Iro's October '18 Horror Thread

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I don't think I've seen most of the Halloween franchise. I can't remember if it's 4 or 5 that I have see (pretty sure it's part 4) and then nothing after that with the exception of H20 because it was the 90's and I still did things like that back then. Obviously part 3 is the best sequel, and I say that confidently without having seen most of them because, why wouldn't' it be?

BTW, after you've finished with this, try and find something called Night After Night After Night. Don't pay for it, but if you can find it I'd be interested in hearing what you thought.
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5-time MoFo Award winner.



28 days...6 hours...42 minutes...12 seconds
I dare you to run the first eight next October (or at least just the pre-H20 ones), if only for completion's sake. How many horror franchises have you seen all the way through anyway?
Saw (at least until this latest one came out)

That's all I can think of off the top of my head.

Also, if I remember this post next year....challenge accepted.
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"A laugh can be a very powerful thing. Why, sometimes in life, it's the only weapon we have."

Suspect's Reviews



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I don't think I've seen most of the Halloween franchise. I can't remember if it's 4 or 5 that I have see (pretty sure it's part 4) and then nothing after that with the exception of H20 because it was the 90's and I still did things like that back then. Obviously part 3 is the best sequel, and I say that confidently without having seen most of them because, why wouldn't' it be?

BTW, after you've finished with this, try and find something called Night After Night After Night. Don't pay for it, but if you can find it I'd be interested in hearing what you thought.
I talked to someone recently who called 3 the worst purely because of Michael's absence (and I wonder if that kind of thinking is why it's so thoroughly underrated to the point of being barely above Resurrection on IMDb). I know we've had our disagreements, but I think you can trust my judgment on the ones you haven't seen.

Saw (at least until this latest one came out)

That's all I can think of off the top of my head.

Also, if I remember this post next year....challenge accepted.
Yeah, if nothing else that's a good five new watches you've got to look forward to.
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I really just want you all angry and confused the whole time.
Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0



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#40 - Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers
Joe Chappelle, 1995


A notorious serial killer return to his hometown in order to carry out a mission for a mysterious druidic cult.

Considering how much I dug Halloween III and its emphasis on pagan cults, you'd think I'd have at least sort of appreciated the sixth entry, The Curse of Michael Myers, opting to take a similar route in continuing to tell the ongoing story of the masked murderer. Leaving aside the obvious folly in focusing on the back-story of a killer who is scary precisely because of how little back-story he actually has, such an overly elaborate approach (which was already hinted at in previous entry Revenge of Michael Myers with the arrival of a mysterious man in black and depictions of a bizarre runic symbol) establishes what a bad idea it is with astonishing speed in how it opts to reintroduce Jamie Lloyd, the protagonist of the previous two films. Turns out that Jamie has not only been abducted by the cult that ostensibly controls Michael Myers but also been forcibly impregnated with a child (possibly by Michael himself) that is going to figure into some kind of ritual. Of course, Jamie and her newborn baby escape at the first chance they get and make their way to Haddonfield with Michael in hot pursuit. Meanwhile, a variety of Haddonfield residents are drawn into the fray, namely a whole other Strode family who were cousins to Laurie's family and their next-door neighbour (Paul Rudd) who is obsessed with Michael after having witnessed his original rampage as a child - and, of course, Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasence) coming out of peaceful retirement once he gets word that Michael is back.

Though I'm not immediately inclined to consider Curse the worst Halloween (it'd take quite a bit to beat Resurrection in that regard), it's certainly not for a lack of trying. It definitely doesn't have any qualms about showing Michael getting brutal with his marks as the film progresses, but by and large those are the only worthwhile parts of a film that goes to impressive lengths to undermine the franchise from the inside out. A lot of that comes down to the absolutely bizarre development around the aforementioned cult and how it influences the rest of the film, especially when it comes to crafting a plot so choppy and nonsensical I've had to pull up the Wikipedia article almost every time I've resumed work on this review to make sense of it all. Granted, it prompts some distinctive images - a scene of Michael fricking Myers in full mask and jumpsuit idly standing by as a ritual sacrifice is performed in a torch-lit cave by figures in hooded robes has to be seen to be believed - but shots like that can't (and shouldn't) exist in a vacuum the way they do here. Curse was one of the few installments in the franchise I hadn't seen prior to embarking on this series-long marathon and I'd certainly been intrigued by the prospect of Michael being revealed to be involved in a cult, but the end result was a heady mix of boring, depressing, and painful. There are other slasher movies that more than match this one in silliness, but this one feels genuinely, well, cursed.




