This is the first foreign language film of the month. Although I’ve been watching most of the films with the subtitles on because I would like to see if they are still scary if you are hard of hearing. They are. I’m un-brave.

A family of French vegetarians drop their daughters off at veterinarian school where her sister is also attending. The drop off is exactly how you would expect the French to drop off their children–in the middle of an empty parking lot, with a good-bye cigarette, and a reassuring, “You’ll find your sister eventually.”

This is a legacy family and the youngest daughter is going in with both high expectations of herself and others. However, when she gets there she finds out the college is just full of dumb humans and overworked professors. The girl (Justine) experiences her first college party after a vet school hazing ritual of dumping all the freshmen’s belongings out their dorm windows. Good to know shitty kids go to school all over the world.

The hazing continues for a week, which includes the eating of raw animal meat. In this case, raw rabbit liver, which will probably be a delicacy at some posh NYC food truck next week called “LapinItUp.”

Anyway, the family is ULTRA-strict vegetarians and Justine is admittedly against the hazing ritual for obvious reasons. However, her older sister, Alexia, basically forces her to do it, so she doesn’t bring shame upon her family. Which is ironic, because the end result is a BIT more than just shame.

Justine develops an unnatural addiction to gas station shawarma, and a somewhat natural addition to human flesh after the ingestion of the raw meat. Her roommate, a gay man (which apparently is allowed in French schools), helps her hide her addiction to meat, while her sister tries to help her with her addiction to being the next Hannibal Lector.

That’s when it get’s…weird? But like, French-weird. Justine is now sexy and also going through withdrawals. So it’s a lot of dancing in mirrors cut with scenes of the DTs. It’s an interesting take on the tired vampire genre. Cannibalism isn’t sexy, kids. Neither is going to vet school. It’s amazing with all these vet students around witnessing flesh attacks, no one tested her for rabies. But I guess at Cannibal Vet U, there are no rules. Including the fact that you’re just allowed to bring your dog to your dorm. This place is bananas. This movie, though, it’s pretty clever.

I’ve watched too many OTHER horror films to have an unbiased opinion on this one. First of all, I already knew the ending. Secondly, the moral of the story is tale as old as time: Don’t have sex. Or be teenagers. Just don’t be teenagers and you’ll survive. Good advice for horror movies and Shakespearean plays. Good advice for life.

Nevertheless, I watched this cliche on Friday the 13th of October, because I’m a cool adult who stays home on Friday nights. It only happens once every 600 years, according to Facebook posts (it doesn’t, the odds of it happening in October are like 1 in 12). Anyways, the date and day don’t seem to play much relevance here. Did Jason die on Friday the 13th? Did the two counselors in the 50s get murdered on Friday the 13th. I know the camp staff comes back to the camp in “present day” on Friday the 13th, but do they KNOW it’s Friday the 13th? Does Mrs. Voorhees have Triskaidekaphobia?

I have a lot of questions, I know. But one that’s been bugging me since I started this project: why isn’t the government declaring Marshall Law on these towns with an insane amount of murders? If we found out that a town have a 500% increase in murders, don’t you think someone would be like, we should probably send someone over to check this out. Like someone who ISN’T a voted-in sheriff or local truck driver.

Everyone seems to know the plot so I don’t need to go over it in detail. Young adults are stupid and therefore they lose their lives, along with a limb here or there. Yet, we seem to be ignoring the bigger picture. If Jason was a mentally ill child, or even developmentally delayed (say he has Down’s syndrome), then why was he at a camp with people who didn’t know how to handle these kids?

Okay, enough with the victim blaming. I get it, this movie opened like ALL the tropes. It is kind of cool to revisit the source, if you have the chance. This inspired so many OTHER movies, even outside the 27 sequels it spawned. I was just happy this camp looked nothing like the camp I go to every summer. That might have scarred me for life. And I’m glad I don’t already own a Gordon’s fisherman raincoat. Those seem to just be a target for murder stories. “Murder Yellow” probably isn’t a popular Sherwin-Williams color.

