Horrorthon 2018 Day 31 - The Gift (2015)

  Happy Halloween, my ghoulings and ghosties!  We've reached the end of our Horrorthon and I think it was a rousing success.  I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

Our last entry is really only a horror movie if you are a bad person forced to face the consequences of your shitty life.  Otherwise, it's a fun, spiteful little affair before we head into the relentless good cheer of the Christmas season.

Simon (Jason Bateman) and Robin (Rebecca Hall) have moved to California to start a new life.  Simon's career is on the up and the couple is desperately trying to move forward and start a family of their own.  A chance meeting with one of Simon's school fellows neatly derails all their pretty white-bread dreams.  Gordon (Joel Edgerton) seems nice at first, if a little awkward, but Simon has zero interest in reconnecting.  Robin begins to feel the pressure of this one-way relationship bearing down on her like a constant presence even as Simon assures her it's nothing.

If there's one thing we've learned over the past month of horror movies it's that actions have consequences.  It might be days, years, sometimes even to the next generation.  Your parents burn a guy alive?  He's coming after your dreams.  You accidentally let a kid drown?  Enjoy your last summer camp, motherfuckers.  Gordon doesn't have a knife glove or a hockey mask but he's just as relentless in his pursuit of what could loosely be called justice.  The real beauty here is Robin's journey from unwitting and happy to possible victim to angry and knowledgable.  She feels the emotional dissonance of her husband's shunning of Gordon much more strongly and this reflected guilt leads to a lot of her anxiety and paranoia.  Simon's instinct is to gaslight his wife in order to "protect" her from the sins of his youth, which backfires horribly.

Jason Bateman has always excelled at playing barely likable characters and he is pitch perfect here.  Edgerton seems a little wiped out, but he was also writing and directing so maybe he was just tired.  Hall is channeling some Mia Farrow fragility and it looks good on her.  This isn't one I would buy but I'm happy to have seen it.

Pumpkin rating:  3.4/5

Horrorthon 2018 Day 30 - Lights Out (2016)

  It's Halloween Eve, people!  The night to leave your pumpkins out for Jack to carve with his shiny knife, the night to feel the shimmer of the veil thinning between worlds, when all the things that go bump hold their breath in anticipation.  Can you feel it?

This is a fun little film to kick off a spooky mood in your house.  It has jump scares by the hundred, some anchoring performances, and a decent if unoriginal villain.

Becca (Teresa Palmer) has been doing all right avoiding commitments until she gets a call from social service about her little brother, Martin (Gabriel Bateman), repeatedly falling asleep in class.  Initially, Becca fears that their mother (Maria Bello) is off her meds again but it soon becomes apparent that something much more sinister is happening.

A creature that can only move in darkness is nothing new but this particular iteration is pretty good as far as creep-factor.  "Diana" is appropriately malevolent as well as weirdly sympathetic, kind of like the Del Toro-produced Mama from a few years ago.  It also features characters making smart decisions under pressure, which is always nice.  Even when things go completely pear-shaped, the protagonists make the best of the situation.  Still, it played out exactly as I expected it to so it loses some points there.

Pumpkin rating:  3.7/5

Horrorthon 2018 Day 29 - Hideaway (1995)

  Amazon characterizes this as a thriller but it was listed on Rotten Tomatoes' top 40 horror films of the 90s so that's what I'm going with.

Hatch Harrison (Jeff Goldblum) dies and is resuscitated by a doctor (Alfred Molina) pioneering a new procedure.  He soon experiences visions connecting him to a serial killer (Jeremy Sisto) targeting young women.  Hatch must uncover enough clues to stop the killer before his daughter Regina (Alicia Silverstone) becomes the next victim.

I had read this book several years ago so I knew the basic plot, although I had no idea it was made into a film.  It has zero right to have this good of a cast at any rate.  Molina is just supporting but he's always a class act, while Goldblum and Christine Lahti anchor this movie.  Sisto chews the scenery more than he needs to and Silverstone is just kind of there to be young and blonde but they both got their big breakout later that year in Clueless.

The cast is really let down by the film's godawful CGI.  If they had cut all the hideous special effects, this would have been a solid thriller in the vein of Manhunter.  I'm sure the supernatural elements could have been handled with practical or camera effects and not this Lawnmower Man/AOL screensaver garbage but 1995 was a strange and lawless time.

Pumpkin rating:  3.1/5

Horrorthon 2018 Day 28 - Raw (2016)

  I was really looking forward to seeing this but it ended up being kind of a let down.

Justine (Garance Marillier) is thrilled to get early admittance to the same prestigious veterinary school her sister (Ella Rumpf) attends but is unprepared for the amount of hazing and stress she must endure as a freshman.  She has been a life-long vegetarian but one of her first tests of belonging is to eat a raw rabbit kidney.  This taste of meat sparks a release of every hunger a young, sheltered girl can have and ultimately leads Justine down a dark and bloody path.

I think everyone knows at least one kid like Justine.  They find themselves away from home and out of their parents' control for the first time and they just go nuts whether it's at college, the military, or some other group bonding ritual.  There was also a lot of subtext about the rivalry between sisters, who was the "favorite", who wasn't, resentment and love all mixed together with a good spoonful of spite and jealousy.  These concepts have been explored before.  In fact, this reminded me of nothing so much as Ginger Snaps:  the College Years with cannibalism standing in for lycanthropy.

This is one of those artsy horror films that people like to rave over but I found it a little lacking.

Pumpkin rating:  2.7/5

Horrorthon 2018 Day 27 - Videodrome (1983)

  Another entry from our good pal David Cronenberg.  This also marks the second appearance of Debbie Harry in this marathon after Tales from the Darkside.

Max Renn (James Woods) owns a small late-night channel catering in soft-core porn and violence unable to be broadcast during regular waking hours.  He is always on the lookout for the newest, most extreme tapes so when his pet pirate Harlan (Peter Dvorsky) shows him a scrambled feed called Videodrome that features nothing but torture and murder, Max is interested.  It becomes very apparent very quickly that something is horribly wrong as Videodrome sparks hallucinations of horror and death within the viewer.  Max is increasingly unable to tell his nightmare visions from reality even as he becomes convinced that he is a pawn in a much greater conspiracy.

