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Victim of The Night
I know I have a hole in my horror viewing in terms of Hammer horror, so watched a couple with a friend the other day.

So despite the fact I haven't seen any of their other Dracula films we started with Dracula has risen from the grave, this was a solid gothic horror with a surprising number of deviations from tropes that helped it in my estimation. Need to see the earlier films now but I did enjoy this one quite a bit.

Next up was Vampire Circus and that one I loved. At turns creepy, surreal and thrilling, I loved the tension the circus created in the town and while a bit hammy in the acting it worked for the kind of bonkers story they were telling.
You are quickly proving to be possessor of a keen eye and a refined sense of taste.
There is a deeper club and we just may teach you the handshake.



Victim of The Night
Awesome.

I really feel as if it's a film that has it all: scary, weird, cool imagery, sexy (for people who like either gender!), and even a hilariously awful looking panther puppet for some unintentional comic relief.
Hey, I think it's a pretty good-looking panther. Puppet.



Victim of The Night
So, look, is Eyes Of Fire streaming anywhere right now?
I don't know if I have time to order a copy of it.
I'm kinda lookin' to do an Eyes Of Fire -> Lemora -> Messiah Of Evil triple-feature.



Someone’s Watching Me. Made-for-TV thriller written and directed by John Carpenter about a woman being terrorized over the phone. This movie was so ‘70s, and yet surprisingly feminist for its time. Also Uncle Leo is in it!

Blood Vessel. During WW2 a life raft full of bizarrely diverse survivors find a ghost ship transporting vampires. This wasn’t very good. But I did like that the vampires looked like bats. That was kinda neat.




Nice that it acknowledges that Season of the Witch is obviously the second best.


Annoyingly lazy that it lumps both zombie films at the bottom, unwilling to see that the uniqueness of part 2 (which it openly acknowledges) doesn't permit it to be any better than a single other movie in the franchise.



Prince of Darkness -


In an abandoned church, a team consisting of a priest, a physics professor and some PhD students attempt to stop the devil from entering our dimension in this disappointing and misleading effort from John Carpenter. I say misleading because all signs indicated I was in for a biblical horror tale that pits science and religion against each other and that would challenge my notions of both. What I got instead is a movie that does little more than rehash Assault on Precinct 13 and The Thing. Believe me, I'm not just expressing disappointment in how the movie is sold or that it’s not what I wanted it to be. What turned me off is that there's only enough religion and science to explain why zombies are gathering outside the church and why a zombie contagion is spreading amongst the team. While I'm not asking for a grand religion vs. science debate or anything, it just seems like a waste of potential that setup is as far as the movie takes this material. Carpenter and company might as well have blamed it on space aliens, in other words. Besides, despite the astrological phenomena and the use of insects, the imminent disaster seems to only be a threat to the church and its surroundings. Also, the reused tropes from the better Carpenter movies I mentioned are so obvious and less satisfying that I wished I had watched them instead. The experience was not a total waste: it's simply nice to see past Carpenter collaborators like Donald Pleasance, Victor Wong and Dennis Dun and some of the ideas like the shared premonition, the use of mirrors and their associated special effects are imaginative and memorable. As for the soundtrack, which is a highlight of every Carpenter movie, it’s not half bad despite being a bit incessant. I still think this could wait for a rainy Sunday afternoon and/or the tail end of an exploration of Carpenter's filmography, and if you're in the mood for something like The Exorcist, Frailty or The Omen, look elsewhere.



Prince of Darkness started off strong, but I would have liked it better if the horror accumulated to something more than
WARNING: spoilers below
stabbin' hobos.



The trick is not minding
Prince of Darkness is pretty good, but I’d rate it maybe his third or fourth best.
The Thing, Halloween,Christine, They Live, then PoD.
Edit: geez. Forgot about Halloween 😑
So, 5th best perhaps?



The trick is not minding
Prince of Darkness started off strong, but I would have liked it better if the horror accumulated to something more than
WARNING: spoilers below
stabbin' hobos.
It actually was far more then that.



And if we're ranking Halloween movies:


Halloween (1978) - 10
Halloween II (1981) - 8
Halloween (2018) - 7
Halloween II (2009) - 7
H20 (1998) - 6
Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982) - 5
Halloween: Resurrection (2002) - 5
Halloween Kills (2021) - 5
Halloween (2007) - 4
Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995) - 4

Haven't seen 4 and 5. Tempted to revisit the Rob Zombie ones this month as they're available on my streaming services.



It actually was far more then that.
I'm open to revisiting it later on, but I did not feel the Lovecraftian apocalyptic dread that I assumed the movie was going for.



