This isn’t a movie review. If you want a review, I rewatched It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown and still holds up with its reminder that kids are little shits.

The word “denouement” means “the outcome or resolution of a doubtful series of occurrences.” That was this month. I doubted I would finish anything. I also sometimes doubted that people would survive the downfall of society. Or that we would ever have snow days again.

I don’t know why I really started a blog challenge this year, but I know why I followed through: I needed to prove to myself that I could finish something. Ever since the pandemic started, actually ever since I got pregnant in early 2019, I have felt like an unfinished project. Everything has dangling participles. I feel like I can get 80% done of something and then have to leave it because something else more needy grabs my attention.

There is no need to watch 31 “Halloween” themed movies. The votes won’t get counted any faster if I do. The virus won’t disappear any quicker if I continue. The polar ice caps won’t stop melting and Jeff Bezos won’t pay anymore taxes if I finish. So I became really, really selfish in October. I set aside a couple hours every day (never consecutively, but still added up) to do this. I didn’t do anything during it besides taking notes and sipping wine (at the extra scary scenes) or eating early Halloween candy.

Because I wanted to catch every nuance, or plot point, or silly line, I had to pay attention with the closed captioning on. Even though I had my phone in front of me, I wasn’t using it to mindlessly scroll or text people. It was strictly to jot down notes or occasionally check IMDb or Wikipedia for trivia or actor’s bios.

It’s really hard to pay attention when there is so much doom and gloom swimming beneath the surface. It’s like crossing the River Styx, except you aren’t wading through dead souls; it’s the endless barrage of bad news, tweets, and articles. So forcing myself to detach from reality in a way saved my sanity. I started to look forward to picking out a film, and then finding silly things to make fun of in order to tamp down my fears.

The writing part was cathartic too. Despite my terrible grammar at times (my English teacher’s lessons live rent free in my head, don’t worry), it was freeing to be able to write a few paragraphs every day. I’ve never been one for journaling because I don’t like talking about myself. However, observational humor has been my strong point since I realized the news can be funny and making fun of people who take themselves too seriously is universal. It also flows easier to me.

So I hope to do this again next year. Actually I wish I could do it for Christmas. There are terrible Hallmark movies that could use some dressing down. But we will see. 31 days of horror was fun and a good exercise in finishing something, but damn it was EXHAUSTING. Like running a marathon with my brain. Which is funny, because my brain already runs a mile a minute as it is right month. So this month was more like a detour…down a deserted road…with only one motel open, and it’s owned by a mysterious old woman with a dark secret…damn, maybe these movies did change me. See you in 2021, normal brain!

This is finally the double feature I’ve been waiting for! I decided to do werewolves since there will be a full moon on Halloween (and some other name for it—corn moon? Harvest moon? Bugaboo moon? I dunno, something mystical that just means the farmers are working overtime).

I’ve always heard of this movie, and figured there were sequels, as any horror movie worth its salt in the 80s has. Yet for some reason, I thought they just terrorized a town because of some ancient blood treaty gone bad. But as I’ve been proven wrong in my assumptions many times before, so shall I be again. I really should stop making up the plots in my head and just read IMDb. I guess I’m more stubborn than scared of Halloween. Or I like making up stories. Either way, there is yucky scenes I don’t like to think about.

The film starts with a very disturbing premise. A news reporter is being stalked by a serial killer who wants to meet her in a seedy LA adult book story. I guess “seedy” is redundant, but let’s just say the lighting in low and the store owner doesn’t ask questions. Like “why is this fancy lady scaring all my customers away? Ah well. She paid her quarters.”

Now that I’ve painted the picture, the news reporter (Karen) is attacked by the killer and sexually assaulted. The killer is supposedly shot by the cops who weren’t doing a very good job protecting Karen.

The killer isn’t really dead, of course. The movie is called “The Howling” not the “Dead & Quiet Corpse.” However Karen is very much really traumatized. So the shrink she has been working on the serial killer story with suggests a “retreat” to deal with her sexual assault trauma.

