23, 24 - The Chalk Line, Cam

Okay, this post is going to be late, and count for tomorrow, but dammit, I don't care.  So here I am, late at night, watching horror movies, and someone asks me for recommendations for horror movies.  and of course i'm like Whaaattttttt?  because, you know.  This is what i do.  i watch horror movies.  And then i can recommend stuff.  Yeah, most of the horror movies I watch are crap.  but not all of them.  And that's the important thing.  Not all of them are crap.  Just most of them.

The Chalk Line (aka Jaula, 2022) is about a childless couple who almost run over a little kid standing in the middle of the road at night.  She's sick, and thankfully they get her to the hospital before a passing motorist squishes her like a grape, as old mr miyagi would have said.  Unfortunately, the little girl also seems to have some behavioral issues.  Like, she can't function unless you draw a chalk box on the floor for her to move around in.  She won't leave the box.  and she freaks out if there is no box.  So weird, right?  That's where the movie gets the title!

The Chalk Line was not a bad horror movie.  No monsters, so no real special effects were required.  Foreign film, on netflix, so there were subtitles. I didnt know the actors, but most of them seemed decent.  It's a little confusing for the first hour or so of the movie.  There was a quick flashback about 2/3rds into the movie that kinda explains everything that was going on, so don't miss it, or you'll be really confused.  Worth a watch.  I even liked the ending.  Again, no monsters or aliens, but just a plain, normal, scary humans horror flick.  Because, let's face it, humans are scary.  This is why i don't leave my house.  Unless there's candy.  i mean, the candy van roams my neighborhood every few months, and let's face it, the candy van has the best candy.  i mean, it's right there on the side of the van.  Free Candy.  So.  i mean, free candy is the best candy, right?  Right.  course, the candy van has nothing to do with The Chalk line.  I'm jsut saying.  Free Candy is good.

Cam (2018) is about an ambitious camgirl trying to move up in the world, and probably make some bucks along the way.  Alice aka Lola_Lola has three rules she doesn't break.  She never says I love you to her fans, and there's a couple other ones that are equally important, but i forgot those.  So Lola is working a show in front of an audience one night, and that's when the really weird shit starts happening.

I'm not a huge fan of cam.  Okay, it gives you kind of an insight into how someone could end up a camgirl.  I mean, the answer is always money.  And I suppose thre's a lot of competition for a limited number of rich guys who spend money on those sorts of things, not that I have ever seen them, because i don't have two dollar bills I can rub together.  I mean, I can kind of get the point of competing for limited resources.  Everyone wants the top-paying jobs out there, but there's only so many jobs, and only so many people who can do those jobs.  Me, I wanted to be an adventurer, but I took an arrow to the knee.  Or a house painter.  But only using the color purple.  I know it's kind of a limited niche market.  I guess the acting was okay, though I didn't recognize most of the actors and actresses in this, and it wasn't even a foreign film.  I think the main protagonist goes through a crazy number of odd things to try and recitfy her situataion, and not all of them seem sane.  is the point of this film that the cam girl environment was a little crazy to begin with, so it wasn't a big stretch?  I don't know.  I didn't like the ending on this one, but feel free to check it out on netflix if you care to.  Some nudity.  Everything else in here was hard to relate to, at least for me, but it may be just because I am getting old.  Maybe young kids today, they get this film.  Maybe it resonates with them.  Maybe they understand it in ways I couldn't possibly fathom, given another 50 years of life.  I only have one thing to say to them.

Get off my lawn.

In other news, it's late.  There's a big hairy spider camped outside one of the back windows of my house, and I can't get to him, and that bugs me.  heh.  Bugs me.  I know a spider is not a bug, but, I mena, that's kind of funny.  I make joke.  Right, I'm tired.  Okay, I'm off.  Probably can'tpost again tomorrow ngiht, too much to do.  I'll catch up one of these days, I swear!  Can I manage 31 movie reviews in 31 days?  That's the challenge, isn't it?  I've failed before!  I may fail again!  Honestly, odds are 50/50 at this point, I'm kind of unreliable.  Stay tuned to find out!  Same Meandering Scribe time, same meandering scribe channel!  BIFF!  POW!  ZONK!  Sorry, just seemed like there should be some old-school batman fight sounds there at the end.  I may have overplayed my hand.

