Lurker > v_charon

Now time to make a post about Russell Crowe in an exorcism themed horror movie for the second year running.

Seems to have lower scores than last year's The Pope's Exorcist, which I thought was serviceable though looking back I probably overrated it just a smidge. The premise of this one (just "The Exorcism") sounds more interesting. This time, he's not playing an actual exorcist but rather acting as one in a horror film and things go in a downward spiral for him from there. We're seeing it as a matinee on Sunday.

Watched another Tubi original called The Camp Host.

Pretty by the numbers in most respects. The basic plot is that a couple who is living out of their van decides to camp overnight, but where they camp at is the home of a deranged camp host who has strict rules that you must follow, or else you die. They try to do something with a Native American theme because the lead actress is that, or at least her character is. I'm just assuming the properly cast the part. Anyway it just never really goes anywhere and is fairly poorly explained. The main couple can be a little grating at times, and how Ed survives through the entire film is a mystery to me. He was shot in the head at point blank range, nearly disemboweled and again sliced presumably across the neck or close to it. No idea how he lives but he does.

There's also another part of the film that reveals the camp host has a small child locked in a cage. She's eventually freed but ends up killing one of the only characters who was actually trying to follow the rules. There's just no reason why given, because before she quickly decides she wants to escape her captor only to seemingly become her? Oh and despite being shot multiple times in the chest and floating away down the river, the Camp Host herself turns up just fine in the closing scene. Hate that. I get it if it's like Michael Myers or Jason Vorhees, but other than a brief time she sprinted at the speed of a vehicle she wasn't shown or hinted to be supernatural.

The more I write about it, the less I think of the movie. I want to say it's one of those things you can turn on in the background and have it not be offensive, but I'm not so sure I totally believe that in truth.

Watched Cinderella's Revenge on Prime. This movie had a small theatrical run, at least it did here. It seemed to be exclusively shown in Regal theaters though, and unless it's a dire emergency I'm not gonna pay them $30 so we can watch a movie. I'm glad we didn't have to pay that price for this one, though I don't think this is that bad a movie. It's got some fun gore, fans of the movie Species will recognize that main character playing the Fairy Godmother in this one. She's the best part of the whole thing too. The standin characters for Lady Tremaine and her daughters (they changed their names for some reason, yet they kept Cinderella's...) are just too evil; it's so over the top, especially when you first start watching it. I'm not sure if they were going for this, but I felt even the Disney animated movie of this adaption wasn't so hamfisted in their approach. Genny said there were some little nods to the OG fairy tale, which was cool I guess. It's a little better than the Alice horror movie we watched earlier in the year. Still haven't gotten around to watching Blood and Honey 2 yet, not sure why they insist on waiting so long to put it on streaming.

I think it's a difficult story to make into a working movie. It would probably do better as a TV series, or maybe even just a miniseries, where you'd have more time to build up the characters and tell some intertwining stories. Not to say that it's a bad movie, because I don't think it is. It's just... a little odd in places. It's definitely stylistically pleasing and most of the film's atmosphere has a great ominous feeling about it, but there are some issues such as well, the lack of horror. It's clearly still horror and all, but I do feel like it was missing some beats in terms of how a well done horror film is paced.

It looks nice and is well acted. Story wise it has some issues. We did see the trailer for her father's next film for the first time directly in front of the start of it though, I'm interested in that one.

We're seeing The Watchers on a midnight screening tomorrow. The review embargo lifts tomorrow at noon I think, so I'm curious to see what people think about this one. I expect the usual Shyamalan polarity but we'll see. I've been cautiously optimistic about this film and the trailers have done well not to give away the plot of the film. This movie just feels like it has one of those patented twists in it, but I'm not sure his daughter should be taking a page directly from her dad or not. It doesn't always turn out well, but it's pretty nice when it does.

I prefer The First Omen personally, but I can see how someone might prefer Immaculate. I will say that Immaculate was the more surprisingly good film since I had prejudged it coming in that it would be a ripoff. I ranked them both as A tier films on the year, so I'd recommend seeing either if anyone hasn't.

I waited a bit on my final placement for Slay, but I gotta rank that as an A too I think. It achieves just about all it can with that premise. My favorite horror films are always going to be more psychological and intricate in nature, but I feel I can recognize really fun horror comedy now as well which is something I know I couldn't do in the past.

