October Horror Movie a Day 2022

[SJP]

7. Haunted Palace (1963)
Visiting his ancestral home, a fellow finds out his ancestor isn't as dead as he wishes he was.
Vincent Price plays both good guy and bad guy in this, as his ancient, evil ancestor keeps taking control of his mind in order to do some nefarious resurrection-related shenanigans.  Lon Chaney, Jr. appears as a caretaker who looks way more decrepit than Lon did in real life, but at least there's a reason for that.  But probably the biggest joy was seeing Watson Pritchard himself, Elisha Cook, show up in another Vincent Price film!  In a nod to life in the Rifftrax world, someone even mentions leprechauns to him without realizing how inextricably linked he would become with that term years after his departure from this world.  Also, while the movie is named for a Poe poem and would at first glance seem to be another of Corman's Poe films, it actually isn't; it's a very loose adaptations of an H.P. Lovecraft story that the producers demanded be named for Poe's work since the other films were such moneymakers.  Fun watch, from Corman's period where he could make $500 look like a million dollars and not the other way around.

8. Army of the Dead (2021)
Dave Bautista leads a group of mercenaries through zombie Vegas to steal $200 million from a bank vault.  Capcom decides not to sue as they don't actually kill 53,594 zombies onscreen.
This movie almost killed my viewing dead this year.  It's not that it's a bad film (it has its moments), but damn, would somebody tell Zack Snyder he's not required to make his movies so damn long?  2hrs, 23 min.  Both his AND the original Dawn of the Dead were shorter, and they both had more likable characters overall and got to the point way faster.
Like I said, there are enjoyable moments (Dieter the safecracker being foremost among them), but the film has many issues, too.  Namely, our hero...doesn't even have to be in the movie.  There is nothing he does in the entire runtime that justifies him being other than he puts the team together.  He has no skills to speak of, he just happened to be somebody that is decent at holding a gun and has a father-daughter subplot that does more to screw up the mission than it provides any sense of humanity or closure.
However, I will mention that for about five minutes I couldn't stop laughing at the moment when someone decides to get into a brawling fist fight with one of the super zombies.  It wasn't so much funny as so absurd a concept that I couldn't help myself.  It truly was so ridiculous that my brain just snapped for a bit.

9. Rifftrax: Uninvited (1987/2017)
One...more time!  Gonna watch George Kennedy's heart explode!
An experimental cat has a second, more evil cat inside of it, which causes trouble onboard a boat.  Many 70s icons are harmed along the way, which is odd, because the movie was filmed in the late 80s.
Beyond the ridiculous premise, this is just that kind of B-movie that only a master like Greydon Clark could make: nonsensical, violent drivel that somehow ropes in fairly memorable actors through either lack of knowledge of what they were appearing in or pure blackmail.  Rifftrax edition highly recommended ("Oh, he's READY!  He's seen this before!")

10: Netherworld (1992)
A young man inherits a house from his deceased father somewhere in Louisiana, along with his father's journal where he tells his son how to go about resurrecting him.  He never questions this and goes on a mindbending journey where he encounters sadistic flying rock hands, suspicious brothels, and something to do with birds.
Yay!  It's not October without Full Moon Entertainment showing up at some point!  Anywho, at a much shorter 85 minute running time (thank you, opposite of Zack Snyder), the movie's main problem is setting up for a grand finale that wraps up WAY too fast while dragging its feet for the previous 75 or so, but you know what I liked about this movie?  It's WEIRD.  I don't think I've seen a movie quite like this.  Very little is explained, but at the same time, it does feel the screenwriter seemed to think it all made sense, so it's OK to go along with it.  Why is there a flying stone hand?  Nobody knows, but you know it's going to screw with somebody when it shows up.  Why birds?  Because.  But at least the motif is consistent.
It's not a good movie, really.  But it's an entertaining one.  And in the end, isn't that the real truth?  The answer...is no.

[WhyDontTheyLook]

17. Mon 10/17: House on Haunted Hill (1999) -- Bless this movie's skeevy, trashy heart. Loosely inspired by the original, this version features a pre-Oscar Geoffrey Rush, a pre-XMen Famke Janssen, and a pre-Heros Ali Larter, among many others. The early-days cgi is dodgy, but the scenery-chewing makes up for it.

