skip to main |
skip to sidebar
With a heavy heart, I regret to inform you that I will not be doing the Horrors of October this year.
Though I have plenty of movies in my personal video collection and through streaming services at the ready, I simply chose to forgo the process of writing up 31 daily reviews due to several reasons. The main sticking point against doing the annual project is my current severe lack of watching movies released this year. As of this writing, I have only seen 25 movies either in theaters or on home video. Further showcasing my film drought is the sheer fact that I have not gone to my beloved art theater at all this year, which I'm still dumbfounded over for actually happening. Though I could just make time and rush through past and future 2017 film releases in November and December, I would rather get a leg up on them next month than type up a fun diatribe on some random Italian exploitation film or a generic slasher.
Another knock against doing the Horrors of October is my poor job handling last year's edition. My last three reviews were not posted while the iron was hot, coming online extremely late along with the final list and the film awards. That experience really soured my enjoyment and I'm a little afraid of it happening again.
And thirdly, I want to finally watch the first season of Stranger Things in time for the second season premiere. That would take time away from the horror films and I certainly would not want to waste a daily review slot by systematically evaluating every single episode of the beloved Netflix series.
So, since I'm cancelling this year's edition, what's to come in October? Though I am not going to be very strict about, I'm going to try to replace the 31 days of horror movie reviews with 31 reviews of 2017 films, kicking off with a planned assessment of Darren Aronofsky's polarizing mother! on October 1st. I'll also be doing a couple more listicles that have been on the back burner for a long while now.
But just remember: October is the perfect time to binge on terror. Don't let my cancellation ruin the joy of watching a ton of horror films and be swept up by the dark fall mood.
October is just around the corner, which means that I will once again partake in one of my favorite holiday traditions: watching a boatload of horror movies! Unfortunately, some of them escape my grasp on a consistent basis, as I often have a bad tendency of never making the right time for to sit down and view them properly. Last year I chronicled 20 horror films that still haven't been presented before my naked eyes. In the span of 365 days, only four of the titles can be crossed off the list (see what I mean about me being a bit lazy?). Still, I'm glad that said four titles (It, Let The Right One In, The Babadook, and Children of the Corn) were given their fair chance and I can sleep a little easier at night.
Here's the updated list of my top 20 unwatched horror movies, with some old titles being moved around and some new titles moving on up:
1. The Saw Franchise
The king is dead, long live the king! Jigsaw and his gory games move into the top seat since I was finally able to engorge myself on Tim Curry's brilliant performance as Pennywise the Dancing Clown and those damn pesky kids from Derry, Maine. I sadly did not take the plunge with the Saw series during last year's Horrors of Halloween and whether I want to this year before the release of Jigsaw remains to be seen. I might at least try to watch the first one just so I can cross this one off; no way in hell am I going to spread out the sequels on this list!
2. The Phantom of the Opera (1925)
Also receiving a higher bump is the silent classic starring Lon Chaney. I DVR'ed the movie when it aired on TCM last year, thus giving a cleaned up version of the film, but didn't get around to watching it in time for my October reviews. It's still on there though!
3. Pulse
Now here's the biggest jump up the card. My interest in the j-horror film about the internet turning evil and mass suicides significantly increased this year when it received a special blu-ray release via Arrow Video. I placed an order for it thru Amazon back in July, only for it to be constantly delayed and just recently canceled outright a couple of days ago. I should have just picked up a copy when my local FYE was closing up shop.
4. Lifeforce
Here Comes A New Challenger! I've been meaning to watch the last of the three films director Tobe Hooper did for the Cannon Group. Invaders From Mars was a hoot one lazy school day and I frankly just love the gonzo gorefest that is The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2. This sci-fi epic with its plot about space vampires led by an always-naked villainess has alluded me for some time, largely due to being out-of-print for a long while. Luckily, the great folks at Shout Factory gave it a spiffy blu-ray release, which thankfully includes the director's cut, so I can partake with this possible hidden gem from the recently departed director.
5. The Others
Nicole Kidman must continue to be haunted by the ghosts in her new house as my desire for the very acclaimed gothic horror film remains the same.
6. Fright Night
I can't keep calling myself a horror-comedy lover when I keep on skipping out on one of the granddaddies.
7. The Descent
I continue to pass by perfectly used copies of this spelunking horror film nearly every week at my usual shopping spots but I need to raise my adoration for Neil Marshall to finally take the plunge. Maybe another viewing of Dog Soldiers or curling up to Centurion on Netflix will help?
8. [REC]
The found footage film fever has finally waned here in the United States so maybe it's time to check out the acclaimed Spanish horror film featuring an ambitious reporter, a live camera, and one fateful night in an apartment building.
