#31: Night of the Living Dead (1968)

It's always hard to find a good closing movie for October's Horror Movie Review-A-Thon.  There's so many old favorites I want to include, and I know most everyone is out doing Halloween stuff or, if you're me, watching other horror movies.  I've never reviewed tonight's movie before (that I recall), but it's certainly a lot of people's favorite.  I caught it on Turner Classic Movies.

Night of the Living Dead (1968) begins like most horror movies, with people in a car heading to an unknown destination.  When the final destination isn't the Twilight Zone, most of the people in the vehicles usually end up dead.  In this case, it's a brother and sister heading to a distant cemetery to honor their deceased father.  There's some intial dialogue, and then it's all "THEY'RE COMING TO GET YOU, BARBARA!  THEY'RE COMING, BARBARA!  THEY'RE COMING TO GET YOU!"

Everyone knows the line now, because this movie made it famous.  It's in black and white, which I don't find ideal, but that's really the only issue I have with it.  Like Sabrina says in her opening dialogue in the Netflix series, back in the old days, people were under the assumption that long-dead folks were still suffering from rigor mortis, so the zombies moved slowly.  Fast-movies zombies weren't featured until Return of the Living Dead (1985), which not only made the dead fast, but smart, making them much more of a threat.  They're slow as dead folks in this movie, and typically overpower the usual adult male through strength of numbers.  Still, there's a lot of them, and in the dark, they are hard to see.  They don't feel pain, or pity or remorse, and they absolutely WILL NOT STOP, until Sarah Connor is dead!  Oh.  Wait.  Wrong movie.

Effects were good for the day, acting was decent, and the plot was good enough to spawn the modern zombie horror movie genre, so who can fault this movie?  Not me.  It even passes the re-watchability test.  I always wonder what happened to the brother, who hit his head on a gravestone at the beginning of the movie and was knocked unconscious, but I don't guess they ever show him again.  Or maybe I missed it at some point.  There's even some minor nudity (okay, I saw a butt).  Like most horror movies, there's also a lot of conflict amongst the living, on how to deal with the zombie threat.  Or, maybe the other movies are all subconsciously trying to emulate this movie, who knows?

There are a lot of movies that try and encapsulate the holiday, and I think John Carpenter's Halloween (1978) and Trick 'r Treat (2007) do it better than most, but this one isn't too bad.  The title of the movie is Night of the Living Dead, which is basically a summary of what's supposd to happen to the spirits of the dead on All Hallow's Eve, in that they return to walk the earth once more.  Also, Barbara and her brother are at the cemetery to honor their deceased father, which sums up the other holiday around this time of year, the Mexico's Day of the Dead holiday.  Then, all the living people in the movie spend the night in a boarded-up house trying to avoid the windows, listening to the social media of the time talking about zombies!  Which, is pretty much how I avoid trick or treaters, and save all the Halloween Candy for myself.  :-D  What's more Halloween than that, I ask you?

That's it for this year's OHMRAT!  Thirty one horror movie reviews in 31 days!  Yeehawww!  I feel like I just ran a marathon 26 miles up the slopes of Mr. Everest, without oxygen!  Yeah, when you sit in a chair and play computer games all day, any activity is a workout.  :-)  As soon as I finish Sabrina and the Haunting of Hill House on Netflix, I'll review those for you, if I'm not in a diabetic coma from all the Halloween Candy.  Happy Halloween, everybody!

#30 - Victor Crowley (2017)

It's always tough finding good horror the last few days of October.  Usually, everyone's off at Halloween parties, and there's those last few horror movies premieres they try and sneak onto the Premium channels, but there's never any warning, so you miss all the good ones.  For instance, I missed 1987's "The Monster Squad" earlier!  That's like the best kids' horror movie, ever!  Plus, Wolfman's got naarrrrdddsss!

Victor Crowley (2017) is a continuation of the Hatchet movie series.  Victor Crowley was a deformed boy in the swamps of Louisiana, who was accidentally killed in a house fire by his own father, who was trying to break him out of the house with an axe.  Since then, Victor Crowley's unkillable ghost hunts the swamps every night, looking for folks to kill...

The first three Hatchet movies starred a series of B-list celebrities looking for a paycheck, and this one... doesn't.  One of the survivors of the previous movies makes an appearance, in fact, the whole movie is pretty much about his appearance, but there's much less Victor Crowley, even in the movie that bears his name.  Effects were okay, it was pretty much the same thing as Hatchet 3, with less Danielle Harris.  The most exciting part of the movie was the brief nudity, and that was only half a butt-cheek.  Wouldn't watch again.  Probably the end of the Hatchet series.  I saw it on Cinemax on demand, I think, if you want to check it out yourself.  See if you don't agree.

In other news, I tried to finish up the Haunting of Hill House, Castlevania and Sabrina (all on Netflix), but I haven't got any farther on the Hill House one and only just started the other two.  To be fair, they all look like they are worth at least one viewing.  I love the Castlevania cartoons so far, and I watched the first episode of Sabrina just to see how horrible it was.  As it turned out, it wasn't horrible, but decent.  I didn't have time to watch any more than the first two episodes, but so far, looks pretty good.  I'll have to check it all out in November, when I have more time.

One more movie to go!  I have no idea what it's going to be.  Hopefully I can find something to watch while I'm doing all the other Halloween stuff tomorrow.  I've seen Trick 'r Treat already once, the Shining, and maybe I can squeeze the Fog in at some point.  Maybe even Night of the Creeps.  Meh, probably not, but hey, those movies will still be around in November.  :-)  Happy and safe Halloween, everybody!  See you tomorrow for the end of OHMRAT (October Horror Movie Review-A-Thon) 2018!

#29: Dead in the Water (2018)

Yep, I'm still reviewing Syfy movies.  Tonight's was an "original SyFy production" but it also said it was produced by "Blue Ice Productions" so I don't know who made it.  It was on this past Saturday, but it was on SyFy, so you know where to find it, right?  Right!

Dead in the Water (2018) starts out with an all-female crew on a ship at sea, probably a bunch of PETA folks looking to tag a Japanese Whaling Vessel doing some illegal whaling.  Then a fog bank rolls in ahead of a monster Category 3 Hurricane, and the engine conks out.  The crew knows they can't keep the ship headed into the waves without the engine, and if they don't, the ship will eventually capsize and sink.  To complicate matters, they catch sight of someone floating out at sea, and attempt a rescue mission in the middle of a fog bank while waiting for the storm to hit.  And that's just in the first fifteen minutes.

Dead in the Water starred a bunch of people I've never seen before. The acting was decent, but the movie was all pretty much action and suspense.  Everything happens out at sea, mostly during a raging hurricane.  The action is pretty frequent and consistent.  Special effects were decent, and if you want to know if this movie passes my qualification for a horror movie, yes, it does.  I don't want to give anything else away by saying anything else, because this movie actually isn't too bad.  I might even watch it again at some point, if they show it again on SyFy.

In other news, it's October 29th and I've only got two movies left to review for this month!  Can I do it?  Can I complete OHMRAT 2018?  Who knows?  Not me, that's for sure.  I wake up every morning not even knowing what day it is, feeling pain from my old injuries, groggy from my usually-poor night's sleep.  On the plus side, I always wake up looking this good, so, there's that.  :-D

That's all for tonight.  Catch you guys tomorrow!

