Halloween Watch-A-Thon

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Welcome to the human race...
Easily the best "Dennis Hopper as an evil tycoon versus John Leguizamo" movie since Super Mario Bros.

#15 - Land of the Dead
George A. Romero, 2005


In the aftermath of a zombie apocalypse, the surviving humans living in a sealed-off city must contend with new threats both internal and external.

I've seen Land of the Dead in bits and pieces (including its ending) throughout the years but this is the first time I've ever sat down to watch it from start to finish. Romero's return to the zombie genre he reinvented with Night of the Living Dead happened as a result of the genre having a resurgence in the early-2000s thanks to the breakout success of 28 Days Later... and people understandably wanting to cash in on it by getting the genre's old master to show the whippersnappers how it was done (and on a budget considerably larger than what he was used to). To this end, Land... plays like a large-scale combination of previous installments Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead, combining their main settings (a shopping mall and a military bunker respectively) into creating an inner-city stronghold where the remaining humans are separated into an upper class that lives in an immaculate skyscraper and a lower class that lives in the slums below. The conflict sets in when a mercenary (John Leguizamo) who does supply runs for the city and its sharply-dressed overlord (Dennis Hopper) decides to hijack the high-tech tank used in said supply runs to hold Hopper and the city to ransom. Enter our reluctant hero (Simon Baker), whose goal of leaving the city behind is sidelined when Hopper turns to him for help. That's without mentioning how the zombies outside are starting to develop dangerously high levels of intelligence...

Land of the Dead proves a thoroughly enjoyable experience that's not content to simply lean on former installments but gladly takes advantage of the freedom offered by a higher budget and technological advancements. Its addressing of similar themes and issues to installments from 20-30 years prior is less an indictment of Romero's imagination than it is of how these exact forms of both human and systemic fallibility have not only persisted but thrived and mutated (having the chief antagonist be an old white businessman in a suit and red tie certainly hasn't aged poorly, to say nothing of his main opponent being a disenfranchised Latino). Both major conflicts within the film involve one powerful side woefully underestimating the seemingly powerless other and reaping serious consequences as a result while there are people caught in the middle trying not just to survive but live free. In addition to all that, it's just a well-crafted movie that's paced extremely well and delivers efficient world-building with nary a wasted moment. It certainly doesn't skimp on the horror either, though it's definitely better at the gory type rather than the suspenseful type (and that's always been a good chunk of the appeal of these movies anyway). While I'd ultimately consider Land of the Dead a step down from the first three Dead movies, I still have enough fun with it as not just a 21st-century reiteration of what the others were about but a summation that brings it all home with a view to the future.

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I really just want you all angry and confused the whole time.
Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0



28 days...6 hours...42 minutes...12 seconds
Easily the best "Dennis Hopper as an evil tycoon versus John Leguizamo" movie since Super Mario Bros.
I saw this movie in theatres, but was one year under the restricted age limit. I was with my friend as he was 14 at the time. 14A here in Canada. As we watched the film, the power went out just as the zombies attacked the building.

Got a free voucher and went back the next day to finish the movie instead of seeing a brand new one...pfft.
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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



October 8th


Night of the Creeps is the of the better 80's college films in the sense that they don't get rapey. I found the film to be a mixed bag, for this Hall of Fame it felt way to polished to be considered a "B-movie". Night of the Creeps seemed to have every advantage in life, a well thought-out script, excellent special effects a cast of hundreds. Is this film really a B-film or is it simply typically genrefare.


The film is also a little bit off when it comes to the horror. The dead cat scene was the only time I was somewhat startled and that is problematic for a film that should be a zombie film first and foremost. For me the best part of the film was Tom Atkin's detective who had more charisma and was entirely more interesting than everyone else in the film. I just kept thinking why are we focused on this bland turnip soup of a human being when everyone else around him is so much more interesting.





October 9th




Dead Night(2017) is the story of a family of five who head off into the woods for a cabin weekend. They run into a bunch of interesting horror ideas that are rushed through in the first hour and then we get an almost 20 minutes epilogue.



While it looked okay and some of the set pieces were really nice in the end it just never came together as a horror film. I think in a number of ways it felt like a bad episode of Supernatural so this one is a skip it for me.






