31 Days of Horror X: 2024 Edition

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

Night #26 - Stranger in the Woods

I'm a big fan of the show Workaholics, so when I saw this 2024 murder mystery (about a group of friends who head to a cabin in the forest to help a suicidal buddy recuperate) was produced by Kyle Newacheck and directed by Adam Newacheck, I decided to give it a shot. I shouldn't have wasted my time, it sucked. The Newacheck boys should stick to comedy.

At least the location in Long Barn, California was scenic cause that's all this had going for it. I'd love to know what connections lead actress/writer Holly Kenney had to get this thing greenlit. I'm still trying to decide what was worse, the implausible story or the insufferable characters.

Rating: 1/10

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

Day 27: Cult of Chucky. While I may have really liked Curse of Chucky, I can't say the same for its immediate follow-up. I still love Fiona Dourif as Nica, I really like the setting and visual style, and there are some really good kills, but I think the story and writing are a mess, with some introduced concepts and characters not living up to their potential.

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

#31
The Mephisto Waltz
(Paul Wendkos, 1971)

Every year, I like to try to factor in one of these boring, post-‘Rosemary’s Baby’ civilised Satanist kind of affairs, and this is surely one of the defining examplars of that partiuclar style, only - shock horror! - turns out it’s actually not boring at all, in spite of its cast of solid yet not-partiuclarly-exciting name actors drinking small glasses of liqueur in grandly appointed drawing rooms across a 115 minute run time.

Basically, Curt Jurgens is a kind of Satanic (and very heterosexual) Liberace, who loudly and frequently proclaims himself the world’s greatest living pianist. He appears to live in Count Yorga’s house, along with his femme fatale daughter and ravenous pet dog, and they all enjoy a life of decadent luxury and hold orgiastic masked balls, and so forth.

After befriending struggling journalist / former piano protégé Alan Alda, Jurgens - who is dying of leukemia - decides to use his powers of evil to take over the younger man’s body, and… basically does that.

Garish, tacky and art designed by a rabid maniac, this initially delivers pretty much everything you could wish for from one of these OTT early ‘70s extravaganzas, but to my surprise, it also actually attains a certain amount of dramatic weight during the second half, once Jacqueline Bisset (playing Alda’s wife) takes over as the heroine.

There are some great L.A. / Malibu locations (top beach house action), and the whole thing develops an effectively hallucinatory, paranoid, noir-adjacent kind of atmosphere, building up to a strong and pleasingly ambiguous finale.

Some very nice, richly saturated photography to enjoy here too, along with a lot of frantic, FX-heavy editing, double exposures, vaseline-smeared nightmare sequences etc etc.

Surprisngly for a studio film about two classical pianists scored by one of Hollywood’s most renowned symphonic composers, Jerry Goldsmith’s music is absolutely bonkers too, full of atonal, squawking violins, sawing medieval weirdness and outbursts of acid rock - a clear highlight of his early ‘experimental’ phase, I would suggest.

B+

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

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Day 28 Filmations Ghostbusters

Yea the ripoff Ghostbusters. Hadn;t seen this in years. Got this dvd and figured wanted something new to me to see.

Based on the forgotten and short lived mid 70s live action show. Two guys and a gorilla fight ghosts.

Goofy and silly and kind of fun. Worth seeing at least once.

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

10/26
090 - The Man They Could Not Hang
091 - Shaun of the Dead
092 - Halloween: Resurrection
093 - The Hunchback of Notre Dame
094 - The Thirteenth Guest

10/27
095 - Halloween: The Curse of Michael Meyers (theatrical)
096 - The Creature from the Black Lagoon
097 - The Wolf Man (1941)
098 - Werewolf of London
099 - Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Meyers (producer's cut)


In The Man They Could Not Hang a scientist played by Boris Karloff kills a volunteer to try and bring him back to life but he's interrupted by the police and is unable to bring the man back after his assistant calls the police on him and he's hanged as a result, his colleague collects the body and brings him back to life and he sets out to get revenge on the jury. This was a decent find, the overall premise was cool with him going after the jury that convicted him! Shaun of the Dead is a movie that I like but one that I think I enjoy a little less every time. Busta Rhymes is hilarious in Halloween Resurrection, I'm glad they brought him on to ruin the movie. lol 101 years after it was made I finally checked out The Hunchback of Notre Dame after forgetting about it last year for its hundredth anniversary. The story isn't really anything interesting but the visuals of this movie more than make up for it, I just assumed a lot of this was real locations but I'm pretty sure they're mostly sets; just incredible to look at. The big draw with The Thirteenth Guest is Vampira hosting it, unless something has changed this is the only hosting segment of hers that still exists. She's like a less friendly Elvira and I wish there was more of her to see. The movie itself was OK, more of a mystery than anything.