#27 + #28: Evil Dead, Bubba Ho-Tep

Double Feature weekend continues with a pair of Bruce Campbell movies!  Bruce Campbell has done a lot of horror movies over the years, most notably his Evil Dead movies, which were briefly turned into a series for a couple years.  Let's start with Bruce's first movie (or at least, the first I ever saw him in), Evil Dead!

Evil Dead (1981) is the primordial cabin-in-the-woods movie, where a bunch of college-age kids decide to head back to nature and end up discovering an old book called the Necronomicon that summons Demons.  In typical dunder-headed-ness, they read from the book, and...  yup!  You guessed it.  All Hell breaks loose.  :-D

So, of course Evil Dead stars Bruce Campbell.  The movie was made on a tight budget, in 1981, by what were basically a bunch of college kids.  Honestly, I'm amazed the movie holds up so well today, but it did spawn two sequels and a series, so maybe it's not that suprirsing.  Bruce Campbell is so young in this movie that he looks like a teenaged Mr. Spock, but acts like William Shatner on Crystal Meth.  Several awesome scenes set this movie apart from all the others that tried to copy it, like the scene where the trees come alive and...  but, I don't want to give anything away.  If you want to see this, I caught it on HDNet (one of the cable movie channels), but you could probably see it on youtube or something.  I've seen this one several times, so it definitely pases the rewatchability test.

Evil Dead 2 was sort of a reboot/remake of Evil Dead, also starring Bruce Campbell, and one of my favorite movies of all time (OF ALL TIME!).  There's this scene in Evil Dead 2 that's missing from evil dead 1, maybe because they made enough money with the first movie to fund some better effects for the second one.  Anyways, there's this scene in Evil Daed 2 where Ash (Bruce Campbell) starts giggling at the absurdity of all the evil things happening to him, and everything in the room, books, mounted deer heads, lamps, starts laughing along with him.  It's the scariest moment of the movie to me, because Ash is basically losing his shit, when he needs to keep it together the most to survive.  Ash has a goddamned good laugh at losing his sanity, perhaps even slipping all the way over the edge before finding his way back, and just that scene alone is what makes Evil Dead 2 one of the best movies ever.  All inspired by Evil Dead, which was successful enough to spawn Evil Dead 2!

Bubba Ho-Tep (2002) is about a lost mummy who comes back from the dead and starts hunting elderly residents at a nursing home, hoping to suck their souls out of their asses to feed himself.  Unfortunately for "Bubba Hotep," two of the residents at the Elderly Care facility are ex-president Kennedy and Elvis, or perhaps they're just senile old farts who think they are those people.  Can Elvis and Kennedy stop the evil mummy and save the residents of the facility, before there aren't any left?

My summary gives away some important plot points, but I do that on purpose, because the movie can be a little confusing at times.  Bruce Campbell plays Sebastian Haff, an elderly Elvis impersonator (or perhaps the real Elvis) who fell off a stage and broke a hip and was in a coma for a number of years.  Ossie Davis (yes, Ossie Davis in a horror movie, classing up the joint) plays the former president Kennedy (yes, the one who was assassinated), who can seemingly walk better than Elvis but needs a motorized wheelchair to get around.  Yeah, so the movie gets a little confusing here and there.  Reggie Bannister (Phantasm) plays the administrator of the nursing home, and Daniel Roebuck plays a hearse driver helping to take out the bodies of the elderly residents.  They don't show Bubba Ho-Tep very often, and I barely managed to catch it on HDNet (again, one of the cable movie channels), but you could probably catch both of these movies there before Halloween's over with.

Holy crap, I just noticed this is my 500th post!  :-D  Woohoo!  Go, me!

That's all for tonight, enjoy Bruce campbell in these two movies on HDnet if you can get there, and if not, there's always youtube.  And, I'm caught up!  Three more movies to reivew, and BAM!  October's almost over!  Hope you're getting your scares and candy in before it's all gone!  See you tomorrow night with another review!

#25 + #26: Tales from the Hood 2, Tales of Halloween

We're in the home stretch!  Down to the wire!  Nearing the goalpost!  Heading in for a lay-up!  I think I've run out of sports euphemisms!  Yep.  I did.  Anyways, only a few more days left in the month of October!  October Horror Movie Review-A-Thon (aka OHMRAT) is almost over, and I'm 3 days behind!  Can I catch up in time, or will I FAIL to review 31 Horror movies in 31 days, for the first time EVER??  :-o

Tales from the Hood 2 (2018) is an anthology of horror stories, connected by a story about a black story-teller called in to help teach a police robot developed by a white industrialist to identify criminals and deal with them accordingly.  There's 4 stories within the 5th story, starring Keith David as the story teller, and honestly, he's the only one I recognized.  I'm not giving a summation of the plot for this movie, because there's 5 plots, and that's a lot of...  plotting.  Yeah.

Effects were okay, acting was decent, I guess my biggest issue with this movie was the writing.  There's a lot of racism in this movie, and the stories aren't exactly scary as much as they are racist.  It doesn't take much to scare me, but a giant cloth puppet really doesn't give me the heebie-jeebies, you know?  I can't really recommend this one at all, since there's nothing new here, and none of these stories even sticks out in my memory.  Catch it on Netflix if you want to see if there's any actors you guys recognize better than I do.  Props to Keith David for his over-the-top portrayal of Portifoy Simms, the story-teller.  I find it amazing that Mr. David's first role (and the first time I remember seeing him) was as Childs in The Thing (1982), and all the amazing roles I remember him from over the years.  That man deserves a goddamned Oscar.  Maybe not for this role.  I'm thinking more, lifetime achievement Oscar.  Over thirty-six years of acting under his belt, and he's still always fun to watch!

Tales of Halloween (2015) is another horror anthology, this time with ten tales only loosely interconnected by happening all in the same town, and they don't interconnect with each other at all (like in Trick 'r Treat).  Adrienne Barbeau (of The Fog fame, also another good horror flick to watch) is the radio DJ loosely introducing the tales and performing the background narrator role, though she's barely heard from during each of the ten-minute segments.  I can't say as I recall any of the other actors, but there were ten stories, so maybe I missed someone I should have recognized.  Again, not going into plot here, because that's a lot of PLOTTING!  PLOTting, geddit, geddit?  PLOTTING!  BWAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA!

Okay.  You're staring at the screen and shaking your head.  I get it.  Moving on.  Tales of Halloween is nowhere near as good as Trick 'r Treat, and it never will be, but if you're looking for a lot of semi-Halloweenish tales that have nothing to do with each other crammed into ten-minute segments and stuffed into one movie, this is a fair bet.  If you want to watch it, it's also on Netflix, but I honestly can't recommend this one, either.  The only story I really remember was the one about the animated Jack-o-Lantern, and only because, funny, but come on, so expected.  You want a horror anthology, grab a cold beer and a slice of pumpkin pie, and go for the much-superior Trick 'r Treat (which, according to imdb.com, has a sequel coming out at some point in the future).