We watched Slay on Tubi last night. It's about 4 drag queens being booked in a redneck/bikers bar but then vampires show up, and the characters have to work together. It's surprisingly a lot of fun, I enjoyed this one. Worth checking out; it's Pride month so what better time!

Spring Lakes wasn't good for the record, I wouldn't recommend seeing it. Pretty dull with a highly disjointed story that's really hard to follow. If you do happen to see it, there's like one funny character in there that you'll know right when he shows up. Sometimes in bad horror movies, there's that one character who is super over the top hilarious that it's a small saving grace for the film. But just a small saving grace.

PrivateBiscuit1 posted...

What platform is this on?

Looks like Prime and Apple. I added it to my list since even though it's listed as 2022, that's a film festival showing according to IMDb. It didn't have a proper US release until this year. Not sure when I'll get to it, but I'll prioritize it over most of the other stuff I have on my streaming platform list.

But tonight we're finally watching Spring Lakes. This was like one of the first movies of the year to come out and for whatever reason we never got around to it. It's free with Prime now (with ads, wee thanks Amazon).

I wouldn't go that far. Honestly, if you've seen the trailer there's just a lot, a lot more of that same shot just in slightly different areas. Just the dude walking with the Resident Evil 4 camera over his shoulder.

Saw In a Violent Nature.

It's uh... hard to explain. Interestingly enough, I find myself in between critics and audiences on this one. I definitely don't find this to be in the realm of 87% fresh, but at the same time I don't think it's a bad movie either. The concept does feel unique and at times interesting, but at other times I did find things to be slow and plodding. The kills are probably the star of the show here, but if you look too deeply into the story you'll find holes in it. The ending is pretty strange, so spoilers We kept waiting for something to happen, and I was telling myself that there's no way Johnny is even anywhere close to them because this lady has been driving forever while telling this story of hers. Then he in fact, does never show up again and the final scene basically just says he got his locket back and that's all that mattered to him. I did kind of enjoy the cold ending because it's a pretty original idea I haven't seen executed like this before. On the other hand, if all he wanted was the locket he did take a very roundabout approach to retrieving it. He seemed to be easily distracted by killing people, but maybe that's part of his psyche. I dunno.

High praise for In A Violent Nature, from critics at least. Audiences seem to abhor this so I'm a little worried. Checking it out this weekend regardless of course.

Finally found time to watch a streaming platform film last night. It's one that came out around the same time as Sting, or at least, that's the US release date via Shudder. It's Infested; a French language spider-themed film. Given the proximity to Sting, it wasn't a hugely interesting one I sought after at first but it was time to give it a watch finally.

I regret putting this one off. Excellent movie, highly recommend checking it out. Way scarier than Sting, which I also liked well enough. But the creepy factor here is off the charts I feel; even if you aren't particularly scared of spiders (like me) this one should still be sufficient in unsettling you. I enjoyed the characters and their interactions with each other as well, told a pretty good story with tons of really cool looking scares thrown in. If you've got Shudder don't miss out on this one.

The Strangers: Chapter One was pretty much exactly what I was expecting; which means it isn't good. I just have a hard time taking the Strangers seriously as killers; they're so incompetent and never fill me with a sense of dread or fear. Without going into any heavy spoilers too much to explain why, the only reason films like this work at all is because they create protagonists that are even more incompetent than they are.

Just a few little notes, I guess: If the Strangers are using this Air BNB as a kill spot, and it's heavily implied they do, why did they fail to clear the property of dangerous weapons like a loaded shotgun? And why do these totally normal, non-supernatural and not even clever killers then come to a gunfight with knives? At times the movie shows you how prepared they are, and yet there are glaring instances like this where they're portrayed as fools. It's just bad writing.

The acting is okay, I guess. Script is nothing special; I barely jumped at all and the things that did get a rise out of me were usually just little jump scares here and there. Can't believe they want to make 2 more of these things.

I have many thoughts on it. They're a bit conflicted because there are many things I like about the film, but there are a couple of glaring issues I had with it too. Firstly, the initial draw of this film for me was the 90s nostalgia element. I was a big fan of Are You Afraid of the Dark? back in the day and this sort of put me in mind of that show; a horror-adjacent show aimed towards "smarter" young people of the time period. Though part of me wonders that, if like in this movie, if I went back to revisit that series would it really hold up and be everything I remember it as... or is it actually just childish after all? I'm too afraid to find out I think. Anyway, that along with other things (I popped at the Fruitopia vending machine specifically) led me to build excitement towards watching this.

