#31 - Rattlesnake (2019)

Have you guys ever eaten Rattlesnake?  I did, once.  Tasted like chicken.  I know, everyone says that, but it really did.  Kind of a gamey, reptilian chicken.  Not like gator.  I've had gator lots of times, and it doesn't really taste like chicken.  I had some gator once, tasted like meaty cotton candy, just sort of melted in my mouth, left me with the hint of meatiness to it, but vanished like a fresh breeze.  That was some pretty good cooking right there, I think.

Rattlesnake (2019) is a movie about a mother, Katrina, travelling through the desert with her daughter, Clara.  They're making a new start, heading to her mother's place, with all the stuff they own in the back of their van.  They're playing that game, not sure what it's called, where you go through the alphabet, trying to spot things that begin with the letter you are on, as you go down the highway.  I think they are up to the letter "E" when the tire blows out on a long lonely detour, and the mother has to get out and change a tire.  The daughter Clara spots a rattlesnake, which bites her, but unfortunately, "Rattlesnake" does not begin with the letter "E," so Katrina has to play a new game.  In this game, Katrina has to find help for her rapidly-suffocating daughter on a lonely desert road in the middle of the day.  Let's hope Katrina wins this one, otherwise, her daughter's going to lose.

I thought I'd give Rattlesnake a shot because it just popped up on Netflix a few days ago, and I didn't want to watch CHUD II: Bud the Chud again.  It's not that Bud the Chud is a bad movie, it's just, I think I just saw it like 6 months ago, and it's still fresh in my head.  Meh.  Maybe I'll give Bud a shot later.  Bud's on Vudu if you want to see it, along with a shit ton of other crappy monster movies, if you haven't already got your fill this October.

As for Rattlesnake, it's a very slow starter.  You're just traveling along with a mom and her daughter as they play and drive, and then the tire blows out, shit happens, and then...  things get even slower.  Sure, there's some ghosts that pop up here and there, try to make life exciting for Katrina, but in the end, nothing much really happens.  It's a long slow slog for a movie that only lasts an hour and 25 minutes, and feels more like 3-4 hours long.  Honestly, I can't really recommend it.  It's got Carmen Ejogo as Katrina, and Theo Rossi (from Luke Cage) as Billy, but I didn't really recognize anyone else.  Technically a horror movie, and the ending was predictable, but might be worth a single viewing.  I'm certainly not going to watch it again.  Netflix, you make me sad in pants.

And this concludes October Horror Movie Review-A-Thon 2019!  31 horror movies reviewed in 31 days!  This is my tenth Ohmrat, I believe.  A whole decades worth of horror movies, that's 310 horror movies reviewed during octobers past, and that's not even counting the horror movies I review the rest of the year.  Sure, maybe I review certain movies twice as the years go by, but they are all good ones!  Maybe next year, if I am still alive, I will do a halloween horror movie favorites list!  31 of my favorite horror movies!  Doesn't that sound nice?  I think it does!  Well, we'll see what happens.  I don't want to promise anything I can't deliver!

In other news, I am now going to go play computer games and watch Trick r Treat.  :-D  See you guys next time I have something worthy of reviewing!  Happy Halloween, and don't eat too much candy, or something like that.  Leave some for Sam.  :-D

#30 - Cabin in the Woods (2011)

If there's one thing I like about horror movies, it's the monters.  Some horror movies have human monsters, and yea, humans can be scary, but it's really the monsters that I like to see.  Werewolves, aliens, maybe a few vampires or zombies thrown in for good measure, now that's a good horror movie for me.

Cabin in the Woods (2011) has all the monsters.  There are werewolves, zombies, mummies, ghosts, aliens, things that defy description, and yes, even human monsters.  Five young people are lured to a  cabin in the woods with the promise of a nice weekend away from it all, a break from the tedium of college professors and studying.  Before they even arrive, they meet a cantankerous old gas station attendant, and things only get stranger once they get to the cabin.  Everyone starts behaving a bit oddly, and then the cellar door "blows open."  What's down there?  Of course, everyone goes to see, and then...   you guessed it!  All hell breaks loose!

Everyone in this movie makes bad decisions, but in this case, there's good reasons.  There's two stories to follow here, the one happening behind the scenes, and the one happening with the poor students.  Usually, that kind of thing bothers me, but here, it works.  Everyone has a decent backstory here, there are no heroes, no villains, and yet everyone is both a hero, and a villain.  I even feel bad for the monsters in this movie, trapped and just waiting years to get the chance to kill again.  I feel bad for the office drones, just trying to do their jobs.  I feel bad for the college students, because they have to die so that others may live.  Most of all, I feel bad for the Harbinger, who has one of the funniest parts in the whole movie, and it's not even a comedy.  I am not sure where I caught this, but it was definitely one of the cable channels.

Okay, been a long day and I am tired, so that's all for tonight.  One more review to go!  :-D

#29 - Friday the 13th part VI (1986)

I love horror movies!  But you knew that.  Friday the 13th is my favorite horror movies series!  Why, you ask? Well, I'm gonna tell ya!  One, the killer isn't a one-trick pony.  He evolves over the course of the movie series.  Hell, he's not even really IN the first movie (spoiler alert, his mother does all the killings in that movie), and he doesn't even put on his signature goalie mask until the third movie!  In additon to that, it's all about the woods, the wilderness, camping, all things I love.  

Friday the 13th, Part VI (1986) brings back Tommy Jarvis, Jason Voorhees' antithesis (played in part 4 by Corey Feldman).  Tommy has been in therapy for years after murdering Jason in part 4, and has finally out of the asylum.  First chance Tommy gets, he heads to Crystal Lake to dig up Jason's body and burn it, to be rid of his nightmares once and for all.  Unfortunately, the best laid plans of mice and men go oft astray, and since there's no mice in this movie, Tommy Jarvis's plans quickly go awry!  The alternate version of this movie's title is Jason Lives! so that pretty much gives away what happens at the very beginning of this flick.

For those in the know, Jason (the killer) did actually die at the end of part 4 at the hands of Tommy Jarvis, making Tommy Jason's arch-nemesis, if you take the view that Jason Voorhees (the killer wearing with hockey mask) is actually the hero of this movie series (despite being the villain).  The killer in Part 5 was actually someone else (spoiler alert), a copycat killer.  So Jason is actually stone cold dead at the beginning of part 6, until Tommy Jarvis accidentally manages to re-create some Frankenstein-ian experiment and bring Jason back to life as an undead zombie!  :-o  Coolest parts about this movie are that Jason Voorhees has an actual grave in this one (so we know how to spell his damned name, for one thing) and that when he's brought back as an unkillable zombie, he's even stronger and more pissed off than he was in the first 4 movies (well, 3, if you consider that his mom did the killing in the first one).  No nudity in this movie that I can recall (unusual for a friday the 13th flick), but the Sheriff's daughter is pretty hot.  Interesting note on the casting in this movie, adult Tommy Jarvis is played by Thom Mathews, who also played "Freddy" in Return of the Living Dead (the year before this movie was released).  I caught Friday the 13 part 6 on IFC (cable channel) and there's a friday the 13th coming up in december, so they'll probably play it again then, too.  Friday the 13ts always seem to be rife with friday the 13th movies!

Okay, that's all for tonight, things to do, places to be!  :-D  Only two more reviews to go!  Halloween is almost here!  Hope everyone is having a good time, and Happy Halloween in case you're not around between now and then!  :-)

#28 - The Devil's Bride (1968)

It's not Halloween until I've seen at least one Christopher Lee movie.  Usually, I love him as Dracula in the hammer horror films, but I'll take what I can get.  Interestingly enough, out of his some 282 (I think that's right?) movies he did over the course of his career as an actor, he said this particular movie was his favorite.  Lee had wanted to play this character again at some point, with more modern filming techniques, but sadly, that never came to pass.