I know, that leaves me still one movie behind, and by tomorrow night, I'll be two movies behind.  Well, I guess I'm doing another double-feature tomorrow night, then!  Yeah!  I love double features, gives me an excuse to watch 4 hours of horror movies and then gab about it on the internet like I have a fucking clue what I am talking about!  :-D

That's all for tonight!  See you guys tomorrow night for another double movie review!  Enjoy those Halloween parties while there's still time!

#22 - #24: Kindred, Boogens, Van Helsing

I'm trying to catch up after falling behind again, so let's just call this, throwback... wednesday?  Interesting tidbit of information, Wednesday is named after Wodan, or Odin, who many of you know from Marvel's Thor movies as Thor's dad.  Thursday is obviously named after Thor, and Friday is named after Frey, one of the other Norse Gods.  Saturday is named after Saturnus, one of the greek Titans, who ruled before the gods of Mount Olympus (Zeus, Apollo, etc).  Interestingly, the feast of Saturnalia was celebrated in ancient times as today's Xmas.  Sunday is obviously named for the Sun (Sun worship was pretty popular back in the old days), and I bet Monday is probably named after the Moon.  Tuesday is named after Tyr, another Norse god.  I bet you didn't know all that, did you?  Well, now you know, and knowing is half the battle, as G.I. Joe cartoons always told me.

Boogens (1981) is about a bunch of folks trying to re-open a silver mine.  Apparently there was a cave-in way back in the day, and some miners died, and the mine was shut down.  So, along comes modern day (well, 1981 anyways) civilized folks, and they want to re-open the mine, so they send in some folks to blast a hole through the cave-in.  Well, that goes all well and good, but then they find the bones.  With all the meat chewed off.  And that's never a good sign, is it?

I had to watch The Boogens on YouTube, because let's face it, this movie is 37 years old, and wasn't that great to start with.  There's a bunch of actors you've never seen or heard before, who are probably all dead by now, but this is a pretty decent movie for the early 80's.  There's a little nudity, mostly from Rebecca Balding, whose own IMDB page describes her as "adorable."  There's explosions, fires, and some weird creepy things from inside the mine, so what's not to love?  You've seen it all once you've seen it once, and I've seen it like 3 times now.  YouTube it if you want to see it.

The Kindred (1987) is also about a bunch of people who don't know much of anything.  This time, a Doctor's mom is passing away, and on her deathbed, she asks her son to destroy her research, and mentions that he has a brother named Anthony.  The Doc has no idea who this Anthony is, but heads up to the house with some lab assistants to see if he can even finds his mom's research, and what do you know, but Anthony shows up!  Only, Anthony is not quite the Doc's twin, but lives in the basement, and...  well, watch the movie and find out.

The Kindred has Amanda Pays (Leviathan) and Rod Steiger (Mars Attacks), and..  you know, I have no idea who the rest of the cast is.  Anyways, the monster is a little goofy looking, but that was the 80's, and  effects weren't perfect.  I also caught this on Youtube, but the video looked like it came off an old VHS tape, so it wasn't very good.  The movie itself wasn't bad, but could use a little more 80's T&A.

Van Helsing (2004) is about a man who can't remember who he is, hunting down monstrosities and evil beings in the name of a secret church sect.  Van Helsing finishes off Mr. Hyde, and then is sent to Romania in search of Dracula.  There, he meets up with Anna Valerious, last of a line of a powerful family that has sworn to end Dracula's reign of terror.  Sadly, despite trying for 450 years, they haven't yet managed to succeed.  Can Wolver, uh, I mean, Van Helsing, finish off Dracula and save the line of Valerious, before it's too late?

Van Helsing is probably something you guys have seen before, but I can't recall ever reviewing it.  Maybe I did before, and maybe I'm just getting old and senile.  It's got Hugh Jackman as Van Helsing and Kate Beckinsale as Anna Valerious, and what more do you need to know?  I caught it on one of the cable channels, and they actually mention Halloween in the movie.  There's also Dracula, the Wolfman, and Frankenstein, so this is about as Halloweenie as a movie can get.  Good action, quite entertaining, and even has some humor in it.  Seen it before and I probably will again.

In other news, James Karen has passed away at the age of 94, whom horror movie fans will remember as Frank from Return of the Living Dead, the best zombie movie of all time (OF ALL TIME!).  The last thing I saw him in was in 1988, and yet he's been quietly making movies and TV show appearances all this time, right up until his death.  Talk about flying under the radar, and yet I can still remember his every scene from Return of the Living Dead.  Oh well.  RIP, James Karen.

That's all for tonight.  Hope you guys have a good one!  :-)

#21 - Killer High (2018)

You know, sometimes I kick myself for watching crappy horror movies on Syfy, considering the poor quality of movies that they usually show.  Every once in a while, though, Syfy comes through with something decent.  It's like winning 1.6 billion in the Mega millions lottery, only without the pesky issues of what to do with all your riches!  So, nothing like that at all, then.  Yeah.

Killer High (2018) is about a high school reunion gone horribly wrong.  Sabrina has spent the last ten years of her life planning for the perfect high school reunion, mostly because everyone else in her graduating class moved away from their dying town, and she was stuck taking care of her dying mother.  But tonight's the night, and Sabrina's thought of absolutely everything!  Except the giant killer boar that's tearing through her old high school, where the reunion's happening.  Well, there's always a fly in the ointment, isn't there?

Killer High is actually all about character development, and instead of a crappy CGI monster, they used a guy in a boar costume!  Or at least, that's what it looked like.  In the end, it doesn't really matter, because the monster is going to look fake one way or another.  Until we get real monster actors, anyways.  #endhumanonmonsterviolence, #realmonsteractorsinrealmonsterroles.  Bear with me, I'm still getting the hang of this hashtag thing.  That having been said, the special effects were minimally effective and ultimately secondary to the character development in the story.  It's almost like someone over there at Syfy was actually reading my blog and correcting their past mistakes!  What are the odds?  Probably very close to zero, I would think.

Sabrina was played by Kacey Rohl and Rosario was played by Humberly Gonzalez, and I don't care how wrong it might be, but I am totally shipping those two to hook up for a sequel.  Bring back the killer boar for Killer High 2!  Come on, who needs logic, it's a damn horror movie!  The supporting cast was excellent, even though I don't think I recognized a single one of them.  Yea, maybe the budget was cheap and the effects sucked, but the story and acting were decent, and isn't that what really matters in a horror movie?  I think so!  I loved the message on the inside of the locker door near the end.  That was awesome, and a nice touch.

In other news, I'm liking Sunday Nights on the CW.  Supergirl followed by Charmed, it's like two hours of girl-power.  I like it, and I'm not even female.  Plus, there's two hours of cute ladies to stare at, so watch it, already!  If you're, you know, not busy doing something else.  That's all for tonight!

#20 - Kuntilanak (2018)

I'm not sure what horror movies have to offer anymore, other than jump scares and creepy whispers.  I don't know, maybe I am getting burned out on horror or maybe film-makers of today just don't know how to actually scare audiences anymore, like with good acting, character development and atmosphere, and just going for the jump scares and CGI effects.  Honestly, it gets a little boring.

Kuntilanak (2018) sets the scene right off, in the first few moments.  A little boy who misses his mother is taken into an old antique mirror by a Kuntilanak, an evil spirit that steals children.  Nearby, a foster mother raising 5 adopted children has to leave her children for a few weeks, and you just know the Kuntilanak is soon going to find fresh prey.

