Horror Movie a Day October 2017

[Jesse412]

I definitively don't think I will be able to reach 31 movies this month but will be watching a bunch of horror films (as always).

My List this month:

• Dracula's Daughter (1936)
• Son of Dracula (1943)
• Gargoyles (1972)
• The Black Cat (1934)
• Shivers (1975)
• Cellar Dweller (1988)
• The Monster Squad (1987)
• The Return of Dracula (1958)
• House of Dracula (1945)
• Billy the Kid vs. Dracula (1966)
• Jigoku (1960)
• The Ghost of Yotsuya (1959)
• Rings (2017)
• Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966)
• Dracula Has Risen from the Grave 1968
• Eyes Without a Face (1960)
• The Curse of the Werewolf (1961)
• Motel Hell (1980)
• Split (2016)
• Repulsion (1965)
• Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970)
• Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972)

   
   
   
   

[SJP]

Was away from the PC for awhile and couldn't do reviews the past few days...

Movie 3: It Follows (2014) viewed on Netflix
In a vaguely 80s atmosphere, a girl finds she has been cursed during casual date sex: an unstoppable being now follows her wherever she goes, and only by passing the curse to others can she temporarily stop it from coming after her.
I had heard so much about how good this movie is that I got hesitant that it wouldn't live up to the hype.  Well, it was a bit of yes and no.  Right up until the halfway point, the 'It' monster is creepy, effective, and the soundtrack is great.
Then I saw what the creature does to you when it gets you.  After that, I couldn't take it seriously anymore.  It's certainly not bad after that, but the movie became a lot less tense in my estimation.  Certainly worth a look, and it's nice to see something new and different being tried, but it's very hard to take something that is terrifying in a dream (which was apparently the inspiration for It) and make it work in a movie where it has to follow rules.  Still a recommendation.

Movie 4: Beyond the Gates (2015) viewed on Netflix
Two brothers return to their father's old video store following his mysterious disappearance seven months earlier, only to find an old VHS tape that is part of a board game.  Watching it, they realize the weird tape may hold the key to finding their father...however, playing the game may hold deadly consequences.
The movie doesn't really amount to a whole heck of a lot in terms of plot...a lot, on reflection, doesn't really make sense, and what exactly the game is and why it exists (and why Barbara Crampton, in the second movie I've seen with her this month, is the host of the VCR board game) never gets explained.  Still, I ended up liking this movie way more than I should have.  It is clearly a low budget affair and has good effects for what it is (even if there is major mood whiplash when the gore occurs; it's the only points in the movie where it actually gets funny), and despite the acting being OK at best (with a collectibles shop owner being the biggest ham), I still thought it was a fun ride.  I've certainly seen worse over the years of doing this (yes, I am going to harp on that crappy 2014 Demons again...my God, was that movie pathetic), and I would consider this a nice surprise.  Nothing spectacular, but fun enough to deem worth the watch.

Movie 5: Dark and Stormy Night (2009) viewed on DVD
Far too many people come to the reading of the Cavendish will and, trapped in the mansion until morning, a killer will do anything to ensure the will reading goes their way.  And a cabbie needs 35 cents.
I felt I already pressed my luck on Netflix and wanted to watch some old favorites. A parody of 30s-50s 'mansion on the hill' films from the guys who made Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, the movie captures the feel of those movies, but has some of the silliest (intentional) dialogue ever put to film.  Highly quotable.
"I once made muffins so tiny no one could eat them.  Have you ever eaten anything that tiny?"
"Come, let us leave this room of death...and heads...that were once friends."
"Better a death threat than a threat of death."
"Take one of these.  It's a powerful, fast acting poison."

Movie 6: From Beyond (1986) viewed on Blu-ray
Experiments with an interdimensional viewing machine in an attic leads to decapitations, dangerous creatures entering our world, pineal glands the size of asparagus stalks, and weird sexual deviancy.  H.P. Lovecraft may not be proud, but he'd probably appreciate the effort.
I first saw this movie in a TV edit way back in the 80s when I was WAY too young to watch it, or even understand what the hell was going on.  All I knew was that one guy was good, then bad, then good again when he needed to be, and that somebody got covered in bees.  Definitely don't let your kids watch it, but as weird and gross as it is, Jeffrey Combs is awesome in this.  Reanimator is the most famous, but I still think this one is more fun to watch.