The Devil's Bride (1968, also known as the Devil Rides Out) is mostly about Duc Nicholas De Richleau, a Duke in 1920's London who is trying to attend an anniversary of his friend's death.  With him is Rex van Ryn, but suspiciously absent is his friend's now-adult son, Simon.  Rex and Nicholas head out to see what's keeping Simon from attending their annual meeting, and soon discover that simon has a bunch of new friends, and is in the midst of a party at his new home.  Rex seems completely bewildered by Simon's actions, but senses nothing out of the ordinary.  Duc De Richleau, on the other hand, has discovered that Simon is now a member of a cult of Satan-Worshippers!  :-o  To save his friend and another initiate (Tanith, the titular Devil's Bride), Duc De Richleau must pit his meager knowledge of the occult against the dark forces of evil!  Can Rex and Nicholas save Simon from himself, before he attends his own dark baptism, and forever joins the ranks of the dark lord's minions?

I can see why Christopher Lee liked this film, because it's one of the few movies were he's actually the good guy for a change.  Pitted against him is the evil Mocata (Charles Grey, aka Blofeld from the James Bond movies), an accomplished practitioner of the black arts.  There's some other old veteran actors in this film, but I don't really know any of them. I caught this one on Turner Classic Movies (cable TV), and it's a sure bet they will replay it again next October at some point.  The ending is a little hinky (I won't give it away, but you'll see why I don't like it), but the movie itself is pretty superb, and the ending is well done even if I don't like the way it was done.  Not really any nudity, but there is a scene where a woman is tied up, if you like that kind of thing.  Hey, I neither judge, nor kink-shame, you filthy pervert. ;-)

That's all for tonight, I'm hurting a little bit tonight (aggravated an old injury), so I'm going to cut this short.  Only a few more days to go!  :-D

#27 - The Ninth Gate (1999)

This late in October, they don't play very many newer horror flicks.  All the channels seem to rely on old favorites, from Hocus Pocus to the Shining, because they figure you are too horror'd out by now, or off partying, or so stuffed with candy that you're in a diabetic coma.  Well, we're down to the wire, only 4 more days left in October, and I'm forced to rely on a few old favorites, too!

The Ninth Gate (1999) is probably the only Johnny Depp movie that I like.  Yes, including edward scissorhands.  Depp stars as Dean Corso, what I would call a book "ascertainer," because he doesn't really deal them.  He just gets them, and someone else sells them for him, and then he gets most of the profits from the sale.  He usually gets them by underhanded means, which is established in the first few moments of the film, just so you know what sort of person your anti-hero is.  Then Corso is summoned by one of his customary well-paying clients, a man named Boris Balkan (Frank Langella).  Balkan wants Corso to investigate his most-recently acquired purchase, "The Nine Gates," by Aristide de Torcia, reputed to be co-written by the Devil himself.  Corso isn't a believer, but a mercenary.  Working for money, Corso begins his investigation, and finds a little more than he bargained for.

I forgot what channel I watched the Ninth gate on, but it was one of the premium cable channels.  This is the only time I like Johnny Depp, playing Corso.  Frank Langella is an awesome Balkan, and Lena Olin and Emmanuelle Seigner are both beautiful and excellent in their own roles.  The Ninth Gate is like a james bond flick for bibliophiles, where Depp is Bond, and almost everyone else is the bad guy.  It actually took me until this latest viewing to figure out wtf happened at the end, not that it was particularly hard, I mean, it's all mapped out in the movie, I just never pieced it together.  Meh, maybe I was drunk all the other times I've seen it.  Who knows?  :-D  I highly recommend watching it, though it does start out a little slow.  Works gradually up to a very satisfying conclusion, though.  Hope you guys enjoy it as much as I do.  :-)

That's all for tonight, only a few more reviews to go for OHMRAT 2019!  Woohoo!  Halloween is only a few days away!

#26 - The Thing (1982)

I decided to go with a couple of old favorites because it's the weekend before Halloween, and I just can't seem to find a good horror movie on TV to save my life.  I even looked for The Fog, but I can't seem to to find anyplace I can watch it online for free.  Which totally sucks, because it's an awesome Halloween movie.  Maybe I can find it on TV before the 31st.  I guess we'll see!

The Thing (1982) is one of my all-time favorite horror movies.  It begins with a helicopter chasing a dog across the open snow, in what can only be Antacrtica, because you quickly see a sign that tells you that it's Antarctica.  You don't know why the men in the helicopter are chasing the dog out over the open snow, but you know it's serious business.  They're shooting at it and tossing grenades, and in addition to that, there's some ominous music playing in the background.  And then, you cut to the US Antarctic Research Station, where a bunch of clowns are hanging out, goofing off.  Well, they're not actual clowns.  Actual clowns in Antarctica would be an even weirder horror movie than we have time for.

Kurt Russell stars as MacReady, and I'd like to say that this was the movie that made him a star, but he was a star long before this movie.  Wilford Brimley is Doc Blair, Keith David is Childs, and TK Carter is Nauls.  There's more awesome cast, but I'm running short on time to list them all.  I caught this movie on one of the Starz premium cable channels, but I'm sure you can find it elsewhere.  Always a fun watch, so many good parts.  One of my personal favorites is (minor spoilers) is when Norris' head separates from the burning body, grows 6 crab legs, and scuttles off towards a utility closet.  Palmer (the backup chopper pilot besides Macready) catches sight of it and says "You gotta be fuckin' kiddin' me!"  Yeah, I pretty much said the same thing when I saw it happen the first time, too.  And I was probably around 13 at the time, so...  Yes, I was a foul-mouthed little hooligan!  :-D At least that one time, anyways.

Love this movie!  I highly recommend it.  Other horror movies to watch, and computer games to play whilst I do it!  Doesn't get any better than this, at least not for me on a Saturday night.  :-D  Have fun out there, horror movie fans!

#25 - The Faculty (1998)

High school can be a stressful, even dangerous place.  Some less popular members of the student body are endlessly harassed and teased, and even physically and mentally abused.  I remember getting beaten up in my own high school at least once or twice, but I was a bit of a nerd back then!  Not like now, eh?  :-D

The Faculty (1998) begins with the murder of a teacher at a high school, and is about an odd mix of high school friends who get mixed up with some dangerous faculty members at their high school.  Call it the Breakfast Club meets Aliens, and you're getting close.

I caught the Faculty on Showtime Beyond, and I've always liked it.  It's got an awesome mix of characters with depth to them, a ned with heroic tendencies, a jock with nerdy tendencies, a weird pseudo-lesbian girl with heterosexual tendencies, a drug dealer with ...  you know I cna't really classify these guys with any degree of accuracy. Put it this way, they're as much like real people as anyone in any horror movie, and you know what they don't do?  Stupid things.  I am running through the movie in my head, and I can't think of a single stupid thing any of them do, to forward the plot.  Amazing, isn't it?  Teens in a movie doing the right thing?  What the hell is this?  Does this even qualify as a bad horror movie?  No, I'd call this a good horror movie.

You've got Elijah Wood (3 years before he became Frodo) as Casey,  Jon Stewart as one of the Faculty, Robert Patrick (Terminator 2) as another member of the Faculty, Famke Janssen (X-Men) as yet another member of the faculty, Josh Hartnett in one of his first-ever movie roles, Clea Duvall, and Jordana Brewster before she added a little class to the fast and furious series.  I mean, with that kind of star power, how can you possibly not love this movie?  There's even aliens, and nudity!  It's got like, everything a good monster movie could want, INCLUDING THE COLON!  Wait, I don't recall seeing a colon in this movie.  You know what, nevermind, forget I mentioned it.  I've seen this movie a bunch, and it's still an entertaining watch.