9. Silent Hill
I still haven't downloaded a digital copy of the original video game on my PS3 and I still haven't check out Christophe Gans' loose take on the eerie, fog-covered town.
10. Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter
I must confess: I haven't watched all of the Friday the 13th films. I have seen Jason Takes Manhattan far more times than I have with the middle trio of Part IV, V, and VI. Of those three, I have to go with The Final Chapter since it is often selected by fans as either the very best or the second best film of the franchise.
11. Irreversible
Dropping down three spots largely due to its nature of not being what you would normally refer to as a horror film, I'm not still afraid of ruining a perfectly nice evening with this dark mediation of revenge, rape, and relationships.
12. The Devil's Backbone
Guillermo del Toro is flying high at the moment, as his new film The Shape of Water drew raves at the Toronto Film Festival and won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. Time to finally pop my Criterion blu-ray copy of this anti-war ghost film in!
13. May
Another big jump goes to one of Roger Ebert's most treasure horror indies he ever reviewed.
14. The Orphanage
The general ho-hum response to A Monster Calls hurt my opinion of giving J. A. Bayona's debut feature a chance.
15. Cujo
Had to have another Stephen King film on this list as I took off the two for last year's iteration. Coming in the same spot as Children of the Corn is the evil dog flick that like Children is popular with audiences but is often derided by critics save for Dee Wallace's performance.
16. Drag Me To Hell
Still love Sam Raimi but the sting from some of his recent films continue to prevent me from checking out his humorous horror film about gypsy curses.
17. Christmas Evil
I still would love to check out this psychological holiday horror film but it again might be caught up between the Halloween and Christmas festivities.
18. Ginger Snaps
Thoroughly enjoying Emily Perkins's role as the young version of Beverly Marsh in the 1990 take of It recently has helped keep this Canadian cult film about female werewolves on the list.
19. Jeeper Creepers
Oh boy, here we go. I was interested in this horror film back in 2001 thanks to its self-aware nature and its creepy tale of a road trip gone wrong thanks to the curious nature of human beings and a humanoid monster wearing a trench coat. Then I looked up Victor Salva, the film's writer-director, and proceeded to stop in my tracks. It was my experience with Powder all over again. Now I have watched a lot of films directed by and/or starring people who have done criminal deeds, including several films by Roman Polanski, and can objectively judge them for their work. Victor Salva, on the other hand, is a pretty damn tough pill for me to swallow. I really, really need to just jump into the deep end with this one.
20. Castle Freak
One of my favorite podcasts is The Flop House, where three film buddies "watch a bad movie and then talk about it". One of its longest running joke is whenever co-host Stuart Wellington talks about or recommends this Stuart Gordon film, since he helped create a controversy over the film's supposed inclusion of a man's ding-dong being ripped off. Since I've seen some of Stuart's other favorite film picks, including The Invisible Maniac and its "death by submarine sandwich" scene, I think it's time to watch this one.
Again, this was a lot of fun writing up. Part III is sure to come next September. I do feel a bit bad for Jim Mickie, as he and Stakeland was knocked off in favor of a rabid St. Bernard, a naked space vampire, and a trench coat wearing moth man.
Will I watch any of these films next month? Maybe but I unfortunately have some bad news to discuss...
A nun and a small group of orphaned girls find residence at the remote home of a former toymaker only to get tangled up by the ghost of his late daughter and the dark forces seemingly coming from a creepy doll. All of that plus a ton of crappy jump scares in the prequel to a reviled spinoff of THE CONJURING, featuring the most overrated modern horror "icon" of our time. ANNABELLE: CREATION might just be another lame, average hauntfest for many viewers, the type that will tide you over one lazy night, but I frankly could not stand any of it. The script has a gardens of whiskers on it and is chock-full of useless padding, plot holes and sheer dumb character behavior. For example, the film has a cast of six girls but only four of them have anything to do: the two not-really-mean teenagers and the central duo. Meanwhile, the middle two tweens, one of whom is the token black character, just stand around when they aren't talking about boys. The story also never explains why the girls refuse to close doors during scary scenarios, never even try to physically destroy the evil doll, or why in the hell the closest that was supposed to contain the evil spirit still has a working lock on it and is not barricaded from outside interference. The major frights are all so unbelievable telegraphed and they of course end with a sudden boo. The only emotion that these supposed shocks can barely draw out of the viewer is pure sheer laughter; whether it was the opening car accident, the chair ejection or the swapping of black puke, I couldn't stop mocking these poorly produced spooks. I can't even give any praise to anyone in the acting department, as all of the young female actors go through the motions. I felt particularly bad for Talitha Bateman, who could have broken out from this picture as the polio-stricken and ill-fated main protagonist but she's not very great in the first half and she's absolutely not scary in the slightest during the second half. However, the ingénues are all Oscar caliber performers compared to dramatic heavyweights Anthony LaPaglia and Miranda Otto, who just sleepwalk throughout the entire movie. That goes double for Otto since she legitimately spends the majority of her time on screen laying in bed with a dumb tin mask on the left side of her face. And to top it all off, this prequel to a spinoff sets up another separate spinoff to the CONJURING franchise thanks to a stupid insert scene in the beginning and a stinger at the end. Actually, I can end this review with one good thing to say about it: at least director David F. Sandberg did a marginally better job here then when he made LIGHTS OUT.
