31 Days of Horror X: 2024 Edition

[Newt Cox Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Newt Cox]

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Day 25 BTK

TITLE-B.T.K.
SOURCE-Lionsgate DVD

Heard a bit about this back when it hit home video 15 or so years ago. But thought that Kane Hodder was the wrong person to play the BTK Killer. As often mentionedd on here I will go buy used dvds in huge lots at pawn shops and thrifts. Getting discount. This was a film I grabbed to hit that number that makes those dvds 50 cents each instead of a buck each. And like normal with stuff I buy in bulk it sat and sat and sat.




Dennis is a pillar of the community. Loved by all. Or so he thinks. But he is actually a killer that has been doing his evil deeds for years. Daring the cops to stop him.




Based on the real Bind Torture Kill Serial Killer this is a fictionalized examination of Dennis Radley. With a cast of people I have seen in nothing else. Besides Kane Hodder as the lead.



Kane is best known for his stint as Jason Voorhees in the Friday the 13th franchise. Plus being a stunt man. But until this I had never seen him show as much range as he does in BTK.

There was a pile of cheaply made DTV serial killer movies coming out in the early 2000s. I just assumed this one of those. A badly cheaply made cash grab. Nope this had a budget and it shows. Locations,set design and even the costumes are not cheap.

Then there is the brutal kills. Lots of well done practical FX work. And some of them so brutal I am surpised this got an R rating.

Worth seeing ,even if just to see Kane Hodder show some acting range.

BTK gets a C+

[f.ramses Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close f.ramses]

10/24
084 - Fiend Without a Face
085 - Dead Men Walk

Really like Fiend Without a Face, it's a top-tier black and white movie and one of the ones that got me into them (when I was younger I really didn't care for black & white movies, silent movies were fine but there was something about 30s - 50s black and white sound movies that I just did not like; now I can't get enough of them...). The story concerns a scientist who is trying to materialize thought and succeeds although not in the way intended, the thoughts become these brain-like creatures that kill and feed on people to live. For most of the movie you can't see the creatures but the movie still maintains a good pace and doesn't get boring, the real payoff comes in the end when the creatures become visible. The effects really look great in this and once the creatures start to get killed we get to see some fantastic pre-Blood Feast splatter! A very impressive and entertaining movie that shows up many of its contemporaries. I always go into black and whites wanting another Fiend Without a Face but it's rare to get one. It is criminal that there is STILL NO BLU-RAY of this one. I did find this colorized, HD version on Youtube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hsjplw_54Iw) but haven't watched it; at a glance it doesn't look very impressive but probably not a bad option if you don't have and haven't seen this one.
Dead Men Walk was just a very generic take on the usual vampire story but framed as revenge; for a time it actually seemed like the movie was deliberately not saying "vampire", like it was pretending to be something else, but then they start saying it (or maybe I just didn't notice it at first). A man dies and we're told me was murdered by his brother and then the man comes back as a vampire and begins to feed on his niece for revenge. Nothing really special here but I will give the movie credit for keeping a decent pace, it didn't drag you'd think something like this would. Another decent find in a cheap movie pack!
Also went back and re-did the end of The Ghoul last night; it was surprising both how much I missed and how much I didn't miss, as if I was drifting in and out of sleep as I watched instead of just falling asleep like I remember. Despite falling asleep I feel like I enjoyed this a lot more than when I first bought it, my only other viewing. Karloff really looks great as The Ghoul!

[Newt Cox Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Newt Cox]

Little Monsters-Vestron blu ray

Continuing my kids Horror/Halloween movies in the morning with Mom.

If Vestron wasn't going under this might have been a hit. It got a comic from NOW,and got piles of TV play.

Fred Savage meets Maurice,the monster under the bed. And they have fun in the world under the beds.

Not many kids movies with bullies drinking piss.

[Gary Banks Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Gary Banks]

Nothing like hernia surgery to knock one completely on their ass. The pain is awful and so is the swelling and bruising of one's entire groin. Haven't slept much at night. This wasn't going to fix itself and rather than put it off for months, I decided to get it done. Too bad I didn't consider how much it would really fucking hurt. As a result, I've been reading a ton of graphic novels and watched a few movies as well.

Ratings: ack (honks on bobo) to 10. In bold 1st time viiewing, 1st time in ten years or I forgot when it was last viewed.

