question of whether you should watch this movie or not, but I'm glad that I watched it.

October Horror Challenge 2017 #99: "The Conjuring II"

I really really loved the first "Conjuring." I mean REALLY loved it. The family was compelling, I cared about them and was rooting for them, and the performances were so great. It was one of those rare horror movies that even a lot of non-horror fans loved, too. All around a great experience. I was stoked when I heard that they were making a sequel, and I was excited to see it, hoping that it would be great, too. Hope springs eternal, right? I wanted to wait for the October Horror Challenge before I finally saw it though, so I've been waiting almost a year. Bring on the ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggedy beasties and things that go bump in the night!

In this movie, paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren are supposed to be on sabbatical after a particularly harrowing investigation, but find themselves traveling to North London to help a single mother raising 4 children alone in a house that she swears is plagued by a supernatural spirit. Damn ghosts always have to ruin everything, don't they? Plus the mom already has way more than enough to worry about without an evil spirit factored into the occasion. Her husband recently abandoned the family, her kids are acting out, her oldest daughter is having trouble in school, and her house is falling into disrepair while she's having trouble paying bills and making ends meet.


Right at the beginning of the movie, we see the kids playing with an Ouija board, like they've never seen a horror movie before so they don't know any better. Of course, they don't know that their house is haunted, so it really isn't their fault I guess. The churches I used to go to warned against using tools like the Ouija board because it gave demons and Satan a foothold in your life, like a doorway they can come through later whether you want them to or not, which is really creepy. If you didn't go to churches like that, though, you might not think of a board game as dangerous. Plus those churches also said I shouldn't watch horror movies because THOSE give Satan a foothold into your life as well, so you can see how much I listened to their warnings. At 100+ horror movies a year, I guess I'm doomed even if I never play with an Ouija board. Whoops.

So I told you how much I loved the first movie, but as much as I loved the first movie, it didn't scare me, just intrigued me. This movie definitely seemed scarier to me. It had several scenes that gave me chills. Plus I really liked the family in this movie. I feel for the little girl who is most affected by the evil spirit. First she loses her dad, then some evil spirit starts scaring her, then it possesses her and freaks her out and alienates her from all her friends. Mean ass fucking ghost.

Not everything is perfect in this movie, however. The subplot involving Ed and Lorraine Warren themselves feels kinda tacked on, and it feels like someone glued two movies together, or at least spliced scenes from some unrelated movie into this one. I feel like that should have been a separate movie unto itself instead of cluttering up this movie. And the conclusion had way too much going on, special effects and lights and magic and WHAM BAM THANK YOU MA'AM, and I think a quieter ending, like the one from the first movie, would have suited this one better. Aside from that though, I really did enjoy this movie and I'm so glad I finally checked it out. I think they could keep making these sequels for awhile using different case files from the Warrens, and I'm so here for it. Bring on The Conjuring III!

October Horror Challenge 2017 #98: "Schizo (1976)"

Gotta love sleazy 70s horror films. For the second time today I'm immersing myself in trashy 70s gore and sleaze, and I love it. This is another movie I've been wanting to see for awhile, but I never got around to it for whatever reason. So many horror movies, so little time, I suppose. Luckily I've managed to catch up on a lot of those movies for the challenge this month, so here we go again.

This movie is about a woman, a famous figure skater, who is getting married to a man she hasn't known for very long. Love at first sight, I guess. One of the guests at the wedding is very much unwanted, however. It's a man from her past, who seems to be a crazed and dangerous man who is definitely not happy with her for getting married. He tries to track her down, and when he finds her, horrible things start to happen.

Of course, this movie gives a woefully inaccurate definition of Schizophrenia right at the beginning, souring my opinion of the movie before it even begins. A sleazy horror movie I watched last year called "Bleed" actually did a much better job portraying the reality of what Schizophrenia is like, which impressed me, because it didn't have to do that, but it did, and that attention to detail elevated the plot of the whole movie for me. This movie seems basically like the filmmakers' thought process went as follows "this killer is crazy, all crazy is same crazy, schizo is better title than just "crazy," so killer must be schizophrenic." Not impressed, movie. Know your shit or don't bother to give a definition at all. It was the 70s, though, so maybe knowledge of mental health has just come a long way since then and I shouldn't be putting my current standards of accuracy onto an older movie. But they could have just made the killer crazy and not tried to sound all sophisticated by having a shrink give a definition at the beginning of their movie which is just 50 shades of wrong. I'd have been much happier if they'd just made a gory horror flick called "Schizo" and not tried to sound all intellectual about it. Stay in your lane, movie.

Apart from the wrong wrong wrongity-wrongness of the psychobabble crap, the movie isn't bad. The acting is pretty good, and the filmmakers ratchet up the tension by making the scary crazy guy act erratically, so we're never sure what his intentions are for the main character and what he's going to do when he finally gets to her. I like the main character, she's in love but she wants to retain her own identity and focus on her career too, which makes her relatable to me. Her fiance/husband is kind of a tool, but he's ok I guess, just perhaps a tad too in love with himself. He also blames the fact that they don't know much about each other before getting married on her, because it's all one person's job to open up in a relationship, especially if she knows he's a douche who plans on using everything he knows about her past as a reason not to believe her when she says there's a killer stalking her. Nice one, asshole.

There are some great tense moments in this movie. Some kill scenes where gore is scarce but still used to great advantage. There's also a scene that takes place at a seance that gave me chills (and I watch a lot of these movies, so that's something I didn't expect). I like the sense of mystery here, too. I got the sense that the movie was hiding stuff from us, so I was figuring out possible twists in my head while I watched it. I love mysteries, so that's a lot of fun for me. Ultimately the ending of the movie isn't totally unexpected, but it's still well done and kinda freaky, so in spite of the silly pseudo-psychobabble crap at the beginning, I wound up enjoying this movie.

October Horror Challenge 2017 #97: "Deathbed (1977)"

Last year I watched a movie called "Death Bed," and the one I watched was a movie I'd read about in an article in Fangoria magazine sometime around the year 2000 or so. The movie I saw wasn't the greatest movie ever made, but it was fun. I'd heard of another movie though, one also called "Deathbed," and it was supposed to be a lost horror film, a crazy surrealist horrir film that sounded a lot better than the movie I saw. I was intrigued, so I put that movie on my list of those I definitely had to watch, and now I'm finally getting a chance to check it out.

Apparently this movie is actually known by it's full title "Deathbed: the bed  that Eats," and it's about a cursed bed that contains the spirit of a demon that lures people to it, convinces them to have sex in it, and then eats them. The bed sits abandoned on the edge of a crumbling estate that was once grand and beautiful. People who are dumb enough to have sex in a mysterious bed in a crumbling, abandoned mansion pretty much deserve what they get, and it's not like we really get to know any of the characters well enough to care much about them.

There's some pretty cool gore here. A lot of it is the "red paint splashed on people" style of special effects, but it's also cool seeing people get sucked into the bed and eaten. I can definitely see what they mean when they call this movie "surreal." There's  voiceover narration throughout most of the film, provided by another soul trapped inside a painting (don't ask, I'm not sure I understand it either) and there's lots of disjointed music and dreamlike imagery that gives the movie a nightmarish quality.

