31 DAYS OF HALLOWEEN

[Choconado]

#19. Celia (1989) A little girl growing up in 50s Australia struggles to understand events around her such as the Red Scare and the Rabbit Cull, leading to a disturbed mind mixing with her overactive imagination.

Well. I was suggested this by someone who hadn't actually watched the movie, and I don't really blame them for the suggestion, as the marketing pushes this as a horror for sure. But...it's really not. It's not even fantasy. It's got some dark moments, and some bits in Celia's imagination with monsters, but that's it. If you like the kind of movie this is, where it shows a kid growing up in the 50s, then by all means, check it out. I was not a fan.

2 out of 5.

#20. Resolution (2012) Chris is a drug addict, squatting in a small building on a Native Reservation. His friend Michael, after getting a strange video of Chris' antics, goes to him, and chains him to the wall in hopes of successfully detoxing him within a week. Then, Michael starts making strange discoveries about the area that put them at risk.

I loved this film, and hate that it's hard to talk about without spoilers. The strengths of the film are twofold: Obviously, the strange horror factor is strong in it, but just as good are Chris and Michael's natural chemistry and humor. The movie is kind of scary and very creepy, but it's also legitimately funny as well, which is an incredibly hard balance to keep up. Apparently these characters also show up in the filmmakers' followup from last year, The Endless, so I'll be trying to watch that this month with excitement.

5 out of 5

#21. Human Lanterns 1982. Two Ming Dynasty era bigwigs are in a constant feud, and with a contest for best lanterns coming up, one searches out and finds a crafter he beat in duel years ago to make him the very finest. Turns out the guy is a psycho, and you'll never guess his secret technique for making lanterns.

I'm a fan of horror, obviously, and I'm also a fan of kung fu movies. To my surprise, this film is a perfect blend of the two genres, something I've never seen before. The plot is a very solid slasher style one, yet is constantly punctuated with intense, wire-based fight scenes that are absolutely top tier, and are diagetically justified. Color me impressed with the seamless blending of the two genres.

4 out of 5

#22. Skeletons In The Closet (2018). Set in the 80s, Emily is a young horror fanatic, and tonight is her favorite program, a weekly horror movie shown by a horror hostess, The Widow, and her corpse husband, much to the misgivings of her babysitter. The movie The Widow watches, Chop Shop, is an anthology, featuring a handful of seemingly unrelated stories, or are they?

I have to give this film credit for trying, I really do, but it's kind of a flop. The fact that we have an anthology three layers deep in bookend kinda confuses things, and the tone seems all over the place. Also, the stories are pretty bland.

2 out of 5

#23. Monster X! (2017) A couple goes to a horror movie marathon at the local cineplex for a first date, and finds that in this theater, the monsters are very much real, and must run and hide while the features play.

Another flub of an anthology film, this one is at least competently made, collecting a score of short films that had circulated the festivals before the making of the movie. However, they're all fairly predictable, and quite short and forgettable.

2 out of 5

#24. Beyond The Door (1972) After she gets pregnant, a wife and mother becomes possessed by the devil. A strange man from her past comes forward to her rescue, but is actually in league with the evil one himself!

When this Italian film came out, it was promptly sued by Warner Bros for being a copy of Exorcist, and it's obvious why Warner won that lawsuit. What's odd however is that's it's not strictly exactly the same, even though much of the possession stuff is copied. Like, it has the weird element of maybe Rosemary's Baby to it? Also there's a pretty cool brief poltergeist sequence a full decade before the Tobe Hooper film made that sort of thing popular. It's weird plot earns it an extra point from me.

4 out of 5

[Deeky]

Oct 5, 2018 9:23:17 GMT -5 Choconado said:

Set in the 80s...

I'm already sick of this trope.

[Choconado]

Yeah, I'd be completely unhappy with it if it weren't for the fact that retro new wave music is so dope.