I know Karen is very vulnerable right now, but if a TV shrink from LA suggests a “retreat” in a remote part of Southern California you need to run far away. At least they allow her husband to go along. Although he isn’t much help once they get there. Because he ends up cheating on her with a werewolf. This won’t go well in couples therapy on the beach.

Karen realizes quickly that everyone in this commune is a werewolf. It should have been most obvious when they offer her some prime rib at the Welcome to WereCountry Beach Luau. But there were other signs too, like the constant night howling and the bone jewelry.

Accessories aside, I don’t really understand why the shrink sent her here, especially since he was advocating for peaceful coexistence of weres and humans. I guess some people just want to watch the world burn.

Which for these beasts, it most definitely will. While Karen was walking in the woods, and making friends with people in terrible wigs, her real friends are frantically investigating her attacker and all the lore of werewolves. They finally realize Karen is in danger. Unfortunately one friend gets killed immediately. But the other helps Karen escape and lights the barn on fire where the entire commune is hanging out for their next full moon barn party? I have no idea how these rituals work. And there’s been like 8 full moons since Karen got there. I don’t think that rule applies to this universe. The APPRECIATE the full moon but don’t live their lives by it.

While Karen is escaping, she unfortunately gets bitten, but not enough to kill her, so she is about to become a werewolf herself. Which she makes sure to do on live TV because gotta get those ratings! And movie ends!

But don’t worry, there’s more! And it involves Christopher Lee. And Romanian villagers. Super hairy sex scenes. And puppet shows that depict animal/human rape. Okay. So not the sequel anyone asked for, but still got.

The film starts with Karen’s funeral. Her brother is approached by Christopher Lee’s character (Stefan) who is an “occult investigator.” Okay, fuck you LA. That’s not a real job, you are ruining funerals. He might as well have been a life coach. The brother calls bullshit but another reporter who happens to overhear the exchange wants in on the crazy and starts to investigate.

The reporter (Jenny) somehow convinces Karen’s brother (Ben) that this is very real and they need to follow through. Then Stefan somehow convinces BOTH of them to go to Transylvania with him because he wants to kill the most powerful werewolf. Okay, Stefan, you are getting off-track. This obviously has nothing to do with Karen and you just wanted someone with an unlimited supply of guns (Bumpkin Ben) and bait (Jenny).

We soon learn that the most powerful werewolf (Stirba) is actually Stefan’s sister. Hence the title. However everyone in this Romanian town knows Stefan and treats him with reverence, which helps but also kind of puts a damper on the town. They know the crazy American lady werewolf is having hairy orgies in her castle on the hill and yet her brother can’t do anything to control it.

This movie never would have been able to be made today. First of all, Ben smuggled in like 49 different types of guns and two knives in his boot. Secondly, audiences never accept just ONE song being the soundtrack of a movie over and over. Especially this Talking Heads rip-off.

The zaniness that ensues in this movie makes up for the fact that there is no acceptable plot. All of the budget was definitely spent on getting Christopher Lee. I honestly don’t know how, but it gets us to another sequel. I’m seriously exhausted after this one. I don’t know how people follow through on horror movie franchises. Every subsequent film just offers more ridiculousness and no answers. Like each election cycle.

I have a serious question. Is Vincent Price handsome? His voice is fantastic, I don’t think that is up for debate, but I really can’t tell if his looks would make the ladies of his time swoon.

I guess that’s not the point of this film because his character is only in love with his “creations.” I don’t pretend to understand the mind of mercury-addled artists, so if you have to make a life-like Marie Antoinette for a companion, I’m not gonna kink-shame you.

Of course, if he was an innocent man just making wax figurines this movie wouldn’t have been made. Or maybe it would have, but shown in a VERY different movie theater in Times Square.

