Horror Movie Talk

The long reign of terror is over. Or is it…? It is. Hopes were high after Halloween 2018, but each installment got progressively worse, until finally, Halloween Ends.

Synopsis

The town of Haddonfield, IL is on edge from the previous Halloween’s rampage from Michael Myers. Not in a way that gets them to be safer or demand justice, but mostly in a way that makes them irrationally blame Laurie Strode for all their problems.

Corey, a good kid, ends up accidentally killing a little prick of a kid, and gets labeled as psycho by the town. He gets pushed around until he finally reaches a breaking point and starts to style himself after Michael Myers.

Laurie Strode herself, after living a life based on fear and vengeance, training herself to be the ultimate mercenary, in this movie says, meh, I’ll just live like a normal grandma now.

And Michael Myers shows up at the end.

Review of Halloween Ends

After Halloween Kills, my expectations were not high for this film, but nonetheless, it didn’t meet them. I imagine for fans of the Halloween franchise, this entry will be as befuddling to them as it is to me.

You would think that this being the final entry in the franchise, it would focus on what makes it work. Mainly, the unstoppable Michael Myers.

Nope, they play a switcheroo, and focus on attempting to create a Michael Myers stand in protege. 

It’s a bold move, and could be interesting, if they didn’t completely fuck up everything to do with character development and motivation. 

Every character in this movie acts completely irrationally. Your brain will feel whiplash as characters completely change motivations instantly. This serves to make the plot seem completely arbitrary and nonsensical. 

The film attempts to analyze the nature of evil via nature vs nurture, but it falls completely flat, since they don’t present a compelling or cogent argument for either.

I will say that the ending is satisfying. Laurie and Michael do get their final standoff, and it does put a period on the franchise.

After watching this movie, I do hope it is the last.

Score

3/10 

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Wanna watch the grossest movie out there but don’t wanna do it alone? Allow our quips to keep you company in this Human Centipede 2 commentary track! Happy Halloween!

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We watched Hellraiser (2022) and were reminded of a series which has virtually infinite potential and has fallen from grace, and risen like Lazarus to raise heck again.

@dgoebel00 on Instagram provided this amazing artwork. Follow him and check out his website.

Hellraiser can be found on Hulu in their formidable Huluween selection

Synopsis

Riley (Odessa A’zion) is a young woman struggling with addiction and staying sober. Her boyfriend, Trevor (Drew Starkey) is also a recovering addict who seems to be a little less concerned about sobriety and walking the straight and narrow. 

Riley’s brother, Colin (Adam Faison) and his gay boyfriend, Matt (Brandon Flynn) are worried about Riley.

When Riley and her straight boyfriend, Trevor break into a storage locker and steal the puzzle box – wacky hijinks ensue and everyone gets more heck than they bargained for.

Review

Hellraiser (2022) is a promising new movie based in the Hellraiser universe. It’s 54% reboot, 27% homage, 33% slow and boring, with a nice 12% helping of gloop.

Probably the biggest thing that Hellraiser has going for it is David Bruckner is at the helm, fresh off one of our favorite movies of 2020 – The Night House and The Ritual from 2017.

What works

Hellraiser does a lot of things right. It keeps the plot pretty easy to follow, and stays true to a lot of the lore of the series. It also has a lot of nods to sequels in the long line of Hellraiser movies.

The re-imagined Cenobites are off putting and sometimes horrifying, which is fabulous. Jamie Clayton as The Priest aka lady pinhead is something to behold, and strangely sexless as a character.

Lots of this movie was upsetting and hard to watch, but there was some stuff that didn’t work too well for me. I’m a bit tired of the same story playing out over and over again. 

Watch The Original Hellraiser

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What doesn’t work

With this intellectual property, you could go to actual hell, and have any number of incredible and weird stories play out. Just take Hellbound: Hellraiser 2 as an example.

Instead, we have to see a bunch of new people going through a lot of similar actions that we’ve seen before. 

The pacing on this Hellraiser is also incredibly slow. It’s clear that a slow burn was their intent, but sometimes it drags a little too much.

Final Recommendation

Overall, this is a breath of fresh air to an otherwise dead series, and I’m glad to see it. I’ve always thought that Hellraiser had a ton of potential, and this is a pretty high-quality example of where it can go.

Score

7/10

You called. We came.

A tight premise excellently executed by one of the Whitest Kids You Know. This taut thriller ramps up to a wacky exploitational movie in such a unique way, it left me grinning from ear to ear.

Synopsis

Tess, played by Georgina Campbell, travels to Detroit to interview for a job. When she arrives in the middle of the night at her Airbnb rental, she discovers that it is already inhabited by a man that supposedly rented the house from another site. Despite being leery of the man , played by Bill Skarsgard, she comes inside to figure out what went wrong with the rental companies. The man , named Keith, is friendly, but perhaps overly friendly in addition to several other red flags. The longer Tess stays in the house, the more she discovers about Keith and the history of the house, to her detriment.

Also, the Mac guy shows up.

