31 DAYS OF HALLOWEEN

[Choconado]

#62. Bad Dreams (1988) A young girl is the sole survivor of a cult mass suicide in the seventies. Thirteen years later she awakens from her coma and is put into a group therapy at the hospital. While there, she starts seeing visions of her former leader, and those around her start dying off in ways that look like accidents.

This is a curious film. In some ways it brings to mind Nightmare on Elm Street, with the protagonist seeing a burnt up villain that no one else sees, seemingly responsible for deaths around her. However, it really is its own thing, and tries to accurately show the way mood swings work in the mentally unstable. It's not bad, and Richard Lynch as the villain is always fun.

3 out of 5

#63. Pumpkinhead 2: Blood Wings (1993) A sheriff and his family move into the rural town he grew up in as a kid. His rebel daughter and the local troublemakers wind up setting fire to an old witch's house, and she calls forth the demon of vengeance to hunt them down and kill them all in return.

I have such a soft spot for mid-90s monster movies. They're always so cheesy, but they're just before CGI became ubiquitous so the practical effects are still fun. This movie is no different, reusing the costume from the first film to good effect, as teens slowly get in worse and worse trouble, and Andrew Robinson pretends he's in a far better quality picture.

3 out of 5

#64. Winterbeast (1992) A Native American portal to Hell opens up in the mountains, unleashing a number of monstrosities, and it's up to some lowly forest rangers to try to stop them.

I'll be brutally honest, I fell asleep for about 10 minutes while watching this, and I don't think I really missed a lot. I certainly didn't miss any plot. This feels way older than it is, by like, a decade at least, with very much a feeling of "let's put on a show! We can use my dad's barn!", not to mention most of the monsters being claymation. Of course, while that is a shoddy thing, the whole method brings about a lot of charm to it in my opinion, and reminds me of things like The Alien Factor for its creativity in the face of not much talent.

2 out of 5

#65. Road Games (1981) Quid is an American truck driver working in Australia. While hauling meat from one side of the continent to the other, he starts noticing a suspicious motorist that makes him think of news reports about a serial killer, and becomes obsessed with proving he's right. Along the way he picks up a young lady hitchhiker who joins him in the mystery.

This movie should get more notice than it does. It's really more than anything a character piece about the intelligent yet blue collar Quid, played charmingly by Stacy Keach. The scenes he has with Jamie Lee Curtis as Hitch are incredibly likable and the two have a natural chemistry that is a delight to watch. The mystery itself also brings with it a great sense of urgency without diluting the road trip nature of the film and keeps up the suspense.

5 out of 5

#66. I bought a vampire motorcycle (1990) Noddy is a motorcycle buff. After he buys a motorcycle that was cursed by a satanic cult, it starts going around killing people for their blood. Noddy in turn has to recruit a priest to help him exorcise the machine before it kills more innocents.

Well this is a goofy one. There's plenty of black humor in it, but the vampire angle is played remarkably straight. It's not a vampire that turns into a motorcycle or anything like that, it's a friggin animate bike that grows spikes and jaws and eats people. Also, I think this is the only non-Star Wars film I've seen Anthony Daniels in. Very silly.

3 out of 5

#67. Leprechaun 4: In Space (1996) The titular Leprechaun is in the process of arranging a marriage with a space princess when the space marines come and shoot him up with their space guns, and bring the princess up into their space ship, only for the guy to reform up there (by pulling an "Alien" on a guy's space-boner) and starts killing them all. In space.

I knew going in this would be stupid. And it is! But at least it seems to KNOW it's stupid. The effects are below straight-to-syfy tv series level budget, and the dialog and acting are as generic as can be. Some of the kills can be fun however. If you're into cheesy movies, this is catnip for you, I assure you.

3 out of 5

[Choconado]

#68. When Good Ghouls Go Bad (2001) A boy and his father return to their small town to restart the chocolate factory his grandfather had once run, but closed down after a boy died and supposedly put a curse on the town if they celebrate halloween. Then, the dead start coming back to life to wreak havoc, starting with the boy's grandfather!

This movie was commanded to me by a friend, something I've had happen many times this month. It's a kids movie, written by R.L. Stein of Goosebumps fame. I will give it credit for having some effort at making some spooky looks to things, but man, it's just a schmaltzy family holiday movie, and nothing really more. Much of the "humor" is terrible, the acting is ridiculous, and the plot is absurd. Not even Christopher Lloyd trying his hardest can save this one.

2 out of 5

#69. Critters 4 (1992) At the end of Critters 3, the bumbling Charlie was tasked with putting the last two critter eggs into a space pod to preserve the species from total extinction, and found himself accidentally trapped in there as well, sent into space. Far in the future, a scavenger spaceship full of people of dubious morals finds the pod and opens it on an abandoned space station, freeing Charlie, but also the Crites as well.