The film begins with an artist (Price) arguing with his financier about his museum. Apparently the popularity of his wax figures isn’t quite what the investor was hoping, and begs Price to make more gory scenes. Because apparently the draw of realistic figures wasn’t enough for New Yorkers in the early 1900s. They needed them to look like they were murdering each other. Hey, who are we to judge? Have you seen our top ten podcasts in this country? Fuck ton of true crime. We are all side show attendees, don’t front.

Anyways the investor decides to take matters in his own hands and light the museum on fire, with Vincent Price in it. Everyone assumes Vincent Price was killed but no one ever finds his body. A few months later, the investor collects on the insurance money and is found hanging in the elevator shaft. So obviously Price is not dead.

But he doesn’t stop there, he goes after the investor’s girlfriend next. Unfortunately, his aftermath of the murder is interrupted by the girl’s roommate Sue. Sue is now being stalked by Price who is currently rocking a “Elephant Man level disfigurement.”

Sue keeps trying to tell the police that Price (whose character is named Jarrod) is using REAL bodies in the new museum he is opening in her neighborhood. Of course the police don’t believe a “skirt” or “dame” or “legs” or whatever they called women back then. Definitely not “concerned citizen we should listen to.”

To fuck with Sue even more, Jarrod hires her boyfriend to do work for him. The museum opens to a rousing success because he finally took his investor’s advice and made it uber-macabre. Jarrod isn’t satisfied with using cadavers as his models. He now wants living ones. And Sue is his first experiment.

The police finally believe Sue, but only because the drunk assistant of Jarrod finally confesses everything after they withhold a bottle of whiskey from him. So if you’re keeping score, the police DON’T believe a woman who has been bringing them evidence for months but they will believe a drunk suffering from the DTs.

Jarrod finally gets a taste of his own medicine and falls into a vat of wax which I assume kills him. I don’t know. We use hot wax for spa treatments now. He could just come out with even smoother skin. The cops are assholes to Sue still, and treat her like a joke even after the traumatic events she goes through before she is rescued. They even joke about finding her naked and strapped to the table. The real horrible people are the cops. Wax the police!

I did not actually mean to do two 2016 films in a row. But just like now, 2016 was a tumultuous time and everyone needed something steady to hold onto. Like that fact that rich white college kids will always be morons. And in walks Cabin Fever (the reboot).

I actually saw the first Cabin Fever movie; one of a handful of scary movies someone convinced me to watch (and somehow without alcohol). In this case, it was a college roommate who wanted me to see it. I figured since Rider Strong was in it, how bad could it be? Well let me tell you, it was icky and I was immediately taken back to my dorm room during a lot of the scenes of this reboot. Because they didn’t change ANYTHING.

The script was almost exactly the same except for a brief intro (and outro) of social media. What kills me is that rich kids wouldn’t rent a cabin that wasn’t fully stocked with essentials. They also wouldn’t rent a cabin without internet or at least cell service. And one of their mom’s was the booking agent, so obviously she knows these kids are assholes and deserve what their about to get.

If you don’t know this plot, a group of five college-aged friends (3 guys, 2 girls) decide to “get away from all the stresses of being beautiful and wealthy” and rent a cabin for a week in the Pacific Northwest wilderness. Soon after the arrive, they encounter a drifter with a terrible flesh-eating disease who they decide to LIGHT ON FIRE to get him to leave. Soon each of them start to succumb to the disease, all while warding off extremely creepy hikers, aggressive locals, and the horniest sheriff a camp movie has ever seen. Brief PSA, kids: If someone more than 5 years older than you says “You look like you like to party” call the goddamn FBI because that person is a serial killer.

This movie is unrealistic because it wants the audience to believe that kids in America will drink unknown tap water. You have heard of Flint, right? Or frack-tastic Oklahoma? Kids aren’t drinking shit that comes out of a faucet. They will literally drink charcoal infused aloe juice first. And I’m no better. I used to bring a gallon of my own water to work with me every day because I didn’t trust the tap water. And that was one county over.