This is one of those stories I’ve heard so many times, I feel like I’ve seen the movie already. Although I haven’t. It was a weird deja vu watching something and then being like, “I’ve seen this scene of mopping up blood before.”

The premise is fairly well known among anyone who has ever watched a ghost hunter show or read about The Amityville Horror or The Conjuring. The story is similar. A family moves into a house that is WAY too cheap for the square footage. Then they find out why it was so cheap. In this case, it was due to a mortuary in the basement that doubled as a lab for a crazy scientist who dabbled in necromancy. Like Casper‘s dad, right? That movie would have probably been a lot darker if we asked more questions about the uncles….

Anyways, back to this jump-scare fest. It’s the late 1980s, and a teenage boy with cancer has to travel to a hospital in Connecticut for experimental treatment. The long travel and financial burden is causing extreme stress in an already fractured family (aren’t they always fractured?). So the mother decides to move her and her son, along with her other son and two nieces, to a cheap house she decided to rent without talking to anyone. Well, ACTUALLY, she did talk to someone: the landlord. Who told her about the old mortuary in the basement. And she was like, that’s cool. That won’t fuck with my already brain damaged cancer-ridden child. I have ZERO sympathy for these cheap parents.

As soon as they move into this death trap, the teenage boy starts to see extremely disturbing things. However, he is afraid to tell anyone because they will yank him out of the cancer treatment. This is why we need healthcare reform; so families don’t have to keep living in haunted houses. Next election, please vote the “Families Who Don’t Want to Be Haunted Party.” Not sure which line that is. Probably Socialist.

The hauntings keep escalating and eventually start to affect the other members of the family. The father who travels back and forth to their old hometown is becoming more withdrawn and a louder drunk. The younger kids are trying to just play in their gigantic sparsely furnished house. The cousin is concerned about Matt, the cancer ridden boy. And the mother just keeps praying and threatening God.

Matt finds an friend and confidant in a pastor who is also receiving treatment at the same cancer center. For a man of the cloth, he seems to know A LOT about demonology and necromancy. And also for someone who seems to be a fairly lengthy resident, doesn’t know a lot about the haunted house in his town. Even when the cousin, Wendy, and Matt went to the library, they were able to round all the history as fast as a Google search. And this was 1987.

If you don’t know this story, I won’t ruin the ending. Although the ending is a lot happier than other movies I’ve watched. The entire story could have just been based on the hallucinogenic visions of a teenage kid who’s mind was destroyed by chemo drugs. I will still be triple checking with a realtor when I am house hunting. They have to tell you, it’s the law.

One final note: I was immediately NOT scared of this movie, because of all fonts they could have chosen for the opening credits, they chose….PAPYRUS.

When I started watching this movie, I thought it was going to be your typical 80s teen slasher flick, with literal backstabbing and snobby retorts. Like Gossip Girl, but with more puns.

However, as soon as the parents went from dead-behind-the-eyes rich people to dead-behind-the-eyes rich people admiring slugs the way people admire diamonds, I knew this movie was gonna be ew, gross.

Teenager Billy doesn’t feel like he fits in with his family. This may be due to his brown hair and stupid track suits, but in reality his family seems to have a whole other life without him. They go to parties and mingle with other socialites, while Billy just goes to school and plays basketball and goes to student body debates. This isn’t anything unusual in Beverly Hills, I suppose. If I had a son who resembled a Menendez brother, I’d probably keep him at arm’s length too.

As you would expect in the 80s, Billy owns an open-air Jeep, and as you also would expect in the 80s, he keeps finding dolls inside. With things stuck into them. It doesn’t seem to faze him until his sister’s ex-boyfriend is killed in a car “accident” after the popular kids at school say extremely anti-Semitic things to him. I’m not saying all people who admire garden slugs are Nazis, but there does seem to be a correlation between “homogeneous” gardening and “homogeneous eugenics.”

The boy who died, Blanchard, was also in possession of a tape with a recording of Billy’s mom, dad, and sister discussing her first sex party, complete with lots of gross moaning and “squelching” (this was the actual word on the Closed Captioning).

