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.

Oops! All Horror - Day 21 - Ravenous (1996)

  Content warning: blood, cannibalism, some gore, animal death (horses)

Captain Boyd (Guy Pearce) is a reluctant Spanish-American war hero who is exiled to Fort Spencer, California, a decrepit bastion holding one of the Sierra Nevada passes.  On a snowy night, a stranger stumbles into the fort bearing a tale of desperation.  Father Calqhoun (Robert Carlyle) was traveling with a wagon train when they were led astray and forced to winter in a cave.  Hunger beset them and they turned to murder and cannibalism.  Colqhoun tearfully recounts his flight, certain that he would have been the next victim.  The fort commander, Colonel Hart (Jeffrey Jones), immediately puts together a rescue party but the local guide, George (Joshua Running Fox), warns Boyd of the legend of the Wendigo, a man with an insatiable desire for human flesh.

This is one of those movies that is just so fun to watch it makes up for any flaws.  Pearce and Carlyle have incredible chemistry together, although Carlyle alone could carry this movie.  The soundtrack is so bouncy and jovial, you'll forget you're watching people flee for their lives.  If the tone doesn't work for you, I get it.  I love horror comedies and it's by far the funniest cannibalism movie I've ever seen.  The folklore elements are pretty spot-on and it actually casts Native actors in Native roles, which is better than a lot of its 90s peers.  

I saw this a long time ago, about a year after it premiered, and I've kept my copy ever since then.  It's absolutely worth the money, but if you just want to stream it, it's also available on Amazon Prime.

Oops! All Horror - Day 20 - Stranger Things season 5 (2025)

  Content warning:  blood, child endangerment, some gore, eldritch monstrosities, mangled limbs

The town of Hawkins, Indiana is under martial law, quarantined after the confrontation with Vecna/Henry Creel (Jamie Campbell Bower) split the town into four sections.  A resistance network has formed, with Hopper (David Harbour) and the boys leading crawls into the tunnel network under the town, connecting with the Upside Down in an attempt to locate Henry, while Eleven/Jane (Millie Bobby Brown) trains her psychic powers for a final confrontation.

We are ending a lot of things this year.  I didn't get into the fandom around this show but I enjoyed it for what it was.  I know the finale got a lot of flack from people but I think any ending is going to be divisive.  It went pretty much the way I expected.  A two-hour run time is crazy, though.  

There are probably easier ways to get kids to play Dungeons & Dragons, but it's streaming on Netflix.

Oops! All Horror - Day 19 - Buffet Infinity (2026)

  Content Warning:  mild gore

Buffet Infinity has opened in the town of Westbridge, Alberta, Canada.  It's got everything.  Just ignore the sinkhole out back.  And the weird, pervasive noise.  And the lack of staff.  And the constant expansion.  

The entire movie is a series of local commercials and news alerts that somehow tells a coherent narrative.  It's possibly the most original film I've ever seen and certainly the most original this year.  And I feel like it'll come and go and no one will have ever heard of this outside film festivals and gorehounds like me.  It is 100% not for everyone.  If someone channel-surfing sets your teeth on edge, for example.  If you've never been up late and flipped through all the infomercials in a kind of mindless haze, best to skip this.  But if you have a weird nostalgia for the shitty used cars ads that were kind of like mini-serials, or the box collections of CDs for people you've never heard on a radio, please watch this.  Please reward this kind of ingenuity.  I promise you it's worth it.

It's streaming on Shudder/AMC+.  It's got the sauce.

Oops! All Horror - Day 18 - I Walked With a Zombie (1943)

  Content warning:  dead animal (sheep), passive racism, suicide (drowning)

Betsy Connell (Frances Dee) is a young Canadian nurse who accepts a position in the West Indies to care for the wife of a sugar plantation owner.  Jessica (Christine Gordon) had a severe fever that left her mind impaired.  She can eat and walk unaided, and follow simple commands, but cannot talk or have any real agency.  Betsy finds herself drawn to Paul (Tom Conway), Jessica's sullen husband but is warned off by his half-brother, Wesley (James Ellison), who claims Paul drove Jessica mad before her illness.  Desperate to restore Jessica's mind, Betsy turns to a houngan, a Vodou priest, for a cure.

Why, yes, it is a more racist Jane Eyre.  Apparently by design.  It was based on a magazine article about Haitian plantation workers' drug use destroying their minds but obviously, that wasn't sexy enough for RKO.  Creative liberties aside, the movie is beautifully shot.  It is also edited down to the bones, clocking in at a speedy 68 minutes.

Gordon is a vacant-eyed doll but dressed impeccably.  Even her voodoo doll looked great.  The men kind of suck but I typically don't care about men's fashion.  Women looked great though.  Conway is the only one in the cast with an English accent which I would probably not have cared about if the movie hadn't tried to explain it as "uh, he and his brother went to different boarding schools."  

If you're looking for vibes without gore or jump scares, here's one for you but you're going to have to whip out the VPN or pay real money to rent or buy.