This is yet another 80s-90s horror franchise sent into space. So you get lots of drab, poor lit hallways, people who look very 90s spouting technobabble, and the occasional laser gun, but is otherwise the same old stories. There's actually a lot less Critter sequences than in previous films though, which makes the movie kinda drag. The third act is kinda surprising in light of the rest of the series though.

3 out of 5

#70. The Night Flyer (1997) Richard Dees is a sleazy tabloid reporter that will do anything to get his story. He's assigned a mysterious case of a person who flies into small time airports at night and kills the people there, draining them of blood. Every detail of the case points to a vampire, and as Dees gets closer to the killer, the killer gets closer to him.

I kinda regret having taken so long to see this film, as I loved it. Miguel Ferrer is perfect in the lead, the story is a great little mystery, and the gore effects are pretty over the top for when this came out. Also, it has one of the more unique vampire designs in all of moviedom, that is unfortunately spoiled in like, every piece of media on the film, including box art.

5 out of 5.

#71. Singapore Sling (1990) A detective of sorts is losing his mind searching for a lover that went missing 3 years ago, and suffering from injury he collapses at the door to a house she was seen at. This house is home to an insane mother daughter (?) pair that spend their days in rough bdsm sexual incest, and killing their servants and others that come into their circle. They take the man in, calling him Singapore Sling after a recipe for the cocktail in his pocket as he will not speak, and take him captive, slowly training him through lots of sexual torture and degradation into becoming a part of their games.

This is another one where someone else made me watch it. It's...sort of? horror. It's sort of a lot of things, defying much categorization. It's very graphic, but filmed in black and white with shots that feel more at home in the 50s than the 90s. It's all full of transgressions and extreme behavior, yet all seen through a dream like haze of psychosis that makes you never quite sure what is going on, further impacted by the man only speaking in Greek narration, and the two women often instead breaking the fourth wall and speaking directly to the viewer about present events in past tense. It's a very strange and difficult film, but I did enjoy it.

4 out of 5

[Dr. Kobb]

Dude!  You are on track for 130 or more for the month.  I wonder if that would be a record amongst horror fans?  Shit.  Most I've probably ever watched in a given month would be between 7-10 max.  I'm just guessing.  Usually, I might watch 3-6 strictly horror films in any given month, I suppose.  On the other hand, Halloween about three years ago I just sat up and watched five horror movies in a row.  I could barely keep my eyes open for the final feature. 

[Choconado]

I have a friend who's on a forum I'm on that has a lot of people doing their own october challenge. The thread let people head start two weeks early (grumble grumble) and she is allowing herself re-watches, but she definitely is going at the same pace as me, almost doubling my count with only a 14 day lead

#72. Prom Night 2: Hello Mary Lou (1987) In 1957, a prank gone wrong leads to the prom queen dying in a fiery blaze. 30 years later, her spirit is set loose and possesses a new girl to get her revenge and to get her crown.

Yet another in the "shameful gaps" in my film watching, this one I recall seeing previews for countless times when it was new and I was a kid. Something about the deep voiced announcer chanting that rhythmic title that sticks with you. Anyways, you can definitely tell that they wanted this to start rivaling Nightmare On Elm Street, as about halfway through the film everything turns to rubber reality and crazy chaos dream logic. It's way over the top, and tons of fun once you get past the kind of sluggish beginning.

4 out of 5

#73. Ghutan (2007) Ravi is a lothario, leeching all his success as a fashion ceo and his money off his wife Catherine, whom he resents greatly, while womanizing on the side. The pair get in a fight, and Ravi believes he has killed her, and gets his best friend to help him dispose of the body in a local cemetery. However, she turns out to be alive, so the pair bury her alive instead, and later her ghost re-enters her body to create an "evil" and seek out her revenge on her killers.

I decided to experiment when I watched this, and looked up Indian horror films with english subtitles on youtube. This film, whose name translates to "suffocation", was the first hit. It was just okay in my opinion. The camera work almost felt like I was watching a telenovela, and the script was like, out of a j-horror or something, but it all came together well enough I suppose.

3 out of 5

#74. Zombie 5: Killing Birds (1987) In the mid 60s, a soldier and bird enthusiast returns home to deep woods Louisiana discover his wife in bed with another man, leading to a killing spree, and he himself being blinded by his own birds. 20 years later, a local university set out on an expedition to find an endangered breed of bird and find themselves camping out in the same home, where the ghosts of the past have stirred in anger...

You know, this could be a fine middle-of-the-road late 80s small time horror film with its script, and even okay small time effects, not to mention the atmosphere that the sweltering bayou gives the film. However, the acting is just so very awful. Just absolutely dreadful. It's the antithesis of acting, it's just blandly reading lines, and it pulls you right out. They spent all their cast money on Robert Vaughn, as the 80s version of the blind, bird loving vet, and nowhere else.

1 out of 5

#75 Shocking Dark (1989) In the not too distant future, pollution has ruined the city of Venice. When contact is lost with the station in charge of the cleanup effort, a crew of soldiers and scientists is sent into the undeground tunnels to investigate. There they discover that mutant monsters lurk around every corner!

