Halloween Watch-A-Thon

1. Starry Eyes
2. Return of the Living Dead (1985)
3. House on Sorority Row
4. Intruders
5. Super Dark Times
6. The Babysitter
7. Malevolent
8. Night of the Demons
9. Humanoids from the Deep
10. Mandy
11. Summer of '84
12. Tucker and Dale vs. Evil
13. Tales of Halloween
14. The Strangers
15. The Strangers: Prey at Night
16. April Fools Day
17. Annabelle : Creation
18. The Conjuring

Managed to sneak another flick in last night, even though I am super busy all of a sudden. I have seen The Conjuring a few times now, and it still holds up really well. Love the old-school feel, and all the performances are great across the board. There is some sketchy dialogue here and there, but it does little to detract from the horror fun.

Don't think I ever noticed the shadow in the bottom of the image. Creepy.

I love The Conjuring and I think the sequel does a good job of being scary too.

Trench 11 (2017) N

Near the end of WWI a small group of American soldiers led by two British officers and guided by a Canadian tunneler go to investigate an abandoned German underground complex. They try to find the German chemical weapons research notes but the truth is quite a bit different than they expected.


Trench 11 is decent war horror film (a sub-genre that's surprisingly rare). It's pretty much Cronenberg's Shivers transferred into an underground bunker with more varied effects on the infected (at least that's what they tell us, all we get to see is the violent behavior). It also resorts to lot of zombie cliches as the infected constantly jump from nowhere. Story's premise isn't bad but it would have needed something more.

Settings look good enough but it's basically just few tunnels and couple of rooms. Gear looked authentic enough for me (had to check the shotguns because I didn't know they looked so modern already in WWI). Effects were pretty good too (nice shotgun blast to the head). Acting was rather weak, especially the main villain.

Mediocre B-horror that get a little bonus for the WWI setting but loses that with bad acting and cliched script.

Deep Red (1975) https://letterboxd.com/smudgeefc1985/film/deep-red/


This one has sat on my DVD shelf for about 5 years now, ever since I went out with a lad once to whom I mentioned I was struggling to get hold of this in English dubbed or subtitled, and he had foolishly posted me out his copy just before I told him I didnt like him. DVD arrived the next day, but he had already blocked me by then, so what a shame!

It's the 5th Argento I've seen, and despite the fact it is generally one of the most acclaimed, I found it quite dull. The murder scenes are, like all his other works, moments of true terrifying horror, and there is a lot of imagery going on here with secrets and deception, a lot of emphasis on mirrors and reflections etc. but all that aside, there are very long periods, where absolutely nothing happens and Im starting to get really bored.

The score by Goblin, as ever, is great, but overall, this is just okay, and probably my least favourite Argento to date. The long boring sections drag it's score down severely, which is a shame, as the death scenes are great.

In 19th-century America, a soldier is assigned to a remote military outpost but soon runs into trouble when his unit encounters a man telling tales of cannibalism.

I'm definitely intrigued by how far the definition of what consitutes a horror movie can stretch simply by featuring a signifier that one would commonly associate with the genre like vampires or werewolves. I daresay cannibalism is one such signifier that is much harder to completely separate from the concept of horror, especially because it's not only more realistic than such mythological creatures but also because of how it can tap into certain fears about humans' place within the natural order of things - not just because it would be unnatural for people to eat one another except under the most dire of circumstances, but because of the fear that it might actually come to us a lot more naturally than we would like. Such is the situation that Guy Pearce's protagonist finds himself in as he, an American soldier who becomes a war hero by virtue of his own cowardice, is exiled to a remote mountain outpost. As if the isolation wouldn't be troubling enough on its own, things are complicated further when a ragged stranger (Robert Carlyle) shows up at the outpost one day. He says that the group he was travelling with got snowbound and had to resort to cannibalism, only for him to escape when the group's leader finally got around to targeting him. Naturally, the soldiers send out a rescue party and that's when the story really begins...

Ravenous ends up being a film where separate elements are distinctly interesting but I'm not entirely convinced that they ever truly come together into something great. It's certainly something to see Pearce - whose character is first introduced as being traumatised to the point of being violently ill at the premise of eating a particularly juicy steak - try to survive the wrath of cannibals whose actions show that there might actually be something worse than a cannibal simply trying to kill and eat you. He also gets to play the miserable straight man to Carlyle's scenery-chewing extravagance, though even their dynamic can get a little tiresome. The same goes for the film's approach to cannibalism being akin to vampirism in its borrowing from a Native American myth about how eating people allows one to gain restorative powers at the cost of one's humanity, retaining the tragic seduction angle common to the sub-genre but not doing much with it in the process. Apart from the odd interesting development, the pacing is so off-kilter throughout the first and second act that it really does take a strong third to make it come even somewhat together. Of particular note is the soundtrack, a collaboration between The Piano composer Michael Nyman and Damon Albarn of Blur and Gorillaz fame, which pieces together a variety of delightfully urgent-sounding pieces ranging from the frantic plucking that accompanies the opening credits to the monotonous throbbing that accompanies the final confrontation between hero and villain. While some elements and scenes are very much appreciable on their own terms, Ravenous isn't all that satisfying as a whole. It's a slight movie that's somewhat worth a watch simply for its highlights, but beyond that it just leaves me hungry for more.