The movie is definitely creepy, but it was hard for me to look away from the screen, even though I wasn't sure if ever knew what was going on, so the filmmakers must have done something right. I can't really recommend this movie except to weird people like me, but if you enjoy strange movies that don't make much sense and give you a headache while at the same time hypnotized you so you can't look away, this movie is for you!

October Horror Challenge 2017 #96: "Uncle Sam"

I've wanted to see this movie ever since I was younger and I read an article about it in Fangoria magazine. Bach when this movie came out, the country was still reeling from the conflict in Desert Storm, so patriotic media seemed to still be everywhere. This movie, being a patriotic horror movie, fit right in with the cultural zeitgeist at the time. Plus campy horror movies like "The Ice Cream Man" (which I also still haven't seen) seemed to be everywhere. I'm a little late to the party here, but I'm finally getting a chance to check this movie out.

The plot of the movie concerns a soldier killed in Desert Storm who comes back to life and decides to punish people from his small hometown who don't show enough patriotic spirit on the 4th of July. I kinda don't blame him, except it seems that he was a real asshole in life, a fact which most people seem to know except for his young nephew who idolizes him. I was a kid who idolized my uncle who was kind of a jerk too, so I can relate.

Aside from the kid, most of the characters are unlikable. I wanted to reach into the screen and kill the mom's boyfriend myself. Asshat. And the other townspeople aren't much better. At least we get to see a bunch of them die, though there's not much gore for a movie like this. I also liked the kid in the wheelchair and the disabled veteran security guard. Once I finally had some characters to actually root for, I enjoyed the movie a lot more. All in all, this movie was a lot of fun.

October Horror Challenge 2017 #95: "Driller Killer"

What fun, a sleazy, gory horror classic from the 70s that I haven't seen yet! I've heard about this movie a few times over the years, but it always got pushed deep down and buried underneath all the useless crap I store in my brain, and I always moved on to other things. But this is the year I watch a bunch of movies I've always wanted to see but never got around to watching, so I'm finally going to check it out.

This movie is about a killer who dispatches his victims with, you guessed it, a drill. It's nice when the movie's title helpfully summarizes the plot for you like this. I can feel for the killer in a way. He's obviously not right in the head, and he slowly starts to go even more insane as the movie progresses. He has to deal with stress over his largely unsuccessful work as an artist, stress over paying the rent and bills, dealing with his two roommates (one girl who bags him constantly about bills and one who is always strung out and kinda dumb). Plus he's dealing with lousy neighbors, a punk band who play loudly at all hours of the day, and whose music starts to get inside his head and wear down whatever sanity he has left.

Next thing you know, he's out in the alleys at night killing homeless people. Like u said, I can understand his motive, but I'd have started with the band members first. But soon he's taking his rage to the streets, at first just bullying the winos, but then he graduates to torture and murder. The title card at the beginning of the movie said to turn it up loud, and I totally get why now. The music is almost another character in the movie, driving me nuts after awhile too. His life starts to slowly unravel, and I expect he soon feels like he's got nothing to lose. The movie has some great gore, blissfully gratuitous nudity, and the music really got under my skin. I dig it. Yay for sleeze!

October Horror Challenge 2017 #94: "Return to Sleepaway Camp"

The original Sleepaway Camp was one of my favorite slasher movies. It was cheesy and silly, but you got to see bullies get slaughtered as punishment for their crimes, and the ending was creepy and transgressive. Definitely a classic slasher. The two sequels went an even more campy route, more comedy than horror, and Pamela Springsteen took over the role of Angela from Felissa Rose, who played her in the first movie. The sequels were fun, but part of me always wished they'd return and continue the story from the first movie. Several years ago, I and the other Sleepaway Camp fans got our wish when the director of the first movie and some of the original cast teamed up to make a direct sequel to the original. I was excited about it and couldn't wait to see it, and the plethora of terrible reviews didn't stop me from wanting to see it, though it did give me pause and push the movie further down on my priority list. I'm finally getting to watch it today, though. Here goes nothing.

This movie takes place 30 some years after the events of the original movie. The camp is different, but some of the employees are the same, and they're all still haunted by the events of the first movie. Soon, a new generation of kids are getting bullied by counselors and other campers, and grisly murders start happening again, seemingly as revenge for the bullying. What's going on? Does it have anything to do with the killer from the first movie, who's been locked away in an asylum for the past 30 some years?

Oh boy, where do I start with this movie? Ok first if all, I appreciate the idea of bringing back the original cast, but it's asinine having counselors who are in their 40s instead of teenagers. The "wacky hyjinx" that teenage counselors got up to in the first movie seem ridiculous when middle aged people are doing it. Plus the acting is terrible. The first movie didn't have the best performances, but at least the actors could recite their lines without sounding like stilted, awkward robots.

Plus the characters are incredibly annoying. I read people's complaints about this after the movie came out, but I thought people we're exaggerating how awful it was. Newsflash: they weren't. The characters suck. There's not one likable one in the bunch, and since none of them can act, the movie is physically painful to watch at times. In the original movie, I at least cared about the main character Angela and her cousin Ricky. Here I just wanted everyone to shut up and die, but unfortunately there aren't nearly enough murders to thin out the annoying cast. That's right, there aren't even cool deaths to look forward to like there were in the original.

There's one death scene near the beginning involving a deep fryer, a nod to the infamous "boiling water" death from the original, but that's really it for cool kills. They try at some points later on, but the long, boring, annoying stretches of tedium in between kills mean that they can't hold my interest enough to make the movie worthwhile, especially since the one really cool sounding creative kill happens OFF CAMERA. Ugh.

It's like these people have no idea how to make a movie. Except that I know they know how to make a movie. They made the original Sleepaway Camp, so I know they know better, it's like they just don't care. That pisses me off more than anything else. Wooden acting, way too old counselors, annoying shithead kids, bad dialogue, not nearly enough cool kills. This is bullshit. The original movie had fans that have loved it for like, 30 years. Thats supposedly the reason behind this sequel, a gift to the loyal fans. Well this fan says you can take your crappy movie and shove it. We deserved better than this.

October Horror Challenge 2017 #93: "Hide and Go Shriek"

Just when I think I've seen every 80s slasher movie, I find new ones to check out. Somehow this one flew under my radar, but as soon as I heard about it, I had to watch it, of course. I love me some cheesy 80s slashers.

This movie is about a group of high school students who decide to sneak into a furniture store and spend the night as a graduation party. Unfortunately for them, there's a crazed killer in the store with them who picks them off one by one. Ok, I gotta ask, who the hell thinks it's a good idea to sneak into a furniture store to have a party? That sounds like just about the least fun idea I can think of. It's basically what the group did in "Chopping Mall" too, and "The Initiation." What was the deal with 80s horror filmmakers and kids sneaking into stores? And why do the kids decide to play hide and seek once they get into the store? Are they five years old?

The action takes forever to get going. The movie drags on and on and ON with these characters who aren't particularly likable, so it's hard to care what happens to them. The kills are ok when they finally happen. The second murder in particular was done really well, but then it takes the other dildobrains in the store like a million years to figure out that something is wrong, and then even longer to find out what happens to their friends. The killer's backst is interesting, I guess. He's more interesting than the victims, at least. And the final scene is pretty cool too, it just takes so long to get there that I didn't enjoy this movie as much as I wanted to.