[4eyedraven]

Was away from the PC for awhile and couldn't do reviews the past few days...

Movie 3: It Follows (2014) viewed on Netflix
In a vaguely 80s atmosphere, a girl finds she has been cursed during casual date sex: an unstoppable being now follows her wherever she goes, and only by passing the curse to others can she temporarily stop it from coming after her.
I had heard so much about how good this movie is that I got hesitant that it wouldn't live up to the hype.  Well, it was a bit of yes and no.  Right up until the halfway point, the 'It' monster is creepy, effective, and the soundtrack is great.
Then I saw what the creature does to you when it gets you.  After that, I couldn't take it seriously anymore.  It's certainly not bad after that, but the movie became a lot less tense in my estimation.  Certainly worth a look, and it's nice to see something new and different being tried, but it's very hard to take something that is terrifying in a dream (which was apparently the inspiration for It) and make it work in a movie where it has to follow rules.  Still a recommendation.

Movie 4: Beyond the Gates (2015) viewed on Netflix
Two brothers return to their father's old video store following his mysterious disappearance seven months earlier, only to find an old VHS tape that is part of a board game.  Watching it, they realize the weird tape may hold the key to finding their father...however, playing the game may hold deadly consequences.
The movie doesn't really amount to a whole heck of a lot in terms of plot...a lot, on reflection, doesn't really make sense, and what exactly the game is and why it exists (and why Barbara Crampton, in the second movie I've seen with her this month, is the host of the VCR board game) never gets explained.  Still, I ended up liking this movie way more than I should have.  It is clearly a low budget affair and has good effects for what it is (even if there is major mood whiplash when the gore occurs; it's the only points in the movie where it actually gets funny), and despite the acting being OK at best (with a collectibles shop owner being the biggest ham), I still thought it was a fun ride.  I've certainly seen worse over the years of doing this (yes, I am going to harp on that crappy 2014 Demons again...my God, was that movie pathetic), and I would consider this a nice surprise.  Nothing spectacular, but fun enough to deem worth the watch.

Movie 5: Dark and Stormy Night (2009) viewed on DVD
Far too many people come to the reading of the Cavendish will and, trapped in the mansion until morning, a killer will do anything to ensure the will reading goes their way.  And a cabbie needs 35 cents.
I felt I already pressed my luck on Netflix and wanted to watch some old favorites. A parody of 30s-50s 'mansion on the hill' films from the guys who made Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, the movie captures the feel of those movies, but has some of the silliest (intentional) dialogue ever put to film.  Highly quotable.
"I once made muffins so tiny no one could eat them.  Have you ever eaten anything that tiny?"
"Come, let us leave this room of death...and heads...that were once friends."
"Better a death threat than a threat of death."
"Take one of these.  It's a powerful, fast acting poison."

Movie 6: From Beyond (1986) viewed on Blu-ray
Experiments with an interdimensional viewing machine in an attic leads to decapitations, dangerous creatures entering our world, pineal glands the size of asparagus stalks, and weird sexual deviancy.  H.P. Lovecraft may not be proud, but he'd probably appreciate the effort.
I first saw this movie in a TV edit way back in the 80s when I was WAY too young to watch it, or even understand what the hell was going on.  All I knew was that one guy was good, then bad, then good again when he needed to be, and that somebody got covered in bees.  Definitely don't let your kids watch it, but as weird and gross as it is, Jeffrey Combs is awesome in this.  Reanimator is the most famous, but I still think this one is more fun to watch.

It Follows and From Beyond kick ass.

[Cyrusso]

I actually have watched It follows a few times and it's a good movie. It may not make 100% sense in the end, but it's good.