#25. Microwave Massacre (1982) An average over the hill schmoe has a wife who just got a new oversized microwave to further her experiments in bad cooking. In the midst of a drunken fight, he ends up killing her, and after accidentally trying a bite, realizes he likes human meat far more than he ever liked her. Soon he moves on to having to find his own new food stocks on the street.

Oof, this one is lousy as all creation. First off, it's a bad comedy, where all the standup style jokes of the lead (who was also the beloved voice of Frosty the Snowman in all the old Ruby-Spears specials!) were bad when this movie came out 35 years ago. Now they're just painful, and not in the good way. On top of that there's plenty of visual slapstick as well, equally unfunny. There's very little gore even, and the whole thing is just bad, and I mean bad-bad, not so bad it's good.

0 out of 5.

#26. The Last Horror Film (1982) Vinny (Joe Spinell!)is a horror film fanatic, and his obsessions take him from his low life in New York to Cannes, so he can try to recruit his idol, Jana Bates (Caroline Munroe!) to make a horror film with him. Bates herself is in the running for best actress that year at Cannes, but the people around her career are slowly getting killed by a masked assailant, while someone films these encounters...

In a lot of ways, this film makes for a good companion with the film Maniac. Both star Spinell as an obsessed weirdo stalking Munroe, and both have all kinds of good special effects, as well as a sleazy aftertaste-though this one in the ritzy high class French Riviera rather than the dirty New York. The plot is also a legit whodunnit, with Vinny being the main, but hardly only suspect in the murders. Finally, another neat feature is that they shot this film actually in Cannes, guerrilla-style, and much of the film industry in 1981, particularly the horror element, is on display, in plenty of billboards and crowd scenes set to a rock soundtrack. At one point you can even spy French director Jean Rollin working at his own booth in the background of a sequence.

4 out of 5

#27. Who Can Kill A Child? (1976) Ted and Evie are British tourists visiting a small island town off the coast of Spain, and are expecting their third child. The town however is strangely deserted save for the children, who our couple soon realize have some sort of mental infection of some kind compelling them to treat all adults as deadly enemies that need to be killed...

Well, this is a pretty unique film. One might see it as a Spanish knock-off to Stephen King's "Children of the Corn"...except King didn't publish his story until the next year, making this a wholly original concept. The film has a strange rhythm, where I can't say it's constantly ramping up, as it's more a start and stop bit, with plenty of plateaus in the tension and action, but it never dips, and whoo boy the final 20 minutes are jaw-dropping. Highly recommended.

5 out of 5

#28. All The Colors of the Dark (1972) Jane is a troubled woman. As a child, her mother was murdered in front of her, and recently a car accident caused a miscarriage. Now, she can't bring herself to be intimate with her common law husband, Roger. First, her sister has her see the psychologist she works for for help, and then Jane meets a new neighbor who convinces her to come enter into her new age coven to instead try to fix her problems. The entire time however, Jane is sure she's being stalked by the man who murdered her mother, but can't quite tell what is real or not anymore...

Wow is this a weird movie. Like, it moves in ways akin to a giallo in the plot, but at the same time the whole film is filled with bizarre imagery and camera angles, and feels like when you're in a dream--and not the fun kind, but the kind where you're trying to run but your legs don't move. Also, it feels like it reaches an ending several times before it actually does, and leaves the viewer second guessing throughout. It's a really bizarre film, one of the weirdest I've seen from Italy in the 70s.

5 out of 5

[Choconado]

#29. Demon Wind (1990) Cory learns that his family history is connected to witchcraft and some terrible tragedy. So he gets a group of friends and goes to the remains of his grandmother's house, and finds himself trapped in a battle against a demon and his undead minions for the fate of the Earth.

I'm really surprised this one doesn't get more notice. It's creative in the special effects, has a bonkers story, and has an honestly likable cast. I'd even go so far as to call it a spiritual successor to the Evil Dead franchise, it has the same feel as those. And who doesn't want more of that stuff?