Haha, this film is ridiculous. I'm sure James Cameron is not too thrilled by its existence, as it's a blatant copy of Aliens and Terminator rolled into one. The acting actually isn't that bad, all things considered, but most of the action is relegated to dark, pipe filled hallways, so your mileage may vary.

3 out of 5

[Choconado]

#76. Monster Dog (1984) Vincent Raven (Alice Cooper, basically playing himself) is a rock star, and he and his friends return to his childhood manor to film a music video. However, the area is currently beplagued by vicious wild dogs, and the town has a history of angry mobs assuming his family to be part werewolf...

For years the video box promising Alice Cooper having a super rad werewolf transformation taunted me from the video store shelves, because I knew the movie could never live up to it. I was right. It's not awful or anything, but it's extremely low budget, and the premise basically makes a perfect excuse to pad for time by just having Cooper do music videos. eh.

3 out of 5

#77. The Other Hell (1981) At a convent, there have been suspicious deaths, and a strong case for possible demonic involvement. The higher ups in the church send a skeptical investigator to get to the bottom of all this, and he may be most at risk of anyone once he is there.

This surprised me. I've watched quite a bit of horror from Bruno Mattei and Claudio Fragrasso who regularly teamed up in the 80s and 90s (most famously on Troll 2) and I usually expect a low quality effort. I didn't get that here. It's genuinely a decent movie, feeling kinda like a giallo with a paranormal slant to everything. The script is halfway clever, with pieces adding up in the viewers head by the time the bonkers third act rolls in, the acting is pretty good, with several creepy performances, and there's actually a lot of eerie set design and camera work too. I'm shocked, nothing these guys have done matches this caliber.

4 out of 5

#78. Scorpion with Two Tails (1982) After an archaeologist studying Etruscan ruins in Italy (John Saxon!) is killed suddenly and violently, his rich wife flies in from New York to investigate her husband's death. There she finds a tangled web of treasure hunters, drug runners, and ancient magic tied together, all while the killer slowly stalks those around her...

This is a weird movie. Like, it can't decide what it wants to be; is it a giallo? is it an adventure romp? Is it some sort of paranormal horror? Who knows? Not the movie, that's for sure. On the bright side, the acting is decent, without the typical "italian sound" to the ADR, and there's a lot of twists and turns that keep you guessing who might actually be on the main character's side.

3 out of 5

And with that review, I've officially matched my record from last year for new-to-me horror movies watched in October, and in only half the time! I'm definitely going to keep going, but I wanted to point out that I've reached the benchmark!

[Choconado]

#79. Demonia (1990) A Canadian archaeology team is investigating some Italian ruins, when a team member discovers the secret destruction of an evil nunnery. Then people around the dig and the nearby town start dying under mysterious circumstances

Man, I really wanted this to be good, as it's Lucio Fulci, but he really drops the ball here. The film drags, and often seems like it has no idea where it's going, to the point that it almost forgets its a horror movie and then crams way too much into the last 20 minutes or so, including a pretty impressive bifurcation gore effect.

1 out of 5

#80. Carved 2 (2008) Mayu is a girl that seems to have her life together, until one night a terrible tragedy results in her having her face horribly scarred and burnt with acid, and her mother dying. From there, her and her family's life slowly spirals out of control worse and worse. Meanwhile, her small town area classmates are getting picked off by a masked woman with a pair of scissors.

whew is this a downer of a film. Based very loosely on the very real crime spree in 1978 that the Split-Mouthed Woman urban legend comes from, this is the kind of movie akin to films such as May, where bad things keep happening to the protagonist, and things just get worse, until they break. And it's hard not to be pulled down with them. I was surprised, this film is night and day from the first Carved, which was instead using the J-Horror ghost template to use the myth, and instead I was met with a very reality based rough horror that was expertly done.

5 out of 5

#81. Eko Eko Azarak 2: Birth of the Wizard (1996). A prequel to the first movie, we see the origin of Misa the Witch. 100 years ago in a village full of magic users, a young man foolishly tried to bring his dead wife back to life and instead turned her into a demon that hops from body to body. Her plan is to take over Misa's body after she is born and comes to full power in her teens, and the man is given longevity to protect her when the time comes.

This felt like a big step up from the first film, with lots of crazy gore, and even a little bit of cgi that was good for the time. It's a fun movie if you're at all interested in J-horror.

3 out of 5

#82. Scanners 3: The Takeover (1992) Alex and Helena are scanners that have been adopted by a pharmaceutical ceo, and are now grown up. At a party, Alex shows off his abilities and accidentally throws his best friend off a balcony to his death, leading to him going into hiding in Thailand at a monastery. Helena meanwhile tests out a new treatment of her father's for Scanners' constant migranes and disorientation. The topical patch has a side effect of removing her moral conscience, and leads to her using her powers to go on a rampage.

