When a movie opens with children singing, you know you’re in for one hell of a bumpy ride. Actually, anything opening with unseen children singing is creepy: Songs, plays, your eyes in the morning, political ads. I’m not sure why. Maybe old nursery rhymes have a satanic pentameter.

Anyways, this film is longer than your usual horror movie at 2 hours and 15 minutes. Although the original was a miniseries and the book is, well it’s a book. Of course it’s longer. However, they did not include the child orgy scene, which I’m grateful for. I hope it wasn’t even on the table. Pre-teens going through puberty is terrifying enough. It doesn’t matter what murder town you do or don’t live in.

The story follows a group of misfit/loser teens and their adventures during one summer when a demon returns to their town to feast of the bodies of fearful children. If you took out the demon, this would actually be a nice coming-of-age story where kids murder their dickish parents and learn to accept themselves as they truly are (and the life-long friendships they’ve made along the way).

But this is Stephen King’s Maine. Where not only is the murder/missing person rate higher than the national average, no adults or authority figures seem to notice or care. So it’s up to the roaming band of 12-year olds in the 80’s to figure out how to defeat this thing that keeps eating their peers and setting them up for a lifetime of PTSD.

The loser group comprised of a kid who’s brother went missing the previous year, his friends, a new kid in town who’s obsessed with Derry, Maine’s murderous past, and a girl who has been experiencing her own hell, long before a demon showed up. They have to deal with hormones, strict parents, deadbeat parents, asshole parents, bullies who can afford a shiny Trans Ams, asthma attacks, and a pesky little shapeshifter who appears as their greatest fears.

Unfortunately for me, and millions of other viewers, the greatest fear seems to be a clown (named Pennywise) with multiple rows of teeth and a sociopathic charm that rivals Ted Bundy. He stalks each child individually until they are able to figure out where his portal to hell is. Apparently it’s in a house that looks like George Bailey tossed rocks at it. Maybe that’s why the film is called “IT’s A Wonderful Life.”

Puns aside, the kids find out that it’s not easy to kill a shape-shifting demon, especially one that’s been fucking up this town since it’s inception. In fact, I would watch the prequel where the town of 91 is just super excited they wrote a charter and incorporated their own piece of the New World. Then watch the greedy colonists get wiped away by a demon who appreciates both the salt sea air and the sweetness of blood curdling with fear.

There will be a sequel. Which I will probably watch (at home, with alcohol and a comfort dog). But only if they explain why more kids in the 80’s didn’t get staph infections. It’s such an easy way to kill children, demon. They fucking love doing blood oaths with dirty knives and rolling around in sewer water. Shapeshift into a antibiotic-resistant bacteria. [Shudder].

I know more about the urban legends of this film than the actual movie. Mostly because I’ve seen the E! True Hollywood story episode more times than I care to admit. I know a little girl died. They used real skeletons because it was cheaper. Some of these actors never recovered their careers. Craig T. Nelson became a weird conservative.

However, nothing prepared me for this wacky, disjointed early 80s movie. And I’ve seen a lot of 80s movies lately.

The movie starts with a little girl chatting with the TV. This isn’t really disturbing. But then again we live in an era with kids talk to screens all the time and their parents aren’t weirded out. They mostly likely think, “Whew, a break from them talking to me.”

The family lives in an idyllic suburban development, which is financed and furnished by the dad selling the same idyllic life to other unsuspecting homeowners. They have lots of a friends, a dead evil tree in the yard, and a remote control that can change the channel on their neighbor’s TV. Which is unsettling in itself. How powerful were remotes in 1982?

The weird starts to ramp up with a pet bird dying. Having a bird as a pet is unnatural. They’re dirty and live longer than you. And their tweets are more annoying than wind chimes. And as everyone knows, wind chimes are the devil’s white noise.

The mom is starting to notice even weirder stuff happening once the construction starts on the pool in their yard. It must be super frustrating to be a stay-at-home mom in a haunted house. You get a room cleaned up and in it’s place, only to turn your back and demons rearrange everything in neatly stacked pentagram.