[SJP]

One thing I did like about It Follows is how I immediately began watching the background to see if you could catch It coming before it arrived in certain parts of the movie...and the director knew people would be, and kept you guessing as to who the right walker was.  That was a nice touch.

Movie 7: Shaun of the Dead (2004) viewed on DVD
A slacker decides it's time to get his life together...too bad he has to prove himself in the middle of a zombie apocalypse.
Haven't seen this since the theater, even though I've owned it since it was first released, and I was glad to see I remembered about 98% of it pretty well.  Still an enjoyable flick...as a film, it is very well structured, though I still think I enjoyed Hot Fuzz a little better overall (the mood whiplash there was a little more smoothed out than it is here).  It is funny to go back after watching The Tick, seeing Pete, and going, "Oh, hey, I know that guy now!"  That and the cameo scene of the other survivor group.

Movie 8: Blood Moon (2014) viewed on Hulu
A sheriff, a stagecoach, and two bank robbers in the Wild West all converge on a ghost town, only to discover something lives there that wants none of them to survive the night.
Maybe the last few years have really set the bar low for me when it comes to werewolf movies, but...I really liked this one.  Community theater acting aside, it's actually less about the monster (which alternates being having fantastic facial expressions and looking like they threw a linebacker in a gorilla suit with a cheap mask attached) and more about the group, and I thought it was a pretty fun story, as far as these go.  They seem to set it up for a sequel or TV series or something, and even though anything continuing at this point is unlikely, I honestly wouldn't mind seeing something more with one of the characters (can't say who, would spoil the ending).
Biggest flaw, in my opinion, is the sheriff and his sidekick...there is some admittedly decent makeup effects there, but the side plot never really goes anywhere, and they really have no effect on the movie at all.  Save for one small plot point that any other character could have discovered they could've been written out and the movie would have gone on exactly the same.

I really, REALLY want to say stuff about movie 9, but I'm not done with it, and a review before it's finished wouldn't give it its due.  All I can say is, five minutes in and...wow.  Just...wow.

[Compound]

Okay, 20 minutes into New Years Evil, I can't shake the feeling that I've seen this before. After checking an older October thread, yeah. There it is in 2013.  So out it goes, and happily as it was not promising to be a good film. But here's other stuff:

Deathgasm (2016)
A Kiwi heavy metal fan finds a piece of music that when played will summon the forces of Hell to his sleepy town.

Oh, metal heads. Always summoning demons. Just once I'd like to see, say, a ska band open the gates of Hell.

Where to start? First of all, that should really be Dethgasm.  Correct spelling is so non-metal.  Anyway, it's a fairly standard plot. Bullied teen meets fellow metal head. Form a band. Summon hell to the neighborhood after getting beat up. Toss in a group of Fortune 500 satanists, a washed up rocker and a D&D playing nerd and that's basically the movie. Oh, and a scene of demons being killed with sex toys, which must have seemed funnier on paper than it actually comes across in the film. Some clever bits, some eye-rolling bits. It's, I dunno, mildly amusing? Plenty of better other choices out there.

Don't Kill It (2017)
Dolph Lundgren is a demon hunter present in a sleepy southern town when a demon he's been after reappears.

Okay, this one has an interesting premise. (And Dolph Lundgren, who was also in 5harknado because they paid him.) There's a homicidal demon. After it possesses its host, it then proceeds to try and kill everything around it. And if you manage to kill it, well, it occupies the body of the person who killed the last host. This sets up a pretty interesting scenario since the number of real world, non-lethal ways to deal with,say, the guy in the room wielding a shotgun are rather low. Plus Lundgren looks like the kind of person who'd you be expecting to be fighting demons.

On the downside, there's a subplot with an ostracized FBI agent from the small town, an angelic bloodline and an eeeeeevil preacher, all of which add nothing to the plot and take up a lot of airtime. Still, ovverall not too shabby. Oh, and Dolph? When you dispose of a magic artifact, put it in a block of concrete and then dispose of it. Concrete's dirt common and having an evil artifact inside of it makes it a lot harder to accidentally stumble across.