18. Tue 10/18: Underworld: Evolution (2006) -- Kate Beckinsale is on the run with one of the most so-what Chosen Ones in film history, chased by ancient vampire lords and lycans. A bit better than the first, if only because it's shorter and tauter.

19. Wed 10/19: Phantasm (1979) -- A weird, slightly surreal tale of a Tall Man and his squad of resurrected dead-made-into-jawas-or-something. Always a favorite.

20. Thu 10/20:  Nightmare City (1980) -- A bonkers slab of Giallo, in which a reporter and his girlfriend try to evade murderous mutants. You'll never confuse it with a good movie, but it's fun and fast and never boring, with rivers of fakey gore in its wake.

[WhyDontTheyLook]

21. Fri 10/21: Friday the 13th Part 5: A New Beginning (1985) -- Wife picked this one to watch kind of randomly. I mean, I like the series, but 5 isn't one of my go-tos. But rewatching reminded me how hilariously weird this one was. And at least they tried doing something different in it.

22. Sat 10/22: Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994) -- First time I watched this one, despite all the good things I'd heard. It largely earns the hype, and was very entertaining.

23. Sun 10/23: Rings (2017) -- Third of the American line of "The Ring" movies (I watched the first two in September.) Not as good as the Japanese or Korean films, but it does have its moments, especially the opener on the airplane.

24. Mon 10/24: Candyman (1992) -- After watching the modern sequel earlier this month, I'm back to the original. Tony Todd is amazing.

[talulah gosh]

I'm so glad you included some giallo in your list! I love Dario Argento, and the Susperia soundtrack makes for great Halloween music. I think I'll listen to it right now!!

[WhyDontTheyLook]

I'm so glad you included some giallo in your list! I love Dario Argento, and the Susperia soundtrack makes for great Halloween music. I think I'll listen to it right now!!

"I had giallo today!"

[WhyDontTheyLook]

25. Tue 10/25: Halloween Kills (2021) -- For a largely unnecessary middle trilogy entry making a ham-fisted point about the nature of evil, this was not that bad. And now I've finished my new-timeline rewatch and am ready for the new one. Yay?

26. Wednesday 10/26: The Haunting in Connecticut (2009) -- A family moves into a house in--get this--Connecticut... and you'll never believe the big twist: it's haunted! Unfortunately, the few creepy moments it summons is smothered by the tedium of the telling.

27. Thursday 10/27: Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth (1992) -- Pinhead is resurrected by an unwitting art buyer, and fashions some new cenobites in his quest to fill Earth with suffering. Not sure the new lore entirely squares with what was in 1 and 2, but no matter -- Doug Bradley chews the scenery wonderfully, and Terry Farrell (who played Jadzia Dax on DS9) is an engaging protagonist.

28. Friday 10/28: Ditched (2022) -- Elevated horror-wannabe film where a lot of slick camerawork and lighting is deployed in an attempt to disguise that this is a one-set show with a lot less to say than it thinks. Liked the lead actress, wish she was served by better directing and writing.

[SJP]

Gah!  Running out of time for reviews...here's the short, short versions:

11: Screamtime: A British funded anthology of three stories, involving murderous puppets, deadly visions, and lawn gnomes...of MURDER! 
Contained within a wraparound in which guys steal the movies with the stories in question from a video store, only for things to take a turn once the final film is watched.  Apparently the middle story got turned into a full-length movie years later called Psychosis, starring Charisma Carpenter, but otherwise, it's fairly generic, but not bad.

12: Doom: Annhilation: Reboot of the movie series, with a more faithful storyline than the Dwayne Johnson version. 
I didn't mind it, but it definitely suffers from slow burn, lack of monsters other than Imps (and they definitely should have had better lighting for the obvious rubber suits), and a ridiculously punny name for the lead (Joan Dark.  Get it?).  If it gets a sequel, hopefully it will add more stuff, but as it stands, it's OK.