Old School
Witchery (1988)
A Bucket of Blood (1959)
Critters (1986)
Halloween (1978)
Night of the Creeps (1987)


New School
Hell Fest (2018)
Unsane (2018)
I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House(2016)

Dead Night (2017)



Welcome to the human race...
What happens if you decide to remake Day of the Dead and ruin everything good about it? You get this:

#16 - Day of the Dead: Bloodline
Hčctor Hernández Vicens, 2018


In the aftermath of a zombie apocalypse, a medical student living with other survivors in a military bunker tries to develop a vaccine against the zombie virus.

It's a hell of a journey to get from the original Day of the Dead to this, the extremely loose remake that is Day of the Dead: Bloodline. Its setup involves a lot of the same specifics - it centres around a military bunker, there are tensions between the bunker's soldiers (especially their incredibly strict leader) and the scientists/protagonists who live there, and there's also a zombie who displays more intelligence and humanity than the rest of the mindless creatures that populate the film. Where it differs...oh, boy, do we have such sights to show you right here. Where the original had Bub, a zombie whose slow attempts to regain his humanity made him far more endearing that most of the film's human characters, Bloodline has Max. The first way in which Bloodline diverges from its original is by showing life before the zombie apocalypse (not before showing us a very brief and very unnecessary cold open of zombie carnage, though) and introducing us to Max as the kind of creepy stalker who will carve his obsession's name into his own skin and proudly show it to them without a second thought. The object of his affection is our protagonist, a medical student named Zoe whose only contact with him is having to take samples of his scientifically interesting blood for her professor's research. Fast forward to five years after the apocalypse and Zoe is now the doctor in aforementioned bunker. When not curing the other inhabitants, she wants to fight the zombie virus itself by curing it or at least vaccinating against it. A series of events unfolds that brings her into contact with a now-zombified Max, but it turns out his special blood (which has allowed him to retain both his humanity and his fixation on Zoe) may just be the key to unlocking the secret of combating the zombie virus.

When it comes to incorporating a sensitive subject like abusive behaviour and the lingering trauma that it leaves behind, Bloodline makes at least some effort to treat the subject with tact and use it as a sincere emotional core that is played for tenderness (it affects Zoe's capacity for intimacy with her boyfriend) and discomfort (every single time she has to interact with Max). That really does seem to be the only thing that Bloodline gets even halfway-right in the midst of what is otherwise about as rote as a low-budget zombie movie can get. Characters are largely flat and not particularly well-acted (especially not this film's equivalent of the original's Captain Rhodes), plus the world of the bunker is not fleshed out all too well and its most throwaway details just raise further questions (such as children not only being present but also playing soccer out in the open near fences that are frequently lined with zombies). The plot itself is extremely thin and features nothing of particular worth or ingenuity in its conflicts or themes - even the aforementioned abuse subtext is itself barely present and hardly has any significant impact. Even when the film actually does try to indulge in the kind of horror and violence that the genre is known for, it's technically clumsy and lacks the imagination necessary to make things stand out. For these reasons, I might have been able to just shrug off Bloodline as yet another zero-budget zombie movie that could easily disappear into the ether, but the ways in which it not only provides a lifeless (sorry) remake of a Romero classic but even tries to turn its greatest element into a half-baked metaphor more than make it worthy of additional ridicule.




28 days...6 hours...42 minutes...12 seconds
October 14th

Let The Right One In

Foreign Language Horror




Spoilers Ahead...

I've put this film off for years and I have no idea why, but I finally forced myself to watch it since it was nominated for this. I'll be using it as a double-dip for my horror film a day in October. I haven't seen the remake yet either, but I've heard it does a decent job of capturing the same magic. I probably won't bother with the remake as this was good enough for me.

As much a story about depression, bullies, love and friendship as it is about vampires. Let The Right One In is about outcast Oskar and new neighbour Eli. They encounter each other out in the playground one snowy night and become friends. Bodies start turning up in the neighbourhood and they might be connected to Eli.

Children vampires always sadden me a bit, just like in Near Dark. They've been around forever and could very well be hundreds of years old, but they are forever stuck in this child's body. Lina Leandersson who plays Eli the vampire girl in question, does an amazing job here. Her facial features make her seem wise beyond her years, which perfectly captures the essence of this character. It's a shame she hasn't done much since then.