3 out of 5

#30. Lord of Tears (2013) When James' estranged mother passes away, he inherits the family Scottish Manor, as well as begins remembering repressed childhood bits about being scared of some strange monster shaped like a man with an owl's head. So he returns to the manor, where he meets American caretaker Evie, who happily agrees to help him figure out the mystery of the place, and slowly start coming closer and closer to one another, and Jamie becomes more and more convinced his home is haunted.

This film feels very...British in its nature of being an eerie ghost story set in the Scottish Highlands, in an old empty manor along the cold hills and dales. It reminds me of the older stories of authors like MR James and his ilk in the way it captures that sort of unique feel it seems like you can't quite get anywhere else in the world. So I'll be doubly curious when I later try for a film the writer made later that's a sort of spiritual sequel, also involving the Owlman, but set in Mexico. My one big complaint however is with the actress playing Evie. Evie is certainly charming and flirtatious, but every single line of hers is delivered in over the top, community theater levels of emoting, and it gets very tiresome very quickly.

4 out of 5

#31 (!) Dead End Drive-In (1986) In a world of the far future of 2010, civilization is slowly starting to crumble, but only just at the seams at this point. Crabs (yes that's his nickname) takes his girlfriend on a date in his brother's classic car to the drive-in, only to get his wheels stolen, and to discover that the place is government trap for keeping the undesirable youths off the street, like some kind of concentration camp. Naturally this means a closed in area full of nothing but punks and degenerates and gang members, struggling each day to survive, while Crabs only struggles to find a way out.

I can see why this film is so highly regarded in the exploitation circles. It's almost feels like a preclude to its fellow Australian film, Mad Max, and even features a climax full of wild car stunts, not to mention a plot that feels full to the gills with social commentary. I feel like I got a lot of it, but that there were probably just as much bits that were unique to 1980s Australia and went right over my head. That said, it's a good movie, with poster art that makes it seem like a kinda different film altogether.

4 out of 5

[Choconado]

#32. November (2017). Set several centuries ago in Estonia, this film tells of a peasant boy in unrequited love for the local Baroness, and a peasant girl unrequitedly in love with him. This Shakespearan love triangle is then set against the backdrop of the area's rich mythological lore, where things like witches and werewolves are commonplace, as is a creature known as a "Krall" which would be when a person crafts a servant out of whatever they choose, and then makes a deal with the devil to place a soul inside it.

This was a very singular movie I must say. Its stark black and white photography does much to reinforce the harshness of the poverty the people are living in. Also, the story is quite dense, with lots of wild folklore unfamiliar to someone from the West like me, and many different subplots working together. It's quite a well done film worth taking a look at.

5 out of 5

#33. Creep 2 (2017) Our arguably "main" character from the first film returns, now finding himself in a bit of a midlife crisis. So he winds up recruiting a lady videographer and admits to being a serial killer in the purpose of having her document a day in his life.

I'm really impressed with the Creep films, and how they continue to keep the central character interesting and tension providing, not to mention keep the use of "found footage" style filmmaking relevant. I'm very interested to see where they go with the announced part 3.

5 out of 5

#34. I am the Pretty Thing That Lives In The House (2016) Lily is assigned as a live in nurse for an elderly woman with dementia. The house itself is old and creepy, and the woman is a successful author who wrote a book about a woman being murdered that may in fact be non-fiction.

Sigh. I really wanted to like this one. It's got some intensely spooky atmosphere, and is a fine story. But...it's just dreadfully lacking in substance. The main character, who often is the only character, just quietly monologues in a near whisper, and there is very long stretches where nothing really happens at all. I just couldn't help but be bored watching nearly the whole way through. What a shame.

2 out of 5

#35. Nailgun Massacre (1985) After a brutal gangrape in a small town, the men who are possible suspects start getting taken out by a wisecracking masked assailant with, as the title suggests, a nail gun.

This is an extremely low budget film, with a cast of obvious locals, but it's definitely a case where it's so bad it's good. So much of it is hilariously dumb and inept you can't help but enjoy it. Also, it's got an amazing 80s synth soundtrack that is far better than the movie could ever deserve.