Halloween 6 can't really be argued to be a good movie but I find it to be one of the most enjoyable Halloween movies. I can see very little difference between the two cuts aside from the producers cut missing that cool strobe light sequence (how does this get removed?!?!) and going more into the cult, plus some differences in the ending, but the producers cut just feels like the better one for some reason. The father in this one is awesome, he's such an asshole and even feels uncomfortable to watch in a few scenes + that scene with the Michael Meyers sign... lol.

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

I've seen that one and considered it when I did the others but decided against it because I remember not liking that one. That was all I could remember though and I'll probably remember less the next time I think of it, so a revisit is probably inevitable...

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

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day 27 the Gate

... Need to track down the sequel.

I love the original and used to think the same about the sequel but then I got it and found that thinking that was a mistake!

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

Night #27 - Body Bags

I love a good horror anthology film, Creepshow being my all time favorite. While 1993's Body Bags may not rank quite as high on my list, it's still a classic worthy of inclusion in the pantheon of Halloween season winners.

I recall seeing this when it originally aired on Showtime. I looked it up, and for some strange reason they premiered this in August, not October. Whatever the case, I know I viewed it a few more times over the years on VHS, but I hadn't seen it in at least a decade prior to last night's viewing. I remembered most of the main plot points, but it was great to view it with fresh eyes. I certainly didn't remember it being as funny as it was (without being goofy, thank god), especially the film's co-director John Carpenter who plays a Crypt Keeper of sorts in the wraparound segment.

I also didn't recall how many horror directors were actually in the cast itself--Wes Craven, Tobe Hooper (who also directed one of the three vignettes), Sam Raimi, even a quick cameo by Greg Nicotero. Plus Roger Corman! All three stories are entertaining, with the final segment being the most gory and disturbing. But for me, the winner is the second one with Stacy Keach as a middle-aged man desperate to stop his hair loss. After a seemingly successful experimental procedure, administered by the Roswell Clinic--wink, wink, he preens in the mirror delivering my favorite line "See that my men are well fed, and then bring forth the women!" Too funny, ha ha ha!

Rating: 8/10

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

Day 28: Child's Play (2019). I know that most diehard Chucky fans hate this film, and it's been almost completely forgotten by this point, especially due to the TV series, but if you give it a chance, I think you'll find that it's actually a fun little flick, with a new, interesting take on Andy and Chucky's relationship, some good acting, and nice effects work, especially the very gruesome kills. It is flawed, but I think it deserves more than it gets.

https://codysfilmandtvblog.blogspot.com/

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

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
054-Night of the Demon (1983) 6
055-The Curse of Frankenstein 10
056-I Walked With a Zombie 10

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

#32
The Twilight People
(Eddie Romero, 1972)

Friends, are there six better words you could possibly see on a movie’s opening crawl than “Pam Grier as The Panther Woman”?

Sadly, Eddie Romero and the Blood Island gang’s take on a ‘The Island of Dr Moreau’ / ‘The Most Dangerous Game’ type movie does not exactly constitute what you’d call a career highlight for Pam, although she certainly gives it her all re: animalistic acting technique, that's for sure.

Elsewhere, the ubiquitous John Ashley (who also co-wrote and co-produced) has grown his hair out a bit since the ‘60s Romero movies, which makes him look even more like a washed out rockabilly star than he did previously, but also somehow allows him to become a more convincing tough guy hero character this time around. Go figure.

Pat Woodell meanwhile looks far too attractive and sensible to have ended up as the female lead in a crackpot movie like this; maybe she just missed her flight home after making ‘The Big Dollhouse’ or something, who knows?

As is so often the case with Romero’s films, time moves at an absolute crawl here, and there is way, way, way too much footage of various groups of people (and, in this case, beast-people) sullenly trudging through the jungle for no very compelling reason. (This guy just couldn’t stop turning everything into a low budget war movie, could he?)

If you can stay conscious through all that though, there are eventually a few moments of fun to be had. Although we never really get a very good introduction to them, the film’s small group of beast-people ultimately become quite endearing; the make up on the goat-man is cool, and the woman with the big, ugly bearded face-mask (I have no idea what kind of animal she was supposed to be) is appealingly odd.

By far the best thing in this movie though is the bat man - he is totally awesome! The brief scenes during the finale when he finally takes flight and goes on the rampage, dive-bombing the bad guys etc, are a huge amount of fun - worth the entry price alone (or, worth fast forwarding to, at least).