I'm running behind a movie, so I'll cut this one short, and move on.

#24 - In the Tall Grass (2019)

I think I've pretty much seen all of Stephen King's horror movies, even the bad ones.  I started reading his books when I was 7 years old.  I was standing in my living room and I noticed my sister was reading "The Stand."  I asked her if I could read it when she was done with it, and she said "Sure." and in the meantime, she gave me another Stephen King book to read, "Christine."  I was about to crack open the book and start reading, and she gave me a warning...  "It's scary" she said.  I said, "It's okay!  I know the difference between fantasy, and reality." And with that, I opened it up, and began my lifelong love of horror.  Forty-two years later, here we are!  Huh  42.  Weird.  :-D

In the Tall Grass (2019) is a movie about, of all things, Tall Grass.  Cal is driving his pregnant sister Becky across the country, when they stop to let Becky puke.  Apparently, she's still getting morning sickness even at this late state of pregnancy.  While they're stopped, they hear a little boy calling for help from inside a big field of tall grass.  Cal parks the car across the road, and heads into the grass to see if he can find the boy.  Becky follows, and that's just the beginning of the movie.

This movie was okay.  Slow starter, I guess.  And there's time travel involved, which just kind of annoys me, but, meh, you know how I feel about time travel by now.  I don't know who Becky and Cal were (the actors, I mean) but Ross (a random guy they find in the tall grass) is played by Patrick Wilson (Insidious, the Conjuring).  There's not a big cast in this movie, and the only real setting is the tall grass.  This movie was made by Netflix, and you can only find it there, if you want to watch it.  It's only an hour and a half, so not too long, and the slow start gradually builds into at least an understandable ending.  I hate those time-travel movies where you can't figure out wtf is going on, and then it ends, but this one's not really like that.  I can't really say much more about this movie, but it is from a story co-written by Stephen King and Joe Hill.  I don't know who Joe Hill is, but I am fairly familiar with Stephen King's work.  I'm trying to think of some scene or twist that I really liked in this movie, and I can't really think of anything that stands out.  Oh well!

That's all for tonight!  One more week of horror!  Man, I can't believe we're 3/4ths of the way through October already.  Crazy how time flies when you have the flu (just got over that last week) and then you're trying to watch as many horror movies as you can, because you know everything will switch over to Xmas stuff the minute October ends.  :-D  Catch you guys next time.

#23 - Messengers 2: The Scarecrow (2009)

I'm not a big fan of the Walking Dead, so the name of Norman Reedus really didn't mean anything to me.  I mean, I'm watching this movie and I'm like "Norman Reedus, that name sounds familiar, and that guy looks familar, but why?"  So, yeah, I had to look him up on IMDB.com after this movie, to recall where I had seen him before.

Messengers 2: The Scarecrow (2009) is a movie about a farmer who is having a pretty bad run of bad luk, until he puts up an old scarecrow he found in a hidden cubbyhole in his barn.  Look, I don't know about you guys, but after having watched horror movies all my life, anything you find in a hidden cubbyhole is going to be BAD NEWS.  Anyways, poor Mr. Farmer doesn't listen to the warnings, and sure enough...  okay, all hell doesn't break loose this time, but bad things sure happen.

Norman Reedus is the farmer, Heather Stephens is his unbelievably hot wife, and Richard Riehle is the wise old neighbor.  The acting was decent, the production values (in other words, I didn't see any microphones in the shots and it doesn't look like it was filmed by school children) were good and the story was okay, but this movie wasn't that great.  I don't know why, really, maybe it needed more scarecrow?  I love scarecrows.  There's a whole movie about scarecrows out there somewhere.  I've seen it.  Maybe I can find it and review it before the end of this month.  Anyways, I also caught this movie on Crackle (I was already there watching Hollow Man 2), so if you want to watch it there, go ahead.  Gotta say the wise old neighbor's wife was also unbelievably hot, so if you're just looking to get an eyeful of a couple of very hot farmer's wives in addition to your horror movie fix, this is the place to find it.  Other than that, I can't see why you'd want to watch this movie.  I think I've seen it before, as well, but nothing about this movie really stands out.

Okay, that's all for tonight, and I'm all caught up!  Hope everyone else out there is having fun, watching horror movies, or whatever else it is normal folks do this time of year.  Hey, don't ask me.  I haven't been normal since... Well, before birth, really.  :-/  One more week to go!  Wheeee this should be a fun weekend of horror movie watching, amirite?  Yes!  Yes I am!  See you next time.

#22 - Hollow Man 2 (2006)

I actually like Christian Slater as an actor.  Okay, I admit, he's not an academy award winner or anything, nor do I think he'll ever be considered for one, but that's not the point.  He makes a living at it, and the movies he makes are generally entertaining to watch.  He was huge back in the late 80's and early 90's, but lately he's not so huge.  Oh well, stars have their ups and downs, amirite?  Right.

Hollow Man (2006) is about an invisible assassin who escapes from government oversight, and is on a mission.  The mission involves saving his own life, because the invisibility infusion is slowly degrading his internal organs.  That's right, the invisible man is going to die, and he knows it!  Can he get the antidote, before it's all over?

Hollow Man replaces Kevin Bacon with Christian Slater in the title role, and while he actually only shows up in two scenes (he plays the Hollow man, obviously, so he's invisible most of the time), this movie just did not do as well.  I caught this movie on Crackle.com, and there were a bunch of commercials to sit through to get all the way through it.  I really hate commercials.  Yes, I know, if you're going to offer a free service, you have to pay for it somehow.  I get it.  It's not that I begrudge Crackle their money.  I still hate the commercials, though.  Especially when they want me to do "interactive" commercials, so they can target their ads at me even better!  No thanks!  I'll just go grab a drink during commercials like always, and screw you and your advertising dollars.  Sorry, did I mention I hate commercials?  :-D

I've actually seen Hollow Man 2 before, and apparently it was so bad, I didn't quite recall seeing it.  The end stuck in my head, though, so maybe that's all I caught of it.  I can't really recommend it, I mean, the movie wasn't that bad, but it was kind of predictable.  Nothing new to see here, I guess.  Heh.  See here.  Cuz it's Hollow man.  Invisible!  geddit?  :-D  Okay. Moving on.

#21 - Quarantine (2008)

Yep!  Out of control dumpster fire fell behind in his posts again. :-D  To be fair, I had a good excuse, I went on a lovely drive in the countryside, checking out the fall colors.  It was great!  fun was had by all.  Now, on the reviews!  Got some catchin' up to do.

Quarantine (2008) is about a reporter trying to catch a story by hanging out with a group of Firemen.  Nothing's happening for a while, and she's just joking around with the firemen, wishing they'd get a call so she could get a good story.  Her cameraman is with her, and finally the cdall does come in, and boy, what a story!  They're called to an apartment to try and handle a crazy old lady who's locked herself in her apartment.  After some atttempts at contacting her, the firemen manage to reabk down the apartment door and...  you got it.  All hell breaks loose.  :-D

I caught this movie on one of the Starz! channels on cable TV, so you can probably see it there if you want to.  Jennifer Carpenter (of Dexter fame, or at least, that's where I know her from) plays the reporter, and I think the only other persons I recognized were a couple people from the apartment complex with the old lady.   This movie is done entirely from the perspective of the camera held by the camera man, so everything focuses on the reporter and what you can see from that perspective.  Very slow starter, but it spawned several sequels, so it can't be all bad.  Honestly, I have watched it twice and I still can't figure out the ending It's all darkness and night vision from the camera), but the horror factor and jump scares ramp up slowly and then just try very hard to get worse, so they do give it a fair shot.  Not a bad watch,  and I do like watching Jennifer Carpenter.  She looks like a fun drinkin buddy.