October Horror Challenge 2017 #92: "The Bees (1978)"

I've wanted to see this movie since I was a kid. I feel the need to add that disclaimer in case it is terrible, so you know I've wanted to see it since before I knew any better. I wasn't allowed to watch horror movies when I was a kid, but I was allowed to read some horror novels (as long as they weren't written by Stephen King...my mom thought his books were worse than they were) so I had the novelization of the movie "The Swarm," and I was allergic to bees, so I was obsessed with the idea that bees could take over the world. I saw "The Swarm" a few years ago and it was terrible, but this movie has eluded me until now.

Like 'The Swarm," this movie is about a strain of killer beers who become super aggressive and start killing people. Unlike "The Swarm," this movie has a cool opening sequence showing how the bees were breed (a genetic researcher trying to figure out how to make the bees less aggressive) and a plot that makes sense: despite the danger, researchers still want to figure out how to breed the bees to be less aggressive, because they reproduce quickly and companies believe the bees will be able to provide more honey, which I'd in high demand, so they're willing to overlook the risks). This movie definitely put more effort into it's plot than "The Swarm," whose plot can be summarized as follows: bees bad...they kill.

Unfortunately, while the idea behind the plot is much better, the movie gets really boring after the opening sequence. About 20 minutes in it so, it starts to really drag along. There are some death scenes and some action scenes that try to spice things up, but there's too much long droning monotony in between these scenes to be of much help. I still think this movie is better than "The Swarm," though, because the idea behind the plot is so much better, and the acting is a lot better, too. "The Swarm" had a lot of famous actors in it, but they weren't given much to do and the dialogue was atrocious.

At least there's conflict wocen into the story in this movie. The researchers care about the bees and about the health of the planet, so they want to work to perfect the methods for calming the bees before the bees are unleashed on the world. The executives for the companies that want the honey just care about the money, so they don't care who has to die and they work to suppress the truth even as the outbreak gets worse and the bees start swarming major cities everywhere. Overall, while this movie isn't the greatest, I definitely enjoyed it more than"The Swarm." Now if you'll excuse me I have to spray my entire apartment with bee killer.

October Horror Challenge 2017 #91: "Krampus"

I was excited when I first heard about this movie. We don't get many Christmas horror movies, so i immediately wanted to see it. I have fond memories of watching the Black Christmas remake in theaters on Christmas day. It wasn't a great movie or anything, but it was a fun way for a horror fan to spend the holidays. Of course, a lot of people gave this movie terrible reviews, but I was still hopeful. My cousins are pretty big horror fans too, and they liked this movie, so I was still rooting for it to be good. Here goes nothing.

This movie is about a big exirnded family who have to spend the holidays together (whether they like it or not). The youngest son of the family is a big believer in the whole spirit of Christmas, including Santa Claus, but the stress of the holidays and everyone else's lack of belief cause him to lose his Christmas spirit. Unfortunately, the evil Christmas demon Krampus is dispatched to punish bad kids who don't believe in Christmas, so the family soon has bigger things to worry about than just trying to get along for a few days.

I've never been a huge fan of Christmas. I love the pretty lights and decorations, and the idea behind Christmas and the spirit of the holiday is great, but to be honest, people can be huge assholes, especially when you work in retail and even when you go to church with a bunch of people that seem to think Jesus wants you to treat everyone like garbage, and enough of these things have marred the Christmas spirit for me so it's more of a painful chore than a joyous celebration. Add to that the horrible memories and bad things that have happened to me around Christmas, and Christmas is often difficult for me. Hence my tendency to enjoy horrifying movies focused on this time of year. They help me better handle the real-life horror, you know?

This movie is rated PG-13, which doesn't always bode well for the quality of a horror flick, but there's more to horror than just blood and gore, and this movie has a creeping sense of dread that worked for me. Plus seeing the whole town enveloped in a whiteout of swirling snow is creepy too. Once the power goes out and everything is left in icy darkness, the movie gets even scarier. At least the family comes closer together and tries to fight the evil, even before they know what they're fighting.

I really like the origin story of Krampus, told by the grandmother and depicted with animation instead of live action. It looks more like a memory from a child that way. Plus I can relate to it's feeling of desolation. As much as I dread Christmas, I still get hints of the Christmas spirit, when I see pretty lights or decorations or kids being happy and hopeful. It's not that I forget all the bad things, I just also see the good, and I wish other people would remember the good things too, and try to work to make things different. Let's just say that a demon that comes to wipe out all the people who don't try to keep the Christmas spirit alive, I can relate, dude. Plus even without the gore the idea is creepy enough and it's presented in such a way, with most everything in darkness and demons cackling evilly in the background, that it manages to be scary without needing gore. I guess a lot of people didn't like this movie, but I dug it, and I'm glad I watched it.

October Horror Challenge#90: "Night of the Living Dead (Rifftrax)"

I was SO EXCITED to see this! Night of the Living Dead was the first horror movie my mom let me watch when I was a kid, so it's been my favorite forever, and I was stoked to hear it get the Rifftrax treatment. All these years I've had to settle for making my own snarky commentary while I watched it, but now I get to hear the professionals do it! I waited impatiently for October 24th this year for it to be released just so I could hear it. Worth the wait, totally.

October Horror Challenge 2017 #89: "Spider Baby"

This movie came out in 1967, but apparently it didn't do very well back then. It was relatively obscure until Fangoria magazine did an article about it in the early 2000s. Their thought was that the movie flouted people's expectations of what a horror movie can and even should do, and that's why audiences didn't take to it back when it was released. They didn't understand it. I don't know if that's true or not, but I tend to like a lot of movies other people don't like, so I'm willing to give this movie a chance. The Fangoria article made me really excited about seeing it someday, and I guess today is finally that day.

The movie is about a caretaker who looks after three siblings at their family estate. The three siblings suffer from a rare genetic condition that regresses their mental state until they become both crazed and childlike. This condition also means that they can't tell the difference between right and wrong. As a result, they often act crazy and even violent. Their caretaker loves the family, so he covers up their acts, but soon the truth is going to come out when unexpected visitors stop by.

It's weird seeing Sid Haig so young in this movie. It's also weird how long it takes the visitors to notice that there's something wrong with the family. I get trying to be polite, but these kids clearly act like murderous little psychopaths, and no one seems more than mildly concerned about that. Not that I'd blame anyone for killing most of the visitors, since they're sneaky and underhanded jerks, not to mention stupid and unobservant. Not very likable people, is what I'm saying. Not very smart either, because not only do they fail to realize they're in danger, they also keep pissing the family off even when it's become clear that it's a bad idea. to do that.

There's one scene that actually made me cower in fear a little bit, even though this movie is more campy and silly than funny. Plus as nutso as the movie is, I almost got choked up there near the end. It's clear that the caretaker actually loves this family and these kids, even if they're apeshit insane. He made a promise to their father that he'd take care of them, and that's what he's trying to do. Ultimately I really liked this movie, even though it's out of it's fucking mind. There's a reason the original title was "Spider Baby or the Maddest Story Ever Told." It's certainly the Maddest story I've ever seen.