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#41 - Halloween H20: 20 Years Later
Steve Miner, 1998


Twenty years after surviving an encounter with a serial killer and going into hiding out of fear that he will strike again, a woman soon discovers that the killer is on the loose again.

How do you follow up a Halloween sequel that reveals Michael Myers' real origin story to be that of a lackey to a cult of evil druids? Simple - you effectively pretend that one (and the three sequels before that) didn't happen and start from scratch. H20, the seventh entry in the series, picks up twenty years after the events of the first two entries and centres on how Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) has been living in the decades since being rushed from not one but two scenes of Michael murder. It turns out she faked her death and is now living in northern California under an assumed name, working as the headmistress at a prestigious boarding school that is also being attended by her teenage son John (Josh Hartnett) and carrying on a secret tryst with one of the teachers (Adam Arkin). However, she's still severely wracked by the trauma of her encounters with Michael that manifests in manners as varied as substance abuse, relationship issues, and night terrors. As if that wasn't bad enough, it turns out that Michael has finally learned the truth about her whereabouts and is on his way out west to finish what he started - and almost certainly carve up a lot of innocent bystanders in the process.

Coming out in the wake of the hit meta-slasher Scream means that H20 leans into a similarly self-aware approach as it makes all manner of call-backs to its source while also playing up its humourous elements (especially through LL Cool J's security guard/aspiring novelist). Director Miner worked on the first two Friday the 13th sequels where he oversaw Jason Voorhees' transition from helpless victim into a Michael-esque killer and played his own part in codifying the slasher genre as a result; this makes him a sensible choice for the role (especially during a third act that does call to mind the appreciably frantic conclusion of Friday the 13th Part III). The film is moderately successful at grounding its horror in Laurie's decades-long trauma and how it affects her seemingly pleasant new life (especially when her overprotective nature threatens to drive a wedge between her and the rebellious John). However, more often than not it seems like window dressing that only offers the slightest of variations on the formula of teens (namely John and his immediate social circle) being targeted by Michael - this can be discerned by just how much the film really kicks into gear once Laurie becomes directly involved in conflict with Michael past the film's halfway mark (but hey, better late than never, I guess). As with Return of Michael Myers, H20 does get by through a combination of return-to-form goodwill and having a not-too-different take on the material while ultimately failing to become a genuinely good film in the process. At the very least, its final scene alone cements its place as one of the better sequels in such a way that any attempt to directly follow it up would almost certainly embarrass the franchise.




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#42 - Halloween Resurrection
Rick Rosenthal, 2002


A group of college students volunteer to be part of a reality show where they must spend the night in the childhood home of an infamous serial killer only for the killer to actually show up.

Original review found here.

Additional notes: Yeah, this really isn't improved by a second viewing. Watching it directly after H20 definitely makes the prologue seem especially awful, and while Busta Rhymes is still kinda funny, he still stops being funny after about five minutes or so. Then again, now I wonder if Curse might actually beat it for my least favourite Halloween.




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#43 - Halloween
Rob Zombie, 2007


A young boy growing up in an abusive household carries out a killing spree and is institutionalised only to escape many years later.

In Halloween Resurrection, the main characters are reality show participants tasked with searching Michael Myers' childhood home for clues as to why he became a serial killer - however, they almost immediately realise that the clues they do find tell such an over-the-top and clichéd tale of childhood abuse and psychopathy that it's no surprise to learn that they were all planted by the show's hack producer. Even if I hadn't watched that film back-to-back with Rob Zombie's remake of John Carpenter's venerated original, it was always going to be the most obvious and remarkable point of difference between the two versions. Where Carpenter's original limited Michael's villainous development to a brief but striking prologue depicting his first murder and a handful of expository lines from his psychiatrist, Zombie's reimagining spends about half its sizeable running time depicting an elaborate back-story for Michael that traces the events of that first fateful Halloween through his decade-plus in an institution under the watchful eye of Dr. Loomis (Malcolm McDowell). The back half runs fairly quickly through the original's main narrative of Michael breaking out and heading back to his hometown of Haddonfield to terrorise the locals, most prominently teenage babysitter Laurie Strode (Scout Taylor-Compton). Carrying out such a distinct reinterpretation of a definitive classic would be a bold move for any filmmaker, which obviously prompts the question as to whether or not an avowed horror fanatic like Zombie can pull it off.

