So, this isn't a movie, it's the second act of a three part film about Michael Myers and the residents of Haddonfield. Maybe the third part of a 4 part film, if you want to think of the 1978 film as the prelude.
I haven't read anything about the movie as I was trying to avoid spoilers, but it's got a very low reviewer rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which... fair enough. Horror sequels usually stand alone, using some of the same characters. But, much like Halloween 2 from the 1980's (now erased in this continuity), this chapter acts more as an extension of the prior film. Halloween 2 picked up as Laurie Strode was whisked away to a hospital and Myers tracked her down. This one does similar - picking up from the end moments of Halloween 2018 on the same truck ride where we left the Strode women.
It is insane that I've never watched this movie. With Corman directing, Vincent Price starring and a set-up that would become classic and - as Jamie pointed out - feels positively Bond-ian, it's a fun watch.
It's a period piece, sometime during the Spanish inquisition (don't ask me when. They're wearing those frilly collars I think of as 16th Century), and the events are around fallout of the Inquisition. It's a genuinely screwed up story, maybe more thriller than horror, but there are genuine moments of creepiness and chills here and there, which I frankly wasn't expecting.
SimonUK and Ryan celebrate Halloween by taking a bite out of the sequel to the zombie movie that started it all, and which some consider the most delicious of the genre. We also discuss the 21st Century reanimation of the same idea. Join us for a Halloween horror discussion fit to wake the dead.
Gothic (1986) is one of those movies I remember always seeing on the shelf at movie rental places. It was always in, but I never pulled the trigger and watched it. I'm thinking the copy on the box describing the movie was not great, because - I believe - had it been more accurate, I would have rented the movie.
Based loosely on some real-life events (and then deeply fictionalized), the movie imagines about 24 hours of drug-fueled shenanigans in a mansion in Geneva at the turn of the 18th to the 19th Century as Percy Shelley, Mary Godwin (soon to be Mary Shelley) and Mary's step-sister arrive to have a hang with the notorious libertine, Lord Byron - in self-exile from England.
My friends, I have watched this movie so many times and talked about it so much, I am sure you are sick of it. But we had a grand old time watching it together for a Watch Party!
So, annual viewing of Bride of Frankenstein, complete!
So, for some time, my pals who are horror fiends have been saying to me "have you ever seen the 1980's Blob remake?" and I've said "yes" and they say "did you like it?" and I laugh, and say "it was fine, but I haven't seen it since it first hit VHS." And then they say "well, you have to rewatch it."
What I failed to ask was "but why?"
Circa 1989, I did watch The Blob remake on VHS. I recall it was my brother and me during the summer, and we called Kevin Dillon "Rocky the Reckless Driver", laughed a lot about his mullet (which has to be a crazy wig) and, at the time, felt it was an okay movie, but not great.
Friends, I need some feedback in the comments, because my takeaway from rewatching The Blob (1988) is that it's an okay movie, but not great.
I genuinely don't know if this movie was kidding or not. It's not funny enough to be a straight up horror satire, but it does do some things I quite liked. Now knowing more about horror films when I first saw it - I'm still not sure if the filmmakers were being "edgy" or - possibly - subverting audience expectations. Like, they just bump off all sorts of people who would have been the survivors in other films. The good-hearted football player, the waitress, the sheriff... a kid! It's wild.
It also has a certain attempt at Last Starfighter folksiness for our hero, Rocky the Reckless Driver and The Cheerleader (I cannot recall her character's name but the actress is Shawnee Smith who is still very active). People are very small town and folksy. As the town's Bad Boy, Rocky the Reckless Driver sure is a problem for the Sheriff. After all, he has a bad attitude! Again - I have no idea if the movie is kidding or not about this character. Or the attitudes of the town.
Anyway, the effects are good for a 1988-era mid-budget sci-fi film, and they don't screw around with much in the way of sideplots. Instead, using what seem like side-plot set-ups that should go someplace else as a red-herring so you don't think certain people will be consumed by Mr. Blob.
I also don't get how a Blob that can't tolerate cold was matured in space. But that is not for me to know. But I do like the pivot and plot twist that this was a government experiment gone wrong versus a rogue asteroid. I'm not sure it actually impacts anything, but you feel less bad when the containment suited government agents start getting et.
Anyway, you people have been telling me this movie is great. It's okay! So, lemme know what you love about it.
It can't be that good. It doesn't have a rockin' theme song like the original.