The first lines in the film have Oskar screaming to an imaginary person to squeal like a pig, while he holds a knife and makes stabbing motions. Immediately you get the impression he's venting out his anger because he's the victim of bullying. The film sets up small things here and there to let the viewer know exactly where the film is heading. Of course Eli is going to take care of his bully problem, the only question is how.

A small side plot involving one of her victims who didn't die but is slowly becoming a vampire is done quite well for being a quick side piece. She'd rather die than deal with the terror and pain of her need to feed. I laughed at the CGI cats who attacked her, it looked really bad, but everything else involving this character made sense and worked well within the story.

Really well shot film, I was surprised to see the climax of the film be one shot underwater. I knew what was going to happen simply with how the shot is framed, but the added bonus of the feet and head made me giggle and smile. Oskar has found his purpose in some sick and depressing way. He'll inevitably have to take on the role of her caretaker.

The success of this film isn't the violence from the creature, it's the relatable relationship between two kids.



A system of cells interlinked
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
19. Friday the 13th Part III
20. Paranormal Activity - The Marked Ones
21. Suspiria
22. You're Next
23. Sleepy Hollow
24. Better Watch Out

Better Watch Out... Holy ****, I hated this movie. It was clever in a way, but for some reason, this film annoyed me to no end. I found myself rooting for Krampus, a creature from a much better Christmas horror released a few years ago, to show up and slaughter all the characters so I could shut the damned movie off and watch something good instead. Alas, my wife and I stuck it out and finished the movie, much to our chagrin.
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“It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.” ― Thomas Sowell



"Honor is not in the Weapon. It is in the Man"
Just my 3rd horror for this month. I wish there were more horror films with war settings (and that the ones there are would be better).

I'm glad you mentioned Cronenberg because the director of Trench 11 is actually a protege of his and when it was time to make this film, he even consulted with Cronenberg with bringing up some ideas for the film during the early drafts of the script.
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It's All About the Movies
http://www.worldfilmgeek.com



Welcome to the human race...
Between this and the Land of the Dead one, I'm starting to rethink sourcing my review images from MUBI.

#17 - 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.

I noted before how interesting it was to see how long-running horror franchises tried to keep things interesting, especially when it came to slasher villains whose methods of murdering hapless humans only had so much variety in the first place. These often took a turn for the absurdly surreal such as Friday the 13th sending its villain to space or The Texas Chain Saw Massacre making its villain a pawn of the Illuminati. Halloween Resurrection - the eighth film in the franchise by that point, never mind the issues with separate continuities - opts for something that is at once a little more grounded in reality (as least as grounded as movies about a supernaturally invulnerable murderer like Michael Myers can be) and yet still so patently absurd that you can scarcely believe what you're watching at times. There's no bizarre reveal or over-the-top change of scenery or anything that makes this an obvious jump off the deep end - however, it does have a high concept that really doesn't gel with the starkly cruel and minimal nature of Michael and Halloween. Resurrection begins with a lengthy prologue that retcons the seemingly definitive ending of Halloween H20: 20 Years Later by revealing that series final girl Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) had not decapitated Michael but a hapless paramedic who got dressed up and used as a patsy by the real Michael. Now institutionalised, she plans on escaping before Michael can finish her off once and for all...

SIKE.

Turns out the real story of Resurrection (that the first 20 minutes of this 90-minute movie have no connection to whatsoever) is about a media entrepreneur (Busta Rhymes) who plans to set up a viral streaming site that follows six painfully generic college students as they are given cameras and locked into Michael's long-abandoned childhood home on Halloween night. The apparent goal is to explore the house and figure out what made him so evil, but it turns out that Michael himself is back on the premises and has no problem showing everyone how evil he can get.

Aside from the odd sub-plot such as a dorky freshman watching the stream at a crowded house party because he's infatuated with the final girl, it's stab-happy business as usual that is barely elevated by the relative novelty of the found-footage aspect granted by having each character wield their own camera (which does beg the question as to whether or not this might've worked better as a straight found-footage movie). What really makes things stand out for better and for worse is Rhymes's braggadocious businessman whose scenery-chewing antics make him fun to watch at first but definitely wear thin as the film progresses (especially when you see him repeatedly go head-to-head with Michael). It soon becomes clear that the film wants to treat him as a charmingly roguish anti-hero even though his dangerous buffoonery is such that he would make more sense as a secondary antagonist. Resurrection is all kinds of bad - it's an incredibly dated mess (thanks in no small part to a plot that relies far too much on anachronistically efficient Internet technology), its unnecessary prologue guarantees its place as a low point for the franchise, and what little entertainment value it offers comes from all the wrong places. It's no surprise that the next Halloween after this one ended up being a remake (and the next proper sequel after that ignores every other sequel to boot) - after Resurrection, this franchise needed actual resurrection.




