October 2015 Horror Movie a Day

[Compound]

Popcorn (1991)

A quote to show you what you're in for:
"Hey, hey! There's more social relevance and character development in Police Academy Five than in all of Bergman's cinematic smorgasbords. "

Well okay then.

Our movie begin with our heroine, who'd be a goth if this were filmed a few years later but for now she's merely a brunette, being chased in a dream. She awakes and writes down the memory in a dream journal. After a chat with Mom, she's off to class!

Our cast is the film department at a local college. There's the professor, the dorky TA. the blonde TA, wheelchair guy, his friend who praised the Police Academy films... I'll call him Doofus... the other blonde, the "urban" girl (who was in Summer School) and our proto-goth from the beginning. Oh, and Ray Walston, who's slumming it. In order to draw attention to their new department, they decide to hold a film fest at an old movie theater, which they have to fix up before the film festival.

Good lord. There's a montage to a reggae song. With a trying on wigs scene.

Anyway, they find a film can marked "do not open" and this being a horror film, they open it. Turns out it's a student film made by a Charles Manson-type, who's coincidentally the same guy in hero girl's dreams. Turns out not-Chucky was a film maker who, after his film was panned, created another film where the cast was murdered live on stage at the end of the film. And then he locked the door and set the place on fire.

Gothy goes home and tells mom about this film and Mom asks her to skip the festival and leave town for a few days. After that, Mom gets a strange phone call, and then heads down to the theater, which is apparently waiting for her. Skipping ahead, it seems Manson isn't dead and shows up at the theater. A giant Mosquito impales the professor. Manson then makes a rubber mask of the professor's face and masquerades as him. As more movies are played, not-Manson finds more victims, makes more faces. And yes, if you guessed that Gothy was secretly Not-Manson's daughter congrats. You saw the extremely subtle foreshadowing. But it turns out that Not-Manson is well, not-Not-Manson. It's another survivor of the cult who blames Gothy for his being burned. He plans to kill Gothy, her mom and set the place on fire to finish what happened to him years ago. After showing the Not-Manson film, again, not-Not-Manson shows up to kill Gothy in front of the theater's audience. They cheer, thinking it's part of the show. But Gothy's "I didn't bother to mention him" boyfriend shows up to try to save the day. And the mosquito impales another person. That's one deadly mosquito. Surprisingly, there's not a "he's not really dead!" moment for the killer. Plus a surprising number of cast members survive the film.

A few things. This was made in 1991. For the younguns, other horror films from 1991 include Silence of the Lambs, Cape Fear, The People Under the Stairs, Child's Play 3 and, ahem, Earnest Scared Stupid. This feels like it was made a decade prior, except for the reggae band that keeps showing up.  Secondly, I'll confess here- the fake films shown in the theater seem like they'd be a lot of fun to watch. Oh, and there's a poster of The Incredible Melting Man in the theater, which would be riffed five years *later* on MST3k. And wow. This might be the first time I've seen "Shot on Location in Jamaica" in a horror film's credits.

Overall though? Yeah, not a bad film, even if it feels like a throwback to an earlier era of films.

By the way, hearing dripping water where the circuit breakers are? Probably not a good sign.

[Johnny Unusual]

Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives

The absolutely ridiculous resurrection of Jason is stupid fun (the lightning made him alive) but surprisingly for the first overtly supernatural installment... there's not a lot happening.  Basically lightning brings him back to life and he starts killing people.  Again, the film is too overtly campy for it's own good (you can do a good, even scary, campy horror movie, but this ain't it).  The other problem is... well, in the first 2 1/2 films, there was at least a pretense that the characters were interesting.  It did feel like a bad thing happened when someone died.  Here, they are so board non-characters that it doesn't mean a damned thing.  Also, the movie tries to teach you how to play a Friday the 13th card game, but then doesn't give you the details.  Come on, that was more interesting to me than the rest of the movie.

[JimJ]

Make up movie for missing the 11th:

Day 13:Starry Eyes (2014) 3.5/5

This was a pretty good occult horror film with some nice body horror elements and a fantastically gory climax.  The main actress, Alex Essoe, does a really good job with a very demanding role.  Hope to see her get more mainstream work in the future, as I'd like to see more of her if this movie is any indication of her potential. The side characters were kind of flimsy and I really didn't care what happened to them.  Still, I enjoyed it.