13 Daemons (2017)
A group of misfits find a copy of a long-lost roleplaying/board game and play it, with unfortunate results.

Hey, it's an RPG movie. Yay! And one where the folks making it seem sort-of aware of RPGs. Kinda. Even if their RPG seems more like Talisman than D&D. (Look, RPG knowledge isn't that rare. The same night I watched this, I also saw an actor from Magic Mike dealing with Vecna. Get this stuff right. There's more folks familiar with RPGs than you think.) Anyway, a trio finds a RPG that 30 years prior caused a scandal as folks playing it went a bit nuts and started killing folks, causing the game to be destroyed. They start playing it and slowly become convinced that they are Paladins hunting demons in the real world. It's not bad, especially for its apparently rather limited budget. Unfortunately, it does also contain several minutes of this exchange: "It's a game!" "It is not a game!" Repeat for 3-4 minutes with no other dialog.  Yeaah. Don't do that. Not especially scary, but it's decent-ish.

Cult of Chucky (2017)
After being accused of Chucky's crimes, a woman in an asylum is again bedeviled by Chucky.

I'll give the Child's Play folks credit, the last couple of outings, they're taking the concept of their films and playing it completely straight. No winking at the audience, just a straight "There's a doll possessed by a serial killer. And it's going to kill you." I appreciate that. Sometimes the jokeyness in some horror films comes across as "We're not taking this seriously and as a result we're kind of just wasting your time."

Anyway, after being framed for Chucky's murders , the heroine from the last film Nica (played by Brad Dourif's daughter) is being transferred from her maximum security asylum to a more permissive one. And then the Good Guy dolls begin appearing... So far, so good. And it's a fairly effective film, right up until the end where things go off the rails. Let me use a non-spoiler example. In the current Friday the 13th video game, Jason can teleport from place to place when folks aren't looking at him.  He's slower than the campers and this allows the game to feel a bit more like the movies as Jason appears out of nowhere to kill the campers. Now imagine that the actual movies allowed him to teleport and the next film ends with Jason bamfing around until all the campers are dead. That's what the end of Cult feels like. Chucky can curbstomp the other folks in the film and does so and then heads off on vacation. (Not the real ending.)  That's not a terribly good ending, especially in a series where he's mostly been dealt with at the end of any given movie.

Personally, it left a bad taste in my mouth, but it might fit in better with other folk's tastes.

[Compound]

BTW- I'm going to toss this in here. I don't plan to watch this, but others might.

Back in 1998, some Indian producers decided "Hey, you know what we should make? A TV series based on Stephen King's It. But set in India instead of Maine."

The show lasted 52 episodes. If you're curious, the first episode is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flHOy7VXIr4&t=230s

Be warned- Pennywise doesn't actually show up until the third episode.  That intro scene is here: https://youtu.be/swhY4K_WhB8?t=6m29s

Might be worth a watch is looking for something out of the ordinary.

[Pastor of Muppets]

I always wish you guys would post about this a week before it starts. Because we're a day ahead, (and because Halloween isn't a big thing here) I never remember about it until I'm already at least a day behind, and then I don't participate

You should set a reminder.  Like on your Gmail Calendar or whatever you use to track things.  I have reminders for things that won't happen until several years from now.

[Cyrusso]

I always wish you guys would post about this a week before it starts. Because we're a day ahead, (and because Halloween isn't a big thing here) I never remember about it until I'm already at least a day behind, and then I don't participate

You should set a reminder.  Like on your Gmail Calendar or whatever you use to track things.  I have reminders for things that won't happen until several years from now.

Now that's what I call planning ahead. 

[SJP]

Movie 9: Lycanthrope (1999/1997?) viewed on Amazon Prime Free Video (thank God)

What the movie is supposed to be about: Robert Carradine leads an expedition to find out why a research facility has lost contact with the main base...only to find something lurking in its depths.
What the movie is ACTUALLY about: Robert Carradine and a couple of friends had a free weekend, some old community theater sets that hadn't been struck yet, and a big backyard to film what is an hour and a half PSA about the dangers of the ozone layer and lupus.  I am not kidding.