October Horror Challenge 2017 #88: "The Toolbox Murders (1978)"

I think I've seen this movie before, but it was back when I was cramming in 10+ horror movies a day in some of my earlier challenges, because I don't remember it at all. I remember the remake with Angela Bettis because she's great and I love her, but all I remember about this one is that awesome movie poster, so I'm going to watch this again and hope my senile ass remembers it this time. It's about a toolbox that kills people, right?

Indeed, I know that this movie is NOT about a killer toolbox, as interesting as that sounds, but instead it's about a masked killer who roams around an apartment building killing the residents with instruments from his toolbox. Right away in the beginning we get to see someone killed with a drill, and it's pretty gory and nasty and cool. I'm not sure this movie has much of a plot beyond this, but I'm also not sure it needs one. Plots can be overrated. The remake had a plot and it was really convoluted and confusing. Bring on the mindless gore!

Did I mention that I live in an apartment building? This movie better not be based on a true story, dammit. *locks deadbolt* I also discovered that, contrary to popular belief, this movie does have a plot. For the first half hour or so, the killer is just going around the apartment building killing every woman he sees (jerk) but then he kidnapps a girl and the rest of the movie focuses on the search for this missing girl. The girl's brother and his friend look for clues, the girl's mom searches for clues, and I suppose the police are looking for clues too, though I really see no evidence of that.

For those first 30 action packed minutes, we see lots of blood and gore and nudity. We also get a glimpse inside the masked killer's psyche, and an idea of why he's killing these women. Not that it really makes sense, but he's a psycho, so I guess that's to be expected. Once he kidnaps the girl, the movie really changes tone. I thought other reviewers were exaggerating when they complained about this, but it really does feel like two different movies glued together. The after-kidnapping portion of the movie is like an episode of the show Criminal Minds, only without the great characters that make that show so intriguing.

Plus the killer's whole motive for kidnapping the young girl doesn't wash with his behavior towards the other victims. He was definitely feeling them up and not treating them like his daughter. Whatever, lying ass killer. Anyway, the kidnapping part of the movie is kinda dull, but the action picks up about 20 minutes from the end, and it's ok I guess. Some of the scenes near the end definitely made my skin crawl. Poor girl. Talk about going out of the frying pan and into the fire. Ugh. I never thought I'd say this, but I think the remake might be better than the original. At least it was consistently a horror movie from beginning to end, not some weird mashup like this one ends up being. My advice? Watch the first 30 minutes, then turn it off. I think I didn't remember this movie because it was so boring it dissolved into the ether without leaving a mark.

October Horror Challenge 2017 #87: "The Witches of Eastwick"

This is one of those movies like so many others I've watched for the challenge this year, where I always meant to watch it but I've never gotten around to it year after year. Someone from work asked me if I'd ever seen this movie, and that reminded me and convinced me that I finally needed to give this movie a watch. I love Susan Sarandon and Cher and Michelle Pfeiffer, and Jack Nicholson always does a great job playing a creepy guy, so this movie should be a lot of fun.

This movie is about three vest friends, women from a small town who make a wish for what they want in the man of their dreams, which unbeknownst to them casts a spell that brings Satan to their town. I really do hate it when that happens. This movie surprised me right away, because I guess I always thought that the women in this movie knew that they were Witches. I mean...how do you never notice something like that? But the ladies here totally don't know that they have this power, so they keep using it by accident, but they don't realize what it is until Satan shows up. Whoops!

Jack Nicholson was perfect for this role. He's always done well playing characters who are "off," so I can totally see him as a charming but evil Satan. This is also a horror comedy, which as we all know often spells disaster for me, but I'm hoping that since the cast is great and I've wanted to see this movie for so long that it will avoid the usual pitfalls and wind up being a good movie.

Why does Satan get right to work seducing each of the women and then pitting them against each other? I get that the sex must be great, but I expected at least Cher's character to figure out what was going on. She seemed to be the most down to earth and least repressed of the three, so I was disappointed that she was this deeply affected by Satan's schemes. Douche that he is. It takes them way too long to realize what's going on in every way. They don't realize the new guy is a bad guy even long after he's done lots of bad things, they don't realize they're witches even long after they've gotten ample evidence to the fact, come on, get a clue, ladies!

Once the three friends finally do realize that something bad is happening, the movie starts to move much faster. I like Veronica Cartwright, and she's in here, playing a very repressed women from town who is also deeply affected by Satan's presence in the town. And once the ladies start to get wise, Jack Nicholson ratchets up the creepiness, and he's definitely more in his element the scarier he gets. All in all, I did wind up enjoying this movie. Sometimes movies based on books cut way too much out and wind up being choppy, or they don't cut enough and wind up being way too long and boring, but this movie strikes the right balance between those extremes and manages to work just fine. It was a fun watch.

October Horror Challenge 2017 #86: "The Darkness (2016)"

I've wanted to see this movie since it came out last year. It has Kevin Bacon in it, which is enough to make me need to see it just because I love him. Plus it's made by some of the same people who made "Sinister" and "Insidious," which are both great movies that I love. Even better, it's about a family who go on vacation to a remote location and bring something evil and demonic back with them, which is always intriguing. All these reasons led to me being excited to check this movie out, and I'm stoked that I finally get to see it today.

So as I said before, this movie is about a family who pick up something demonic while they're on vacation, and then it follows them home and starts to slowly infect their whole lives. Stupid demons, always ruining everything. Rhada Mitchell plays the mom in this movie, and Kevin Bacon plays the dad, which is great for me because I love both of them. And the family has enough problems before the demonic evil decided to come make everything worse. Their teenage daughter has an eating disorder and their young son is autistic, and the son and daughter aren't getting along, so everything is a big mess and the family definitely doesn't need a demon coming around making things worse.

So here's my thing about this movie. I understand that since their son has autism and sometimes displays strange behaviors, that it might take awhile for the family to realize that something else is wrong. But once more than on family member has been attacked by ghost animals, and your son is talking to a new "imaginary friend" who is telling him to do horrible things, and strange handprints in soot start appearing all over the house, dude, it's probably ghosts. I don't care if you don't believe in ghosts, get over yourself and admit something weird is going on and take steps to get rid of it before it kills you and your family. People who deny that it might be ghosts or demons in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary just get on my nerves.

Maybe I'm just cranky 86 movies into the challenge, but I'm not in the mood for characters to act like assholes and go off yelling at their wives for daring to consider that something evil is going on. I don't care if you're Kevin Bacon, I will reach through this screen and punch you in the damn face. At least he does get on board eventually, and he and his wife work together to figure out how to try to fight the evil. I didn't wind up enjoying this movie as much as I thought I would. I think it just took too damn long to get going, but the acting was solid and it wasn't horrible. I'm still glad I finally got to see it.

October Horror Challenge 2017 #85: "Phantasm V: Ravager"

Merrily we roll along, moving to the fifth movie in the Phantasm series. Coming out all the way in 2016, this movie hails from eighteen years after the last sequel, so there's been a hefty passage of time between these movies. The original movie came out in 1979, so that's almost 40 years before this movie. Time flies when you're having fun, right? This movie is infamous for being the only Phantasm flick not directed by Don Coscarelli and also for being actor Angus Scrimm's final performance as the Tall Man.