3 out of 5

[Dr. Kobb]

Wow!  Seven nights in and you're past the required 31 movie views, you maniac!  You should go for The 131 of October!  At this rate, it's totally do-able. 

[Choconado]

Well my gold medal this year is hitting 100. I mean, nothing's stopping me from passing that number, but I'm gonna try to at least get there.

#36. Mutations (1976) aka (The Freakmaker) A genetics professor (Donald Pleasance!) believes he has found the secrets to genetic engineering. He is assisted by a deformed man who co-owns a traveling freak show (Tom Baker!) who kidnaps young men and women for him to experiment on, in hopes that the professor will be able to cure him of his own abnormalities. All the not so good doctor actually accomplishes however, is making monsters himself.

I've been meaning to see this film for a little while now, and I could never remember the name. It's pretty wild that the movie isn't well known today considering it's two big names, the fact that it's a crazy monster movie, and the film's efforts to replicate some of the success of Tod Browning's Freaks by casting actual circus performers in the freak show (there's even a "one of us!" scene) That said, the film is definitely low budget, and filled with bare production values and pseudo-science. It's fun, but it won't win any awards.

3 out of 5

#37. Shock Waves (1977) A small pleasure cruise runs into a ghost ship overnight and the people aboard are forced to make for a small nearby island, deserted save for an older ex-Nazi (Peter Cushing!) who tells them how in the second world war he was in charge of a special experimental battalion of men, scientifically experimented on to turn into living weapons impervious to most natural and environmental causes of death. Now these strange man-creatures have risen up out of the sea and are stalking our survivors.

This is such a weird film to place in any one pigeonhole. Like, it feels very European in its look, but it is definitely an American production, with the improved line delivery in English. It kinda feels like a zombie movie (an underwater nazi one no less), but the monsters aren't quite zombies either, in that they're smart, and quick, and creative instead of some mindless beasts. Even the rhythm of the film is off balance. Don't get me wrong, it's surprisingly well done for what it is, but figuring out exactly what that is is what makes it strange.

4 out of 5

#38. Fury of the Demon (2016) In 2012, in Paris, there was a special, much-hyped screening of a film thought lost for over a hundred years, "le Rage Du Demon", which had only been screened two other times in historical record. All three screenings of this film, thought to be made by a former protege of Georges Melies, pretty much the inventor of film special effects, resulted in a strange temporary madness wherein the audience went into rages and attacked each other. This film investigates the mystery of the film.

I enjoyed this hour long mockumentary, mostly because of just how much work is put into it to make it seem believable. The film spends a good portion of its running time talking about Melies' history, and has many talking heads portraying themselves in the film. However, frustratingly, there are some places it just drops the ball. There's next to no description of what actually happens in the film in question, though it's theorized that the contents are not the cause of the panics. Also, more damning to my eyes is when they show "photos" of the protege thought responsible while talking about them, which are clearly doctored photos to include this actor. That is far too common a problem in my opinion--how badly people do photoshopping the very old photography; it takes a lot more than dressing your actor up and matching the tint and lights. In this case, it ruins the whole illusion for me and just disappoints.

2 out of 5

#39. Delirium (1987) Gloria is a former nude model who struck it big making her own magazine. Now suddenly people around her start being killed off, and the killer is mailing photos of the corpses posed in front of pictures of Gloria to her.

Oh well. I turned this one on because of a super weird looking cover, which references the first kill scene, where for some odd reason, from the killer's perspective the victim's head is replaced by a giant eyeball. It's strange. And nothing about it is mentioned or repeated again the whole movie. Other than that, it's a fairly bog-standard giallo, made in the late 80s, with lots of nudity and sex, and an environment of wealthy and miserable people. Eh.

2 out of 5.

#40. Blood Diner (1987) Brothers Michael and Georgie, as boys, are visited by their uncle Anwar, while he's in mid crime spree, and he imports on them the lesson to follow the family religion, worshipping the ancient Lumarian goddess Shitar. Cut to twenty years later, and the brothers are digging up their uncle's corpse, and stick his brain and eyes in a bottle, and the three of them begin a plan using their restaurant to prepare a cannibalistic ceremony to bring their goddess to life on the mortal plane.