Coming into the movie, I wasn't aware of the director really and I didn't know about this film's allegorical nature either. I did start to question it during certain moments and once I looked online and then looked back over the movie in my mind I could see a lot of different things then. I did like the acting here, though I made the joke that Justice Smith was playing the role of Justice Smith once again before actually seeing the movie (mostly because appearance wise he looked almost identical to the character he played in The Quarry). He did excellent here though, probably the best work I've ever seen from him I think. I liked both of the main characters really, it's just a shame they didn't occupy more screentime together I felt. And this is where the movie starts to run into a bit of a problem for me. I don't mind the pacing, and it definitely is very much a methodical slow-burn. It requires some patience to watch but I felt it had a good delivery once it made it to that point.

That being said, when it comes to telling a story, I typically want some resolution. I felt like this movie didn't do that for me and when the ending comes out of nowhere, I was left both audibly and visibly upset by this. Since this is probably one of the ones everyone is going to see I'll tag spoilers now: So I get this is a trans allegory story. But I'm left confused on two fronts by it. Firstly, the main story of the film revolves around that The Pink Opaque was not a show but the real life of the two main characters before they had their memories stolen from them. Up until the last scene we're never told for certain that's the case, well, "Owen" did attempt to go through the TV at one point and that all but confirmed the story was true. But anyway, by the end we know that in fact it is true. But "Owen" decides to not act on it by what I saw, or it was too late perhaps to act on it? Then as an allegory... to embrace the inner you, the real person you are on the inside. "Owen" opens their chest up and this is meant to signify showing who they actually are on the inside, which I assume is Isabel. But then rather than "come out" to the world, the movie ends with Owen reverting to the facade and apologizing to the world. I guess after finding out more about the director, I found this to be an odd choice for them to go with. Because we both felt the movie ended with a whimper, basically having the main character not embrace the inner self and instead continuing their life as it was before, as a lie. I know not all movies have happy endings I guess, but I felt this combined with the lack of resolution with The Pink Opaque left kind of a sour taste in my mouth.

Ultimately, I did like it, just not love it. It's a very Beau is Afraid sort of feeling to me. I really appreciate and respect it, and there's a lot I like. But I have certain little hangups about writing things this way and am very much a purist on how to write an ending for any piece of storytelling.

Our main theater hub picked it up, seeing it Thursday for sure now! Then Strangers on Sunday... yay...

Two of our local theaters will have I Saw the TV Glow, but so far, it's only playing on Thursday and the two theaters aren't exactly ideal ones. Both are older, art-house types. We've been to both in the past and I don't mind paying for the select film from time to time, though I didn't think this was going to be one that AMC just wasn't going to carry. Maybe it still will, but I'm nervous of not getting the chance to see this one for a while if we miss out on Thursday.

Congrats to you guys that actually got it nearby at all, because according to BoxOfficeMojo it played in only 4 locations across the entire country last weekend. It should have a wider release in two weeks, so we'll be on the lookout for it for sure. Meanwhile there was another horror movie out this weekend... that should be in theaters everywhere, Tarot. Obviously we had seen the trailer for this one many times at this point, and word of mouth was very poor.

That being said, and this probably won't be a popular opinion, but I didn't think it was bad at all. In fact, I'd call it competent. It doesn't create any new ideas or do anything particularly well, but it does everything at a level I'd say is fairly decent. It's sort of a throwback to a late 90's-early 2000's style of teen/young adult horror movies that feature a mid-sized cast of characters getting killed off in various ways. It does have its hands tied a little bit with the PG-13 rating, but it pushes the boundary just about as far as it can to make stuff still look pretty exciting. The monster designs are, for the most part, pretty good looking and there are definitely a couple that standout. It is a pretty predictable experience, but I don't think that makes it bad. People that are saying this bad are simply not watching enough horror movies; there's a huge list of things way worse than this.

We didn't get it either. It should expand to more locations over the next two weeks I think.

So we watched something last night on Tubi called Gacy: Serial Killer Next Door.