Infrastructure ire aside, this reboot was extra icky just because we have better cameras and special effects. There’s still no redeemable characters, except maybe the dog and even he has flaws. I was kind of hoping they would delve into the locals more, and find out why they are keeping the disease that can easily jump back and forth from pets to humans to livestock a secret. Were they cursed by a witch? Is a large processing plant paying them off? Do they want to keep their “gas station homeopathic cures” stand in business? They were the most 2-D characters of this whole thing. We need LAYERS, filmmakers. And not just the skin ones that will peel off in our hands (EW…that was tough to type, I’m sorry).

The ending of the original was better, because it showed that the horror couldn’t be contained forever, no matter how many guns you have to shoot at the bacteria. The right to bear arms doesn’t really help you when your arms are bare of skin. Although…bears don’t seem to get this disease. Neither do other water-wading beasts. Hmm, Beaver Fever could be the sequel you’re looking for, Hollywood. Or Canadian Hollywood? Whomever will take my calls, have I got some IDEAS for you!

Despite winning “Longest Title of the Year Award,” this movie is not going to gain any accolades from me or anyone else. Unless you enjoy the slow burn of British people pretending to be Americans wandering around empty houses until they die. I don’t know you, it could be your thing. I am however just mad at this one.

The film starts with a voice-over saying if someone dies in a house, the house does not belong to the buyers or sellers, but is just borrowed from the ghosts. Okay, I know enough real estate law, so don’t come at me with your pseudo-rights babble on ghost squatting. What they REALLY mean, and take 89 minutes to clarify, is that if you die in the house and your body never actually leaves the house, it’s gonna cause some problems for the future occupants. Usually in the form of smells. Possibly mold. Definitely hauntings.

I can’t tell if it’s a recent trope or has been around for awhile, but mold mitigation in horror movies is having a fantastic moment. I mean every haunting movie seems to point to a little spot of mold that can’t be controlled. Which sort of makes sense. Black mold is EXTREMELY dangerous and should be taken care of, because the spread is rampant. But not all mold is detrimental to a person’s psyche immediately. If it was, like 67% of Americans would be insane at any given moment. Which who knows, maybe we are.

The “plot” of this story is that a young, lonely hospice nurse moves into a dying horror author’s home to care for her in her final days. Of course, days turn into weeks and then months, and we get to almost a year. The entire time, the nurse (Lily) doesn’t seem to DO anything. It takes her 11 months to finally read a book. She just slowly wanders around the house, looking at walls and ceilings when she hears strange noises. She doesn’t even seem to take care of the old woman, besides brushing her hair and making occasional meals. If I had a world famous horror writer in my presence, you better believe I’d be diving into that brain to see what sick, twisted secrets she has. Hell, you could write your own book. There’s enough typewriters around.

The ending is soooooo drawn out, I thought I was going to fall asleep. I kept checking to see how much time was left. And the epilogue was entirely unnecessary, except to maybe scare you a bit. Unless it’s setting up for a equal, which I don’t think the world could handle. That’s too many words.

I hate to admit it, but I liked approximately 87% of this film. It was funny, kind of scary, and twisted just a bit of the “found footage” genre into something a bit more enjoyable. Instead of idiots in the woods with handi-cams, these camera operators are actual professionals. And instead of filming for their own selfishness, they are doing it to make sure IF they get murdered, the footage will be used to prosecute the perpetrators.

The film crew in question is filming a generic international house renovation show, where terrible Americans buy houses in countries they have no business being in. In this case, a hamlet in Moldova. I HATE these shows. All house hunting shows are fake, but the international ones make me want to revoke their citizenship. The Americans are always surprised by how small the kitchens are and complain about the lack of “green space.” I’m sorry this town founded in the 900s doesn’t have enough reclaimed wood and masonry to make it worth your time.

The nice part is, this film fully acknowledges that Americans are awful. The film crew is rude, no one bothers to learn the language, they make fun of the locals, and completely ignore the advice of the law enforcement to leave town ASAP. If a priest, a cop, and an old woman in all black told me to get out, I’m getting the fuck out. I don’t need former Soviet Union curses on my first born.