This movie takes place across multiple timelines. 2013 Reggie Bannister is in a home, with doctors saying he's suffering from dementia, and he's recalling what has transpired in his life that led him to this point. He flashes back to a time soon after the events of the fourth movie, then back to the time of the first movie, then to a dimension outside of time where the Tall Man tells him he can get back everything he's lost as long as he agrees to some terms. The Tall Man doesn't strike me as the most reliable person, though, so I'm thinking it would be best for Reggie to turn down this offer, no matter how tempting it might be.

Like the other sequels, this movie features clips from the previous films, functioning as flashbacks to let us see what has come before. The multiple timelines and altered realities can get confusing at times, but by now the series has become something of a jumbled mess anyway. Even Reggie's character is confused about what's going on, and he's IN the movie, so there's not much hope for those of us just trying to follow along at home.

Angus Scrimm is great as always, keeping it creepy and classy (rest in peace, sir, and thanks for the memories) and Reggie Bannister does a good job as well playing the slightly sleazy but still stalwart hero. There's some cool gore scenes. The killer silver spheres are cool as ever. I also enjoyed the in joke about how in one timeline Reggie has been kept on ice for over a decade by one of the Tall Man's contraptions, because the movie was kept on ice for over a decade too while the filmmakers tried to get it made.

Once the movie really ratchets up the whole "jumping back and forth across timelines" crap, it can really be a pain in the ass to figure out what's going on, and I pretty much gave up on being able to figure out what was real and what wasn't. I've had relatives who suffered from dementia, and it must be terrifying not knowing if what's going on is reality or not. That managed to make the plot device creepy for me where it might have otherwise been just annoying.

It almost feels like the plots of these movies have followed me throughout the stages of my life. The original movie featured things that scared little kid me, the second and third would scare me more as a teenager, and on to now, with the last movie featuring dementia, something that scares me more and more as I move on toward old age. At this point, the characters kind of feel like old friends.

The first movie came out two years before I was born, so I've never lived in a world without Phantasm in it. It's affected a lot of people, I suspect. I was watching the third movie while the maintenance guy from my apartment complex was in my apartment making some repairs, and he noticed it on the screen and said "hey, it's Phantasm! The Tall Man!" and then he proceeded to tell me about how he remembers watching the first movie with his dad when he was a kid. I love that. As much shit as I get for being a creepy person for watching so many horror movies, it seems like horror movies have been positive influences in other people's lives, too. Thanks for the memories, Phantasm! Almost 40 years of scares and laughs! Now THAT'S impressive.

October Horror Challenge 2017 #84: "Phantasm IV: Oblivion"

The tagline for this movie is "The sequel with balls!" which shows that the filmmakers knew that the floating metal sphere with spikes that drills into peoples' heads was almost a more famous character than any of the other characters in the movie. It's definitely a cool effect, and given the ending of the third movie, I figured the spheres might play a bigger role than ever in the third movie. Speaking of the third movie, it wasn't as great as the first two, but that ending was awesome and a lot to live up to. We'll see if the fourth one can carry that torch further, or if it will fall flat. May the odds be ever in your favor, movie.

In this sequel, Reggie is traveling around the country, hoping to figure out the Tall Man's secrets so he can save Mike from being turned into one of the Tall Man's strange henchmen type creatures. This movie has a lot of flashbacks to the first movie. I get that, since sometimes to figure out the future you need to go back to the past (or at least that's what "Back to the Future" taught me) but I hope this doesn't wind up being one if those sequels that's like 87% clips from the earlier movies. That was such a bummer in "The Hills Have Eyes 2"or "Silent Night Deadly Night 2."

This movie didn't come out until 1998, so I was already most grown by then, but I really wish I'd been able to watch it when I was a kid, because I know I would have thought it was awesome then. A lot of the plot elements just don't work for me like they would have when I was a kid. Car driving by itself? We have cars that do that now. No big deal. Coffin as portal to another world? Seems silly instead of cool. Sometimes adulthood sucks the fun out of everything.

It's not all bad, of course. I know I made fun of the filmmakers for attempting to give the Tall Man a backstory (he's the hooker with a heart of gold!) but the time warp scenes with him are actually pretty interesting. Plus there's some good gore here too. There's one scene where Reggie saves a woman from dying, then winds up sharing a motel room with, that actually kind of creeped me out and had me crossing my arms protectively over my boobs in horror. Eeeewwwww.

As a plus, seeing people get stabbed and that lemon pudding-like stuff leaking out of the cuts instead of blood will always wig me out a little. And Angus Scrimm will always be creepy as the Tall Man, so even when the movie is kind of ridiculous and I'm wondering why the hell Reggie Bannister is dressed up like the ice cream man from wild west town, the movie will still have enough creepy moments to keep it interesting. I was definitely digging through more shit to find the good with this sequel, though, which doesn't bode well for the prospect of the next film being very good. I guess I'll find out soon enough!

October Horror Challenge 2017 #83: "Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead"

The tagline for this movie is great. If you can't see the poster, the tagline says: "We tried to warn you. If you don't get it this time, we're gonna have to drill it into your head!" I remember that tagline and how much I loved it way before I was conscious that I wanted to see the movie. The tagline refers, of course, to the evil Tall Man's deadly floating silver sphere that targets victims and then drills into their heads. I know that kind of sounds stupid, but trust me, it looks really cool in the context of the movie. I'm going to try and check out all the Phantasm sequels today, so here we go with the third one.

The third movie picks up right after the second left off, only instead of being years later, it starts the same night the second movie ended, with the Tall Man attacking Mike and Reggie and crashing their car and trying to kill them once and for all. As the movie goes on, we learn more about the Tall Man and the mysterious world he comes from. I doubt we'll learn how to stop him for good though, since there's two more movies after this one. I guess we'll see.

Sequels have a reputation for being much worse than the original movies, but the second Phantasm was great, maybe even better than the first. This one piles on more gore than the first two, or at least shows the gore right away without waiting like the first two movies did. I guess they figured there was no need to beat around the bush since this was the third movie in the series. Plus this one is a lot more of a comedy than the first two, which means it has a lot of stupid stuff that's supposed to be funny. Three criminals who remind me of the three stooges (except not as funny) are a highlight (or perhaps a lowlight). And when did Reggie decide he's a huge stud that every woman wants to fuck? That got annoying.

Not all is bad, though. This movie is clearly a journey story, with a hero going on a quest who meets "magical companions" along the way who help him complete his task. We learned about journey stories in literature class, and it was fun to see one in action emerging out of a low budget horror movie. I like the new characters, too. At first the little kid was annoying, but he grew on me, and the woman had some bad acting/stilted line delivery issues on the beginning, but she gets better.

Like the third Hellraiser movie did with Pinhead, this movie makes the Tall Man a little less evil with something of a background and motivation: he thinks killing Mike is the same as freeing him from his "flesh prison." Uh...thanks but no thanks, dude. Overall, this movie wasn't as good as the first two, but there's some cool gore, interesting special effects, and a few engaging characters, so it's not all bad. I'm still glad I finally watched it.

