Horror Movie Talk

We went and saw Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, and it was average with a smile.

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark Trailer

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark Synopsis

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark is a movie about four stereotypical kids (Stella (Zoe Margaret Colletti), Ramon (Michael Garza), Auggie (Gabriel Rush), and Chuck (Austin Zajur))who enter a haunted house on Halloween and find a book that has more scary stories than they bargained for! As the teens fight bullies and work their way through early November, they begin to realize that the book they took from the house is haunted, and the spirit that haunts it has a penchant for writing scary stories about the teens and their acquaintances that always come true.

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Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark Full Movie

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As the teens wrestle with teen hood and their own demons, they are forced to come to terms with the reality that this book and the woman who wrote it are trying to kill them in scary story ways. There are lots of chases, jumpscares, racist cops, and nostalgic feels to be had in Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. It even culminates in exactly the way you might think it would, which we will mention in the spoilers section.

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark is a movie loosely based around the 1981 book of short stories of the same name, which spawned two other books. More Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (1984), and Scary Stories 3: More Tales To Chill Your Bones (1991). 

All three
books are available for purchase on Amazon for a pretty good steal, and they still hold up.

Want To See Short Stories Done Right? Creepshow Review!

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark Review

The movie takes some of the stories and ideas from the books and throws them together into a mashup of jumpscares and dark sets. The screenplay was adapted from a screen story written by Guillermo del Toro and rewritten by Dan Hageman and Kevin Hageman, who, I feel may have done it less service than del Toro might have.

While Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark wasn’t terrible, it was only a little bit more interesting than average. The plot made sense, the acting was on point, the production was pretty good. It’s nothing to write home about, and the payoffs are completely underwhelming. The nostalgia was nice, but isn’t it always? Maybe that’s what makes these nostalgia grabs so offensive, it works every time, and it’s so low effort – but I guess you could say the same thing about jumpscares, and I love those.

Score for Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark

6/10

Wanna See a Fun Summer Blockbuster? Check Out Our Review of The Meg!

Spoilers for Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark

The movie starts with a bully who
says, “Let’s go scare some kiddies tonight, guys!” This is, perhaps, the
goofiest line I can think of and teed off the movie well. 

The main
bully, Tommy (Austin Abrams), is the least assuming bully on the planet,
small in stature, slight of build, fair of complexion, and is constantly drunk
and rattling off goofy lines like this. It’s a joy to behold, and one of those
touches that makes it goofy and real at the same time.

Dean Norris is the only cast member you might recognize in
this movie, and he is a great actor, who plays the main character’s (Stella)
dad. The only problem with this is anytime I see Dean Norris I just think, “They’re not rocks, they’re minerals, Marie!” If
you play the main detective in Breaking Bad, you ARE the main detective from Breaking Bad.
Which makes me feel sorry for Dean, but at the same time, “Jizzus Christ,
Marie!”

There are a few different spooks going on in Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, so I will try to lay them out for you in a way that doesn’t ramble as much as the movie does. Keep in mind; this is the spoilers section:

Harold the Scarecrow

Harold is the fattest, ugliest, most desiccated corpse of a scarecrow I have ever seen in my life. I’m not sure, but Harold may be the dead body of Tommy’s (the bully) stepdad, whom Tommy hated very much. There is no backstory here; there is only Tommy beating Harold constantly with a bat and beer bottles to impress his friends? Harold has his revenge on Tommy by turning the cornfield into an endless maze and stabbing Tommy with a pitchfork that gives Tommy straw man syndrome. The effects of straw man syndrome include coughing up hay, having hay come out of your fingers, and hay fever. If not cured, the patient will become a scarecrow.

Sarah Bellows, author of the Scary Stories Book

Sarah was part of the Bellows family, the founding family of Mill Valley, PA. She was also a little different, and therefore the shame of her family, tortured and experimented on by her brothers, left in a dark room and generally mistreated. She wrote and haunted the book that our protagonists found and causes all of the mischief and murders in the movie.

The Toe Lady

The Toe Lady is basically a corpse who had some of her body parts inserted into Auggies chili/stew by Sarah Bellows writing. As Auggie takes a bite, he notices what he is chewing on is the big toe of the Toe Lady. Auggies is pulled under his bed by the Toe Lady and never seen again.

The Red Spot

Chuck’s sister finds what looks like a pimple on her cheek before a date with Tommy, the jerk. A few days later, right before she is going on at a school play, she attempts to fiddle with it, and spiders come gushing out of her face. The others react quickly enough that she manages only to be placed in a mental hospital instead of winding up dead.

The Red Room

When the teens decide to find out more about Sarah bellows to hopefully save their skin, it’s Chuck’s turn to go. Chuck finds himself in a lockdown situation in the insane asylum. A strange-looking girl who looks and acts like something straight out of a Studio Ghibli movie walks at him down long corridors. Everywhere he turns, she is there. Four of her converge on him until one of the girls envelops him in her crazy folds.

The Jangly Man

The heavy hitter of this movie is the body horror fiend known as The Jangly Man. Senior Jangles, as he likes to be called is a contorting, crunching, body morphing, horror that possesses the ability to fall apart limb from limb and reconfigure himself at will. This guy is after Ramon, and boy is he spoopy.

In the end,
the two remaining teens, Stella and Ramon manage to make it out thanks to
Stella’s quick thinking. She manages to convince Sarah’s ghost that she will
write her story for her. Oh yeah, Stella’s a writer… So there’s that.

