Black Christmas (1974)

  This is regarded as a slasher classic but I wasn't really blown away.  Also, not loving how the poster tagline is dragging me for my skin care.  It's not my fault my body still produces retinol, fuckers.

A crazed maniac (Albert J. Dunk) breaks into a sorority house just before Christmas break and terrorizes the inhabitants.  It starts with obscene phone calls and escalates to picking them off one by one.  

That's it.  That's the movie.  You have to admire the straightforwardness of it even if everything else kind of sucks.  The real crime here is how laughably bad the cops are.  Even the one (John Saxon, RIP) who's good at this job still can't really do anything to keep these girls safe.  So if you wanted to write a whole thing about the deeper meaning that women's safety is an illusion and power structures are kept in place that actively harm them at the expense of Men's Feelings, you could.  Or you could, you know, BE a woman for five fucking minutes and know that to your bones.

But I want to talk about something super spoiler-y because it was the only interesting part to the whole movie so I'm going to put it in white text and you can highlight if you want to read it.  SPOILERS HERE. So Final Girl Jess (Olivia Hussey) is being harassed by her asshole ex, Peter (Keir Dullea), because she dumped him and is planning on getting an abortion.  The movie tries to pin the suspicion on Peter even though the audience knows it's not him.  Here's the thing.  When Jess finds the bodies of two other girls, she makes eye contact with the killer, who is behind the door.  His eyes are brown/hazel.  Peter later breaks in to the basement where Jess is hiding and she murders him with a fireplace poker.  His eyes are blue.  She knew he wasn't the murderer.  She killed him on purpose because she knew she would get away with it and she knew he was never going to leave her alone.  This is a woman who absolutely knew she was in danger on multiple fronts and took definitive action to reduce the threat to her person.  We stan a legend.  END SPOILERS.

On a fun personal anecdote, my mom told me about how there was a rash of obscene calling when she was working as a nurse.  Some random dude was calling women just to breathe really heavily into the phone.  It had happened to multiple nurses my mom worked with and one day, the phone rang and she picked it up.  Heavy breathing.  She told me "you were in the other room, screaming, I hadn't showered in three days, I was trying to heat your bottle, and here is this dude with some fantasy.  All I could think was 'Buddy, if you could see me now' so I laughed."  Dude hung up.  Because there is nothing more dick-shriveling than a woman's laughter.

Anyway, it's currently streaming on Criterion, Amazon Prime, Tubi, Vudu, and YouTube.

Last Shift (2014)

  I was really enjoying this film --it's like a mix between Assault on Precinct 13 and Hereditary-- right up until the last ten minutes.  So disappointing.

Officer Jessica Loren (Juliana Harkavy) is a rookie assigned to babysit a precinct that is being shut down.  All the phone lines have been rerouted, all the people cleared out, and all Loren has to do is try not to fall asleep until the cleanup crew arrives to dispose of the final pieces in the evidence locker.  Except of course that's not all.  Loren discovers that it is the one-year anniversary of the group suicide of John Michael Paymon (Joshua Mikel) and his murderous Manson wannabes in that very precinct.  She starts to believe that Paymon is reaching out from beyond the grave to complete his demonic agenda.

I'm going to try not to spoil anything but I will tell you exactly what I didn't like about this movie.  Loren has absolutely zero character development.  She doesn't learn anything, she doesn't change, she isn't redeemed or corrupted, she stays exactly the same from the first frame to the last.  Call me old-fashioned but I think horror movies work best when they have something to say.  Old 80s slashers were morality plays, 50s creature features tapped into fears about the atomic age, modern horror interrogates power structures.  This doesn't do anything except terrorize.  

And it's such a shame because the terror is really well-done!  The special effects are great, the dread and paranoia are palpable, and the tension really gets ratcheted up as the movie progresses (even if it borrows heavily from predecessors).  It could have been great but it settled for good because it treated it's main character like a paper doll.  Currently streaming on Tubi.

Elvira: Mistress of the Dark (1988)

  I can't believe I've never reviewed this film here.  I had a bad night and I needed to watch something comforting but still Halloween-y.  