This movie felt incredibly timely despite the utterly dated technology on display (Betamax!)  The crux of the plot rests on how violence in media desensitizes and for a small subset of viewers replaces reality.    There have been many studies shown that violence, especially sexual violence, in videos normalizes violence in real life, especially for younger people.  The specific example given by my psychology professor was violence in pornography as it relates to dehumanizing and demeaning women.  It's not definitively linked to a propensity for committing violent acts, so no, listening to Eminem or playing Call of Duty will not make your teenager shoot up a school but it has been shown to reduce empathy and increase aggressiveness.  Combined with other risk factors, it could lead to violence being more likely but as always, it depends on the individual.  Some people are perfectly fine and others mail pipe bombs.  It has to do with susceptibility to the message.

The message in the film does get a little muddled when Max is effectively "programmed" to go commit murder and then counter-programmed to commit even more murders.  Ostensibly, Videodrome is intended to be a weapon against those who would seek out this overly violent content but ends up being used to promote the very violence it's supposed to stand against.  Maybe that's part of the commentary, I don't know, but it took away some of the impact for me.

Rick Baker provided the body horror prosthetics and his expertise is undeniable.  James Woods has always excelled at playing total assholes and Debbie Harry is her sultry best.  It's definitely worth a watch.

Pumpkin rating:  4.2/5

Horrorthon 2018 Day 26 - It (2017)

  ZOMG you guys.  I was really hesitant about seeing this film because I thought there was no way it could live up to the hype.  I was so wrong.  This movie is amazing!

Seven children in Derry, Maine are terrorized and forced to confront an evil entity calling itself Pennywise the Dancing Clown (Bill Skarsgaard).

This version just sticks with the kids' encounter with Pennywise and also updates the action from 1960 to 1988-89.  Functionally, this makes no difference except that Batman is playing in the theater instead of I Was a Teenage Werewolf.  The kids' roles have been switched up a little.  Stan (Wyatt Oleff) is now studying for a bar mitzvah instead of Boy Scouts.  Ben (Jeremy Ray Taylor) is now the historian of the group while Mike (Chosen Jacobs) is more of the outsider.  This film implies pretty heavily that Bev's (Sophia Lillas) father (Stephen Bogaert) abused her sexually instead of physically but shows nothing so that's a plus.

Bill Skarsgaard.  You beautiful, weird, Swedish monster.  I didn't think anyone could fill Tim Curry's huge clown shoes but you did it.  /wipes away tear  Bravo!

I'm so excited about Part 2!  But also really nervous because how can anyone hope to follow that?  I can definitely see this being my new go-to horror film.

Pumpkin rating:  5/5

Horrorthon 2018 Day 25 - It (1990)

  Tyler and I were in Target and I saw the original It for $5 so I thought, why not do a comparison between this and the new one (that's tomorrow's entry) since I haven't seen the 1990 one since I was a kid.

Seven children in Derry, Maine are terrorized and forced to confront an evil entity calling itself Pennywise the Dancing Clown (Tim Curry).  They believe they have killed it but swear a pact amongst themselves that if it should ever return, they would come back to Derry and finish the job.  Thirty years later, a series of child murders begins again and the local librarian (Tim Reid) calls his six friends back to fulfill their oath.

Story time!  I was around 8 when this came on TV.  My mom had read the book and found it terrifying (side note:  I thought she had read it as a teen but that book was published in 1986, when I was four, which makes my mom a giant pansy) so I was "not allowed" to watch it but I was allowed to sit in the living room as long as I kept my back to the TV.  We had a window behind the couch which afforded a perfect reflection of the TV screen which my parents either forgot/didn't think about or knew and just wanted me to punish myself.  Regardless of whether it was sadism or neglect, I was straight-up paralyzed by fear for weeks afterwards and couldn't go near any source of water without suffering a panic attack.

The first half of the miniseries features Reid's character calling up each member of the Losers' Club and their individual memories of that summer, creating a patchwork that eventually tells the entire story of their confrontation with Pennywise.  The second half is the adults reminiscing and dithering back and forth about whether or not to make a second attempt.  It absolutely squanders all of the terror and suspense of the first half and features a pathetic stop-motion spider-crab in place of Curry's evil clown.  Super lame.  If I were you, I'd just pretend the first half is the only part that exists.

Also, adult Bev (Annette O'Toole) is extremely problematic.  She is shown coming from an abusive household only to have an abusive relationship as an adult, which okay, fine, points to lingering trauma but it's still super gross to actively show women being slapped around on television.  There's also the implication that she has slept with everyone (except Eddie (Dennis Christopher) who confesses he's still a virgin just before the final battle in a bizarre and unnecessary scene) in the Club at one point or another.  The book is infamously known for having a child orgy after the battle with Pennywise.  Obviously no one s going to show that in a made-for-TV movie or ever, hopefully, but Bev's interactions with the adult Losers heavily imply that sequence of events.  While I'm thinking about female representation, Bill's wife, Audra (Olivia Hussey), literally only exists to be sexually harassed/threatened by her producer and then a damsel in distress to motivate her husband.  I know this was 1990 and gender politics weren't where they are now but come on. 

Let's face it, the only reason to watch this is Tim Curry, who is great.  Every scene that doesn't have him in it is kind of garbage.  It was nice to see John Ritter and Harry Anderson again and young Seth Green is always a delight but this is the Pennywise show.

Pumpkin rating:  2.5/5

Horrorthon 2018 Day 24 - The Mephisto Waltz (1971)

  Ignore this poster.  The only thing you'll be afraid of while watching is that you'll die of boredom.

Myles (Alan Alda) is a frustrated musician turned journalist.  When he gets the opportunity to interview acclaimed pianist Duncan Ely (Curt Jurgens), he leaps at the chance.  Ely is reclusive but seems friendly enough, making much over Myles and inviting him to meet his daughter, Roxanne Delancy (Barbara Parkins).  Myles' wife Paula (Jacqueline Bisset) is less enamored of the duo but can't stop her husband from being sucked into the demimonde Ely inhabits.  Then Ely dies, followed shortly by Myles' and Paula's child (Pamelyn Ferdin).  Paula is distraught but not so out of it that she doesn't notice that Myles' behavior, style, and even musical ability has changed.  She begins to get the funny feeling that Roxanne and Duncan Ely may have stolen her husband's body and used her daughter's life as payment.