Final recommendations

While Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark wasn’t bad, it wasn’t great. It was pretty by the books. Its the movie you would write if you were tasked with writing a movie based on the book, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. If that sounds like fun to you, give it a whirl, otherwise meh.

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We re-watched Paranormal Activity 2, and it still holds up. It takes everything that works from the first film and ever so slightly expands on it. It’s not perfect, but it is highly effective. It also happens to be one of the most profitable horror movies of all time. Listen to our review in this episode of Horror Movie Talk.

Paranormal Activity 2 is directed by Tod Williams and can be found can be wherever you rent or buy your movies.

Synopsis for Paranormal Activity 2

Paranormal Activity 2 takes place before and briefly after the occurrences of Paranormal Activity. However, this time, the movie focuses on Kristy Rey’s (Sprague Grayden) family of 4. Kristy is the sister of Katie from the first film. A year after Kristy gives birth to their son Hunter, strange occurrences, Activities even, start happening, and the Rey family eventually figures out that they are being tormented by a demon. Paranormal Activity 2 uses the same found footage techniques found in the first film, but expands the scope of the story beyond the recent hauntings and delves a little more into Kristy and Katies past.

Review of Paranormal Activity 2

Paranormal Activity 2 expands the scope of the original film and uses aome very effective devices that take full advantage of the found footage genre. Whenever your marketing focuses almost exclusively on genuine audience reactions, you know you’re doing something right.The movie expands the “lore” of the Rey sisters in this movie, but never over extends like in the later films. The mystery, dread, and dramatic irony are all there in the movie, and it somehow is just as memorable as the first. You’ll walk away wondering how the filmmakers created more tension with a static shot of a pool vacuum than most of the tension contained in most horror movies. The subtle audio and visual cues are enough to carry you through to the end when they go full jumpscare and finally have some payoff.

Score for Paranormal Activity

Score 8/10

Paranormal Activity 2

Add it to your collection or rent it today

Buy/Rent on Amazon

Spoilers for Paranormal Activity 2

Should you watch Paranormal Activity 2?

yes

Check Out Our Episode on the Worst Paranormal Activity: Ghost Dimension

Special Thanks

Thanks to The Benevolent Badger for the new theme song to Kill Count

Thanks to our friends at Scariest Things Podcast for the mention.

As always thanks to our supporters on Patreon. Become a patron today for access to exclusive bonus content!

Did I just do something I’ve never done before and use three exclamation marks to punctuate the title for a post?! I did. Why? Because this week is special, it’s our one year anniversary!

We go over what we liked and hated in the movies we reviewed over the past year and take a deeper dive into our insecurities and triumphs that we have had throughout our first year podcasting.

We would like to thank you, yeah, you. Thanks for listening to us once, thanks for listening to us a few times, or every episode. Thanks for talking to us, thanks for laughing with us, thanks for cringing at/with us. Without you guys, we are just talking to each other, which would be enough, but not nearly as fun!

Oof. Seriously though, while watching this movie, I was quoted as saying to Bryce and my poor wife, “I didn’t realize they still made this kind of movie.” Dead Night is a movie that gets lost on it’s way to the end – where that is, I’m still not sure.

I was decently excited to watch this. The poster and summary had a “cabin in the woods” quality to it, and I love horror set in the deep woods. I think my brain did some subliminal math with the title and the poster as well. I saw the two-word title starting with “dead” and the snowy woods in the poster and remembered Dead Snow (a Nazi zombie flick that’s great fun). Don’t let your brain make the mistake my brain made.

Want To Watch It?

Dead Night is for people who love bad horror. If you like to laugh at continuity errors, zany and confusing plots, large portions of unexplained but seemingly important elements – this is your swan song.

I would liken the feel of this movie to something that would be shown in the middle of the day on the Sci-Fi network in the 90’s. It starts off with fun dialog, a decent setup, and mildly interesting characters, then at some point a switch is flipped, and everything goes so far off the rails that you are left confused as to how things ended up this way.

My Rating

2/10

Spoilers

The movie starts out showing a couple making out in a convertible in the woods in 1961. The young lady hears something, and of course, the young man goes to check it out. A horrifying figure makes swift work of them both. An alien looking monolith is in the shot for a moment, and we are left wondering.

Cut to 2015. The Pollack family is on a trip for rest and relaxation, but more importantly because James Pollack (AJ Bowen) has something incurable and his wife, Casey Pollack (Brea Grant) has it on good authority that their vacation rental was built on restorative minerals. Their son Jason (Joshua Hoffman) and daughter Jessica (Sophie Dalah) are less than enthusiastic to be going on this vacation. Jessica has her friend Becky (Elise Luthman) along for the ride. Jason and Becky clearly have a little bit of a crush on each other.

The family gets to the cabin and begins to get ready for their stay. At this point in the movie, the framing, dialog, and lighting are done well – so well in fact, that it tricked me into believing this was going to be great. It has plenty of artsy shots on the cabin and surrounding woods that last a little bit too long but are sometimes indicative of hints at later plot points.

Check Out Our Review of Slender Man

As the movie progresses, I began to realize that all those artsy shots were for naught. The husband heads out of the cabin to find some firewood and eventually stumbles upon Leslie Bison (Barbara Crampton) who is pretending to be passed out in the snow and ends up being the main antagonist.