21, 22 - Things Heard and Seen, Raw

A week to go before Halloween!  I'm so excited!  And I'm not even doing anything this year.  All I got is basic cable and I haven't even seen any of the halloween movies this year.  Quite strange actually.  It's like the grinch xmas cartoon.  Even if all the things you usually do on haloween are taken away, halloween comes anyways.  Cool!  Good to know.

Things Heard and Seen (2021) is a movie about a husband and wife who relocate to a smaller town upstate from the big city.  The wife was an art restorer of some kind (much like Sigourney Weaver's character in ghostbusters 2, which now confuses me, ebcause wasn't she a cellist in ghostbusters?  huh.  odd), but gives up her work to become isolated in her new community because she's having a hard time making friends.  Of course, the husband is having no trouble making new friends, at his new job, or even at the library.

This wasn't a bad movie.  Ending kinda sucked, but it has Amanda Seyfried as the wife, some guy i didn't recognize as the husband, and F Murray Abraham as the husband's boss.  Karen Allen and Michael O Keefe sneak in there in a few places as the sheriff and his wife, and Natalia Dyer from Stranger Things plays a friend of the husband.  Special effects were decent for a movie of this type, but nothing outstanding.  Was kind of a slow start, some basic creepiness and a bit of building tension, but then it sort of petered out near the end.  Pretty sure there's no spoilers there, but watch it on netflix if you want to.  I can't say it was really worth a watch, but it wasn't the worst horror movie I've ever seen.  The acting was at least decent.  I won't watch it again, though.  Was sort of lame, all things considered.

Raw (2016) was about a young woman training to be a vet who develops a taste for human flesh.  This is pretty much the movie's synopsis, so i am not giving anything away.  Pardon me while I savage this movie like a hungry cannibal.

This might quite possibly be the lamest horror movie i have ever seen.  One, it's a body horror movie.  So.  You're basically being freaked out by your own body.  I don't have body dysmorphia (although I really should have ryan reynold's body, and not this one, so maybe i do relate slightly), so i found it hard to understand what the fuss was about.  Also, i've never really had a hankering for human flesh, and this movie does not give you a logical reason to suspect the protagonist just sort of developed one.  It just kind of happens out of the blue, and there weren't even drugs involved.  So basically the movie expects you to take this leap of logic and pretend that all humans have this hidden lust to eat each other, and that we're only held back by civilized society.  Which, is kind of ridiculous.

The movie starts out extremely slowly.  There is the most boring hazing incidents in the history of cinema for the first half hour of this movie.  I was tempted to turn it off several times out of sheer boredom, and the movie did not get better.  The movie is in french, and I didn't recognize any of the actors.  This movie's only saving grace is the the young lady studying to be a vet is mildly cute, and there is a bit of nudity along the way.   Even the ending was unsatisfying, as perhaps having to resort to eating human flesh would seem to indicate.  I cannot recommend anyone watch this trash.  It wasn't even that I was grossed out by the cannibalism.  It was just that the movie sucked.  Watch it on netflix and find out for yourself, or don't, and save yourself the mental equivalent of boring-movie-induced brain damage.

In other news, it's almost midnight and i'm trying to get this in before the day switches over to tomorrow.  Still trying to catch up, so I'll catch you guys with more reviews next time.

19, 20 - Incident in a Ghostland, Don't Kill Me

Wheee few movies behind again.  No worries, i am trying to catch up.  Life gets in the way a lot, doesn't it?  Like ferris beueller says, if you don't stop and look around once in a while, you might miss it.  What?  You don't know who ferris bueller is?  Goddamn kids these days.  Get off my lawn.

Incident in a Ghostland (2018) is on netflix.  It's about a pair of sisters and a mom who have a run-in with a kooky guy in a candy truck.  And yes, that is just as creepy as it sounds.  Years later, one of the sisters comes home to see how her family is doing, and the answer is... not well.

This wasn't a bad movie.  I don't want to give too much away by discussing the plot at length, so i won't.  Hah!  fooled you.  you thought I was going to give away spoilers, didn't you?  Well, you were right.  I didn't really recognize any of the actors in this one, but they did a decent job.  No real monsters, some nudity, lots of creepiness, like an above-average amount of creepiness.  Effects were about average for a movie of this type.  Not really something I'd watch again, but it was a decent first-time watch.  Some of the parts were a little hard to watch, and that's saying a lot coming from a guy who's spent the last 45 years watching horror movies.  Check it out on netflix and bring the popcorn!  make sure there are no lethal spiders in it, first though.  That's what happened in arachnophobia.  ended badly for the morticians.