I found out about this movie via the Suggest-a-Trax page...and hoo boy, does it belong there.  This movie is gloriously awful.  I don't want to make rash comparisons to Birdemic, because it is slightly better made, but it is amazing just how close they are in trying to make a lame horror film based around some environmental catastrophe.  Lycanthrope does get bonus points for including Michael Winslow for almost no reason other than to include his schtick.

The movie begins with Final Cut-quality credits, along with 1992 7th Guest style midi music (almost NONE of which in the movie conveys the tone it is supposed to), and then, bam, naked woman showering.  Again, no reason for this...it has nothing to do with the plot, and based on the close-ups of the woman's chest, is pretty much included so that no one falls asleep immediately.  All this within the first five minutes of the movie.

Also...(and I don't know why I'm spoilering this, no one who watches this will care, and no one who won't will be surprised...)
THERE IS NO MONSTER.  The 'monster' is one of the scientists who THINKS he is a monster because he contracted lupus...and he wears a football jersey at all times.  The whole movie, it looks like Refrigerator Perry went nuts and started murdering everyone in the locker room.  The real villain is a doctor who believes he will make a fortune by infecting people with lupus and be known for his great scientific accomplishment.  He even tries hypnotizing someone into thinking they are a monster, and even when she shows no signs of responding, everyone believes his crazy ass.  This movie should not exist.

This movie is pure crap, and every minute of it is solid gold material for riffing.  I for one now second Rifftrax tackling this sucker.  The rights can't be hard to get a hold of...the thing that might make it hard to get is that Amazon claims it was released in '99, but the end credits list it was made in 1997.  Also, blooper reel during credits.  None of them are funnier than the crap that made final cut.  For Pete's sake, the 'jungle' looks like the woods outside of every subdivision five miles from my house, and the entrance to the lab is a rock crevice an eight year old would barely fit through.  Legion of the Dead's pit in the middle of the woods was more convincing.

For normal people, avoid this film like crazy.  For lovers of cinematic garbage, cannot be missed.

[Compound]

Ghosts of Darkness
Two paranormal investigators are each independently asked to investigate a haunted house in Scotland.  It goes badly.

Huh. I rather liked this one.  Decently acted. Both main characters have personalities that don't instantly want me to see them die and act in a manner that fits the situation that they are in. SFX are light but used effectively. (And in that I mean they've mostly kept in the background where the imagination of the viewer can fill in the gaps in the CGI. Which is good as when you get a close look at some of it, it's less scary and more "Wait, did they mean to do that to his eyes?" Decently atmospheric as well, although to be fair, watching it alone, in the dark probably helped. One rather bothersome plot hole, but that might just be me wondering about something mundane in the film.  All in all, a fairly decently little ghost story.

Blair Witch (2016)
Two decades after his sister went missing in the woods, her brother leads another group of film makers on an expedition to find her. It turns out that she'd become a marijuana farmer in California and had been living peacefully there, unaware that anyone was looking for her. Everyone has a good laugh. The end.

Okay, my synopsis might be a bit off there. The original BWP was a rather polarizing film. Some folks liked it and others hated it with a passion. I was closer to the latter than the former, although there were bits that still irked me. The good news- the process of filming found footage films has improved greatly since 1999. This one isn't mostly improvised dialog. You can actually  tell what is being shot for the most part, despite the "amateur" film makers. It's decently atmospheric, although in this one, unlike the original, you have a good idea of what is about to happen. Downside? A usual sequel problem. A little too much explanation is given to the witch, and she's given a rather severe spike in power. Like from "where did these sticks and rocks come from?" to "The very heavens shake in fear of me!" Still, despite the issues a lot better than I expected.

[Pastor of Muppets]

I always wish you guys would post about this a week before it starts. Because we're a day ahead, (and because Halloween isn't a big thing here) I never remember about it until I'm already at least a day behind, and then I don't participate

You should set a reminder.  Like on your Gmail Calendar or whatever you use to track things.  I have reminders for things that won't happen until several years from now.