October Horror Challenge 2017 #82: "Phantasm II"

I sure waited a long time to finally watch this movie. I've wanted to see it since it came out almost 30 years ago, but I've never gotten around to it. Good thing this year's horror challenge has inadvertently turned into the challenge where I watch all the movies I've always meant to watch.

The original Phantasm was one if those rare horror movies I actually got to see when I was a kid. I wasn't supposed to watch it, but I was resourceful, and it lingered in my subconscious long after it was over. I could totally picture myself as one of the kids discovering an ancient evil and trying to fight it. Plus the tall man and his creepy floating silver sphere that drilled itself into peoples' heads was SO CREEPY but also SO COOL! Who could forget that?

This sequel picks up where the first left off, with Mike from the first movie now a mental patient still haunted by the events of the first movie and the terrifying figure known as the Tall Man (Angus Scrimm). Mike enlists his friend Reggie to help him find and defeat the Tall Man before he can finish carrying out his evil plan.

This movie doesn't beat around the bush, it jumps right into the action, with the Tall Man coming after Mike and the others who know about his existence. He comes after Reggie too, which prompts Reggie to join in the fight against him (nice job, asshole, now even more people want to fight you).  Along the way, they pick up a girl hitchhiking who has appeared in Mike's dreams, so they know she's in danger. We also follow the story of another young girl from Mike's dreams who is being targeted by the Tall Man. It seems all the Tall Man's victims share a psychic connection, or at least the ones he's specifically targeting and tormenting do.

The Tall Man's tricks are pretty nasty here. Besides the metal sphere, he also reanimates corpses that drip bodily fluids and walk around doing his bidding. He seems to be able to manipulate reality too, since he can leave behind apparitions that are real flesh and blood and use them to send messages to those he's haunting. Plus Angus Scrimm has such a presence on his own that just seeing him lurking around stalking people is creepy on it's own without any special effects. It's rare for a sequel to be even half as good as the original movie, but this one might even be better. I'm so glad I finally got to see it!

October Horror Challenge 2017 #81: "The Creeping Flesh"

This is another situation where I have no idea how the hell I've managed to go this long without watching this movie. It has an awesome title, Peter Cushing is in it and I love him, it has Christopher Lee and I love him too...I really should have checked this movie out by now, but at least I'm getting around to it finally. I hope I enjoy it.

This movie is about a scientist in Victorian times who believes that evil is a disease, and as such humans can be vaccinated against it. He returns home with a dismantled skeleton that he thinks contains a dose of evil in it's purest form, but once he adds water to the bones, something happens and a horrible evil is unleashed. I hate it when that happens.

I don't know why scientists are always fucking around with evil things that could destroy humanity. Scientific curiosity only goes so far as an excuse. In this guy's case you hough, it's kind of his trademark. All his life he's been making decisions for everyone else, deciding what was best for them no matter what they seemed to want. It's a wonder his daughter can even stand him, let alone idolize him the way she does. He's been lying to her for most of her life about many things, practically keeping her a prisoner in her own house. He's looked down on his brother, another doctor played by Christopher Lee. He's generally a very frustrating character.

This movie drags a bit in the middle. There are long scenes in the lab where the doctor performs the same experiments over and over and over again, like the filmmakers thought we weren't paying attention the first time. And the movie is short on action for a long time, too. We see the titular"flesh" right away, but it doesn't do any "creeping" for over an hour. Seriously, it takes so long for the plot to get going that I had nothing to do but glare daggers at the doctor and want to reach through the screen to punch him in the face.

And the good doctor does some of the dumbest things I've ever seen a character do in a horror movie, and that's saying a LOT. One plot twist, where he decides on a way to test the blood from the creeping flesh to see how it affects humans, is so idiotic I didn't believe it when I read it in a plot summary, I had to see it for myself. I still don't believe it, and the movie is over with. Come ON dude, how can you be this stupid? Were you dropped on the head as a baby? And where the hell was the editor for this movie? Why are there long, boring shots of people walking around that just drag and DRAG and feel like they'll never end?

There's some good stuff here. Obviously the acting is good, and there's a sense of tragedy and impending Doom and a self-fulfilling prophecy that is intriguing, but it's buried under so much useless crap that it's ridiculous. I wanted to like this movie, and indeed there is a lot that I like here, but I felt like I was slipping into a coma half the time waiting for something to actually happen, so I can't say that I enjoyed the experience.

October Horror Challenge 2017 #80: "Angst (1983)"

Wow, this movie poster is enough to give me nightmares without even having to watch the actual film. Yikes. The poster I saw to advertise this movie was much more tame, it was just a picture of a woman screaming at the camera. I think if they used this picture, the movie would get more attention. Ah well, such is life.

This movie is a slasher/serial killer flick from 1983. I'm not sure if I've heard of it before now, because there are roughly ten zillion movies named "Angst," but the reviews either say this movie is sick and shocking, or they say it's terrible and has the worst acting they've ever seen, which makes it exactly my kind of movie. Gotta love polarizing movies like this. The movie is about a sadistic killer who kills for the hell of it. He's caught and sent to prison, but then released after ten years (nice, I think you get longer sentences for jaywalking) and the movie is a trip inside his head as he plans to kill again after his release from prison.

This movie wouldn't work without a good performance from the lead actor, since he's in almost every scene and we have to listen to his internal monologue for practically the whole movie. I think Erwin Leder, the actor who plays our killer, does a good job. He sure creeped me out. I can see why others might not like his performance though, since it's weird watching this guy walk around, eat dinner, and catch a cab whilst listening to him calmly talk about how he's going to kill people like he's discussing the weather or something.

This whole movie is very experimental for it's time, it's like a found footage movie without the explanation for finding the footage. We're just watching this guy go about his life and talk about killing, and then actually breaking into houses and killing people, but there's no conceit that this is being filmed by someone who refuses to put the camera down even when any real person would have dropped the damn camera a long time ago, so there's none of the headaches that go along with found footage movies. I can see why it would bore some people or get on their nerves. I was drawn in by the lead actor and interested enough to want to see what happens, but I'll warn you, the movie is definitely not for everyone. If watching a killer kill a bunch of people while calmly talking about it with no remorse sounds intriguing to you, check this movie out.

October Horror Challenge 2017 #79: "Repulsion"

And on and on we go, watching all the movies I've wanted to see for years. This one has received great reviews over the years, but for one reason or another I always postponed watching it. There's no time like the present though, right?

This is a Roman Polanski film, which in and of itself gives me reason to put off watching it. "Rosemary's Baby" messed with my head for days after I saw it, so that gave me pause. Plus this movie is about a woman's descent into homicidal madness, so it's not exactly the feel good movie of the year. I decided to stop being a chicken though, since I'm checking out the "Shudder" horror movie streaming service and they had this movie available.

It turns out I was right to be leery of this movie. The main character is an introvert, very childlike even though she's a grown woman who lives with her older sister. She's shy  and awkward and spends a lot of her time daydreaming, and her older sister is very mother-like toward her. When her sister goes on vacation, though, she is left to her own devices, and her daydreams start to take over her life.

The movie is indeed very headache inducing, and I nearly had a heart attack about halfway through when I thought I saw something moving in the corner of my room while she was having one of her nightmarish daydreams, so that was extra freaky for me. It was just my cat, though. She nearly gave me heart failure a few days ago when she crept up behind me and licked my back while I was watching a movie about ghosts. Damn animal, plotting against me. She definitely made the viewing experience more memorable! This whole movie is like a waking nightmare, but it's very good, as long as you cat isn't plotting to kill you.