I can't even begin telling you how annoying this movie is.  The dog gives the best performance in the whole film, which is basically a soap opera with Satanists.  Who in their right mind would give up Jacqueline Bisset for Barbara Parkins?  I mean, Alan Alda is no one's idea of a glamorous leading man so you'd think he'd be over the moon about landing a woman as hot as Bisset but no, he spends 90% of the runtime fawning over Parkins.  I can't believe I paid money to watch this!  I couldn't find it anywhere except for rent on Amazon so I spent $3 to have an awful time.

Pumpkin rating:  1/5

Horrorthon 2018 Day 23 - He Never Died (2015)

  Maybe it's just because I was really sleep-deprived yesterday but He Never Died might be the funniest movie I've ever seen.  The problem is that it's not really a horror movie.  I mean, it's basically If John Wick Ate People:  The Movie.

At the risk of going off on a tangent, I feel the need to break down why I think there should be a distinction between this and other cannibal movies.  Horror movies with cannibals like Ravenous or Silence of the Lambs are horror movies because they deal in being hunted and eaten.  (Although, really, SotL is about serial killers but still hunting and killing.)   Jack, the main character here, does eat people but that's not the primary focus of the movie. 

Jack (Henry Rollins) is living a solitary life, playing bingo at church, being a regular at a diner, avoiding stress and temptations, and getting his, um, dietary supplements from a med student (Booboo Stewart) until the twin stressors of a previously unknown daughter, Andrea (Jordan Todosey), showing up at his door and a local mob shaking down his cadaver provider combine to knock him off the wagon in a big way.  Jack is forced to confront his past once more in a bloody rampage.

This is a thinly veiled metaphor for addiction in general and specifically the relapse portion of recovery.  Jack struggles with human interaction, partly because he sees humans as a food source but also because he genuinely cannot relate to most people's lives.  Staying clean occupies 90% of his mental energy.  The other 10% is focused on tuning out the internal soundtrack of his past.  His obsession with time recurs throughout the movie

Henry Rollins is phenomenal here, delivering Jack's sparse dialog with the economy and warmth of a bolt-gun but I need to talk about Kate Greenhouse.  She plays Cara, the sweet diner waitress with the world's shittiest luck in men.  Her shy flirting with Jack in the beginning could have been treacly and irritating but she keeps it very restrained, very believable, and then turns in the most relatable reactions when she discovers the truth about Jack. 

I loved this and plan to buy it.  You should check it out on Netflix streaming and I think it may also be available on Prime.

Pumpkin rating:  5/5

Horrorthon 2018 Day 22 - The Grudge (2004)

  This was a huge disappointment.  I didn't see it when it came out but I remember everyone talking about how terrifying it was.  Yeah, if you're super afraid of people making animal noises, maybe?

Karen (Sarah Michelle Gellar) agrees to sub in as a caregiver for a catatonic woman (Grace Zabriskie) after the regular girl (Yoko Maki) doesn't show up.  Once in the house, she begins to notice  disturbing things like a little boy (Yuya Ozeki) taped into a closet with his cat.  Given that the boy is Japanese and the house's owners are white, it's glaringly obvious that something weird is happening.  Then people start dying as Karen tries desperately to determine the source of the evil plaguing everyone who has set foot in the house.

I can only hope the original Japanese version was way scarier or at least more engaging than this American remake.  The "living" cast is given almost nothing to do, the mystery is banal, and the ghosts are way overused to be effective.  Without the sound effects, this movie would be a snooze fest.

Actually, I think that's a pretty good rule of thumb.  If your movie isn't scary on mute, you don't get to call it a horror movie.  Sound is an important contributor to atmosphere but it can't be the only tool in the box.

Pumpkin rating:  1.5/5

Horrorthon 2018 Day 21 - Hell House LLC (2015)

  I was really surprised at how much I enjoyed this movie.  I normally hate found footage/shaky cam but this was very well-done.

A documentary crew attempts to explore what happened to the crew and visitors of a disastrous haunted house opening in 2009, despite a total information blackout.  One of the few survivors, Sara (Ryan Jennifer), provides the crew with tapes detailing what the haunted house company experienced during set up.

I do love mock-umentaries but they are notoriously difficult to pull off convincingly.  Hell House LLC absolutely nails the mix of journalism and found footage to craft a really engaging watch.  There's no complicated plot, or really much of a story.  Something bad happened during the opening night of this haunted house and people died.  Everything else is really about the atmosphere and sheer number of horror tropes.  Vaguely Satanic scrawls on a creepy basement?  Check.  Abandoned hotel with a checkered history and a suicided owner?  Check.  Haunted house paraphernalia like blacklight skulls and clown masks?  Check.  It's a kitchen sink approach that could have been all over the place but works more often than it doesn't.

If you have Prime, it's streaming there and I also heard it was on Shudder.  It is absolutely worth your time.

Pumpkin rating:  4.8/5

Horrorthon 2018 Day 20 - Train to Busan (2016)

  I'm not really big into the whole zombie trend, but hey, it's almost Halloween.  I would be remiss if I didn't include at least one, right?

Seok-woo (Gong Yoo) is trying really hard to provide for his daughter, Soo-an (Kim Su-an), even when it means missing the occasional recital or not remembering what toys she wants versus what she already has.  When she asks to go spend her birthday with her mother in Busan, Seok-woo realizes that he can't just let her fend for herself.  Unfortunately, what should have been an easy commute is complicated by a nation-wide outbreak of zombies.  Busan has been designated a safe zone but can they reach it before their train is overrun?

This is another entry in the "fast zombie" subgroup, if you're cross-referencing, as well as "viral outbreak."  It's basically 28 Days Later but on a train.  It is very well-done, however, with good pacing, excellent makeup work, and solid performances.  I would have liked to have some more character development of the other passengers but it wasn't a deal-breaker.

Expect an American remake here in the next year or so.  It will be interesting to see how or if the American version changes the central message of family/community > self-interest.  Somehow I don't see that playing as well over here.

Pumpkin rating:  4.5/5

Horrorthon 2018 Day 19 - The Skin I Live In (2011)

  You have to dig a little deeper to find the horror in this movie but for a certain subset of viewers, it might be enough.

