Spooky season is back and I've started my movie/TV marathon with a little more than a month to go until Halloween. First up: M3gan We've seen this movie before, haven't we? Child's Play meets Ex Machina meets Terminator. Cady, a young girl , and her parents are on a family ski trip when a snow plow truck runs them off the road and only Cady survives. She's placed into custody of her aunt, the mom's sister. Her aunt Jemma is an inventor that works fir a toy company that are working on an interactive doll. Jemma has ran into a road block and is distracted by her niece and both are having a hard time adjusting to their new life. They eventually bond over a robot that Jemma built in college which inspire Jemma to work on her new project. This is when Megan is created. She's super realistic, but still doll like. She has an AI that adapts over time. Megan is paired to Cady and she is the primary user, but Jenna quickly realizes that she had not installed any parental controls so she makes herself a second primary user and gives Megan a command that basically she is to protect Cady as her primary mission. This is where things begin to go off the rails because of course Megan takes this to the extreme which leads to murder. Jemma eventually finds out about this and tries to reprogram Megan, but Megan tries to put a stop to this and tries to kill Jenna. In the end Cady stops Megan and then we get sequel bait. I've heard mixed things about this movie, some said it was good and some have said it's not good, I thought it was mostly decent. It's not a horror classic, but most modern horror movie aren't these days. Blumehouse is smart though, low budget horror movies with a decent enough gimmick and a decent enough script and it''ll make plenty of money. That's what this movie is one of those movies. Like I said, I've seen this movie before and it done a lot better. I will say that there were a few moment that were suspenseful and a few gory scenes. The boss in this movie reminded me of John Glover in Gremlins 2 or Rinnie Cox from Robocop. I give it credit for those gory parts and the suspense as well as some good humor and the kid actor was good, but the chemistry between her and the aunt was way off. 7/10
The Mummy I don’t think I’ve ever seen the 1932 version until today. This is not a scary movie, but it’s decent. Things have certainly changed since the 30s and I don’t think modern audiences would even appreciate it, but the plot is solid. I thought the pacing was slow and the script could have been tighter. One line I recognized from a White Zombie song was, “do you always have to open up graves to find girl to fall in love with?” Overall, good acting, but kind of short on story. I’ll still give it props though for the makeup and practical effects. 7.5/ 10
Scream 6 Okay so I started this thinking it was Scream 5, but that one is just called Scream so unfortunately I already know who the killer is in that one. By the sixth movie in A Nightmare on Elm Street they sort of had to revamp the character and the franchise because they had ran the concept to the ground so they were going to kill Freddy off for good in Freddy's Dead, unfortunately it wasn't a good movie. This is why Wes Craven had to return to breathe life back into the franchise before moving on to the Scream movies. The Friday the 13th's sixth movies managed to do a pretty good job of revamping the franchise and came out at a time when I was still a kid and could still go out trick or treating and Jason was one the most popular Halloween costumes. It's interesting how the direction of those two franchises went. As for Scream, well it's the same old thing over and over. The first three movies were good, I think I remember liking the second one the best, but it's been a long time since I've seen them. I don't remember if I've seen the fourth one or not. I'll say that the casting was good, you have Jenna Ortegas, one of the girls from Yellowjackets, Courtney Cox and the main girl who looks familiar, but I'm not sure if I've seen her before. There isn't much I can say about this movie, they overuse the phone calls, there are some decent kills and practical effects so Ill give them that. Other than that, meh. 6/10
Ghostbusters (1984) It's been a while since I've re-watched this one. It really is a perfect lightening in the bottle movie. A few things that I noticed this time that I may not have noticed before, when they catch Slimer the hotel manager sees the trap steaming and holds his nose. This means that the trapped ghosts have an odor. I love how Walter Peck accuses them of using light shows and auditory hallucinations to trick people into seeing ghosts then at the end sees the Stay Puff marsh mellow man walking down the street and then later on gets hit with a huge glob of marsh mellow. They didn't cause that to happen. The humor is still good, the practical effects mostly hold up. There's one scene where the Zuul dogs is chasing Lewis that looks kind of bad, but any time there's a close up of anything like Slimer or the skeleton cab driver, it looks great. The script and plot points are tight, things slowly escalate and build up to the ending showdown with Gozer. I like that they built the lore in this which was carried over into the cartoon. The cartoon really is the true canon in my mind because what's established in this