Moving on to the next review! :-D

#20 - Critters Attack (2019)

Critters used to be one of my favorite horror movie series.  Like most series, they did a great job on the first one, and so-so on everything that came after.  I recall watching the first movie and thinking how isolated the family of farmers were, how creepy it was having everything happen at night...  and then how goofy the Critters looked.  Hey, it was the 80s, and CGI hadn't been invented yet.  The Critters were rubber hand puppets, okay?  It was a good monster movie for its time!  Quit dissing my genre!

Critters Attack! (2019) is the story of Drea, a pizza-delivery girl, who's just going about her job when a meteor shoots down one night, and ...  you guessed it... All hell breaks loose!  In this case, the Hell I am talking about are Critters, technically known as Crytes, aliens in the form of small, vicious, spiny, bite-y, claw-y little aliens that want nothing more than to eat every single organic thing in sight.  Earth is a smorgasbord, and it's an all-you-can-eat buffet line, free of charge!

I may trademark that line, "Earth is a smorgasbord," because these critters are almost as hungry as I am.  I may be an alien.  :-/  This movie was made by Syfy, and that's where I saw it, so they will probably play it again at some point if you want to see it.  If you've enjoyed other Critters movies in te past, you'll probably like this one, too.  It's about the same as the rest, but not as good as the first one.  This movie itself was so-so, the dialogue a bit awkward, but I like that the heroes that they focus on are basically just a group of kids trying to make it through their day, pretty much like all the other Critters movies.  The critters looked about as real as they ever have, so, that's something, at least.  Quite a nod to the rubber-monster-movies of the 70's and 80's, and not that fake CGI shit they are trying to pass off as the new normal.

In other news, I got my reviews done early!  Yay!  I like this!  I know it won't last, but it's nice to have my shit together for at least one day.  Tomorrow, I am sure I will return to the regularly-scheduled out-of-control dumpster-fire that you all know and love.  Until then, have fun!  :-)

#19 - Glass (2019)

I know what you're thinking, and no, it's not "Geez, I wish I had a beer in my hand right now," it's "Damn, that Meandering Scribe guy missed another review!  He's fallen behind again!"  Well, you'd be wrong!  Not only aren't you about to have a beer in your hand, but you're wrong about the other thing, too!  I watched two movies yesterday, I just finished so late, I didn't have a chance to write them up.  Let's start with Glass.

Glass (2019) is about a man named David Dunn, who's a security expert out patrolling his neighborhood, when he comes across a man with a Disassociative Idenity Disorder, otherwise known as DID, or Multiple Personalities.  Dunn tracks the man back to his lair, where he finds a group of imprisoned cheerleaders.  David is quickly caught in an all-out battle against a man as mercurial as he is strong, ferocious as he is strange...  And trying to save a bunch of chained-up cheerleaders is just the start of a very bad day for David Dunn.  Maybe he could use some aspirin.

I joke, because David Dunn is played by Bruce Willis, who most of us know from the Die Hard series.  In one of those movies, he spent an entire day fighting terrorists, all the way having a "very bad headache," and just looking for some aspirin.  Samuel L. Jackson plays the titular "Mr. Glass" in this movie, and as probably many of you have guessed by now, this is the third in a long (at least in chronological time) series of superhero movie by M. Night Shyamalan (I really hope I spelled that right, I am too hung-over to look it up, and admittedly, I've made fun of it in the past).  James McAvoy also appears as his character(s) from Split, and there's a long list of them.  I love how the credits reflect that, listing every single character the actor played.

I know, you're probably thinking "Wait, this is a superhero movie, not horror.  Where dafuq is my horror movie review, biatch?"  Well, yes, this is also a superhero movie, but it has many basic horror movie elements.  Let's review, shall we?  Serial killer with multiple personalities who has caught a bunch of cheerleaders, check.  Creepy old insane asylum loaded with cameras that watch every move everyone makes, check.  Sociopathic Psychiatrist who thinks everyone needs to be locked up for their own good, check.  Lots of people dying, check.  The relcutant hero, deranged mastermind and sub-plots within sub-plots leading to an end-game reveal?  That's all just icing on the horror-movie cake, baby.  If all that doesn't convince you you're dealing with a horror movie here, then maybe I've got it all wrong.  Maybe everyone's life isn't just a horror movie that hasn't come to a violent end yet... or maybe it is!  The suspense is killing me!  Am I the first one to get offed, or do I live, only to be run over by a truck as I almost make it to safety?  Is this Friday the 13th, Halloween, or Final Destination?  Who can say? :-o

Now that that's out of the way, I thought this movie was okay, but I wasn't thrilled with the ending.  This movie had excellent production, decent dialogue, good action, your basic superhero movie with some excellent sub-plots going on, instead of just one big over-arching plot.  I watched this one on HBO if you want to see it, and though I personally wouldn't watch it twice, it was good enough the first time.  Time for my second review of the day!  :-D

#18 - They Live (1988)

Have you ever heard some variant of the phrase, "I am here to kick ass, and chew bubblegum...  and I am all out of bubblegum?"  Do you know where that phrase came from?  No. Not Duke Nukem.  It came from They Live, a 1988 flick by John Carpenter.  The line itself was spoken by "Rowdy" Roddy Piper, of World Wrestling fame.

They Live (1988) is the story of a man called Nada, who drifts into town looking for work.  Nada manages to find work at a construction site, and befriends a man named Frank.  Frank leads Nada to a place where he can eat and sleep, basically a camp full of homeless folk just looking to get by.  Nada's natural curiosity leads him to an abandoned church, where he finds what seems to be a chemical lab making, of all things, sunglasses.  When the church is raided by a bunch of police, and the homeless camp next door is rousted, Nada scrambles to figure out what's going on...  but he's missing one important clue.  Once Nada puts on a pair of sunglasses, he finally finds out the answer to man's age old question...  Are we alone in the universe?  The answer is no, and they are already here, living among us!  :-o

I caught this movie on Showtime Beyond, and it's truly a Halloween classic.  Me and my buddy were just discussing this flick, comparing it to another John Carpenter movie, The Thing.  I like The Thing over They Live, but only because I prefer creature features over semi-political action movies, which is how I categorize They Live.  That's not to say there aren't creatures in this movie.  The Aliens in They Live are breath-takingly ugly, looking more like rotting zombies in fancy clothes, but they're still at least mainly humanoid.

The acting in this movie was good, the effects excellent, the plot coherent and the story exciting.  I've seen this movie at least a dozen times and I still love watching it.  They Live stars Roddy Piper (now sadly deceased) as Nada, Keith David (not to be confused with David Keith) as Nada's friend Frank, Meg Foster as Holly (someone who works at a TV station), and George "Buck" Flower (also now sadly deceased) as a nameless Drifter, much like Nada.  There are several scenes in this movie that I really liked, and I'd love to discuss them now that I have the time, so, minor spoilers to follow.

The first scene of this movie that I love isn't when Nada puts on the sunglasses, and sees all the subliminal messages in all the magazines and ads and on TV.  No, the scene I like is when Nada needs Frank to put on the glasses, and Frank is absolutely determined to remain oblivious to what Nada is trying to show him.  Frank doesn't WANT to know, and for Nada, that's a problem, because he needs help.  Nada attacks Frank, and finds out that Frank is almost as good at kicking ass as he is.  The two have a knock-down, drag-out brawl in the middle of an alley, and even after seeing it so many times, I still couldn't tell you who the real winner was.  Frank is eventually convinced to put the shades on, and it's basically the climax of the whole movie.