001-Die Sister, Die 4
002-The Mummy and the Curse of the Jackals 1.5
003-Devil's Express 0.5
004-Dungeon of Horror 2.5
005-Lurkers ack!
006-In Search of Dracula 4
007-Dear Dead Delilah 6.5
008-Torture Chamber of Dr Sadism 9
009-Lifechanger 6.5
010-ABCs of Death 2 1.5
011-Xtro 3 Watch The Skies 4
012-God Told Me To 10
013-Strangler of Blackmoor Castle 10
014-Endgame 4
015-Asylum (1972) 6
016-The Beast Within 6.5
017-Almost Human (2014) 4.5
018-Wrong Turn 3 Left For Dead 4
019-We Are What We Are 3
020-A Ghost Waits 10
021-Curse of the Stone Hand 4
022-the Mad Monster 3
023-Beyond The Door 3
024-The Legacy (1978) 7
025-Spirits of the Dead 5
026-The Mask (1961) 7
027-Crypt of the Vampire 6
028-Late Night With The Devil 6
029-Blue Monkey (Insect!) 4
030-Doctor X 7.5
031-The Beach Girls and the Monster 1
032-Shock (aka Beyond the Door II) 3.5
033-The Crazies (2010) 8
034-The Catman of Paris 4.5
035-Xtro 6
036-The Slayer (82) 5
037-Legend of the Witches 4
038-The Black Abbot (1963) 10
039-Superbeast 6
040-The Witches Mountain 2
041-Castle of Blood (US cut) 10
042-Creepshow (82) 8
043-Scarecrow County 2
044-She Killed In Ecstacy 4
045-City of the Dead 10
046-Chilling Visions 3
047-The Veil (2016) 5.5
048-Monster Zero 4
049-Werewolf of London 7
050-Lake of the Dead 8.5
051-Warriors of the Wasteland ack!
052-Rabid (2019) 4
053-X The Unknown 7

[Vincent Dawn Jr Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Vincent Dawn Jr]

#26
Oddity
(Damian McCarthy, 2024)

In the past year or so, I seem to have watched a lot of hyped new horror movies, and all have either failed to live up to their full potential, or else have just left me feeling a bit underwhelmed. On its own modest terms though, this latest word-of-mouth hit really worked for me.

It’s really nice to see a film which has all the accoutrements of standard issue 21st century horror (smartphones, jump scares, disassociative editing, drone shots, rumbling sound design, and cynical, softly spoken yet totally self-centred characters) - but that is also not afraid to risk ridicule by mixing this up with tons and tons of dusty, old-fashioned creepitude.

In fact, it feels as if the contents of several entire Pan Books of Horror Stories have been put through a blender to create this one… or, perhaps it’s more helpful to say that it plays like one of those deals in which all of the episodes in an Amicus-style anthology movie have been sewn together into a single story - but done with such care that, in this case, you can barely even see the joins.

Picking it apart post-viewing, I can identify at least six or seven different horror tropes / story set ups here, but somehow they're all worked into a simple, minimal narrative featuring six characters and two locations... resulting, essentially, in an agreeably pulpy kind of supernatural riff on a ‘Les Diaboliques’-model thriller, which all hangs together just beautifully.

The scary bits are scary, the whimsical/creepy bits are whimsical and creepy… and I’d even go so far as to say that the funny bits are funny, although they’re a long time coming, admittedly.

A great choice for Halloween-adjacent viewing, I reckon - recommended.

A-

Night #24 - Oddity

On the recommendation of BW Haggar, I checked this out last night and loved it. See the above review, as I couldn't say it any better myself.

Rating: 8/10

[Newt Cox Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Newt Cox]

Missed out on the synapse limited 4k of Trick or Treat. Needed something to stream,and the LOCAL NOW app has a nice wide screen copy.

Never seen it look this good. Which helps and hurts the film. Piles of stuff I never noticed before. One of which is how most of the high school kids look to be 30.

[BW Haggar Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close BW Haggar]

Night #24 - Oddity

On the recommendation of BW Haggar, I checked this out last night and loved it. See the above review, as I couldn't say it any better myself.

Rating: 8/10

I'm really glad you enjoyed it Vincent! : )

Feels good to be able to spread the word to someone re: a really great little movie.

[BW Haggar Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close BW Haggar]

#28
Deep Red
(Dario Argento, 1975)

Dario Argento’s fifth film as writer/director, released in Italian cinemas in March 1975, ‘Deep Red’…. is fucking ‘Deep Red’, and I propose that there is nothing I can say about it that readers of this forum have not heard before.

A


#29
Friday the 13th Part II
(Steve Miner, 1981)

Isn’t it strange how the public perception of two of the biggest American pop cinema franchises of the early ‘80s - ‘Friday the 13th’ and ‘Rambo’ - both rely on images and ideas which derive almost entirely from their sequels, rather than from the original films?

Rewatching it last year for the first time since I was a teenager, I became presumably the last horror fan on earth to realise that ‘Friday the 13th’ part one is actually quite a slow burn, atmospheric body count thriller with a ‘Psycho’-derived twist, which notably fails to include a guy named Jason murdering teenagers whilst wearing a hockey mask.

As expected, Part II (also revisited here for the first time since blah blah blah) pretty much sets the template for what was to follow, vis-a-vis delivering shallow, ultra-cynical slasher mayhem, mechanically dished out by a rampaging Jason…. but he still hasn’t got his bloody hockey mask on yet!

Honestly, it was fine, in much the same way that a basic fast food takeaway ordered by someone else is fine, but how many of these damned things am I going to have to get through before I can feel I’ve really got a handle on the full Friday The 13th experience?