Don't Kill Me (2022) is also on netflix.  it's definitely a foreign film but still pretty well done.  a teen named Mirte and her lover Robin accidentally OD on drugs, and that would be the end of the movie, except Mirte doesn't stay dead.  That's pretty much in the first 5 minutes, so i'm not giving away any spoilers, either.

I also didn't know any of the actors in this movie.  Lots of nudity, and obviously there's a dead woman in it.  Pretty well done, effects were kind of cheap for a movie of this type but they got the job done.  No jump scares, surprisingly.  Lots of movies of this type depend on the jump scares to get you, but this one just rolled with ithe action, and there was plenty of it.  I liked it for that.  On netflix if you want to watch it, and i do recommend checking it out.  I love that the Don't Kill me title sounds like begging at first, but becomes a warning as the movie goes on.  I will probably watch this one again at some point, if I get the chance.  I mean, it's no Darkness Falls or Halloween, but it's definitely not bad.

In other news, I am pretty sore today, I overdid it again!  Yeah, I have a tendency to do that, but I mowed my lawn, washed some screens and took a ride yesterday, so i am totes getting shit done this weekend.  Had rough patch last night, boy.  The anxiety was through the roof.  Almost a full-blown panic attack, but i managed to head it off at the pass and finally got back to sleep.  Probably be worse tonight, because the pain is going to be worse tonight.  Or, I might just sleep like a rock because I am exhausted.  I'll let you know.  Temps here are in the 70s, which is unsual for western NY in the second half of October!  Sunny and warm and watching horror movies is my jam.  Just gonna enjoy tomorrow and take it easy and hopefully catch up on horror flicks.  Tonight, I am going to eat ice cream and play computer games.  See you guys soon!  :-)

18 - Night Teeth (2021)

Okay, my head is kinda fried tonight, so I'm gonna make this quick.  Why is it fried, you ask?  Chronic pain issues!  Yeah, been bugging me all day.  Course, the day's been kind of a waste anyways, Rain and cold and windy all day long.  Yeah, nothing going on anyways.  Just one of those days, you know?  Just gotta get through it and hope the next one is better.  I was going to make this quick, right, thanks for reminding me.

Night Teeth (2021) is the story of a substitute driver and his adventures across LA on one fateful night.  Benny's older brother Jay is the usual driver, and Jay's girlfriend has been kidnapped!  So Jay has a little business to take care of, because Jay's the leader of the Boyle Street Gang, and he's got a full night ahead of him.  So Benny, Jay's little brother, takes over his professional driver duties.  Unfortunately, Jay's enemies have planned ahead, and have hired Jay to drive them around all night.  Only problem is, they don't get Jay, they get Benny.  And that changes everything.

Night Teeth is a vampire movie, in case that's hard to figure out.  It shouldn't be.  I mean, it's kinda there in the title.  Night Teeth.  It's either vampires or werewolves, right?  In this case, Vampires.  So let's see, decent effects for this kind of movie, nothing outstanding.  More attention is paid to the driving and the conversations than to the actual fighting, which, just sort of happens in the background a lot.  I mean I guess that's how violence is sometimes.  Just happens in the background.  Or at least, that's how it is in this movie.  Only recognized a couple actors in this, Megan Fox had a brief cameo and Alfie Allen (from game of thrones, the old one, not the new one) has a slightly more involved part.

This movie wasn't bad.  Worth a watch, at least, I think it was worth it.  Nothing world-shaking happens.  It's basically the same plot as Collateral, with Jamie Foxx and Tom Cruise, where Tom Cruise is a hitman and Jamie Foxx is a cab driver, only with vampires.  On netflix if you want to check it out.  No nudity, which was a surprise considering the cast, and not as much violence as I'd like, which was weird considering the plot of the movie.  I don't know, maybe I just kinda zoned out during the violence, which is unusual for me.  I'm not at my best right now.

In other news, there is no other news.  I'm a vegetable.  I'd say kinda like broccoli, but at this point, I'm not even that interesting.  More like cauliflower.  Yeah, that sounds about right.  I took a nap this afternoon and just kinda blanked out for 40 minutes and woke up without any sensation of having rested or feeling rested.  Just blink, and it's 40 minutes later.  I guess I was tired.  But hey, I am always like this after a drive.  Chronic pain issues and all.  So I'm going to end things here and hope I'm more with it tomorrow evening, which, I will probably miss because I'm playing D&D.  So I'll see you guys thursday!

