2016 October Horror Challenge #7: "Contracted: Phase 2"

This is a sequel to the movie "Contracted," which was a highlight of my horror challenge last year, definitely one of my favorites. It was a nasty, mean, gory little flick and I loved it, so when I heard there was a sequel coming, I was excited.  It came out and got some pretty bad reviews, even from people who liked the original, but I was still hopeful.

My hopefulness continued through a pretty solid opening sequence and even through the first third of the movie before I started hearing warning bells go off in  my head.  See, one of the things that made the first movie so good was that it does along quickly without trying to come up with an annoying back story to over explain and ruin everything for us.  It's like the people who made the first movie got together and said "hey, you know what this movie needs? A stupid, preachy, long and boring plot origin story! Quick, to the batmobile, we need to film a sequel!". Dudes, did you not even pay attention to what made your first movie so good?

I can't fault the acting here.  The main character here was not my favorite character in the first movie, but I guess he's OK here, and he'ss much smarter than the dumbass move he made in the first movie. At least he realizes right away that something is wrong. There is plenty of gore and nastiness here too, and as with the original movie, it's well done and icky.

It's that damn stupid over-explainey plot crap.  It keeps getting in my way whenever I try to remember all the good things about this movie. Unlike, say, [rec]2, which Iproved me wrong by becoming even better when it expanded on its story, this one just gets ridiculous. I find myself rolling my eyes into the next century while I'm trying to watch the screen.  It's a shame, too, because there's a lot of good here (I'm never going into a gas station bathroom again). Far be it from me to discourage a movie from trying to have a plot, but if it's going to be this silly, perhaps it's better to leave us in the dark.

2016 October Horror Challenge #6: "Estranged"

So this is a movie that Amazon recommended to me which sounded creepy and mysterious, so I really wanted to watch it, and I was happy when it became available for streaming on Netflix. After watching a less than stellar movie, I was hoping this one would be good.

The premise of this movie is that a woman suffers a terrible accident and loses the use of her legs as well as most of her memory.  She returns to the home and family she left behind (though she now can't remember why) looking for answers.  Her family us creepy and old fashioned and secretive, and she suspects they must be hiding something horrible.

Man, and you thought your family was messed up.  These people make even screwed up families look like the Waltons.  They are oppressive and strict and so certain that their ways are the right ways that my skin wanted to crawl off before the movie was half over.

The feeling of dread hanging over everything  in this movie is almost unbearable. I wanted something, anything to happen just to put an end to the suspense. I mean, she was estranged for a reason, so her family must be hiding something awful, right?  I'm impressed with movies that can freak me out this badly by making me imagine what horrible things must be lurking around the corner.

Abd that's the worst part, it never lets up. This movie just keeps getting more and more fucked up, making me want to vomit more and more with every revelation, while simultaneously making me want to I pull all my hair out because I still didn't really know what was going on.  That really does take talent, as much as this sounds like a backhanded compliment.  The actors do a great job making me feel like I had taken a bunch of drugs and the world didn't make sense anymore. It really is a fucked up, tragic little gem.  Definitely the best movie I've watched yet this year.

2016 October Horror Challenge #5: "Die Die Delta Pi"

I can't say I wasn't warned about this one.  Everyone pretty much gave this a terrible review, but I heard that it was a low-budget throwback to 80s slashers,and I bought it anyway.  In my defense, I tend to like movies that have gotten bad reviews, but there's always a risk that everyone else will be right, and unfortunately, that's what happened here.

Where do I start? The acting was terrible and wooden. Everyone sounded like they were reading their lines, which is a huge pet peeve of mine.  The dialogue was awful as well.   It sounded like it was written by 12 year olds who think they're being cool because they say fuck a lot.

The plot, such as it is, isn't remotely original: a sorority prank goes wrong back in the 80s ( we know it's the 80s because people Keep saying "far out" a lot) and a bunch of people die, and now on the anniversary of that death sorority chick start getting murdered blah blah blah.  I suppose since it's ostensibly a throwback it doesn't have to be original, but I've seen this story a million times, and done much better than it is here.  All the nudidty in the world can't save this one or make it worth checking out.

2016 October Horror Challenge #4: "The Prowler"

Four movies in and I'm already watching a movie I've seen before.  Whoops.  I live slashers, though, and it's been awhile since I saw this one, so I decided to watch it today.  Sometimes I'm just in the mood to check something out that i know will be good, you know?

This movie starts off with classic videos from world war two, letting us know that part of the movie will be set in the past.  Soon we see a "dear John" letter, letting us know that a girl broke off her relationship with her boyfriend while he was away fighting in the war.  Cold, lady.  Apparently this really pissed him off, since she wound up getting murdered, and now years later a guy wearing a soldier's uniform is picking off young people on the night of a school dance. Jerk.

The characters in this movie are perhaps not the smartest people around, as they keep splitting up to wander around with a killer on the loose.  Even the guy who's a cop keeps leaving his girlfriend alone to go exploring.  First, she could get killed, genius, even sitting in your Jeep isn't safe.  And what's to keep the killer from killing your dumb ass while you dink around on the property?