[JimJ]

Day 14: Would You Rather? (2012) 3.5/5

Not exactly high class cinema but I had a lot of fun with this.  An eccentric millionaire throws a dinner party for a group of strangers.  Nothing bad has ever happened in this scenario, has it?  Anyway, everyone there needs something, so they're there to play a life or death game of "would you rather" to decide who gets the help they need.  Yeah, it's silly but that's why I enjoyed it.  Jeffery Combs is fantastic as the host of the party, and he has a British manservant named Bevins, who is ex-MI5 because of course he is.  There's also an off brand Draco Malfoy looking dude who is the son of the host.

[SJP]

Day 12: Dead Snow 2: Red vs. Dead

I had seen the first one a few years ago, and thought it was way better than I originally expected it to be.  It started off creepy and gross, but by the end it had evolved into a sort of off-beat, Norwegian edition of Dead Alive meets Evil Dead, not the least of which was the 'hero' chainsawing his own arm off.  I had good feelings about the sequel, but wasn't sure it would live up to expectations.
It did.
The lone survivor of the first film ends up crashing his car into a snowy ravine after yet more attacks by the zombie Nazis, and wakes up in a hospital only to find they reattached an arm...just not his arm.  His now murderous zombie limb is both a detriment as he finds himself hunted by the cops for murders he didn't (and technically does) commit, and a blessing as he finds it gives him powers...powers he needs to stop the growing Nazi horde.  Eventually, it all leads to a fight between Nazi zombies and Communist zombies...but the less said about how it gets there, the better.
Unlike the fairly low budget proceedings of the first one, this is less horror and more gore/comedy, and it goes all out...but it works.  It is gory, unconscionably silly, and utterly tasteless all at once, but it's still a lot of fun.  It's probably the most fun of the movies I've seen so far this year.  Be forewarned it is very gross and likely offensive to some, but it's worth it if you can deal with it.  Bonus points to the police chief investigating all the deaths who pines for a seagull translation machine.

Day 13: MST3K: The Incredible Melting Man
I'm sure most people here have seen this episode.  If not, it can be summed up in one, glorious word: "HOTCHKA!"
An astronaut in space sees the rings of Saturn.  Then he melts.  While he melts, he is chased by Dr. Ted Nelson, who only wants to help him.
The movie itself is really, really stupid, but if the filmmakers are to be believed, it was supposed to be more so, intentionally, until they were told to ramp up the tension.  The riffs are fantastic, though.  "Did they keep a racehorse on that wall?"

Day 14: The Terror
The Roger Corman cheapie, made over 9 months (the longest he ever spent on a film) simply because he wanted to reuse the expensive sets he had built for The Raven.  Though not based on a Poe story, the idea was to feel like one, even as the script was rewritten almost every day the movie was being made.  The result is a big pile of "Huh?" notable mostly for its bevy of almost-stars (Jack Nicholson and Dick Miller before they hit it big, Karloff long after he was) and that a "Night of the Living Dead" copyright error immediately made the movie public domain in the United States.  Corman would later get Miller back to film some wraparound scenes and make a proper copyrighted edition...in 1991.  Much like the 'scenes' added to Night of the Living Dead in 1999, the cash grab was obvious to anyone who can tell the difference between 30 years of film stock.
Jack Nicholson is a French soldier who chases a young woman around a beach and nearly drowns.  When he awakens in the home of a strange old woman, he asks her about the younger one, but is rebuffed.  Seeking more answers, he goes to the castle of The Baron, who explains there is no young woman, only the spirit of his dead wife, who he accidentally killed 20 years before.  Things get less sensible from there, as the script clearly didn't have much of an ending until Corman threw in a twist that makes even less sense than if there was none at all.  Still, it is classic Corman, and even if the final shot makes no sense, it's still a haunting image to go out on.  I deem it...riffworthy.

[Compound]

Tales from the Crypt: The Ritual (2002)

After losing her medical license, a doctor heads to Jamaica to treat a man with a mysterious illness, and who also believes that he is a zombie...