It's of course about the infamous serial killer, but it's a partially fictionalized take on it. Well, mostly fictionalized I guess. The only parts that are real are Gacy himself and maybe a few details about his kill style and victim choice. Essentially the movie is "what if John Wayne Gacy had a nosy next-door neighbor who immediately suspected he was up to something". It starts out decently, maybe anyway. The actor who portrays Gacy isn't really a bad actor, I doubt he's playing Gacy though. I'm not a huge serial killers nerd, so I realized I knew a lot less about Gacy than I thought I did. The character pictured here is clearly very Joker or Pennywise inspired with a lot of over-the-top clown stuff, which I doubt was actually Gacy, but he is sufficiently creepy and unsettling.

That's about all the good I can muster to say about this movie though. Yikes this was bad, like bad Lifetime movie sort of levels. The writing is abysmal, especially for the main character's parents. At one point they're all in on believing their son, so much so that the dad goes out to follow Gacy around and even goes to get a gun saying he's going to take the law into his own hands. Then literally less than a minute later he's telling his son that he's overreacting and Gacy hasn't done anything wrong. There are a lot of distracting scenes that go nowhere and are full of bad actors. Interestingly it's not shot poorly at any point, but what's being shot is often mind-numbingly bad. It being about a recent enough serial killer that still has people affected by what he did doesn't really bother me so much, I'm a fan of SKYND for example. But this lacks any quality and outside of being disrespectful or whatever to the victims' families, it's just a badly written and acted film.

So apparently that film was a prequel to what's apparently Indonesia's highest ever grossing original film from a couple of years ago. I don't feel like having watched that first film would change much since as a prequel this is intended to stand on its own, though I'm sure there would be things to catch if you did know. I thought it was pretty good; there are times when I struggle to follow along with and keep up with films from this part of the world, but this told a very easy to register story with a cast of characters that didn't really get lost in each other. A few really visceral moments and a couple of decent scares. It is a little long at just over two hours, but I had a good time with it personally.

Shudder has added a new original as of yesterday also, a French film called Infested (after just mentioning the lack of spider movies, there are two in just a few weeks now!). This is one of those "2023" movies but I'll be watching it as part of this year since this is the first time it's available for watching (legally speaking at least) in the US.

Augh, Paramount+

We're about to head off to see something on the big screen called Dancing Village: The Curse Begins. I wasn't aware of this film in the slightest until it showed up on the release radar this week. It's an Indonesian film that's getting a limited theatrical release here for some reason, I haven't read much into why. But I enjoy watching foreign horror films for the most part, and I'm curious to see if there's going to be much of a turnout. When we saw Exhuma in theaters last months tons of people came out for that one, but we live in a pretty densely populated Korean area. Either no one will be in this film but us, or I'll learn something about our demographics I guess. I'm not sure what to expect from it; I don't even know the plot synopsis nor have I seen any trailer for this movie. It's fairly long, which could be a popular thing in Asian countries perhaps since these will be two of the longest horror movies we've watched this year.

We watched something I had been meaning to check out for a few months now last night called The Seeding. It had a limited run at some point early this year but I couldn't find it playing nearby. It's a folk horror movie... which means I didn't care for it much. It reminded me a lot of Midsommar in theming at times, which I also really didn't care for. At least with Midsommar there are some moments, mostly early, where I did feel like I was gonna like it. Here that thought vanished pretty quickly. It's competently made; visually it looks fine, it's acted fine. I just don't like the story decisions; it's bleak, too bleak. Unlike a movie from last year like say, When Evil Lurks, it didn't have any characters I could enjoy that were at the heart of the film. That's why I liken it more to Midsommar because again, the cast is very unlikable. Kind of a disappointment, but at least I finally watched it.

Did anyone go and see Abigail on opening weekend? We saw it last night, pretty good stuff! I'm glad to see Universal able to put out a well-received and universally liked in general vampire film. I personally liked Renfield last year but I know that's a minority opinion. Abigail felt very fresh though, pretty unique stylistically speaking to most any vampire movie in recent memory. I was impressed by the character work of the supporting cast, and there's lots and lots of blood if that's a draw for you.

Watched a few more movies on our return flights. The first is one I had noticed on Prime a while back called A Cold Grave. This is a very low budget found footage style film, generally at least. Like some movies of that genre it betrays that in moments in needs to. Blair Witch inspired for sure, hikers get lost in the woods then a relative of one of those characters gives search. There are a few characters in the movie, but it's mostly a one man show. I don't think this movie will be for everyone, it will hinge on if you find this particular character charming, and I kinda did. He's a bit hammy and over the top but for whatever reason I liked his wit. I've seen a few reviews absolutely hammering this movie but I don't think it's bad. No masterpiece and doesn't add anything new to this subgenre outside of an eccentric lead.