Simon and Ryan go nuts talking the second and unexpected installment in the adventures of a boy who is maybe a little too close with his mother. We're reminded the 80's weren't that much after the 60's as Stormin' Norman returns back to Casa Bates to start over and maybe enjoy his role as a motel entrepreneur. Could things go wrong? Hey, let's not get crazy here.
This movie is a curiosity on so many levels, the mere fact of its existence tends to overwhelm the actual content of the film.
Elvira was a pop culture phenomenon back in the 1980's, but it's probably fair to say that the 1990's weren't as good to her. After the commercial failure (but, I think I can say, comedic success) of Elvira: Mistress of the Dark in 1987, big media interest in Elvira waned. Back then, that was it. You basically got your shot, and the idea of revivals wasn't huge at the time. The roaring return of Elvira as a talk-show staple, baking show staple and general presence and gadfly in the universe is mostly due, I think, to people who liked Elvira and had access to the internet.
But in 2001, we were just barely getting past GeoCities and convincing our parents that getting a computer was actually something they needed to do. I had dial-up. It was a different time.
The 1993 attempt at an Elvira sitcom had fizzled (and, frankly, I DO NOT GET HOW. The pilot is as good or better than 90% of what was on TV at the time, and came loaded with Elvira), so the Hail Mary of the moment was Cassandra Peterson and John Paragon writing a movie, self-funding it, and then grabbing a bunch of people and heading to Romania to film.
It's a not-great film that doesn't understand how cheap horror movies are supposed to work, or movies in general, and is weirdly pretentious. Which, frankly, if you told me yesterday that CHUD (1984) has lots of scenes that feel like they're improvised by a couple of actors who've been taking a lot of classes, and it will all be treated with deadly seriousness: I would not have believed you. But here we are.
All of that stuff, by the way, is fine: if any of it lands. Or the movie is earning it. Or the writing doesn't get away from the movie. But at the end of the day, this is a movie about Morlocks eating people, and for some reason we spend 1/3rd of the movie in an unrelated story about John Heard's career and his relationship. None of which is CHUD-related. Or particularly good.
By far the weirdest are the extended scenes between Daniel Stern and Christopher Curry, where both are intent on playing unhinged and angry. And the scenes just. keep. happening. Both in length and frequency.
In theory the movie is about NYC having a problem with Carnivorous Humanoid Underground Dwellers, but it's also about a soup kitchen, the plight of the homeless, a career change that's really impacting a marriage that might be on the rocks, and a cop who seems really stressed out because his wife disappeared, but he fails to mention this as a problem until the second half of the film.
Also, the willing belief that nuclear waste was disposed of beneath NYC when it would literally be easier to put it on a boat and float it out 20 miles and dump it.
Maybe the WEIRDEST moment of the movie was when we saw a scene that I now believe James Cameron must have ripped off for Aliens where people with flamethrowers go down into the tunnels with a video camera while their bosses watch them on monitors. That's gonna sit with me a while.
Hammer Horror! That eventually gets scary! If you really wait.
This first Mummy movie from Hammer is awesome, and so I figured even a xerox of a xerox would be fine. And, it is.
Mummy is dug up, Egyptians are actually okay with it - sort of - except for killing the one British guy. But then a big, dumb American showman (Fred Clark, who was in *everything* for like 20 years) decides that instead of taking it to the British Museum, they should take it on the road.
Anyway, there's a whole lot of plot, and the leading lady seems like she's written by someone who really had some trouble with their last girlfriend, taking the usual 1960's Hammer misogyny to cool new levels. The reason the Mummy shows up and the motivation of those bringing him back is all-new. But we do get some decent Mummy-Terminator action.
For once, the Egyptians are given the benefit of the doubt - they're not the ones setting things in motion - at least not the official Egyptian government. They're not thrilled Fred Clark is going to tour their dead pharaoh around Wisconsin, but aside from that...
Anyhoo. It's fine. It's not my favorite, but it was a fun Hammer watch.
I have been intending to watch this since I was 18, and I always just forgot to watch it. But "Add to My List" and HBOmax are an excellent pairing for getting me to actually watch some things.
I don't have a ton to say about the movie. It's good, Rated-R chaotic fun, and I was shocked to see James Karen in the first scenes, and then realize I was also looking at Clu Gulager.
Anyhoo. Not writing it up, but very glad I finally saw it.
When I heard David Gordon Greene, Danny McBride and Jamie Lee Curtis were involved, for once, I was not skeptical of a new installment in the Halloween franchise.