Kuntilanak is a foreign film (to me, anyways, I think it's Indian, and I don't mean Native American), and I don't know who makes it, but it's full of the aforementioned jump-scares and spooky whispers.  I guess the effects are okay, but the cast of child actors aren't really outstanding as far as I can tell, and I found myself yawning through most of the spirit's appearances.  I don't know, maybe I am just sleepy, but this movie seemed to go very slow, and I was pretty much just waiting for the cast of idiots to figure things out and end it before I dozed off.  Nothing really new here at all, and aside from the mildly Indian background, nothing to make it stand out.  Not going to watch that again.

In other news, there was a hailstorm here this afternoon, and there was a tornado that tore a hole in a roof in a condominium in my town, and it's supposed to snow tomorrow morning.  I guess Old Man Winter is announcing his presence early this year.  Yeah, we get it.  Winter is Coming.  Game of Thrones has been warning us for years.  If I see a White Walker, screw that Dragon-Glass shit.  I am hiding in my basement.  Catch you guys next time.

#19 - Errementari: The Blacksmith and The Devil (2018)

Whee, I'm back to one movie a night!  Well, one review a night, let's put it that way.  Typically I'll watch more than one horror movie a day, I mean, there's like 24 hours in a day and a good horror movie only lasts 2 hours, which leaves me with hours and hours left to sleep, eat, nap, and watch other horror movies!  I know, it's a horrible life, but someone's got to live it, amirite?

Errementari: The Blacksmith and the Devil (2018) is a touching story about a blacksmith who makes a deal with a Devil.  As usual, the Blacksmith gets screwed out of his end of the deal, and he, in turn, tries to screw the Devil out of getting his due.  Not everything works out as planned, and wouldn't you know it, but all Hell breaks loo... wait, what?  All Hell doesn't break loose?  Just a little bit of Hell?  Oh well, better than nothing, I suppose.

Errementari is a foreign production put out by Netflix.  The scenery is awesome, but the dialogue and acting seem a little below their usual standards.  Even the way the sound fades in and out during the movie is kind of annoying, I mean, I know whispers are supposed to be quiet and hammering an anvil is supposed to be loud, but I shouldn't be lowering and upping my volume so often that my arm gets sore, you know what I mean, Netflix?  Sound department dropped the ball on that one, I guess.  Dialogue was...  well, the dialogue was there, I guess, but it's pretty much the basic lines required to move the plot along, with no great quotes to take away from the movie, and you'll notice how poor the dialogue is.  Or at least, I did.  Would I watch it again?  Nope!  But, I guess there were demons ande devils and horror the first time, so sure, it qualifies as a horror movie. Maybe too religious-themed for my taste.  Errementari is available on Netflix, of course.

In other news, I've been watching The Haunting of Hill House (also on Netflix), and I was reading a story about how people are vomiting and passing out from fear watching this series, and frankly, I'm just not seeing it.  Maybe a small child would be afraid of this series?  I don't know, as I am not a small child.  Probably just Netflix propaganda.  There's the usual series of jump scares and creepy-looking actors in make-up, the usual crap you see in any Insidious movie or whatever, and that's all I've seen so far.  Granted, I'm only like 8 episodes in, but they've been retelling the same story from like 4 different character's perspectives for the last four episodes, and frankly, I am getting tired of rehashing the same events over and over.  I get it.  Shit happened.  Move the fuck on and tell me what happened next!  Ugh.  Netflix, for all its money, still doesn't have a fucking clue what makes good entertainment.  I think they lucked out on Stranger Things and are still trying to figure out how they managed that much.  Oh well.

That's all for tonight!  Catch you guys tomorrow with another probably-crappy Netflix horror flick.  Geez, I hope they're not becoming the next Asylum Pictures.  Yikes.  :-o

#15 - #18: Throwback Thursday starring Christopher Lee!

A flurry of movie reviews for this week's Throwback Thursday!  Not one, not two, not three, but FOUR!  Four movie reviews!  Ah ha haaa!  (thunder crashes)  All these movies feature a common actor, Christopher Lee.  Youngsters might know him as Count Dooku from Star Wars and Saruman from the Lord of the Rings movies, but he was also Dracula in the Hammer Horror films, and Fu Manchu, as well as Scaramanga in one of the Bond movies.  No matter how you recall Christopher Lee, he's certainly earned his place in horror movie legend.

The Devil Rides Out (1968, the Devil's Bride) is the story of Nicholas Duc de Richlieu, who reunites with his friend Rex van Ryn to honor a fallen comrade.  Unfortunately, as Nicholas and Rex soon discover, their deceased friend's son Simon has failed to show up for the reunion.  Visiting Simon at his home, they discover he is in the midst of meeting with 12 new acquaintances.  Nicholas and Rex are temporarily invited into Simon's home, where Duc de Richlieu discovers that his friend Simon has fallen in with a cult of Satan-Worshippers.

This was a rare turn for Lee as the hero, where he plays Duc de Richlieu, who has some experience at dealing with black magic.  Lee and his buddy try to save their friend and another woman, new converts to Satanism, from fully joining the cult.  Along the way, all hell breaks loose, and you know how I love it when that happens!  There's a lot of cool effects in this movie, a coherent story line, and a lot of drama.  I've seen it several times, so it certainly passes the rewatchability test.  I caught this one on Turner Classic Movies, which has a bunch of Christopher Lee movies, so if you want to see it, you should totally break into the TCM vault, grab a beer, and just enjoy!  Wait, no, that's a horrible idea, and I don't even think they have an actual vault you can break into, plus, where are you going to find a beer that deep underground?  Uh, if the TCM movie vault is underground, that is.

Horror Hotel (1960, City of the Dead) is about a town called Whitewood, where a young college student named Nan Barlow goes to research Witchcraft for a paper for her college Professor, Alan Driscoll.  The college student arrives at a hotel called the Raven's Inn, and soon begins her research.  Supposedly, a young woman named Elizabeth Selwyn was burned as a witch in the town right on the spot where the Raven's Inn now stands.  Soon Nan begins to suspect that the influence of witchcraft in the town of Whitewood, isn't quite as far in the distant past as she would have hoped...

Christopher Lee plays Professor Driscoll, and though this movie is entirely in black and white, it actually wasn't bad.  There's this strange grey mist that hangs over the entire town that's both an awesome special effect and makes everything look even more gray than the black and white scenery.  There was a comparison to Psycho made because the main protagonist (Spoiler Alert, Nan) is killed halfway through the movie, but there's no shower scene or anything else resembling the events in Psycho.  The black and white was kind of a turn-off for me, as were the heavy religious themes, so I probably won't watch this one again.  This movie, like all the other ones I am reviewing tonight, were shown on TCM if you want to watch them.

Face of Fu Manchu (1965) is about the evil Fu Manchu, a Chinese Mysticist, who has been captured by Nayland Smith, a Detective with Scotland Yard.  Fu Manchu is marched out and beheaded, by order of the Chinese Emperor, right in front of Nayland Smith.  Which makes it difficult for Smith a few months later, when a research chemist goes missing, and Smith thinks Fu Manchu is somehow up to his old tricks, even after death.