13: Rifftrax: The Dark Power: Zombie sorcerers attack a group of unsuspecting coeds until they face their greatest challenge: an elderly drunkard with a whip. 
One of my favorites, though never expected to be at the time I first watched it.  Gory enough to be interesting on its own, but absolutely stupid enough to deserve every ounce of mockery.

14: The Terror: Jack Nicholson is a French Legion soldier who falls upon the strange happenings at a castle...well, of course it's strange, since Boris Karloff is the owner. 
Reportedly mostly adlibbed and thus a bit nonsensical, this is the one non-Rifftrax movie I've seen before this month, though it has been some time since I saw it.  Even then, Nicholson loved to turn the scenery into ham, and Karloff is fine as the tortured Baron, but I would say The Haunted Palace is a tighter, more effective production, if we're comparing Corman to Corman.

15: Morbius: Jared Leto sucks...some blood.
I went into this knowing its reputation...and you know what?  I don't see what the fuss was about.  I think a lot of people really hate Leto, but even with his goofy Joker, he wasn't onscreen long enough in Suicide Squad to make me mad (mostly since the rest of the movie was unwatchable enough as it was).  I don't think it's an award-winner, but unlike Army of the Dead, the few chuckles I had during it were genuine, not incredulous (Matt Smith has a few good moments).  It was also nice to watch a superhero movie that doesn't need to be watched with all the others to get the whole story (except for the very end mid-credit stuff, which I didn't care about anyway since I haven't watched the more recent Spider-man movies).

16: Rifftrax: When a Stranger Calls Back: Years after a girl is terrorized, she is terrorized again.  A ventriloquist is suspected, because all ventriloquists should be suspects anyway.  Carol Kane, Charles Durning, and Charles Durning's waistline star.
This is memorable mainly for the introduction of "Jill," the long-running Rifftrax gag that is the feminine answer to "MIIIIKE!"

17: Rifftrax: The Most Dangerous Game: Russian madman chases guy and King Kong's girlfriend through the jungle.  Someone decided to film it.
This one has grown on me, mostly due to the constant references to the fact that Joel McRae has lost all of his friends in an awful shipwreck and seems perfectly okay with that.

18: The Stuff: White stuff blorping from the ground proves to be dangerous to eat, despite being delicious.  Garrett Morris kind of appears.
Finally got around to seeing this, and while I enjoyed it, the movie feels very roughly edited.  Apparently it was trimmed down, but it seems like instead of just scenes missing, seconds of footage that would help scenes make more sense are also missing.  It gives the film an odd sense of timing, which works to its detriment.

19: Wicked City: Late 80s anime from the creator of the later Ninja Scroll manages to pack in even more weirdness and nudity...LOTS of nudity...as agents try to keep the peace between demons and humans by keeping an old pervert alive.
Very odd movie.  Not that it doesn't make sense...it actually does...but it feels very episodic, and it almost becomes comical how a charatcer keeps "almost" dying and then turning up just fine every single time.

20: Dante's Inferno: Based on the 2010 video game, Dante dives into Hell to rescue his girlfriend and murder whoever gets in his way.
Interesting in that the animation style keeps changing (with the third 'segment' having the best, in my opinion), and actually makes slightly more sense than the game in one sense that I won't spoil here despite being a decade old, but it does suffer from "All the Italians are British" dubbing syndrome.

21: Rifftrax: Wes Craven Presents Mind Ripper: A monster is given rebirth and rips out the brains of everyone it can find.  But enough about Jonathan Craven directing a monster movie that takes place in his neighbor's sewer.
One phrase: "You gave me soup!" ("And for that I shall kill you!")  Actually, this and popcorn rap are fantastic.  The rest of the movie is otherwise annoying and repetitive.  Riff is fine, though.

22: Rifftrax: Retro Puppet Master: Life is given to wooden puppets.  But enough about the acting in this direct-to-video sequel.
Did you know Greg Sestero getting the role in this movie was one of the catalysts to Wiseau writing his script for The Room?  Apparently he was jealous that Greg got work when he didn't.  Not that this movie is exactly a resume enhancer, but Greg gives his best, which is better than The Room.  Memorable riffs: The endless beating, "Hell is other people and stuff," and, of course, "Golden Corral's New Slogan."