Robert (Antonio Banderas) is a brilliant surgeon working on a prototype replacement for human skin that is impervious to insects (say goodbye to malaria and Lyme's disease) and burns.  Of course, The Man calls his breakthroughs a dangerous overreach and breach of bioethics.  But the woman who looks uncannily like his dead wife (Elena Anaya) he has locked in a room in his house is totally going to show all those people.  As soon as she gives up trying to kill herself.

Trust me when I tell you, that's not even the horror part.  You think "oh, kidnapped girl with dead wife's face, that's pretty horrific" but it gets much weirder.

Banderas is phenomenal here and I think it's because he's not just phoning it in like he has been for the last ten of his roles in American films.  Anaya has that feminine fragility that so many people seem to respond to, though I personally find it a little cloying.  The small cast does wonders for focusing the drama, however, and both actors are more than capable of shouldering the load.

To avoid spoilers, I'm not going to try and unpack the third act twist, though it should hopefully spark discussion amongst yourselves.  Let's just say you could probably have a whole college class on examining the intersections of gender roles, sexuality, trauma, and identity presented in this film.  As a warning, there are a couple of rape scenes.  Neither is especially graphic but still, definitely rape.

Pumpkin rating:  4.3/5

Horrorthon 2018 Day 18 - Final Destination 3 (2006)

  The gimmick returns!  Did you know there are six of these fucking things?  Don't worry, this is the last one we're going to cover.

Wendy (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) gets a premonition about a roller coaster coming off the tracks and manages to get herself and seven other people off the ride before the vision comes true.  Now death is blah blah blah, same thing as last time.

The franchise was definitely losing steam by this point.  The deaths are all in pairs which both lessens their impact and provides a lot of empty space with teenagers not dying in gruesome ways.  Tony Todd makes another cameo but only in voice form and Winstead is the only name you'll recognize from the credits (though there is a guy named Texas Battle, which is awesome) and there's really not much more to recommend it.  In some ways, this feels more mean-spirited in tone, more nihilistic.  The other two had a kind of dark-hearted fun but this one seems to be more serious about hating irritating teens.

Pumpkin rating:  3.1/5

Horrorthon 2018 Day 17 - She Who Must Burn (2015)

  Hey, remember yesterday when I was mad because At the Devil's Door didn't seem to have any sort of message I could discern?  Well this one is about a group of fanatical Christians persecuting a planned parenthood nurse.  Yep, no agenda there at all.

Angela (Sarah Smyth) refuses to leave town just because the state has pulled funding for the clinic she worked at and protesters keep invading her property calling her a baby murderer.  It's just words, right?  When she helps the abused wife (Jewel Staite) of the local evangelical leader (Shane Twerdun) leave town, however, shit gets personal.

So this film actually opens with a guy shooting a doctor in a women's clinic.  It also features a pretty graphic depiction of marital rape, domestic violence, and a stillbirth.  99% of the violence in this movie is against women.  Is that horror?  Yes.  Is it a real horror that women are forced to confront in their lives?  Yes.  Now your mileage on watching it on screen may vary, but personally I could have done with a little less realism.  This is obviously a hyperbolic story but it's not as exaggerated as it should be.  Abortion and the larger issue of women's rights over their bodies has been a hot button for decades and I'm not here to tell you what to think about it.  If watching this movie makes you reconsider arguments you've had or how your behavior may appear to others, cool.  If it makes you dismissive because the rhetoric is so heavy-handed, I can understand that.  Mostly, I hope it makes you feel a little sick to your stomach.

Okay, that's message out of the way and for better or worse, I'm glad this movie had one.  Because there's really not much else to recommend it.  The two biggest failings are the constant shaky cam and the need for a much tighter edit.  There were sections in the beginning where I was literally counting how many seconds could have been shaved off without sacrificing the point of the scene.  Thankfully, the performances are good enough to carry the film through these plodding times.

I honestly don't know who this movie is for.  Anyone pro-life is going to be immediately put off by the central premise so that's a wasted effort.  Pro-choice people are going to be horrified, sure, but mostly depressed by that deus ex machina bullshit ending.

Pumpkin rating:  2.3/5

Horrorthon 2018 Day 16 - At the Devil's Door (2014)

  This is one of those films that's good right up until the ending when it sucks.

When Leigh (Catalina Sandino Moreno) dies after inspecting a house on the market, her sister Vera (Naya Rivera) begins looking into the circumstances.  She traces the trouble back to the original owner's 17-year-old daughter, Hannah (Ashley Rickards), and a pact the girl might have made with the devil.

Okay, first things first, ladies.  If you meet a cute boy and he tells you he knows a way you can score a lot of extra money and all you have to do is go to a crossroads and say your name, politely say no and GTFO.  This has been your daily PSA.

The first half of this movie is waaaaaay better than the second half.  I was really enjoying the flashbacks of young Hannah trying to cope with what she had unwittingly agreed to, interspersed with Leigh's increasing concern.  Once the action shifts to focus solely on Vera, the whole thing kind of goes pear-shaped and unfortunately falls headlong into a Rosemary's Baby/The Omen death spiral.  I was hoping for some kind of commentary, a metaphor maybe about whatever message this movie was espousing (nurture > nature?), but got nothing.

Pumpkin rating:  2.9/5

Horrorthon 2018 Day 15 - Hatchet (2006)

  Remember when I said I loved horror films because they're almost never actually what they're purportedly about?  Throw all that out the window.  Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar and sometimes, a deformed hillbilly out in the bayou killing tourists is just that.

Ben (Joel David Moore) is trying to get over his last relationship but all the partying in Mardi Gras New Orleans just makes him feel more lonely and depressed.  He decides to go on a haunted swamp tour and his best friend Marcus (Deon Richmond) reluctantly accompanies him.  The tour guide (Parry Shen) spins a fanciful tale of local legend Victor Crowley (Kane Hodder) only to be corrected by Marybeth (Tamara Feldman), a local with a secret of her own.  Things really get dire when the tour boat gets stuck and the group is forced to venture into Crowley's swamp to find their way back to civilization.