The second part of the movie that I enjoy is when Drifter, who was living in  the homeless camp with Frank, shows up in the alien compound.  He's sold out, and all I can think of seeing it now is that old line, "There but for the grace of god, go I."  See, Nada's young and idealistic, full of piss and vinegar, but he's still just a nameless drifter.  And who's Drifter?  At the beginning of the movie, he's an old bum living in squalor, and all I can think is, he might be either an older and wiser version of Nada, or maybe just a version of Nada who's been beat down by life...  beat down to the point where he gives up, and gives in.  Maybe they're two versions of the same man, or maybe I've just been hitting the bottle a little too hard today.  Who can say?  I also love the fact the Drifter manages to escape in all the chaos.  If there's ever a sequel, I'd love to see him show up again (another actor would have to play him, obviously).

Anyways, "They Live" is on Showtime Beyond this month.  I highly recommend it.  Til next time, horror movie fans!  :-D

#17 - Thirst (2016)

Okay, so I'm scraping through the bottom of the barrel on Vudu, and what do I find?  Something worth watching!  :-o  Yes, I was as shocked as you are.

Thirst (2016) is about a group of wayward teens going through one of those "last chance" retreats to reform their evil ways before they end up dead or in jail.  You know the types, hackers, delinquents, runaways, people who play Fortnite, the useless dregs of society.  A feuding couple named Burt and Claire run the camp for wayward teens, and set out on a week-long trip to rough it, and hopefully change the lives of some young whippersnappers.  Turns out, they're not alone out there in the vast desert wasteland.  Those teens' lives are going to change all right... if they live!

This movie had a bunch of nobodies I've never heard of before. The acting wasn't great and the special effects were only slightly better than syfy movie of the week stuff, but the story was coherent and the action was frequent.  Can't say as I was thrilled with the hero of this tale, but I also can't say the story wasn't entertaining, at least the first time around.  Catch Thirst on Vudu if' you've got a couple hours to kill, and you want to watch a reasonably-okay creature feature.

In other news, there is no other news.  I'm going to go play some computer games.  Til next time.

#16 - Jack Frost 2: Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowman (2000)

It's getting to be that time of year when thoughts turn to winter, and the holidays that come after Halloween.  The search for a good horror movie is never an easy thing, even in summer, and it only gets worse this time of year.  Sometimes, when you're poking your way through the bowels of the innertoobz, you come across a hidden treasure!  Most of the time, you don't.  Sometimes, you find mutant killer snowmen.

Jack Frsot 2: Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowman (2000) is a direct sequel to the first Jack Frost movie, and I'm not talking about the one with Michael Keaton.  Jack Frost was a vicious killer whose DNA was combined with an experimental acid and dumped into a snowbank, where Jack Frost the human became Jack Frost, the snowman.  The snowman was eventually dissolved with antifreeze by Sherriff Tiler, at the end of the first Jack Frost.  It's been a year since the horrible events of that god-awful first movie, uh, I mean, that godawful xmas day, and the Tilers have decided to take their xmas vacation on tropical island, where there is absolutely no chance of running into snow, or snowmen, or the memory of the deceased Jack Frost.  Well, guess what?  Jack's back!

This movie wasn't even as good as the first Jack Frost movie, and if you're asking "Wait, Mr. Meandering Scribe, that first movie sounds absolutely horrible!  Mutant killer snowmen?  wtf?  How can this movie POSSIBLY be any worse?"  Well, let me tell you.  It just is.  Trust me on this.  If you want proof, the original Jack Frost and Jack Frost 2 are both on Vudu.com, if you want to check them out.  If you love bad movies, you might enjoy them.  I'm not usually a big fan of movies this bad.  Obviously, this was more of a comedy than a horror movie, and not even very funny.  But, the actors returned for a second try.  Got to give them props for being that brave.  Or maybe they were just bored and drunk.  It happens.

In other news, pretty sure I am over my flu.  Now I get to catch up on all the adulting I couldn't do while I was ill, so I'm going to be super-busy the next few days.  Wheee!  What fun.  Oh well!  Halfway through the month, and I'm on schedule!  October Horror Movie Review-a-thon 2019 is going well!  If only I could get the Banana Splits song out of my head from several reviews ago.  TRA LA LA, LA LALA LAA, TRA LA LA, LA LALA LAAA! ONE BANANA, TWO BANANA, THREE BANANA, FOUR!  Now that's horrifying, isn't it?  Oh, not the song, me singing.  (shudder)

#15 - Isabelle (2018)

W00t!  All caught up once I finish this review!  I got this movie off Vudu, and it's the most watched horror movie on there.  I tried sorting the horror movies by release date, but every movie I tried to watch was just utterly horrible that way.  So, I figured I'd let everyone else decide what was good enough for me to watch, and Isabelle came up first!  So, I watched it.  Weird, huh?  :-)

Isabelle (2018) is about a pregnant mom who moves into a new house, and has some issues with her new neighbors.  I can't really say anything else without giving away the rest of the movie.

I wasn't overly fond of this movie.  Basically a re-worked possession story, but it wasn't very good.  The acting was meh, the plot was barely coherent, and the effects were bleh.  I'll try some of the other most-watched horror movies on vudu next time, and see if they are any better.  Maybe Vudu isn't the best source for horror movie material.

In other news, I am feeling slightly better.  Especially now that I am all caught up on my reivews.  That's all for tonight, things to do, k thx bai!  :-D

#14 - Halloween (2018)

Jamie Lee Curtis is pretty much associated with the Halloween movie series for life, so it makes sense she keeps doing the sequels.

Halloween (2018) is the latest sequel / reboot attempt.  Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis comes back to reprise her role) has spent the last 40 years hiding out from Michael Myers, and even raised a dysfunctional family that pretty much hates her.  Right around the time that Laurie's grand-daughter reaches out to her to mend the broken bonds of family, they decide to move Michael Myers to a different facility.  On October 30th.  Of course.

Why do they always decide to move him at the end of October?  Why do they not move him on, say, Easter?  So many questions!  Anyways, this was your classic "none-of-that-other-crap-happened-after-the-first-movie" reboot.  I didn't like the way they just ret-conned everything, because I think at least some of it could have been incorporated into this movie, but maybe they wanted a clean start.  Meh, it wasn't like anyone consulted me about it.  Not a bad movie, typical Michael Myers stuff, but I've seen it a couple times already and it's entertaining, at least.  I hope I didn't already review it, but if I did already at some point this past year, I don't care.  I'm still trying to catch up.  Caught this on one of the HBO channels, if you want to watch it.

Moving on to my final review for the night!  :-D

#13 - Hell Fest (2018)

More letter H movies!  Trying to catch up on reviews, typing quickly!  I apologize in advance for any typos you encounter.

Hell Fest (2018) is a tale about a bunch of teens on their way to one of those scary haunted house things they set up to scare the shit out of people at Halloween.  The only problem with this one is, there's a real killer out there, and he's after one of the girls.  Can they figure out that the play-acting is real, before the real killer figures out that they're onto him?

I wasn't thrilled with Hell Fest, but it was mildly entertaining, and there were some cool scenes I enjoyed.  Tony Todd made a brief cameo (man that guy gets around), but I didn't know a single other actor in the entire movie.  Good production values, okay special effects, dialogue was okay.  I watched Hell Fest on one of the Showtime cable channels, if you want to check it out.