Where to begin? One, I've managed to randomly pick two of the few horror films set in Jamaica on two consecutive days. Two, this is a third Tales from the Crypt movie and I was unaware that such a thing ever existed. Future Compound informs me that the references to the franchise were deleted after the first two films tanked and were only restored when it hit home video. Huh. Thirdly, unlike the other two "Crypt" films, this isn't an original story. It's a remake of "I Walked with A Zombie." And, well, it's not a bad little film. I'd make a comment about a "It's Like, You Know"-era Jennifer Grey's habit of not wearing undergarments in this film, but I'd prefer not to have a SHIELD team show up to chat with me about that. huh. I don't think I could have fit any more obscure references into that sentence if I'd tried. To make up for that, here's Tim Curry with a goat.



Man, I miss the old Tim Curry. Anyway, I rather enjoyed this film. It's got a good plot and was pretty effective in ramping up the unease levels.

[Johnny Unusual]

Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood

A little better than the last two.  It's still a bit intentionally silly but there's far less mugging (and less humour).  Again, most of the victims are a bit too broad and flat and it's hard to care weather they live or die, which kills a lot of the suspense.  The telekinesis stuff is fun in the last act, but aside from adding a fun new flavour to the franchise, there doesn't seem to be much point in it.  I think the reason I'm kinder to the first films is that they seem to take more visual advantage of the environment.  They take advantage of the woods visually, while in these ones... Well, there's definitely deaths in the woods, but it never looks as good anymore.  It's not like the first films were so amazing, even in look, but it felt a lot more small scale in a way the later films could have benefited from.  Kane Hodder does a decent job in his first role as Jason.  It's easy to see why fans latched onto him despite being in the worst films of the franchise.

[SJP]

Just as a small aside, Part VII was the most heavily censored of the franchise.  While all of them to some degree had to be cut for an R rating (even 6, which might be the LEAST cut of them all), VII was originally the goriest of the whole series hands down, which you can see if you go onto Youtube (or find them on one of the DVDs in the box sets).  It was the hardest hit because, at the time, slasher films were getting a lot of negative press and a combination of studio pressure and a very strict MPAA made them cut a lot of stuff out.

Still, listening to the commentary on those scenes is hilarious.  John Carl Buechler spends the entire thing, as heads are crushed and blood spurts out, going, "Look at that.  Wouldn't that have been nice?  It looks so nice."  I think John and most of the general public have a very different definition of 'nice.'

[Kete]

I've heard decent things about the musical one, was thinking of checking it out soon.  Anyway, I still need to make up for missing the 11th, will try to do that today.  After the movie I just watched, getting in the mood to watch another will be hard.

Day 13: Knock Knock (2015)  /5

WOW.  Easily the worst movie I've seen this month.  No, wait, I mean year.  Holy shit!  I knew this got pretty bad reviews, but I tend to like Eli Roth's stuff more than the average person, and I usually like Keanu, so I was looking forward to checking it out.  It's so goddamn bad, guys.  The only tiny sliver of enjoyment I got out of it was the hilariously bad performance of Keanu Reeves.  Look, I know he's not the greatest actor but I usually enjoy his work.  This performance is unreal, I don't even know how it could've happened.  He makes Marky Mark in The Happening seem Oscar worthy.  Granted, the material he's working with here is hot fucking garbage, but still, this is one of the worst performances I've ever seen from an established actor.  I'm not going to get into the plot too much.  Basically, some girls show up on Keanu's doorstep on a rainy night and he helps them, but everything is not as it seems etc. etc. yada yada...

Fuck this movie, it's bad, don't watch it.

Like

Hey, didn't I warn you about this one?

[SJP]

Day 15: The Hole

Yeah, the Joe Dante movie from a little while ago.  Not in 3D, unfortunately, but I didn't even remember that it was filmed that way until about halfway through.

Two kids and their mom move into a new house, where the two kids and their cynical next door neighbor find something in the basement: a locked trapdoor.  Upon opening it and revealing a weird, endless hole, bad things begin to happen.

While not Joe Dante's best effort (and oddly ripping himself off in a lot of ways), it is loads better than Looney Tunes: Back in Action.  It turns out not to be as scary as the plot insists it is, but it is at least a little suspenseful, and even though it was done much better in Poltergeist, the evil clown doll is still done very well.  It also feels like Dante wanted to go nuts and do the sort of weird, live action cartoon schtick he loves, but kept himself subtle until the very end...which goes to its detriment.  Joe is at his best when he's wholeheartedly pulling from the "Crazy Bucket," and that he waits so long really makes the going slow.