Holy crap. Years ago I saw Scanners 2, and thought it was a pretty so-so followup to the first film, but still in the same spirit. This movie on the other hand is full on bonkers in so, so many ways, from the outlandish gore effects to the ridiculous acting, to the stupid plot developments (a dance sequence!?). It really has to be seen to be believed.

4 out of 5

[Choconado]

#83. Mandy (2018) Red and Mandy are a couple of nerds living out in the woods in 1983, when a nearby cult leader takes notice of the woman. What follows is a long trail of blood, fire, and rage.

Wow, this is a wild experience of a movie. Nic Cage gives a heck of a performance as Red, one of his bests. I did not like the director's previous "Beyond The Black Rainbow", but all the problems with that movie are gone in this drastically different story, while still maintaining all of the moody slow angles, retro new wave music, and most importantly the wild colors of the previous film. It also goes into incredibly dark and bloody territory along the way. I found this to be the one movie all month where I never once checked the time remaining while watching, the two hour runtime is riveting and zooms along.

5 out of 5

#84. Psycho Cop (1989) After making a killing in a stock market windfall, six friends rent a mansion in the country for a vacation. Little do they know that they are on the beat of a satanic cop that enjoys killing...

Oof, this was a stinker. It's both poorly written and acted, with all kinds of stupidity left and right and very little creativity. The title character is like a caricature of slashers, reminding me of the over the top central character of Silent Night, Deadly Night 2, with his wild eyes, and gruff nonsense "jokes". I hear the sequel might be a little better, but I'm afraid to check.

1 out of 5

#85. Brotherhood of Satan (1971) A man, his girlfriend, and his young daughter, find themselves in a strange small town, where they learn they've become the only exception to anything getting in or out in the last 3 days, and that there have been strange murders and disappearing children. Also, there's secretly a satanic cult of senior citizens operating in town. Yeah.

This is a really strange one, especially for its time. Like, the first half hour of the movie especially feels almost like a series of disconnected vignettes, though they do all connect tightly to the plot by the end. It's got a few over the top moments, and it's all just so mysterious, I couldn't help but like it.

4 out of 5

[Killer Goldfish]

You sound almost apologetic about liking #85.

[Dr. Kobb]

I like how you're taking on any movie that comes up, including the stinkers.  Not that #85 is in any way a stinker.  I thought that one was much fun, from what I remember of it.*  Evil elderly! 

*Granted, I saw it in the late-nineties, during a period of my life where the main goal was to get as wrecked as possible after work until it was time to go back to work. Then do it all over again the next night ad infinitum.  There's a whole slew of movies from the era that I could easily see again almost as if they were new. 

[Choconado]

I freeball my ironmans, taking films at random, good or bad. It's half the fun!

#86. Something Evil (1972) A family moves into a farmhouse in Pennsylvania Dutch country, and the wife finds herself fascinated with the local hex mark/pentagram art styles. Soon it becomes apparent that the local superstitions are anything but.

The day I watched this I decided to go after a bunch of made-for-tv films. This one is a very early one by Stephen Spielberg, and it was very much a so so bland one of its time. Lots of melodramatic music, and bland acting, but some decent tension progression and some moments that feel like you can see where the ideas for Poltergeist got their genesis. Also an eleventh hour twist that totally breaks with how the film had been building up the whole time.

3 out of 5

#87. Do You Like Hitchcock? (2005) Julio is a film student studying expressionism, and is also a bit of a voyeur, snooping on his sexy neighbor across the street, Sasha. At the video store he notices Sasha get chummy with a woman over the film Strangers on a Train, and notices them seeming to conspire places. Later, someone with a key comes into Sasha's apartment and kills her mother, leading Julio to suspect the two women have taken a cue from their common movie and made a criss-cross murder arrangement, and begins to investigate.

Dario Argento made this love letter to Alfred Hitchcock for Italian television in the early aughts. It's a fun romp, filled to the brim with easter eggs towards the master's filmography, including both plot beats and camera tricks. If you're a film buff, it's a treat, and probably one of Argento's best 21st century outings.

4 out of 5

#88. Good Against Evil (1977) Andy and Jessica meet by chance due to a random traffic accident, and it's love at first sight for Andy. What they don't know however is that Jessica has been groomed her whole life in secret by a Satanic cult to be the mother of the antichrist, and her every move before Andy has been carefully orchestrated.

This one was sitting on my shelf for years and my stint of tv movies finally propelled me to give it a whirl. The fact that Jimmy "Hammer Horror" Sangster wrote it really gave me some hopes. It's not bad, but by the end it was very obvious that I was watching a tv pilot that never got picked up, that mostly existed because of the lightning in a bottle of The Exorcist, especially because of a third act plot shift involving Andy and a priest exorcising the daughter of an ex of Andy's, and ending with the pair heading off on a cross country adventure. I actually think an Exorcist tinged road trip show could have been pretty keen and wish it had gone forward.