Billy is now full-on crazy, as any one who hears about the incest/gang-bang party that goes on down the hall. He starts to insist he sees dead bodies and is subsequently locked up in the hospital. His only ally is his friend Milo (who ALSO looks like a Menendez brother). They are both jerks to each other, but in the end they are the only non-orgy loving socialites.

The last 15 minutes of the film are super gross, and also super impressive, puppetry wise. It isn’t gory, just a LOT of KY Jelly. You’ll understand what that means when you see it. The “moral” of the story is a little right-on-the-nose. Actually what they do to noses is pretty gross. If you can’t deal with slugs, stay out of Beverly Hills. And sex parties.

This movie answers the age-old question:

What if my feelings are hurt, buuuut I’m also a super clever murdering ego-manic?

The answer, as always, is Vincent Price.

The film begins when a theater critic is called to a tenement where he is on the board of some gentrification project. There are squatters who are supposedly causing trouble. Although when the critic arrives, he realizes these aren’t regular squatters. These are bums versed in the art (and art of murder) of Shakespeare. The BumBards attack and kill the critic, prompting the most fun murder spree London has seen since Jack the Ripper. And with equally dumb and drunk cops.

An actor, Edward Lionheart, is behind the orchestration of all the murders. He is/was a prolific Shakespearean actor who was snubbed by a critic’s circle for their annual award. He takes his revenge by faking his own death, then coming back a year later with costumes and wigs to perpetuate the murders from the Shakespeare plays onto each of the critics. Actors: So fucking dramatic you want to set yourself on fire. Which, is the fate of one critic.

Now you might be like, wait, not EVERY Shakespeare play has a gruesome murder in it. Okay, you’re right, but like 87% of them do. This is why I don’t understand when parents get up in arms when their teens watch super angst-y shows. “How dare you let my kid be exposed to murder-suicide romance in 13 Reasons Why,” as they head to Amazon to buy their kid a required copy of the murder-suicide romance, Romeo and Juliet. 

Anyway, the killings continue, because thanks to the unwavering arrogance of the remaining theater critics. Their colleagues are being murdered by the buckets-full, but a late night dye-and-set hair appointment is completely necessary. Everyone in this movie deserved what they got. Except maybe the BumBards. They were just a group of tramps, looking for a leader, and got a revenge-seeking psychopath instead.

The best part of the movie is Lionheart’s daughter and sidekick, Edwina, played by Olenna Tyrell (She has a real name, I just take a drink every time I see a Game of Thrones actor in a horror movie. I’ve been drunk since October 5). However, if murder and gore are not for you, may I suggest watching it for the sweet gymnastics/early parkour moves by Vincent Price (‘s stuntman). Epic fight dancing ALL around. Two tipped epees WAY up.

This movie really was completely original, and that should be applauded. I’m really excited to see someone try to make this with other playwrights’ works. Arthur Miller? Tennessee Williams? Neil Simon…yeah, I could see Felix murdering Oscar over misusing a dishrag. I’m not saying I have ALL the ideas, screenwriters, just some of the best ones.

This is my first “anthology” horror movie, that are all tied together at the end with one common theme. I didn’t know it was this type of movie when I picked it. I picked it because Peter Cushing (of Star Wars pre/non/sequel CGI fame) was billed in the cast. He is only in for like 15 minutes. Still one hell of a quarter-hour though. Nice to see his acting when he was also alive.

The story begins with a young psychiatrist arriving at an asylum for the “incurably insane.” To someone in the medical profession, that really is setting them up for failure. I mean, at least TRY to cure them. Then again, it is 1970s England. I’ve already learned the cops are incompetent, the food was terrible enough to eat people, and yet they still have better healthcare than America. Well, not mental healthcare, but that’s probably what this movie was trying to point out.