28 days...6 hours...42 minutes...12 seconds
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
19. Friday the 13th Part III
20. Paranormal Activity - The Marked Ones
21. Suspiria
22. You're Next
23. Sleepy Hollow
24. Better Watch Out

Better Watch Out... Holy ****, I hated this movie. It was clever in a way, but for some reason, this film annoyed me to no end. I found myself rooting for Krampus, a creature from a much better Christmas horror released a few years ago, to show up and slaughter all the characters so I could shut the damned movie off and watch something good instead. Alas, my wife and I stuck it out and finished the movie, much to our chagrin.
Ouch, I really like that one. Thought the subversion was great and found the twisted characters to be fun in their own sick ways.



28 days...6 hours...42 minutes...12 seconds
October 15th

House on Haunted Hill

Original to a remake horror




It's late at night, I'm tired but I need to fit in a movie...House on Haunted Hill??? An Hour and fifteen? Let's go.

This film opens well, with horrific sounds of terror and despair over a black screen. The guests arrive one by one while the narrator explains who they are. Good set-up to a film that will eventually have awkward pacing, corny scares and a laughable ending. This film has a premise that deserved a remake, but even the remake fell flat. I'll check out the new Netflix show and hope that someone does something good.

I was surprised to see how close the remake was to the original here. I knew the basic premise would be the same with a rich guy inviting people to stay the night and earn money, but the husband wife dynamic is almost the same here as well. Not to mention the relationships between certain other characters that might come as a shock.

The scares were kind of funny, it's hard to look back on a horror film from the 50's and be scared when a lot of it is cheese. Some films manage to still scare people today, based only on the images we see presented to us. House on Haunted Hill kind of fails to deliver that.

At a running time of less than 90 minutes, I surprisingly found myself nodding off here and there. I'm glad I was awake for the final reveal though. A horror spectacle that turns hilarious when Price walks out as a human puppeteer. Too funny.



A system of cells interlinked
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
19. Friday the 13th Part III
20. Paranormal Activity - The Marked Ones
21. Suspiria
22. You're Next
23. Sleepy Hollow
24. Better Watch Out
25. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)

Invasion of the Body Snatchers just never gets old. The way the leads drive around in a car with a cracked windshield, as they and the audience view the fracturing world as it unravels in front of our eyes. The way the director includes plants in as many shots as possible, the creeping paranoia, the unsettling scene on the roof deck... great stuff!



28 days...6 hours...42 minutes...12 seconds
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
19. Friday the 13th Part III
20. Paranormal Activity - The Marked Ones
21. Suspiria
22. You're Next
23. Sleepy Hollow
24. Better Watch Out
25. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)

Invasion of the Body Snatchers just never gets old. The way the leads drive around in a car with a cracked windshield, as they and the audience view the fracturing world as it unravels in front of our eyes. The way the director includes plants in as many shots as possible, the creeping paranoia, the unsettling scene on the roof deck... great stuff!
I've owned a copy of this film for YEARS.


And I've never watched it.



28 days...6 hours...42 minutes...12 seconds
October 16th

The Tragedy Girls

Millennial Horror




I feel like a lot of people would be surprised to hear they are considered a Millennial. If you were born in the 80's, you're considered a Millennial. Wha??? I like to consider myself "with it" but I fear using those terms makes me not. When I see kids these days listen to whatever it is they're listening to, I do feel old. The same goes with social media. I'm amazed at what people will do to get a few likes, followers, hearts, or whatever else is out there to give someone. The Tragedy Girls takes teenage obsession with these elements and amplifies it to the extreme.

The Tragedy Girls follow death obsessed teens Sadie and McKayla as they use their online personalities to follow real life tragedies. They kidnap a local serial killer in the hopes of becoming his students and creating chaos in the small town they live in. When he refuses, they decide to try it out anyways. With the bodies piling up and their popularity soaring, will too much ever be enough?