Even when offering Zombie the benefit of the doubt in seeing what his grindhouse sensibilities might do for the Halloween story, the answer ultimately seems to be very little. There's something to be said for how he attempts to incorporate elements from across the franchise into the story, most notably by incorporating the franchise's big reveal that Laurie is Michael's long-lost sister into a narrative that previously didn't involve it. While this does tend to manifest as easy references (one scene mirroring an interaction between Michael and Jamie in Revenge of Michael Myers, for example), one can see Zombie actually trying to pull it all together and create something new; in fairness, he doesn't totally fail in this regard (especially considering how it all builds to a final shot that is not without its merits). Unfortunately, the appreciable elements are buried under various layers of excess, the least of which might be the leaden running time that flirts with the two-hour mark while other entries kept it down to a taut ninety minutes or so. I don't think showing Michael's back-story is necessarily the worst idea in the world so much as the fact that Zombie's execution is packed with clichés that make it feel drawn out despite its ostensibly quick pacing (as do attempts to escalate the brutality and body count). It doesn't help that the second half largely settles for a compressed run-through of the original that does have noticeable changes but more often than not unimportant ones, especially those that attempt to go for superficial edginess (such as Michael escaping because some orderlies decide to rape another patient in his room) that once again makes me question whether or not the repulsion Zombie frequently evokes is an adequate method of creating horror. Though Halloween isn't completely without likeable qualities (a solid cast list of cult actors, for one) and I can sort of appreciate what Zombie's trying to do in theory, for far too much of its running time it's a joyless slog that struggles to actually make much out of its potential. At least now I can regard it as a vaguely interesting failure instead of just a regular failure.




28 days...6 hours...42 minutes...12 seconds


Too good....or bad....I'm not sure.

Also, if you pause at 1:08 you'll see a 4AW Box Cam. I work with those things every day. Our Vancouver site worked on this film.



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#44 - Halloween II
Rob Zombie, 2009


Two years after surviving an encounter with a serial killer, a young woman struggling to readjust to life once again finds herself being targeted by the same killer.

Rob Zombie's approach to remaking the original Halloween was to make it a film of two halves - the first a prologue that depicted Michael Myers as less an inexplicable force of evil than the inevitable end product of an abusive environment, the second a straight retelling of John Carpenter's original film where Michael carries out a killing spree with some minor changes such as including the reveal that protagonist Laurie Strode (Scout Taylor-Compton) is Michael's long-lost sister. This reveal was first used in Rick Rosenthal's Halloween II, which Zombie also decides to give a semi-remake approach; what's notable is that he realises just how flimsy Rosenthal's version was and wraps up its hospital-based plot within the space of about twenty minutes in order to move onto a new one. The main plot of Zombie's Halloween II ultimately reads like a Halloween III that would've centred once again on Laurie and Michael; two years have passed since the events of Halloween and Laurie is now living with her best friend Annie (Danielle Harris) and Annie's dad (Brad Dourif), working at a coffee shop and trying to live a normal life. The problem is that she's still dealing with the post-traumatic stress of not just being attacked by Michael but also the revelation of a blood relation to him, both of which prompt her to have horrible nightmares. Unfortunately, it turns out that these might just be visions that are shared by Michael, who per his custom is ready to come back and kill more people as Halloween rolls around.

While I'm hard-pressed to call Halloween II a good film, I still have a strange level of respect for not just its ambition but how it goes about trying to realise it. It still falls prey to some of the same flaws that plagued its predecessor (bloated running time, eye-rolling edginess) but there's more going on with it than just another straight rehash. It also plays like a transitional piece for Zombie as he progresses away from the sympathy-for-the-devil redneck horror of his earlier works to the sort of experimental surrealism that he would arguably refine with The Lords of Salem (which also deals with the notion of its protagonist having potentially inherited supernatural evil). In addition, it's offered a unique opportunity to examine the more immediate psychological fallout of Laurie's encounters with Micbael in a way that belated sequels like H20 or the 2018 Halloween are simply unable to do (to say nothing of similarly-affected characters like Annie or Malcolm McDowell's Dr. Loomis, the latter of whom gets a peculiar sub-plot involving a book tour that is at once jarring in how it reinterprets the good doctor as a cynical sell-out and yet still consistent in how it shows that Loomis is ultimately lost and compromised in his own way). The problem ends up being a haphazard execution that doesn't seem completely sure of how to go about realising that concept's full potential, occasionally coming up with some appreciably surreal imagery or character-driven tragedy but often settling for silly diversions (such as a brief interlude where Loomis ends up on a hacky talk show next to "Weird Al" Yankovic and hosted by Chris Hardwick) and some especially protracted slasher-by-numbers sequences. As such, I can't bring myself to hate Halloween II - there are good ideas in the mix and Zombie doesn't totally botch their execution, but it's hard to muster that much enthusiasm for the finished product. That being said, I would not be averse to giving it a second chance at some point - the final scene alone is enough to warrant such re-evaluation.




