As a horror movie fan that still needs to catch up on many great movies in the genre, I joined in on the tradition of watching horror movies in October. I’ve done it for a few years now and started a little early this time. For anyone with Vudu, they have a decent selection of free-to-watch horror movies with minimal ad interruptions. This weekend I watched Child’s play and Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978 version).
Child’s Play is a solid slasher but comes off kind of dated and silly at times. The voodoo stuff is particularly laughable, and also the overall aspect of a doll come to life in a world where the Toy Story franchise is so popular. However Chucky himself holds up really well visually: you look at the lifelike scenes with Chucky moving about, plus the kid trapped in his psych ward cell screaming bloody murder how the doll was coming to kill him and no adult believes him, and it makes perfect sense why this movie gave nightmares to so many kids back in the day.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers is terrific scifi horror. It runs pretty long but was worth it. I really liked the conspiratorial nature of the plot, and the mounting dread and hopelessness of the no-win situation the protagonists are stuck in. I think everyone needs to watch this at least once. I have the original 1954 film and plan to watch that soon to see how it compares to this one.
If anyone wants more horror viewing options (Netflix is pretty lackluster), there’s the Shudder streaming service. It has a 7 day trial, but if you go into your account settings and hit cancel, you’ll be offered a free month on the spot. Pretty good if you just wanna watch stuff for the month and cancel after. There’s also Screambox which I’m less familiar with but I read is better for smaller budget indie horror films.
I love horror movies, and will probably watch a fair few. This weekend I plan on rewatching the original Halloween in prep for the new one, which is looking phenomenal. And usually one is not enough, so I may watch a few more too (I’m fond of Halloween 3, the one WITHOUT Michael Myers).
Other than that, I’ll probably go through a few classics throughout the month. I can always rewatch John Carpenter’s The Thing, which is my favourite horror movie of all time. I also want to watch A Quiet Place, which I haven’t seen yet but have heard great things.
Finally, I have the Exorcist blu-ray boxset, but have never seen anything other than 1 and 3 (3 is SUPREMELY underrated). I know 2 is supposed to be awful, but I wouldn’t mind watching it: I’m sure any scene with James Earl Jones just hamming it up will at least be entertaining.
I saw The Thing several times this past summer so I may skip it or watch it later in the month to give myself a break from it. If you’re a fan I recommend the sequel if you go in with very low expectations (it’s okay but obviously much worse and the CG stinks).
Halloween just got a new 4K Blu-ray release which I plan to pick up and watch soon. Fake edit: it’s on sale at Amazon. Bought!
I saw Friday the 13th, last year or early this year. I want to go through the rest. Nightmare on Elm Street too!
Nightmare series is probably my favourite of the “classic” slasher franchises. I love most of the movies in the series. Part 2 is god awful, and has some really weird homophobic themes that are pretty cringy/offensive nowadays, but 3 is absolutely fantastic and maybe the best in the series.
I wish the Blu-Ray presented the climax of Freddie’s Dead in 3d though. When I watched through the series a couple years ago, I turned the “fake 3d” of my 3D HDTV on when that segment started, and it did a decent enough job simulating.
I watch a lot of horror anyway, so not sure, whatever pops up. Recommendations for recent ones I’ll always add to my to-watch list!
I watch 200 films a year, and so far this year for horror this is what I’ve watched (including all horror sub genres including comedy, or borderline horror thriller etc):
Killer Klowns from Outer Space
The Green Inferno
Suspiria
The Wizard of Gore
From Beyond
The Devil’s Candy
Ghoulies 1-4
Krampus
Evil Dead 2013
Bride of Reanimator
American Werewolf in London
Videodrome
Gremlins 1/2
Bone Tomahawk
Coma
Some were re-watches of course. I’d say apart from the big names, Coma, Bone Tomahawk, The Devil’s Candy were worth a look. Ghoulies 2 is the best one of them, a decent cheese 80s creature slasher (I gave the series 1, 2.5, 2, 1.5 respectively, out of 5).
Bone Tomahawk is really slow and classy… until ‘the scene’.
Devil’s Candy is by an awesome Aussie director who also made ‘The Loved Ones’ (highly recommended on that one, truly horrific concepts in it).
Krampus I found overrated. Nice scene design but eh conceptually.
Kinda against the thread premise, but does anyone got any non horror seasonal movies they can recommend? Supernatural or just fits the time of the year kinda thing that arn’t really meant to “scare”?. It’s not that I don’t like a good suspense movie or slasher but you guys have all the recommendations on that kind of thing covered pretty handily.
I saw Halloween. Solid movie, has a very low kill count, which isn’t a marker of quality but it surprised me. I guess the genre was basically new then. This film as is could not be made today! (A few R-rated scenes with what are supposed to be HS teens)
Also saw 70s version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. This one has a really great sense of the growing tension before the situation becomes hopeless. It runs long but still worth every minute.
And finally got around to watching Night of the Living Dead. Loved it. The way events play out and eventually get resolved make it the most plausible and realistic zombie movie. And that shock ending! This movie is surprisingly deep.
It’s been a busy couple of weeks but I’m hoping I can squeeze in several more before the month is up… and of course I’ll continue with the horror movies well after October.
The Ring Two
One of the lamest, crappiest horror films I’ve ever seen. Not even bad-good. Just bland and stupid. I watched it simply because it was set in Astoria and wanted to see the Goonies town in more recent times, and it had some nice shots of it, that’s all I can say for this garbage.
Somebody’s Watching Me
An early Carpenter thriller, really solid, good feminist subtext and some real tension. Better than the original Halloween IMO at basically the same thing, doing it in a more realistic city setting vs suburbia. Haven’t watched Halloween for a while though so don’t quote me on that…
Rosemary’s Baby
Catching up on this classy psycho-mystery. Crazy how well made it is for 1968, incredibly compelling conspiracy horror and serious commentary on treatment of women by authority.
Didn’t quite live up to the hype for me with the ending being just too literal, if still shocking but man, it’s a ride.
Coma
I watched it because I saw Kojima stole some imagery from it. Great 70s horror thriller, with great subtext and it of course has the brilliant image of the room of bodies
So many of these older horror films have a feminist angle to them, playing on the way society oppresses women. Often it’s like the feminist angle of Alien - that you can show if a woman can handle the male oppression/threats, she’s uniquely equipped to handle other threats. Or some variation thereof.
Bone Tomahawk
Western black comedy slasher survival? There’s definitely enough carnage and horror tropes to call it horror. Really great multi-genre film, centred on the middle act of a bunch of very different men having to trust each other on a dangerous rescue mission. Fantastic performances, especially from Russel and Matthew Fox.
Even with warnings the ending is CRAZY shocking. Wow. Do not watch if you cannot handle violence.
Yeah, Night, Dawn and Day are so far ahead of their exploitation contemporaries (with a few exceptions, Mad Max 2, Cannibal Holocaust etc) in quality and subtext it’s crazy how a cheese genre spilled from films which actually had something to say.