Then a tornado hits and their kid disappears. Now I know its the 80s and social welfare doesn’t pay much attention to rich white people anyways, but it’s been a few weeks and NO ONE notices the little blonde girl isn’t hanging out anymore? She is a fairly precocious little shit, so even the dumb neighbors would notice it. And their houses are close enough to control each other’s TVs, so you know it’s not them being out of range.

Instead of getting the police involved, the family hires a trio of paranormal investigators who are a little too eager to hang out in this devil house. When they can’t seem to fix anything (or they are too busy being drunk), they bring in a psychic who tells the family exactly what needs to be done. They need to go through the portal in the closet that leads into purgatory and then out into the ceiling of their living room. Obviously.

The psychic explains that the little girl (Carol Anne) is stuck in a world where spirits are “attracted” to her life force. Which is kind of gross. The ghosts are keeping her there cause they like her “light”? This is how cult pedophiles talk. The devil is keeping Carol Anne where she is because she is the beacon that controls the spirit. I feel like the devil is reaching a little too far. Puppies could keep mindless spirits occupied. So could a first generation Atari. You don’t need to kidnap a little girl AND take all their Star Wars toys. Which were probably going to be collectibles. The devil is a dick.

The psychic sends in the mom through the portal to pick up Carol Anne. Not sure how she’s going to know which spirit is her daughter’s, but luckily she grabs the right one and crashes through the ceiling covered in…an amniotic sac? Maybe. The goo that’s all over babies when they are born. Luckily, a quick bath seems to bring both of them back to life and the family goes on their merry way.

Well, they thought they could. They decide to move out. Which is the first smart thing they’ve done in awhile. Not sure why they didn’t just burn the house to the ground instead of letting it wreak havoc on another unsuspecting family, but I get it. It’s California; got to worry about wildfires. However, the devil still isn’t satisfied and decides to fuck with the family one last time. By sucking their house into the ground. Which doesn’t make any sense. No house = no new little innocent kids to kidnap. This 80s devil is not very efficient.

The moral is, if you see something, say something. Even in the suburbs. Actually ESPECIALLY in the suburbs. I’ve seen enough murder shows with interviews of completely oblivious neighbors who are “absolutely shocked” at the abhorrent behavior going on next door. Do a horror movie about those people. You’re not human if you’re not nosy.

 

I’m not spoiling anything by saying nothing in this movie is true. And I know, “based on actual events” disclaimer should be taken with a massive hunk of salt, but they basically just made up a story around a legend around a rumor. Even when a person is real, they changed the gender. Although to be fair, a red-headed boy ranks 10x higher on the creepiness scale than a red-headed girl.

I’m kind of amazed a mass-shooting hasn’t been made into a horror movie yet. Maybe it’s too real for the group of people who write about summoning demons to have sex with humans against their will. This movie isn’t actually about a mass shooting, it’s more about the indiscriminate power behind a weapon that can’t distinguish between innocent and criminal.

And also about Helen Mirren’s fabulous American accent.

Sarah Winchester (real person) moved to a house (true) in San Jose, California (debatable) in the late 1800s. She supposedly took with her the spirits that haunted her since the death of her husband and daughter. These spirits are pissed they died at the hands of the guns that the Winchester’s Repeating Arms company made. You gotta give credit to Americans. When they get pissed at a company, there’s no stopping that boycott. Even when pesky death comes.

So Sarah decides that in order to manage the endless barrage of ghosts that are bound and determined to haunt her, she will take on the most massive and endless renovation project in history over the next few decades. And as anyone knows who has done renovations on their house or hovel, it’s a nightmare. Time frames don’t matter. Everything costs more than you’d expect. Strange men are just constantly sawing things.

But Sarah believes that the ghosts want her to build them an exact replica of the room they died in. She’s basically setting up a Goth AirBnB for these fuckers and not getting paid or even get a good review from them. The spirit either forgives her and moves on, or decides to be a prick and hangs out in his customized room for all of eternity. And this is valuable real estate, even before Silicon Valley moves in. But Sarah’s got to just let everyone be their true selves, and locks up the room and keeps the ghost inside until it’s ready to forgive her.