Christopher Lee plays Fu Manchu, in the first of five movies about the Chinese villain.  This is my first time seeing any of the Fu Manchu movies (I've just not been curious to see them before), and luckily I managed to catch the first one first.  After seeing Bad Day at Black Rock (1955) a few nights ago, I'm honestly getting a bit tired of seeing people going around karate-chopping folks on the neck and having them drop over dead.  I'm not sure I'm going to want to watch this movie again, but I might want to catch the other four at some point.

Rasputin, The Mad Monk (1966) is about Rasputin, the historical figure who got close to some russian Czar and was rumored to be very hard to kill.  This movie begins with his early life as a Christian Monk, through his night-life as an infamous bar patron, where he out-drinks a Doctor and then dances the night away with a russian Czarina's lady-in-waiting.

I'm not fond of movies about historical figures, mostly because they are bound to the known facts about that person's life, and can usually take very few liberties.  This movie is probably not very historically accurate, but I am no expert on Rasputin's life, so what do I know?  Christopher Lee plays Rasputin, cavorting about with a long flowing beard and offering his commanding presence to the Mad Monk's mystique.  I wouldn't watch this one again, if only because I knew how it ended even before the movie started.

Well, I've done it!  I've caught up to where I should be for this month, and managed to honor the great Christopher Lee in the process!  What a guy, and such a talented actor.  Is it any wonder that I've heard that the guy who wrote the James Bond novels (was that Albert R. Broccoli?  I don't even know), actually based James Bond off of Christopher Lee?  I don't know if that's accurate, but I read it on the Internet, so it must be true.  That's all for Throwback Thursday, and I'm switching back to Netflix to review a couple more movies this weekend.

In other TV news, FBI and Magnum PI aren't bad.  I've been watching them for a few weeks now, and honestly I'm a little enchanted with Higgins on Magnum PI, and Missy Peregrym from FBI.  I remember seeing Missy in some gymnastics movie with Jeff Bridges a few years back, and Higgins' arms are pretty much buffer than my own.  Sad but true.  :-/  Oh well, they're both fun to look at, and the writing isn't bad on either series.  Catch you guys next time!

#13 + #14: You Might Be The Killer, No Escape Room

Continuing a series of crappy horror movies playing on SyFy channel every weekend this month (along with mummy movies and a few horror classics playing on Turner Classic Movies), we have a double feature tonight, while I try and catch up to where I am supposd to be with my reviews this month.  Tonight we have No Escape Room (2018) and You Might Be The Killer (2018).

No Escape Room (2018) starts with a simple enough premise.  A clueless father is spending time with his teenage daughter after a divorce, and the only thing the two can think to do together is to visit a nearby Escape Room while visiting a random town.  The only problem is, other folks have apparently gone missing from that location...  or have they?

No Escape Room was unusually long and ridiculously dumb.  I didn't recognize any of the actors, and the teen daughter escapes to the attic and then spends an unusual amount of time laying on a pallet in the dark for some unknown reason.  I don't think there's any conceivable plot in this, something about an inventor who does weird things with locks or some crap.  Honestly, I found it hard to follow and needlessly convoluted.  I suppose that's the theory behind Escape Rooms in general, to make them difficult to get out of, and that's pretty much why I have never gone to one, myself.  That, and I have no friends.  But my point is, I think they're dumb, but hey, what do I know?  Anyway, I think this movie sucked, but if you want to watch it, try SyFy.

You Might Be The Killer (2018) is a tale about a counselor at a summer camp, who awakes to find himself covered in blood, and with the bodies of his fellow counselors laying all around him.  Running to a nearby shed, the counselor decides to phone a friend, probably because he ran out of his audience help lines and 50/50's.  Thankfully, the counselor's helpful friend is an expert in horror movies, and tries to talk him through it over the phone, like Tech Support for horror flicks.

The title of this movie pretty much gives away the plot, and you find out the blood-covered counselor is actually the killer about 15 minutes into the movie.  Then we go through a lot of flashbacks to find out why and how he killed all the other counselors, which pretty much takes up most of the movie.  Fun things to watch for in this movie are the main character, Sam (played by Fran Kranz), and Chuck, Sam's phone-a-friend (played by Alyson Hannigan, of Buffy and How I Met Your Mother fame).  Other than the interesting point of view and the appearance of Alyson Hannigan, who lends this movie a touch of class, this is your basic camp-slasher flick.  The flashbacks get a little annoying, and sometimes confusing, which tended to drag the whole thing down.  Still not a horrible watch, so check SyFy if you want to see it.

Okay, that's two more movies down, bunches more to go!  I'll be back sooner or later to review a bunch more movies.  :-)

#11 + #12, Cucuy: The Boogeyman, Karma

Syfy and Asylum studios have been making pictures for ages, and you'd think they'd have gotten better at it over the years, but nope.  Instead, they churn out movie after movie with nothing but the bare minimum of cheap CGI effects, and crappy acting and dialogue for the most part.  As a horror movie reviewer, sometimes my job involves watching bad horror movies, so I can warn people away from wasting hours of their lives.

Cucuy: The Boogeyman (2018) is about the legend of the Cucuy, a cloaked bag-carrying demon that abducts bad children and fattens them up so it can eat them, body and soul.  Of course, nobody believes in the Cucuy nowadays, so when bad kids start disappearing, the Sheriff's Department mobilizes to track down the perpetrators.  The problem then becomes, how does one track a cloaked bag-carrying demon that carries away naughty children in his sack?

Cucuy has a decent cast of actors in it, including Brian Krause, who horror movie fans will recall from Stephen King's Sleepwalkers movie.  The effects are halfway decent this time, and I have to admit it was hard to tell if the Cucuy was a CGI effect or an actual guy in a mask and cloak.  It might have been a mix of the two.  In any case, it wasn't a bad watch, though I doubt I'd watch it again.  I saw this one on Syfy channel, so it's a fair bet they'll show it again at some point.

Karma (2018) is about a good guy forced into a bad line of work, evicting folks from houses that his boss (who also happens to be his girlfriend's father) has bought out from under people for failing to pay their taxes or something.  Along the way, this guy evicts an old high-school buddy who's actually already being hunted by what they refer to as a Karma-Demon.  Naturally, the Karma Demon feels that someone who evicts people from their homes deserves some retribution!

Karma has Tim Russ, better known as Tuvok from Star Trek: Voyager in it, and Mandela Van Peebles, who is the son of Mario Van Peebles.  Mario Van Peebles is probably well known to horror mvoie aficionadoes as the guy who was in Solo, Jaws 4, and my personal favorite of his movies, the werewolf movie Full Eclipse.  Karma is, for lack of a better comparison, basically a cheaper version of the Final Destination series of movies.  Deaths seem to occur by accident, except in this case, the people who die are a bit more deserving than just the passengers in an airplane that crashed.  Karma isn't a bad watch either, just to watch some particularly bad folks get what they deserve.  Karma is on TV right now, so check Syfy to see when it might be on again.

In other news, the Karma Demon has thankfully axed any possibility of there being an Iron Fist Season 3 on Netflix, and I couldn't be happier.  After being thoroughly disappointed by both the first and second seasons, Netflix finally pulled the plug and let that poor suffering show die a peaceful death.

That's all for tonight, folks!  Back soon with more reviews.