FINAL REVIEW: 1 / 5
The summer of 1989 should be one of the best times to have as a kid, particularly with what's playing in movie theaters, but for the kids of Darby, Maine, it was 90 days to stay alive. Pre-teen Bill Denbrough and his fellow six outsiders try to uncover the mystery behind the overwhelming cases of kids disappearing and why they themselves all seem to experience separate frightening encounters with a deadly clown. IT is an effective horror show that will satisfy Stephen King fans for the most part and keep some viewers up all night due to its terrifying frights and disturbing content. Unfortunately, there are a couple of issues that prevent it from totally being a new classic, most notably some very questionable revisions to King's text and material that seemingly was cut from this theatrical release. Updating the timeframe of the scenario from the late 50s to the late 80s is a bold and winning element, as it allows the film to a give out a sharp critique of the still resonating nostalgia of the times and deliver a swift stab at the then clean image of movie kids such as the ones in E.T. and THE GOONIES. But what really doesn't work by the three credited screenwriters, including Cary Fukunaga, are the changes given to some of the main characters. Bev, the sole female in the group, gets the blunt of the misjudgments, as the abuse by her alcoholic father is even more extreme, she's constantly slut-shamed throughout the town, and her innate ability to be a sharpshooter with a weapon is excised so she can later be a damsel in distress. Ben also gets it bad, as the overweight kid is now no longer the third main protagonist, has no real backstory or no parents either, and oddly siphons off Mike's job as the group's resident historian. These and more slights will certainly piss off the King fanatics but the makers at least try to make it all work in their original way despite the bad taste. However, I can not really forgive the amount of times the film tries to shortcut through the proceedings. The movie changes gears constantly in terms of its speed of storytelling, slowly letting the characters develop one minute and then on a dime we've suddenly taken a jump and at the next series of scares. Scenes and proper transitions seem to missing outright; the most egregious example is when the band just quickly gets back together before the final battle, forgoing how all of the previous bad blood between the kids was resolved. The fact that a director's cut has recently been announced for home video outright tells you this theatrical cut is riddled with gapping holes.
Despite these glaring faults in the story department, director Andy Muschietti and his crew still craft a genuinely engaging dark fairy tale. Not a total surprise given it is coming from the same mind behind MAMA. Muschietti once again shows how great he is at getting great performances out of child actors and putting them through the ringer with some hellish CGI nightmares chasing after them. Make no mistake, he doesn't pull any punches when it comes to the violence and child peril but he thankfully does skip out on including the book's most infamous moment. He does however trip up again when it comes to the climax; he simply lets bad shaky cam and confusing editing overcome the artistic palette. The entire cast of child actors are pretty fantastic and surely will cause everyone to have their personal favorite. Jaeden Lieberher and newcomer Sophia Lillis were very endearing as Bill and Bev respectively but I pull for Jack Dylan Grazer as the real showstopper, speeding through his humorously overdone lines and nervously fidgeting around as the hypochondriac Eddie. As for Bill Skarsgård playing the titular character, aka Pennywise the Dancing Clown, I thought his take was overall fine. Similar to how Tim Curry's legendary performance of Pennywise was based on 50s culture, namely what if Bozo the Clown was mixed with a Catskills comic, Skarsgård's version relishes the sinister flamboyance of Freddy Krueger and the severe grotesque nature of 80s monster movies. Much props also go to Benjamin Wallfisch's hauntingly creepy score, particularly during the rain-soaked prologue. IT is a perfect horror movie pick for the season but those seeking a little more substance to the overall picture will have to wait longer to see if the eventual director's cut delivers the goods.