Secondly, I finally checked out T.I.M. featuring one of my favorite up and coming scream queens in Georgina Campbell (Barbarian and Lovely Dark and Deep, subnote to make sure you see that one). If you've seen M3GAN, then you can probably guess how this movie plays out. Not that that is a bad thing since I personally thought it was one of the best films last year. TIM is a bit more violent I think since ratings weren't an issue. Like M3GAN, the guy playing the AI really gives a great performance and along with Georgina helps this movie shine. If you did enjoy M3GAN, this one should push all those same buttons. Maybe it presses them too much sometimes but it's well acted and produced.

I liked it. Didn't deserve to bomb. Not the greatest movie ever but it looked good and was competent.

We watched something called Night Shift. It's about a woman who, of course, begins a new job working a night shift at a hotel that's a little seedy. Supposedly, even haunted. There are a couple of really effective scares mixed in but there's a twist near the ending I personally didn't like too much. It ultimately brought it down a bit for me. Still not bad though.

At 40 films now on the year, so here's an update to my list so far. I'm trying to get Genny to get a list too so we can compare them but it might be a little too late now to get them in proper order I think. Some of the films in the C tier for me I feel end up being pretty forgettable experiences and I'd be hard pressed to rank some of them unless I had a fresh take on them while they were still in the forefront of my mind.

S Tier:

1. Late Night With the Devil
2. Stopmotion

A Tier:

3. Lovely, Dark and Deep
4. Monolith
5. You'll Never Find Me
6. Exhuma
7. Lisa Frankenstein
8. The First Omen
9. Arcadian
10. Destroy All Neighbors
11. Somewhere Quiet
12. My Bloody Galentine
13. Immaculate
14. Double Blind

B Tier:

15. Founders Day
16. Out of Darkness
17. Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire
18. Departing Seniors
19. Baghead
20. Sting
21. Laced
22. Imaginary
23. Last Night at Terrace Lanes

C Tier:

24. I.S.S.
25. Guess Who
26. Stranger in the Woods
27. The Windigo
28. Cellphone
29. Easter Bloody Easter
30. Sunrise
31. Alice in Terrorland
32. Midnight Peepshow
33. Gods of the Deep

D Tier:

34. Project Dorothy
35. Night Swim
36. Punch
37. Skeletons in the Closet
38. Arctic Hollow

F Tier:

39. They Turned Us Into Killers
40. History of Evil

I think it'll be difficult for any film to unseat Late Night With The Devil this year because I can't say enough good things about it. It's out on Shudder now (or soon) and we might even end up watching it again because that's how great it is. I've liked the majority of movies we've watched this year, just a handful of stinkers so far in my opinion.

PrivateBiscuit1 posted...

Yoooo guys, go out of your way to watch You Will Never Find Me on Shudder.

It's a movie about a girl who goes to find shelter in a guy's house during a terrible thunder storm. It's an extremely claustrophobic horror movie that stays in that single set piece and it flew past any expectations you have. Such a tightly wound and clever script that left me thinking I had the answers multiple times. Incredible last act of the movie. And the cinematography on this one is excellent too.

Check this one out. It's really special.

Got around to it.

Yeah, this one is quite good. I liked it a lot; very tense and it was like 50 minutes before I could even tell who the bad guy was. Even though I was able to correctly predict a few things about this movie at that point, I still really enjoyed the presentation. I bet the budget was smaller here with this one, but this is exactly how you do it. I really love these one location horrors lately.

Yeah, it's unfortunate that even with good word of mouth and high ratings The First Omen hasn't arrived with any fanfare. I guess the IP is just too old to get people excited, or Believer might have tainted the idea of old, religious themed horror franchises being very good for most people. It could also be that the Omen films, at least in my opinion, kinda suck after the first one.

Arcadian was a nice experience for sure. Probably the coolest monsters of the year so far, and they didn't shy away from showing them. There's something pretty unique they do that I won't spoil here; the first time you see it I think it's pretty terrifying. It helps this film has some good acting as well; the dynamics between the two brothers is the star of the show I think. Nic Cage of course is always good too.