If this sounds familiar at all, it's because in the early stages of development, the film was to be a sequel to Blood Feast, with Anwar obviously being Fuad Ramses from that film. This film is a lot of fun, with good acting, and actually funny jokes mixed in with the bad ones, and high production values, all accented by a real enthusiasm seeming to come across by everyone involved. There's plenty of gore, but it's almost all so over the top cartoonish, that it's hard to imagine people actually being upset by it. It's cheese, but it's FUN, deliberate cheese.

4 out of 5

[Dr. Kobb]

Jesus.  How many did you manage last year?  Wasn't it in the high 80's?

[Choconado]

78 was my number last year. I'm trying hard to push myself this year, which isn't always easy with my health.

#41. Carved: The Slit-Mouthed Woman (2007). In a Japanese city, the urban legend popular since the 70s comes to life and begins kidnapping children. It's up to a pair of grade school teachers to find out where she takes them, and try to stop her before anyone else can get hurt or worse.

The Kuchisake-Onna is a strange piece of popular culture. First off, the woman has only been around since the 70s, and likely based on a real maniac, second is the strange ritualistic style of her-a woman wearing a trenchcoat and medical mask, she asks if you think she's pretty, and the answers don't really matter because she kills you regardless. This movie should be just a by-the-numbers J-Horror ghost film, but instead the filmmakers use her to talk all about child abuse, and the film is harrowingly unafraid to show children as victims of violence and murder. If you take issue with the subject, this film is very difficult indeed to watch.

4 out of 5

#42. Thoroughbreds (2017) Lily is an upper class teenager who is constantly fighting with her stepfather. Through a tutoring session, she reconnects with her old friend Amanda, who is deeply emotionally disturbed and vacant. Together, the two of them decide to start planning the murder of Lily's stepdad.

This film was really well done. Like, there are other movies I've seen that feel like they're trying for the same type of message or tone (such as Excision) that I just don't feel get there like this does. It's extremely dark and distubing, while still also being fully funny and without feeling like its rapid fire dialog and wit give it a sense of superiority. Also it's funny, this is the second film I've seen this month starring Anya Taylor-Joy, and I hadn't even heard of her before. She's quite the talented actress, and I'm sure she'll go far.

5 out of 5

#43. The Blackcoat's Daughter (2015) After two girls are forced to stay over break at a Catholic School, strange and disturbing events slowly unfold.

This movie is a slow burn, from the same director as "I am the Pretty Thing that Lives in the House", but is in my opinion, substantially better. There is more time spent on building up the dread and isolation, and more time on actually paying off that dread too. How strange that this one came first.

3 out of 5

#44. The Endless (2017) Aaron and Justin are brothers who have escaped from a cult of UFO worshipers who choose to return at Aaron's insistence after they get a video mailed to them alluding to the group's impending mass suicide. Once there, the pair start noticing stranger and stranger phenomenon that can't be ignored.

Remember when I said last week that Resolution has a sort of sequel? This is it. Sort of. It's almost like a reverse-matryoshka doll, where the plot of the first movie is just a very small part of this movie's plot. Many questions are answered, but not nearly all of them. This film also isn't as funny as the first one, but out of deliberateness, as the few funny parts are still funny, and the cast still comes off extremely natural. So far, these two movies are my favorites of the challenge.

5 out of 5

#45. The Litch (2018) Vinnie is a small time hood and all around screw-up. After stealing an amulet from a crystal store in a robbery, an ancient evil known as The Litch is freed onto the mortal plane, and seeks to get the amulet back from Vinnie to allow for him to conquer all existence.

Before that description gets you excited, be aware this is a no-budget indie film on par with the sorts of stuff that Troma distributes on the cheap. It has next to no special effects shown on screen, and very amateur acting, but I will say that it's got lots of funny jokes (especially from a character known as "Sven, the Selfie Hitman") and also some not half bad cartoon animation in places. It relies quite a bit on gross out type effects and is obviously filmed in people's apartments, but if you can dig that kind of thing, you could do a lot worse.

