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.

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.