Review of Barbarian

This movie is a wild ride, and honestly a contender for my favorite of the year. It is really a movie divided by two halves. One very grounded in reality with a slow burn building of suspense relating to interactions with strangers. The other, while still not paranormal, enters a heightened bizarro underground realm of debauchery and brutality.

This film reminded me of Malignant in that it pulled off the tone that Malignant utterly failed to deliver on. That being a taut mystery thriller evolving into an exploitational fun fest.

The writer/director, Zach Cregger is mostly known from being a straight-man cast member in WKYK. He joins Jordan Peele as Sketch comedy graduate transformed into a horror prodigy

When I say that I enjoyed this movie, I mean that I had many times where I laughed in delight about the writing, acting, and direction. I was smiling ear to ear at the end of the film.

Score

10/10

We watched The Mummy from 1999 with Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz and were reminded of a simpler time, when unlimited double handguns were the solution to all of life’s little problems.

@dgoebel00 on Instagram provided this amazing artwork. Follow him and check out his website.

Synopsis

In a story as old as time, grave robbing, gold digging, westerners invade the ancient city of Hamunaptra and steal the life and death savings of a napping Egyptian Pharaoh. 

The Pharaoh, played by a man who should be named Billy Zane, but who is actually named Arnold Vosloo gets re-animated and seeks to re-animate his girlfriend so they can fuck from beyond the grave.

Brendan Fraser has guns, a dashing smile, and a seething hatred of unspent shells. Rachel Weisz is a bookish librarian who is swept up in this action romp and soon gets more mummy than she bargained for.

Review

You’ve probably heard of Indiana Jones and Die Hard – well what if I was to tell you those movies birthed a third, superior movie starring Brendan Fraser? 

You would say, “Fill me up, daddy!” 

Then I would slam The Mummy into your VHS player and smack your mother in the face before I sent you to the underworld of ecstasy by hitting the “Play” button.

The Mummy doesn’t give a shit what you think about reality. It sends an army of the undead and a swarm of Egyptian beetles called scarabs to eat you. Scarabs don’t eat you alive by burrowing under your skin, but The Mummy doesn’t give a shit.

It wants you to sit down, shut up, and have a blast – and by god you will.

It’s a movie that keeps it simple in the most impressive way possible. Any braindead dumb dumb can follow this plot, and that’s not a bad thing. 

Fraser makes funny faces, and is so handsome that I am unsure of my sexuality.

Watch The Mummy (1999)

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Weisz reaffirms my sexuality by speaking Hebrew while showing bountiful cleavage.

Beni makes for an appropriate slime ball helper to evil incarnate.

There’s blazing guns, exploding mummies, sexy mommies, bugs that eat you from the inside out, angry Americans, ugly Americans, and CGI from 1999. 

What kind of red blooded white female would I be if I scored this any lower than a 10/10?

Score

10/10

Disc Review

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Howdy pardners and pardnettes, it’s time to join the rodeo and review Bone Tomahawk. It’s going to be a rootin tootin good time.

Synopsis

In the sleepy old west town of Bright Hope, it is anything but, as the town doctor is kidnapped by a band of indigenous cave dwellers that even the (other?) Native Americans think are savages. Kurt Russel’s Sherriff Hunt leads a band of men on a rescue mission made up of his elderly assistant deputy played by Richard Jenkins, the arrogant Gunslinger Brooder played by Mathew Fox, and The doctor’s lame husband played by Patrick Wilson. Actually lame, his leg is broke. He’s actually a pretty cool dude.

They make their way through the frontier to find the territory of the Troglodytes, and find out that the stories of their savagery are if anything underselling it. 

Review of Bone Tomahawk

This film is one of a few in the genre of Western Horror, and few if any reach the quality of this film. 

The film is effective in it’s simplicity. It’s a rescue mission ala The Searchers. You have the set of archetypal characters that are thrown together by situation and duty, and several dilemmas and power struggles along the journey to find the location of the savages.

When they get to the Troglodyte Territory, the tone takes a sharp turn into straight up torture porn horror. 

The mission goes from the guys in white hats will surely win, to oh no… oh nonono. 

While the first half of the movie drags a little, I think it’s necessary to set up the characters and give contrast to the horror at the end of the film.

One scene in particular stands out so much that it’s basically become a meme as “that scene” in Bone Tomahawk. For good reason. It will stick with you, and if you are a man, you will especially feel something.

Score

8/10

Bone Tomahawk

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We watched Hellbound: Hellraiser 2 on Prime and found a not often talked about sequel that pis the epitome of everything 80’s horror.

@dgoebel00 on Instagram provided this amazing artwork. Follow him and check out his website.

Synopsis

Doctor Channard is the lead doctor in charge of an insane asylum. 

Kirsty, the protagonist from the original Hellraiser is fresh out of her experience in the first movie and is sent to Doctor Channard’s asylum. 

She warns of terrible creatures that killed her family, known as the Cenobites. 

Coincidentally, Doctor Channard has been searching for the Cenobites and a doorway to hell for quite a while. As Doc Channard heads to hell Kirsty follows him to try to … save? … her family?