Moving on quickly!  So many reviews to cover, not much time!  :-D

#12 - Hollow Man (2000)

Trying to catch up on all my horror movie reviews in one fell swoop!  Tonight's series of reviews is brought to you by the letter H.

Hollow Man (2000) is a modern-day remake of the Invisible man story.  The leader of a team of scientists is attempting to create a formula that makes people vanish, and he does so.  But like he tells the team of military backers funding him, making them vanish is easy.  Bringing them back, is the hard part.

Hollow Man stars Kevin Bacon as the head scientst (this is quite possibly the only Kevin Bacon movie I enjoy, not because he's not a good actor, but because he doesn't do many horror movies), Elisabeth Shue is his former lover (awesome actress, I wish she'd do more horror, I love her in horror movies), a young Josh Brolin is her current lover and Kevin Bacon's rival, and there's a bunch of other veteran actors you might recognize.  Hollow Man is a perennial Halloween favorite, and I have probably reviewed it before, but cut me some slack, I'm trying to catch up on my reivews.  Hollow Man is playing on Epix / HDNET (cable channels) if you want to see it this month, and I can heartily recommend it.  Great production values, excellent special effects, great acting, and I've seen this movie several times, so it's perfectly re-watchable.

Moving on to the next review so I can catch up!  :-D

#11 - Banana Splits (2019)

I remember watching the Banana Splits show when I was a kid.  There were a bunch of costumed lunatics tripping around an empty circus, introducing cartoons like Grape Ape and other odd concoctions.  It makes a lot more sense if I tell you the show aired during the early 70's.  Everyone was high af back then.  I was hoping this movie would be narrated by Charles Nelson Reilly, who narrated a similar show back in the early 70's by the same people who made Banana Splits, but he died a little over ten years ago, so...  uh... it'd be a little creepy if he was narrating this one.  Yeah.

Banana Splits (2019) is about a kid who loves the Banana Splits show, which, in this alternate-universe-version of reality, has been going since 1969.  It's this kid's birthday, and his mom and step-dad get him 5 tickets to a taping of the Banana Splits show.  The kid's got like one friend (who has the flu) so he's stuck taking his second choice, and he heads off with his older brother, mom and step-dad, who was dragged along by mom.  Everything seems to be going smoothly, until the unthinkable happens.  The show is cancelled!  :-o  Then...  you know it...  all hell breaks loose!

I caught this on Syfy, and it's apparently an original Syfy production, so make of that what you will.  It's part of their 31 days of Halloween, which is also done by a lot of other channels, as well.  This movie wasn't the best horror movie ever made, but it's certainly not the worst.  The plot was coherent and the acting passable.  The effects were decent.  I can't say as I was scared at any point in the film, but there were no spiders crawling aross my TV at the time, so that's completely understandable.  It was entertaining at some points, and there's some generous gore, so, there's that.  I presume Syfy will show it again at some point this month, so check your local listings if you want to see it.

I know, I'm still two movies behind.  I was going to try to catch up today, but it just didn't happen.  Still flu-ey.  I'll get there!  Til next time, horror movie fans!  Aw, who am I kidding, nobody reads these things.  This blog is mostly just for me at this point.  I talk to myself a lot.  Maybe that doesn't surprise you.  I didn't think it would.

#10 - Happy Death Day 2U (2019)

I hate time travel scenarios, especially in horror movies.  It's too easy to just reset the damn thing so it never happened, and no one dies.  That's not horror, that's just loopy science fiction.  By the time the end comes, people like me are just so damned confused and happy to see the end finally arrive that you can put anything in there, and we'll just applaud and run away.  That having been said, tonight's horror movie involves time travel, because I saw the first one, at this point, it's become a series.

Happy Death Day 2U (2019) is the sequel to the first movie, where "Tree" wakes up in he same place, at the same time, on the same day, every morning, on the day she is killed.  It's like Groundhog Day with Bill Murray, but there's a killer trying to kill Bill Murray every single day he's re-doing, over and over.  In this movie, Tree finally figures out WHY she's re-doing the same day over and over, and not only has to put a stop to that, but also to the killer, who is now not who she thought it was in the first movie, but is someone else because... time travel.

Do you see why I hate time travel?  The whole concept is horrible.  I'm so glad we haven't found a way to do that yet, as far as I know.  It would just screw up life as much as it has screwed up horror movies.  This movie actually wasn't god-awful, apart from the confusing and mind-bending plot.  The acting was okay, the effects were decent, and the production values were better than some single-camera sci-fi movie shot in the 1940s by college students in black and white, so, there's that.  I caught this on HBO, so if you somehow got sucked into the first movie thinking it was just a plain old horror flick, and now you have to see the second one just to see wtf is going on, then go watch it there.  Honestly, I could have gone without either of them.  Ugh.  Time travel.

I still have the flu.  Fun stuff.  Still haven't caught up with my movies yet.  Going to have to work at it when I get better.

#9 - Cold Moon (2016)

Okay, so now I'm two movies behind, all because my flu kicked it up a notch.  Look, I am all for the little guy trying harder and overcoming the bigger guy, but this virus has kicked my ass enough.  Tonight's movie I found on Vudu, so if you want to watch it, go there.

Cold Moon (2016) is a bit of a ghost story / murder mystery. A girl goes missing in a small town, and after a few days, her body is found.  The sheriff can't seem to solve the murder, but that only encourages the murderer to be even bolder.  Then some strange things started happening.

Oh geez, yeah, I really need to work on my plot summaries.  That sounds horrible.  Hey, I still got that fever/flu thingy, so I'm blaming that.  I chose this movie based solely on the fact that Christopher Lloyd was in it, though he doesn't get a lot of screen time.  There's a bunch of other veteran actors too, recogniazable ones, so at least the acting was mostly decent.  Not really much special effects to speak of, good production values as far as I can tell, decently well done plot, though a bit more explanation might have helped at the end, there.  Other than that, solid horror movie.  Again, watch it on Vudu, if you feel like it.

Going to call it a night and get some rest. Hopefully, I'll be able to catch up on the horror movies this weekend.  I hate falling behind.  Then I have to scramble to catch up and my work becomes shoddy, and shoddy is just too weird an adjective to use on a regular basis.

#8 - Exorcism of Molly Hartley (2015)

There have been so many movies out about exorcism lately, and I can understand the draw.  The Exorcist (1973) has been repeatedly voted one of the scariest movies of all time, and there's a lot of people that want to re-create that experience.  There have been so many exorcism movies made in the last ten years, that I actually didn't even see this one when it came out.  :-o  I know, right?  Wtf!  What can I say?  My bad.

The Exorcism of Molly Hartley (2015) starts out with an exorcism gone horribly wrong, and the surviving priest is immediately de-frocked.  No, not stripped, you pervert.  De-frocked is what they call it when a Priest is cast out of the Church.  The de-frocked priest, to avoid jail time (ok, the exorcism went REALLY wrong) takes an insanity plea.  The insanity plea puts him in an insane asylum, where, you guessed it, ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE!  Wait, wait, hold on, I skipped a step.  They bring in Molly Hartley, who, as you can tell from the title, is in need of an exorcism.  A de-frocked Priest and a possessed mental patient in the same Psych ward?  Say it ain't so!  :-o

This movie actually wasn't horrible, and stars Devon Sawa (Idle Hands) as the defrocked priest, Sarah Lind as Molly Hartley, Gina Holden as Dr. Laurie Hawthorne and Peter MacNeill (most recently from the Good Witch series) as Chaplain Henry Davies, who is ... uh, a frocked priest?  (cough)  Yeah.  Anyways, it's got veteran actors, a decently understandable script and the dialogue doesn't make you want to rip your ears off and throw them into a blender, with ... the rest of ... the ears.  Yeah.  Did I mention I have the flu?  Yep.  Feverish.  Oh, I caught this movie on Starz, if you want to watch it.  Like I said, not a bad movie, even some nudity, so it checks all my boxes for decent entertainment.