The trick is not minding
I'm open to revisiting it later on, but I did not feel the Lovecraftian apocalyptic dread that I assumed the movie was going for.
That’s odd, I felt the dread throughout, though I would admit, probably not to the degree most were hoping for if compared to Lovecraft.
It is a bit slow moving, perhaps, at times, but it was sufficiently foreboding, for myself.



Victim of The Night
Prince of Darkness -


In an abandoned church, a team consisting of a priest, a physics professor and some PhD students attempt to stop the devil from entering our dimension in this disappointing and misleading effort from John Carpenter. I say misleading because all signs indicated I was in for a biblical horror tale that pits science and religion against each other and that would challenge my notions of both. What I got instead is a movie that does little more than rehash Assault on Precinct 13 and The Thing. Believe me, I'm not just expressing disappointment in how the movie is sold or that it’s not what I wanted it to be. What turned me off is that there's only enough religion and science to explain why zombies are gathering outside the church and why a zombie contagion is spreading amongst the team. While I'm not asking for a grand religion vs. science debate or anything, it just seems like a waste of potential that setup is as far as the movie takes this material. Carpenter and company might as well have blamed it on space aliens, in other words. Besides, despite the astrological phenomena and the use of insects, the imminent disaster seems to only be a threat to the church and its surroundings. Also, the reused tropes from the better Carpenter movies I mentioned are so obvious and less satisfying that I wished I had watched them instead. The experience was not a total waste: it's simply nice to see past Carpenter collaborators like Donald Pleasance, Victor Wong and Dennis Dun and some of the ideas like the shared premonition, the use of mirrors and their associated special effects are imaginative and memorable. As for the soundtrack, which is a highlight of every Carpenter movie, it’s not half bad despite being a bit incessant. I still think this could wait for a rainy Sunday afternoon and/or the tail end of an exploration of Carpenter's filmography, and if you're in the mood for something like The Exorcist, Frailty or The Omen, look elsewhere.
Man, Torgo, you and I are so on the same page.
I gently pan this film every few years (I keep watching it because people keep insisting that I must like it) and then people tell me I'm crazy and I start wondering if I am because, despite some great Carpenter atmosphere and moments, it's generally kinda bull****. I keep going in with a good attitude, "Ok, this time I'm gonna like it!", and every turn I say, "Nah, you were right."
Not terrible, mind, but like you say, "better for a rainy afternoon or the tail end of an exploration of Carpenter's filmography". Damn, straight, man.



Victim of The Night
In other news, I never noticed that Crystal Lake is in New Jersey! I tell ya, Jason Takes Manhattan makes a LOT more sense now!



I'm open to revisiting it later on, but I did not feel the Lovecraftian apocalyptic dread that I assumed the movie was going for.
I somehow never caught up with Prince of Darkness until (*checks movie diary*), 2 years ago. I think my initial response wasn't too far off from yours there. And then for some reason I watched it again soon after and it just really clicked the second time and it's kind of great now. Not Messiah of Evil great. But like, the low-key harbinger of the type of horror of the actual apocalypse In the Mouth of Madness.


WARNING: spoilers below

i.e. the apocalypse isn't here, but the seeds have been planted in this moment.



Victim of The Night
And if we're ranking Halloween movies:


Halloween (1978) - 10
Halloween II (1981) - 8
Halloween (2018) - 7
Halloween II (2009) - 7
H20 (1998) - 6
Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982) - 5
Halloween: Resurrection (2002) - 5
Halloween Kills (2021) - 5
Halloween (2007) - 4
Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995) - 4

Haven't seen 4 and 5. Tempted to revisit the Rob Zombie ones this month as they're available on my streaming services.
I like this list.
Probably fairly closely mirrors my own thoughts. Though I'm still not sure about how I feel about the 2018 one. And I guess I'd put SotW above H2O.



In the Tall Grass. Based on the King short about people getting lost in tall grass. Too long, goofy acting, confusing, not very good in general.

Satanic Panic. Wealthy satanists try to sacrifice a pizza delivery girl to Baphamet. Some of the jokes don’t land and there’s some minor story problems but this was cute. There’s some really cool black magic-related gore and fun Satanist lore stuff. I liked that the main character was kind of a clueless dork. It made her more fun to watch and root for. Definitely worth a watch.



And if we're ranking Halloween movies:


Halloween (1978) - 10
Halloween II (1981) - 8
Halloween (2018) - 7
Halloween II (2009) - 7
H20 (1998) - 6
Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982) - 5
Halloween: Resurrection (2002) - 5
Halloween Kills (2021) - 5
Halloween (2007) - 4
Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995) - 4

Haven't seen 4 and 5. Tempted to revisit the Rob Zombie ones this month as they're available on my streaming services.
*Sees relative placement of Resurrection and Kills*

No.