2011 October Horror Movie Challenge Movie 3: Jennifer's Body

I don't know what crawled up everyone's ass around the time this movie was released, but before I knew it, suddenly everyone was talking about how horrible and cliche it was. I was intrigued by the movie's premise and I love Amanda Seyfried, so I bought the DVD as soon as it was released, but I got distracted by bright shiny objects and so I waited around a long time to watch it. I finally got to it today, and while it might not be the most original movie I've ever seen, I loved it.

First off, Megan Fox is gorgeous in this movie, so she's nice to look at, and second, she actually does a good job playing her part. She's the ditzy popular girl who is best friends with a nerd aptly named "Needy" (right, Amanda Seyfried plays the unattractive friend here in bizarro land). Jennifer manages to be a cocky bitch while also being likable enough for me to care what happens to her (mostly because Needy is such a nice best friend that I feel bad when her life starts falling apart, starting with her friendship with Jennifer). Not to spoil anything, but Jennifer goes from regular high school evil to actually, truly evil when she is possessed by a demon and starts snacking on the student body. The trailers and movie posters give that much away, but they didn't prepare me for how much I was going to enjoy the show. While the screenwriter for this movie, Diablo Cody, can sometimes get caught up enjoying the sound of her own dialogue too much (and it's not always as clever as she thinks it is, honest to blog) the dialogue in this movie is still a lot of fun. Jennifer makes some good comebacks both before and after she turns evil, and while I'm fairly certain teenage girls don't call each other "Monistat" and "Vagisil," it's still kind of fun to hear Jennifer and Needy say it.

The movie is pretty mean-spirited, too. What I mean when I say that is it's not all cut and dried, the good guys wear white hats and the bad guys all have pointy black hats and horns, the bad stuff happens but it isn't TOO bad, and the good guys defeat the evil in the end by virtue of their goody goodness. In "Jennifer's Body," evil can sometimes be very seductive, and good can be easily tainted by evil until it's hard to tell the difference anymore.

Plenty of nice gore (I recommend watching the uncut version, because I imagine the theatrical version is more tame), good acting, characters that you care about, and some fun and nasty dialogue make this a helluva fun movie to watch. I don't know why so many people hated it, but I totally dug it.

2011 October Horror Movie Challenge Movie 2: Exorcism: The Possession of Gail Bowers

I don't know how many of you have heard of Asylum. They're a small moviemaking company, headed by a guy named Leigh Scott, and they release independent movies, but they've gained particular notoriety in recent years for releasing films people have dubbed "mockbusters." See, Asylum's films tend to be released direct to video at times that coincide with big-budget major studio films that have similar titles and budgets. For instance, around the time Rob Zombie's "Halloween" remake was making publicity, Asylum released a movie called "Halloween Night." When "Transformers" was in theaters, Asylum released a direct to DVD movie called "Transmorphers." You get the idea. These movies are often reviled not only for being ripoffs of major studio films but also for being pretty terrible. I've only seen two Asylum movies thus far, "Paranormal Entity" which was released while "Paranormal Activity" was making the rounds, and "Exorcism: The Possession of Gail Bowers" (not at all to be confused with "The Exorcism of Emily Rose") and from that limited experience, I can tell you that I enjoyed both flicks. I'm not saying that they're great cinematic achievements or anything, but they've been entertaining and painless fun to watch.

"Exorcism: The Possession of Gail Bowers" has some problems. The acting from some of the central players leaves much to be desired (see if you can keep a straight face while Rambo the blind Priest is giving his monologues) but the movie hits a lot of the right notes. Gail is a likable character, and I felt bad for her watching her succomb slowly to demonic forces. The woman who plays Gail's sister also gives a good performance. The special effects aren't very special, but the makeup is creepy and Gail's demon voice is effective as she screams and wails in anger and terror (though I often couldn't tell what the hell she was supposed to be saying because her voice is so distorted that a lot of her dialogue is unintelligible). I'm not saying this is a great film, but if you're a fan of satanic/demonic possession movies, you might want to give it a watch.

2011 October Horror Movie Challenge Movie 1: Them (1954)

I've waited long enough to watch this movie. I bought it years ago and haven't gotten around to watching it until now. Surprisingly, for a 1950s era sci-fi movie about giant ants, it holds up pretty well. The script tosses in some explanation about how the atomic bomb dropped 9 years before the movie's release date had a hand in mutating the ants to giant proportions, but it's wise enough not to try and over-explain everything, thus making the plot seem even more ridiculous. The acting is good as well. The little girl in the opening sequences plays shocked and scared very well, and the small-town cop Ben is likable (even if he seems to be perpetually on duty 24/7 despite having a pregnant wife and two kids). The giant ants are creepy and surprisingly effective (with today's technology we seem to have only been able to make giant insects look WORSE with our computer generated imagery than this movie from the 1950s). We get to see some people get chomped by ants, hear some freaky ant-communication screeching, and listen to precious lines like "Saliva is the only thing holding me together right now, too." This movie is a fun watch. Good way to kick off the festivities.

October Horror Movie Challenge List

Beach Bums (2011)

This is the latest film from the award-winning filmmaker Anthony Spadaccini, who is also responsible for the "Head Case" films. This film is considerably lighter fare than those serial-killer films, though, so you don't have to worry about watching this comedy with the whole family. The tagline for this movie is "And you thought YOUR vacation was bad." Actually, I've taken a beach vacation in my life, but nothing that rivals the experience of the main character in this film, a clumsy, down-on-his-luck guy named Trevor who can't seem to catch a break. This movie kind of made me want to go to the beach, but if I ever do decide to try taking a beach vacation again, remind me to book it as far away from the people in this movie as possible.

Trevor is the first character we meet in this film, and he's a goofy guy who sleeps with a teddy bear and has a dead-end job and a boss who seems to want to seduce him, so it's easy to feel sorry for him at first (even as we wonder how he can afford to book a beach vacation when he just lost his job...needless to say, Trevor's not the brightest bulb on the tree). Also, I have to say that once Trevor arrives at the beach, he really is responsible for most of what happens next: an escalating fight that starts when Trevor decides to steal from a fellow beach bum. The bulk of the movie shows Trevor's feud with this guy, and I don't know why he thought he could win a battle like this when he can't even figure out how to work an umbrella, or a screen door, or a folding chair...he can't even eat an ice-cream cone without injuring himself somehow.

Fortunately, injury for Trevor means fun for the audience! The comedy in this movie is of the slapstick variety, with the oafish Trevor getting into one ridiculous situation after another and managing to trip, fall, and nearly drown several times throughout the course of the film. One particularly funny sequence finds Trevor buried in the sand, trapped helplessly while his arch nemesis throws wet wads of paper at his head. I'd like to try that with a few people I know.

This movie is a fun throwback to the fun slapstick comedies of the silent film era. It really is fun for the whole family, too - the eight year old girl I was babysitting was giggling right along with me.

Chick Flick Day!

In Plain Sight season 3