#10 - Apostle (2018)

Just one review tonight, as I just don't have the time for two, and I guess I should be on #12, so I am two days behind.  Looks like a busy weekend watching horror movies for me!  Damn!  Well if someone's got to do it, I guess I'll take one for the team.  Tonight's movie is Apostle, which just came on Netflix today, so for once I am on the bleeding edge of the review scene.

Apostle (2018) is about a man named Thomas that many thought dead, who finds out his sister has been abducted by a secret cult, and is being held for ransom.  The ransom is asked of Thomas's father, who has sadly lost his wits, and cannot pay.  Thomas and his father had no love for each other, but he has always loved his sister.  Now, Thomas's sister is going to be killed unless he can find some way to reach the secret cult and free her, before they grow weary of waiting for the money to come.

I read something somewhere that Netflix said this movie was about a horror movie that could still be scary without a slasher or monsters or whatever.  Honestly, I can't recall the quote exactly, but this non-slasher horror flick is definitely a slow starter.  Pretty much nothing happens up til the end, and then all hell breaks loose, which is always fun.  But, definitely a slow starter.  Acting is okay, they had that guy from Legion as the main protagonist, and the supporting cast was mostly good.  Scenery was excellent.  Effects were pretty good.  I don't think I'd watch it again, and for a horror movie, it wasn't scary, but there's almost a monster in it, so?  Meh.  Anyways, worth a watch, sort of a different take on things, more like Euro-horror than American horror, if you like that sort of thing.  I do, so, it wasn't bad.  Again, very slow starter.  I'm not sure it was worth the two hours of build-up, but, Netflix probably spent a lot of money on it, so who am I to tell them it was boring for the first hour and a half, eh?  Right, I'm nobody!  I'll be the first to agree with that.

In other news, it's cold here now.  I think we barely hit 50 today and it was 84 on tuesday.  So I'm probably going to get another cold.  Wheeee, sickness!  Hope everyone out there is staying healthy and enjoying the fall season.  :-)  Catch you guys soon for more reviews.  Still need to catch up.

#8 + #9: The Lost Boys, The Shining

It's Throwback Thursday, and you know what that means!  I get to review movies so old, they came out when your parents were kids!  Tonight we have The Shining (1980) and The Lost Boys (1987), two horror movie classics that have withstood the test of time.   Since I am also pressed for time, let's get to the reviews!

The Shining (1980) is story about a haunted hotel that a man named Jack Torrance agrees to look after over the winter, appropriately called "The Overlook Hotel."  The Overlook Hotal has a long and storied history, hosting presidents and royalty, celebrities and countless others, but mostly, the hotel is just very remote.  So remote, that it needs to be closed down during the winter months because getting back and forth from it is nearly impossible.  Cabin fever, anyone?

I've reviewed the Shining several times, focusing on one aspect or another of it each time, so I'm not going to go into any great detail on how awesome this movie really is.  It's on Netflix if you want to see it this month, and I try to watch it at least once every October.  It has the best opening sequence of any horror movie I've ever seen, and it's pretty much Jack Nicholson's defining role as an actor.  There's one scene I just cracked up watching earlier, the one where Jack loses his shit when Shelley Duvall's character finally realizes he's been typing "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." over and over, instead of writing a novel.  Jack just totally mocks her, makes fun of her, and basically creeps her out so badly that she beats him with a baseball bat.  Too funny.  I sill feel bad when Dick Halloran (Scatman Crothers) travels like 2000 miles to help Danny Torrance, and things just go so wrong so quickly. Would definitely watch again, and I've seen it about two dozen times now.

The Lost Boys (1987) is a fish-out-of-water horror story about a family that moves to a new home, and ends up encountering some shady characters.  After getting dragged into a dark underworld of creepy motor-bike-riding vampires, the lead character Michael ends up becoming a half-vampire, struggling not to feed on his little brother, and to save himself at the same time.  But who is the master vampire, the one whose death can free him from the eternal curse of bloodlust?

It amazes me how much different horror movies became in the short space of a mere 7 years.  First you got The Shining coming out in 1980, such a reknowned piece of film-making that it's still listed as one of the scariest movies of all time (OF ALL TIME!), with it's period-pieces and typical haunted-house sort of theme, and then you got The Lost Boys coming out just 7 years later, with classic 80's music as a background soundtrack, big hair, leather jackets and bikes, punk rock and rock-star celebrities making up most of the cast.  Both movies are pretty entertaining, for different reasons, and yet both are well-done examples of the horror movie genre of their time.

The Lost Boys has just about every major star of the 80's in it (seriously, it also has posters of Molly Ringwald from the Breakfast Club on the wall at some point), and pretty much made Keifer Sutherland's career.  Almost everyone else in the movie has pretty much faded into obscurity (okay, maybe not Dianne Wiest), but Keifer is still almost an A-lister.  The acting is good, the pacing is fun, and the effects are pretty decently done for a vampire movie.  I've watched the movie a bunch of times, and it's still funny to watch everyone running around confused and stupid and with no clear idea on wtf is going on, pretty much like everyone does in real life.  :-D  I caught the Lost Boys on HBO2, I think, so it's best to look for it on one of the HBO channels if you want to see it this month.

One of the best things about these two movies is the use of backgrounds as story aids.  In the Shining, it's all about the weather.  The initial intro with the yellow Volkswagon Beetle driving up through the fall landscape lets you know that WINTER IS COMING, just like Game of Thrones, only without the capital letters.  Then during the Overlook Hotel's scenes, you can almost always see snow blowing around through the windows in the background, contrasting that with Dick Halloran's vacation home in Miami, where there's lush greenery and chirping insects out his windows.  In the Lost Boys, the background scenes are usually a cornucopia of images of weirdos around Santa Clara, letting you know several things at once.  Not only are none of the weird hidden fringe groups of the place really going to be missed after they've become vampire food, but that a group of motorbike-riding teenaged punk-rocker vampires are just going to fit right in.  Add to that the awesome sound tracks in both films, the Shining one of classic horror-movie music and the Lost Boys the beating heart of 80's rock and roll, and you end up with two very fine horror movies and classic examples of their time.

That's all for tonight, horror movie lovers!  I think my throwback thursday has slipped into friday, and this old dog needs to find his bed.  :-)

#6 + #7: Malevolent, Dig Two Graves

I know, I'm running a litte behind with my reviews.  It's fine, I can catch up, two movie reviews a night for a few nights and I'm back on track.  Tonight, we have two movie reviews for you, Dig Two Graves (2014), and Malevolent (2018), both on Netflix right now if you want to check them out.

Dig Two Graves (2014) is a tender story of a teenaged girl who loses her brother to a stupid dare.  Jake (Jacqueline) and her brother are about to jump into a water-filled quarry (which, if you've ever seen a horror movie, is always a bad idea), and she chickens out.  Jake's brother ends up jumping, and vanishes into the murky abyss of the quarry.  In shock and upset by his loss, Jake isn't sure what to do with herself.  Then jake meets a trio of black-magic-using gypsies that tell her the rules of life and death aren't so absolute...