A switch flips. Enter mid 90’s made-for-tv Sci-Fi channel vibe. For brevity’s sake here is the quick and dirty rundown of the second and final act:

It turns out that a coven of witches don’t like the way things are going in this part of Oregon, so they decided to give Leslie Bison, who is running for some office, some powers in hopes that she would take the election and sway the future in their favor. Powers Leslie has bestowed upon her are:

• Control over alien monolith that produces rocks that zombify people when applied to their body
• The ability to teleport
• The ability to induce hallucinations
• Other things?

Casey, the mother, doesn’t like that Leslie is zombifying her family, so she tries to fight back but ends up killing most of her zombie family with an ax at the behest of the witches. Oh, yea, she met with the witches, and they told her that the only way to make this stop was to kill her family.

Check Out Our Review of Gremlins

Some minor explanations are made using a crime investigations show that pops up throughout the movie.

How Dead Night Stacks Up

If you want that 90’s Sci-Fi channel nostalgia or love seeing super cheesy made-for-streaming horror movies – this is for you. Barabara Crampton really hams it up in this, and she is a seasoned vet in the horror movie industry, so if you dig her maybe check it out.

Everyone else, remember, some of the biggest stars in all of Hollywood got their start in garbage horror movies that you wouldn’t like to watch. I look forward to being able to say, “I saw so and so in Dead Night, and it was terrible!”

The Gremlins are back, and this… new batch…is crazier than ever. Yeah, yeah, yeah it’s barely horror, but it’s horror adjacent and stupid fun. Can you just give us this?

Gremlins 2 can be found streaming on Shudder as of the recording of this podcast, but I don’t know if it’s still on for you. You’re a big boy, you can Google it.

Gremlins 2 Synopsis

Years after the events of Gremlins, Billy Peltzer (Zach Galligan) and KAte Beringer (Phoebe Cates) have moved to New York and are working in a new high tech, highly automated, highly satirical skyscraper. Guess who else is in the skyscraper? That’s right, Gizmo the Mogwai. Rules get broken, hijinks ensue.

Watch Gremlins 2: The New Batch

Gremlins 2: The New Batch Full Movie

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Review of Gremlins 2: The New Batch

If you liked the Gremlins part of Gremlins, then you will love this movie. We got all kinds of Gremlins. Bat Gremlins, googly eyed gremlins, Gremlins with 8 legs. We got brainy gremlins, dumb gremlins, electrical gremlins, hell, we even have a vegetable gremlin. More Gremlins than you can shake a stick at.

Check Out Our Review of Gremlins

Where the original films tone was inconsistent, Gremlins 2 comes out very early on and establishes itself as a goofy as fuck comedy/horror. While it’s tempting to say that this movie was a hot mess, I honestly can’t. It is ridiculous, yes. But it’s not supposed to be taken seriously. There are a lot of fun moments in this movie that break the fourth wall. The film acknowledges and pokes fun at the logical inconsistencies of the original, including Kate’s weird asides about personal tragedies on holidays. There is also some top quality satire of 80’s business tropes that ranks up there with Robocop.

Score for Gremlins 2: Muppets Take Manhatten

6/10

Spoilers for Gremlins 2

Pretty much everything can be covered in this Key and Peele sketch:

Should You Watch Gremlins 2?

This is a great example of a movie that you should watch if you flip by it on cable (do people still have that?). I wouldn’t go out of my way to watch it, but if it is in front of you, you will enjoy it. It’s goofy fun, and is entertaining in intentional and unintentional ways.

The Killing of a Sacred Deer is artsy, cold, clinical, and touched on a disturbing theme that many will find difficult to deal with. This is subject matter that we have discussed on a few other movies we have reviewed as being deeply disturbing.

The Killing of a Sacred Deer Trailer

If you want to watch The Killing of a Sacred Deer, please consider renting or purchasing the movie through this amazon link to help us support the podcast.

Currently, you can find this on Amazon Prime for free with a Prime subscription.

The Killing of a Sacred Deer is, as far as I can tell, a modern-day retelling or rendition of the Greek tragedy of Agamemnon and Iphigenia, where Agamemnon accidentally kills a sacred deer and ends up offending the gods because of it. The goddess Artemis demands that he pay for the killing with blood from his own family as payment in what is called blood for blood.

Check Out Our Review of Midsommar!

The interesting thing about this movie is that it takes a Greek tragedy, which I think we can all agree, seems distant and hard to relate to at best, and makes it relevant to today’s audience in a very real way. What’s even more interesting is that while they are making this hard to relate to Greek tragedy more relevant and easier to relate to, they simultaneously make the whole movie very cold and clinical. So it’s a bit of a mixture, making it more relatable and also harder to comprehend. Because it isn’t a literal retelling of the story of Agamemnon, it becomes a unique story of its own.

The Killing of a Sacred Deer is, at its core, a psychological thriller. The acting is delivered in a way that makes you feel mildly alarmed because it’s so deadpan and void of real human expression. There is a bleakness that pervades the whole script, even the sets, camera angles, and framing are set up to invoke minimalism and clinical feelings.

There are plenty of topics that The Killing of a Sacred Deer touches on that are meant to make the viewer at the very least intrigued, and usually, a little bit disturbed. Lot’s of strange sexual undertones pervade this movie but never make it to the surface. The overall effect is an oily residue that coats your brain with the thought of, “that was awful and strange… I want to know more.”