B-

[f.ramses Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close f.ramses]

10/25
086 - The Return of the Vampire
087 - The Black Room
088 - The Blob (1958)
089 - The Blob (1988)

The Return of the Vampire is yet another kind of generic vampire movie with Bela Lugosi but it also seems to make up its own rules for the supernatural. In this one a vampire can turn someone into a werewolf, the rules of needing to be invited into a home don't seem to apply, and the werewolf can be killed easily like any person. Not a bad take + you get a werewolf too. The Black Room turned out to be not much of a horror movie, I guess it being in a set called Thrillers from the Vault should have been the clue there but it sounded like horror and wasn't bad anyway. We get Karloff in a dual role playing two brothers where one murders the other to assume their identity but things don't quite go as intended ...or implied by the synopsis. The original The Blob is one that was kind of ruined for me because I first saw the 1988 remake as a kid and the original is kind of boring compared to it. Things went about the same this time, as expected, so I did the talky original first and then rewarded my patience with the effects filled and much faster paced remake.

[Vincent Dawn Jr Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Vincent Dawn Jr]

Night #25 - Pod

A brother and sister head out to their family's remote cabin in the woods to rescue their third sibling, a military veteran with a history of PTSD-related mental health issues and violence. They find the poor guy in a psychotic state ranting and raving about government conspiracies and soon discover he has someone locked in the basement...or is it something?

They had a kernel of an interesting idea for this low budget 2015 flick, but sadly failed to write a compelling story around it. Even at 78 minutes there's a whole lot of filler--basically long stretches of the film where the siblings bicker and scream at the top of their lungs, or totally unnecessary character development that adds nothing to the central plot. Cut it down, and this could have made a decent episode of the Creepshow TV series reboot.

Rating: 2/10

[Marshall Crist Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Marshall Crist]

10/25
086 - The Return of the Vampire
087 - The Black Room
088 - The Blob (1958)
089 - The Blob (1988)
The original The Blob is one that was kind of ruined for me because I first saw the 1988 remake as a kid and the original is kind of boring compared to it. Things went about the same this time, as expected, so I did the talky original first and then rewarded my patience with the effects filled and much faster paced remake.

Ever seen Beware! The Blob? It's my favorite of the three, which really seems to bother people.

[Newt Cox Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Newt Cox]

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Day 26 DollFace

Modern low budget horror. Young woman's aunt passes. She is given this aunt's apartment. And given two rules. She must take care of the plants and never stare into the many dolls' eyes.

Now through out the film we never see the lead's mouth move. At first I thought we were just hearing her inner monologue. Then someone could hear her in the film.

Twist comes not long from the end and it is good. Then the film keeps going and ruins it.

This would have made a great episode on some horror anthology tv show. Made into a full length film and it just goes on too long.

[Cody Layne Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Cody Layne]

Day 26: Curse of Chucky. By all accounts, this should've been a complete disaster and the death knell for the franchise but, surprise, surprise, it was shockingly good and among the better movies in the series. It's not perfect, for sure, but I find it to be a major improvement over Seed of Chucky, which is my personal least favorite of the series.

https://codysfilmandtvblog.blogspot.com/

[BW Haggar Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close BW Haggar]

#30
Halloween VI: The Curse of Michael Myers
(Joe Chappelle, 1995)

Well, I liked this one a bit better than 5, for whatever that’s worth.

Just for info, we watched the UNRATED PRODUCERS CUT, although quite what the MPAA might have found to object to here, I can’t possibly imagine.

I didn’t actually mind all the oft-ridiculed Thorn / druid stuff at all - I mean, the fifth time round the block with this formula, you might as well mix it all up a bit, right? Add a goofy supernatural element to proceedings; what have you got to lose? (Plus, on a personal level, I feel that the addition of a weird devil worshiping cult tends to improve pretty much any story.)

The script has some potentially fun/interesting ideas floating around in ot (although they never really pay off), and I also thought the use of the shock jock radio show to draw the various threads and characters together during the first half was quite interestingly done, too.

Unfortunately though, in most other respects, this was a total mess.

For a start, despite a six year gap since the last film, they seem to made the mistake of assuming that viewers would remember the characters from parts 4 & 5 - which certianly wasn’t case for me, and as a result I went through this one without really figuring out who the hell all these people are, and why I should care about them.

Partly as a result of this, and partly due to the fact that they drop us straight into the whole cult scenario without any kind of explanation, the opening 20 minutes or so are exceptionally confusing, and not really in a good way.

Far more damaging than all that though is the fact that Michael himself is in a right bloody state here - he’s got no presence, carries no sense of menace, and basically just looks like some chunky bloke with messy hair wearing a loose, floppy face mask.

And worst of all, he’s just… stationary through this whole damned thing. The filmmakers fail to pull off any good ‘shape’ stuff, or to craft any compelling stalk n’ slash sequences - which, for me at least, provide the main appeal of the Halloween concept. He just pops up when required, does the requisite gore in a quick series of close-ups, and he’s off again.

And lord, what a muddled, anti-climactic ending; a really unfortunate way for Donald Pleasence to bow out for the last time, although in fairness, he does give his performance here some real oomph, despite his obvious infirmity. God bless him, what a trooper.

C+

[Newt Cox Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Newt Cox]

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day 27 the Gate

Hadn't seen this in a long time. Fairly well made horror for teens. Plays into the 80s Satanic Panic. Need to track down the sequel.