This is a really fun movie and very underrated, considering I had never heard of it before one of Ain't It Cool News' yearly horror movie round-ups (which they don't appear to be doing this year, sad face.)  The actors are not A-listers but you've seen them in things and they convincingly sell the dialogue and respective relationships between their characters.  The humor works and so does the gore.  Being horribly mutilated by a hatchet to the face on top of an existing deformity makes it difficult for Hodder's Victor Crowley to emote but his choice of weapons and various methods of dispatching these interlopers points to a sense of whimsy I appreciate in my spree killers.

Working against it are some amateurish camera work, a boring start (just the Bourbon Street scenes, not the gator poachers right at the beginning), and a truly abrupt end.  Otherwise, this is a fine entry into the slasher hall of fame.

Pumpkin rating:  3.6/5

Horrorthon 2018 Day 14 - Hereditary (2018)

  This is the best horror film of the year so far.  I haven't been this happy since The Conjuring or Sinister.

Annie (Toni Collette) is trying to get back to normal after the death of her mother but the lingering sense of guilt and anger remains.  Distracted, she tells her son, Peter (Alex Wolff), to take his little sister, Charlie (Milly Shapiro), to a high school party which results in further tragedy.  Desperate, Annie turns to spiritualism but uncovers a far darker secret within her family.

It's best if you don't know what you're getting into.  Toni Collette is a modern-day scream queen and I couldn't be happier about it.  This film presents a rich mythology, plenty of disturbing imagery, and some really fascinating cinematography, especially the day to night edits.  The sorrow and guilt feel real, which leads to a genuine sense of horror later on as things turn weird.  I have been holding off giving out a perfect pumpkin score because I didn't want to seem hyperbolic but this totally deserves it.

This is going to be one of my favorite horror movies from now on.  I can feel it.

Pumpkin score:  5/5

Horrorthon 2018 Day 13 - Tales from the Darkside: the Movie (1990)

  This is a fun little anthology film from back in the day.  I saw it such a long time ago but only remembered one part, "The Promise," and that Julianne Moore was in it.  That's it.

A boy (Matthew Lawrence) desperately spins three separate tales of terror to distract an evil woman (Debbie Harry) from trying to bake him in an oven:  a college boy (Steve Buscemi) summoning a mummy (Michael Deak) to wreak vengeance on those who wronged him, a hitman (David Johanson) summoned by an eccentric millionaire (William Hickey) to kill a cat, and an artist (James Remar) who gives his oath not to reveal the supernatural entity he witnessed commit a murder.

This movie is damn near 30 years old and it lost whatever scare factor it had about 29 years ago.   Now, it's just a fun Halloween anthology to put on during a party, or watch with friends, or even as an introduction to smaller viewers (say 10 and up).  It's campy, especially the musical cues, and fun with practical effects and gonzo storylines.  Not the kind of thing that will keep you up at night but at least all segments seem well-done and cohesive.

Pumpkin rating:  3.2/5

Horrorthon 2018 Day 12 - 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)

  According to Rotten Tomatoes, this is a horror movie.  I had just stuck it in under sci-fi but it does have a lot of horror elements.

Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is having a rough day.  She has broken off her engagement and driven out to the middle of Louisiana in an effort to get away from her problems only to find herself involved in a car accident.  She wakes up injured and handcuffed in a bunker, the prisoner of Howard (John Goodman), a doomsday prepper with a conspiracy theory for every occasion.  Incredibly skeptical of Howard's claim that he rescued her from an apocalypse of some kind, Michelle confers with Emmett (John Gallagher, Jr.), another resident of the bunker, and learns that Howard may be telling the truth about the dangers outside.  But "right" doesn't mean "not crazy."

I remember reading about this movie, including all the spoilers, because I had zero interest in seeing it.  I didn't like the original Cloverfield and honestly, just the association was enough to turn me off.  I probably never would have seen it if Christy hadn't given me her copy to burn onto my server.  It is actually a decent locked room thriller, elevated by a stellar cast and (for fucking ONCE) a heroine who doesn't fall the fuck apart when presented with danger.  Michelle is never presented as stupid or helpless, even when she is overmatched.  She clearly feels fear but never lets it overwhelm her.

And it's tight.  There's no time spent on useless subplots or trying to shoehorn in a romance or even hint at Stockholm Syndrome.  The movie is focused on its goal and even as each twist presents itself, that goal just gets adjusted rather than replaced.  I think bringing Damien Chazelle in for a script rewrite was absolutely the right call.  The man knows how to craft a sharp story.

Pumpkin rating:  4.6/5

Horrorthon 2018 Day 11 - Life After Beth (2012)

  This is the best new (to me) horror-comedy so far.  I had heard some good things but I was blown away by how much I enjoyed this film.

Zach (Dane DeHaan) is understandably upset when his girlfriend Beth (Aubrey Plaza) dies in an accident, just as he is overjoyed to find her suddenly returned to the living.  But as Beth's personality changes in response to her new needs as a zombie, Zach begins to wonder if maintaining the relationship is worth the effort.

Relationships are hard, especially when you're young and it's your first serious one.  How do you know when it's time to move on?  Most people have at least one story about being grateful for a major life event that forced a separation when they just couldn't bring themselves to do it.  They went away to college, joined the military, graduated college, or took a job in another state/town/country.  It can be a relief to have an excuse that isn't "This just isn't working out any more."  Those that can't manage to find an out get stuck in an unhappy cycle of wanting to leave, resenting the other person for not sensing their unhappiness, and chickening out of telling that person until they get an excuse or become so obnoxious the other person is forced to leave them.  Prolonging a relationship past its natural lifespan is a recipe for disaster, in other words, like staying with your girlfriend because you "love" her even after she comes back as a zombie. 

This movie would have fallen on its face if it weren't for the stellar cast.  John C. Reilly and Molly Shannon are great as Beth's stunned but elated parents, while Paul Reiser and Cheryl Hines own their scenes as Zach's skeptical ones.  Matthew Gray Gublar is an absolute riot as Zach's gun-toting brother and their chemistry is fantastic.  Anna Kendrick, Adam Pally, and Garry Marshall also have excellent cameos. 