The Chief Legal Officer of the Winchester Company decides to enlist a shady doc from San Francisco to determine if Sarah is still fit to be on the board (AKA, do we still need to pay this loon?). Dr. Eric Price (not real) brings along his own haunted baggage and excessive amounts of morphine. As one would expect from any good house guest in the early 1900s. It’s not long before Price starts to see the angry ghost and although blaming it on the drugs helps him at first, he starts to realize the “House That Spirits Built” is not a misnomer. Although the constant carpenters are probably like, “Wtf!? We built this, you old nut job!”

All hell breaks loose when the nearby San Francisco earthquake happens. Which is VERY  real, and VERY easy to research, so not sure why the filmmakers thought they could get away with just changing the time of its occurrence. The occupants of the house (who apparently have never been through an earthquake before, as if those are also fake), blame the rumblings on the ghosts. Aftershocks are very real. Get the hell out of your death house!

It’s not really an ending, since Sarah lives a couple more decades and kept capitalizing on her murder tools. It’s also not an ending because this story isn’t real. The real Sarah Winchester and her San Jose house is actually a crazy story. She kept these carpenters around 24/7. Which I get. People are lonely, the smell of fresh sawed wood is a lovely aroma to mask the ever march of death, and the white noise of hammering and throwing boards is very soothing. Actually, that last one might just be me.

 

 

 

 

This movie should have just been called Lost: We Had All These Leftover Sets and Soundtrack Music. It is supposedly in the same “universe” as Cloverfield which is also produced by J.J. Abrams.

This is obviously years after the first film because she carries a newer iPhone (Damn you Steve Jobs! The insanely obvious anachronism in every film!) The story starts on Michelle, who is frantically leaving her house (and fiance) with as much stuff as she can carry. While distracted on the road, she gets in a car accident and wakes up in a concrete bunker with John Goodman (Howard), her “captor.” Now, I don’t know about anyone else, but I’d be so happy if I woke up and John Goodman was taking care of me. i’d probably ask for a hug. But this is a movie, and no one ever asks for hugs in a movie.

“Howard” goes on and on about how he saved her life and how good of a “prepper” he is and how life as they knew it is destroyed outside. She also meets another guy (Emmett) who has been “rescued.” (I’m going to keep putting things in quotes because I’ve seen Lost and don’t trust J.J.). Emmett tells her he ALSO helped build the bunker they are in, but his smarts don’t seem to go beyond underground carpentry.

Michelle is still extremely skeptical of her situation. As most people would be, even people in the “Cloverfield” universe. The movie is mostly a battle between, “is he or is he not evil?” and combating boredom. Which brings me to another thought: you know who would probably be really good in underground bunkers? Prisoners. They know how to be crafty, they know how to pass the time, they certainly know how to make alliances, and how to survive a shifty prison guard. And also how to make toilet booze.

Anyways, back the bunker where we find out Michelle’s was training to be a clothes designer. Which I guess is a good skill for the apocalypse…for stitching up cuts? And also making hazmat suits. And utilizing leftover fabrics so nothing is wasted. Okay, it’s not a TERRIBLE skill for the apocalypse. Join my bug-out squad, seamstresses.

When Emmett and Michelle figure out the that Howard’s “daughter” is actually a girl who went missing from town a few years ago, they start to weigh their options against what might possibly be outside and what is definitely inside (a big vat of acid). Some bad decisions by all three later and Michelle is outside being chased by space monsters and heading towards Houston where the citizens have “taken their shores back” (this movie is obviously set before Harvey…whoops–that’s another horror story).

 

 

The most amazing part of this movie is that these actors have actually done something else besides this movie. That like, NEVER happens in “found footage” movies. Or after.

This is really a documentary about how far surveillance and stalker technology has come in 20 years. The main character is obsessed with finding his sister, Heather, who was in the first movie. Which I get, but you were four, James. Also you had shitty parents who didn’t decide to move away from from the town where your sister was murdered.

After finding another “found footage” on YouTube that was previously unreleased, James decides he needs to go back where his sister was last seen alive. James brings along his “girlfriend” (I can’t tell what their awkward flirting is) because she has all the camera equipment. They also bring along another couple, Peter and Lisa. And then they decide to include ANOTHER couple; two weird locals who posted the YouTube video. And it’s true what they say: never meet your YouTubers. Ever.