The new doctor meets with the current head of psychiatry at the asylum. He tells the doctor that the previous psychiatrist went insane and is currently being held within the asylum. If the new doctor can determine which patient is the crazy shrink, he gets the job! This is probably the most fucked-up game of Guess Who? anyone on the planet has ever played. “Is it a man?” “Does he have crazy eyes?” “Does it look like he has the strength to paralyze another grown man?” “Do demons lurk within the folds of his soul?”

Instead of running away from there and reporting them to the medical board, as any normal person would do, the new doctor decides that hearing “Do you want to play a game?” will somehow end up perfectly well; with everyone getting what they want. I have seen and avoided enough movie trailers to know that it will most definitely NOT. This is an incurable game.

New Doctor meets all the patients and they tell them their stories. There aren’t very many patients here, but the orderly seems to know all their secrets. The last one is my favorite. A former medical doctor himself, Byron, spends his days crafting tiny robots with life-like heads and life-like organs. He claims to have “powers” over these baby robots, and the stop motion special effects are just excruciating to watch.

This film is both un-scary and predictable. Real stories of how mental patients were treated are much more disturbing, although I know it can be seen as disrespectful. It’s a sad world when we treat our dead better than our sick. I mean, hell, we gave Peter Cushing a role in a movie 22 years AFTER he died!

So far, this is my favorite horror movie soundtrack. Although I wouldn’t expect anything less than the director of Animal House and The Blues Brothers. Although this movie is a little different than a drunken romp and road trip. Although just as many boobs though. They literally created a fake porno to show in the movie. And the British cops are just as bumbling as every other London-set film I’ve watched this year.

Boobs and bobbies aside, the story itself isn’t scary; however the special effects are a little more gruesome than I expected. The werewolf transformation scene is what I imagine it would look like if women gave birth alone in the woods, without the fancy beds and drugs and doctors milling around telling her to “stop screaming.”

The story revolves around two American young men who are backpacking across Europe, but unfortunately start in cold, rainy werewolf infested English countryside. They both get attacked by a strange beast. One dies and is forced to roam the earth as a decaying zombie. The other lives and destined to become a werewolf on the next full moon.

Now, I don’t know much about werewolf lure. Most of my knowledge comes from Harry Potter, but it seems like if you know you’re going to change into a man-killing beast, mayyyybe don’t move into a crowded city and shack up with a woman you barely know.

However, maybe that is the theme. Don’t hang around with them city folk and loose women? Stay in the countryside where you can kill arrogant people and be ignored by townspeople. Wait, that last one sounds like the Unabomber. Okay, just don’t eat people–main takeaway. Oh, and cops in London are god awful at their jobs and crowd control.

I’ve never been both bored and disturbed by a movie that wasn’t first a play. Yes, I know there are plenty of good plays-turned-movies, but there’s something lost when you aren’t near to the actors. Anyway, this movie actually could have been a play. And I would have bought tickets to see it, even if Naomi Watts was in it or not. And honestly, I never know if I’m looking at Naomi Watts or not. She’s either the most basic looking person or the most chameleon. Like Gary Oldman. I’m going to check to make sure Gary Oldman wasn’t in this movie.

The film is a shot-by-shot remake of the Austrian film by the same name. This always fascinates me when filmmakers do this. Why? Are they lazy? Do they truly believe the first one was so perfect it can’t be improved upon? Or are they in some sort of warped belief that if ONLY they had different actors at the time the first film was made, it would have been a million times better? I don’t know Austrian, so I don’t really have much to compare it to. Although I HAVE seen plenty of rich white people movies, so I have that.

It’s your typical home invasion story where everything seems to go right, for the criminals. Two young men successfully infiltrate the beach house of a wealthy family in a wealthy neighborhood by just mentioning OTHER rich people’s names. If I’m ever a kidnapper, I’m going to be like, “Well Oprah sent me. You know Oprah, right?”

The extra long shots with no breaks add to both the boredom and intensity. The audience has to sort of guess at times what is happening off screen. Or you get to watch TV with the characters. Which is weird, but then I was also wondering what the Austrian people were watching while the characters were watching NASCAR in America. Probably soccer. I don’t think they have any other sports besides soccer in Europe.