I also really liked the psychedelic coral reef opening credits, and there are some really great fuzz guitar driven musical cues scattered through the movie too (unevenly mixed up with cheesy old library stuff).

The rip I watched of this film was taken from the infamous VCI blu-ray release from a few years back, which makes everything look radioactive. I know that movies like this can benefit from a bit of a boost to the colour, but honestly, this is just an insanely bad transfer - it looks like someone’s tried to hide the soft / damaged condition of the footage by just cranking the saturation and contrast all the way to the top of the dial. It makes it quite difficult to even watch at times - but hey, I didn’t pay for it, so I’m in no position to complain.

C+

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

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Day 29 Scream 4

TITLE-Scre4m



SOURCE-Anchor Bay DVD

The first Scream hit at an odd point my life. Coming out right before Xmas in 1996 and it wasn't until late January 1997 that we went to a theater to see it.

Was the old Silver Screen theater over in Biloxi. Loved the movie and as soon as it hit VHS I rented it and made a copy.



Not long after seeing Scream major changes happened in my life. I packed up most of my stuff and moved two states to the west.

When less than a year later Scream 2 hit theaters I went Xmas day to see it and well it was just ok. By the release of Scream 3 I waited for home video to see it and hated the film.

Which is why when Scre4m ,the clever name they came up for this un needed sequel,hit theaters I knew I would just rent it in a year from Netflix. Then rented it watched it. Thought this is a pile of crap.

Wasn't until last year or the year before when I watched Scream 6 that I realized I remembered nothing about part 4. Not even who the killer/killers are.

Found part 4 cheap,you can see the Dollar price written in sharpie on the walmart sticker. And now have seen it twice off that dvd.

Set years after the last film,we met the next generation of high school teens in the main town of this series. Ghostface starts killing them and after many red herrings,and some actually nicely done kills,we get our reveal of who the killers are.

The good stuff,well the kills are damn good. The cast that comes back from the previous 3 films do fairly well in this 4th film. Really that is about it for good in this turd sandwich.

The bad stuff.....First off the killers' have the dumbest motive. The female killer wants to be famous. The male is just a simp. The cast that wasn't in the previous films is either ok at best to WHY THE HELL WERE THEY HIRED Bad. The story is too complex for it's own good.


My next two gripes might just be a bad transfer on the DVD release. There are scenes where the film grain can be seen. And it looks like it should. Then other scenes where it appears so much DNR has been applied that people like Alison Brie look less like herself and more like a cheap wax dummy. And there is this urine yellow hue to the entire film.

Sadly this was the final movie directed by Wes Craven. This might be his worse film. If not it is just barely better than The Hills have Eyes 2.

Maybe the blu ray isn't DNRed to hell and back and isn't piss yellow all the time. If so that would raise this film up a tiny bit but not enough to make it worth it for me.

Scre4m gets a D+

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

Night #28 - Witchtrap

This is the third Keven Tenney film I've seen, and by far my least favorite of the three. Night of the Demons has been a long time favorite, and I recently re-watched Witchboard (after having not seen it in a million years) and enjoyed that to an extent as well. Witchtrap was released direct to video in 1989 on the heels of NOTD, but it's a long, long way away from the quality of that film.

The main problem seems to be that they weren't sure of the tone they wanted to set, or maybe even the type of film they wanted to make. James W. Quinn plays a wise cracking detective in the mold of Eddie Murphy's Axel Foley character, and half the film feels like an action comedy. But then, they stick this half assed, flimsy haunted house/paranormal investigation story in, which they subvert at every opportunity with one of Quinn's sarcastic one-liners. A good chunk of the special effects are just people being shot during gun battles and squibs exploding on their chests.

I was happy to see Linnea Quigley, and Hal Havins (who played Stooge in NOTD), but their presence alone couldn't save this stinker. Even with the obligatory Linnea shower scene.

Rating: 3/10

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

10/28
100 - Halloween H20
101 - She-Wolf of London

Halloween H20 is one I first saw in the theatre and the good time I had always makes me remember it as being quite a bit better than it really is but it's fun enough. She-Wolf of London was solidly disappointing, it's another one of those crime movies masquerading as a horror movie, which is kind of weird considering it's a followup to The Werewolf of London which was actually about a werewolf. :/

[Matt H. Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Matt H.]

Congratulations on reaching 101 films! That's hardcore my man.

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

Congratulations on reaching 101 films! That's hardcore my man.

Thanks! Someday I'll get my 4:1 ratio with 124!