I also appreciated that the word "zombie" was used in the script and acknowledged by the characters even when they were rationalizing how unlikely that scenario would be.  Zach latches on to the idea that the housekeeper (Eva La Dare) must know what's going on because she's Haitian, which leads to a hilarious confrontation about his inherent biases while recognizing that zombies are a thing.

Pumpkin rating:  4.5/5

Horrorthon 2018 Day 10 - Final Destination 2 (2003)

  I haven't seen the original Final Destination in probably 20 years and I didn't find it interesting enough to ever look for sequels.  Apparently other people did not feel the same because there are four of these suckers running around which means some of y'all are perpetuating this mess.

Kimberley (A.J. Cook) is looking forward to a road trip with her best pals when she has a premonition of a horrible accident on the road.  Desperately, she blocks the on-ramp and prevents a handful of people from grisly deaths.  Then, one-by-one, the survivors start dying in freak accidents.  Kimberley reaches out to Clear Rivers (Ali Larter), the last of the Flight 180 survivors for advice on how to stop Death's grand design.

I have to say, this wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be.  Part of the fun of the first one was seeing the sheer number of bizarre, Rube-Goldberg-esque accidents and the sequel recognizes that by continuing to have them and also to present situations where the characters in danger realize they could happen.  Watching an otherwise useless character like Rory (Jonathan Cherry) nervously eye the sports equipment in another character's apartment, calculating the path of a bowling ball rolling off a shelf and propelling a pair of hockey skates like guillotine blades, before triggering a completely unrelated flood of harmless equipment makes for a humorous wink at the film's definitive trope. 

Visually, the movie is complete garbage.  The fashion trends of the early 00s are unfortunately extremely distinct, and date this film terribly.  The characters are annoyingly one-note, being defined more by labels than personality.  We are given no reason to root for or bemoan their violent deaths or to hope they survive the curse.  Where the first film ended on an appropriately nihilistic note, the second strives for a cutesy Hollywood finale for its romantic leads.  Fortunately, nearly all of the actors have transcended this early stepping stone, with A. J. Cook having a starring role in Criminal Minds for over a decade now.

Horror-wise, this is better.  There are some solid set pieces with decent gore and a nice cameo from Tony Todd, a horror icon in his own right.  I definitely wouldn't keep this around for casual viewing but for a Horrorthon, it's a decent addition.

Pumpkin rating:  3.4/5

Horrorthon 2018 Day 9 - The House of the Devil (2009)

  This is the Christy pick for October.  She doesn't like horror movies so she just picked this from a list on Rotten Tomatoes so in this instance she can't be blamed for how shitty it is, since it's sitting at an 86%.  But it is shitty.

Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) is a cash-strapped college student looking to get her own place outside of the dorms so when she sees a poster for a babysitter, she figures it's worth a shot.  Over the objections of her friend Megan (Greta Gerwig), Samantha drives to a huge house in the middle of nowhere.  The owner (Tom Noonan) seems nice but also really desperate and admits that the child he and his wife (Mary Woronov) had is an adult and long-gone.  Instead of getting the fuck out like a rational human being, Sam agrees to stay and look after the aged mother-in-law instead of the kid she was expecting while the homeowners go out to see the lunar eclipse. 

This is clearly based on the slow-burn horror thrillers of the 1970s and early 80s as much as the "Satanic Panic" phenomenon on which it's supposedly predicated.  Filmmaker Ti West wrote, directed, and edited, making this as close to a one-man show as possible, so there's no reason to expect things weren't done on purpose here.  Which makes some of the resulting decisions absolutely baffling.

For starters, this film is an hour and 33 minutes long, which is fine, except that nothing happens for an hour and twenty minutes.  The last 13 minutes are jam-packed but at that point it feels like a waste.  There is some good imagery being put to use in those crammed final minutes but it's not enough to bring back my interest.

Pumpkin rating:  2.9/5

Horrorthon 2018 Day 8 - Victor Frankenstein (2015)

  You guys, I am not finding a lot of horror films to go in my Horrorthon.  This is billed as a horror comedy but I think it might just be because they used the story of horror icon Frankenstein.  Fun fact:  I took two (two!) whole classes covering Mary Shelley's Frankenstein in college, both the original 1818 version and the more widely known 1831 published version.  I have also seen all the Universal films featuring Boris Karloff.  It's safe to say that I know what I'm talking about here.

This bears almost no resemblance to Frankenstein except for the shared use of the name.  It's like the screenwriter went around and asked a room full of people what they remembered about Frankenstein and then added dialogue.

That being said, it's still a fun movie.  But it could really have been called anything.

Igor (Daniel Radcliffe) is reviled as a hunchback in a traveling circus but when a beautiful trapeze artist (Jessica Findley Brown) plummets from the sky, his ability to correctly diagnose and correct the problem wins him the attention of Victor Frankenstein (James McAvoy), a medical student at the circus to hopefully score some dead exotic animals for his experiments.  Frankenstein frees Igor, fixes his back (in probably the grossest scene in the movie), and makes him his assistant.  Things look to be going well for the pair until a police detective (Andrew Scott) becomes convinced Frankenstein is a tool for Satan and charges them with murder.

There's only one scene that might qualify as horror and that is "Gordon's" escape and rampage through the college.  If you are easily put off by a rotting chimp head, maybe cover your eyes during that scene.  But that's really all there is to it.

The most serious flaw in this film is its attempt to add villains to try and distract viewers from how monstrous Frankenstein himself is.  Victor Frankenstein is the villain.  Always has been.  Always will be.  Trying to make his brand of destructive hubris seem normal or even endearing is disingenuous at best and diabolical at worst.  Victor is by turns a friend and abuser to Igor, constantly placing conditions on their relationship, attempting to restrict Igor's involvement with others, and punishing Igor by withholding affection.  Adding a fanatical cop and an unscrupulous financier (Freddie Fox) just seem like desperate attempts to find characters that make Frankenstein look good by comparison.

Pumpkin rating:  3.6/5

Horrorthon 2018 Day 7 - Stitches (2012)

  It's hardly Halloween without a killer clown movie, is it?  This is a fairly slight import from Ireland but what it lacks in originality it makes up for in sheer gore.

Young Tommy's (Tommy Knight) 10th birthday ends in tragedy when the hired clown, Stitches (Ross Noble), falls face first onto a kitchen knife.  Unsurprisingly, Tommy is turned off the idea of birthday parties in general and doesn't have another until he is about to turn 16.  It seems like it's going well until Stitches returns from the grave to murder all the children that contributed to his death.