Now that's what I call planning ahead. 

Well, solar eclipses don't come around often, and I want to make sure I have a hotel reservation near the totality zone for the next one, in 2024.

[SJP]

Movie 11: Rifftrax: Swamp of the Ravens viewed on digital download
A scientist tries to create life from the dead...or something.
You know, I've watched this movie about four times now and I'm still not quite sure what his whole deal is.  First he tries to cure leprosy, then throws people in the swamp, says death isn't the end, kidnaps a girl from a guy who sings a song about a dead ro-BOT (his own, his lady).  Maybe it makes more sense in its original language, but it'd be hard pressed to try.  Probably not the greatest Rifftrax in existence, but it has some golden lines ("I animated it and wrote it in English to make it easier!").

Movie 12: MST3K: Incredibly Strange Creatures/Zombies viewed on Hulu
An evil fortune teller ruins a lot of lives at a carnival for really no good reason and turns a Nicolas Cage lookalike into a brainwashed serial killer.  Lots of pointless carnival footage ensues.
Like Swamp of the Ravens, not my favorite MST of all time, but all the knocks against the dancing troupe, the weird ticket-selling monkey, and Mike's crack about "Yeah, you know what I'M looking at?  That exit sign." still make me laugh.  Plus it has one of my favorite bits in the "Hi Everyone, Let's Pitch In 'N Get Crackin' Here In Lousiana..." segment.

Movie 13: Bottom Feeder viewed on Amazon Prime Video
A tycoon disfigured by a car accident traps a scientist in a tunnel under an abandoned factory to 'test' an experimental serum that can cure his condition.  The next day, some maintenance workers in the tunnel discover the scientist's serum, plus eating a bunch of rats, hasn't exactly panned out as expected.
I guess the rat monster makeup looks OK when not viewed in direct light, but dammit, this movie crossed the line of 'OK' to 'pure schlock' when the tycoon's silent Bruce Lee-esque henchman gets into a knife fight with said monster.  Tom Sizemore appears in this because, well, it's the same exact plot as The Relic with a much less impressive monster and shoestring budget, so why not?  Fun for what it is, but only in the right frame of mind.  I mean, come on, what idiot thinks the best way to test a serum is to use it on someone who doesn't have a disease and then throw them into a dirty sewer?  Average at best.

[Compound]

Listening to a hockey game and ads for The Stanley Hotel keep coming up. The Stanley is the hotel that inspired Stephen King to write The Shining and is allegedly quite haunted. It does a pretty good business in tour around Halloween too. So, what are they advertising? Upcoming concerts from Rick Springfield, Mary Chapin Carpenter and Big Bad Voodoo Daddies. Not quite as scary as the whole "elevator of blood" thing.

Some movie reviews:

El Bar (2017)
Customers at a small Madrid bar are plunged into a nightmare situation as folks leaving the bar are killed by a mysterious shooter...

Firstly, a random note. You know those generic signage that designate "This is a Chinese restaurant" in most English speaking places? They are exactly the same in Madrid. I just find that amusing. Anyway, the Spaniards have been making some fairly decent little horror films over the past decade or so. This one's pretty simple. Folks walk into a bar, only to discover that they're trapped in there. Something is going on and the government wants to cover it up for some reason. Normally, I'd kinda scoff at the "cover up" bit, since there's no real reason for the Spanish government to be doing this. But given their actions over the past few weeks... I'll  just give that a pass.

Anyway, not a particularly complex film, but pretty effective at keeping the horror levels ramped up throughout. There's one plot detail though that screams "Wait, that wouldn't work" and unfortunately, it's attached to something that's a major plot point in the film, so it's hard to ignore. Otherwise, decent little film.

The ABCs of Death 2 (2014)
26 film makers from across the world each make a short film connected to a letter of the alphabet.