A doctor returns to his small Californian hometown to find that there's something not quite right going on with the other citizens.

As far as horror sub-genres go, I'm rather fond of the body-snatcher sub-genre mainly because it's so readily primed to deliver both immediate scares and simmering paranoia. The best films in this sub-genre are more than capable of delivering both and as an added bonus they get to play around with potentially rich themes and metaphorical concepts, though of course it's definitely up to the individual films and the people who make them to flesh them out properly. In that regard, I always wonder what to actually make of the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers if only because it's potentially the most iconic horror movie of the 1950s as it evokes many of the internal and external concerns that plagued a decade largely characterised in pop culture as a combination of both optimism and paranoia. The film (as ultimately released, anyway) begins with such a juxtaposition as a raving madman (Kevin McCarthy) relates his unbelievable story to a psychiatrist. It turns out that he is a doctor who had recently returned to his small Californian hometown, only to start hearing reports from some of the citizens that their loved ones are somehow...different. They're behaving the same and remembering all the same things, but things aren't quite right, and McCarthy eventually starts to notice as well...

Though you can definitely point and laugh at some of the exceptionally hokey moments on display here (I know I did when I first watched it many years ago), there's no denying the sheer effectiveness of the premise that more than carries the moments where the film's age catches up to it. The practical effects used to render the body-snatchers' plant-based life cycle are certainly solid and at least a little creepy-looking, but so much of what makes Invasion of the Body Snatchers a good horror is everything else about it. We're obviously on the lookout for anything remotely suspicious from the jump as children run away from parents and people go through their daily routines perhaps a little too routinely (or not, as in the case of a bustling restaurant suddenly becoming empty), and that's before things crank up a notch with the discovery of the pods that grow the replicas and how they work (and really, something about the idea of something killing and replacing you in your sleep is particularly unsettling, especially here where it's never shown on-screen and thus adds to the nightmarish quality of the scenario). Given the period and setting in which it takes place, one also sees a thinly-veiled metaphor for how America saw the encroaching threat of communist insurgency, though it is vague enough that the coldly unemotional antagonists could be interpreted as either representing said insurgents converting citizens to their ideology or (more incisively) rampant anti-communist hysteria going overboard in trying to eradicate any sense of individuality that contrasted with their extremely narrow idea of what America (and, by extension, the world) should be. I'd say the latter interpretation certainly goes a long way towards helping Invasion of the Body Snatchers hold up as well as it does, and while it's still got its flaws, it might well be the definitive 1950s horror movie regardless.

A young man looking for his missing sister crosses paths with a group of college students as they both end up near the stalking ground of a notorious serial killer.

Earlier this year, I made my way through the entire Friday the 13th series, which was admittedly a curious decision on my part because not only is the original the best of the bunch but it's not even that good - a high or a low , which isn't bad but doesn't ostensibly suggest that it's worth watching the subsequent nine sequels (to say nothing of Freddy vs. Jason or this movie). Why, then? Like i said before, there's something fascinating about slashers and their rote formulas (or how they defy them) - they're almost like the horror version of comfort food where the weird variations spice things up just enough. Certainly, the Friday franchise has had a curious journey - following the original building off a combination of point-of-view villainy and a genuinely unhinged reveal, it then reverted to conventional slasher fare starring Jason Voorhees, a goalie-masked behemoth who made it his mission in life (and death) to vengefully murder anyone who crossed into his domain near the old campground at Crystal Lake. All sorts of weirdness was thrown into the mix to keep things interesting throughout the last few sequels such as telekinetic heroines, a futuristic spaceship, and a trip to New York. Naturally, the remake goes for a simple back-to-basics approach that quickly recaps Jason's origin story (he's presumed dead because of the camp counselors' gross negligence, his mother swears revenge and ultimately gets killed by a counselor who fights back, he witnesses her death and decides to continue the killing) before moving on to the main story, which concerns (what else?) a group of youths who decide to party it up on the edge of Crystal Lake.