This black comedy takes aim at young kids and how they are literally glued to their cell phones. I can't imagine what high schools are like these days or what teenage girls are like. If they are anything like the two leads in this film...heaven help us. I feel like a person's enjoyment of this film depends on how they like these two leads. If they find them annoying, the film will fail. The script is full of teenage slang like 'jelly' (jealous). It's as if Clueless was updated for today and the girls were obsessed with death instead of shopping. Their friendship is put to the test when a boy gets between them. One girl wants to date him while the other wants to kill him. Those sort of conflicts makes it difficult to stay friends.

The two girls are played by former X-Men mutants. Storm from X-Men Apocalypse and Negasonic Teenage Warhead from Deadpool. Both give good performances with Brianna Hildebrand (Negasonic) standing out a tad more. Their antics when they try to go out and murder people are comical, yet they leave the viewer a little cold. I'd find it hard to see anyone rooting for these two people by the end.

It's a different take on the slasher genre and it definitely loves the 80's horror vibe. There are nods and homages to plenty of films. The last names of the girls are Hooper and Cunningham for crying out loud. Scream 4 had teenagers obsessed with technology, on-line presence and horror. The tragedy Girls is that, only cranked to the extreme. I liked it, but I wanted to like it a lot more.



28 days...6 hours...42 minutes...12 seconds
October 17th

Dr. Giggles

Medical Horror




There are 3 movies that I saw posters of when I was younger that instantly made me want to watch the film. Bad Moon, Silent Night, Deadly Night and Dr. Giggles. Up until now, I had only seen Bad moon, which I thought was a decent werewolf film but disappointing overall. The poster for Dr. Giggle strikes me immediately. Those eyes, the silhouette figure with a knife behind his back, the seriousness of the poster. I think I saw it in a comic book or a movie theatre magazine. So what a perfect opportunity to watch it right now.

Boy, this film is not what I expected it to be. Maybe if I watched it when I was that young age it would have scared me a little, but this film is too comical for it's own good. The story and acting from everyone is plated straight, but Larry Drake who plays the lead Dr. Giggles, is so over the top with ham and cheese that this could be considered a comedy.

The scariest thing about this movie is indeed that poster. The film is littered with uninspired deaths, despite the character being a Dr. You'd think he would make the deaths a little creative, instead of generic stabbings with medical one-liners thrown in. He slices a guy in the leg, "You think that's bad...wait till you get my bill". I'll give credit for one kill though, he manages to kill someone with a blood pressure test. Ha, absurd I tell you.

A weird subplot involving Holly Marie Combs having a heart problem is a hollow attempt at giving the character some depth. There are some interesting horror elements here. One scene involving a child slicing his way out of his dead mother's body. The other is when Dr. Giggles performs surgery on himself to remove a bullet. All while giggling away with his trademark laugh. I wonder if this film played more like The Dentist, which came out 4 years later, it might have worked a bit more.The unintentional laughter throughout kills this film.



Welcome to the human race...
Bring on that damn remake already.

#18 - Suspiria
Dario Argento, 1977


A young American woman enrols at a prestigious German ballet academy only to find that there is something secret and dangerous going on.

One of the first scenes in Suspiria happens when a shell-shocked student, having run away from the ballet academy that serves as the film's main setting, tries to explain to a friend what's got her so jumpy. "It's useless to try to explain," she says. "It seems so absurd, so fantastic..." Within minutes of this exchange, they both die horrific deaths at the hands of some barely-glimpsed creature. This exchange (and the ensuing violence) encapsulates Suspiria perfectly - absurd and fantastic serve as accurate descriptors for not just the school's dark secrets but also the strange and wondrous variety of tones that the film hits in telling its tale of malevolent forces lurking within the academy's pristine dance halls. Admittedly, this means that a lot of what sticks out at first is how campy it all seems by modern standards - obvious dubbing accentuates bizarre dialogue, bright red blood accompanies gruesomely over-the-top deaths, and everybody from the actors to the musicians to the lighting crew seems to be working off the instruction to go above and beyond in every possible regard. It's understandable if one's initial response to Suspiria is to laugh at its all-encompassing hysteria, yet at the same time I don't think that automatically undermines the overwhelmingly sensory experience that Suspiria aims to accomplish through its simple but effective story of a wide-eyed ingenue (Jessica Harper) being targeted by the academy's authoritarian staff.

