October Movies - Week 4

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,
 
It’s October!!! You know what that means… Izzy goes a little crazy with decoration for the house so that two humans, three cats & a sh*t ton of rats, ladybugs and box elder bugs can see them because we’re socially distanced (and nobody wants to come visit anyway). We’ve also decided that we’re going to try to watch 31 horror movies in the month… though we’re not restricting ourselves to new horror movies like other people out there. Izzy’s not a fan of gore and… we just watch a bunch of movies already. No time to waste on crap unless it’s something we wanted to watch for a long time… or rewatch. So on that note, here’s how the second week of that has gone thus far…
 
Oct 22 – Freaky (2020)
 
Luckily I have HBO Max and had heard of another flick that would make things right from how last week ended… about a serial killer & a teenage girl switching bodies… Freaky Friday the 13th but since that’s double copyright infringement it’s called “FREAKY”!!! Vince Vaughn & Kathryn Newton star as the two main people… and it’s the perfect combination of gore & humor. There’s really not much more to the story other than what I just said… serial killer stabs a teenage girl with a Mayan sacrificial dagger & apparently that switches their personalities… and then hijinx ensue as a teenage girl goes around killing people & Vince Vaughn tries to convince her friends that he is actually she… and guys, seriously, go watch this movie! Brave the gore too… it’s not that bad… and you can always do the quick look-away thing. It doesn’t linger like most horror movies. It fills it in with reaction shots and “theatre of the mind” or something like that.
 
Rating – 10/10 – I’m probably going to watch this again with Izzy so she doesn’t miss out on it.
 
Oct 23 – Black Widow (2021)
 
“Okay Steve, you & I both know this isn’t a horror movie!” Look, I don’t judge a book by its cover… I judge it by its title… and “Black Widow” sounds like a horror movie to me!!! Sure, it’s about a sexy female superhero assassin prequel that goes back to a time before she was dead to find a “family” we had never really heard about & take out enemies that she thought were long dead… so maybe it’s a time traveling zombie movie with a premise like that!!! Also, I hadn’t seen it & it was finally on Disney+ for free so BACK OFF!!! This movie has Scarlett Johannsen reprising her role of the titular Black Widow… but now she’s on a mission to free all the other Widows (Russian female assassins under mind control of the big baddie) and along the way she’s reunited with Florence Pugh, David Harbour & Rachel Weisz who were her sleeper cell “family” in the 90s… and also their own superheroes as it turns out. Hijinx ensue and… I really liked this one. There were a few points where I was angry at the characters for being difficult just for the sake of the plot and all that but… yeah, check it out guys!
 
Rating – 9/10 – I may also watch this again with Izzy if she’s in the mood… but “family” and it’s not Fast & Furious so… we’ll see when that happens.
 
Oct 24 – Halloween Kills (2021)
 
I love how this franchise has been rebooted so many times now that they can’t call it “Halloween 2 Again” or just retcon all of them to Halloween 2 1981, Halloween 2 2009 & Halloween 2 2021 so now they have to go the “Machete Kills” version of sequel naming. Coming Soon… Halloween Kills Again… in Space!!! Well, hold that thought. This sequel-prequel retcon of the 3rd retelling of the John Carpenter slasher classic picks up concurrently at a karaoke bar as the ending events of 2018 Halloween… which is present day (2018) after Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) and her daughter & granddaughter have just locked the killer Michael Myers in a basement inferno… roll credits, right? Of course not! Instead, Michael tears through a gaggle of firefighters and literally everybody he runs into for essentially no reason… while Laurie is having her torso stapled back together in a hospital full of the rest of Haddonfield as they go full “The Mist” and become a completely stupid lynch mob within about five minutes and start chasing another mentally handicapped old man through a hospital the size of Texas… and I’m just going to stop there. This movie is f**king stupid. Everybody in it is f**king stupid. It’s the worst kind of excuse for some great slasher kills… but it really is pointless other than that. I sincerely hope that “Halloween Kills Again In Space” brings back Tom Atkins to go after a Irish-based mask making conglomerate with some rando’s potentially teenage daughter… because let’s face it, we haven’t seen that remake yet.
 
Rating – 4/10 – The bones are there, but the entire hospital things is a half-hour of pointless nonsense in an otherwise tightly stupid slasher.
 
Oct 25 – DUNE!!! (2021)
 
AT F**KING LAST!!! I’ve been hype about this movie for YEARS now & it has FINALLY come to theatres (or more appropriately HBO MAX)!!! The cast is ridiculous… the plot is the inspiration for everything from Star Wars to Aliens and back… it’s a sci-fi classic that’s just waiting for an appropriate representation in the visual medium of film. Would this be the Godsend?!? Would the White Savior story set in Space FINALLY get its moment in Hollywood limelight after decades of failed attempts?!? Well… I’ll give this movie one thing… it’s a gorgeous trailer… an intro into the backstory of what should be an amazing series of movies. I enjoyed everything about the movie… except that I was left with the feeling at the end that I was actually ready for the movie to begin… even after 2.5 hours. Now I had thought that Part 2 was ready to go for next year… so to find out that they hadn’t filmed it back to back & It may be another three years or so… F*********K!!!
 
Rating – 9/10 – It left me wanting more… but it was too much like an appetizer to go full 10/10 rating.
 
Oct 26 – The Snorkel (1958)
 
Back to the Hammer collection as we check out this little gem… we start off seeing a man kill his wife by knocking her out with drugs, letting gas seep into a sealed-up room, while he’s breathing through a snorkel rig in the floorboards, and the police come & rule her death a suicide… and he’s allegedly away on a business trip. Well, the teenage daughter knows that it’s bullsh*t & stepdad killed her father the same way & she’s next… but the police won’t believe her. Now… I won’t go into details… but this premise really got to me because of my father’s death & how the police completely disregarded my suspicions. That being said, how this movie plays out… is pretty damn entertaining to watch & the only knock that I really have against it is my modern perspective of “nobody believes her because she’s a teenage girl?” Then again… if I look at it with “police are just being f**king lazy & don’t give a f**k about you or your family” then it all makes sense.
 
Rating – 9/10 – I recommend checking this one out! The teenage girl is killing it, moreso than some of the older actors.
 
Oct 27 – Maniac (1963)
 
Okay, this premise was a little weird to me… so try to follow along. An American painter boards up in a small French village and starts out wanting to have an affair with a barmaid… but instead has the affair with her mom, the bar owner… and about three days into their relationship, she’s like “the only way we can be together is if my husband divorces me… but he’s in prison for killing the man who raped our daughter… and the only way that he’s going to divorce me is if you break him out of prison!” and THEN hijinx ensue!!! That being said… I really liked this Hammer movie too… and I’d say check it out!
 
Rating – 9/10 – Some parts will have you scratching your head a bit… but it’s worth a look.
 
Oct 28 – Children of the Corn (1984)
 
“OUTLANDER!!! OUTLANDER!!! WE HAVE YOUR WOMAN, OUTLANDER!!!” Yes, the classic Stephen King movie about a Nebraska town overrun by kids who killed off the adults and… well, they survive somehow. Then along comes a young couple (Peter Horton & Linda Hamilton) taking the backroads for… some reason, and hijinx ensue when their paths meet. I enjoy this movie… mostly because it’s pretty preposterous… but a lot of fun & the kid actors aren’t completely horrible.
 
Rating – 9/10 – Dang near a classic… but there are definitely parts that drag on rewatch.
 
Until next time,

Steve