This film is fun, because you don’t know who is the real threat: the suspicious townspeople with literal pitchforks, or an unseen entity that may or may not be causing death or disappearance of townspeople. Turns out, it’s both! Even the helpful, slightly creepy local real estate agent isn’t safe from the wrath.

The ending is probably what will sway you one way or another to like or hate this movie. I won’t give it away, but you should know that it looks like 77% of the budget was spent on the last 12 minutes of the movie. Everything else was mostly practical effects (which I actually like in found footage movies). The reviews on this poor movie are devastating, so I suggest just watching the movie and not paying attention to those.

If nothing else, this film should be a warning to any and all Americans who think that can just easily escape to another country, as if they would want us. Rumors of century old witchcraft aside, I’d be extremely suspicious of someone who shows up in town and starts complaining too much. And wait until you see how much you’ll be paying in taxes!

Is this Fred Durst’s film debut? No. But is it the best role he’s ever played? Also no. The producer’s choice to send this directly to DVD was a wise move. Not even the star power of Jeremy Sisto could save it. And I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve been desensitized to horror films this month, or because the film is so bad, but I was not impressed. I need to find one of those scary Hallmark TV movies to watch. Like the ones where ghosts keep showing up to save the local bakery and force people to marry each other. Think they air them around Christmas.

Anyways, this gem of a clever film title begins with a baby being born. If I’ve learned anything from watching over 100 scary movies is that these scenes are never lighthearted. Either the kid is a demon or is going to be sacrificed to a sun god on it’s 13th birthday. Its fate is yet to be determined, but we are next introduced to Jeremy Sisto’s character, Steve, who is a census taker. I LOVE the census so I was super excited that even though this film was made in the middle of a decade, that doesn’t matter in horror universe. Or it makes me happy that census takers still have jobs on non-census years. Doesn’t matter. Yay Census!

Steve was sent to the small town of Rockwell Falls, North Dakota because while the government was updating their systems to go paperless, they realized the population has not changed in 100 years. I never understood towns that print the population on their “Welcome to….” signs. It’s going to change. Unless the sign people are running a racket among small towns, just knowing they will forever stay in business.

Steve’s first clue that something is amiss should have been when he gets a flat tire and almost immediately a cop (Durst) shows up in a police car that is 30 years old. I don’t know much about the fiscal responsibility of North Dakota municipalities, but a 1978 Crown Vic doesn’t seem to be the safe option for your entire law enforcement fleet. But then again, this is why the census taker is there: need to make sure the allocation of funds are fair and just. However, we know from horror movies, an old car either means weird ass cult that’s stuck in time, or–actually no, that’s what it means.

Steve is welcomed by some very nice people who warn him cell phones don’t work and it’ll take a few days to fix his car. Double red flags, Steve. Forget this town. You can count them from an airplane.

Of course he gets sucked (or suckered) into immersing himself in their traditions, including the tradition of locking up pre-teen orphans for wanting to leave town. You soon learn from the stupid title that about 100 years ago the town was really nice, then got destroyed by a fire. So it was obviously “God’s” fault. So in order to appease God, someone found a book on numerology (astrology for math nerds) and decided that 436 was the perfect number for their cult. Therefore, anytime someone is born or an unsuspecting traveler stays overnight, someone else has to die.

It’s a little unsettling not for any other reason then how insanely inbred these people must be. 100 years is a lot of generations and not a lot of variety. I also am confused as to if they are stuck in one time period like The Village on purpose or they don’t update any electricity or cable or plumbing because of a curse. There’s also a mysterious “fever” that keeps going around. Yeah, it’s probably from the lead pipes and asbestos you have in your buildings because no inspectors have stuck around long enough to check it out since 1900.