3 out of 5

#89. Dinner With The Vampire (1989) A cattle call talent audition results in four hopefuls being taken to a horror star's mansion. There, over dinner they learn he's actually a vampire and are challenged with killing the man-monster before dawn, or else he will devour each and every one of them. However, in this "real world", vampires aren't defeated as easily as in the movies...

This was a fun little picture made when Lamberto Bava did his made for TV stretch that involved "Demons 3: The Ogre". It's got some fun scares, and some legit humor, while still being pretty much PG. My biggest complaint is its scarce availability means I watched it as a completely atrocious nth generation vhs transfer where half the screen gets cut off half the movie, on youtube. Which may be the only copy out there. But I don't want to dock it for transfer quality.

3 out of 5

#90. Night of the Demons 2 (1994) Years after the events of the first film, Angela's sister Melissa is a shy nerd at a catholic boarding school. Some of the trouble making kids trick her into coming with them to the old funeral parlor of the first film for a Halloween party prank, and end up releasing the demonic curse again, this time going beyond the borders of the grounds.

I personally love the first film, and think it's a goofy romp full of lots of funny violence and sex. This movie somehow became one of the few times a sequel tops the original, and I'm almost sad I hadn't seen it before. Lots of absurd mutilations, nudity, monsters, and an ass-kicking nun. What more could you ask for??

5 out of 5

[Choconado]

#91. Creatures From The Abyss (1994) Five young people find themselves stranded aboard a ghost ship in the ocean. Turns out the ship was working on mutant monster fish.

If I hadn't seen the date, I'd think this film came out a decade prior. It feels very much the tone of cheese you see in old Italian horror, from the filmstock to the bad acting and voice dubbing. The writing is goofy, but not nearly as much as the special effects, which are mostly stop motion, but are at least over the top and wild. I think this film would work better in a group, but even then, the slow buildup takes too long.

2 out of 5

#92. Carnival of Souls (1998) As a kid, Alex saw her mother assaulted and killed by her boyfriend, a clown. 20 years later, her and her sister run her mother's bar on a pier, but Alex starts having strange visions of the man terrorizing her, and other monsters...

This film claims to be based on the movie of the same name from the sixties, but besides a couple of sparse elements, it really isn't much the same. What it IS however, is very average mid 90s fare, with alright acting, and a "twist" ending you can see a mile away. Don't waste your time.

1 out of 5

#93. Fermat's Room (2007) Four mathematicians are invited to a private gathering to solve a "great enigma". What they find is themselves trapped in a room with slowly closing in walls while being challenged to solve esoteric riddles or risk being crushed.

This was a fun one, sort of a Spanish, intellectual Saw. The tension really fills the room constantly, making it much harder to think about the puzzles at hand, not to mention the winding way the plot carries out. I enjoyed it.

4 out of 5

#94. High School Ghost Hustlers (1995) A trio of girls form their local high school paranormal club. After a few adventures at the urging of their faculty advisor, they become full fledged monster hunters, and find themselves on a case where a nearby school is possessed by a cadre of perverted, sex hungry ghosts. Yeah, it's gonna be one of those kinds of movies.

I watched this one last night in a stream, and the running gag the whole film ended up being "NOT PORN!" because whoo boy did it push that envelope on that issue. Of course, I've seen enough Japanese straight-to-video films to know that those WITHOUT sleazy sex are the rarity in that market. That said, this is super low budget and goofy, with some very questionable special effects. Very silly, not very good.

2 out of 5

#95. Black Candles (1982) Carol and her boyfriend travel to the home of her recently deceased brother outside England to settle legal affairs, and meet her strange sister-in-law. Slowly, Carol begins to suspect that the people around her are conspiring against her for Satanic means...

This is my first Jose Ramon Larraz film, though I've read about him a bit. In some ways, he's a bit like Jess Franco in that he combines sex and horror. I was not prepared for just how much very realistic looking sex (Including one scene between a woman and a goat!) there would be in this film however. I'm not sure five minutes go by at any point without a sex scene. It frankly got very boring. Also, the plot itself is basically Rosemary's Baby without the pregnancy motive, and much less secrecy. Dull.

1 out of 5

#96. The Flesh and Blood Show (1975) A group of actors hole up in an old theater to prepare an improvised show to tour with. However, slowly the young people start getting killed off one by one by an unseen assailant...

This, meanwhile, was my first Pete Walker film. His British sensibilities are on full display here in the way people don't ask nearly enough questions, and allow things to just happen under their noses. There's actually very little blood in this aside from some scrapes and an opening sequence of red paint pouring down a dock. However, there is in fact quite a bit of nudity to distract from the slow script and bad acting.

2 out of 5

[Choconado]

#97. Beyond The Door 3 (1989). A group of high schoolers go on a trip to rural Serbia in a special trip. However, the local villagers have demonic sights set on one particular girl in the group whose parents came from that area. While running away, the group find themselves on board a runaway train racing across the country, and stopping for nothing!

Also titled Amok Train, this film is...not good. The acting makes it hard to even keep track of who is who, and the story feels a lot like there are whole scenes with plot left out. The only reason it takes the "Beyond the Door" title is because it shares a producer. You're better off stopping at part two.