The actors did a great job of doing what they were told to do by the director – act detached. The Killing of a Sacred Deer centers around Dr. Steven Murphey (Colin Farrell) who is a surgeon, and his wife Anna (Nicole Kidman) who is a clinic owner, and their two children, Kim (Raffey Cassidy) and Bob (Sunny Suljic). A key role is that of Martin (Barry Keoghan), a teenage boy whose father died in the hands of Steven on the operating table. Young Martin has taken an interest in Dr. Murphey’s profession, and Dr. Murphey obliges Martin by allowing him to do a kind of job shadow thing when it’s convenient.

Like These Cold and Clinical Movies? Check Out The House That Jack Built Review!

Interestingly, Martin’s mother is played by Alicia Silverstone, who has made a fabulous transition from being my teenage heartthrob to being my middle-aged heartthrob. Bravo, Alicia! Although it’s a small part, her character is effective and deeply sexual.

The Killing of a Sacred Deer was directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, who did The Lobster, which was also an A24 distribution, and starred Colin Farrell. Lanthimos and a Greek man named Efthymis Filippou wrote The Killing of a Sacred Deer.

My Rating

8/10

If you love psychological thrillers, this is a must-see movie.

Spoilers

The whole movie feels “off” from the start. There are tons of sexual undertones that are brought up to hang in front of the viewer like tawdry details of private moments that shouldn’t be discussed in public. The Killing of a Sacred Deer sets out to make its audience feel odd, and it does a great job of it.

The basic premise of The Killing of a Sacred Deer is Dr. Murphy accidentally killed Martins father during surgery that he was performing on the man’s heart. Martin has become close to Dr. Murphey under the guise of being interested in becoming a surgeon himself. As it turns out, Martin is only interested in setting a cursed upon Dr. Murphey’s family that goes a little something like this:

“You killed a member of my family; now you gotta kill a member of your family to balance things out, I can’t tell you who to kill, that’s for you to decide. But, if you don’t they will all get sick and die.”

1. Paralysis of the limbs
2. Refusal of food until starvation
3. Bleeding from the eyes (once this starts death is not far away)
4. Death

Soon, Dr. Murphey’s kids begin to show signs of the curse, and eventually, he is forced to choose which member of his family is sacrificed to save the rest.

Super Interesting video with Yorgos Lanthimos and Colin Farrell

There is a lot of art, intent, and symbolism going on in The Killing of a Sacred Deer, and it worked well on me. The weird sexual tones, the sterility of the acting and the characters themselves, it all worked toward making this a film that seeped into my mind and gave me a long-lasting memory. This movie forces it’s viewers to come face-to-face with some very disturbing concepts, and I appreciate it even though it may strike many as lacking heart.

The Story of Iphigenia

For anyone who is interested in learning the story of Iphigenia, the Greek myth that this movie is based upon, check out GreekMythology.com. They do a good job of providing the story in a wiki format that is clear and concise.

Is The Killing of a Sacred Deer Worth Watching?

If you don’t mind facing some disturbing material and themes, I would recommend anyone who is looking for a seriously solid psychological horror movie to see The Killing of a Sacred Deer. It’s a great movie that will stick with you. Also, mom’s spaghetti.

If you want to watch The Killing of a Sacred Deer, please consider renting or purchasing the movie through this amazon link to help us support the podcast.

Midsommar is the antidote for “spooky house syndrome“. If there is a more idyllic horror movie, I don’t know of it. This slow burn pagan horror film will stick with you and give you plenty to talk about afterwards. It certainly gave us a lot to talk about. This episode of Horror Movie Talk comes in at just over two hours.

Midsommar can be found in theaters now.

Midsommar Synopsis

Writer/Director Ari Aster has followed up his dark drama-filled cult-based horror movie with this bright drama-filler cult-based horror movie. Midsommar stars Florence Pugh  who plays Dani, an anxious young woman who experiences a horrible family tragedy, and then accompanies her boyfriend and anthropology doctoral student Christian (Jack Reynor) on a trip to Sweden to experience a traditional summer festival of a certain rural commune.

Watch Midsommar

Full Movie Midsommar

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Christian and his friends Josh and Mark were invited on the trip by their friend and classmate, Pelle who grew up in the small Swedish commune. Unbeknownst to Dani, Christian has been planning to break up with her for a while, and unbeknownst to everyone but Pelle, the once in a lifetime midsommar festival is actually a vicious pagan cult ritual.

My Review of Midsommar

Midsommar was everything I wanted it to be, and I had high expectations. It’s a breath of fresh air in the horror genre, and like Hereditary, takes a lot of concepts from older horror movies and melds them to create a new and compelling story for today. Ari Aster’s strength is his focus on character and relationship drama, and the characters and relationships in this movie are very familiar and believable. They serve to ground the horror elements so that they also seem very real.

The bright and idyllic setting of the movie does a lot to mask and inoculate the viewer to the horrific rituals that occur in the festival. Also, the framing of the events as a rare and sacred cultural event, along with the generous drug usage creates a logical reason for why the American characters are slow to react to the more extreme elements of the festival.

Check Out Our Review of The Ritual

It’s a slow burn, and while there are horrific and surprising scenes, they are intentionally dampened with the over saturated visuals and muted sound design. The tension and anxiety that I felt ramped up very slowly throughout the movie, to where I didn’t realize how much I was being affected. Towards the end I was on the edge of my seat with a lot of nervous energy watching the inevitable and dreadful fate of the American party. 