In other news, I'm still running a movie behind!  Maybe I can do a double feature one of these days.  Been a busy week, and the flu isn't helping any, but my fever's not horrible and I'm not vomiting every 15 minutes, so that's something, right?  Right.  Maybe I can catch up with the review when I feel better.  Catch you guys tomorrow night, assuming all goes well, and the monsters don't get me. Or life.  That's the one you really got to watch out for.  Monsters, you can usually see coming, but Life just fucking sneaks up on you and then you're married with 7 kids and wondering how the fuck you're going to pay your mortgage when you just gambled away all the kids' college money on your fantasy football league.  Fucking fantasy football league.  Now there's a horror story.

#7 - The Rake (2018)

Yep, I know, I'm behind a day.  I came down with the flu and it was my mom's birthday yesterday, so things got busy.  I'll toss in a double feature one of these days and get all caught up!  Hey, this is what happens!  Life.  Either that, or the monsters get you.

The Rake (2018) is, sadly, not about a possessed lawn care tool.  Which, would be totally awesome, and I'd watch it.  Ben and Ashley are just kids when their father is treating a deranged mental patient who breaks into their home.  Years later, Ben and Ashley are trying to make their way through life with the help of their adopted sister, when the past comes bubbling back up again.  Can Ben and Ashley stuff the genie back into the bottle, or is that just a stupid Christina Aguilera song?

Yeah, sorry, I know, my plot summaries need work.  I has a fever, okay?  :-/  I caught this movie on Vudu, and despite there being commercials and it being a short movie (an hour and fifteen minutes or so), it's actually pretty decent.  The acting was decent, the special effects were okay, but the story was good and the action went fast.  The action escalates so quickly, in fact, that a death occurred and they didn't even show it on-screen.  You'd think they could have spared a minute or two to show the death scene, but maybe they couldn't afford to hire another actress.  Anyways, the movie was either actually pretty decent for a low-budget no-name-actor flick, OR it was a good fever-dream and I have no idea what's going on right now.  I guess chances are 50/50, either way.  :-/

Okay, that's all for tonight, I've been kinda zonin' in and out all day so I'm gonna keep it short.  Hope everyone had a nice Oktoberfest (it ended sunday) and is looking forward to the Halloween season!  Me, I just like the horror movies.  Oh, and the candy.  Fall colors are nice, too.  I'm rambling.  Fuck it, I knew I should have ended this post five minutes ago.  Told you when I started this month!  Fucking, out-of-control dumpster fire, that's me.

#6 - Slaughterhouse Rulez (2018)

Time for a new movie!  I saw this one on Starz, which is one of the pay-cable channels.  Not everyone has those anymore.  Might show up on netflix at some point, who knows?

Slaughterhouse Rulez (2018) is a story about a less-wealthy lad getting into to a posh school over in england, and then trying to navigate the complicated corridors of knowledge. meandwhile, the school has decided to frack the land for extra cash, which, of course, causes all hell to break loose!

Slaughterhouse Rulez is a slow-starter, so be warned.  Mostly, you're dealing with the eccentricities of rich lads in a fancy english school.  There's the whole rules-breaking, rules-following, infighting, all the usual school carp that I am so glad I don't have to deal with anymore.  At least there's some laughs along the way.  It's got Simon Peg and Nick Frost, and Margot Robbie sort of phones in a performance, literally.   Then, finally, just when you think you're going to die of sheer boredom waiting for something to happen, it does.  And yes, all hell breaks loose.

I don't think I'd watch slaughterhouse Rulez again. I mean, once was okay. and it is, technically, a horror movie and there are actual monsters, so, I mean, it checks some of the boxes and all.  Plus, there's a latin orgy, ffs.  I haven't seen that sort of thing since Caligula!  So, don't miss that, if you feel like watching a horror comedy kinda thing.  Can't say that the acting was stellar but meh.

That's all for tonight, pressed for time as usual!  :-D

#5 - Return of the Living Dead 2 (1988)

I've give Return of the Living Dead (1985) and ROTLD 3 (1993) lots of love over the years, but It's rare I even mention part 2.  It's not that it's a bad movie, it actually has its own unique plot and has two of the same stars from the first movie, but it does kind of spoof itself, which I don't usually enjoy.  But hey, it's late and I'm half in the bag so let's do this!

Return of the Living Dead 2 (1988) starts out the same way all the Return of the Living Dead movies start out, with a barrel of 2-4-5-Trioxin (the chemical that reanimated the dead from the first movie) falling off the back of a truck and someone finding it.  Honestly, It makes me wonder how many barrels of this stuff are floating around out there causing havoc.  Kind of like with Superman, how there's more Kryptonite on Earth than there was on Krypton, ffs, but I digress.  So, a bunch of kids find the barrel this time, and let loose a zombie and the gas, and of course there's a graveyard nearby, so all hell breaks loose!

So let me tell you what I don't like about this flick first.  The same two actors from the first movie (James Karen who played Frank and Thom mathews who played Freddy) who got hit by the gas are back this time, playing grave robbers who get hit by the gas.  There are several instances where the same lines from the first movie are re-used, and in one instance where one of the characters say this all feels so familiar.  It's kind of jarringly reminding me of the first movie, which was actually better than this one, but still kind of annoying.  Also, this one is more child-focused, mainly dealing with some kid who is being bullied by another kid who turns into a zombie, and then he has to deal with zombie bullies.  It's not the only thing that goes on in the movie, but it's a lot of it, so it's kind of, i don't know, meh.  Other than that, hey, zombie movie, dead things running around screaming for brains.  Oh, and in this movie, the dead are back to staggering around like stiff corpses instead of running like they were in the first movie, although one zombie does hop a fence, so, there's that.  I may not watch this one as much as I watch 1 and 3, but hey!  I love the whole ROTLD series, so I figured I'd gve this one some love.

I do not recall where I watched this movie, but it was probably one of the premium channels, like HBO or Showtime or starz or something.  I havea  movie all set to watch tomorrow, so unless I get attacked by zombies, I should be able to actually get the review done before midnight.  That's all for tonight, folks!  Now I feel like bugs bunny, and not just because I'm wearing rabbit ears and a fuzzy puffball for a tail.

#4 - Ghost Light (2018)

If you've ever said to yourself, "Hey, I wonder what Cary Elwes and Carol Kane have been doing since Princess Bride?" wonder no more.  I found a movie they did in 2018!  It's on one of the showtime channels, showtime women, I think.

Ghost Light (2018) is about a group of Shakespearean actors trying to put on a production of Macbeth at a Canadian theatrical-style retreat/resort.  Apparently there's some superstition about not saying the name of the scottish king during the production, without it being part of the actual play.  There's also a tradition of keeping a "ghost light" (just a lamp of some kind, apparently) lit on the stage, whenever there are no actors present.  Apparently, this keeps the production on track, and forestalls any accidents from screwing up the play.  Unfortunately, a brash young understudy disregards the traditions, and...  you guessed it...  all hell breaks loose!