28 days...6 hours...42 minutes...12 seconds
God, I hated this movie.

Zombie seems obsessed with explaining why. In the first film we see Michael comes from a relatively normal upbringing. He's not out for revenge or some inbred psycho, he's a kid that has pure evil in his heart. Zombie changes this up for his take on the character, giving us a troubled childhood and a penchant for torturing animals. Some instead of being scary and evil, Michael becomes just like every other sad story we read in the news. Now we know WHY he does these things, his life sucked.

Zombie then decides to dive deep into the psychology of Michael. He sees his dead mother and is given instructions to kill from her? Why is Zombie so invested in 'figuring' out who Michael is? Why is he giving us this terrible explanation. He essentially sucked away all the terror from him. I laughed in the theatre (yes, I saw this trash in the theatre) during the climax. Even the forced imagery of the white horse is too much. We get it.

The repetition of people waking up from scary nightmares was a yawn and filler. I can't believe how long the initial dream sequence was. Waste of time, get your point across in a more efficient manner. I hated the look and feel of this film, I feel as if Zombie has taken a few steps backwards in terms of style and talent. Sloppy editing, vertigo inducing camera work and everything is too dark. There is a reason this new series stopped after this film. It sucks.

Of course this is all going based off my one viewing when it initially came out, but I remember disliking it so much that I never wanted to see it again. Maybe next year when I try the deep Halloween dive I'll give this another shot, but for now, it remains to be one of the worst Halloween films ever made.



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Still better than the rapey druid cult if you ask me.

I don't think there's much terror really left in Michael by this point, to be honest. This is the tenth film about him, after all, so f*ck it, get wild with it (and, like I said, I kind of dug the angle they went for even if the execution had issues). Considering how it ended, I don't even think this needed a follow-up (especially after Resurrection already showed how god-damn stupid it was to make sequels to films that ended just right). Hell, I even considered it a bit of a step up from his first few movies (and a bit of a dry run for Lords of Salem, which I'd still consider the closest thing I have a favourite of his).

Of course, who knows, maybe if you watch all eleven films in a row you might start thinking this one's not so bad.



28 days...6 hours...42 minutes...12 seconds
Still better than the rapey druid cult if you ask me.

I don't think there's much terror really left in Michael by this point, to be honest. This is the tenth film about him, after all, so f*ck it, get wild with it (and, like I said, I kind of dug the angle they went for even if the execution had issues). Considering how it ended, I don't even think this needed a follow-up (especially after Resurrection already showed how god-damn stupid it was to make sequels to films that ended just right). Hell, I even considered it a bit of a step up from his first few movies (and a bit of a dry run for Lords of Salem, which I'd still consider the closest thing I have a favourite of his).

Of course, who knows, maybe if you watch all eleven films in a row you might start thinking this one's not so bad.
Haven't seen rapey druids and I hated Lords of Salem too.



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Suit yourself, just know that these two were the only ones I hadn't seen before this big re-watch and I still preferred Zombie's crazy sequel over the one with the druids.



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#45 - Halloween
David Gordon Green, 2018


Forty years after surviving an encounter with a serial killer, a woman who has spent decades preparing for another encounter must face said killer when he breaks free again.

The concept of a soft reboot is a double-edged one - while it's obviously intended as a means of reinvigorating a series that may have grown stale and/or been derailed by inane developments, it can also be used as an excuse for filmmakers to get complacent and coast on the appearance of trying something different while also making the same mistakes (if not new ones). Even David Gordon Green's Halloween, which does come across as an earnest attempt to do right by a property that has really been put through the wringer by other follow-ups, can't help but fall prey to this despite the decision to disregard every single sequel in the franchise. This much is borne out by the film's early scenes focusing on a pair of true-crime podcasters who plan on covering Michael Myers' 1978 killing spree, first by attempting to interview an institutionalised Michael and then by visiting spree survivor Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis). The podcasters are fascinated to learn just what makes Michael himself tick and hope to gain some insight from the woman who famously survived his onslaught only for her to sharply tell them that there's nothing to learn about Michael beyond the fact that he's evil. It's a bold stance that seems actively contemptuous not just of the franchise's attempts at building a mythology around Michael but also of those who would try to make sense of a killer who has admittedly never made a whole lot of sense. Applying this to characters inside the film makes them come across as hubristic fools who think that they can reduce Michael's sense of pure evil to a readily-comprehensible state such as a podcast episode, but what does it say about us viewers looking in at the horrors on display and judging them? This is especially true when it comes to a film that disregards the bulk of the franchise to the point that it arguably presents itself as the definitive sequel, which means it creates some serious expectations to live up to amidst this self-aware approach.