23: Shakma: Med students have the roughest D&D session ever when the baboon they should have put to sleep wakes up and proceeds to go on a murder spree.
I understand baboons can be vicious, nasty, and deadly when mad.  That said...Typhoon, the longtime acting baboon who plays Shakma, is just too damn well-groomed and cute to take seriously as a villain.  Despite its reputation due to RedLetterMedia, I was surprised by how much gore there was in it seeing the uncut film.

24: Rats: Night of Terror: Bikers come to the surface after the apocalypse only to find rats have very nasty in the meantime.
Rats eat bikers, bikers fight back.  Gross, over-the-top Italian horror, with an over-the-top fun dub (the flour scene particularly funny).

[SJP]

And the back forty:

25: Killers from Space: After surviving a deadly crash, a young man realizes something far more significant than the bug-eyed aliens trying to change Earth for their own reasons: he's actually Peter Graves.
I originally had no idea this was Peter Graves, and then had the "Oh!  That's him!" and then wondered why Rifftrax hadn't done it...and then saw that they had, and as the Film Crew as well.  However, I watched this unriffed, and found it amusing how everything wrapped up so neat and tidy, with little ado or fuss.

26: Rifftrax: Mutant: Wings Hauser arrives with his brother is a small town, only to receive the terrifying knowledge that he isn't the most unpleasant thing in town.
To be honest, while it certainly is fun to riff on, the movie is actually fairly good at keeping you on your toes...literally no one is safe from the monsters, and it pulls no punches in that regard.  Still, Wings doesn't come off as the most effective hero, in this film, at least.

27: Evil Toons: A bunch of porno starlets acting as coeds (no, really, that is what happened on set) clean a house, only to unleash a murderous werewolf-like demon.  Dick Miller and Arte Johnson appear to do a lot of leering.
Wow.  While I didn't know Killers from Space was riffed, I'm shocked this one definitely hasn't.  For Pete's sake, this movie has David Carradine in it...and his first act of the movie is that he literally hangs himself.  Hindsight is hilarious in that regard.  But while the movie is entertaining, it is certainly terrible...acting by the main quartet is so bad it is very, very bad (Dick Miller by far escapes unscatched), and on a scale of 1 to Evil Toons for gratuitous nudity, this movie is...well, in a space all by itself.  I'm surprised the toplessness quotient didn't give an X rating all on its own.  And as for the 'Toons' part...the one toon that shows up is onscreen for about all of two minutes, then pretends to be other live action characters for most of the running time.  This movie is literally the onscreen equivalent of Billy Madison...at no point in its incoherent ramblings does it come close to a coherent thought, and we are now all dumber for having viewed it.  Again, it has entertainment value, but it is dumb, and probably the dumbest movie I've watched this month.

28: Prophecy: A doctor and his wife trying to prevent a protest between American Indians and loggers in Maine turns into a fight for survival as it turns out something out in the woods is making mutant monsters.
This starts out as a surprisingly sophisticated movie, and I give it props for making the human characters all sympathetic, even the ones responsible for the ecological horror.  However, for all its good points, as soon as the monster shows up, it gets silly pretty fast (the sleeping bag flying across the camp at high speed is worth the price of admission alone).  The acting is all very good, but you really have to suspend your disbelief of Armand Assante as John Hawke, leader of the protests.  But damn, this was PG before PG meant something really different...pretty gory for something you could let your kids technically watch.

Last three reviews for tomorrow night!  Whoo-hoo!

[WhyDontTheyLook]

29. Sat 10/29: Midsommar (2019) -- An American couple goes to a friend's remote village in Sweden, and things get weird and bloody. I know there's a lot of love for this one, but for me it ended up in the "admired more than liked" zone, much like director Ari Aster's previous film, "Hereditary."

30. Sun 10/30: Ghost Ship (2002) -- This has become one of my go-tos over the years, a twisty, noirish tale of greed, vengeful ghosts, and knowing when to walk (or run, or swim) away. Julianne Margulies is great in this. According to Rotten Tomatoes, I'm definitely in the minority with this opinion. But... whatever. I still love it.