movie, it doesn't make sense for what follows in the sequels. In Ghostbusters 2 they are seen as hasbeens who were sued by the city, but at the end of the first one they are established heroes with plenty of witnesses to testify that what they saw was real. Then in afterlife, it makes no sense that Gozer would return again and in the middle of a mine shaft in Oklahoma. The whole plot of that movie is so convoluted. One thing I payed more attention to this time was locations. When I was a kid I had never been to New York, but now I've been twice and I can recognize locations and you see a lot of on location filming in this. The obvious one is the GW (I think that's the right bridge) bridge you see Ecto one driving by and the twin towers in the back ground. Another thing that I payed more attention to this time was how much Peter trusts Egon's scientific knowledge. Peter starts off not taking things seriously, he slowly becomes a believer and he jokes around the whole time, but if Egon says something, he takes it seriously. Overall, this is just one of those perfect movies that had the right key players all in the right positions at the right time. It should have been left alone and shouldn't be a franchise, but TPTB can't do that so here we are left with inferior sequels and one horrible reboot. 10/10
The Exorcist I've seen this quite a few times now, but it's been at least a few years. I watched the theatrical version this time because last time I watched the extended version. I don't really remember the difference. I think they added in a few extra scenes. I think the theatrical cut tells a very tight story. It sets up what kind of people Reagan and her mother are. Reagan is just a typical 12 year old girl and her mother is a classy actress. Then we get to know the priest comes across as a regular guy. I like that they establish that the exorcism is a last resort because she's not religious. All of the things that happen to Regan can be explained up until a point where we see stuff flying on the walls and furniture moving on it's own. Then the mother is attacked by Regan and that's the breaking point. I also like that they establish that exorcisms are rare and that the church has evolved over the past 500 years and that they accept things like mental illness, they have to do tests before approving the exorcism. The effects in this movie also holds up. The acting is great and casting Linda Blair was brilliant. She really does a good job considering it's hard to find good kid actors. The floating scene beats the head twisting scene for me. Both are supernatural, but the head twisting seems kind of unnecessary to me. I'm sure seeing it for the first time in theaters in the early 70s was cool, but it's very tame compared to modern horror. That's not the movie's fault though. There are a lot of horror tropes in this movie that are probably firsts for it's time, but now are almost required these days. There's two major jump scares, one of them is the phone ringing at an awkward point in the movie, the establishment of possession like speaking a language that they wouldn't know, the demon speaking in another person's voice, doing supernatural feats, holy water being used to tame the demon, to name a few. Overall, this is OG. possession movie and every other possession movie owes a debt to this movie. This is a well acted, well directed and well written movie. While not too scary or gory compared to modern movies, it's still a nicely told tale. 10/10
Friday the Thirteenth Part 6: Jason Lives This movie has a pretty brutal opening sequence that I like quite a bit, then when the title and credits roll, it has a James Bond like gun barrel scene for some reason. This is the one that I probably saw first before seeing all other other ones later on. So Tommy Jarvis is back as the protagonist. He was played by Corey Feldman in part 4 and then another actor in parts 5 and 6. He was locked up in a mental facility in part 5 and in this one he escapes and tries to cremate Jason's corpse. The cremation backfire and Jason's body is struck by lightening, thus resurrecting him. Tommy goes to the cops to try and warn them that Jason is alive, but they don't believe him. Then people start coming up dead and the cops think Tommy is the culprit. Meanwhile at Camp Crystal Lake which has been renamed Camp Forest Green, the counselors are preparing for the kids to show up. The locals call it Camp Blood. So as this is going on there are paintball players in the woods as Jason starts to make his way to camp. He kills the paint ball players then proceeds to camp. Meanwhile Tommy is being told to leave town by the cops and is being escorted, but he turns into the graveyard where he wants to show the cops Jason's empty grave. Unfortunately the graveyard keeper filled the grave back in because Tommy's friend had fallen in at the beginning. Tommy is arrested and thrown in a holding cell. The sheriff's daughter is there and she believes him so they come up with a plan to rescue Tommy. At the camp Jason starts offing the counselors. The sheriff gets a call out to camp and that's when the daughter helps Tommy escape. The sheriff arrives at camp and starts seeing the dead bodies. At this point, it would be impossible for Tommy to be the killer. The sheriff eventually runs into Jason and shoots him point blank with