If there's one rule by which I judge a horror movie's true worth, it's that it's got to give me a reason to appreciate it beyond just being scary (assuming it manages to do that in the first place). This can manifest in any number of ways, but a key one would be conjuring a strong atmosphere through every tool at the filmmakers' disposal. In this regard, Suspiria is pure atmosphere. Everything about its mise-en-scéne builds a world that is at the very least mesmerisingly off-kilter in its production design (most memorably in doorknobs being at the characters' eye-level) and at most an eye-watering kaleidoscope that synchronises perfectly with Goblin's creepy and frequently cacophonous score. It throws itself headfirst into a dark fairytale aesthetic that's perfectly emphasised by its garish colour scheme that splashes red and green and blue across the screen with reckless abandon, further highlighting that the inside of this academy exists at a severe disconnect from the protagonist's (and, by extension, the audience's) sense of reality. This only accelerates as she proceeds to either succumb to its supernatural madness or fight back against it and the strange collection of individuals that maintain it. Though she is weakened by those who would attempt to drain her of her life, it is her eventual gathering of inner strength and willpower that allows her to overcome her wide-awake nightmare.

It also helps that Suspiria keeps a steady pace that spreads its actual scenes of terror and murder out enough while allowing the creepiness of the situation to steadily build in the interim and wisely clocks out with a blast (thus living up to its tagline's bold claim that the only thing scarier than the last 12 minutes are the first 92 minutes). As such, while this marks five times through Suspiria as of writing and I'm not sure I find it all that scary at this point, I'm not about to deny its worth as a film. It's a legitimate curiosity that manages to strike out in all directions - funny, scary, arty - and hit enough of the right notes to make for a consistently compelling experience. In this regard, I would honestly compare it to one of my other favourite horror movies - Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. While they couldn't be much more different on the surface (one's a European tale of black magic rooted in ancient folklore, the other a distinctly American account of all-too-human cannibals that takes inspiration from true crime), I find them to be similarly well-versed in a particular type of horror that grabs the viewer with its opening narration and forces them to soak in the unnerving world of the film all the way until the credits suddenly hit like bricks. That's why they are both huge favourites not just as horror movies but as movies full stop.




October 11th New School





The Babysitter (2017) is McG's take on the 80's horror film in line with Fright Night. The film has a very good first act where we get to know Cole and Bee, Bee is lovable and charismatic with Cole being a decent enough child lead. The problem with the film is it's very front loaded with the setup and first being very good but it doesn't really know what to do with itself for the second and third ones.


The Babysitter and her friends are a group of Satanists who upon Cole seeing the Black Mass murder scene goes through the process of taking out Weaving and her group of 30 year old teenagers one by one. Samara Weaving is very good in this but all the other "teens" are extremely bad. I watch everything and this was my first taste of "Bella Thorne" and I had heard bad things but she really is just the worst.


The film tries to capture of the charms and scares of an 80's film but you are left with something completely empty...like an 00's music video.





Old School
Witchery (1988)
A Bucket of Blood (1959)
Critters (1986)
Halloween (1978)
Night of the Creeps (1987)


New School
Hell Fest (2018)
Unsane (2018)
I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House(2016)
Dead Night (2017)
The Babysitter (2017)



October 12th Old School





Alone in the Dark (1982) coming out just two months after Jason debuted the Hockey mask we get Alone in the Dark. The story of four psycho's who are let loose from an asylum during the course of a rough night. Donald Pleasence plays the head psychiatrist cashing in on his Halloween fame before returning to the character of Dr. Loomis.



The film has it's charm's, the asylum setup is very good and Jack Palance is a wonderfully menacing leader of the psychos. The rest of the crazies don't really work as they fail to go for it, and that's my biggest issue with this film. If this was made 5 years earlier by Wes Craven I think it would have been darker and worked...or if this was made 20 years later by Eli Roth we could have had more fun with the premise. This feels very much like a Landis horror film where the escapades trump scares and that's not good.






Old School
Witchery (1988)
A Bucket of Blood (1959)
Critters (1986)
Halloween (1978)
Night of the Creeps (1987)
Alone in the Dark (1982)

New School
Hell Fest (2018)
Unsane (2018)
I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House(2016)
Dead Night (2017)
The Babysitter (2017)