Yes!  I got to say it, only 4 days in!  Yes!  Yesyesyesyesyes!  YES!  Yeehaw!  Sorry, "all hell breaks loose" is one of my favorite lines.  Anyways, this movie has Carol Kane playing an older actress who portrays one of the Witches in Macbeth, and Cary Elwes playing the scottish king.  Most of the rest of the cast are recognizable acting veterans, even if I can't always recall their names right off the bat.  The acting was decent, even the meta-acting, which was kind of confusing at times.  I'm not even sure this movie qualifies as your standard horror movie, but there are a couple deaths, ghosts, blood, hallucinations, and hey there's even a good thunder and lightning storm.  There are nice outdoor scenes of fall foliage, and hell, there was even some mild nudity!  This movie has everything but a monster, which, alas, is my favorite thing for a horror movie to have.  Still, skilled actors doing skilled acting, a bit of an odd style of horror movie, but a fun watch.  Catch it on Showtime Women if you have that.

Pressed for time tonight, so you guys have a fun friday, and I'll see you next time for movie #5!

#3 - The Final Wish (2018)

One of the perks of my job as a horror movie blogger is watching horror movies I haven't seen yet.  It's also one of the downsides, since many of the newer horror flicks are complete and utter trash.  Tonight's crappy pick came from one of the showtime channels, so if you have that, you can waste an hour and a half of your valuable time that you can never get back!  And that, people, is a true horror story.

The Final Wish (2018) is about a guy who's been away from home for a long time, coming back after his father's passing.  The guy finds an old relic in his father's belongings that might actually be worth something, and then things start to go downhill from there.

Can you tell I wanted to say "all Hell breaks loose?"  I did, but that's not actually what happens, so I had to abandon that fun line of thought.  Lin Shaye (of Insidious fame) plays a nice supporting role as the guy's mother, who has been, shall we say, slightly unbalanced by her husband's passing?  Tony Todd (Candyman!) makes a cameo or two as the Librarian, and the rest of the actors are those guys where you go "hey, he looks oddly familiar, didn't I see them in...  oh, what was it?"  and then you realize that the guy you're thinking of is someone completely different, and you have no idea who the guy is, where your pants have gone, and how that bloody knife got into your hand.

There's a few unscary jump-scares, and a lot of yelling in this movie.  At one point, the main character totally goes apeshit, screaming unconvincingly at a guy who has no tongue, trying to make him verbally answer a question he's already frantically scrambling to write out an answer to.  The whole movie was pretty much like that, supposedly creepy scenes where I, as the viewer, was not actually creeped out at all.  I don't know, maybe I've just seen too many horror movies for this kind of schlock to scare or even entertain me, but I don't think anyone else really found the movie that scary either, so maybe it's just a crappy horror flick.  Again, it was on one of the showtime channels, if you want to see how bad it was.

Maybe I can try watching two or three horror movies a day, and seeing which of the three is best for a review.  I'm not sure I really have that kind of time, but meh, I'll see what I can do.  That's all I got for tonight.  Have fun, hope everyone is enjoying the cooler temperatures, and enjoy horror movie season!  :-D

#2 - The Legend of Halloween Jack (2018)

Okay, second day into OHMRAT 2019 and I'm still scrambling to find movies to watch.  Thankfully, I signed up with Vudu.com last month in preparation for October, so I'm grabbing a movie from there tonight.  From what I can tell so far, Vudu has a lot of bad old horror movies (the kind I love without reservation), so if you like those kinds of flicks, sign up for that, it's free.  Sure, Vudu emails the shit out of you trying to get you to buy newer movies (which you can do there if you have money, but I don't), but other than some ads for Vudu during the movie (which seems ridiculous since you're already watching the movie on Vudu, so I don't get that), you can watch them without interruptions.

The Legend of Halloween Jack (2018) is one of Vudu's newer movies.  I picked it because of the scarecrow pic on the icon for the movie, which is a standard symbol of Halloween and autumn.  This movie is your standard serial-killer-gets-off-on-a-technicality, then gets-murdered-by-a-bunch-of-townsfolk, then comes-back-from-the-dead-to-exact-his-revenge routine.  I'm not giving anything away that doesn't happen in the first 5 minutes.  I almost shut the movie off after that.

As is usually a problem with movies I haven't seen yet, there was no way to tell how good this movie was before I started watching it.  Once I started watching it, it was quickly obvious how bad it was.  All the actors were old, and bad at their jobs.  The dialogue was pretty awful.  About the only things I did like about this movie was the Halloween-ish atmosphere, and the one scene where there was an actual honest-to-goodness field of growing pumpkins, which is something you always see around Halloween, but I don't think I've ever seen in a horror movie before.  It wasn't anything special, but it was still cool to see, at least for me.  The rest of the movie was pretty awful, but if you don't want to take my word for it, there's always Vudu.

I usually give a review of the fall series premieres, but this fall has been pretty crappy, as far as I can tell.  About the only series that looked promising was Evil, on thursday nights, but the first episode didn't look very good.  Maybe it'll get better, but I doubt it.  With all the online movie places nowadays, maybe all the good series are ending up there?  Meh, who knows.  That's all for tonight!  Time for more horror movies!  :-D

October Horror Movie Review-A-Thon 2019 Begins!

You know all those clever plans that you have, and you think, oh, I'll have plenty of time to get this done before that hapens, and then something else happens, and you get all caught up in that, and then, before you know it, the other thing has happened and you've run out of time?  Well, it wasn't like I didn't know OHMRAT was coming, right?  So I started watching horror flicks last night, thinking, "Okay, I should have plenty of time to find something new and review it for the blog."  So today I get up, started watching a movie I had DVR'd, and then... POOF!  Shit happens and it's like 30 minutes before midnight on October 1st and I still haven't written a blog post for the day!  I know, I had ONE JOB, and I fucked it up!  :-(  So, let's open OHMRAT 2019 with Hocus Pocus, which I just watched with my mom, because she's like 1,000 years old and she loves Bette Midler.

Hocus Pocus (1993) starts off as a classic fish-out-of-water story, and ends with a halloween twist.  This high-school kid named Max moves with his family from California to some New England town where the three Sanderson Sisters (deceased witches and local legends, played by Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy) form the core of the local halloween folklore in the area.  Max is trying to hook up with the local high-school beauty, but he's hampered in his efforts by his tag-along little sister (played by a young Thora Birch).  So Halloween night comes along and of course, Max gets stuck babysitting for the evening.  So he takes little sis out trick or treating, runs into miss-high-school beauty, and accidentally lights a black flame candle that awakens the three sanderson sisters after 300 years and unleashes them on the town for Halloween night!  Oh, man, if I had a dollar for every time that has happened to me, I'd be...  uh...  very poor.

Hocus Pocus is a Halloween classic at this point, and despite the fact that it's more aimed at kids than adults, you can't really get through the holiday season without running across it at least once or twice.  I caught it on Freeform tonight, which is doing their 31 days of horror again (along with every other decent channel out there, come on people get with the program, it's Halloween horror month, ffs), so you can probably watch it there if you want to.  There's a couple musical numbers (not my favorite thing in a movie but the tunes are catchy), and the veteran actors do a fair job of making things creepy, in addition to the overall feel of the chaos and hijinks and tomfoolery that goes on most halloween nights.  Special effects are okay for the time, but honestly, this is just one of those decent, entertaining, mildly-atmospheric Halloween movies you watch just to pass a few hours, and it certainly passes the re-watchability test.  It's been around since 1993 and it's not going away, so if you haven't seen it yet, just surrender to the Freeform-Borg Overlords and go watch it.  Resistance is futile.

That's all for tonight, and I actually want to post this before midnight, so hopefully I will get my shit together by tomorrow and do a better job then!  Ah, who am I kidding?  Anyone who's been following my blog knows I'm a completely out-of-control dumpster fire that stinks like flaming cabbage, and you guys just come here to watch and laugh.  Strangely, I'm okay with that.  See you tomorrow, assuming I don't fall down a flight of stairs and break something.