Elvira (as herself) has been grinding as a hostess for low-budget sci-fi and horror films on one lousy TV channel after another but dreams of having a fabulous show of her own in Las Vegas.  She thinks her dreams are about to come true when she receives a telegram stating that an inheritance is waiting for her in Falwell, Massachusetts, but instead of a boatload of cash, all she finds is a dilapidated house, a yappy poodle, and an ancient book of recipes that frankly should come with a warning label.  It is, in fact, a spell book that confers upon the holder all the power of the dark.  Elvira's evil Uncle Vincent (W. Morgan Sheppard) would do anything to get his hands on it, including weaponizing the conservative townspeople against her.  

It's a credit to Cassandra Peterson for creating an alter ego/character that has weathered the test of time like this.  Over thirty years old and the quips are still sharp, the themes still valid, and even the special effects hold up.  Yes, it's campy and corny.  That is very on-brand.  A true Halloween classic.

Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary (2002)

  Unfortunate subtitle aside, this was one of the most interesting takes on Dracula I've ever seen.

Lucy Westenra (Tara Birtwhistle) is besieged by a wasting illness that transforms her into a creature of the night.  Her three suitors, led by Dr. Van Helsing (David Moroni), trace her troubles back to recent immigrant Count Dracula (Zhang Wei-Quiang).  Lucy rises from the dead and must be destroyed, Dracula escapes the hunters and sets his sights on Mina (CindyMarie Small) as his new bride, only to be killed by the dawn.

You know this story.  What is original here is that Pages from a Virgin's Diary is presented as a ballet filmed in the style of a German Expressionist silent film.  When I talk about being on my bullshit, this is what I mean.  If I could have injected this movie straight into my veins, I would have.  The ballet work is beautiful, Birtwhistle especially.  She basically carries the entire first half of the production and has a lovely expressive face.

If I have any complaint, it's that the camera work overshadows the ballet.  I would have liked for it to be slightly less faithful to the aesthetic in the interest of showing the dancing.  You can have too much of a good thing.  Overall, however, this was an original interpretation of a classic and I am here for it.  It's currently streaming on Tubi.

Alice, Sweet Alice (1976)

  This was rough.  Not because it was scary --it's a pretty typical slasher-- but because it has not held up well over the last forty years.  

When perfect(ly annoying) little sister Karen (Brooke Shields) is murdered on the day of her confirmation, suspicion falls on older sister Alice (Paula Sheppard).  Her mom (Linda Miller) is quick to defend but as the bodies keep piling up, it seems more and more certain that Alice is a murdering psycho.

Chalk this up as Catholic horror.  There's a lot of allusions to women's bodies being gross, inherently lustful, and how they exist to destroy strong men.  It's... a lot.  You could just have easily called this Internalized Misogyny:  The Movie and it would have been accurate.  Apparently, the director's only previous credit was an adult film that got him charged with obscenity and excommunicated by a New Jersey diocese.  Now, you could argue that Sole purposefully villainized the Roman Catholic Church's rhetoric but that does not explain his choice to make the creepy landlord (Alphonso DeNoble), clearly coded as gay, overtly feminized, slovenly, and a borderline pedophile.  It does not explain a cop bragging about feeling up a 12-year-old girl while fitting her for a polygraph.

This film has gained a cult following since release and it is very effective as a slasher.  The kills are stark and brutal, the paranoia and dread palpable, and the villain reveal both shocking and imminently predictable.  A++.  But the rampant misogyny and homophobia just ruin it for me.  It's currently streaming on Amazon Prime.

This was supposed to go up last Monday but I didn't get to it.  If I have time this weekend, I'll try and get an extra one in to make up for it.  I tried to watch The Eye (2002) this morning on YouTube but there was an ad break literally every minute so I gave up.  It was some bullshit.  How can you have a horror movie with that many interruptions?  So I'm going to try and find something else.  One more week til Halloween!

The Girl with All the Gifts (2016)

  So far, even with my truncated watchlist, I have managed to get a vampire movie, two monster films, a slasher, and now a zombie movie.  Not too bad.

Melanie (Sennla Nanua) is desperate to be loved.  But she is treated as a highly dangerous experiment, a medical oddity, and possible vector for disease.  See, the world has been overrun by the Hungries, a fungal-based zombie apocalypse that turns people into ravenous flesh eaters.  But children born with the spores, like Melanie, are symbiotic and Dr. Caldwell (Glenn Close) hopes that a cure is to be found within them.  Melanie prefers Miss Justineau (Gemma Aterton), a teacher willing to see her as a person instead of a thing, and when the military base is overrun, Melanie may be the only hope they have to survive.