October Horror Challenge 2017 #78 "Rabid"

I'm so excited! There are three David Cronenberg movies that I've never seen and that I've always wanted to see (well, there WERE until this month): "Videodrome," "Scanners," and "Rabid." Somehow these movies always got pushed to the back burner in favor of other movies (some of which sucked, so I might as well have watched good movies instead). I've been cruising right along catching up on those movies this month, and now it's time to finally watch "Rabid"! Color me excited.

This movie is about a beautiful woman who contracts a strange disease after having plastic surgery. The disease makes her hungry for human blood. Ew. I've known about the plot of this movie for a long time, but it kind of confused me, because I knew that Marilyn Chambers plays the main character, and she's gorgeous, so I never got why she would have plastic surgery until I saw the movie. Makes much more sense now (even though I know people often opt to have plastic surgery even when they don't "need" it, because they're unhappy with their looks).

Cronenberg is kind of in his element here, dishing up body horror, horrifying things happening to people, altering their physical appearance and turning them into monsters. This movie definitely makes me never want to get plastic surgery. Also, I kind of don't want to have sex after watching "Shivers," or have kids after watching "The Brood." They should show his movies as a form of birth control. Come to think of it, this movie makes me never want to have sex either...or ever touch another human being again. Ew, ew, EWWWWW.

As you might have gathered, this movie is pretty disgusting (I mean that as a compliment, of course). The disease here operates like rabies, passed by people's saliva when they bite you, and those who have the disease are goners, because it metabolizes almost immediately, and within hours they start sweating, leaking green pus from their eyes, then foaming at the mouth with greenish foam like they have a mouth full of drain-o. For Rose (Marilyn Chambers' character) since she's patient zero (the first person who was infected) the disease manifests differently on her body, changing her appearance in different and horrifying ways.

I won't spoil it, but I have a skin condition known as Hidradinitis Suppurativa, and it can leave boil-like wounds on my skin, kind of like some of the wounds in this movie. It's easy to see these wounds and scars on my skin and feel kind of like a monster, so this movie resonated with me in a deeper way than it might have done otherwise. Let's just say seeing Rose writhing on the floor saying "I'm disgusting, I'm disgusting!" is altogether too familiar for me. Same, girl, same. Overall, this movie is nasty and disgusting and very well made. It knows it has a low budget, and it works within the confines of that budget perfectly. Cronenberg is really good at that. This movie is easily a new favorite of mine, and I'm glad I finally got to check it out.

October Horror Challenge 2017 #77: "The Sword and the Sorcerer (Rifftrax)"

This is one of those epic fantasy/horror movies that I wanted to see back when I was a kid. I was far less discerning back then, so I probably would have thought it was good even without the snarky Rifftrax commentary. Luckily I don't have to watch it and make my own snarky comments by myself. That would suck.

October Horror Challenge 2017 #76: "Cyber Tracker (Rifftrax)"

This movie is like if Terminator and RoboCop had an illigitimate baby and then dropped it on it's head a few times. It's funny because the music over the opening credits even rips off the theme music from the first Terminator movie. RoboCop was famous for being ultra violent too, it actually got an X rating for violence when it first came out, so they had to tone it down, but even the "toned down" version was really violent. This movie tries to copy that I think, but it doesn't have the budget, so it just looks really silly. That's good I guess, since it gives the Rifftrax guys a lot to work with. It ended up being a fun time even though the movie is really stupid.

October Horror Challenge 2017 #75: "Cat-Women of the Moon (Rifftrax)"

I know, I know, it's hard to believe this was ever a movie they expected anyone to take even semi-seriously. It's like they WANT to get mocked. But like I said in one of my other reviews, back in the 60s people were obsessed with space travel, so any kind of movie about creatures from space coming to take over the earth would play fairly well to audiences back then, no matter how stupid it was. This Rifftrax entry is a little bit different, unlike the sarcastic tracks supplied by the guys, this one is voiced by the women of the show: Mary Jo Pehl and Bridger Nelson. Funtimes! I kind of liked hearing their perspective on this movie, especially since this was such a chick-centric movie (a race of superior alien women from the moon want to take over earth...they killed off all their men years ago, yikes). This one was a lot of fun.

October Horror Challenge 2917 #74: "Midnight Meat Train"

I'm way behind the curve on this one. It came out in 2008, amid some fanfare, and I've wanted to see it since I heard about it when it was still in production, but for one reason or another, I never got around to watching it. Of course, there have been a lot of negative reviews by now, and that's one reason I've avoided it. I really hate it when movies are boring and/or stupid, especially when they have a lot of talent behind them like this one does. Then they really have no excuse. But I love Clive Barker and I love gory horror flicks, so I might as well finally give this a chance.

This movie is about a photographer who tries to capture great photos of the city but spends most of his time listening to a police scanner so he can run around chasing ambulances and getting cheap shots of tragedies in order to pay the bills. When he finally gets a chance at a big break with a famous artist interested in showing his work, he becomes more determined to capture great photos. While roaming the streets at night, he crosses paths with a serial killer who targets late night subway passengers. Soon, he becomes obsessed with tracking the killer, and this obsession quickly puts he and his girlfriend in danger.

There's some serious acting chops here. Bradley Cooper plays the photographer, Leslie Bibb plays his girlfriend, and Brooke Shields plays the famous artist. There are some other well known character actors who are recognizable too. A good cast, which is promising. The gore is icky and nasty and plentiful, and the story is interesting. What is it about Clive Barker and his obsession with people becoming fascinated by and attracted to violence and evil? I see that theme recurring in a lot of his writing. It works though. It makes this movie more believable to me (or at least more intriguing as I like this guy and I want to see him fight the bad guy and survive, though being a character in a Clive Barker story doesn't bode well for him or his life expectancy).

Some of the violence is a little too stylized and cartoon-y, which is annoying and yanks me back out of the story after the characters just finished drawing me in. Plus the killer is not very believable. Something about his performance doesn't ring true. He reminds me of a James Bond villain, which doesn't help me suspend my disbelief. Once the movie reaches a certain point, however, the killer managed to be creepy enough that I didn't really care about any flaws in his performance. Creeping around dark corners, he's scary enough to work for the sake of the movie.

And then...I don't know what happens. Either the people making the movie took a bunch of drugs or I did, because the movie goes absolutely apeshit insane at some point. The movie was never a bastion of realism, but whatever grounding it ever had in reality, it loses it completely. There's still some fun to be had with the buckets of gore and the action packed climax, but it still got ridiculous at some point, which made it impossible for me to stay engaged in the story. It's a shame, too, because there's lots of good here, but it refuses to tie together in the end, and it gets really stupid and annoying, too. Oh well. I'm still glad I finally checked it out. Now let's never speak of it again.

