Halloween 2015

[lhb412]

Watched The Devil's Backbone, then Pan's Labyrinth, and then Crimson Peak (which I just got back from). Lots of recurring themes, lots of awesome, bizarre spirits and lots of

Really enjoyed Crimson Peak, but I have to say: The Devil's Backbone is GDT's best film. It's a perfect movie.

[XvGojira]

Watched some Walking Dead episodes and some movies at friend's.

CHUD 2: Bud the CHUD - Feels like an adapted Return of the Living Dead script. Stupid fun and fairly bloodless.

Vault of Horror - Love anthology movies and this is no different. Seeing Tom Baker paint Denholm Elliot to death was great.

[Tom R VanSlambrouck]

I've pretty much given up on watching a Horror movie every day this month. I'll still try to fit in as many films as I can that would be considered Halloweenish. It really sucks I've wanted to do this and everytime I get sidetracked.

[klen7]

I watched The Visitor (1979) last night... it is a film that i had never heard of before this year and it seemed to immediately catapult into cult status once the drafthouse brand got involved and it was re-released. It is a bizarre film. It's horror elements are all taken from classic horror films (The Omen, Birds, The Bad Seed, Rosemary's Baby) and its just overall very odd. Strange things happen, but in most cases there is no reaction from the cast that something really odd just happened. Really it just changed my opinion of Atlanta Georgia a little.

In addition to movie watching, i've been picking up some horror comics (which i do year round)
Revival: Years ago I used to read Tim Seely's "Hack/Slash" (a comic about a girl and her ghoul that hunt slashers) but it was a series i dropped as the plots were all about the same after a while and i really didnt like some of the interior artists choices. When this series came out to good reviews, i hesitated to pick up because i was expecting a repackaged Hack/Slash, but i just read the first volume and it's something i'm interested to continue. The general plot is that there is a town where one day a bunch of people that had died came back to life. They didn't come back as zombies, but they didnt come back altogether human either. The series follows a law enforcement officer and a CDC official in this quarantined town as they try to solve the overall mystery and deal with general "reviver" related crime.

Wolf i picked up the first two issues of this. I really like Ales Kot's series Zero. He throws a lot of ideas out there and surprisingly many stick which elevates Zero from being a simple spy story to something i genuinely look forward to and never know what to expect. So this series is Kot's supernatural detective series. Still early so lots of world building going on, but i'm interested to see where it goes.

[Dr Kain]

Halloween month continues with a look at Toho's 1958 horror crime thriller The H-Man. Is it a solid movie or as toxic as its source?

[alienhulk2099]

Scream 4, just as fantastic as 2 and 3.

[XvGojira]

Hopped on to Amazon Prime video last night, as I wasn't feeling what Netflix had to offer and ended up watching The Rift. R. Lee Ermey captains a super sub to find it's twin who was lost exploring a deep water trench (or something). Felt like sort of a 20,000 Leagues Udner the Sea by the way of Galaxy of Terror minus all the nudity and sexuality (although with the amount of tentacle and tendrils in this I was mildly surprised it didn't head into that direction). Some neat monsters and great sub-par 80's effects. God I love creature features.

[jellydonut25]

[Dr Kain]

I really liked Scream 4 a lot better than 2 and 3. I liked the whole picking on the remakes angle they were doing and how horror movies have changed today compared to then. Plus, it has some really great moments like when Heroes girl just starts naming off every horror movie that has a remake.

Anyway,

Freddy's Dead - Was this supposed to be a horror movie or Looney Tunes Featuring Freddy? Good god this movie was just flat out stupid. The only line I actually liked was when the nameless kid is on the bed and says, "Nothing is going to make me get off of this bed!" and it starts on fire and he just screams, "DAMMIT!" before jumping off of it. The whole thing was just so damn stupid and the town just suddenly being abandoned was dumb as all ****ing hell. Now he has a daughter that no one ever talked about? Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. It would have been a much more interesting movie had it been that Freddy's powers got so powerful that it affected anyone who was living in Springwood, which would have been a far better reason for people leaving other than just because. I give this pile of **** a 2/10.

