Oops! All Horror - Day 28 - Cronos (1993)

  Content warning: blood, bugs

Jesús Gris (Frederico Luppi) is just a mild-mannered antiques dealer in Mexico City when he discovers a strange artifact in the base of a wooden statue. The golden device takes a small amount of Jesús's blood and imbues him with new vitality. Obviously, something like that is in hot demand and Jesús begins to be harassed by a gangster (Claudio Brook) dying of cancer and his nephew/goon (Ron Perlman).

Guillermo Del Toro sprang fully-formed from the head of Calliope, I'm pretty sure. This is his first feature film and you can already see the director he would become. Now, whether you are on board with that or not is up to you.  Personally, I love it even if I would have liked a different ending. I can see the vision, though! 

Perlman is the most recognizable name in the cast for English speakers and he is so very young and brash. It is adorable.  Luppi was in all three of Del Toro's Spanish-language films, so aficionados may recognize him as well.  This is unfortunately not streaming anywhere except to rent or buy but it is well worth tracking down.  

Oops! All Horror - Day 27 - Harpoon (2019)

 Content warning: dead animal (fish, seagull), blood, mild gore

Jonah (Munro Chambers) and Sasha (Emily Tyra) join their abusive friend, Richie (Christopher Gray) on his boat for a day trip, unaware that all their secrets and resentments are about to be revealed.

This is billed as a dark comedy horror and I guess.  It's very light on the horror for my tastes.  Minus one scene, I would classify it as just a black comedy.  That being said, it's also not very funny.  For me, black comedies only work if they are based in irony or schadenfreude and at least one of the characters hasn't done anything to deserve what happens to them.  It is like the fourth movie I've seen this month to flirt with cannibalism so I guess it's on theme?

It's streaming on Prime but there are better options out there.

Oops! All Horror - Day 26 - Detention (2019)

Not to be confused with the 2011 film Detention starring Josh Hutcherson that is borderline unwatchable.  Content warning: blood, executions ( hanging, gunshot), suicide, domestic violence (off-screen)

Wei Chung-ting (Tseng Ching-hua) finds himself trapped in a recurring dream while being tortured by the Chinese regime in Taiwan.  His school had been secretly copying banned books and someone dimed them out to the authorities.  Wei must discover what happened while avoiding the monsters roaming the halls of his school.

I was a little worried I wasn't going to get my yearly dose of Asian horror.  We're coming up on the end of the month, after all, and pickings have been fairly slim this year but Taiwan delivered with this nasty little cautionary tale about authoritarianism.  You don't really even need the ghosts to make it effective, although one could make the argument that the ghosts are needed to keep it from being a little too effective.  For that, you're going to want to skip straight to The Act of Killing.  But instead of making ourselves depressed, let's just focus on the ghost story.  

Apparently this is based on a video game.  Which is fucking wild.  Parts of it do feel like gameplay, especially some of the hallway scenes, but just the concept of turning your national tragedy into a video game is crazy to me.  

Anyway, this is streaming on The Criterion Channel or on Tubi for free.  Choose wisely.

Oops! All Horror - Day 25 - Tales from the Hood (1995)

  Content warning: blood, gore, child abuse, gang violence, archival footage of lynchings, cross burnings, hate crimes, racial slurs

Three men (Joe Torry, Samuel Monroe, Jr. and De'Aundre Bonds) are sent to retrieve it shipment of drugs mistakenly picked up by a mortician (Clarence Williams III) and are treated to a series of tales about the bodies on view.

This was a very good anthology marred only by a weak framing narrative.  I'm sure it was intended to be funny, but I found it grating.  Best individual performance has to be David Alan Grier, playing waaaaay against type.  If you grew up seeing him on In Living Color, this would be kind of a shock.  Best segment of the anthology is "KKK Comeuppance," which is basically a remake of The Trilogy of Terror segment with a miniature "native" doll that menaces Karen Black.  Except this time it's a racist Southern senator (Corbin Bernson) being attacked by the spirit of murdered slaves.  So much better.  