2 out of 5

#98. Frankenstein (2011). You already know this story. A scientist mad with the knowledge that he can, but not caring if he should, creates a living man, only to shun him in fear. The creation then learns life the hard way, becoming cold and cruel, and demands his creator make him a mate, else he will take away the creator's.

What this actually was was an in-theater replay of the London Stage's 2011 production, staring Benedict Cumberbatch as the Creature, and Johnny Lee Miller as the Doctor. The story which I connect to on a deeply personal level has been done a thousand times or more, so not much can be said there. The acting however is exactly as top notch as you would expect the venue to be, and there's a masterful level of technical stagecraft on display, with massive moving setpieces, and a dazzling light rig above. Apparently later this month will be a showing of the play with the two leads swapping roles, and I'm halfway curious to see that as well. Recommended.

5 out of 5

#99. Blood Car (2007) The scene is the not very distant future, when gas has become so expensive that only the very rich are able to afford to drive cars. Archie is a lefty vegan kindergarten teacher trying to invent a car that runs on wheatgrass juice. After a small accident, he learns his motor runs on human blood! Having a car grants him the attention of sexy women, so he continues fueling his grisly machine, while the government is hot on his tail to take his technology.

I had so much fun with this one. It's legit funny, with lots of sex and violence humor, akin to the best of the sorts of movies you'd find being distributed by Troma. If you know me, you know that low brow indie style is definitely something I go for and love. If that's not your thing, you probably won't enjoy this as much as I did.

4 out of 5

#ONE_HUNDRED!!! Halloween (2018) 40 years after his rampage through Haddonfield resulted in five deaths, Michael Meyers escapes during a prison transfer, and is allowed to rampage yet again. However, in the past four decades, Laurie Strode has been preparing herself for just such a day, and now has a family to protect.

This was great. I think I can say with confidence that it's the second best Halloween film after the first one. Note that it retcons out all the other sequels and has Meyers in prison this entire time. However, that might be a good thing. The filmmakers really tried their best to capture Michael and Laurie as feeling like the people they were in the first film, Michael especially, who has recaptured his intellectual curiosity and human body postures. This isn't a movie about some crazy supernatural unstoppable beast, it's a small time maniac who is very much a real person. Not only that, but bringing in John Carpenter to revise his original score for this film was an act of genius that really cements the whole thing for me as being worth your time.

5 out of 5

[Choconado]

Been kind of coasting since crossing that 100 finishline hehe

#101. Hereditary (2018). ...You know what? I'm not sure how to easily summarize this sans spoilers. It's about a family, and it's about how death can easily disrupt that family. And it's about...something else.

Regardless, it's fantastic. All the actors are putting in 110%, the story is a slow build, and it's beautifully shot. Honestly, it probably gave me more fear than any other film I've watched this month. It's real good and worth your time.

5 out of 5

#102. Fascination (1979) In 1903, after a successful robbery, a man betrays his fellow criminals and holes up in a nearby chateau, where two lovely and strange women are. The women in turn do their best to keep their "guest" within their walls until further guests are to arrive at midnight...

I'm a huge fan of the works of Jean Rollin. Of all the many European filmmakers of the 60s and 70s that combined (often explicit) sex and horror, he was the most artistic and talented, with his movies often having more to say than simple morality tales. This film is no exception, with a slow start up, but a second half that leaves you asking more questions than you started with, and honestly, might be one of my favorites of his.

4 out of 5

#103. The Wizard of Gore (2007) Ed Bigelow is a hipster guerrilla reporter, following on stories of strippers and underground parties and the like. He visits a magic act by the name of "Montag The Magnificent", which entails the titular wizard pulling audience members on stage and dismembering them as an illusion, only to later have these same people found the next day with matching injuries to their "performance". Slowly as Ed investigates the act further, reality starts blurring for him, and he becomes less and less sure that "seeing is believing".

I had a lot of fun with this one. Made right in the prime of the alt-model subculture still being "sub", it's filled with lots of pretty faces, and wild effects. Not to mention the heck of a cast, of Crispin Glover, Brad Douriff, Jeff Combs, and Bijou Phillips. My only real complaint is you can tell it's a little too proud of itself and that smugness glimpses through. But it's still a lot of fun.

4 out of 5

#104 Strange Rituals (2017) After a drunk driving accident, a group of friends find themselves spiraling into a nightmare of death, living dead, and voodoo magic.

This little backyard film is very strange. Like, it's definitely got the "just use my friends" diy aesthetic of people not being really actor caliber and most of the sets being just like, people's apartments, and the whole thing shot on a digital camcorder. But then on the technical side are real talent. Like, the cinematography, everything to do with the sound, and even the makeup effects are all professional grade. It's a very weird schism, but it makes for an entertaining movie at least.