This version of Friday the 13th does at least develop a story that would nominally be worthy of a straightforward sequel; the ostensible protagonist is a young biker looking for his missing sister, who was last seen being terrorised by Jason on a camping trip of her own. When this plot ultimately ties into Jason's established characterisation, it makes for a passable through-line with which to ground the rest of the movie. Unfortunately, the rest of this movie of a very 2000s slasher (dem Platinum Dunes, babeh) that maybe works a little too well at making its dead meat walking into the kind of people you can't wait to see get butchered - and yet most of the ways it gets around to that aren't very good in the first place. A major flaw with the Friday franchise was how the bulk of its entries tended to get the more violent kills edited down to appease censors, which just makes it all the more disappointing that Nispel (who hadn't completely embarrassed himself with his gnarly 2003 remake of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre) barely takes advantage of the freedom afforded by 2009 standards (the main thing I remember is a circular saw that is foregrounded in one shot only to never actually be used). In trying to provide a new story that also works as a summary of sorts for the franchise, this Friday the 13th does a better job of exposing the flaws than fortifying the strengths. The kills tend to be unimaginative and/or gratuitous in bad ways while the horror that unfolds between them is very hit-and-miss. It's a shame as the missing-sister story could've been something when the franchise was putting out proper sequels but its execution here is disappointing. At least now I can say I'm done with this franchise now.

I really just want you all angry and confused the whole time.

Fright Night (1985) https://letterboxd.com/smudgeefc1985/film/fright-night/


Having grown up in a family where we were exposed to horror films at a young age, Fright Night has always been a benchmark for me.

The story is simple. A horror film obsessed teenager thinks his new next door neighbour is a vampire. And then he finds out he actually is, but of course his best friend, his girlfriend and even his idol, prolific tv vampire killer Peter Vincent, don't believe him, but end up coming along for the ride anyway.

This is one of those films that sums up what I love about the 80s. There is a charm and an honesty that would make it painfully cheesy and stupid in any other era, but on the 80s, it's solid gold.

Jerry Dandridge is played to perfection by Chris Sarandon, probably the coolest, sexiest, yet still scary vampire ever to be played on film. Roddy McDowall is gloriously over the top as Peter Vincent, fully enjoying himself as a hammy amalgamation of the men he took his name, Vincent Price and Peter Cushing. William Ragsdale, Amanda Bearse and Stephen Geoffreys as the 3 teenagers may not be the most stellar acting in the world, but their chemistry as a threesome just holds the film together, you can practically feel that love and that friendship coming through.

Tom Holland has put together a fully accessible horror film with good special effects, quality characters and interactions that we care about, on top of an absolutely fantastic soundtrack. It will never be an award winner, but it's one of my all time favourites I go back to over and over again.

Three backpackers travelling across Europe looking for hedonistic adventures find an off-the-books Slovakian hostel that is actually a front for a business that deals in torture and murder.

Going off the numbers, Eli Roth might just be one of my least favourite directors. Hostel marks the third film of his I've seen after Cabin Fever and Death Wish - the former was a somewhat promising cabin-in-the-woods horror-comedy that ultimately proved too obnoxious for its own good while the latter saw him remake the 1974 vigilante thriller in a way that failed as both a quasi-satirical approach to American gun culture and as exploitational pulp. His sophomore feature, Hostel, is probably his most notorious due to how it emphasised the extremity of its violence not just for its own gratuitous sake but also through the torture-focused narrative itself. The story is a fundamentally conventional one by horror standards in having its three naive protagonists (two odd-couple American friends - one a party-hearty dudebro, the other an intellectual introvert - and their boorish Icelandic companion) chase after something that's too good to be true (the promise of a hostel filled with attractive and readily available women) and end up being subjected to a horror beyond their expectations (being abducted and turned into the victims of wealthy sadists). It's a slim narrative and one that's subject to no small amount of padding, even if it's ostensibly all feeding into Roth making some statement about the callous nature of consumerism (and a rather blunt one if the progression from the characters hiring sex workers in Amsterdam to them being sold for much nastier purposes in Slovakia is any indication) and growing anti-American sentiment in the midst of the Bush II administration.

Though it's largely by default, I'm inclined to consider Hostel the best Eli Roth movie I've seen yet. It may start off with him once again setting up some annoying victims-to-be and it takes a little longer than it should for any real danger to set in (the first half plays like a half-assed retread of the already-dire Eurotrip right down to a scene involving a creepy businessman in a train compartment), but once it does finally engage with its horrifying premise it doesn't do too badly in that regard. Obviously, the film's reputation as the poster child for the so-called "torture porn" sub-genre is considerably well-earned with some sparse but cringe-inducing scenes of, well, torture. What matters is whether or not the film manages to thread them together in an engaging manner and that's where things get really dicey. While it's certainly not as bad in this regard as fellow sadistic horror The Human Centipede (which sacrificed all manner of good filmmaking technique for the sake of its shock value), it stays pretty sluggish throughout its first hour and even amplifying the stakes considerably in its final third only does so much to improve upon that. As such, I can't really say that Hostel is a good movie, at least not enough to truly rise above its reputation as a film that embodies the horror genre's weaknesses more so than its strengths. It's not quite as bad as I was led to believe, but it's still an ugly little chore of a movie that makes me wonder whether or not I should really bother giving Roth any more chances to win me over.