We actually ended up watching Sting before we left on vacation after I found out we would be able to see Arcadian at a local theater here in Maine after all. It's gonna cost a lot more than usual, but it's a vacation so meh. Seeing that tonight or tomorrow night.

Sting was fairly good. Nicely done little creature feature sort of movie; it's nice to see one that isn't about sharks. I think the first parts of the film are probably better than the later ones. It never takes itself too seriously and there are some humorous parts in there too; I liked the main character, well, I liked her a lot at first but by the end she was just sort of okay. If you like creature horrors, this one should be one you'd enjoy too; it doesn't do anything special or take chances, just a well-done by the numbers experience.

We also watched a shorter horror film in flight called Arctic Hollow; it's only about 70 minutes... and yeah. Just... not good. I would say kinda bad. It's sad because I know this is probably a really low budget movie but it shows. Sometimes when you have a low budget, you have to make a film that hides that fact. It's not hard to do; but it does mean you can't tackle certain concepts and this film is guilty of that. It's basically a "hollow Earth" influenced movie; and this was made with like a shoestring budget and there's just no way it can pull it off. Both the writing and acting are pretty bad... music is kinda out of place a lot of times. I wanted to like it because I would say maybe the first 10-15 minutes so paint this as a slow burn movie with perhaps a way to execute a smart story with a little bit of money, but no. So corny and cringey in the last act.

Still better than calling it Pearl 3 imo

We'll probably watch it some time in the next week. We'll be on vacation, but at night I imagine we'll be watching a film most of the time. Unfortunately Maine doesn't have a ton of movie theaters so we might miss the limited showing of Sting; Arcadian just looks more interesting and we only have time to see one of them before we leave, so we'll be checking out Nic Cage's latest offering tomorrow. I'm a little more interested in Longlegs but this one has good reviews ahead of release.

Watched the Maxxxine trailer. I'm just not sold on it. I was disappointed with Pearl (slightly triggered by it being called "Pearl 3" there; XXX was a great movie that I did enjoy). I mentioned when it came out that I just felt it was a little overhyped and preferred XXX. But since this is a sequel and won't have Pearl in it at all, it might be more for me.

Watched two of Shudder's original films from 2024. I had been meaning to start on them for a while, especially since @PrivateBiscuit1 has been saying good things about the two most recent. But I felt I needed to watch one that came out a couple of months ago now, History of Evil, first. So last night we did just that... and boy oh boy, this did not leave me feeling that Shudder was on the right track with their originals at all. I have no idea who signed off on this.

To start, the film has an interesting enough premise, even if it does make me feel a certain sort of way. If you've seen the trailers for the upcoming movie Civil War, then it's basically that. You have this setup to where the government has been overthrown or perhaps just changed into that of a heavily Christian authoritarian state, at least that's what the movie tells you at first. But what it actually seems to be is more based on race, because any time a non-white person is on the side of this new government, they're referred to as "converts" specifically. Like only white people were originally part of this new order, even though that's never explicitly stated. Anyway, the horror aspect of this film is that a wife, husband and their daughter are on the run and part of the uniquely named "The Resistance", and while on the run they take refuge in what's essentially a haunted house. The wife is supposedly this big time leader of the group and she's recently escaped prison, though the way this film is written you'd never know she was supposed to be any sort of leader. Her relevance to the plot amounts to making two speeches over the radio that could have been easily created better by AI. Hollow nothingness.

The actual main character is her husband, and well, this is one of the worst written characters in horror recently. It's sort of like someone watched The Shining and then did a supremely shitty job of copying it. There's no nuance, no building of character, nothing. Just total horse shit and forced everything. It's infuriatingly bad writing to a level that's hard to put into to words. There is nothing good to say about this movie after the first 15 or 20 minutes. Plot points are introduced and go nowhere, but time is devoted to them anyway. Ghosts appear with no sort of explanation about who they are or what they represent; the one ghost that does get the most screentime just makes no sense. It's so poorly explained and again, the writing is just so shit it's hard to believe anyone put money into making this movie. I feel bad for everyone who was involved in making this. One of the worst horror movies I've ever seen.