Score for Midsommar

Score 9/10

Midsommar Spoilers

Expand for Spoilers and Deeper Discussion…

The opening act of Midsommar

The film’s opening act is really about setting up the relationship between Dani and Christian. Dani is very needy and has a lot of family drama so she leans on Christian very heavily. Christian isn’t as self sacrificing and long-suffering as he portrays to Dani, and is actually working up the courage to finally break up. Ari Aster has described this movie as a “break up movie”. So it’s very important to frame this relationship early on.

Check Out Our Review of It Chapter Two

https://www.horrormovietalk.com/2019/09/11/it-chapter-two-review/

The latest scare for Dani is that her sister isn’t returning her emails, and after she calls and and expresses her worry to Christian, he (after the call) commiserates with his buddies, and they encourage him to finally break it off.

Well, Dani’s fears become very real when it is revealed that her sister poisoned herself and her parents with carbon monoxide in an apparent murder suicide. Cut to shot of Dani screaming in utter dispair, ala Hereditary. Obviously not the best time to break up.

Dani is Invited

Christian finds himself in a tough spot when Dani finds out about a long trip to Sweden that he is taking with his college friends in the coming week. Dani and Christian get into a super believable argument, and Dani ends up being invited on the trip.

Christian’s friends all seem to be studying anthropology and specifically rural pagan festivals. One of the friends, Pelle, came from a rural village in Sweden and he invited them all to a once in a lifetime midsommar festival. He describes it as a “nine day festival with lots of pageantry“.

Traveling to the Midsommar Festival

The trip to the midsommar festival features a lot of great shots by Aster. These include a great transition between an apartment bathroom and an airplane bathroom, and an homage to The Shining‘s opening sequence driving through the woods.

Once they arrive at a field outside the entrance to the festival, they are given psychedelic mushrooms, and there are some trippy visual effects. As foreshadowing, Dani doesn’t want to take the drugs yet, but gives in to peer pressure. Both Dani and Mark have really bad trips.

When they enter the village (festival grounds?), they are greeted with the warmest, friendliest Swedes in existence.

They are introduced to the villagers that describe the festival as happening every 90 years. We are given small hints that there is more to the festival than just singing, dancing, and drinking. There are many tapestries and drawings throughout the buildings that show depictions of ancient blood rituals.

There is one particular yellow house that is described as a sacred temple that no one is allowed to enter.

The First Big Ritual: Ättestupa

The first time we really see confirmation that this festival involves human sacrifice, is at the Ättestupa.

Everyone waits at a rune shaped table for an older couple to arrive so that they can eat. The older couple is then transported on carried chairs to a large cliff. Down below the villagers and tourists look up.

After the old people’s hands are cut, their blood are smeared on some runes on a rock.

Then the couple both freely throw themselves off the cliff to kill themselves with varying levels of success. Luckily, there is an alternate plan for the old man that doesn’t die on impact.

The over-exposed filmwork and the muted sound design are an attempt to numb the impact of these deaths for the audience, but it’s impossible not to be affected by the imagery nonetheless.

The reactions to the ritual are mixed. The anthropology students are intrigued, Dani is horrified and wants to leave, and the English couple is angry and wants to leave as well.

Using Cultural Differences as a Source of Dread

The real source of dread for this movie is from the feeling of being a foreigner in a foreign land. It puts you in a weird relativistic mindset where you aren’t sure what to think about what you are witnessing. Both the characters in the film and the audience watching it are experiencing the same thing.

Check Out Our Review of Ready or Not

https://www.horrormovietalk.com/2019/08/28/ready-or-not-review/

The real danger is getting lulled into the idea that the things you are seeing aren’t actually horrific, they are just related to an alternate worldview and moral framework that is just as valid as yours.

The Symbolism in Midsommar

Throughout the film, Josh and others are learning a lot about the symbolism and meaning behind the rites of the festival.

Josh learns from an Elder that in their sacred books, they write a type of “emotional sheet music” from nine symbols that represent the nine different emotional states. These symbols are decided by the oracle that dictates them.

In this case, the oracle is named Ruben. Ruben is severely retarded from intentional inbreeding. You read that right. They intentionally inbreed an oracle, because then, they will be “untainted by normal cognition”.

The Ending of Midsommar

Person by person, all the foreigners in the group mysteriously disappear and Dani and Christian are the last outsiders left.

Christian is tempted into having sex with a sexy sexy redheaded swede.

Dani is pulled into the dance competition and eventually is crowned the May Queen. After which, she discovers Christian’s infidelity by peering through Sweden’s largest keyhole.

The film ends with all of the horrific murders being revealed and the explanation that the village needs 9 people to sacrifice in the culmination of the festival. All but three are accounted for.

Two Swedes volunteer for the honor, and the last soul is decided by what can be described as a sacrificial powerball, and then finally by the May Queen herself, Dani.

Dani is given the choice between sacrificing Christian or sacrificing another villager.

She chooses Christian.

Christian is then sewed up into a bear suit, and propped up inside the temple along with (in varying levels of decomposition) Mark, Josh, the English couple, the two elderly villagers, and the two volunteers.

The temple is then burned, and the last shot is Dani cracking a smile.

Who Would Like Midsommar?

There are definitely people that won’t like this movie. It won’t satisfy horror purists with it’s toned down gore.