[WhyDontTheyLook]

31. Mon 10/31: Halloween Ends (2022) -- Sure it does... er, I mean, Sure! It does! Ok, I get why so many people are dumping on this one. There's a lot of choices in it that just don't make sense in the context of the last two movies, and Myers is not as strong or implacable as he was in Halloween Kills. But Jamie Lee Curtis is as good as ever, and that holds things together just enough to be enjoyable.

[SJP]

29: One Dark Night: An initiation prank goes terribly wrong when the mausoleum chosen for the event turns out to be the new home of a super powerful psychic Russian who can use his mind from beyond death.  Adam West kind of appears.
Funny to think, if not for Greg Sestero not appearing in Retro Puppet Master, we would not have The Room.  If not for director Tom McLoughlin (the guy who made Jason live again) wanting to get Adam West solely because he wanted him to appear in something other than Batman, we would not have the slew of B-movie goodness that would enhance our lives for years to come.  The movie itself is a slow pace and not a whole lot actually happens, but there is one fantastic scene that I actually rewatched due to its effectiveness...the first coffin opening.  Music, suspense, excellent close-ups, this two-minute scene is nothing short of amazing.  The rest of the movie...well, Meg Tilly and E.G. Daily are in it (only a few scant years away from her big role as Dottie in Pee-Wee), and Adam West kind of shows up, but yeah, it all goes to how much you like a slow burn film.  Shame the original footage is apparently lost as it swapped hands a bunch of times, since this definitely could use a real remastering.

30: The Brain (1988) : Canada pretends to be America (I think; when they say nationwide, I think they imply its supposed to be a small American town) as the bad guy from Reanimator uses an alien to hypnotize an entire town to be under his spell...except for a teen whose brain doesn't buy the hype.
Apparently this was on a live MST3K tour show?  It's cheesy and doesn't explain everything (what IS the deal with the Reanimator guy at the end of the movie, anyway?), but it's fun low-budget schlock with a cool monster puppet.  This wouldn't be high on my list to riff compared to some other stuff I watched this year, but it's certainly doable.

31: Simpsons Treehouse of Horror 32/Bob's Burgers Apple Gore-chard! (Not Gory) : Three stories for Simpsons based on the Babadook, Death Note (with accompanying anime artwork), and Westworld.  For Bob, Louise and Bob's field trip to the apple orchard leads to weird discoveries from Louise about fame, while Tina and Gene's costume contest entry based on Twister is lacking something...
Haven't actually watched Simpsons for a year or two, and it does seem like the humor really is running stale, but the episode had some interesting comments about both the show's longevity ("Oh, God!  The show hasn't been funny since Season 45!"), and then there's toilet lion.  I thought that was funny.  Still, I recommend the first six specials by a long shot.
Bob was another Louise learning a life lesson episode, but I definitely found more to laugh at ("Come on!  A bunch of 40-somethings are going to get this reference and eat this costume up!"), though its a bit less poignant than it used to be.  Like The Simpsons around its own Season 13, though, it's still better written than a lot of shows that are on these days, even at its lowest peaks.

And that's a wrap!  Quick thoughts:
1. The Terror is the only movie I've seen other than Rifftrax episodes that was a repeat.  I have been in a rut lately and had a hankering for new stuff, and boy, I got it.
2. This year had fewer doldrums than previous years.  Nothing I saw made me question my existence like some films I've watched (Demons 2014, Dark Moon Rising, Paranormal Asylum), but I found everything entertaining in one form or another.  But if I had to pick, Army of the Dead was the most disappointing (just too...damn...long!  And Dave Bautista didn't DO anything!), but dumbest entry and 'worst' would probably be Evil Toons, and even that's stretching the definition a bit, since there was still stuff that was fun (even if unintentional) in it.  Hell, even Carnivore with its awful wolf-bear costume didn't make me angry or even really bore me.  I think that's an achievement in and of itself.
3. As always, riffing makes things better.  I don't think I would watch Mind Ripper or When a Stranger Calls Back as often if it didn't have commentary.  Dark Power, on the other hand, is one of those movies I could watch either way and I'd have a good time.