The second one we watched is Baghead, though it's the newer of the other Shudder films it's what Genny picked so after me having picked what I did, I couldn't make any argument. It's a pretty good offering, definitely needed after what we had to watch before it. It was successful with some good jumpscares, especially early on. I did like the "villain" here the film has a 'dark end', which is something I typically don't like in my horror movies. But with this one I felt the 'witch' had really been screwed over here and didn't deserve to spent centuries locked in a basement and abused for her powers. So looking at it from her point of view, I suppose this wasn't a 'bad ending'.

But yeah, very competently done and definitely solidly enjoyable.

Just got back from it. Good stuff. After having seen Immaculate just recently, it's interesting to note how many parallels there are between the two films. I did say when I talked a little about Immaculate that it did a good job of subverting expectations that it would be a ripoff of The Omen franchise. Even so though, there are still a lot of things in common between these two films.

On the whole, I give the slight edge to The First Omen. Both are good movies, but I think only Sweeney was stellar in that movie whilst there was a higher amount of quality amongst this one. I think both films sort of go off the rails just a little around their endings, but there was really only one way for First Omen to end I guess since it's a canonical prequel to a nearly 50 year old movie. There are some really good scenes sprinkled throughout that are pretty unnerving and visceral. You can sort of see the plot twist coming from a ways away but I don't think it takes away from the film too much. Definitely not the bumbling of a historic horror IP that Exorcist: Believer was. I still don't think that movie is as bad as most do. There's a clear step down though.

The First Omen is out to pretty good reviews so far. I'm surprised.

Seen the trailer in front of a few recent horror trips to theater. A couple of the scenes they use gave me chills, really looking forward to it. Sadly I read recently it's had its release date pushed back a few months to August.

Frozen Empire was pretty good. What you would expect from the franchise if you watched the previous film; good quality, family-style entertainment with horror themes. I feel like Frozen Empire is a bit darker than Afterlife on the whole; there are a few actual deaths of humans sprinkled around (though not nearly anything to write home about) and probably more uses of swear words as well. The main villain has a really cool design I liked.

We did end up watching the Easter horror movie I mentioned. Schlock. But it's one of those fun films that's aware enough to know that's all it is. So long as you approach it knowing that's all you're going to get, you'll probably think it's pretty funny and have a good time with it. It's no Thanksgiving, and really no My Bloody Galentine either, but it's okay. Probably not worth the time out of season but I enjoyed it.

Finally watched Afterlife, so we're seeing Frozen Empire in the morning. Considering Ghostbusters horror is still not something I'd personally do, but thematically it fits fine. I did watch that Goosebumps movie last year and didn't bat an eye about putting it on my list, and essentially the Ghostbusters franchise is just a higher quality version of that I think. They even both have Dan Aykroyd.

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/easter_bloody_easter

Considering watching this tomorrow night for the holiday. It doesn't seem as bad as one would think, and it's kinda a fun tradition we're building watching these holiday horror flicks around the time of the holiday season it's based on.

Blood and Honey II is officially out in theaters now but we're not gonna be seeing it this time. I can't rationalize paying money after that first money, at least not more than $6-8 once it's available on Prime.

That being said... I'm checking now and... the movie has a 100% on RT and a 82% audience score. Limited critics so far, but how could this be possible?

Immaculate was pretty nice; definitely didn't correctly guess what this movie's twist was going to be when it happened so kudos to them for creating something a lot more original as The First Omen's release draws near. Definitely wasn't just a carbon copy of a movie from that franchise. Despite a really terrible theater-going experience, I did enjoy it. A few of the jump scares got me and I agree with most of the critics I've seen praising Sydney Sweeney's performance, she did indeed do a good job with the role.

Exhuma was pretty great, not perfect by any means, but a very different sort of horror movie if you desire something very different. I enjoyed the presentation of the team of four here and the way each of them have a special skill that brings something to the table, and it's an interesting look at Eastern culture in terms of burial and the dead which is something that I once considering making my life revolved around until I realized how unfeasible it would be to do so.

Apparently this movie is a huge hit in its native country, already becoming the highest grossing film of the year there so far even over Western powerhouse films like Wonka and Dune. It seems poised to even overtake Parasite in terms of box office gross in South Korea. I'm unsure if this film will find the success and admiration that Parasite did here in the States, but it's something to keep an eye on.

I always try to watch all the Shudder films. I'm one behind still though, never watched the one they put out before that one still. It didn't look all that interesting so I've neglected it for a little while now.