2 out of 5

#46. Xibalba (2017) After a discovery of Mayan records buried deep in the ground, an expert calls together a team of underwater cavers to help him discover and explore a temple he believes holds the lost secrets of the civilization. What they don't know however (and is told to us at the outset) is that the temple actually serves as a prison for an ancient alien race hellbent on conquering the earth.

This Mexican film is kinda uneven to me. Like, the writing and the acting feel like they'd be very much in line with a straight to syfy disaster/embiggened animal movie. But at the same time, the production values are quite high. In fact, they even use practical effects for the rather decent monsters once they finally show up late in the film. Also, the film is filled to the brim with beautiful underwater cave footage that really kinda brings out fears in me I wouldn't normally have otherwise. My biggest complaint is just that the movie takes so long to really get rolling with the plot that there doesn't seem time to really get to much action. It almost feels like it's supposed to be a set up for a sequel.

4 out of 5

[Killer Goldfish]

Wait, you never saw SHOCK WAVES before? How did you hold out this long?

[Choconado]

Yeah I know. I have all kinds of guilty gaps in my film viewing history.

#47 Found Footage 3D (2017) A small film crew decides to make the first ever 3D Found Footage film, and they decide to document the process along the way, also in 3D. However, the old farmhouse they're filming in might have more than a fictional haunting...

Well, I have to say this is kinda generic as a low budget Found Footage fest. It is at least having fun with its meta narrative so there is that. I have some red-blue anaglyph glasses so I watched it in the full 3D experience. I'd suggest not doing that, unless you want to get sick. Turns out it doesn't work well with shaky cameras.

2 out of 5

#48. Bedeviled (2018) After one of their friends dies, a group of teens get requests from her phone to download a new personal assistant app. However, this app is actually demonic, and preys on them using their own fears against them.

woof. This one is really bad, grabbed off Netflix on a whim. It's about the most generic teen ensemble horror film out there, with lots of bad writing (including hand wavey "hacking"), it is completely devoid of any shown violence or gore, and the villain is completely ripping off Stephen King's It. It's real bad, and I only recommend watching it to laugh at it.

1 out of 5

#49. Diary of an Exorcist 0 (2017) A pair of filmmakers interview an aging Father Lucas Vidal, a man who has spent over thirty years as an exorcist for the Catholic church in Brazil, who tells his stories of how he first came into that field, and the cases he worked on.

This is a pretty tame exorcism movie really. The most shocking moments probably happen when the priest's sister is possessed and she propositions him mid exorcism. But I'd say it's pretty inoffensive as a movie. I mostly decided to watch it so I could see something from Brazil not involving Coffin Joe, to see what other stuff is out there. I'd say this is a very Catholic film, which I mean, Brazil is a very Catholic country, so that's not a shock.

3 out of 5

[Choconado]

#50 (!) The Lure (2015) A pair of mermaids, Silver and Golden are found in the 1980s and taken to a small cabaret and booked as talent. One is looking for love in the human race, the other for lunch.

This little picture from Poland is kinda bonkers in the best ways. It's a horror film, a love story, a fantasy, AND a musical all rolled up into one. The cinematography is drop dead gorgeous, and the songs are actually very catchy. I loved the film, and had a lot of fun with it.

5 out of 5

#51. Eko Eko Azarak (1995) Just as Misa, a teenage witch, starts attending a new high school, it becomes the center of a dark ritual. As her and other students are taking a make-up quiz after class, the school becomes magically sealed, and one by one the students start getting picked off in sacrifice.

This is another on my long list of "I'll get around to it some day" movies. Most sources I have put it as one of the trailblazers of the j-horror renaissance of the late 90s to mid 00s. It's a neat little movie, filled with lots of gore, and some pretty sleazy teachers too. If you're a fan of Japanese School horror movies (something there's a lot of) this is the granddaddy right here.

