31 Days (and nights) of Halloween, 2019!

[Joker]

Naw you gotta watch it again October 1st lol

Haha! I mean, it wasn't October!

[QBall]

haha, I'm deep into the extreme version of this. Watching a new movie a day for the whole year

[QBall]

Day 1: Red Lights
Really enjoyed that despite some obvious flaws. Cillian Murphy was on top form and one of DeNiro's more controlled performances. Want to enthuse but can't without spoiling things, watch and make up your own mind.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gxsl3yCZje4

[Astral Disaster]

And it begins...

1 - The Witch (2015)

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[Sean Whitmore]

Getting this year started off right!

Evil Dead 2



If you can believe it, I'd never seen this before. I think my friend tried to show it to me back in high school, but I didn't have a taste for it then. Nowadays, it's right up my alley, and another one to check off my "everyone else has already seen this" list. It's tough to live up to a rep like this movie's got, but this one pretty much does. My hat's off to any horror-comedy that's actually more horrific than it is comical. It's kind of brilliant that, instead of dumbing down the threats, the movie instead let's them be fully dangerous and scary, and just pits them against a cartoonishly-indestructible everyman.

If anything hurts it, it's going in with the knowledge that things get even wilder in the sequel and then the spinoff series.

[thwhtGuardian]

I actually watched this one last night while waiting for the floor stripping company to finish buffing out the store...but that took till one so it totally counts.

The Thing From Another World
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I'm a huge fan of the 1982 remake by John Carpenter but it had been so long since I had seen the original(maybe middle school...so nearly 20 years ago, wow I'm getting old!)that I barely remembered it and as it's on the Archive and I had time to kill I decided to cue it up.
The film starts out well with Christian Nyby’s direction creating a mood of tingling expectancy as he shows up how a small group of US airmen and scientists stationed near the North Pole investigate a strange phenomenon but as the film progresses I found it more and more lacking. Usually I'm fully in the camp of less is more when it comes to monsters on film, believing that the suggestion of a shadowy menace is much more effective than a full frontal gore fest...but here Nyby takes it to an extreme to where it's not even hinted, it all pretty much happens off screen and we're just told about it. Maybe if we never actually did see the creature that method would work, because I think the terrible creature effects(if you can even call rubbery nailed hands and a bathing cap creature effects) coupled with stoic reactions and descriptions of his menace make you notice that the creature isn't all that scary than if you never actually saw him first hand.

Still there are a few creepy bits, the infant seedling army growing in the green house was effectively creepy and I did love the concept of a plant based alien life form. In the end, while definitely not my favorite horror movie and definitely not one I'd revisit all that often I think it was worth watching if only for the tension at the start.

Grade:C

[Joker]

Stuck working at home today, so I'm planning to just marathon a bunch of movies. Not all Halloween themed, but I'm sure later in the day I'll get there.

[thwhtGuardian]

The VVitch
2015, A24

Since first viewing this film by Robert Eggers two years back it has quickly become one of my all time favorite horror films. It's such a tense, thought provoking film that's just steeped in atmosphere and mood which is everything that draws me to the genre as a whole. From the very start when we first glimpse the deep woods after English settler William and his family are banished from Plymouth Colony you just can't shake the sense of foreboding of that one, dead, white tree among the dark evergreens. It's wild and mysterious and the discordant notes that Mark Korven brings to the soundtrack when ever the characters look to the woods just adds to their unnerving nature. There are no jump scares here, or buckets of gore or even scary creatures, only a sense of dread that slowly builds in the pit of your stomach and spreads up along your spine to the nape of your neck that's created solely by play of shadows and light and the emotions of this puritanical family as they struggle against the wilds and themselves. Don't get me wrong, there are witches at the end and a demonic goat but it's everything that happens before then that leaves you feeling apprehensive.
Grade:A+

[Joker]

Spoiler alert!

Agreed, it's a wonderful movie. A personal favorite that I'm looking forward to watching this season.

[thwhtGuardian]

Spoiler alert!

Agreed, it's a wonderful movie. A personal favorite that I'm looking forward to watching this season.

I'm hoping I'll be able to catch his second film, The Lighthouse, latter this month as it looks just as amazing.

[Joker]

I haven't even watched a trailer. I'd like to see it knowing nothing beforehand.

[thwhtGuardian]

I haven't even watched a trailer. I'd like to see it knowing nothing beforehand.

I've seen the trailer and it looks stunning but I agree mystery is a great element to Eggers films. I went into the Witch totally blind when I first saw it and I loved it.

I've read that he did short adaptations of the Tell Tale Heart and Hansel and Gretal as well but I've never been able to track them down.

[Astral Disaster]

The VVitch
2015, A24

Since first viewing this film by Robert Eggers two years back it has quickly become one of my all time favorite horror films. It's such a tense, thought provoking film that's just steeped in atmosphere and mood which is everything that draws me to the genre as a whole. From the very start when we first glimpse the deep woods after English settler William and his family are banished from Plymouth Colony you just can't shake the sense of foreboding of that one, dead, white tree among the dark evergreens. It's wild and mysterious and the discordant notes that Mark Korven brings to the soundtrack when ever the characters look to the woods just adds to their unnerving nature. There are no jump scares here, or buckets of gore or even scary creatures, only a sense of dread that slowly builds in the pit of your stomach and spreads up along your spine to the nape of your neck that's created solely by play of shadows and light and the emotions of this puritanical family as they struggle against the wilds and themselves. Don't get me wrong, there are witches at the end and a demonic goat but it's everything that happens before then that leaves you feeling apprehensive.
Grade:A+

One of my favorites of the last several years, first saw it in a packed theater at a special midnight showing, unfortunately the crowd that night was less than enthusiastic as I suspect they were anticipating a more typical horror story with plenty of jump scares, and their disappointment was palpable, with more than a few grumbling during the film. That atmosphere made it difficult for me to focus on and enjoy the movie, but I could tell there was something to the story, so went a second time with a friend about a week later during an afternoon matinee with far fewer people and confirmed my earlier impressions.

[Vegan Daddy]

I’m starting with my favorite Peter Lorre film.

Mad Love (1935)

[Jared]

October 1st. 1 - The Old Dark House (1932)

James Whale directed this after Frankenstein. Very well shot, and while the acting is of its time it's all performed well.
Boris Karloff is a mute, drunken butler. A lot of of the gothic tropes of "strangers stay in a creepy house on a stormy night" are here.

With a running time of an hour and 12 minutes, the movie leaves some gaps in the story. I don't know if the these were true from the novel it was based on, but I doubt it.

An intriguing watch, certainly worth it for anyone who likes gothic tales.