2016 October Horror Challenge #54: "Last Shift"

The plot of this movie reminds me of a movie I watched last year that I really liked. It was called "Let Us Prey," and if this movie is half as good as that one was, it will make for a good watch. Here's hoping. This movie seems to have gotten some bad reviews, but that's never a good indicator of whether I'll like it or not. The poster is cool.

This movie is about a rookie cop who reports for her first shift at a creep, almost empty police station that is about to be closed down the next day. She is on her own all night, and the atmosphere is really eerie. I like the actress who plays the cop, too, which is a plus. She's much better than the actors in these movies tend to be.

The idea behind this movie is that something evil lurks in the building. Supposedly all emergency calls have been rerouted to other stations, so all she has to do is babysit the building until morning, but she gets creepy calls and other weird things happen that keep her on edge even before she has an idea what might be going on.

Things do get really creepy here, too. There appears to be a break in, but she can't seem to find the suspect as he keeps appearing and disappearing. There's a rotting Snell and black goop on the walls in some of the rooms, there seem to be cryptic messages written throughout the station. Not much makes sense, and she begins to question her sanity. There seem to be some connectionsto the past and the cop's family, and things just keep getting creepier until something's gotta give. It's a good setup and it works, but then it just...all falls apart. I'm not sure where they thought they were going with this, but the ending is just stupid. I don't know. It was a letdown, because there's a lot of good here, but in the end this movie is a big disappointment.

2016 October Horror Challenge #53: "The Taking of Deborah Logan"

OK, here's what happened with this movie. I watched it a few years ago, and I was really tired, but I made it through without dozing off, and it was creepy, and I ended up liking it. Then I was talking with some people, and they were describing the ending, and I was like "...um...that's not what I remember happening." Whoops! I think I fell asleep and dreamed the ending of the movie. Uh oh. I decided to watch it again this year so I can see what actually happened, so I bought the DVD and here we go. I'll try to stay awake this time.

The movie has a creepy setup. A woman suffering from Alzheimer's agrees to let a crew if students come stay at her house and film her to document how her condition affects her. The longer they stay there, the more they realize that this isn't just a case of Alzheimer's, something much more sinister is going on here. The movie was good, I didn't fall asleep because it was bad, I was just exhausted and I sometimes have very lucid dreams that look and feel so real I don't always realize that I'm dreaming.  Creepy, huh? I'd set up cameras trying to document this phenomena, but that never seems to end well when they do it in movies.

Alzheimer's is really frightening  to me. The idea of losing your mind, having that taken away, it's really terrifying to me, so the idea behind this movie is really scary to me even without demons or spirits in the picture, so the movie really gets to me. This is how you do a found footage movie, folks. Have a back story that's actually interesting so viewers have something to care about while they're waiting for the spookiness to start.

This movie is determined to scare the shit out if me. It froze bear the beginning, and I had to restart it again ( damn demons don't want me to watch this movie). As things get weirder and weirder with Deborah's condition, it still makes sense that the people around her think it still might be her condition, since there's so much we don't know about Alzheimer's and how it affects people.

Once the crew and even Deborah's family start to think things might be taking a demonic turn, it's too late for them to really turn back. What I'msaying is that unlike other found footage movies where it's asinine that people kept filming through what is happening, it makes more sense in this movie, and I appreciated that. These people put actual effort into making this movie work, not just "hey let's throw together a found footage movie to make money."

There's a mystery here, and we get to watch the family and the crew try to figure it out amidst increasingly terrifying circumstances. The movie is creepy and the plot is intriguing and the acting is good and the mystery is enthralling. All in all, this is a really good movie. Great ending, too. Much better than the one I dreamed up.

2016 October Horror Challenge #52: "Invoked"

I don't know much about this movie. The poster is really cool, and it seems to have gotten some good reviews, but Netflix predicts I'll only give this one star. It is a found footage flick though, and people seem to be tired of those, but I still like them if they're good, so there's a good chance I'll like it. If nothing else, it's unlikely this movie will get all "high concept" and try to preach at me for hours like the last movie I watched, so that's a plus.

Thisovie jumps into the "found footage" setup with both feet. The movie begins by telling us this footage is evidence in the disappearance of these people and that it was leaked to the public. After that, we see the police video of them investigating the complaint of a disturbance and they find an abandoned buildings with signs of a party and this camera left behind.  Oooh, creepy.

The footage does look authentic. It's like a bunch of goofy teens recorded their drunken party. They all do well with their performances though, so I believed them. It does take a long time for anything scary to happen. I get that they wanted to develop the plot, but ugh, kinda boring folks. Once they realize they've summoned something, though, things start to get creepy (and they do some stupid shit...plus why do they always try to talk to evil spirits in these in movies? Don't they realize that it never ends well when they do that in movies like this?)

Alas, it still takes way too long for anything really scary to happen. I mean creaking doors and footsteps can be scary, but this is a horror movie, that alone ain't gonna cut it, and  when the characters aren't even scared enough by that crap to stop partying, it isn't going to scare us, either. I mean, the characters in the movie even say "boooooring," which should indicate to you that the movie isn't scary enough. The movie works when things actually happen, but it just doesn't happen often enough to keep the movie from being anything but dull. Pity, I really wanted to like this one.