New Nightmare - Probably the best sequel in the entire franchise, but still far from perfect. I love how the majority of the actors are playing themselves and how it establishes that Freddy was an actual demon that was trapped in the movies. Unfortunately, the movie just drags on way too many times as it is a good 20 minutes too long. I do like this incarnation of Freddy quite a bit as he looks down right demonic, however, we didn't get enough of him. Also, Heather clearly had her shields turned on because she should have been out when she got hit by that car. Instead, she just gets right back up and runs off like nothing happened. Overall, I give it a 7/10 stars.

[klen7]

I'm with Dr Kain, I'd put Scream 4 second to the original.

I do really enjoy the "whodunit" aspect of each entry, so I'm not sure how well most of them survive repeat viewings.

I watched Curse of Chucky which was surprisingly better than I expected. I really enjoyed the dialogue between two of the characters (one of which is unfortunately the very first victim)..but the overall smaller concept is really what this franchise (and many others) need. I thought Fiona Dourif was fantastic as the lead. Really most of the places I felt it fell short were where they added ties back into the previous entries.

[Dr Kain]

Yeah, I was really impressed with Curse when I was watching the whole series last year. It is better than everything that came after the second movie.

[klen7]

Alvin & The Chipmunks meet Frankenstein - watched this with baby girl. She didn't like when Alvin turned into a monster.. She also didn't like that the chipmunks didn't listen to their daddy, which made me happy.

Late Phases Werewolf in a retirement community vs a blind Vietnam veteran. Pretty solid little horror flick. The Wolf suit is a little shakey, but the acting and overall fresh story make it worth checking out

[DannyBeane]

[jellydonut25]

[jellydonut25]

Transylvania 6-5000 - For me, it works on the level of "funny because it's SO unfunny." The problem with things like that is that at a certain point, "unfunny funny" wears thin and just becomes "unfunny." You need some good moments of ACTUAL humor to carry you along, and this movie has only a few of them. 3/5.

Hocus Pocus - It never quite comes together exactly right, given some of the talent involved, and it has some confusing/convenient/outright stupid things happening, but it IS a decent family flick for the Halloween season. It skews a little too much KIDS than family, but when it comes to this kind of movie, you kind of have to take what you can get.3/5

The Visitor - Much like Hausu, this is just a movie that's a blend of brilliance and stupidity. Stuprilliance. 3.5/5? I Think? It's impossible to rate movies like this.

Re-Animator - SO good. 4.5/5

Bride of Re-Animator - like most Yuzna films, it's decent for an hour and then CRAZY for half an hour. It treads some of the same ground as the first one, but it's still super enjoyable. 4/5.

Beyond Re-Animator - I actually like this a lot. It's certainly not as "good" of a movie as Bride, but it actually advances the story in a more interesting/unique/fun way and is funnier. VERY enjoyable, for me. 4/5

Sleepy Hollow - Part of me wanted to rate this a little higher, for being a Tim Burton movie that didn't comically, detrimentally, fall victim to his various quirks and clichés. Part of me wanted to rate it lower for falling victim to some of them. Ultimately, I split the difference as they aren't a harm to the film, and the gothic style fits. I wasn't as engaged by this as I thought I might be, but I was also EXTREMELY tired. 3.5/5

Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon - There are some minor issues in terms of the way the film looks at times, though I can't be 100% certain that's inherent to the film (the Blu-ray that I own is said to be pretty crappy, which is completely believable given that it lacks even a basic MENU), and the final act could maybe have thrown in some more twists instead of just playing directly into a lot of the tropes it points out throughout the rest of its running time, but Behind the Mask is a smart, creative, funny, somewhat tense "slasher" film that manages to both mock and pay loving tribute to the major slasher franchises while also being its own unique thing. It's incredible how much this movie manages to accomplish, and if for some reason, you've never seen it, shut up and see it NOW. 4.5/5

Insidious - I had kind of sort of avoided this movie upon initial release, I think because it was from the creator of Saw and at the time, I wasn't into Saw at all and wasn't really into modern horror in general. It all seemed to be taking too many cues from Japanese horror, and it felt to me like the market was getting watered down in to being all J-horror.