Honestly this would have been better as a SciFi (before the name change) mini-series, because the camp could have been embraced instead of thrown off a horse. That also happens when someone tries to leave. Somehow the animals also know numerology. This movie is dumb. Fred Durst should stick to his “music” from 30 years ago.

I decided to give Disney another chance after watching The Haunted Mansion. This one wasn’t even released in theaters, but as a two-part TV special during the Christmas season of 1980. Which…I guess makes sense. As much sense as this movie. I had a hard time following the exact plot and it was made for children so I can’t imagine some Gen-Xer out there having nostalgia for this movie. Unless they are a post-Civil War military fan. I mean who WASN’T in 1980.

First of all, this movie was the opposite of scary. In fact the scariest thing was the rampant sexism and thinly veiled racism. But that’s Disney for you. So if you want to watch this with your young charges, go ahead. But they might run out of the room out of boredom, not fear.

The plot seems simple enough: three ghosts try to save a military school from closing. What the short synopsis doesn’t tell you is that the ghosts only start to help when GIRLS show up on the grounds. The school was already in foreclosure for months, maybe even years and enrollment has been trending downwards for awhile. When a military school is for non-troubled youths, you must have seen a lot of this happening after Vietnam.

At the same time the school becomes co-educational, a student shows up that also could possibly save the school, due to the massive fortune he will inherit after the sudden death of his parents. This kid is messed up, to say the least. He has severe survivor’s guilt (possibly PTSD) and his aunt and uncle are fighting over the custody of him like he’s an abandoned dog (with a million dollar trust fund). You soon find out the aunt is the greedier of the two and wants to somehow buy the military school just to tear it down…but needs her nephew to get into the military school so it fails. The logic is not there, but obviously the screenwriter did not care.

The ghosts are the school’s founders (General Buxley and her wife Bettina) and their Sergeant Major pal Sweet. They don’t confirm it, but there’s definitely a throuple situation here. No one hangs out in eternity with someone they aren’t related to unless there’s a good reason. Anyway, the ghosts decide to protect the boy no matter what, but then also discover a need to stop the aunt from following through on her nonsensical plan.

There are no rules in this ghost world. They can somehow travel anywhere they want as long as they have a car. They can reveal themselves to anyone they want. They can manipulate SOME objects but not others. Doors sometimes need to be open and other times they can just walk right in. They can smoke cigars! The insanity of Disney knows NO bounds.

In the end, everyone is happy and the ghost throuple is able to go back to their paintings and continue to spy on adolescents as much as they want, because no one at Disney saw anything wrong with this. If you need background noise, I recommend this movie. However, there’s way better “Disney family friendly movies” you can watch that at least have a more cohesive plot line.

If a horror movie starts out with the recitation of a Catholic prayer by children, RUN. Actually if your day starts that way, you should immediately move out of your house because it never ends well. Wanna fuck with someone? Record a bunch of second graders saying the Our Father in Latin and make it someone’s alarm.

My Catholic education PTSD aside, this movie is very unnerving. I know nothing of this director (Alfred Sole), but when his first film credit on Wikipedia is a porno, you know you’re in for a wild ride. Despite the fucked up storytelling, I actually appreciated his filming techniques. The canted angles and disturbing closeups added to the uneasiness of the movie. I couldn’t tell if I was nauseous by the end because of the shots or the communion wine I was slugging while watching this. Blood of Christ would have been a better title for this movie, but I unfortunately/fortunately wasn’t around in 1976 to offer that suggestion.

The plot involves a divorced mom of two obnoxious teenagers in early 1960’s Paterson, New Jersey. Karen who is 12 and about to make her first Communion, and Alice who is 14 and about to become a beautiful young psychopath. Their mom is carrying on a mildly inappropriate relationship with their priest, Father Tom. He’s young and handsome and showers Karen with gifts and praise, while Alice looks on, seething in jealousy. And right behind her seething in jealousy as well is the priest’s housekeeper, Mrs. Tredoni. It’s a very seething movie.