October Horror Challenge 2017 #73: "The Quiet Ones"

This is one of those movies that I've been wanting to see for a long time. Because of my policy of threatening to stab anyone who ruins the plot of a movie for me, I managed to avoid people telling me anything about the plot of this movie, and I refused to watch any trailers or read any reviews (or even a description of the movie) so I just knew that it was a horror movie, something to do with ghosts. After this many years, I've gleaned a few more details, so I know it's about a college professor who does some kind of experiments on people who claim to have contact with ghosts. Of course, I've also heard many people's opinions of this movie by now, and unfortunately, most of them say it's a bad movie, so I've put off watching it for awhile, not wanting to spend too much money on it in case it's terrible. Now's the time though (hey, I have to watch it eventually, and there's no time like the present, right?) I'm hoping it's good. Fingers crossed!

So as I said, this movie is about a college professor doing experiments on crazy people who claim to see and/or have contact with ghosts. Being crazy people, they're usually confined to asylums because people believe they are nuts, and most of them have made attempts on their lives (I might do that too, if I were being haunted and no one believed me). So the good doctor wants to bring these patients to a house, film them, and try to get some evidence of paranormal activity. He hopes to trap the paranormal activity, thus freeing the patients, so that's a good thing, right? Of course, he's just using people, poor haunted-ass possessed people whose demons (real or imagined) won't let them sleep. Sounds like hell. And there's a young man, not one of the students, just someone hired to do the filming, who seems to be haunted himself. Situations like this never end well, especially in horror movies.

This movie relies a lot on jump scares. I find these to be a cheap way of getting thrills. It's not difficult. Just have the movie be quiet, then suddenly introduce a loud noise, and boom! people jump. These types of scares actually usually work on me, though I'm not a huge fan. Our bodies react to certain stimuli, and we can't always help it...it doesn't mean there's any real filmmaking talent here. But in this particular movie, I could see most of the jump scares coming well before they happened, so they actually didn't work on me, which mainly left me annoyed instead of scared. The performances are good though, I will say that. I don't particularly like any of the characters, but the actors do a good job playing them.

This was before the whole found-footage craze really took off and every movie decided to try and use that method to cheaply and easily create some scares, so this is a straightforward movie with documentary-style clips interspersed with the story. It was kind of a relief, because while I've seen some great found footage films, I've seen some terrible ones too, especially lately, so I'm getting tired of them. The real problem with this movie, though, is that it doesn't seem to know what it wants to be. It's got elements of mystery here, and it's got some horror elements and some supernatural elements, but it never seems to fall into one cohesive whole. Part of the problem is the PG-13 rating. I don't subscribe to the notion that PG-13 horror movies can't be good, and I've seen some good ones, but this movie just seems to cut away from anything interesting because of the rating. Some of the effects could have been scary if they didn't happen off-screen or weren't watered down to maintain a rating. And the script is really boring. That sounds mean, but it's true, by the end I didn't really care what was going on, I just wanted it over with, and that's not a good feeling for any movie. Overall, there were a few good scenes, but this movie just fell flat.

October Horror Challenge 2017 #72: "Little Evil"

And here we are again, exploring the dangerous realm known as "horror comedy." As I think I've made clear throughout this challenge, horror comedies are a mixed bag. A bag of like, two good movies mixed with a huge pile of shit. For the most part, I don't find most comedies very funny in the first place, so when you take horror and add it to the mix, things can get gnarly. For the most part, horror comedies seem to fall into the trap of mocking people who like horror movies, and as a person who likes horror movies, that pisses me off. This movie in particular seems to be focusing on parodying the movie "The Omen," which is one of my favorite movies, so I'm even more leery. Here's hoping for the best.

Like I said, this movie pays a lot iof homage to "The Omen." It's about a man who just recently married his dream woman, only to find out that his new stepson might be the Antichrist. Yikes. Talk about a nightmare. The evil little kid is pretty hilarious. That's the first thing that would ruin this movie for me, if the little kid didn't play the role right. One if the things that made the original movie so creepy was that Damien seemed a lot like a normal little kid, cute and mischievous, which made the evil things that happened around him even creepier for me.

Owen Atlas plays the little kid, and he's really cute, mostly glowering and looking pissed off and barely talking, which lets all the other actors play off of him. This means the movie will also fall apart quickly if the other actors don't work in their roles. Luckily, Adam Scott plays the hapless step dad really well, and Evangeline Lily is adorable as the doting mom who refuses to believe there's anything wrong with her kid. So the kid, Lucas, stands around and is all evil, and Adam Scott bumbles around and tries to walk on eggshells to make his new stepson like him, and Evangeline Lily is just oblivious, and it actually works. It could be annoying if the mix were off, but the actors play off each other well and it actually made me laugh more than once, which is a big endorsement coming from me. I'm glad I gave this movie a chance.

October Horror Challenge 2017 #71: "1922"

This was one of my favorite of the more recent Stephen King novellas. I was really impressed with it because it was as good as (if not better than) his older stuff. Since I liked it so much, I was excited to hear they were adapting it into a movie. I was also cautious, though, because let's be honest, a lot of movie adaptations of Stephen King's work just plain suck. I've seen enough of the bad to despair that none of them would ever be good (or at least not enough of them to make it worthwhile to watch every new adaptation that comes out, for fear of wasting my time). I guess we'll see.

This story is about a husband whose wife inherits a big piece of land from her father. The wife doesn't like the farming life, though, so she wants to sell the land and move to the city, but her husband wants to stay, so they become embittered and begin to hate each other. The man convinces his teenage son that the only solution is to do something horrible. Why do people always go for the worst case scenario in times like this? There's no other solution possible, so we have to do the most drastic, horrifying thing possible that will make everything a thousand times worse instead of solving anything. It makes me want to tear my hair out, I swear.

Adapting a story like this can't be easy. You had your work cut out for you, Zak Hilditch (the director and screenwriter). None of the characters in this story are especially likable, but you have to find a way to MAKE them likable enough for people to care about your story. As for me, reading the story, I wound up liking the husband more than I thought I would. I want to punch him in the face for what he did, but I also kind of understand why he did it, how desperate he must have been. That kind of role must be a pain in the ass to play. It's hard to find a balance. Thomas Jane does a great job with the role, as does Molly Parker as his wife. I liked and hated both of them, which is a difficult mix to achieve.

There's not a lot of gore in this story. The horror is almost all psychological, which I appreciate. I'm the kid who had Edgar Allen Poe's "The Telltale Heart" memorized when I was 12 years old, so I can get behind a story where hate and anger drive someone to do something horrible, and then the guilt slowly drives them to madness. That's exactly what happens here, and though the movie has to cut some details out for the sake of brevity, it manages to retain enough of the story's tragic nature to be haunting (moreso than most ghost stories I could name). The movie perfectly captures that desolation and tragedy from the story. I still feel chilled and sad from it. The movie is very well done and I'm glad I gave it a chance. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go cry in a corner and rock back and forth.

October Horror Challenge 2017 #70: "The Revenge of Doctor X (Rifftrax)"

Once again I'm using one of the original movie posters instead of the Rifftrax version. You really need to see this poster, because it's pretty hilarious. My favorite part is how they spell "its" wrong (that doesn't bode well for the quality if the movie, does it?) This movie is pretty horrible, but it's almost like the whole crew already knows that, even the actors. The main actor is actually drunk in some of the scenes (he's stumbling around and slurring his words). That just makes me wish I was drunk too. That would probably help me enjoy this movie more.