ANYWAY, Insidious isn't brilliant or amazing, but it's completely solid. It's got moments of genuine tension, a cool creature design, a fairly interesting story, and a solid cast. It's a pretty good time. 4/5.

Insidious Chapter 2 -It's a fairly precipitous fall from Insidious to Chapter 2, but at least this movie feels like an actual sequel, pays off on the promise of the ending of the original film, and retains the solid cast. It's also got a decently interesting story, considering we're already on-board with these characters and their story.

Unfortunately, it's not as tense, scary or colorful, and there aren't anywhere near as many cool designs and spirits. It TRIES, but I think it tries too hard to legitimize the whole enterprise and doesn't try hard enough to do what a movie like this should do and be scary (or even unsettling). 2.5/5

[klen7]

[Dr Kain]

Bram Stoker's Dracula - The 4K remaster of ths new Ugly Cover edition is absolutely stunning. There are some truly fine details I never noticed were around before and the new audio track is so much superior than the old one. My god, if Sony had actually used the original poster art for this movie it would be a perfect release. Nevertheless, I've talked about how much I love this movie many times so I'll just leave here with the yearly 9/10 stars.

The Fog - Except for the fact that Jaime Lee Curtis serves absolutely no purpose in this movie whatsoever, it is fantastic. It has a ton of atmosphere and mood going for it and the plot, while basic, really keeps you engaged to the TV to see what is going to happen next. An 8/10.

[klen7]

Open Grave - I was mainly interested to see this because Sharlto Copley had the lead. The less i say about the movie the better since "all" the virtues of the film are it's reveals. Main character wakes up with no memory in an open mass grave and finds a group of others without memories. Distrust and fact finding abound. I was personally very frustrated with the script, it had a couple gross moments as well. Not my cup of tea.

[jellydonut25]

The Nightmare before Christmas - I couldn't remember anything about it heading into this, but a little bit in, I realized I must have seen it as a kid.
Anyway, it's good, in case you didn't know. I have a couple minor issues in that the character relationships are not set up all that great and I don't really get what makes Oogie Boogie a villain; he doesn't seem to be any more sinister than any of these ghoulish characters. I think I'd have had Oogie want to become the pumpkin king and take out Jack or something just to make him seem like someone especially sinister instead of just another Halloween personality who likes mayhem, but that's my only complaint. 4.5/5

[lhb412]

Watched the Amicus Productions EC Comics adaptations: Tales From the Crypt and Vault of Horror. Tales has the more memorable stories by far, but Vault's editing and direction are a bit sharper, and its frame story hangs together better. It's kind of a Frankenstein/Gargantuas situation, where you feel two good movies could someone be merged into a single, ultimate movie. Both films feature some neat actors, Peter Cushing delivers a touching performance in Tales, and Tom Baker steals Vault from a cast of more experiences thesps.

[Dr Kain]

I saw those last year and I thought Vault was the better movie because it featured more stories that weren't adapted into the TV series. Plus, I felt the Crypt Keeper parts were done better in Vault.

[jellydonut25]

The story about the guy and his dog in Tales from the Crypt stuck with me for YEARS. K saw it as a kid and thought it was a subplot from like a regular movie, not part of an anthology. I had given up on ever seeing this movie where that happens and was watching Tales and went "AAAAAAHHHH!!!!! That's it! Hurray!"

[klen7]

i had an experience with that recently. I had seen Tales from the Darkside as a young lad and the twisted morality lesson of "Lover's Vow" really stuck with me. Earlier this year i watched the movie and was thrilled to see the segment since i could not remember what television show or movie it was that i had seen.

[DannyBeane]

I watched the 1978 version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers today. Man that movie is good. Soo much atmosphere and so creepy. Donald Sutherland was amazing in this.

[klen7]

^ The dog in that movie and that final scene..so creepy.

In the Mouth of Madness - John Carpenter presents a story that is Lovecraft by way of Stephen King. Pretty ambitious story with plenty of creepy moments. I like Lovecraftian horror, so its odd I haven't seen this before.