Monster Zero x SciFi Japan - Archive Only

It is that time of year ladies and gents! It is that time of year where monster movies are main stream for an entire month leading up to Halloween! Since we had a topic last year on the subject, what horror/monster-related movies and shows are you seeing this October?

i'd love to do 31 days of October with a different horror movie every night, but i just end up too busy for that, so my goal is 15. I did enjoy this thread last year quite a bit.

As cool as that would be, that just isn't feasible in my world.

Anyway, right now, the plan is to watch:

Halloween 1-H20
Nightmare 2-New Nightmare
Trick r Treat
Zombieland
The Thing
The Fog
A couple of the Universal classics (not sure which ones yet)
Bram Stoker's Dracula (new 4K mastered BD coming out next week)
The Simpsons THoH 1-8

As man episodes of Tales from the Crypt as I can get through.

I'm also seeing at the Alamo Drafthouse the 1925 Phantom of the Opera on Saturday (first time ever). Ron Chaney is going to be there along with an orchestra that will be playing the music to the movie.

Oh yeah, and 1 or 2 Toho movies that I plan to review.

A few years ago I watched every Universal Classic Monster movie I could get my hands on.
The next year I watched every entry from the major slasher franchises because I'd never seen most of them (F13, Nightmare, Halloween, TCM, Child's Play)
The next year I watched entries from franchises like Hellraiser, Scream, Saw, Amityville Horror.
Last year I watched 30 different monster movies, aiming for "rubber suit" stuff but since I went alphabetical, some of it was stop-motion, or not-quite-that-80s aesthetic I was shooting for.

This year, I'm feeling a little burned out on traditional horror stuff. In addition to watching all those slashers a few years ago, I've been watching a lot of them for podcasts and stuff over the past year or two...

So I'm going with "Fun and festive" this year. My list, though I'm sure not everything fits what I'm looking for 100% and I'm sure some of it probably sucks, looks like this:
1. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
2. Clue
3. Coraline
4. Corpse Bride
5. Dance of the Dead
6. Demons
7. Demons 2
8. Ed Wood
9. Ernest Scared Stupid
10. Evil Ed
11. Fido
12. Fright Night (2011)
13. Fright Night 2 (80s)
14. Fright Night 2 (2013)
15. Ginger Snaps
16. Grabbers
17. Halloween Tree
18. Halloweentown
19. Hausu
20. The Hidden
21. Hocus Pocus
22. House (1986)
23. House II: The Second Story
24. Housebound
25. Monster House
26. Monster Squad
27. Nightmare Before Christmas
28. Repo the Genetic Opera
29. Rogue
30. Sleepy Hollow
31. Society
32. Something Wicked this Way Comes
33. Suck
34. Transylvania 6-5000
35. Trick ‘r Treat
36. Under Wraps
37. The Visitor
38. Wallace and Grommit Curse of the Were-Rabbit
39. The Witches

We'll see what I actually get through, as I start a new job on the 12th, but this is what I've got pegged for a somewhat more light-hearted Halloween viewing season, as I'm just burned out on franchises and slashers and slow, plodding, oppressing, atmospheric traditional horror stuff.


Also, Halloween Wars is a show on FoodNetwork that you guys ABSOLUTELY should watch if you haven't. It's a "cooking competition" where they have a sugar artist, a cake baker, and a pumpkin carver create themed displays and it's a TON of fun, and the stuff they create is awesome. I've been watching it every year for the past 4 years and now I feel like nothing gets me more in the Halloween spirit, honestly. I put "cooking competition" in quotes because this is more visual than taste.
These are just a couple of the cool displays they've made in past seasons:

This year I'm mostly just going through old Universal horror plus some random stuff I've never seen before (The Howling...somehow I've never watched this).

I'm going to try and do 31 horror movies right now all I have planned to watch is The Babadook and The Wolf Man (original) and probably a few other Universal horror movies.

I know (vaguely) what movies I'm gonna watch, but I always like to do some season reading, too. I've recently reread both Frankenstein and Dracula, so those old standards are off the table...

Now that I'm thinking about it, Howling Reborn isn't THAT bad...If I had to rank the series I'd go 1, 3, 2, Reborn, and then the rest in one big pile of awful. At least Reborn had really cool wolves.