a shotgun. Jason falls back on the ground, but immediately gets up. At this point it's clear that Jason won't be easily killed. Tommy arrives at the camp and devises a plan to kill Jason. He chains a giant boulder to a motor boat and lures Jason out of the cabin right before he was about to kill the kids at the camp. Jason comes to the boat as Tommy sets it on fire. Tommy and Jason struggle, but Tommy eventually wraps the chain around Jason's head. They struggle some more until Jason is able to drown Tommy. The sheriff's daughter tries to rescue Tommy and gets into a struggle with Jason, she's able to turn the motor on and cuts Jason with the motor. It's implied that he was behead. The daughter then pulls Tommy out of the lake and resuscitates him. The very last shot we see Jason's body in the water and his eye opens up. Jason Lives! This movie is one of the more coherent Friday the Thirteenth movies as far as plot or story goes. As I said before, is breathes life back into the franchise before it goes off the rails again. It establishes a supernatural element that makes Jason an impossible to kill monster. He's clearly a rip off of Mike Myers. As a movie itself it's decent, but as a Friday the Thirteenth movie, it's very tame compared to previous films. It reminds me more of modern horror movies. I think I like the first two the best and really I'm more of a Freddy fan. 6.5/10
Poltergeist I'm just going to do a short review for this one. I think the effects mostly hold up and the story is good, but the pacing is a little off and it could have been cut by about twenty minutes. This movie is rated PG so the horror elements had to be scaled back. I don't know why they wouldn't want to go for at least PG 13, but whatever. I guess they wanted kids to see the movie. Ghostbusters came out just two years later and I think it has a more lasting legacy. I guess if I had watched this as a kid, maybe I'd feel more nostalgic about it. That's not to say it's bad, I just think there are contemporary films that are better. 8/10
Us just hit netflix. A little slow but once the purge starts it is a fun family survival flick. It does explain why the bad guys need to kill the black folx first. Thge white people are just going to sit there like a bunch of idiots and make stupid moves, but you have to take the black ones out first and do not fuck around or else they will kick your ass. Also, it also seems that black people should not be alone in horror flicks because no one has your back. Jaime Lee Curtis must have some black woman in her because she is the only white mom ever that you do not want to fuck with in a horror flick. Well, if you consider Terminator movies horror maybe Sarah Connor, but john was eventually killed according to cannon. Both of the times it was in front of either Sarah or Kyle.
Tommy's buddy who gets taken out in the beginning is Horshack from "Welcome Back, Kotter". Tommy is Freddy (not that one) in "Return Of The Living Dead".
Just saw Pet Semetary Bloodlines. Yes, I know it is old, but it was a pretty decent addition to the lore. David Duchovny did a really good job it in. It happened before the original and it had a more town oriented horror aspect to it. Normally you don't find the third movie adds to the story so much after a shit sequel, but this is much better than 2 and ads to the first one.
The Fall of the House of Usher Absolutely excellent! Mike Flanagan’s take on Poe is one of those shows that I almost wanted to stand up and applaud in front of my tv. What an excellent cast, Bruce Greenwood, Mary McDonell, Mark Hamil, Krycheck from X Files, Anders from NuBSG, all of Mike Flanagan’s regular cast and a few new cast members. This is like Poe’s greatest hits. While Poe did most of the heavy lifting here, Flanagan deserves credit here too. This is classic horror at its finest. You can find it on Netflix. Every work from Flanagan is better than the last, not scary, no real jump scares, but very well written and executed. The ending drags a little, but overall, really good. 9.75/10
I gave up on this one after two episodes. And totally disagree with "Every work from Flanagan is better than the last". I think each series has gotten progressively worse since The Haunting of Hill House (which was excellent).
The Blackening. Who survives a horror movie if everyone's black? It's a comedy ripoff of Saw with the puzzle element, but not the tortures. I liked it okay, but I wanted better. It's political, but it can't bring itself to go as political as "Get Out" and it's comedy, but it doesn't want to be as silly as "Scary Movie". So...it rides the middle, and plays it safe. By Tim Story who did the Barbershop movies, and the original two Fantastic Fours. I don't care about the fanboy consensus, I liked his Fantastic Fours. Summoning Sylvia. Gay "The Blackening". A bunch of gay guys have a gay bachelor party in a haunted house. Hi-jinks ensue. Manages to be pro-gay without being wik-wak-wikkety-woke*, if you can believe it. R rated jokes, one sex scene, but otherwise, it's kinda cutesy-wutesy. Could almost be by Disney. The jokes are way funnier than "The Blackening". Sorry, Tim Story. *"The Craft: Legacy" is wik-wak-wikety woke. If I ever snap, it won't e a mass shooting, I'll turn into Jigsaw, and "The Craft: Legacy" on a TV behind bulletproof glass will be UA's torture.