Like I said, the clown-returning-from-the-dead thing isn't a new concept but I will give this movie credit for delving a bit deeper into clown lore, including the eggs painted with their faces and the traditional clown funeral, both of which have a role in the proceedings.  Clowns are much maligned as performers but they do have an incredibly rich history that so often gets ignored.

It's a low-budget, low-key affair with mostly practical effects for the blood and gore.  The cast of teens actually look like teenagers and it's filled with the kinds of jokes that teens would find funny, like turning someone's intestines into a balloon dog.  A little low-brow for me but one takes what one can get with a killer clown movie.

I doubt this is going to spontaneously cure any sufferers of coulrophobia (that's fancy-talk for fear of clowns) but it's much more in line with Killer Klowns from Outer Space as far as the actual scare factor and would make for a pretty fun double feature with the right crowd.

Pumpkin rating:  3.3/5

Horrorthon 2018 Day 6 - Don't Breathe (2016)

  I don't think this is the best American horror film in the last 20 years, but it's not bad.

A gang of three thieves have been committing robberies around Detroit.  Alex (Dylan Minette) lifts the keys from his father's home security business, then he and his two friends let themselves in, boost non-cash items, and then trigger the alarm on their way out.  Alex is very conscientious about there being no one in the house and only robbing those that can afford the insurance.  Rocky (Jane Levy) is just doing this to get enough money for her and her little sister to get out of Detroit forever and Money (Danial Zovatto), well, he just wants money.  So of course it's Money who picks the house of a blind Gulf War veteran (Stephen Lang) as their next and hopefully last target.  He knows that the blind man received a massive cash settlement when his daughter was killed by a rich family and that it's just sitting in the house, waiting for them.  Despite Alex's objections, the trio break in only to discover that blind doesn't mean non-dangerous.

There's this old movie called Wait Until Dark that's about a gang of thieves who break into a blind woman's house and terrorize her.  This is like the polar opposite of that.  I've liked Jane Levy since Suburgatory and she has the makings of an excellent scream queen.  Stephen Lang is terrifying even when he's not trying to be so excellent casting all around.  There are also some really nice camera effects like when the characters' pupils are fully dilated when they are filmed in the pitch black (that's not really pitch black because it's still a movie and the audience needs to see what the fuck is happening).  Plus it's a nice little throwback to the night-vision goggles scene in The Silence of the Lambs.

I wasn't sold on the Evil Dead remake that was also directed by Fede Alvarez and starred Levy.  This is solid but also not winning any prizes for me.  I have to give it credit for maintaining tension but it never quite reached the level of horror for me.

Pumpkin rating:  3.5/5

Horrorthon 2018 Day 5 - Dead Ringers (1988)

  This film is directed by famed body horror auteur David Cronenberg.  I had never seen it before but I had been looking forward to it as I have a relatively strong stomach for that kind of thing.  If medical procedures or instruments freak you out, this is probably not the film for you.  I found it pretty tame as far as gore, with the real horror being in the relationship between the Mantle twins.

Elliot and Beverly Mantle (both played by Jeremy Irons) are well-respected doctors who jointly run a clinic in Toronto catering exclusively to curing women's infertility.  Elliot, the more extroverted twin, also uses it as a dating scene.  He scouts out a likely target, fucks her until he gets bored, then passes her off to his more diffident brother.  Many times, the women won't even notice the change.  Claire Niveau (Genevieve Bujold) is a successful actress and unwitting dupe of the Mantle twins.  When she discovers the con, she rightfully calls them out on it and breaks ties.  For Elliot, this is one of the hazards of the game and he dismisses it as such.  Bev is not so sanguine.  His choice to try and win Claire back on his own marks the first time the twins have not been of one mind.  This and the ready supply of drugs available contribute to a systematic devolution as Bev becomes more and more deranged.

Jeremy Irons gives an amazing and I would imagine exhausting double performance.  The camera tricks used to simulate him as a pair of twins are subtle and hold up extremely well by today's CGI-magic standards.  The plot is a little melodramatic for my tastes and there's nobody to really root for as a survivor.  The nicest thing you can say about Claire is that she's not actually evil but she is kind of a self-absorbed bitch.  She's still miles better than either of the twins, though.  Elliot is a sociopath and Bev is hot mess.  The fact that Irons manages to make both of them sympathetic in the final act is a testament to how good an actor he is.

A lot of horror movies have deeper themes and this is no exception.  Cronenberg ups the squirm factor on looking at unhealthy co-dependence with drugs and relationships both romantic and familial.  Bev is meant to be the less dominant twin, but when he falls apart so does Elliot, the "strong" one.  Claire is unhealthily fixated on having a child, despite the genetic deformity that brings her to the brothers in the first place.  All three have a huge hole in their souls that they keep trying to fill with external things, which manifests in dangerous, reckless behavior.  Honestly, it's a cautionary tale about seeking validation in others rather than building it from within wrapped in a quasi-incestuous package.

Pumpkin rating:  4/5

Horrorthon 2018 Day 4 - Vampire in Brooklyn (1995)

  This one is kind of a ringer because I've seen it before, but I haven't reviewed it so it doesn't technically violate any of the rules.

I love this movie.  Vampires have always been my favorite monsters and this is such a great take on the Dracula tale.

Maximillian (Eddie Murphy) is the last of his breed of vampire and he has traveled from the Caribbean to Brooklyn to search for his destined mate, Rita (Angela Bassett), a woman born from a union of a human and a vampire.  He must seduce her before the next full moon or his line will end.  Unfortunately, Rita is a cop and not as susceptible to Max's charms as he would like. 

This has held up surprisingly well.  Eddie Murphy was in peak form and restrained himself to only playing three characters in the movie.  Angela Bassett is so often cast as the badass, it was a fun turn to see her play a character so vulnerable (but still badass).  Kadeem Hardison was almost too much comic relief for me as the motor-mouth ghoul/Renfield but he was Tyler's favorite character.  He did have kind of a manic charm.