4 out of 5

#52. Beyond The Darkness (1979) Franchesco is a rich young man with a hobby for taxidermy. When his wife dies of illness, he goes mad, steals her body, and stuffs it so it's with him all the time, and starts going off killing other women, all with the help of his insanely obssessed housekeeper.

Whenever I see the name "Joe D'Amato" as director of Italian sleaze, I always know I'm setting up a gamble for myself. Some of his films are the absolute dankest pits, while some are shocking yet interesting. Luckily this is the latter. The plot is sparse, but the gore is prolonged, and incredibly detailed. It's probably not for most audiences. It feels like a precursor to fake snuff movies like the Guinea Pig flicks to me.

4 out of 5

#53. Zombie 4: After Death (1988) Scientists working on a cure for cancer on a tropical isle meet the ire of a local witchdoctor who opens a gate to hell, unleashing the living dead. Years later, one of the survivors finds herself stranded back on this same island tasked with closing the gate.

It's really weird to me seeing an Italian Zombie flick on a more modern filmstock instead of the scratch 16mm the older ones are on. That said, this is a mess of a film that can barely keep track of its own plot, and has terrible acting. Probably the big draw is it's the one with gay porn superstar Rick Stryker in it, though without his own trademark deep voice, unfortunately.

1 out of 5

#54 Bone Sickness (2005) A young man has a nasty bone based disease, so his wife turns to a holistic cure she's found, and is aided in by her husband's best friend: Eating the meat and bones of corpses. But such a cure has some pretty nasty side effects of its own...

This is one of the many, many no-budget digital camcorder films that arrived in the 00s. Unlike many of them however, they use their meager budget in some impressive ways: No, not in sets or acting or whatever, but in the gory special effects. There's just TONS of it in the film, and much of it looks VERY good. It also hits on a couple of my personal weakspots: Being chronically ill, and there's lots of worm action going on (I'm not scared of worms, they just gross me out), so there's that going on too. However, at the end of the day, it's still a cheesy no-budget zombie flick.

3 out of 5

[Deeky]

Jeff Stryker. Also, that movie is terrible.

[Deeky]

p.s.

[Dr. Kobb]

Oct 12, 2018 17:22:34 GMT -5 Deeky said:

Jeff Stryker. Also, that movie is terrible.

I have yet to make it through a whole viewing of that one, and I've sat through some of the absolute worst zombie movies in my time. 

[Deeky]

I watched it hoping he'd whip out that giant cock of his, which, honestly, is more his trademark than his voice.

[Choconado]

mea culpa on the name. welp.

#55. Teaching Mrs. Tingle (1955) A trio of high school students get in trouble when one tries to cheat for their final grade. When they go over to the horrid teacher's (the aforementioned Mrs Tingle) home, things quickly get out of control, and they end up taking her captive, with great potential for violence along the way.

This movie watching was the result of me looking for someone who has only directed one movie, and that it's even marginally horror. In this case, Kevin Williamson, the writer for Scream. The fact that he specializes in pg-13 vapid 90s teen flicks shows in full here. It's bad, real bad, with lame dialogue and teen actors (including Katie Holmes in the lead) that can't hold a candle to the adult cast. This is especially true of the role of Mrs. Tingle, played by Helen Mirren, who just carries the whole film on her back and makes you wish you were watching her in something better.

2 out of 5

#56. Splinter (2008) A young couple on a anniversary trip run afoul of a criminal couple on the lam who take them captive. The foursome then encounter a strange new life form of rapidly growing spine-like splinters that take over animation of whatever they implant themselves in, and are fully capable of fusing themselves together, forcing the group to take shelter in an all-night gas station.

Wow was this a cool monster flick. Lots of clever scary designs, and truly wince worthy violence. On the other hand, the cast of characters are all dumber than a five pound sack of rocks. Nonetheless, A good movie.