And really, it should've been something Gremlin-like in that hole.  I won't say what it really is if anyone's interested, but even if people said it was just a rehash of Gremlins, it would've been a lot creepier.  And the older brother really is a dick in the beginning.  They explain why, but he didn't have to be so clichéd about it.  And Bruce Dern should've been in it longer.

[Edward J Grug III]

I far preferred Looney Tunes Back in Action to The Hole. (And I didn't like LTBiA much at all)

[Edward J Grug III]

War of the Insects (Cinematic Titanic) - Fails to have much horror or suspense. Or be very watchable. The first 30 mins of this riff are tremendous. I don't think they sustain it all the way through, but it's never terrible.

[Edward J Grug III]

Beetlejuice - Beetlejuice is a bunch of fun moments strung together rather than a very good movie - The ending is particularly weak. On the whole, fun to watch, but not really very satisfying.

[JimJ]

I've heard decent things about the musical one, was thinking of checking it out soon.  Anyway, I still need to make up for missing the 11th, will try to do that today.  After the movie I just watched, getting in the mood to watch another will be hard.

Day 13: Knock Knock (2015)  /5

WOW.  Easily the worst movie I've seen this month.  No, wait, I mean year.  Holy shit!  I knew this got pretty bad reviews, but I tend to like Eli Roth's stuff more than the average person, and I usually like Keanu, so I was looking forward to checking it out.  It's so goddamn bad, guys.  The only tiny sliver of enjoyment I got out of it was the hilariously bad performance of Keanu Reeves.  Look, I know he's not the greatest actor but I usually enjoy his work.  This performance is unreal, I don't even know how it could've happened.  He makes Marky Mark in The Happening seem Oscar worthy.  Granted, the material he's working with here is hot fucking garbage, but still, this is one of the worst performances I've ever seen from an established actor.  I'm not going to get into the plot too much.  Basically, some girls show up on Keanu's doorstep on a rainy night and he helps them, but everything is not as it seems etc. etc. yada yada...

Fuck this movie, it's bad, don't watch it.

Like

Hey, didn't I warn you about this one?

Were you the one that posted about it at Sundance?  I remember that.  I thought I had lowered my expectations enough, but I was not even close.  What a fucking shit show that movie is.

Day 15: Crimson Peak (2015) 4/5

I really enjoyed this.  Guillermo Del Toro, Jessica Chastain being deliciously evil, beautiful set and costume design and visual effects.  I had a blast with it.  This is one that far exceeded my expectations, as I wasn't in love with what I'd seen in the trailers and ghost stories usually aren't my thing.  Thankfully, to paraphrase a line from the film, this isn't a ghost story, it's a story with ghosts in it.  Highly recommended.

[Johnny Unusual]

Friday the `13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan

Surprisingly,  I enjoyed this a lot more than I expected.  I guess because I went in knowing it was going to be campy but did so in a way that wasn't intolerable.  It doesn't actually make it to Manhattan until the second half, at which point I wonder why Jason is still targeting our protagonists instead of everyone in sight.  I mean, a lot of people die getting in his way, but I don't really see why he is after those folks in particular.  At one point a character says "we are being chased by a homicidal maniac" and I mockingly said in a goofy voice "Welcome to New York." a full second before the movie did.  I was bothered by the over the top Latino gang members who clearly aren't Latino, but as silly as all the "ain't New York crazy" stuff was, I wasn't too bothered by it.

The ending is weird as hell though.  Apparently,  New York sewers are flooded with toxic waste every night (WHAT?!) and Jason gets some in his face.  We get to see his face and this is probably the silliest Jason face reveal (which happens in every movie save #5) yet.  But then it gets weird because after Jason is done in by toxic waste, lightning strikes The Statue of Liberty and Jason turns back into his little boy self.  This raises SO many questions.  Overall, super dumb and not in any way "good" but more watchable than you might expect in the last half.

Going to take a break before going into what people consider to be the worst Jason film, and then the one where he's in space with David Cronenberg.