However, if you like realistic interpersonal drama set in a compelling and fascinatingly dreadful situation, you should enjoy this film quite a bit.

Check Out Our Review of Paranormal Activity 2

It is a singularly unique film despite it’s quotations from and homages to other horror films in the pagan horror subgenre. Much like Hereditary in 2018, you’ll be hard pressed to find a horror film of similar quality and vision this year.

Ari Aster is the film auteur to keep an eye on.

It Came From Social Media

We were lucky enough to watch Midsommar with the cult! Ok, it may have been more of a group of friends who bake and prepare delicious food who happen to enjoy top tier horror, but who the heck can tell? Check out some of the pics that we got from them! Follow them on the Instagram @awkwardasshole and @kret2! Thanks cultists!

Videos mentioned on the podcast

Who would have guessed that after that train wreck of a sequel, Annabelle: Creation, we would get this awesome ray of horror themed sunshine? Not me! Annabelle Comes Home is a spooky, funny, and jump-scare-riffic addition to the conjuring universe that holds it’s own on almost every front.

Annabell Comes Home Trailer

Synopsis of Annabelle Comes Home

This entry into The Conjuring franchise takes place almost exclusively within Ed (Patrick Wilson) and Lorraine (Vera Farmiga) Warren’s house. While the Warren’s leave to fight demons and ghosts, they hire the hottest babysitter in the universe, Mary Ellen (Madison Iseman) to watch their daughter, Judy (Mckenna Grace), and watch their house for them. 

While The Warrens are away the children do play and Mary Ellen’s friend Daniela Rios (Katie Sarife) invites herself over to hang out at the Warrens. Daniela breaks into the Warren’s ‘no touchy’ room storing all their super-haunted shit, and ends up letting Annabelle out of her cage. Pretty quickly these girls find themselves with more doll than they bargained for!

Mary Ellen’s crush, Bob (Michael Cimino) also shows up to provide a great amount of comic relief. I included Bob in this synopsis because his role is critical to this being a good movie and Micahel Cimino did a great job in the role.

Other Conjuring Related Movie Reviews? The Nun!

Review of Annabelle Comes Home

While the Annabelle series had a strong start with the original Annabelle, the sequel (Annabelle Creation)was nothing short of bad. Annabelle Comes Home was enjoyable in almost every way. It had a strong script with believable and lovable characters who were acted well by a very capable cast of young adults and children, which is a tall order. While the pacing was a bit too fast for my taste, the movie didn’t suffer from it too much, and it did an admirable job of hearkening back to the long-drawn-out dread tension build’s of The Conjuring 1 & 2.

These actresses were great. The premise was solid. The execution was skillful. The experience was very enjoyable. If you are looking to have a fun time with some jump scares and fake-outs, this is an even better option than Child’s Play 2019, although not as goofy.

Score for Annabelle Comes Home

8/10

More Conjuring? Our Review Of The Curse of La Llorona!

Annabelle Comes Home Spoilers

Annabelle Explained

The movie starts out with the Warrens acquiring Annabelle from some dirty hippies, or at least that’s what I wanted them to be. They were probably more like young adults out of college?  The Warrens have a long drive to get home and Annabelle is sitting in the back seat, enjoying the ride with that nice smile on her face.

The Warrens are diverted from the normal highway route by some late night construction, which seems questionable, but go with it! As they pass the creepiest graveyard in the creepiest part of the creepiest state (Connecticut), the car breaks down.

As Ed happily hops out of the car to check the timing belts, Lorraine notices a bunch of creepy happenings transpiring, and before you know it, the whole graveyard student body is present! A zombie/ghost kicks unknowing Ed in front of a suddenly there semi-truck which manages to swerve just in time!

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Lorraine then summarizes Annabelle by saying, “This doll is a beacon for other spirits.”

Now we know, Annabelle is a tuning fork for bad stuff. Or maybe an amplifier for evil? Something like that.

The Warrens go to great lengths to contain Annabelle in their artifacts room because she is causing all the other artifacts to act up. As the priest is sanctifying the room and Annabelle they contain her in a glass case (you know the one) made out of glass that they obtained from some church before it was remodeled. Now, as long as no one messes with her, we will be fine…

They Mess With Annabelle!

Of course they mess with her! It wouldn’t be much of a movie if they just left her in her glass house – something, something, throwing rocks? Daniela, Mary Ellen’s friend, is obsessed with the Warrens and what they do, she can’t help it. She lost her dad tragically when she was young and has blamed herself for the incident ever since.

Daniela decides that there must be something in the Warren’s artifact gallery that can give her closure with her deceased dad, so she break into it! Smart, Daniela…

She fiddles with every crazy and mundane object in the room before coming to Annabelle, who she goes to great lengths to pull from the case marked with everything but a radioactivity sign.

At this point, shit hits the fan pretty quickly. let me discuss a minor pacing problem with this movie before I continue with the plot.

Pacing Problems

Annabelle Comes Home hits the scares and spooks early and often and doesn’t really let up. This is the format that The Conjuring is most notable for, and it’s a standard that horror movies aspire to right now – it’s a trend. Is it a trend that will end? I hope so.

It’s nice when horror movies do their due diligence and give you a light beginning to introduce you to the characters. They give you some time to settle in and then they pull the rug out from under you. This new Conjuring-esque thing where they just try to scare the pants off of you out the gate doesn’t work for me because at the start of the movie I haven’t bought the premise yet.