3 out of 5

[Choconado]

#105 Doctor Butcher, MD (1980). A rash of bodies in hospital morgues being mutilated for cannibalism leads a team of investigators to a Southeast Asian Island. There they find cannibals, zombies, and a mad doctor responsible for it all.

Well this was cheese-a-riffic. Lots of bad acting, in your face gore, and a plot that stuffs like, three movies into the runtime of a single one. Of course, I loved it for all the wrong reasons.

3 out of 5

#106. Touch of Death (1986) Lester is a gambling addict. He's also a born loser. He fuels his gambling addiction by wooing rich widows, and then killing them for the money. But, as is Lester's bad luck, somehow his carefully disposed of bodies and witnesses are turning up in other places, and slowly a manhunt is being built against him!

This is such a singular film. Lucio Fulci made it for television, and later several clips would be reused for his meta-film, Cat In The Brain. It's a serial killer story, but it's also a wacky comedy, with plenty of mounting bad luck on Lester, as well as flat out slapstick. And the thing is, it's actually kind of funny! Lester is the perfect "lovable loser" archetype, despite being an ice cold killer. And the kill scenes are full on Fulci not holding back on top of that.

4 out of 5

#107. Hell Has No Boundaries (1982) A policewoman is vacationing on the beach when she becomes possessed by a ghost. She pretends to live her life normal, but she can't help but start killing those around her.

This is a Shaw Brothers horror film from the 80s. That means there's wizard battles, and puking, and mealworm eating, as is the fashion in these films. Most of the film is moving from one suspicious set of spooky occurrences to the next, but there's a weird bit in the middle where we learn of the ghost's origins that's extra harrowing as she was a young child killed and abused during the Japanese occupation of China. It's severe tonal whiplash, but leads almost immediately into non stop ghost hijinks that only escalate. It's a very odd movie.

4 out of 5

[Choconado]

#108. Blood Beach (1980) Our main character is Coast Guard agent in Venice Beach, finding himself slowly reconnecting with his ex-fiance. However, there's also some thing lurking beneath the sands that is pulling people below and eating them!

This is a fun one. Despite being made ten years before Tremors, it's basically "What if a Graboid came to Venice Beach, California". The acting is alright for the time I guess, and we get a pointless musical interlude. I also loved the police characters, with John Saxon as a frustrated chief stymied by bureaucracy, and Burt Young as a goofy Chicago detective assigned the case. Also, we briefly see the monster only at the very end, but my Graboid comparison is even more apt then.

4 out of 5

#109. Caltiki the Undying Monster (1959). While studying Mayan ruins, a team of scientists accidentally unearth a primordial blob monster that grows stronger with radiation. Per a prophecy however, they're now in trouble when a star rarely approaches earth, emitting the very radiation the creature feeds and grows from!

I mostly watched this because it's both Mario Bava's first film (which he only really did the monster footage for) and it's considered Italy's first real horror film. It very much is a 50s monster flick, with a sparse plot of scientists trying to dryly solve the mystery of the monster, only for a third act where it rampages and the military counterattacks to bombast. I honestly at this point get pretty bored with these movies because they're so rote and slim. I can see why someone else would like them though, and I do admit the blob effects are cool often.

3 out of 5

#110. Ganja and Hess (1973) Dr. Hess Green was once stabbed by a maniac with a magical dagger. This turned him into a sort of vampire, needing to drink blood, but only able to be killed by "the shadow of the cross over his heart". He's less a monster as an addict. (We're told this in narration by his part time manservant whose other job is as a minister). After an encounter with the mentally unstable Dr. Mada that turns violent, Hess winds up hosting his wife, Ganja, who he quickly falls in love with, leading to more violence and tragedy.

This is a very strange movie. Most noteworthy for starring Duane Jones of Night of the Living Dead fame, I feel like the movie tried to be many things at once. It's an artsy movie, with many moments of the actors just going off on monologues, not always being important to the plot, and the camera has these long, interesting static takes as well. It tries to be very much a "Black Cinema" film of the time, showing erudite people of color going about their lives. Finally, it tries hard to be a horror film as well, and I do think it succeeds at that, being an interesting vampire film, with a thoughtful ending even. I liked it, but it felt very disjointed for its efforts to have its cake and eat it too.

3 out of 5

#111. Scarab (1983) A strange cult leader uses beetles to cause murders from long distance, while conducting magic to attempt to bring a woman back to life. A reporter randomly starts following this story, and connects with a woman that turns out to be the leader's daughter, and the pair go off on an adventure to try to thwart the cult's actions.

This one is almost more action-adventure than it is horror. The time spent with the reporter almost is wacky comedy because he's such a loser, failing at everything, including half the time noticing a cult minion using magic to try to kill him. The cult scenes meanwhile are wild bacchanal goings on of costumes and dancing, and chaos that are fun to watch. Then random special effects happen to keep your attention. It's a weird movie with a meandering, hard to follow plot, but it was fun at least.

3 out of 5

[Dr. Kobb]

What a perfect movie to ring in your hundredth viewing on. 

