We Heart Horror - Day 18: Annabelle Comes Home (2019)

  This was such a fun movie!  Ugh, it's so nice to see a horror movie (much less an entire ass franchise) devoted to having a good time.  There have been a couple of missteps, sure, but the Conjuring extended universe is really setting a high bar.

Ed (Patrick Wilson) and Lorraine Warren (Vera Farmiga) have taken possession (ha!) of the evil doll Annabelle and installed her in a shielded case in their room of cursed objects to prevent her malevolence from infecting her surroundings.  Then they promptly left on a business trip, happy and secure in the knowledge their daughter, Judy (McKenna Grace), was being watched by a responsible babysitter, Mary Ellen (Madison Iseman).  What they don't know is that Mary Ellen's friend Daniela (Katie Sarife) is fascinated by the Warrens' no-no room and also super desperate to talk to her dead dad.  Hilarity mayhem ensues.

You guys.  This was like the office pool from Cabin in the Woods made into an entire movie.  Daniela manages to awaken every single cursed object, turning the normal suburban house into a haunted nightmare.  There's a decade's-worth of spin-offs just in this movie alone.  There are werewolves, killer brides, one of those always-evil clapping monkey toys, and even a goddamn haunted board game.  A BOARD GAME.  Called FEELY-MEELY.  Coming to theaters in 2023.  (Probably.)  This movie made me so happy.

We Heart Horror - Day 17: The Amityville Horror (2005)

  This is not the original, which I have previously blogged about, but the just-as-good remake because if you can combine a horror movie with a mostly shirtless Ryan Reynolds, why wouldn't you?

The Lutz family think they've hit the jackpot when they score an enormous waterfront house on Long Island but soon discover that the price tag was hiding a sordid history.  The previous residents were murdered as they slept by one of the sons (Brendan Donaldson) who claimed he heard voices that drove him to kill.  As Kathy Lutz (Melissa George) grapples with her husband and children's altered behavior, she digs deeper into the history of the house and uncovers a dark and bloody history.

So this adds a shitload of unnecessary backstory as to why the house is haunted which leads to some disturbing imagery but not really a lot of plot relevance.  I'm not mad at it, though, because the visuals are really well done.  Stellar work by Isobel Conner as creepy dead child Jodie.  Reynolds has always been very good at switching between comic and dramatic parts and he is definitely the star of this show, even without the abs.  They don't hurt, mind you, but he didn't need them.

Both Amityville Horrors are currently streaming on Hulu.

We Heart Horror - Day 16: Children of the Corn (1984)

  I completely forgot to post yesterday.  So now you get two.

A couple (Linda Hamilton and Peter Horton) driving through Kansas have a car accident and head for the nearest town only to discover the children of said town have fallen under the influence of a demagogue named Isaac (John Franklin) and have been sacrificing any handy adults to the corn for the last three years.

Conceptually, a cult of bloodthirsty children is solid gold.  The execution, however, strays into the goofy.  The special effects have aged poorly, the protagonist is kind of a douche, and the voiceover is incredibly annoying.  I would be in favor of a remake since we seem to be having a Stephen King resurgence.  All you'd need to do would be update the couple dynamics because yikes are they dated, cut some of the trying-too-hard comic relief, slap some decent effects in there and you're ready to go. You could even get Courtney Gains to cameo as a throwback.

I do still consider it a classic but every once in a while, it could stand to be updated.  It's currently streaming on Amazon Prime.

We Heart Horror - Day 15: The Orphanage (2007)

  You guys, October is halfway over already.  That sucks.  But, alternatively, only 16 more days until Halloween!

This is one of my favorite ghost stories.  It's a Spanish film produced by Guillermo Del Toro and if you get the chance, you should absolutely check it out.

Laura (Belén Rueda) is very excited to bring her husband (Fernando Cayo) and son (Roger Princep) to the orphanage she grew up in.  She plans to revitalize the old place and turn it into a home for special needs children.  But on the day of the grand opening, her son goes missing.  Laura is desperate to find him, so desperate that she is willing to turn to anything that will help, including the supernatural.

I love this movie.  It's surprisingly poignant with a total gut punch of a third act.  In that way, it does remind me of Pan's Labyrinth but the supernatural elements are much more understated.  It's currently streaming on Hulu.

We Heart Horror - Day 14: The Omen (1976)

  Children are horrifying.  Always have been, always will be.  Especially when they are the literal spawn of Satan.

Richard Thorn (Gregory Peck), the U.S. Ambassador to Italy is devastated when he is told that his son died stillborn and is therefore very suggestible to the idea of immediately adopting another child whose mother died in childbirth.  For a few years, everything seems great.  Thorn gets a dream posting as Ambassador to Great Britain, his wife (Lee Remick) is happy, and Damien (Harvey Stephens) is a cute, normal little boy.  Then the nanny (Holly Palance) kills herself at Damien's fifth birthday party and things just go downhill from there.  Thorn slowly becomes convinced that there is something very wrong with Damien but does he have enough time to stop it?

This is an absolute classic and you should definitely watch it.  Unfortunately, it's only streaming on AMC right now and the remake is on Starz.  So if you have cable, you've got a better chance of catching it.

We Heart Horror - Day 13: Rosemary's Baby (1968)

  It has been another educational weekend for Bethany.  This time, I went with a theme of "evil children" since I ended up showing almost all slasher films last time.

Rosemary Woodhouse (Mia Farrow) and her husband, Guy (John Cassavetes), get a lucky break when they find an open apartment in the historic Bramford building, despite the building's rather gruesome reputation.  Their neighbors are a little intrusive but Rosemary writes it off as them just being nosy old people.  Everything changes when Rosemary gets pregnant, however, and well-intentioned but annoying turns into a sinister plot to steal her baby.  As the pregnancy progresses, Rosemary's trust in those around her plummets even as they close tighter and tighter around her.

The true horror of this film is not the Satanic cult but the constant gaslighting and enforced isolation Rosemary experiences.  From the beginning, she is told that her pain doesn't matter, her thoughts are confused, her feelings are unimportant.  Someone controls what she eats, what she drinks, who she sees, and she --a polite Midwestern girl-- goes along with it because she was raised not to make a scene or put herself first.

It works as a horror film and also as a reminder that we haven't progressed as far as people like to think since the 60s.  It's currently streaming on Amazon Prime and Hulu.

We Heart Horror - Day 12: Cockneys vs Zombies (2012)

  It's just not Halloween without a zombie film.

Two construction workers break open a vault sealed in 1666 and release a flood of zombies into modern London's East End.  Meanwhile, two brothers (Rasmus Hardiker and Harry Treadway) decide to rob a bank in order to get enough money to save their grandfather's (Alan Ford) retirement home from being destroyed by the same construction group.  Now, these would-be bank robbers, their hostage (Georgia King), their cousin (Michelle Ryan), friend (Jack Doolan) and local psycho (Ashley Thomas) have to rescue the old-timers before they are eaten by the walking dead.

It's refreshing to see a zombie movie clearly aware of zombies.  None of this "what are they?" "What do we do?"  "What's wrong with Grandma?" bullshit, just straight up "Oh, zombies.  Okay, aim for the head and don't let them bite you."

Cockneys vs Zombies doesn't rewrite the zombie movie formula but it is a really fun watch.  It's currently streaming for free on Tubi or on Amazon Prime if you're fancy.  Keep an eye out for former Bond girl Honor Blackman as well.