Of all the movies I’ve seen in this movie and the past, I honestly don’t recommend this to someone unless you are REALLY, and I mean REALLY in the mindset for it. It’s not just because of the gore, but more of the idea that no one is safe anymore. And people seem to think they are safe because they belong to a community. But when everyone else in the community is also being targeted, there’s no way out. This may be a good time to watch Get Out and compare…

A family decides to move into a fully furnished mansion for the summer, even though the house is suspiciously cheap. They meet the homeowner and her brother, who is the most dandy man I’ve seen in a horror movie so far. They are super eager to get this family to stay here, including some very inappropriate remarks about their 12 year old son. Although maybe it wasn’t inappropriate back then to giggle and call a little boy “full of the devil,” while watching him fall off the porch.

The siblings are going to leave them be, but say that their mother is going to hang out in the attic. She must never be seen, and they must bring her meals three times a day. And the family AGREES! As if this is totally normal. Nevertheless, they move in July 1st and bring the husband’s Aunt Elizabeth (played by Bette Davis).

The first day is full of all kind of surprises that don’t send dumb people running away. The father and son find a graveyard on the property, surrounded by rusted out bikes and farm equipment. The mother, Marian, visits the attic apartment and only finds odd photographs and an old music box (which in my opinion, is the worst sound next to wind chimes and someone whistling at night).

Next, the family is in the pool which subsequently tries to drown them. As in, the pool makes people try to drown each other. The father can’t stop having nightmares, the aunt has no energy, and the mother is slowly trying to turn the entire house into a cover of Unnecessary Gothic Architecture Magazine.

Then, when they wake up one morning, the entire outside is completely clean, and the landscaping is pristine. I mean…if you’re going have a demonic entity, might as well be a good groundskeeper too.

The final straw is when the son gets locked in his room and is slowly being poisoned by a gas leak. Instead of calling someone, the family just starts blaming each other. They start sniping at each other constantly, and it’s a much more realistic dynamic of a family where no one seems to have jobs, but can still afford a mansion house for the entire summer.

The house is now full-on renovating itself, feeding off the agony of it’s inhabitants; ripping down old shingles and spitting out dirty siding. Again, I mean…a demonic entity that is also a speedy contractor AND a good landscaper, still not something to complain about.

Crowdfunded movies with no rating premiering on Netflix. Let’s see where this goes…

The movie starts with a massacre in a drug house in the woods followed by two guys burning a body, all while a person in a white sheet with a black triangle on its face watches.

A cop sitting on patrol in the same woods finds a guy crawling out onto the road. The cop, Daniel, brings the broken man to the closest hospital which is a half burnt, almost condemned place with few supplies and even fewer staff and patients. And then Daniel the cop makes it even fewer by killing the nurse who killed a patient. Then stuff gets weird.

While a monster of indescribable features and girth roams the halls, the Tri-Klan guy is back with a bunch of his friends and surrounds the hospital. Then they move the cop’s car. I’m not sure if they moved it with their minds or their arms; it’s hard to tell if these are the undernourished type of cult members, or super ripped ones.

After a father and his son-in-law run into the hospital and try to explain they’ve been killing these cult members for days, no one seems too concerned or connects the hulking monster in the recovery ward and the Kreepy Klan outside.

The one nurse left, who is also Daniel’s estranged wife stupidly tries to go retrieve supplies from another part of the hospital, not the least bit concerned that they might have been damaged by the fire that happened recently. I mean I know when I’m looking for fresh antibiotics, the first place I check is the site of a dumpster fire.

The movie, and the characters, descend into madness. This is obviously some Cthulhu cult that’s gotten so popular in the past few years among people who love talking about cosmic planes of existence and all knowing power and light and ignoring H.P. Lovecraft’s sexism and racism. They’re really just a jump to the right of Scientology in their indoctrination, although Scientologists don’t usually form monster zombies out of their members. Although I don’t know where John Travolta’s hairline comes from recently.