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I'm a longtime F13 fan, and my recommended viewing order:


1, 6, 10, Freddy vs Jason


3, 4, and the reboot are marginal.


The rest are trash.





A system of cells interlinked
I want to be clear, that it is a pretty typical slasher. Nothing really "special" about it except that it looks like a lot of effort went into it and I think the directing and effects are both quite good and, as I mentioned, because they get you to like the characters, their danger matters and that drives the movie. I also tend to find that that first wave of slashers, F13 1 & 2, Terror Train, My Blood Valentine, etc., they've just got both more grit and better execution than later slashers. Like, I like Slumber Party Massacre for what it is but overall as a movie I think The Prowler is much better.
I chose the Slasher genre for the Watch 5 category in the Halloween Challenge, so I will certainly get this in before Oct 31! I tend to agree about that first wave of slasher flicks, also.
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Victim of The Night
A little bit of housekeeping real quick. I wanna set the table for this month.


Each of the three of us are approaching this in our own way, as Cap and I did before, and we have no communications about what we are going to post. I know what to expect from Cap and Takoma has told me her theme, which I will let her reveal to you as she sees fit.
For my part, I am celebrating my TWENTIETH consecutive Horrorthon. Twenty years of watching at least 31 Horror movies in October.
Originally, I was in a situation where I simply watched one Horror movie every night of October. Reality eventually shifted to where I watched two or three in one day sometimes to have a few nights off to spend with my wife.
In 2008, I started a thread about my Horrorthon on a long-defunct forum. After several years, I moved it to a new forum. Three years ago, I moved it here. Last year, I didn't do it (the thread, I have never not done my Horrothon). But this being a special year, I decided to get back to it.
So, what is my approach this year? Well...


My journey will be all the things. I'm mixing some classics and favorites and can't-misses with contemporary movies I've heard good things about and combined that has 27 of my 31 slots already filled. We'll see what happens with the rest. And, as always, I'll be hanging up images and gifs that are fun for me for Halloween and I hope they are for you too.
But the thing I've always done that was a little different was music videos and songs that always put me in the spirit. And to that end, it is time for the obvious and inevitable to anyone who knows me. As Rock, the first non-hosting poster in the thread two years ago put it...


So, as always, here is my musical kickoff to Halloween, since I am from New Orleans and Bloodletting: The Vampire Song gives me all the feels.




Victim of The Night
I'm a longtime F13 fan, and my recommended viewing order:


1, 6, 10, Freddy vs Jason


3, 4, and the reboot are marginal.


The rest are trash.


I am also a longtime F13 fan, going back to 1981 or '82, and my recommended viewing order:

2

1

VIII, actually (just such a silly thing)

3 (hadn't totally fallen apart yet), and maybe VI? Maybe?

IV (the definition of all hat, no cattle), Hell: The Final Friday (at least they tried something different)

V, VII

X (I mean, at least it's in Space)

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Reboot (pointless 2000s rehash)






Freddy vs. Jason (unwatchable)



Smiling and nodding like Jack Nicholson in Anger Management to the Prowler love.




<i>Freddy vs. Jason</i>(unwatchable)
BLASPHEMY! Nothing starring Robert Englund is unwatchable!



Victim of The Night
BLASPHEMY! Nothing starring Robert Englund is unwatchable!
I dunno, 2001 Maniacs might beg to differ (and that even had Lin Shaye!) and The Mangler and Night Terrors, while still actual movies, were no joy ride. Do we need to mention Killer Pad? Or Killer Tongue?

All that said, I did really like him in Eaten Alive. As for Freddy, it's pretty amazing how much he made that character. Craven's decision to go get the right actor rather than cast a stuntman (which he was apparently advised to do) proved to be pretty insightful. To the tune of $370M.



Victim of The Night

Deathdream, originally titled Dead Of Night, is a gritty, edgy, grim retelling of The Monkey's Paw through the thematic lens of veterans returning to home from Vietnam. If you don't know The Monkey's Paw, so much the better. Then you won't necessarily know what's coming. Though the movie starts playing its rather strong cards pretty early.
Andy is an American soldier in Vietnam who is shot and as he lies on the ground bleeding he hears his mother's voice calling "Andy you'll come back. You've got to. You promised."
A few days later, his family, including a mother who can't seem to stop talking about "when Andy comes home", are sitting around the dinner table when a knock at the door breaks up the repast. The audience knows who's there. An Army officer hands Andy's father the letter. Their boy has died in Vietnam. If there's anything he can do...
At the same time, a truck driver picks up a hitchhiking soldier. He doesn't talk much. When his father comes down to investigate noise in the middle of the night, he finds Andy there in full uniform. Their boy is home, it was all a mistake. But now he seems so quiet and strange... and the police are investigating the murder of a truck driver found with his throat slashed.
Such is the grim beginning of Bob Clark's (of Porky's and A Christmas Story fame) Dead Of Night, a chilling but also tragic Monkey's Paw adaptation. It's tragic because of what it all means for the family and because of who gets killed and how it all ends but it's also tragic because it is a very intentional allegory for the soldiers returning from Vietnam as broken men or, depending whose review you read, for the war in Vietnam "turning men into monsters". I was alive when this came out but I'm kinda glad I was too young to understand what the war in Vietnam really did to the psyche of this country.
I like this movie a lot.
It is true that it is a slower-paced, low-budget film but I think those two things come out as strengths here. This story doesn't really need a budget beyond locations, cameras, film, lighting, actors, editing, those sorts of things. Clark does a nice job here creating a grim mood and sticking to it all the way through. And that's how I'd describe this, not slow, not "anticlimactic", but deliberate, consistent, and grim.
Warning, this movie may suck all the air out of the room.