I've watched a few movies already, because I couldn't wait for October.
The Halloween Tree was new to me and totally awesome. It manages to accomplish a lot in only 70-some minutes and it's one of those kids movies that isn't afraid to get a little more serious and do something kind of adult while balancing it well with some child-friendly fun.
Dance of the Dead was a decent zom-com. Though not particularly super FUNNY, it was well-paced and a fun ride. Kinda like Tremors in that respect. It's not a serious film, but it's not a laugh-a-minute comedy. It's just a good time.
Corpse Bride was good. It's definitely a bit of "been there, done that," but as long as you haven't been previously inundated with Burton and him forcing his aesthetic where it doesn't belong (Like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Alice in Wonderland), it's a good time, and it doesn't overstay its welcome.

So far we've been pretty family friendly horror
Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed - Much like the first live action Scooby Doo flick, there is plenty of nods to classic SD and lots of clever references, but much like the first film, there is way too much toilet humor. Also interestingly enough both films were written by James Gunn of GotG and Slither fame.

Gremlins 2 Definitely love this film. This latest viewing reminded me how 80s this movie feels.

Oct 1 I watched the AoT movie
Oct 2 was American Psycho
and I just ordered The Frighteners and The Howling off Amazon

I've watched The Babadook and last night I watched King Kong 33. Not sure what I will watch tonight.

Well, I just finished watching Halloween and I have reviewed Matango. October has definitely started.

Phantom of the Opera (1925) - My first time seeing this ever and it was on the big screen at the Mile High Horror Festival and it was quite enjoyable. Ron Chaney was there and did a Q&A before it, which was great. Also, they had a guy there with a piano and machine who was playing the music to the movie live, which was great. Ron did say it was the 1929 version, which had colorized scenes, but was also missing some footage apparently. It was kind of weird as I expected the movie to be straight up black and white but it was sometimes yellow, sometimes red, sometimes blue, sometimes green, etc. Nevertheless, I have to say that this is probably hands down the best version of the story I have seen in movie form thus far. I really loved the masquerade ball scene, especially when the Phantom came dressed up as the red death. Overall, I give it an 8/10 stars. Oh, and this was my first official silent film movie ever too.

I've got some pictures and a video I'm going to put together of the festival, but it was fun. We got to meet Ron and his daughter, who were fun to chat with. The same goes for Ari Lehman (child Jason in the original F13). All of them were very down to earth people and act way different from others I met at the festival last year. Oh, and here are my hauls from the festival (sans Kylo):

Housebound - Caught this on Netflix streaming. This was incredibly enjoyable and surprisingly original. Definitely a gem in the haunted house genre. Some humor in the mix as well. Add this one to your queue

Went back to the Horror Fest today to get Kane Hodder's autograph:

You know Mike Mignola did a four issue comic adaptation of Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula? Did you know I've owned it for years and never read it?!

That partly covers my seasonal reading...

I did not know that.

Halloween II - Not as good as the original, but still quite enjoyable. I give it a 7/10.

Nightmare on Elm Street 3 - A pretty enjoyable movie with a still frightening Freddy and some really creative deaths and dream sequences within. Unfortunately, what they do to Nancy here is just unforgivable. It is also interesting to see Lawrence Fishburn in his early days. Overall, it gets a 7/10 from me.

The Buffy movie is alright. It works maybe more often than it doesn't but it definitely feels tonally inconsistent and like it was screwed with in editing or something, since there are quite a few character motivations and plot points that are shown to us, but not even remotely explained.

Fido is fun. It's another zomcom that I would classify in the same way as Dance of the Dead. It's not a laugh-a-minute, but it's fun and has good energy. It's unique and unlike a lot of movies that have crazy premises, this one doesn't waste it, in fact, it pushes it to just about every possible place it could go.

Halloweentown was surprisingly enjoyable. I figured "Oh, direct-to-Disney-Channel movie...this probably won't be very good." but it's pretty decent, for what it is. It's got a great "Halloween" atmosphere and vibe to it, even if it's more than a bit goofy and predictable, and poorly acted. You could do worse.

Under Wraps - speaking of worse. This movie does one of those things that's VERY difficult to pull off well, and usually just ends up making the movie feel stupid and not good: it plays the monster itself (a mummy in this case) for jokes. There's a fine line between "Humor with the monster" like kicking Wolfman in the nards in Monster Squad and "Taking away from the character of the monster and making it seem stupid" like people insinuating at various times that because the mummy can only groan and not talk, he must be a "special" child. Bleh.

Wallace and Grommit, Curse of the Were-Rabbit - It's fun. Wallace and Grommit are fun, so it's fun. I don't really no what else to say about it.

Oh...meh.