Yeah, I think my synopsis is almost better than the movie, but really, it's not bad.  Good acting by Ted Levine, who plays the elderly Sherrif Waterhouse, and meh acting by Samantha Isler, who plays Jake.  I guess she's basically in shock during this entire movie, which kinds of fits the shocked look she wears on her face throughout the movie, so I can't tell if she was acting or not.  I gues that's a good thing?  I don't know.  Effects are minimal, and unnecessary.  There's a lot of flashbacks in this movie, which bounces back and forth between 1947 and 1977, but it's not really hard to keep track.  All the flashbacks revolve around Ted Levine, and in one set of flashbacks he's young, so it's easy to tell what year the action is going on in.  A tiny bit of nudity, some minor supernatural stuff, a little bit of spookiness in the form of menacing, monnshine-swilling hillbillies.  I don't think I'd watch it again, but it was entertaining enough the first time, mostly carried by Ted Levine's acting skills.

Malevolent (2018) is a story about a brother-and-sister team of fake psychics, who are cashing in on their deceased-psychic-mother's reputation by giving troubled folks a fake psychic show and then collecting money from them.  It's set in 1986 Scotland (I think), and the brother is in deep financial debt to some rather unsavory characters.  The two siblings and their friends are going to need a big payoff to settle the brother's debts, and then a call comes in for an old mansion that used to be a girl's orphanage, where a horrible massacre occurred and all the girls died.  Unfortunately, the dead girls just won't stay quiet!

Malevolent wasn't bad, it was just very predictable.  The main female lead (Angela, played by Florence Pugh) is easy on the eyes, so I didn't mind staring at her for a couple hours.  Jackson (played by ben Lloyd-Hughes) is the in-debt brother, who drags everyone (the sister and their two technician friends, who provide the spooky fake effects to fool the folks out of their money) into a fine mess.  The only actress I recognize in this movie was Celia Imrie (Mrs. Green), who owns the mansion / former girl's orphanage.  Bunch of fumbling around, some minor bad camera work as they switch very briefly to a shot from one of the hand-hald cameras from one of the techs, but thankfully that blair-witch shit doesn't last long.  Saw the ending coming a mile away.  Forgettable, but maybe worth a watch if you're bored.

In other news, enjoying a minor heat wave here the last few days, temps in the 80s in October, ffs.  I think we broke some records.  Tomorrow, a cold front is going to sweep through and drop the temps back in to the 50's, which I guess is about normal for this time of year.  I'm probably going to come down with another cold.  :-D  Okay, that's all for tonight, hope you people are faring better than I am this month.  More horror and more reviews to come!

#5 - What We Become (2015)

One of the best things about Hollywood no longer being the only producer of movies, is that other cultures are finally getting into the horror movie genre.  Asian horror is a huge thing now, but there's other countries getting into it, India and I think I even saw a Spanish horror movie a few years back.  Scandinavian horror films are out there, and they're coming to get you, Barbara!  I guess it makes sense in a region where it snows like 10 months out of the year.  What else have they got to do but watch movies and drink, right?  No wonder they're the happiest places on Earth.

What We Become (2015) is an intertwined tale of several families living in a scandinavian community of what look like apartment houses or something, at the end of a good summer.  The only problem is, people are starting to become ill.  Kids are throwing up at block parties, old people are dying (uh, well, earlier than usual, I guess), and the authorities are starting to get worried.  What could the mysterious illness be, and who's infected?

I apologize for my ignorance in not knowing what country actually made this movie.  It's on Netflix if you have some idea of what the language is, but I had subtitles on, and I wasn't paying attention to the words the actors and actresses were speaking.  If I had paid more attention to the dialogue, I might have been able to figure out which language it was, but the best I can figure, it's Norwegian, or Swedish, or maybe Finnish.  Yeah, that probably covers all the ones I can think of.  :-)  The acting and effects seemed pretty decent, and the plot made a basic sort of sense, given that the characters involved really didn't have much idea of what was going on.  I don't know any of the actors because they were all foreign, but they are probably veteran actors from their home country.

Anyway, it starts out a little slow and isn't much on action, but it develops the characters to some extent, and even though it felt like I had only known some of the people such a short time, I could at least identify with what they were going through.  I even felt bad for the poor woman who was only on screen for like 2 minutes, who had lost her husband and had two kids at home to feed.  She was just a glorified extra, but the poor woman was doing her best, and the movie makes you feel that.

Worth a watch, and if there's a sequel, that would even be worth a watch too.  I don't think I'd need to watch it again, because there really wasn't anything new or unusual here.  I don't want to give away any spoilers, and the minute you see the illness breaking out, you'll know what it is.  You've probably already guessed it, just from my post, but don't let that stop you from watching the movie.  What We Become is leaving Netflix in 5 days, so if you want to check it out, better hurry!

That's all for tonight!  Enjoy your weekend, and enjoy the last days of Oktoberfest!  :-D

#3 + #4, Stephanie, Hold the Dark

Okay, missed a day already!  Just going to be one of those months, I guess.  Before I forget, both of tonight's horror movie choices are available on Netflix.  I'm feeling crappy and falling behind so I'm just going to get right to the (admittedly short) reviews.

Stepahnie (2017) is about a little girl living alone in what appears to be her house.  There's something else living in Stephanie's house, or maybe it lives in the woods, and just comes to visit.  Whatever it is, it's alternately playful and creepy, like that one uncle your family never talks about.  Stephanie is doing her best just to make it on her own, and it seems apparent that something happened to her mother, father and brother, who seem to be out of the picture.  Then, all hell breaks loose!

Funny how often that seems to happen, isn't it?  Anyways, Shree Crooks plays Stephanie, and she seems to be having a hard time carrying the movie through the first third or half of it, because though the movie is actually pretty short, the first part of it seems to drag.  Then things pick up, and I won't tell you what happens because it's actually not a bad monster movie.  Kind of expected, really, but hey, it's a different story than I've seen before so I'm going to give it the benefit of the doubt.  Anna Torv plays Stephanie's mother.  Effects were decent enough.  Worth watching a first time, and I might even watch it again at some point, and look for clues to see if I could have figured what was coming, now that I've seen the end.

Hold The Dark (2018) is a story about a little boy who goes missing one morning, apparently eaten by wolves.  The boy's grieving mother writes to a writer / wolf expert to get him to come hunt the wolf who killed her boy, and she realizes when he shows up that he actually wrote that book a while back, because he's older now.  Apparently, he only showed up because his estranged daughter lives in the area, and he was hoping to drop by and see her at some point, after taking care of the mother's little wolf problem.  Looks like it's old man vs a pack of killer wolves!

This is an original Netflix production, and boy, does it show!  Great settings and locations, awesome productions, veteran famous actors (some guy from True Blood, and some guy from WestWorld), and the worst writing and continuity I've ever seen.  Seriously, Netflix, wtf is up with you guys?  Is this why you took off the user reviews, so you could foist crap off on the viewing public that was written by your 4-year-old grandkids using crayons?  Let me just see if I can figure out what's going with this crapfrest of a movie.  At first, the trailer makes you thik the writer is going to go off into the wilderness and hunt down some killer wolves, like Liam Neeson in The Grey, or maybe Val Kilmer in Ghost and the Darkness.  I was thinking maybe there was something about the wolves that might even be supernatural, which would have been awesome!  Unfortunately, none of those things happened.