It's currently streaming on Starz, which I thought I had but apparently don't, so I watched it...elsewhere. I can't speak for the sequels but I definitely recommend this one. 

Oops! All Horror - Day 24 - Channel Zero - Candle Cove (2016)

  I've managed to get through a surprising amount of TV this year.  Content warning:  child death, teeth (?), puppets/dolls

Mike Painter (Paul Schneider) lost his twin brother, Eddie (Luca Villacis), when they were 12-years-old in part of a series of unsolved murders.  Afterwards, his mother (Fiona Shaw) sent Mike away to live with his dad.  But thirty years later, after a disturbing series of visions, Mike returns to Iron Hill at the same time a strange show only visible to children called Candle Cove returns to TV.  

I was very excited about the monster design on this one, but I have to admit, the first half is better than the second.  It's only six-episodes long and it is still really good; I just felt like it couldn't sustain the energy of the first couple of episodes.  Still, Shaw is a great actress and anchors this cast.  It's an anthology show so it is a complete story and I'll watch the other seasons, but probably not this year.

Oops! All Horror - Day 23 - The Mummy (1933)

  Content warning:  animal death (dog (off-screen)), blackface

My friend Lauren is kind enough to let me walk her through the Universal horror classics.  We've seen Dracula, Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein and now Boris Karloff's Mummy.  I will admit, I'd never sat down and actually watched it before.

A terrible discovery during an archeological dig sends one man mad (Bramwell Fletcher) and another into retirement.  Ten years later,  Frank Whemple (David Manners) comes to Egypt to continue his father's work.  An enigmatic local named Ardeth Bey (Boris Karloff) leads him to the tomb of Princess Ankh-es-en-Amon.  At a party in celebration of the find, Helen Grosvenor (Zita Johann) falls into a trance and attempts to break into the museum where the remains of the princess have been taken.  Frank and Helen's psychiatrist/occultist, Dr. Muller (Edward Van Sloan), theorize that Helen is the reincarnation of Ankh-es-en-Amon.  Dr. Muller is immediately suspicious of Ardeth Bey, believing him to be the resurrected mummy Imhotep from the first disastrous expedition.

I was a little surprised at how much overlap there was between this and the 1999 The Mummy.  The Fraser/Weisz version is vastly superior but I love it even more now, knowing how they incorporated the original story.  Even the white cat!

The makeup work is phenomenal but the performances are only so-so.  It's barely over an hour long but it dragged in places.  Stick to the remake, but if you're curious, be prepared to shell out some money because this isn't available for streaming except to rent or buy.  

Oops! All Horror - Day 22 - Buzzkill (2026)

  Content warning:  blood, vomit, alcohol use

Nora (Siena Agudong) witnessed the murder of her sorority president, Sarah (Frances Sholto-Douglas), but was black-out drunk and doesn't remember who did it.  So she keeps getting black-out drunk every night, trying to piece together what happened, writing clues on herself with Sharpie that she then has to decipher the next day.  Her fellow sorority sisters are sick of her antics and hit her with an ultimatum:  stay sober or get kicked out.  But on the night of the annual Greek House Pub Crawl, Nora is sure she can solve the murder if she can just get her hands on some Jell-O shots.

This is obviously meant to be funny but it comes off as promoting irresponsible and unhealthy drinking habits.  The whole "drunk me did this for sober me" joke was played out like a decade ago on Tumblr.  Otherwise, it's a fairly decent sorority slasher that avoids most of the really gross/exploitative tropes.  There are some nods to Black Christmas and Slumber Party Massacre which show that the filmmakers did their homework; they just have questionable taste in humor.  The cast is game, though I don't know if anyone here is destined for the A-list.  I could be wrong.  All in all, not bad if you had a group of friends watching.

It is streaming on Tubi.