It’s a minor issue with this movie and they make up for the abrupt pacing with characters and acting that are charming and fun.

What Annabelle Comes Home Does Well

I’ve already gushed about the acting and the characters, so what else does this movie do well? It handles tension in a great way. Instead of lots of quick, cheap jump-scares, it intermingles long held tension over a couple minutes at a time before releasing it with a scare, or even letting it breath and not doing anything with it.

This movie also has some nice camera work. There are lots of up-close shots on characters that do a good job of keeping the audience trying to look for what’s going on in the background without letting them see too much. There are a few Alfred Hitchcock homage shots, but I would never venture to say that Annabelle Comes Home aspires to such heights. Instead, it uses the camera to build tension in an effective way that I appreciated and noticed.

Annabelle Unleashed!

Once Annabelle is released from her cage, the house comes alive, or maybe dead? Maybe the house comes dead alive? Whatever, suddenly all of the artifacts in the house feel pretty good, and all of the humans feel pretty bad. a veritable smorgasbord of convincing and menacing baddies and objects lurk about.

Everything from a knife wielding bride to a haunted board game hits the scene and the scares really ramp into a fevered pitch.

When Daniela opens Annabelle’s cage the artifacts be like…

One of my favorite scare tools in this movie was a television that foretold the future directly in front of the television by about 4 seconds. It sounds hokey, but man, it works!

There is an undertaker who drops coins around the house, a toy monkey that makes horrible music and even a werewolf/hellhound that chases my boy Bod around the outside of the house. Of course, Annabelle shows up a few times too.

Final Recommendation

This is an easy movie to recommend because it is entertaining, fun, and manages to avoid committing many sins. If you want a scary date night, Annabelle Comes Home is the movie for you, and if you are big into The Conjuring you really can’t miss this entry.

Child’s Play 2019 is probably the first movie that we’ve reviewed that I can whole heartedly say is so bad that it’s good. This movie has almost nothing to do with the original movie, and makes a bunch of bizarre choices, but in the end it is very entertaining.

Child’s Play can be found in theaters now, and you can also watch the original for a limited time for free on amazon prime.

Synopsis

Child’s Play 2019 is a hard reboot of the 1988 film of the same name. However, it bares little resemblance to the original. Basically the only elements that hold over are… kind of the design of the doll, and that there is a doll, and that it’s name is Chucky. Child’s Play 2019 tells the story of a child’s doll for teenagers that looks like an anime version of a little person, and has the voice of a middle aged man talking in a child’s voice. This doll isn’t like any ordinary doll, though, it connects to your home automation system! Because that makes sense. Also, the doll has an advanced AI that it uses to learn how fun it is to kill people. 

Review of Child’s Play 2019

This movie is kind of a hot mess, but it still kind of works. It’s the first movie that we are reviewing that I can give a heavy stamp of “So bad it’s good”. This movie goes beyond head scratching horror movie logic, and into the realm of the absurd. Watching the trailer and hearing about many of the elements of this film before hand, made me think several times “that’s a weird choice”. I assumed that upon watching the film that it would all come together and make sense as a whole. Nope. All those things still seem like weird choices still. 

• Why would you give a child’s doll home automation integration? 
• Why would a teenager have/want a doll? 
• Why Aubrey Plaza? 
• Why that face? 
• Why Mark Hammil as the voice? 

These and other questions are answered with “because”. The movie suffers from the “and then this scene happens” syndrome, with very little happens in term or story arc after the initial set up of the plot. But who are we joking, it’s a movie about a murderous doll. This is not a thinking man’s movie, and really, in terms of entertainment value, this movie was enjoyable to watch. I laughed and winced several times throughout the movie, and I consider that a win in any horror movie. There are a lot of effective death scenes, and the schlock value is high enough to let me laugh off the bad jokes and ridiculous elements of the story.

Remember The Original Child’s Play? Check Out Or Review!

Score

Score: 7/10

Child’s Play (2019) Spoilers

Final Recommendations, “who would like this”

If you like schlock, and laughing at ridiculous scenarios and premises, then you will enjoy this movie.

Read About Other Scary Dolls

Tom Holland‘s original Child’s Play (1988) holds up well even by today’s standards. I think people tend to forget what the original Child’s Play is, which is harsh and disturbing. It’s easy to see why it has become a cult classic that has spawned so many sequels, because it’s a niche horror movie that really doubles down on terror. Read below or listen to our review.

Child’s Play (1988) Trailer

Child’s Play (1988) Plot Synopsis

Child’s Play is a movie about a serial killer named Charles Lee Ray (Chucky) who, in his dying breath manages to transfer his consciousness into a Good Guy brand doll, which ends up in the home of Andy Barclay – A sweet young boy who just wants a friend. As the story progresses Chucky cuts a swathe of terror through the Chicago neighborhood where the Barclays live and Andy finds himself with more doll than he bargained for!

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Is Child’s Play (1988) Worth Seeing?

Yep. This is a classic that set the stage for one of the most memorable slasher series ever made. While the sequels can be hit or miss, the original is strange and interesting from start to finish.

The original Child’s Play is not for the faint of heart because it goes heavy in the paint when it comes to disturbing and suggestive themes. Mostly, I was shocked because of how sweet and innocent young Andy was, and how much he loved this doll who has a psychopathic serial killer living within him. While young Andy (Alex Vincent) is not the best actor, he is charming and believable to the point that I felt tons of empathy for him. The empathy that I felt for Andy and his mother , Karen (Catherine Hicks) really went a long way in making this a disturbing movie, because it felt like they were in true danger and didn’t even know it.

