Holy crap I am going to finish up my OHMRAT (October Hallween Horror Movie Review-A-Thon) early this year! 31 movies reviewed (at least 31, closer to 33 or so) in 30 days!! It's a new WORLD RECORD (for me, anyway)!!! I'll have all Halloween free to PAAAR TAAAYYY!!! WOOOHOOOOOOO!!! (pant, pant, gasp) Sorry. Got a little excited. I'll be okay.
Holidays (2016) is a horror anthology! I hate anthologies. This one covers just about every holiday that one can have in a year, except Independence Day (which has its own movie, or 2 now, about invading aliens). If I recall them all correctly, there's Valentine's Day, St. patrick's Day, Easter, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Halloween, Christmas, and maybe some other ones I missed. All of the holidays are horror stories, so, for instance, the Easter tale is not a happy anecdote about Peter Cottontail... or is it?
About the only good things I can say about Holidays is that the female constable from Grabbers (2012, and an excellent movie) had a brief stint as a teacher in merry ole Ireland for St Patrick's Day, and Seth Green played a brief stint as a dad looking for a late present on Xmas Eve. Other than that, none of the stories were particularly memorable, and none of the actors or actresses seemed exceptional or interesting. Special effects were passably okay, I guess? Catch this movie on Netflix, if you're bored, or sleepy. I'm not going to watch it again, and you can't make me. :-P
Poltergeist (2015) is obviously the remake/sequel of the 1982 movie of the same name. HBO was kind enough to play the original right before this on Sunday night, so you could compare the two, side by side! Probably a bad idea, considering how great the first one was, but let's recap the story of the 2015 version. An out of work bum and an aspiring writer/housemom move to a new house in a suburb (though how they can afford a new house with both of them out of work is beyond me). There's a brief dinner with a family who mentions how the area they are living in used to be a cemetery (a quick reference to the 1982 movie, I guess they are related to Craig T. Nelson?) and then their youngest daughter vanishes. Obviously, it's not your typical kidnapping case, so the family chooses not to go to the police, but to a parapsychology department at the local college. And then, uhh... all hell breaks loose? YES, of course it does! Good answer! Good answer.
You know, Hollywood, I have an idea. Instead of doing all your remakes with the same title, the same story, and different actors, try this on for size... The same title, the same ACTORS, and a different STORY! No really, just go with me on this. It'll WORK! Trust me. Have I ever lied to you before? EXACTLY! No, never, not once. Look how much free advertising the not-live remake of the Rocky Horror Picture show just got, and that only had Tim Curry doing a brief cameo! Think about it, that's all I'm asking! Just think about it.
The 2015 version of Poltergeist has Sam Rockwell filling in for Craig T. Nelson (and, he's not as good, sorry), Rosemary Dewitt filling in for JoBeth Williams (not nearly as sexy, sorry) and Carrigan Burke (Jared Harris) filling in for Tangina (and he's definitely no Zelda Rubinstein, that's for damn sure). The acting and special effects are passably okay, but instead of trying to make this a sequel (which it should have been), they tried to hit all the major plot points of the 1982 version in a shorter time frame, making the whole movie feel rushed and re-hashed. They even re-used the same joke at the dinner before the daughter disappears. When the family finds out they are living on an old graveyard, the guy who tells them, says "Hey, it's not like it's an ancient indian burial ground, hah ha hah!" Come on, that line was delivered with much more panache by Mr. Teague (James Karen, of the original Poltergeist, and also of Return of the Living Dead (1985), and about a hundred other roles... the man's been acting since 1948, fer chrissakes), Craig T. Nelson's boss, in the original movie. Also, the youngest daughter Maddison (Kennedi Clements) might be as cute as the original Carol Anne (Heather O'Rourke), but she certainly isn't as creepy. Otherwise, I suppose the movie isn't a bad watch, though not worth more than a view or two at most. Poltergeist is on HBO, as I may have mentioned.
R.I.P., Zelda Rubinstein and Heather O' Rourke, and it's a shame you couldn't be around to partake in the 2015 version of Poltergeist, to make it better. :-) Huh, I just found out that Dominique Dunne (the teenage sister in the 1982 version) is also dead, choked to death at 22 years old by an abusive boyfriend. R.I.P. to you too, Dominique. And of course, R.I.P. Beatrice Straight (Dr. Lesh), who died of pneumonia, at the ripe old age of 86. Keep on truckin, James Karen! Still making horror movies at 93 years old! Yeah! Seriously, check out his IMDB profile. The man is 93 years old.
Now that we've said goodbye to all of our old friends from the first, best Poltergeist, it's time to move on. My OHMRAT (October Halloween Horror Movie Review A Thon) is complete! I've done it! Wooohoooo! It's been an awesome month, I saw a lot of old favorites, and a bunch of decent new ones, and I still had time to pop out and catch some pictures of the leaves changing color. Autumn in the Northeast is a beautiful time of year. I hope everyone reading along enjoyed the autumn colors, and the horror movies, too. And, now for a word from our sponsor, who isn't actually sponsoring me for shit, but I like watching the Halloween movie series on AMC every year around this time. It's an old favorite, though I will try and catch Trick R' Treat (2007) tomorrow (on DVD) at least once, if I can. I do love my horror movie favorites. :-)
Happy Halloween, everyone! I'll probably take a week off to recuperate from my frenzied posting schedule, and then find a good fantasy or Sci-fi movie to review, if possible. Catch you guys in November, and until then, enjoy the horror movies while they last! Soon, the Xmas movies will start, and then it's all happy feelings and fluffy bunnies until Easter. Ugh.
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