Karen gets killed by a candle on her Communion day. I appreciate the murderer’s alliteration. The killer then stuffs Karen’s body in a bench in the church and lights her corpse on fire. Strangulation and arson are hard to pull off simultaneously, so you have to applaud their talents. The extremely inept police suspect Alice right away, and don’t bother warning the public that a child killer might be on the loose. Maybe this is what life was like before Vatican II. Perhaps dead kids in the sacristy was good luck, who knows. Either way, the next victims are not kids.

First it is Alice’s horrible aunt, then the deadbeat father who left the family. Next is the extremely obese pervert landlord. Alice has a motive for each one, but the only problem is, she has been locked in a mental institution at the request of a school psychologist who has been begging Alice’s parents to get her help for months. While the mom (Catherine) tries to defend her child, it is hard to take her seriously. Especially since every time one of her loved ones is attacked, she dresses sexier. By the end of the movie, she’s very smoldering (I assume to attract the eye of much-too-cool Father Tom).

There’s a lot of gross scenes, and I learned after the movie that there was ONE prop knife used throughout the entire film. I need to know where that knife is. I secretly hope the director buried it somewhere in Paterson as a love letter to all the jealous seething that definitely happens in that town.

Normally I take notes when I’m watching these horror films. One, because I have a baby who can obviously feel my fear through the walls and wakes up often to comfort me in the evenings while I watch these. He’s very kind. Also, so I can remember key plot points when I write down a review. I don’t know how film and theater critics do it in the dark. More props to them. However, during this movie, I took ZERO notes because my eyes were the size of saucers the entire time. Not just because it wasn’t in English, but because it was just so riveting (a word that is vastly overused).

If someone is reading this in a time capsule, first off, thank you for printing out my blog posts. And secondly, kids, you should know that before 2020, there were heated debates about “fast zombies” and “slow zombies.” The debate over which was more realistic: rabid, uncontrollable feral animals versus lobotomized, insatiable human forms. We were super cute in our arguments before the world went to shit. Because obviously now we know, real plagues make you angry at the guv’ment for not letting you go to a concert or barber. Actually that one leans towards “lobotomized, insatiable human forms.”

This film is fast zombies. Super cool, parkour fast zombies. The filming was so much fun, I forgot I was supposed to be scared. Instead it was more like an action thriller with a side of snark AND heart. I need to watch more Korean rom-coms to see if it involves this much acrobatics.

The plot centers around a workaholic father and his young daughter who (in many heartbreaking scenes) tries to keep his attention and love. The two get on a train in Seoul to go meet the estranged wife in Busan for the daughter’s birthday. This is about the distance from NYC to Boston, if you need a reference point. This train however, is probably not like a train from NYC to Boston. For one, it was probably manufactured in this century. Despite the zombie invasion that was about to happen, I’m always fascinated by other countries’ mass transit infrastructure, while in America we just keep finding new cameras to put in our cars that drive one person.

Socialism rants aside, the zombie invasion happens VERY quickly most likely due to a chemical contamination at a plant outside of the city. It spreads across all of South Korea in a matter of hours thanks to the densely populated urban settings. The next 90 minutes is just a love letter to trains and all their glory. The conductor is the unsung hero as he really has no idea what’s going on, despite the fact that communication among cell phones seems fine, but train dispatch apparently is not. I’m glad though, because it obviously means the conductor wasn’t on his phone. Safety!

They join up with other passengers to try to stay alive, and make it to Busan because it’s the only area that was able to be quarantined successfully. This was the most unrealistic part: the government was able to mobilize a “hot zone” system in a matter of hours, all while the military was able to expertly apply their fabulous and flawless “camo” makeup. BravO, South Korea.

Spoiler alert, not everyone makes it. But the ending was very hopeful. So hopeful in fact, the director made a follow up animated film almost immediately. I haven’t found this film yet, but I also don’t have a lot of time for follow up right now. Maybe next year. If we are still here. Oh that was dark. If the plague is still here.