15, 16, 17 - Spiders 1, 2 and 3

Okay, netflix failed me.  Was too hard to find movies on short notice.  I had to resort to TV.  As it turns out, there's a TV station on basic cable called Comet that plays monster movies on a daily basis.  They cut out nudity and swear words, of all things, and there are commercials, but at least they show the movies.  Oh well.  Until netflix comes up with some more horror for me to watch, I'm scrounging.  Maybe I should cave in and buy a subscription to Shudder over the internet.  May have to.

Spiders (2000) opens the "giant mutant spider" series of movies with an experiment that starts at "Area 21," some supposedly-secret government base, goes into outer space to inject "alien DNA" into an extremely venomous breed of spider, and then the space shuttle where the experiments are occurring crashes into Area 21, but this doesn't stop the killer spider from terrorizing area 21 and a trio of college journalists for the rest of the movie.

Spiders 2 (2001) continues the series of giant mutant spiders with experiments conductewd on a cargo ship at sea.  A couple on a sailboat ends up in the drink, and is rescued by a passing cargo ship.  Everything seems great until the ship's doctor begins experimenting on one of them.  Richard Moll from Night Court fame plays the Doctor!  I recognized him instantly.

Spiders 3D (2013) hopefully ends the giant mutant spiders series of movies where a space station contining mutant spiders crashes back to earth and ends up in a NY city subway.  A subway worker and his family get involved in tracking the thing down and trying to stop the invasion of giant spiders wreaking hovoc on the big apple.

These weren't exactly the best monster movies i have ever seen, but they are your basic popcorn-munching horrror movies that are chock full of action.  About the only actors I recognized were Richard Moll (the guard from night court), and Patrick Muldoon (from numerous B-horror flicks).  Euphoria fans might recognize Sydney Sweeney as Patrick's daughter in Spiders 3D.  huh!  Turns out Sydney Sweeney has also been in Dead Ant (giant ant movie which i think I reviewed a few years back) and Night Teeth, which I believe is on netflix and I haven't seen yet.  Well, I think I know what I am watching tomorrow night on Netflix!  :-D

In other news, I think I am now fully caught up on the movie reviews.  I felt kind of bad about reviewing such 20-year-old movies as the spiders series, but i typically watch several horror movies a day if I can find them, and I caught these on Comet on TV and couldn't resist a good spider movie marathon.  I figured since I was watching them anyways, I might as well review them!  Plus, I took a nice ride in the countryside yesterday to snap some fall foliage pics and I'm sore as hell (chronic pain issues are aggravated by driving, sadly), so forgive me if my post is lacking the usual level of snappy humor you've grown used to over the years.  I am sure my sense of humor will return soon.  So, you guys got stuck with giant mutant spider movie reviews.  Well, it is that time of year.  I walked through a dangling web earlier and damn near crapped myself.  Creepy lil spiders.  You know, I am going to walk my house and make sure there aren't any waiting to drop on me from the ceiling.  See you guys next time!

13, 14 - No One Gets Out Alive / Curse of Bridge Hollow

Yep, I am behind again.  I'm not even sure why I am bothering to do 31 movie reviews this months.  It really is very difficult and time-consuming to find a horror movie to review every day.  It's not that there aren't 31 horror movies out there, it's that I've already seen and reviewed most of them already.  still i didn't manage it last year because i was too busy, and i feel like I owe you guys a month's worth, so here they are.  we'll see what happens next year.  Here are two more i have not seen and not reviewed yet.

No One Gets Out Alive (2021) follows the story of an illegal immigrant from mexico renting a room at a boarding house and running into some odd shenanigans.  Ambar is having a bad enough time trying to work a day job and find a place to stay, let alone worrying about being deported, and having nightmares about the time she nursed her ailing mother.  On top of all that, she's got to deal with bad dreams about an old stone box that some archaeologist picked up from somewhere.  I mean, let's face it, she's having a bad week.

This isn't a bad movie.  Gets a little weird towards the end but not so bad you can't tell what's going on.  Some parts are in spanish, because Ambar is spanish.  Some of the actors looked a bit famiiliar to me but I couldn't place where I'd seen them before.  Acting was passably okay, effects were all right for a movie of this type.  On netflix if you want to watch it.  I think it was worth a watch, but I'm not sure if I'd watch it again.  Once you'd seen it the first time, there's not much more point to a second viewing.  The movie wasn't so filled with action that it's a popcorn-munching roller coaster, so watching it once should be sufficient.