If you haven’t seen the first The Blair Witch Project or any of the 900 parodies Hollywood thought was necessary, the first story is just a shaky jump fest that is only dangerous to epileptics and amateur witch hunters.

This film starts the same way except the characters already know the history and lore of the Black Hills forest and STILL decide to go marching through woods they know might be dangerous. And not just to the group. A LOT of trees were destroyed in this movie. Not enough people blame voodoo witches for deforestation. It’s so sad.

The next 80 minutes are just jump scares and infections and scared panting and clearly visible GoPros when NONE of the characters are wearing GoPros. They even have a drone that is also possessed by the witch, because it can’t go 20 feet above the tree line and crashes immediately. Unless…the Blair Witch works for the FAA and is just enforcing no-fly zones. I have a lot of theories because this movie has no plot.

The movie ends how you would expect: with everyone getting broken in two and disappearing off camera. Which brings me back to the beginning of the movie that showed news footage of massive manhunts and ground searches complete with helicopters and K9 crews after the first movie. So now, all these kids are missing in 2016 and the taxpayers have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars looking for you again. I swear to god, documentary film makers are the most selfish people in the world.

I was intrigued by the concept of this movie. A deaf author who lives alone in the woods is stalked by a murderer. It reminded me of Wait Until Dark, and apparently I wasn’t the only one to think that. Stephen King tweeted that it reminded him of it as well, and apparently Wait Until Dark is his favorite horror movie. Good to know King and I think alike. But only in regards to movie connections. I wouldn’t want to know what else goes on in his head…

Anyways, back to this very dark movie. And I don’t mean disturbing, I mean it was shot with such dark lighting, I forgot the character was deaf, but instead blind. It also features one of the dumbest murderers I’ve seen to date. He has no motive, he takes his mask off immediately, and he uses a crossbow in the dark. Come on! You know you’re gonna lose those arrows right away.

The deaf author, Maddie, is a thriller writer who is in the middle of her next novel and can’t decide on an ending. She also moved to the middle of nowhere after a breakup with someone named Craig whom she accidentally keeps face-timing. The murderer is the most 2D character ever who’s most glaring flaw is that he is smaller and therefore…prefers to murder women? I can’t tell his motivation besides just being a sadistic dick. Although he does stop short of murdering a cat, which I guess shows he has a line.

The ending isn’t anything spectacular. I was waiting for a twist. Or for her deafness to act as an asset rather than a hindrance. Maybe I’ve been spoiled by too many good movies this month. Either way, if I’m moving to the woods, I’m definitely buying a gun and a wifi router than can’t be hacked by a dumb murderer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I assume everyone knows this story because you’ve either seen the movie, the remake, or The Simpson’s episode, which is how I learned most horror/sci-fi movie tropes. However, if you live under a rock or refuse to watch television (which in my book are the same thing), the concept was probably based in some Cold War fear.

An entire picturesque English town (including the animals) falls asleep for a couple hours. When they wake up, nothing seems disturbed. But a few months later, all the child bearing women are pregnant. Which is terrifying in itself. There can’t possibly be enough doctors in this town. And prenatal vitamins. Since some women weren’t married or others had husbands who were away, the entire town is now on edge. Which makes sense, that’s a fuck-ton of hormones. And not just regular pregnancy hormones either; demon hormones.

However, once the children are all born, they are exactly the same freaks with blonde hair and the ability to learn skills ten times faster than the average child. Oh and also they have the ability to read and control minds. Dogs growl at them, the “normal” children (who are probably jealous of all the attention the blondies are getting) throw things at them, the local grocer keeps thinking they will skip out on their tab.

I assume at some point in every parent’s life, they truly believe their child was spawned directly from Satan’s lair into their womb. But this town has a severe case of denial. When the kids get to their third or fourth murder, the town finally decides to bring in people (scientists, military personnel, priests) to do something about it. Their solution is to send them all to the a boarding school, IN the town. No, send them far away. Maybe in a place where there are no other humans. Or small animals. If I’m learning anything from this month, it is that British law enforcement has got to be the dumbest on the planet.