2016 October Horror Challenge #51: "Baskin"

Boy does THIS seem to be a polarizing movie. For awhile there, everyone loved it and I heard nothing but good things. Now it seems a lot of people hate it and get really pissy about that (but then so do I when a movie that was supposed to be great disappoints me) so I don't know where I will fall in this spectrum, but this is one of the movies I've been most looking forward to watching this year.  We'll see.

I avoided spoilers like the plague with this one, so I didn't totally know what it was about coming in. Something something Turkish, somethings something women find themselves in a place full of suffering? In hell maybe? OK, that's enough, lalalalala I can't hear you!

Unfortunately I really have to wait to find out what this movie is about, because while the open sequence is great it doesn't tell me much, and I don't learn anything in the next thirty minutes except that Turkish cops are jerks ( well, these ones are, at least). And they seem to want to start a boy band or something, because I shit you not, there's like a whole five minute scene where they drive around singing along with the radio. Talk about suffering.

Once things finally start happening ( at what feels like about six hours into the movie) there are some creepy scenes. I could have sworn people said this movie was about a group of women, but no, just these dildobrain cops. Not the most sympathetic characters, these guys.

Whoever decided to describe this movie as people trapped in a land of suffering needs to be slapped. The only suffering here is mine as I have to watch these idiots wandeing around screaming threats at abandoned buildings. It takes for-fucking-ever for anything to happen, but there's some cool gore and depraved sickness once things do finally start happening.

I still say I did more suffering than these characters did. It's like there's 20 minutes of action here chopped up and scattered throughout this movie, which feels about a week long. I think the annoying repetitive scenes and slow wandering around are supposed to feel surreal and dreamlike, but instead they feel annoying and boring, like I'm trying to walk underwater but I only wish I were underwater, because then I'd be drowning and I wouldn't have to watch this movie anymore. It's a shame, too, because there's some really good stuff here, but it never comes together into a good movie as a whole.

2016 October Horror Challenge #50: "Hellions"

I don't know what to think about this movie. The premise sounds great, the poster is awesome, the opening sequence was cool, and yet Netflix keeps saying they think I'll only give it one star. What gives? Is there something everyone else knows that I'm not privy to? I really hope not, so I give this movie a chance anyway.

The movie is about a teenage girl planning a romantic Halloween night with her boyfriend (my kind of girl, I love Halloween too, as you all know) but there are some kids hanging around who are interested in something a lot more terrifying than candy. Kids are great at being cute, but they're even better at being creepy, so horror movies involving kids tend to work for me even if they're bad.

The acting in this movie is a lot better than I expected it to be. I actually cared about the main character and her dilemma. Poor kid. Being 17 sucks. Plus the evil little kids are so creepy in their costumes. I want to have kids so I can dress them like these evil bastards. Hearing kids knock and say "trick or treat" has never seen scarier, I swear. And this is the second horror movie I've watched today that uses the song "Silent Night" and makes it scary! Good work, guys.

The movie gets more disorienting as it moves along, which works because I think that's what would happen to the perception of a person thrown into a situation like this. Some of the later plot twists remind me if a book by Christopher Pike that creeped me out as a kid. Not like it was a ripoff, just like a creepy feeling that felt eerily familiar. I dug it. This movie is a scary good time. Screw what Netflix thinks. One star my ass.

2016 October Horror Challenge #49: "Manos: The Hands of Fate" with Rifftrax

Want to hear something really scary? I once had to watch this movie by itself and make my own snarky commentary! Boo! Terrifying thought, right?  This is notoriously one if the worst movies ever made. It was made for like, $5 by some guy who had no idea how to make a movie, and all the cast and crew mocked him horribly.

The story of how the movie was made is actually a way better story than the plot of this movie. It's about a family who are headed on vacation but get lost and wind up staying the night at a strange house which is apparently home to an evil cult or something. It actually doesn't make even as much sense as I made it sound with that description.

The acting, directing, music, and camera work are all horrible and it's almost impossible to take without some kind of commentary on. I don't recommend watching this movie without Rifftrax, let's put it that way.

2016 October Horror Challenge#48 "Cub"

This is a French movie that seems to have been given a lot of positive buzz. I gotta give it to the French, man, those fuckers come up with some messed up horror movies. Year after year, some of the best, most messed up movies I see are French horror movies, so I had high hopes for this one.

The plot surrounds a patch of woods that are said to be home to a creature, half boy, half wolf. People have died there, so a boy scout troop decides that would be a great place to set up camp. Seems legit. This troop has a lot of problems. They're kinda rag-tag and the other boys like to bully the resident outcast, a strange, quiet boy who is the only one who claims to have seen the creature stalking their camp.

There's some good and gruesome gore here, and the movie maintains a creepy atmosphere. I don't like a lot of the characters. They're either bullies or kind of stupid, and the strange outcast boy (Sam) is kinda weird. Even after he knows enough to know that what's going on at the camp is dangerous, he doesn't really do much of anything. The movie is trying to trick us, methinks, but I figured out its plan early on. It was still a tense watch, though. No camping for me for awhile.