I'm pretty surprised Immaculate is as good as people are saying it is; I wasn't expecting that at all. It'll probably be Monday until we get to see that one though. Exhuma, that South Korean horror film I mentioned, actually was in theaters THIS weekend so we're catching an early showing of it tomorrow at 11:30am. Our typical Sunday movie day is probably off the card this week so Immaculate will have to be pushed back. Still haven't watched Afterlife, so no Ghostbusters just yet. I'll try to get to it though, it's the one I know will be in theaters the longest.

LightningStrikes posted...

Surprisingly had a packed house and there were gasps in the audience at points.

We had a pretty full theater as well, though they did put the showing we saw in one of the smaller rooms for some reason.

Late Night With the Devil lives up to all the hype. What a unique and crazy film. Go see it immediately, probably my favorite horror movie since Hereditary (maybe, I'd have to check what came out in each of the years between them).

Sunrise was... kinda underwhelming. I wanted to like it more but by the end I was just a little bored and confused by some of the plot points. It's a pretty slow-paced film, and it doesn't help that there are 3-4 flashback scenes that occur throughout the movie to tell you how the protagonist is related to the villain. I don't feel that aspect of it was done very well; gave it a really disjointed feeling. The acting is pretty good. But the writing and direction suffer a bit; it's not a difficult story to tell but for some reason I felt they made it out to be. There are tons of plotholes that made no sense to me as well, mostly all to do with the motives of certain characters. Pretty meh.

We also watched a Tubi original tonight released in January called Guess Who. Initially, this movie had a ton of stuff going for it and I was really liking it. It's based on this tradition I hadn't heard of before called "mummering", basically it's kinda like Halloween and Christmas together. You dress up so people don't know who you are, and you go door to door like caroling except you tell a riddle and people have to get it right to know who's under the mask. It's an interesting concept that lends itself well to horror, and to start out with there's a ton of promise. The film's first half or so sets an ominous atmosphere where you don't quite know what's going on; sadly I remarked that I hoped this film didn't turn into movies such as The Invitation, Ready or Not and Till Death Do Us Part just to name a few and sadly, that's exactly what happened. It really, really lessens the impact of this one for me because I've kinda seen too many like this before. Certainly these people are watching each other's movies right? Why does this movie keep getting made? Again, like 2 of those 3 movies I mentioned in those spoilers, it isn't a bad film (one of those 3 certainly was though). It's just not as good as it could have been if they hadn't gone this route; I had this one pegged a lot higher on my list through the first act or two.

I hope it is.

Big weekend for horror with Immaculate, Late Night With the Devil and Ghostbusters all coming out. Ghostbusters is pretty fringe horror for me, and admittedly I did not watch Afterlife so if we do plan on seeing it, I will definitely have to watch it before we go for that one. Tonight we're watching something called Sunrise; looks like a vampire movie featuring Guy Pearce

Watched a movie on VOD called Stranger in the Woods. It was pretty decent. It had a similar story to a lot of other movies we've seen recently, but it felt well produced and I thought the actors did a nice job. Essentially the film is what you might expect to get if you asked someone to make a horror movie and told them it had to be based on r/niceguys. There are so many things that happen in this movie that make you feel like you're listening to one of those videos of someone reading from the subreddit. There are a few nice touches though, Genny and I both liked that the black couple in this film were just eventually like, "Yeah, nah. We're leaving" and could not be coerced into staying and actually DID leave and survive just fine.

As for Thorns... I'll see it, eventually. Only Regal continues to carry it and I'm not gonna pay like $30 for us to go watch that. I like Doug Bradley and all, but the dude was in The Asylum's knockoff of the Exorcist last year and this film doesn't have very good review scores from what I've seen.

Came here to post that. I'm still unhappy with Spyglass though, they are unequivocally wrong. I'm torn on how to feel about one of my earliest character crushes returning and with Kevin Williamson at the director's chair too.

Eh.

I just don't know how to feel.

There's also a limited release South Korean horror-sounding film coming out as well called Exhuma. The plot sounds pretty horror adjacent and related to me (not TO me), though it's billed as Thriller. Only two theaters nearby have it starting Friday.

Looks like it's playing here too, but only at Regals, which I try to avoid because I have an AMC membership and it's hard to drop that much money on one film.

Still kinda baffled at that and Immaculate coming out within weeks of each other.