Trauma is a recurring theme throughout the Halloween franchise as characters try to keep living their lives in the wake of a small-town atrocity that changes things forever, succeeding or failing as the installment demands. Of course, it's Laurie who undergoes the most dramatic change in more ways than one - where H20 and Rob Zombie's Halloween II just added a whole lot of nightmares and maybe a handgun to provide a semblance to protection, here she completely reinvents herself as a hardened survivalist who lives on a firearm-filled ranch custom-built to defend against what she believes to be an inevitable return by Michael. Unfortunately, this has long since caused a rift between her and her daughter (Judy Greer), who looks upon her doomsday-prepper upbringing as a trauma unto itself that she must work around in order to make a normal life with her own husband (Toby Huss) and daughter (Andi Matichak). This being a Halloween movie, it's only a matter of time before Laurie is proven right and the cycle can begin anew - but how anew can it truly begin? While this is poised to become the film's distinguishing variation on the basic Halloween narrative, it still doesn't seem to matter all that much in the grand scheme of things as the film must first run through the standard escape-and-rampage proceedings. It does cohere to a certain extent with the film's other through-line involving various characters wishing to satisfy their curiosity about Michael's inner truth, mirroring Laurie's own obsession with Michael in all the wrong ways. This concept of Michael as object of perverse fascination has already been used in lesser installments like Curse or Resurrection and is arguably put to better use here, but even it has its limits when it comes to standing on its own or accentuating the greater story about Laurie and her family ultimately being made to confront the past.

In disregarding previous installments while drawing upon similar thematic concerns, Halloween works to establish itself as a definitive sequel that pays due reverence to the original in ways that other sequels haven't exactly managed to accomplish while also expanding upon it in ways that keep it fresh. The most tangible example of this would be the return of John Carpenter himself to score the film with the assistance of his son Cody and godson Daniel Davies, once again finding new ways to sonically convey the terror that accompanies the pale-faced boogeyman wherever he goes. This is done most notably through a sting that howls so synthetically and inhumanly that it really does feel like the essence of the character refined into a single discordant note. It also comes at a particularly pertinent turning point in the film's narrative that raises the stakes and genuinely creates a sense of danger, but it's at the price of making me realise that so many other attempts at creating something new don't work nearly as well. A long take that tracks Michael's movements at one point is somewhat impressive on a technical level, but it's strangely ineffectual due to its lack of bearing on the rest of the film. The checkered floor tiles at the mental hospital suggest a metaphorical chess game that will ultimately unfold between Michael and Laurie, but that is also undermined by how Laurie spends so much of the second act on the sidelines. A versatile director like Green has enough of a grasp on visual storytelling to come up with some distinct images, but that only makes their lack of greater resonance all the more disappointing.

Even when considering the lack of competition it has in this regard, it'd be easy to call Halloween the best (Michael) sequel to, well, Halloween, if only because it plays as a greatest-hits package that gets to pick what elements to include and (where possible) attempt to improve. In doing so, it does make it a little hard to truly get lost in the proceedings as one can pick up the similarities here and there and end up comparing them unfavourably (such as the general "H20 but bigger" gist of the film). The elephant in the room is whether or not the movie succeeds at allowing Michael Myers to regain the same fearsome reputation that has been tarnished by at least half the movies he's appeared in, and my conclusion is...maybe? I think it's a bitter pill to swallow to realise that there's only so much that can be done with Michael, especially after forty years and eight other follow-ups of varied (but not particularly high) quality. To this end, it makes sense to ground the film in following Laurie but even that has its limitations due to the fact that it also runs over similar ground without much variation - even her development into a gun-toting paranoiac doesn't really go anywhere on either a narrative or thematic level (and is liable to be even less effective should a sequel eventuate). Maybe there are bits and pieces about this film that help to elevate it - the score's certainly a highlight, for one - but my main takeaway tends to be that they don't combine into a worthy film. I realise now that, much like Laurie spends decades on edge fearing the highly unlikely but always plausible return of Michael, so too does the prospect of a new Halloween movie now seem like something that should inspire worry more than anything else. Even having creators like Green and Danny McBride approaching the material with the best intentions does little to assuage that concern - the film itself features multiple characters whose benign first impressions are swiftly shown to be false fronts for unpleasant (and even destructive) forces that don't necessarily rival Michael himself but don't make for dependable cases either, and I think that much is true of a film that claims it wants to be the best and only sequel to a film that never truly needed one.