About 5 minutes after the writer guy arrives at the mother's cabin in rural Alaska, you realize things are rapidly going downhill, and they don't stop til they've hit rock bottom.  I don't know wtf was supposed to be going on in the writer's mind, but none of this makes a lick of sense.  It's like Netflix pasted together a trailer, and then did everything they could to fix it so nothing that you could infer from the trailer actually happened in the movie.  If you're thinking that made for a  great twist ending, because I didn't see it coming, then you'd be half-right.  It made for a ridiculously crappy ending, that made absolutely no sense.  And no, I'm not mad because the movie "fooled me," because I didn't see what was coming in Stephanie, either, and I was pleasantly surprised by that movie, so I don't mind being fooled for a good cause, like, oh, I don't know, maybe a half-way decent horror flick?  Which, Hold the Dark may not even count as a horror flick, and that's not a good sign.

This one just seemed stupidly ridiculous, like it was trying to explain how crazy those Native Alaskan-Americans were, and maybe they are, but I've talked to several people from Alaska (admittedly, over the internet) and they've never been anywhere near that batshit crazy.  A very unsatisfying and confusing ending, and it wasn't just the end, either.  Most of the cast didn't seem to do anything that made any kind of sense, and I'm not even talking about the usual horror movie tropes like running towards scary noises by themselves in the dark, so they could get picked off by the killer.  Nope, this whole movie just seemed dumb.  Well, what do I know, right?  Right.  Still a stupid movie, and I felt kind of disappointed and let down by the whole thing.  Way to go, netflix.  I would not watch it again.

That's all for tonight!  All caught up, hopefully I won't slip behind again, but it does happen.  Life gets busy, as we are all well aware.  Hope everyone is enjoying the October Horror Movie Review-A-Thon so far, and getting out to see the fall colors, or whatever it is you normally do in October.  :-)

#2 - Insidious, The Last Key (2018)

I'm replacing the obligatory introductory post full of nonesene with some useful information for a change.  Useful if you're a horror movie fan, anyways.  Halloween is being, uh, rebooted, I guess?  Jamie Lee Curtis returns as Laurie Strode, supposedly 40 years after the original Halloween movie.  They've decided to just ignore Halloween 2-6, I guess?  Or maybe 3 to 6.  I could see ignoring 3, I mean, that one wasn't part of the Michael Myers story line.  Anyways, hey, new Halloween movie coming out in theaters sometime this month!  I know, you're saying "They are just corrupting my childhood in search of more money."  Yeah, probably.  :-)

Insidious: The Last Key (2018) is a tale about Elise Rainier, a psychic investigator, investigating a haunting she began to experience early in her traumatic childhood.  Apparently there's a new tenant living in her old childhood home that's experiencing a haunting, and it sounds so eerily familiar to Elise that she just has to help the poor guy out.  At first, she intends leaving her duo of assistants home, lest she put them in mortal danger, but they ignore her wishes and decide to come along anyways.  Time for the scooby gang to solve another mystery in the mystery machine!

So, there's a lot of flashbacks in this movie, and in fact, I think the whole movie is actually one big flashback, since I think Elise actually died in one of he previous movies?  I'm not even sure if she's alive or dead at this point in this insidious timeline, so I guess this movie has flashbacks within flashbacks.  I'm so confused, but I think the movie basically makes sense.  Maybe?  I tried not to think about it too much, honestly.

Lin Shaye reprises her role as Elise Rainier, and she's got her psychic investigation team Tucker and Specs back with her this time.  Bruce Davison takes a turn playing Elise's estranged younger brother, and there's a couple new faces in the mix this time around.  The acting and special efects were decent, and there were the usual jump scares and creepy-looking spirits in the Other Place, or the Beyond, or Hell, or where-ever the hell Insidious calls the place where people go after they die.  Meh, these types of haunted spirit things don't even seem to stick with me anymore, for some reason.  Maybe I've seen too many horror movies?  Could be!  Would I watch it again?  No, probably not, but for fans of the Insidious series, I suppose it's worth a watch.  Catch it on Cinemax if you want to see it.

Two down, twenty nine reviews to go!  Woohooo!  Damn, I love horror movies.  :-D

OHMRAT Begins with The Witch (2015)

It's that time of year again, boys and girls!  No, not time to change your underwear, it's October Horror Movie Review-A-Thon!  Yay!  My favorite time of year!  Next to, you know, Christmas, and going to the beach in summer, and my birthday and, well, look let's just call it my favorite time of year, okay?  Okay.  Horror movies all month long!  Yay!  And yes, technically I could watch Horror movies all year long, but then where would I squeeze in Sci-Fi and Superhero movies?  Exactly.

The Witch (2015) is not exactly a movie about a Witch, but about a family who is socially ostracized from their community and has to make their way to the edge of the woods to eke out a living.  There's the mom and dad, and a bunch of youngins, and then one day the youngest of the youngins just sort of vanishes, without hide nor hair to tell them where it's gone.  This does not set the dad off on an action-adventure where he hunts down the Witch and lops her head off, as you might expect, but focuses instead on the trials and tribulations that follow the family even after such a devastating event.  And then, all Hell breaks loose!  :-D

Yay, I got to say it!  On the first day, on my first review!  Yeehawww!  I love it when a plan comes together.  Anya Taylor-Joy plays Thomasin, the teen girl who basically plays the protagonist in this movie, and there's a bunch of other people I don't recognize in the other roles.  You might recognize Anya Taylor-Joy from her roles in Morgan (as Morgan) and from Split as Casey Cooke (one of Split's captives), though I can't say as I did.  You might also recognize the mom, Katherine, who played Lysa Arryn in Game of Thrones (I didn't recognize her, either).  The acting was decent, the special effects minimal and effective, and the overall setting was pretty damned excellent.  The movie had atmosphere, and the plot was coherent, and as far as I can tell, it doesn't contradict itself.  A little confusing?  Sometimes, but Thomasin basically explains the whole damned thing, herself, so just watch the movie and let her tell it like it is.  It's on Netflix if you want to catch it.  I did like this movie.  There was some nudity, and some goats, and what seemed like a lot of useless drama, but it all makes sense in the end.  Would definitely watch again.  great for the first day of Horror month.

A quick review of the premieres I have seen so far.  Magnum PI (CBS, monday nights) isn't bad, and I'm surprised Tom Selleck didn't make a cameo or something.  Manifest (monday nights, NBC) sucks.  FBI (tuesday nights, CBS) doesn't look too bad, either.  At the very least, the explosions are fun to watch.  Gifted was back on Tuesday nights on FOX, I'm watching that again, too.  I also checked out Single parents, Murphy Brown (I never watched it during it's original run, and from the looks of it, I didn't miss anything), and Cool Kids.  Cool Kids has Martin Mull, who I normally enjoy watching, and Vickie Lawrence, but I don't know, half-hour shows are hard to get into.  Especially half-hour shows about old folks in an old folks home.  I guess it could be funny?  Meh.  Single parents has that big guy from Everybody Loves Raymond, but other than that, I'm not seeing anything good about any of those shows.  I'll update you guys as I see new shows.

That's all for tonight.  Catch you tomorrow for another review, if everything goes according to plan, and all Hell doesn't break loose.  Heh.  I got to say it twice!  :-)