I'm a longtime F13 fan, and my recommended viewing order:


1, 6, 10, Freddy vs Jason


3, 4, and the reboot are marginal.


The rest are trash.


I am also a longtime F13 fan, going back to 1981 or '82, and my recommended viewing order:

2

1

VIII, actually (just such a silly thing)

3 (hadn't totally fallen apart yet), and maybe VI? Maybe?

IV (the definition of all hat, no cattle), Hell: The Final Friday (at least they tried something different)

V, VII

X (I mean, at least it's in Space)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Reboot (pointless 2000s rehash)






Freddy vs. Jason (unwatchable)
I'm a big fan of the franchise, but if I were to recommend which ones to watch, it would be...

Part 2
Part 4
Part 6


In its chronological order (although 6 is my second favorite). There are good/bad things in the others, but I think those three pretty much show you all you need to know and see about Jason.

I might go as far as recommending Jason Goes to Hell, just because of the crazy swings it takes, but it's a bad film.

Jason X is fun so I would probably close with that one, although I'm a big fan of the reboot as well.

Worst ones for me are Manhattan and Part 3
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I'm a longtime F13 fan, and my recommended viewing order:


1, 6, 10, Freddy vs Jason


3, 4, and the reboot are marginal.


The rest are trash.


Did you watch the TV show back in the day. It wasn't anything like the movies. It was about cursed objects and the main characters would investigate them. I loved that TV show.



Kicked off October with a viewing of The Strangler



The Strangler, 1964

Leo (Victor Buono) is an eccentric, resentful lab technician who compulsively attacks and murders women as an outlet for his dysfunctional relationship with his cruel mother (Ellen Corby). As a team of detectives starts to close in on Leo, he becomes determined to finally free himself of his mother’s grasp and find a woman to run away with.

Despite some redundant moments, this horror-thriller manages some chilling moments and surprisingly well-developed secondary characters.



A full review is over in my thread.

And while I'm not done with it yet, I also started Il Demonio which I am so far loving.



Victim of The Night
Kicked off October with a viewing of The Strangler



The Strangler, 1964

Leo (Victor Buono) is an eccentric, resentful lab technician who compulsively attacks and murders women as an outlet for his dysfunctional relationship with his cruel mother (Ellen Corby). As a team of detectives starts to close in on Leo, he becomes determined to finally free himself of his mother’s grasp and find a woman to run away with.

Despite some redundant moments, this horror-thriller manages some chilling moments and surprisingly well-developed secondary characters.



A full review is over in my thread.

And while I'm not done with it yet, I also started Il Demonio which I am so far loving.
Now there's one I didn't see coming. Heading over to your thread to read the whole thing.
I also have Il Demonio in my queue, look forward to hearing what you think.



The trick is not minding
I watched Ghost House (Lenzi) last night. It wasn’t good.

I have a bunch on tap for this week. Wolf’s Hole, The Most Dangerous Game, Nosferatu in Venice, The Shout, A Bela Lugosi film (Phantom Ship), and Tokyo: The Last Megalopolis



Victim of The Night
I watched Ghost House (Lenzi) last night. It wasn’t good.

I have a bunch on tap for this week. Wolf’s Hole, The Most Dangerous Game, Nosferatu in Venice, The Shout, A Bela Lugosi film (Phantom Ship), and Tokyo: The Last Megalopolis
Shame about Ghost House, the description actually sounds intriguing (I didn't read too far in because I hate spoilers, ya never know) but Italian Horror, honestly, can be spotty and very hit or miss, even by the best of the genre's filmmakers.
I've wondered about Nosferatu In Venice, haven't seen it. I've thought about watching The Most Dangerous Game but I've read it too many times and seen too many interpretations and knockoffs to get onto it during Halloween, and I'm always up for a Lugosi film (I'm not just a fan of The Black Cat and Mark Of The Vampire but also a pretty big fan of Return Of The Vampire).



Now there's one I didn't see coming. Heading over to your thread to read the whole thing.
I also have Il Demonio in my queue, look forward to hearing what you think.
I'm back on the time machine kick! So I've done 1964 and am partway done with 1963. If people have recommendations for 1950-1962, let 'em rip!