Look, I am sure seeing - and thoroughly enjoying - the original Halloween when I was fourteen means I can't really be objective about that 1978 film. I was already roughly a fan of Curtis in 1989 when I saw it, and the movie is - for this blogger - the platonic ideal of a slasher horror film. In many ways - after Halloween, you either up your game or what's the point?
Like Meyers the character, the 1978 movie itself is a single-minded shark, moving forward and striking. It's fatless meat and bone, giving just enough character to Laurie Strode and her friends to make you actually care when kitchen knives get deployed. And, of course, we only get the crucial details about Michael. The horrifying incident as a child that indicates how broken he is, and then Loomis letting us know: "oh, yeah, he's bugfuck crazy. We need to stop this maniac." (That's his doctor.) provides a villain who simply is.
I knew I'd seen this one again in recent years, and here's that post from 2012. The one thing I'd walk back from that post is - yeah, this is necessary viewing. I dig it. You should watch it.
The movie has a terrific cast, great sets, really good make-up and costuming. It feels high budget (I genuinely don't know if the listed $1 million budget was high or not. I see Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, that same year, was $2.3 million, for comparison, and that movie looks super expensive.). But, House of Wax made that budget back twenty-times over, including a couple of re-releases, one in the 70's.
The movie was also originally in 3D, and one day, maybe Alamo Drafthouse will show this in 3D. That would be great. I mean: it's got an extended paddle-ball sequence that demands to be seen in 3D.
This particular film seems to get a lot of mentions as part of the non-Universal-remake horror output of Hammer Studios. It's part of a 30-film set Jamie got me last Christmas that we haven't spent much time with - but Halloween seems like a fine time to do so.
I was deeply curious what something as complicated as a Gorgon might look like on a Hammer budget, and now I know. And now you know:
if you're trying to place it, it's "Mrs. Roper with snakes". You're welcome.
Simon and Ryan delve into the sequels of some Halloween and horror greats, returning to the scene of the crime with a mix of technology and magic! Join us as we discuss the follow ups to a bona fide classic - one a direct sequel and one a terrific deviation from the formula! Plus: ATKINS. Come spend a spooktacular hour with your two (g)hosts, in a continuation of a Halloween series!
My friends, I have written and spoken more on Dracula than makes sense. It was super fun talking with people over the movie on Friday night, tho. Hope everyone had a spooky good time!
Because this movie was released via Paramount versus Universal, it hasn't quite got the same visibility as the Universal Horror films over the past 90 years. You don't see Hyde cavorting with Creatch or Drac. He's a bad fit if Frankenstein or the Wolfman are looking for a scrap. But he's still crucial to the movement of horror films, pushing special effects and getting top performances out of the cast (and it looks AMAZING. The sets in this thing...).
Based upon a novella by Robert Louis Stevenson, Paramount took the production seriously, and it wound up nominated for Academy Awards, and March took home the statue for Best Actor. And - I'll argue - he deserves it. And he film deserves accolades for design and effects alongside the Universal films, even if nothing about this movie goes in for gigantic gothic sets. Plus, there's some fascinating POV work in the film, putting us in Jekyll's place seemingly to make a point.
So, it's not a huge secret that I'm a little skeptical of a lot of horror. When you're like "you know that scene in Hereditary?" I'm like "Nope." I mean, I just don't make time for it. I'd rather be watching guys in large suits make time with dames with great hair and schemes.
But enough has been said about The Conjuring from 2013, that I finally watched it as I rev up for Halloween season. And, I genuinely liked it. Well, I liked about half of it. The rest was fine. Which I know will be taken as "bad", but that's not what I mean. I was fine with it up to a point, and then I really liked it.
My favorite haunted house movie is and will be a tie between The Shining and 1963's version of The Haunting. But... this one sure ain't bad. And, as was discussed elsewhere with MBell, this is a Stefon movie.
So help me, from 1992 until about, oh, 2016, I thought Candyman (1992) was just another quick, cheaply produced horror entry along the lines of (forgive me) Leprechaun. I really thought it was horny teens saying "Bloody Mary" in a mirror and getting murdered, and that seemed.... stupid. I don't really care about a lot of horror, and that seemed like a good one to not care about.
In college (1993) I lived on the "arts" floor in Jester West, and our two study lounges had large murals painted on the walls from students past. One room had kinda Nagel-esque pictures of pianos or something, and the other had a (not amazing) mural of Jimi Hendrix. One day, a very nice girl from my floor came in there while I was studying and was upset she couldn't use the other room for one reason or another, and I said "well, you can study here. I'm just reading." and she said "Nope. That mural looks like Candyman." And I was like "from the horror movie?" She nodded and backed out and that was that.