Child’s Play 1988

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Child’s Play 2019

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While the original Child’s Play is not the most gruesome or splatter driven slasher from the late 80’s it is a superb exercise in audience manipulation. While the premise is a bit goofy, the execution is taken deadly serious by writer/director Tom Holland, and it ends up paying off.

The one thing that Child’s Play lacks is levity of almost any kind. There are a few brief moments of minor lightheartedness, but mostly this is a deadly serious movie that could have a lot more fun than it does.

Our Score for Child’s Play (1988)

7/10

Child’s Play (1988) Spoilers

The film starts with the police chasing a wanted criminal through the mean streets of Chicago. Charles Lee Ray is the criminal and he is wanted for being the worst kind of criminal – a serial killer, namely a strangler. The chase ends up in a toy store and Charles takes a few bullets in the chest before he falls to the ground cursing the detective and promising vengeance.

With his dying breaths, Charles grabs a Good Guy doll and begins whispering some incantations. Immediately the sky begins to roil and turn black with storm clouds. These were some serious clouds, even for the Windy City. Lightening hits the building and the whole toy store explodes in a complete fireball… which seems extreme, but we are talking about a movie where a killer sends his soul into a doll, so…

Next We Meet The Unsuspecting Family

From here we head on over to Andy, the lovable little boy who brings his mom a balanced breakfast in bed. JK, he brings her pure sugar mixed with milk that splashes everywhere. Despite the fact that this milky sugar mixture has been splashed around her house, Andy’s mom hugs him and they head out into their living room to open up Andy’s birthday presents.

It is revealed that Karen couldn’t afford the one thing that Andy really wanted, you guessed it, a Good Guy doll. But, she does find a street peddler who is selling a slightly off-brand Good Guy doll with some added features behind her work. Let this be a lesson to all you working moms out there, pay the big bucks for the real thing, it’s always worth it not to have a possessed doll in your house.

Once Chucky is in the House Things Get Alarming

Once Chucky comes home, the tension really begins to ramp up very quickly. The way the camera follows this doll around the house, being touted by this sweet little boy is extremely effective in building dread. The audience knows the terrible evil within this unassuming little doll, which really turns this movie into a bit of a peepshow.

It’s alarming to see this little boy bring his doll to be and tell it, “I love you Chucky” in an earnest way.

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That same night, Andy’s “aunt” Maggie, who works with his mom, Karen, is watching Andy while his mom covers the late shift because her boss is an 80’s era dickhead. Maggie put’s Andy to bed at the exact moment when a news report on the recently deceased Charles Lee Ray comes on the nightly news. Obviously, Chucky is interested in this report, so he sneaks out of Andy’s room to see what’s on TV. Maggie becomes cross with Andy, who is as bewildered as her about Chucky, and ends up taking a claw-hammer to the forehead, forcing her out the 6th-ish story window and into the streets below.

Poor Andy Had Nothing To Do With it!

At this point, the police and Karen begin to suspect that Andy had at least something to do with Maggie’s death, and soon they notice that Andy’s pajamas have the same footprints as those found at the scene of the crime. It’s at this point where I really got a heavy whiff of how dark this movie is. There is a point that makes up the middle of this movie where one of the cutest child actors and sweet characters I’ve ever seen on the screen is being held and questioned by hardened cops about the murder of his beloved aunt Maggie. As if the idea of losing his aunt wasn’t enough, now a six year old has to be grilled by a bunch of mean men? It feels real, and dark, and sad.

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At this point Chucky starts forcing Andy to take him to the bad part of town, and do things he wouldn’t otherwise do. If you’ve ever seen any of the Robocop movies, the setting of Chicago and the tone of Child’s Play feels remarkably similar. Kind of tongue in cheek depressing with a wink, if that makes any sense (it will if you are a fan of Robocop).

Chucky’s Reign of Terror

At this point Chucky goes off the rails. He seeks out the man who taught him the voodoo required to transfer his soul into the Good Guy doll and finds out that he will become the doll if he doesn’t make another transfer soon – and the only transfer that the voodoo magic will allow is for Chucky to inhabit the body of the first person he revealed himself to. Poor Andy.

Child’s Play culminates in a standoff between Chucky, Karen, Andy and Detective Norris. This is a fantastic ending to a horror movie for a few different reasons, the first being the tried and true trope of, “He just won’t die!” Chucky is thrown in the fire, torn limb from limb, shot, and even shot in the heart, but he keeps getting up and giving it the old college try. Well, until the heart shot, that ends him…right?

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The reason the end works so well is it’s convincing. Surely a doll can’t make it through burning in the fireplace! Wrong. Even when there is only an arm left, little Chuck is still trying to get to Andy. The practical effects are extremely well done and leave the audience with a bevvy of haunting visions.

Who Would Like Child’s Play (1988)?

Well, considering that this is the movie that started one of the five most iconic slasher series of all time, I think it’s safe to say that if you enjoy slashers this is for you. More than that, Child’s Play is a thoughtful slasher (which is weird to say about a movie whose antagonist is a doll) because of the artful way that it plays with tension and empathy. The first half of this movie is mostly about trying and succeeding to get the audience to buy in, which is more than most slashers can say.

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