This isn't the greatest movie in the world, but it's pretty good at setting a creepy mood, and it's a fun enough slasher flick.

2016 October Horror Challenge #3: "The Killer Shrews"

This is one of those movies I've been wanting to see since I was a kid.  Back then, I didn't even really care if movies were good, if they were horror, I wanted to see them.  This is proven by my love of the terrible movie "Jason Takes Manhattan" when I got to sneak around and watch it when I was 10.  Actually, I probably could have gotten my mom to let me watch "The Killer Shrews" if I'd tried, since it is older and black and white, and my mom didn't mind as much if we saw classic horror.  Note to self: should have tried harder.

So I finally got to see this movie today.  What was the verdict? It's got the same basic plot as all these "nature run amok" movies: a scientist accidentally creates giant killer shrews that start showing down on all the animals on the island. His daughter later leads a crew who sail out to the island to continue her father's work.

The main woman in this movie is kind of an asshole, in that she doesn't bother to warn anyone on her crew that they might get eaten by killer shrews until they're on the island wondering why the crew members keep disappearing.  Of course, the dashing young male scientist is the Geri here, though he doesn't seem to care much if people get eaten either, as long as it's not him.  This movie is silly but still kind of run.  I'm glad I finally got to check it out.

2016 October Horror Challenge #2: "Funeral Home (1980)"

I remember seeing this movie among the many horror titles in the video store when I was a kid.  I wasn't allowed to watch horror movies, but I could stare longingly at the movie covers and imagine what the movies were about.  This was originally released in 1980 in Canada, and it had a few bigger VHS releases in the following years, but it never became a big hit like some other slashers of the 80s.  The cover was creepy enough to catch my eye as a kid, but was the movie itself worth watching?

The movie is kind of grainy and murky as far as the picture goes, and the sound is a little muddled, but that kind of adds to the spooky atmosphere once the movie gets going.  The plot is pretty simple: a teenage girl is sent by her mother to stay with her grandmother for the summer to help her grandmother convert her big old house (which used to be a funeral home) into a tourist home for the tourist season.  The grandmother has fallen on hard times since her husband disappeared, and she needs to make some extra money.

It's a pretty simple premise, one that works well for the time period (it was pretty common for families to send teenage kids to help relatives without too many questions asked back then...I wouldn't really want my teenage daughter to live in a creepy old house where someone just mysteriously disappeared like that, but this was a different time I guess). The house itself is creepy enough on its own without really needing much help to set a spooky mood.  The main actresses who play the teenage girl and the grandmother are recognizable from other 80s horror movies, which was fun for me to notice while I was watching.

The biggest complaint lodged against this movie seems to be that it's not very original, but I don't necessarily think that is such a bad thing. First, all slashers share similarities because there aren't many ways to go with a slasher plot, plus this movie was released before a lot of the movies that have those similarities, so it was more original when it came out.  It wasn't too hard for me to figure out what was going on, but I've seen hundreds of horror movies, and the actresses do a good job with what they have. There isn't much gore to speak of, but it's not really needed in this movie, which relies more on shadows to creep us out with thoughts of what might be lurking in the dark.  I had a lot of fun with this one, despite its flaws, and I'm glad I checked it out.

2016 October Horror Challenge #1 "The Dead Room"

I only had time to watch one horror movie on the first day of October (if I wanted to get any sleep before work that night, that is) so I dinked around for awhile before finally picking this one.  It only had like two stars on Netflix, which doesn't always mean I won't like it (some of my favorite movies every year have bad ratings) and Amazon recommended it to me, but I can never tell with Amazon whether they seriously think I'll like a movie or they're just saying "hey, this movie is shit and you like shitty movies, check it out!" So what's the verdict?

This isn't the most original movie in the world.  It's about a haunted farmhouse so full of ghosts that the owners fled already (smarter than most people in horror movies who stay in the hunted ass house until they're all dead) and when the movie begins, a group of paranormal researchers have moved in to set up cameras and document the ghostly activity.  There's the older guy who doesn't believe in ghosts period, the younger guy who has a wife and kids at home hes just trying to support, and the younger goth chick who can feel the presence of ghosts and is there because she can see the ghosts behind the mysterious activity (a chair goes flying? Oh, that ghost guy just threw it.  He's right over there).

If you've watched many horror movies, you've seen everything this movie has to offer, but it's not terrible.  It does manage some chills here and there.  The characters mostly spend a lot of time bickering (especially mister "I believe in science, not ghosts" who is extremely annoying.  I wanted the ghosts to kill him after like twenty minutes.  Plus he was the one who kept convincing them to stay even after the ghosts get dangerous. I would have been out of there after one day and would have made a very boring movie). I ended up liking this one, even though it doesn't really win any awards for originality.  It wasn't a bad way to spend an hour and a half.