4 out of 5

#57. CreepTales ("2004"). A group of monsters have a party to watch their favorite movie, CreepTales, which is a collection of different short films. They very in quality, but some of them are really good, especially one where Tom "Voice of Spongebob" Kenny plays a punk purse-snatcher (and he sings his own theme song!) or one where a rundown housewife sick of her husband gets a magical vacuum. The quotes in the release date is because these shorts come from a variety of times and sources, extending from 2004 to 1998, but the anthology itself did not come out until that year. I'd say it's most fun in a party atmosphere, like how I saw it.

3 out of 5

[Killer Goldfish]

I found CELIA to be a bit of a head-scratcher myself. I probably had higher hopes that you did, having rented it under the title CHILD OF TERROR.

[Dr. Kobb]

Yeah, Celia: Child of Terror is what I saw it as. 

[Choconado]

Yeah, it's not a terrible movie per se, but it's so not a horror movie. The 80s were jam packed with "growing up in the 50s" movies as part of Boomer Nostalgia.

#58. Doom Asylum (1987) A sleazy lawyer and his wife win a super high paying lawsuit and while celebrating get in an accident killing her and mangling him. At the hospital the doctors mistake him for dead but he comes back to life and goes crazy, killing everyone. 20 years later his step-daughter and equally dumb-as rocks group of friends come to explore the closed down hospital, where a punk lesbian trio are squatting, and he comes out of hiding to stalk and slay them all one by one.

Wow was this a dumb movie. Like, both critically, and diagetically, d-u-m-b DUMB. Every single character is deliberately stupid and one-note to cartoonish levels, and can't at all think for themselves. The makeup and gore effects are pretty great at least so I enjoyed that.

2 out of 5

59. Shock! (1977) Dora moves into a new house with her son Bruno, and her new husband Marco. Slowly her son starts acting stranger and stranger, and memories of his deceased father, and her trouble remembering the details of his death start to haunt and terrorize the housewife.

This is a weird one. Like, at times it feels at home in Roman Polanski's "Apartment" trilogy, being about a woman trapped in her own home losing her mind, at other points it's a full on ghost movie, with a creepy kid. Regardless, Mario Bava pulls out a full magic hat's worth of optical tricks along the way that are just masterful and fun to watch (including one that was later stolen for Housewife, which I watched earlier in the month that I just love). Of all the movies I've seen Daria Niccolodi (Mother to Asia Argento) in, I'd say this is her best performance.

4 out of 5

#60. Project Metalbeast (1995) A military experiment to put werewolf blood into human soldiers goes bad and the project is put into cryogenic storage. A decade later, scientists are working on an artificial metal based skin to make soldiers bullet resistant. The evil man in charge (Barry Bostwick!) sees a "Chocolate and Peanut Butter" potential and has them start using the comatose were-soldier as their guinea pig. I'm sure you can guess what happens next.

Wow, from the description, you'd think this was actually a cool movie! It's not. It's dull as dirt, with a big fat lot of nothing happening most of the movie. It's the worst kind of "B" movie--"BORING". Avoid.

1 out of 5

#61. Evil Dead Trap 2 (1992) Aki is a film projectionist who is kinda a wallflower. Because of guilt over an abortion she once had, she is seeing visions of a young boy, perhaps the child she didn't have. Her boss persuades her to see a mystic for this. Also, she's a serial killer, going after young women in car parks and construction lots. Her friend Emi, who is her total opposite, is a reporter that is making a name for herself covering these killings. Her boyfriend, Kurahashi, is very much into Aki despite her rebuking him repeatedly. Emi encourages him chasing after her. I...think he's married as well, and the kid Aki keeps seeing is living with his wife?

Am...am I having a stroke? This movie was super confusing to me, something that's an ultra rarity for myself. It feels like I was watching the film a schizophrenic might make, with the tone flopping around to different ideas rapidly and without as much cohesion as it thought it had. Don't get me wrong, I liked it a lot, but my head hurts trying to make sense of it. For the record, it has nothing to do with the first Evil Dead Trap film. One thing that also raised my eyebrows was that its protagonist was a plus sized woman-which are about as rare as friggin unicorns in Japanese films-and that there is zero attention brought to this fact in this weird sort of psycho-sexual film.

4 out of 5