Everyone gets more hell than they bargained for.

Review

Hellbound: Hellraiser 2 is one of the craziest horror movies I have ever seen, and that’s saying something. Hellbound came out a mere year after the original, in 1988, and managed to be a pretty coherent and disturbing ride. 

While some of the plot is a little obtuse and hard to follow, it’s made up for with some of the gnarliest gore, and craziest worldbuilding I’ve seen in a long time. 

Remember when movies would come out of real left field places and smack you in the face with stuff you’ve never thought of before? Well, Hellbound is determined to pummel you with that kind of thing until you relent.

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This sequel leans heavily on the original, including a lot of the most effective special effects and scenes from the first Hellraiser, which ends up being amazing because that first movie is great!

Hellbound goes even further than the original in some of the more disturbing imagery and suggestive scenes. I found myself closing my eyes during one scene where I just didn’t want to have to see what was happening anymore.

I wasn’t checking my watch throughout my viewing of Hellbound, and i had such a blast with all the crazy concepts that this has catapulted itself into one of my very favorite 80’s horror movies.

A tremendous amount of this film relies on the concept of medical malpractice and a shrugging of ethics being scary, which finds a new foothold today.

While the plot is a little strained, this is the stuff that a true 80’s horror fan will cream their pants over.

Score

9/10

Much like disposable tupperware, Orphan: First Kill rebels against the idea of a one-use premise. It ends up being the latest entry in the “meh” cinematic universe (MCU).

Synopsis

Orphan First Kill is a prequel to 2009’s Orphan, that starred, then 10 year old Isabelle Fuhrman. Now a fully grown adult woman, she is reprising her role as Esther, a thirty something year old psychopathic proportional dwarf posing as an 8-9 year old girl. In this film, we are shown how Esther escapes an Estonian mental facility and poses as an American family’s lost daughter. As time goes on, the family has more questions about Esther, and Esther has more questions about the family. Hjinks ensue.

Review of Orphan: First Kill

This is not a good movie, it’s not a bad movie, it’s meh. The film is directed by William Brent Bell, who directed The Boy and The Boy 2, which should set your expectations squarely in the Meh cinematic universe.

I do applaud the plotting of the film, it unlocks the puzzle of how to reuse a one use premise. 

Here’s the elephant in the room. Isabelle Fuhrman is not 10 years old any more. No matter the amount of camera angles and the de-aging they use, she still looks like a full grown woman. It doesn’t detract from the film nearly as much as you would expect, but it is a bizarre choice nonetheless. Would you film a Home Alone Prequel with a fully grown Macaulay Culkin?

The saving grace of the film is the twist around the middle of the film. It does add an interesting dynamic, and saves it from being a true rehash.

Overall, you get what you expect. A little psychopath that kills a lot of people.

Score

5/10

Orphan: First Kill

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We watched The Ring and were treated to one of the most impressive and scary PG-13 movies ever made.

The Ring can be streamed with a Paramount + subscription, or for a nominal rental fee wherever movies are found.

Synopsis

A videotape that has the power to kill those who view it seems to be at the center of a string of four teenage deaths. 

Rachel Keller (Naomi Watts) is a newspaper reporter who becomes interested in these deaths and takes it on herself to follow up. 

After she views the tape, Rachel begins to find herself being pulled deeper and deeper down the proverbial rabbit hole that seems to look a lot like a dark and ominous well.

Will Rachel be able to crack the story of how this video tape works or will she get more dead little girls than she bargained for?

Review

Directed by Gore Verbinski, The Ring is the American Remake of the Japanese 1998 film, Ringu. Gore went on to direct all of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, along with a few more big Disney projects.

The Ring was a tentpole classic horror movie almost as soon as it was released in 2002. 

The creepy concept of a video tape that kills was too much for anyone to resist, and the fact that the tape itself is viewed by the audience makes it so much more titillating.

The tone of The Ring is deadly serious, and it lands just right in the quiet of your darkened home on a Friday night. It feels morose and hopeless and creepy beyond compare. 

The tape is so dark and disturbing, but so vague that it taps into some gross center of things that people fear. 

Watch The Ring

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The heavy lifting in The Ring is left up to the sound design, which is absolutely perfect. So much of this movie is quiet and muted in terms of the ambiance, and the jump scares are so pronounced and shrill that it places you squarely on the edge of your seat and keeps you there. The iconic sound of the video is so unique and terrifying that I can hear it echoing in my nightmares to this day. 

Naomi Watts and Martin Henderson are so beautiful to look at that it’s hard not to worry that they might die at any moment, but somehow it makes sense that the thing to kill them would be a videotape.

There are few movies that are held in such high regard as The Ring, which has everything to do with it’s ability to resonate eerie terror to all those who watch it.

That said, I have always thought, even on my first viewing that at a 1:55:00 runtime it’s a little long-winded. The movie certainly takes it’s time to slowly unwind the mystery or what happened to Samara. Much of the Samara storyline seems extraneous in an otherwise nearly perfect movie.

Score

9/10