And even though Eddie Murphy did his whole Eddie-Murphy thing, this isn't just a spoof.  It was directed by horror maestro Wes Craven and never skimps on the sense of menace or danger.  It's just menace and danger with witty one-liners thrown in. 

I thought it was also great that Rita is the instrument of her own salvation and freedom.  Part of the vampire's "seduction" is to systematically eliminate Rita's support system of friends, spiritual leaders, and especially the potential romantic rival of her NYPD partner, Justice (Allen Payne).  Max repeats through the movie that he needs to have Rita go to him willingly, and then he does everything possible to manipulate her.  That's not romance, that's abuse.  Sure, Justice (ugh, such a terrible name for a cop) figures out that Max is a vampire and tries to rescue Rita, but ultimately, she's the one who decides her own fate.

I also really love how traditional Max's vampire is.  He can shapeshift into a bat or wolf, control mist, mesmerize, sleeps in a coffin of graveyard dirt (sand, in his case because Caribbean), and levitate, if not outright fly.  After all the daywalkers, sparklers, and mutated virus survivors, it's nice to see a return to the classics.

Pumpkin rating:  4.5/5

Horrorthon 2018 Day 3 - All the Boys Love Mandy Lane (2006)

  Well, we've hit our first real dud.  The slasher sub-genre has never really been my cup of tea simply because there are so many following the exact same tropes.  There have been deconstructions, purposeful inversions, and surprisingly good formula-followers, but overall it's just been done to death.  Then resurrected, ret-conned, and killed again.

Everyone gathered at Red's (Aaron Himmelstein) ranch knows that the true goal of the party is to see which dude is finally going to hook up with angelic, virginal Mandy Lane (Amber Heard), though they also do a lot of drinking and drugs.  Then an uninvited stalker shows up and starts killing off all the drunk, horny teens. 

There is the obligatory "twist" ending though it's less twisty than one might have hoped.

Honestly, I just don't know who this is supposed to scare.  Mandy spends 90% of the film a practically mute, personality-less sex object for the teenage boys to obsess over and the final 10% as a murderous, manipulative bitch.  There is no indication of any sort of internal life or motivating factors.  There's no depth to her, or to any of the other female characters.  Chloe (Whitney Able) and Marlin (Melissa Price) are desperate for male attention and willing to slander and destroy each other's self-esteem to get it.  The boys, meanwhile, are no fucking prizes.  Jake (Luke Grimes) is a completely unredeemable asshole.  Red and Bird (Edwin Hodge) are slightly better by comparison, but still total dicks to each other and to the other two girls.  All of them are so awful, I was hoping the killer would show up way earlier.

I'm actually shocked Amber Heard would choose to be in this movie, though I guess it was technically her first starring role.  Fortunately, all of these actors have moved on to bigger and better things.

Pumpkin rating:  1/5

Horrorthon 2018 Day 2 - House (1977)

  This movie is absolutely bonkers.  It's billed as a horror movie and yeah, it's got horror elements, but time has not been kind and by today's standards, this barely counts as PG-13.

Pissed off at her dad, Gorgeous (Kimiki Ikagami) invites herself and her six best friends to spend summer vacation at the country home of her reclusive, invalid Aunt (Yoko Minamida).  Once there, the girls --who are all named for their one defining attribute e.g., Kung Fu, Melody, Sweet)-- start disappearing one by one and only Fantasy (Kumiko Ohba) believes something supernatural is happening.  Can the remaining girls figure out what evil is lurking in the house before it's too late?

**SPOILERS**  No, they fucking can't.  This is one of the few films I've seen where the evil entity totally wins without really much of a fight.  It's kind of amazing. **END SPOILERS**

I have to hand it to Yoko Minamida.  Her evil Auntie looks like she's having the best fucking time munching down on severed teenage hands and freaking people out with eyeballs.  According to Wikipedia, the special effects were intentionally made to be ridiculous since the entire idea was based on the director's daughter's childhood fears but also says that the director admitted he had no idea how some of the effects would look in post-production and they didn't all turn out the way he wanted.  So the fact that some of the blue-screen work looks like it was drawn with crayons and the "blood" looks more like red Kool-Aid makes more sense now.

Also, it is intentionally a horror comedy.  The psychedelic vignettes, whiplash editing, montages, and loopy soundtrack can all be chalked up to the late 70s.

This is considered a cult classic and while it's not to my particular taste, I can see why.

Pumpkin rating:  2.5/5

Horrorthon 2018 Day 1 - A Cure for Wellness (2016)

It's the first of October and for a whole month, I'll be reviewing a horror movie a day!  So here's the rules if you want to follow along at home.

1.  Horror movies only.  Not "Halloween" movies, geared for children like Hotel Transylvania or Casper.  Horror comedies, yes.  Psychological thrillers are case by case.

2.  No TV for obvious reasons.  It just takes too long.

3.  No repeats or movies I've already reviewed.  Unfortunately, that rules out The Exorcist, my all-time favorite horror movie.

Ready?  Let the horror commence!

  This is what I would classify as "atmospheric horror."  There's no real violence or gore, just some mild body horror and a lot of reliance on surreal visuals and gaslighting.

After being caught cooking the books to get a promotion, Lockhart (Dane DeHaan) is charged with a specific task:  go to Switzerland and retrieve Mr. Pembroke (Harry Groener) from a ritzy sanitarium so Pembroke can either unfuck the financials or take the blame (I wasn't clear which outcome and it doesn't matter anyway).  Lockhart notices that things are really creepy at this remote "wellness" facility but it takes him an embarrassingly long time (two and a half fucking hours!) to put it all together.

This movie had way better cinematography and production design than it deserved.  It's kind of a half-baked Shutter Island/One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest/Gaslight pastiche with a dash of Hitchcock's Spellbound.  Fortunately, Dane DeHaan's wheelhouse is this kind of horror and he sells it, even when it's bargain basement.  I did feel kind of bad for Mia Goth, stuck playing the wide-eyed, damaged-girl-with-a-secret.  Hopefully the rest of her career will only be up from here.

As a warning, this does involve a fairly graphic sexual assault and some nudity.  Not for children.

I don't generally like giving starred reviews because films are such subjective experiences but for the occasion, I'd say this is three lit pumpkins and two squashed ones.  Great atmosphere, bad plot.

Pumpkin rating:  3/5