The Curse of Bridge Hollow (2022) is about a teen girl who accidentally lights a magical turnip that releases the spirit of Stingy Jack, presumably the origin of the legends about Jack-O-Lanterns.  I'm kinda spoiling things a little bit, but that's basically what happens in the first 15 minutes or so, so it's not like I'm really ruining the movie for you.  The teen girl then has to do something even more horrible to get Stingy Jack back into his pumpkin.. she has to... team up with her dad!  :-o  (shudder)

The Curse of Bridge Hollow is also on netflix, if you want to see it.  More comedy then horror, but still watchable.  Lots of known actors in this one, almost all veterans as far as I can tell, so generally good acting across the board here.  Special effects were enjoyably good.  Was even sort of funny in spots, though the comedy elements were not too over the top.  Might even be worth a second watch next october, as it was one of those enjoyable popcorn movies with a decent amount of action.

In other news, it's late and i am still a movie behind, but I am not going to get to it tonight.  I'll try and snag two tomorrow, if there's time.  Been kind of a rough week for me, though nothing out of the ordinary has happened, so nothing to worry about.  Just need to rest up a bit more and I should be right as rain soon enough.  Hopefully then i can catch up.  Two more weeks of reviews to go!  I hope i'm not frantically trying to type up reviews on Halloween night, like usual.  :-D  Til next time!

12 - Ghost of War (2020)

Yep, I know, I'm a little behind again.  One day, it's not horrible.  I'm already almost caught up, just need to write some more reviews, but that's tomorrow's work.  In other news it's late and i want to get this review in before it 's after midnight, so i'm just going to jump right in.

Ghosts of War (2020) is about a squad (ok it's 5, i'm not sure how many that is, but i'm calling it a squad) of soldiers during ww2 heading to a mansion to hold it until reinfrocements arrive.  It's a nice mansion, and it' already been liberated from the germans, but there's one problem with it.  It's haunted.

First, I want to say, I love horror movies set during ww2.  There have been so many of them over the years and putting a bunch of worn-out ww2 soldiers into the middle of a horror setting is brilliant.  The Nazis make perfect villains, and the idea that they'd do anything (including breaking the laws of nature) to preserve themselves is very believable.  My second thought is trying to figure out why they decided to put a squad of soldiers there already, and then, send these five guys in to relieve them.  I mean, it's a little confusing.  At one point, and I don't want to give anything away so i will be vague, but the soldiers are told that if they leave, they will die.  But the other squad left just fine.  So (1) knowing kinda how it ends, I am a little confused as to why the first squad was there in the first place, and (2) why they did it that way.  Meh.  So here's my real problem with this movie.  If you're going set a ovie in a ww2 horror setting, leave it there.  It's like they wrote themselves into a corner and didn't know how to get out and they used the usual bad writing tricks to save themselves.  It's annoying.  Anyways, let me move on before I get into a rant.

Okay, I recognzied some of the actors in this.  Several of them look like they were just in a war movie i saw somewhere else.  they have that look about them, you know?  Like they just went through hell, and haven't quite come out the other side yet.  I was surprised to see billy zane pop up as a german officer, but it was pretty funny.  I'm watching one of them in so help me todd, a series on regular TV.  I didn't think I'd like it, but it's like a crime-solving thing where the main character (todd)'s partner is actually his mom, and I thought that was funny.  Anyways, so there's a few recognizable faces, the acting and effects were decent for a movie of this type, and it's on netflix if you want to watch it.  I did not like the ending, but maybe you have a different opinion.  I swear, it was good right up until then.  I mean, they had an hour and 15 minutes of decent b-movie horror going on here, and then they just, blew it.  Oh well.  I think any ending would have been better than what they came up with, but then, what they came up with wasn't even an ending.  Bleh.  I'm ranting again.

In other news, it's almost halfway through the month, and i seem to be doing okay finding movies to watch.  I thought I'd have trouble this year, but so far so good.  I've only seen one movie once already and it just came out and i didn't review it when it did, so that one (Day Shift) doesn't really count.  Plus, it was a decent movie.  So don't blame me if some of these movies i review are crap.  I have no way of knowing how bad or good they are going to turn out, because i have never seen any of them before.  Maybe next year, if I am in a better position, I will do a month of just halloween favorites.  Films I have seen over and over through the years, ones i find really represent the month of october and halloween, and are bona fide good and fun movies to watch.  But not this year.  I am not in that position yet.  But I am working on it.

Til next time, ppls!  I know, I'm still a review behind.  Almost caught up, i swear.