After the town finally decides to stop being so British-y and polite, and start turning into an angry mob with torches and pitchforks, the children are no longer hiding their murderous rage. They explain to the main character, their teacher, that there are hundreds of them all over the world and they are slowly working together to basically control the world. You know, if you’re going to control the world, can you stop asking for the Hitler youth haircut every time you go to the hairdresser? People might take you more seriously.

The teacher finally decides that he needs to kill the kids once and for all. He creates a bomb with dynamite, which is just adding to my questions for this town. Where did you get dynamite? How do you know how to make a bomb? Why the hell do you wear a tuxedo every night while your kids are killing your neighbors?

I’m not sure what the moral of this story is. Don’t…fall asleep maybe? If your dog keeps growling at your baby, get a priest? Always have a steady supply of dynamite in case your “bundle of joy” is actually a “bundle of holy-crap-they-are-all-trying-to-murder-us”?

 

 

This is one of those movies I kept meaning to watch but didn’t want any future cross-country trips ruined by mutants. Although to be fair, you can find mutants right in one’s hometown, so there’s no point in being scared of the voodoo mountain mutants hiding in caves.

The film starts at a gas station in a ghost town. An old man is packing up to leave and his granddaughter begs to go with him. The old man wants nothing to do with her, or who she is associated with, which by the looks of her teeth is…meth heads?

The old man is distracted as a family with a camper pulls up and ask directions to the nearest silver mine. Okay, even with the extremely loose EPA regulations in the 70s, I’m still positive they won’t just LET you wander into a silver mine. The old man (rightfully) tells them they are insane, the silver mine is closed, and they should go back to to the main road.

If I stop at a ghost town gas station and see the worker frantically packing up, instead of leaning back in a rocker chewing straw, I would also get the hell out. But between the five adults, 2 German Shepards, and 1 baby, there’s not a full brain between them. Instead, they top of the tank, and head towards their stupid, nostalgia-fueled doom.

After getting lost on the road and driving into some desert brush, they bend the axle on their station wagon and are stuck in the middle of nowhere, with nothing for miles around except Air Force practice base and hills. With eyes.

The father, who is a former Cleveland cop (and good at it), spews a racist filled tirade and heads off on foot back to the gas station to get help. The son-in-law (who is considerably LESS racist) heads off in the other direction in search of non-crazy-old-man help. This leaves the mother, the younger son, younger daughter, older daughter, and her baby alone with the two dogs.

The dog immediately start acting strange and on edge. The family is on edge, but definitely not as much as they should be. Especially when one dog takes off and the son goes after her. The son reemerges a few hours later in a catatonic state. He doesn’t tell anyone right away what happened, but the family is about to meet their unintended neighbors. And they don’t want to borrow sugar.

Actually, they probably do. And meat. And bullets. And knives. And babies. The hill people just want everything the family owns. And the voodoo mountain people don’t play nice. The father makes it back to the gas station, the old man (who is somehow STILL there) conveniently tells him about the hill people. His son, seemingly affected by the radiation testing going on just up the way, was born too large and too crazy to be handled.

The old man tried to kill his son years ago, but instead made him angry enough to kidnap another woman from town and make up into the hills to start their own colony of radiation children. It was a small town to begin with, so narrowing that gene pool isn’t going to do much for the census next decade.

Then the massacre begins. The ex-cop father is basically crucified by the hill family, and the mother and older daughter are shot inside the camper. The baby is kidnapped after they rape the younger daughter. I’m not sure why they didn’t kidnap the daughter either, especially since they are hell bent on expanding their family. Anyways, the only people left are the younger daughter, the son, and the son-in-law, who has returned from his SOS trip with just a bunch of army surplus supplies he found at a nearby dump.

And then….every one left turns into fucking Macgyver. I’m not sure if it’s the radiation or the desperation, but everyone is now a tactical engineer, coming up with schemes and traps for the hill people. Then a parkour inspired chase through the hills happen, and everyone comes out covered in snakes.

There’s no happy ending to this story. Those silver mine jobs are never coming back. People living illegally on government land can’t register to vote. Using your dead mother’s body as a decoy just doesn’t have the same “oomph” as it used to. Life is a slow march towards death in the desert. Might as well just stick to the interstate.

 

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.