This is based on a truly excellent book by Mike Carey and even though he also wrote the screenplay here, it just kind of becomes a generic zombie movie.  It's not bad by any means, and if you're a fan of the genre it is definitely worth the watch.  (But hurry.  It's only on Netflix until the end of the month.)  If you're not a fan, there is nothing for you here.  I'd still recommend the book but I also just recommend everything Carey has written.  He is very, very good.

The Guest (2014)

  I wasn't expecting to like this so much but it's a fun little slasher with 80s throwback overtones.

The Peterson family lost their son Caleb in the military, so when a man named David (Dan Stevens) shows up at their home purporting to be a friend of Caleb's, they welcome him.  Mom (Sheila Kelley) has no questions but everyone else is a little more cautious.  David is friendly and helpful, a problem-solver, and soon puts everyone but daughter Anna (Maika Monroe) at ease.  Anna does some digging into David's background which sets off alarms at a private military facility.  

It was marketed as a thriller, not as horror, but it's definitely the same vein as Halloween.  It's even set during Halloween.  Honestly, this was like a breath of fresh air for someone who's seen the classics too many times.  It's by the same team behind You're Next, which was also very fun.  It's a little skeevy with regard to the female characters which takes some points off for me, but Stevens and Monroe are both very good in it.  It's worth a watch and is currently streaming on Netflix.

Spring (2014)

Happy Indigenous Peoples Day!  Awww, it's a love story!  With monsters!

After a series of personal tragedies, Evan (Lou Taylor Pucci) decides to take a trip to Italy.  He is melancholy and at loose ends until he meets Louise (Nadia Hilker), a beautiful biochemistry student who is very much not interested in a relationship.  Evan's openness and honesty win her over against her better judgment, but time is not on Louise's side.  

This is like the spiritual opposite of Midsommar and would actually make a great double feature.  In fact, you could do a whole Year of Horror with Spring, Midsommar, Trick'r'Treat, and Krampus.  That would be a hella fun night.

Benson and Moorehead are rising stars in horror and I look forward to seeing their other works based on the strength of this debut.  The script is sharp, I like the mix of science and magic, and it's a really fun overall experience.  It's currently streaming on Tubi and IMDbTV.

Big Bad Wolves (2012)

  I wouldn't necessarily call this horror, more of a psychological thriller, but I guess that's close enough for government work.

Micki (Lior Ashkenazi) is an Israeli police officer on the trail of a serial killer.  He's pretty sure it's a school teacher named Dror (Rotem Keinan) but after a video of "enhanced interrogation" goes viral, Micki is forced to cut the suspect loose.  He has a plan, though.  He'll just kidnap Dror and force a confession.  Only one problem: the father of the latest victim, Gidi (Tzahi Grad), has the same idea.  Now Micki and Dror find themselves both at the mercy of a man willing to go to extreme lengths to get vengeance.

This reminded me of M and also Hard Candy.  The film does a good job of eliciting sympathy and suspicion in equal measure even if it doesn't offer any decent resolution.  It's billed as a black comedy and I guess the idea of two people kidnapping the same guy to torture information out of him is kind of funny but I wouldn't say it's filled with dark humor.  But I could just be jaded.

Anyway, it's currently streaming on Amazon.  Totally worth watching if you're in the mood for a thriller with low gore and high suspense.

Thale (2012)

  Today's horror comes from Norway!

Two crime scene techs, Elvis (Erlend Nervold) and Leo (Jon Sigve Skard), are cleaning out the house of a dead man when they find a secret room in the basement.  Inside, they find a mute woman (Silje Reinåmo) and a bunch of cassette tapes detailing her past.  They immediately call it in and settle in to wait for backup.  The girl doesn't seem dangerous, just weird, but as they listen to the tapes, they slowly start to realize how weird.