[Killer Goldfish]

Oct 27, 2018 11:58:20 GMT -5 Dr. Kobb said:

What a perfect movie to ring in your hundredth viewing on. 

I concur. Entirely. And color me impressed that you can see this many flix in a row without burning out completely.

[Choconado]

Thanks yeah, it gets hard sometimes

#112. Skull Forest (2012) Four friends go on a camping trip, only to find themselves in the middle of a group of aristocrats hunting humans in the wild.

Well this was a steaming pile. Subpar acting and writing, camera work that alternated between constant dutch angles and seizure level steadiness. I've been told the filmmaker has made many films, all bad. Welp, learned that the hard way.

1 out of 5

#113. Slumber Party Massacre 2 (1987) A girl band has a weekend getaway at a new house owned by one's parents, however one girl keeps having dreams and visions of being terrorized by a ghostly rockabilly with a guitar with a drill built in.

This is such a goofy film. It tries to tie itself into the first film by having the main character return from a smaller role in the first, but it really has nothing to do with the previous movie. It's actually kind of a musical as well which just adds to the kookiness of everything. It's silly fluff.

3 out of 5

#114. The Phantom Empire (1988) After a man eating monster emerges from a cave, a group of adventurers go exploring in hopes of a lost city and untold riches. They find monsters, cavewomen, robots, dinosaurs, and aliens.

Hoo boy is this a movie. I'm pretty sure that filmmaker Fred Olen Ray had the costumes and props first (many reclaimed from other films) and wrote a script around them second. And we all win for the ludicrous result. It's just all kinds of outlandish in all the best ways, and this is kind of a perfect movie to put on in the background at a party.

4 out of 5

#115. Attack of the Beast Creatures (1985) After a luxury cruise sinks, a lifeboat full of survivors crashes on a mysterious island. There they find acid pools, and swarms of strange, tiny, tribal creatures hungering for their flesh...

This is just a miserable movie. Everyone seems upset to be involved in the seemingly amateur efforts except the puppeteers who actually put some thought into their mini-monsters. Seriously though, like that's the only place any effort was put down in this film.

1 out of 5

#116. Trick Or Treats (1982) A struggling actress winds up stuck on Halloween babysitting for a rotten child who is a wannabe magician and non-stop prankster. Unknown to them however, his father has recently broken out of an insane asylum and is coming back to his home for violence...

This slow film is pretty low key, and is probably more interesting for its credit roll than anything else. Completely unassuming, near the bottom, suddenly Orson Welles pops up as a "Magic Advisor". This is some small pseudo-slasher with bad acting and not very eventful writing. What the heck is he doing there?

2 out of 5

[Choconado]

#117. Tales From The Hood 2 (2018). Four African-American slanted modern tales of terror are told by one Mr. Simms (Keith David), as part of an experiment to create a learning robot to fight crime. Yes, that really is the wrap-a-round.

This Anthology is of very mixed quality. The first and third stories are just plain stupid, the second one is kinda funny and fun, and the fourth one is long and has promise, but gets a little more heavy handed in what it's trying to say. The wraparound is just plain goofy. eh.

3 out of 5

#118. Must Love Horror (2018? The credits say 2014) Edgar is a horror fanatic. When his fed up girlfriend accidentally dies in a fight, a strange devilish entity named "You" appears to Edgar and begins pressuring him to cover up the death and to go after any potential witnesses.

This is yet another case of people thinking they can make a good movie filming with a storebought home video camera in their apartment. YOU CAN'T. They're always bad at the very best. This one in particular tries to do all kinds of fancy editing and many-angled shots that scream "current film student". oof. I've been there. You don't have the talent you think you do, sorry.

1 out of 5

#119. The Signal (2008) A strange signal permeates the electronic devices of the city of Terminus, driving people insane and often violent. We follow the story from the perspective of three different people caught in this mess: Maya, her husband Lewis, and her secret lover Ben.

This was a very strange film in that tonally it jumps back and forth. Most of Lewis' story is funny, for instance, despite him ostensibly being the villain of the film. However, I love a good memetic horror pretty much always. Also, the gore effects were very high level in this. It's not afraid of the gushy stuff.

4 out of 5

#120. Cold Skin (2017). In 1914, a nameless protagonist is assigned a year's duty as a weather researcher on a small, Atlantic island home only to an unfriendly lighthouse keeper. Our character then quickly learns that at night, the island is beset by strange amphibious creatures that try to storm the humans' meager structures...

This was a great little movie, reminding me of the old book "The House on the Borderlands" with its nightly sieges. At the end of the day, it's a character piece about isolation and the way it affects our emotions and sanity bit by bit. The cinematography is gorgeous, the special effects on the creatures is top notch. A movie that needs more exposure.

5 out of 5

[Dr. Kobb]

Spot-on re: The Signal.  Great little outbreak treatment. 

So, you have from now until midnight tomorrow to watch 11 movies if you care to make it to 131 views for October.  That's insane man, but I think you have it in you!  You gonna take a stab at it?