FINAL REVIEW: 3 / 5
The All-American staff at an isolated corporate office in the middle of Colombia suddenly find themselves on edge when they are locked inside the building and a mysterious voice over the intercom forcibly asks them to kill each other as he sees fit. Refusal to do so will result in a major headache for everyone via the remote detonation of hidden explosives in the skulls of all the employees. THE BELKO EXPERIMENT is a pretty damn amazing twist on BATTLE ROYALE, courtesy of horror director Greg McLean and writer-producer James Gunn. McLean expertly executes a palate of striking visual designs and wisely knows when to ratchet up the tension or when to show the bloodshed. Gunn's script brims with unconventional flourishes, such as its willingness to dispense shades of grey to the main conflict, and makes great use of switching between drama and comedy. The two work in tandem to craft a colorful cavalcade of characters that you can keep track of and feel for, even if they suddenly decide to keep a butcher knife in the belt. Everyone in the cast is perfectly suited but Tony Goldwyn absolutely steals the show as the company's COO who's equipped with Special Forces training and a conflicted mindset on who deserves to be left alive. But now let's now address the elephant in the room: the movie can accurately be labeled as this generation's POLTERGEIST or the next CABIN IN THE WOODS. Despite the very bloody efforts McLean accomplishes with the picture, any viewer will see it more as Gunn being the sole auteur. The cast is littered with many actors who've often appeared in Gunn's films, including his own brother in a major supporting role, and his unique voice in the writing often dominates the visuals. It also doesn't help that John Gallagher Jr. as the main male protagonist has a scraggly beard and the same mixture of heroic and goofy mannerisms as Chris Pratt. However, the biggest issue against the film is that it oozes out all of its satirical juices by the halfway point, right when the terror becomes too real and the bodies begin to fall faster. The makers try to bandage it all up in time for a final battle amid a PowerPoint presentation but it's too little too late. The hits just keep coming after that though because the ending is just rotten, especially the concluding sting that stupidly sets up Blumhouse's version of CATCHING FIRE. Be sure to give this demented cult feature a gander, especially if you're sick of re-watching OFFICE SPACE for the umpteenth time.
FINAL REVIEW: 4 / 5
An arms deal between the IRA and a South African gunrunner goes south due to a dispute between their cronies, thus setting off a relentless fire fight amid a derelict warehouse. FREE FIRE is a disappointing chore to sit through despite having hot shot British genre director Ben Wheatley at the helm and the promise of a nonstop gun battle. The vast majority of the film is literally just the gun battle, where everyone has unlimited bullets until the script says so, are constantly limbing and/or wiggling on the ground due to the heavy amount of flesh wounds, and speak nothing but the same lame jabs at each other. The great cast of actors this film possesses all are just wasted because their characters are just stock gangsters in 70s garb and you never care who lives or dies. That's including American outcast Brie Larson, whose character would have been better suited being scribbled out of the script entirely due to her lack of impact on the plot save for the stupidly predictable ending. Wheatley tries to liven up the violent festivities with some nice little duels between rivals but they are spoiled by the generally hectic and confusing editing, the garishly grim lighting, and the "Wright wannabe" pop soundtrack. Don't let the talented troupe and the consistent sounds of pistol fire fool you into enjoying this completely. You're better off playing with a bucket of green and tan army men than watching this action flick a second time.
FINAL REVIEW: 2 / 5
Angsty Australian teen Vicki (Ashleigh Cummings) sneaks out of her mother's house for a late night party only to end up in the perverse clutches of John (Stephen Curry) and Evelyn (Emma Booth), a dysfunctional couple that perform their sadistic and murderous deeds within the suburbs. HOUNDS OF LOVE can be artfully gripping and very tense at times but it ultimately ends up being just another brutal thriller to throw on the pile. First-time writer-director Ben Young tries to spruce up the picture with some super-slow-mo dolly shots, adjusting the mise en scene enough to pop out from the deliberate fluorescent lighting, and adding some choice pop songs on the soundtrack yet it sadly doesn't mean a whole lot when the story is so cookie-cutter. Just right now while you're reading this, you've already figure out how it will all end, who will be left soaking in their own blood and who will be left standing. One of the very few original plot elements this way-too-long nail-biter offers up is a montage set to a Cat Stevens song that ends up being one big cruel joke on the audience. The film thinks it's expertly touching upon themes such as a woman's identity in a complicated relationship and the psychological warfare between unstable partners but it barely explores them beyond the surface level. For example, we often see the delicate breakfast preparations Evelyn accomplishes for John, making his toast extra buttery and put in a straight line, only for it not to matter in the slightest because nobody ever eats in this movie. The acting is all around just fine with the exceptional of Booth, who gets to sink her teeth a little more as the demented put-upon lover to a volatile sexual predator. It may not be a game changer but HOUNDS OF LOVE just sneaks by as a well-made creeper. Just be prepared for some extreme material and an abundance of scatological terror.
FINAL REVIEW: 3 / 5