This was refreshing on a number of levels.  No sexual assault!  Any other movie with a naked girl in a hidden basement room it would be a given, but not here.  In fact, Thale's nudity is not lingered on or male gaze-y.  She happens to be naked but it's not treated as titillating.  Wholesome!  It's low-budget with only about four speaking roles but it never feels cheap.  The CGI on the monsters is a little dodgy but the movie saves the close-up shots for when they'll do the most good so it still works.  New mythological creatures!  Well, to me at least.  Meet the Hulda, Scandinavian forest spirits like a mix between dryads and succubi.  Yay!

It's not super gory and there aren't a lot of jump scares.  It's just a nice, atmospheric, rural horror with a good story and few, if any, cheap tropes.  Currently streaming on Tubi.

A Monster in Paris (2011)

See, this is why I didn't want to try 31 days.  Two in and I've already fucked it up.  

  Last year I didn't include any animated or horror-comedies but this year sucks so we're throwing everything in the basket.  A Monster in Paris is cute, family-friendly animation that is perfect for low-stress Halloween viewing.  

Delivery driver Raoul (Adam Goldberg) is showing off to his best friend Emile (Jay Harrington) when he accidentally mixes two potions and turns an ordinary flea into a giant.  The monster (Sean Lennon) runs into cabaret singer Lucille (Vanessa Paradis), who is impressed by his voice and names him Francoeur.  Things would be good if the Prefect of Police (Danny Huston) weren't looking for a suitable distraction from his mishandling of the recent floods.  He seizes upon the idea of a monster hunt, assigning his best inspector (Bob Balaban) to investigate.  Now Raoul, Emile, Lucille, and Francoeur must outwit the Parisian police to find a happily ever after.

I would have liked to have seen this in its original French but the English dub isn't bad.  It's currently streaming on Tubi and IMDb TV, both of which are free with ads.  I am more familiar with Tubi, so that's what I went with.  Their ad breaks aren't as intrusive as some of the other free streamers.

Girls Against Boys (2012)

  Well, I guess they couldn't all be winners.  It didn't help that my first three choices were no longer available (except for money) so even picking this one felt very much like standing in front of my fridge waiting for my standards to lower enough to find something to eat.

Shae (Danielle Panabaker) is assaulted after going out for drinks with a co-worker, Lu (Nicole LaLiberte).  Fortunately (?), Lu is a cop-killing, casually-murdering kind of girl and very quickly sets Shae on the path to vengeance, if not justice.  But when Shae is ready to move on, she discovers Lu isn't so much the let-go type.

Honestly, the biggest crime in this movie is how boring it is.  The first thirty minutes are excruciating and the rest isn't much of an improvement.  Shae is basically a pin-up doll with a gun while Lu falls into the insulting trope of "jealous lesbian."  It's lazy and homophobic.  The writing is lackluster, there are no surprises and no thrills to be had.  Even the deaths are boring and unoriginal.  

This is the stale Pop-Tart of horror films.  You can do better.  But if you're just standing in front of that fridge, it's streaming on Hulu.  Thankfully only for the month of October, then back to obscurity where it belongs.

Only Lovers Left Alive (2013)

  You might have guessed by now that I'm not doing my 31 Days of Horror feature this year, seeing as it's Oct 3 and I haven't started.  This year has been hard enough without trying to push myself to watch a movie a day.  I want this to be a hobby not a stressor.  But that doesn't mean I'm not going to watch horror movies.  I love them.

A vampire (Tilda Swinton) tries to get her immortal husband (Tom Hiddleston) to remember his joie de vivre but a sudden visit from her chaotic little sister (Mia Wasikowska) may spoil everything.

It's intensely rare for a film to be so perfectly cast but this is.  Swinton and Hiddleston don't even need makeup to play pale and perfect.  Plus, it has performances from the late Anton Yelchin and John Hurt, as well as a small bit for Jeffrey Wright.

I didn't watch this movie last year for my feature because it's not precisely a horror film.  It's just a vampire film, which is not the same thing to me.  I watched it this year, though, because I frankly need a good vampire film every once in a while.  They soothe me.  And this was like a balm to my weary Gothic little soul.  This basically just reaffirmed my commitment to vampirism as a way of life.  Honestly, creatures of the night, hit me up.  I'd be so good at it.  Like, I would be an okay werewolf but I would rock the shit out of being a vampire.

Only Lovers Left Alive is currently streaming on Starz, which I get through Amazon Prime.