A sequel to the original. Setup the same for each film. Film and the title page at the end that reveals the letter and the theme of the prior film. As in "C is for Carrot." (Spoiler- no carrots were in the film.) Sadly, while a few of these are good, many of them would have qualified for "I for Incoherent." There's a very strong "experimental student film" feel with a lot of these films, and a good chunk of them feel like setups to something with no resolution or explanation. It's not really worth going through the chaff to find the wheat. And there's a lot of chaff.

Little Evil
A man unwittingly becomes the step father to the antichrist. It's a comedy!

Hey, Clancy Brown is collecting a paycheck in this. Anyway, one of Netflix's original movies. Unfortunately, it's pretty light on the laughs. The step dad is pretty oblivious during the first half of the film and then uber-gung ho on killing off his stepson during the next act. The mom isn't much better. The antichrist himself, well, it's just a little kid and he just has to act creepy. The side characters are the most interesting part of the film but the story is about the end of the world, not them. During most of the film, frankly I just kept wondering how the filming of "Good Omens" was coming along. Frankly, if you're in the mood for a similar story, go watch "Problem Child." It's a better film (And that's a very low bar.)

Rifftrax Live: Plan 9
Aliens from outer space enact a plan to raise the dead in order to stop Earth from creating a bomb that detonates sunlight.

The folks at Rifftrax were reminding folks of this live show on Ed Woods' birthday and while I'd thought that I'd seen Plan 9 recently, I suspect that I was remembering watching Trace and Frank riff it at one of their shows. So, I rewatched it. I'd forgotten that this was the first live show too. Some good points- Flying Stewardesses is still quite funny. Lowtax's videos, while a tad surreal, are still enjoyable. Bad points- Jonathan Colton, while I like the guy, really added nothing to the show and his songs are just dead points in the show. And some of the riffing in the actual movie fall back on some early bad habits from early Rifftrax. (ex- "That guy's fat!" jokes.) Neutral- The riffing, while not the best of the live shows, isn't the worst either. It's still quite watchable, although I've seen this one riffed a lot already, so I'm fairly sick of it. Also, where the hell did Veronica Belmont go? She's dropped off the face of the Earth.

Anyway, decent riff, but there's a number of other live shows to tackle before this one.


Beyond the Gates
After their father goes missing, a pair of brothers band together to close their father's video store, only to discover a mysterious video tape that starts a deadly game...

Two things- There's a Matt Mercer in this. It's not that Matt Mercer. Two, this was just a coincidence, Darth. Not entirely sure why we both decided to watch this today.

Okay, issue. I've been in a lot of video stores and I've never seen one where the videos were on normal VHS tapes with the names handwritten on the boxes. But this store? Shelves and shelves and shelves of them. (Seriously, I can't recall ever seeing a video store this large. The closest that comes to it would be wandering through Hastings last year and it's racks and racks of used DVDs, but even that wasn't as large as this place.) Seriously, this would get folks shut down as fast as if you walked into a Tower and they were selling mix tapes. That aside...

Anyway, Jumanji setup. There's  a game. You play it or die. Standard setup. Unfortunately, it's rather dull. The acting's passable. The FX are okay, but nothing to write home about. But it's not especially scary, nor gory. It's just there. Oh, props to the curiosity shop owner who is hamming it up and seemingly having a great time.

[Darth Geek]

Okay, issue. I've been in a lot of video stores and I've never seen one where the videos were on normal VHS tapes with the names handwritten on the boxes. But this store? Shelves and shelves and shelves of them. (Seriously, I can't recall ever seeing a video store this large. The closest that comes to it would be wandering through Hastings last year and it's racks and racks of used DVDs, but even that wasn't as large as this place.) Seriously, this would get folks shut down as fast as if you walked into a Tower and they were selling mix tapes. That aside...

Thank you! Yes, I noticed that too and it bugged the crap out of me. I just forgot to point it out in the review I wrote up.

As for why we both decided to watch it today, I was reminded of it from one of yesterday's reviews here on the Rifftrax Forum. Maybe you were too.

EDIT: One positive thing I can say about this movie is that I liked the fake movie titles and posters they had. My favorite was WEREFATHER.