October Movie Thrill-a-thon

To prepare for Halloween, my girlfriend proposed that we establish a tradition of watching Halloween appropriate films in the weeks leading up to October 31st. Our October Thrillathon was filled with some unexpected gems, some classics, and a few turds.

The parameters for Halloween appropriate films was never strictly defined. However, any movie that involved ghosts, the devil (or preferrably devil babies), mystery, zombies, murder, or suspense were prime candidates. Films that are gory, shabby, or rely on cheap, “Boo!” type scares were not what we were after.

Unexpected Gems

These are the movies we’d never heard of before and really enjoyed. In our attempt to stick with the Halloween appropriate requirements, it forced me to do some digging to find movies beyond the obvious francises. These are the ones I’m glad I found:

The Final Girls

★★★ I really liked this movie. Funny and sweet while playing with the slasher genre. The G rated, Adderall fueled strip tease by comedian Angela Trimmer is worth it. It’s hilarious.

Attack The Block

★★★ I really enjoyed watching the two main characters grow, although it did get a wee bit cheesy in one spot. The story is engaging, fun, and manages to editorialize a bit in a very subtle, unforced way.

Pontypool

★★★ I don’t want to give too much away so I’ll just say this movie is really good. It’s low budget and pretty much takes place in one room. It feels much bigger though. I love radio because when listening, you must use your imagination to fill in the gaps. The same thing happens watching this movie.

The Conspiracy

★★★ I love mockumentary, conspiracy laden found footage movies. Oh that’s not a thing? It is thanks to “The Conspiracy”. This is a really fun and original movie.

The Visitor

★★★★★★★ Crazy, beautiful, and disjointed. The actor direction is horrible, and it drags on a bit in spots. But you have to see it. The shots, sets, locations, and scenes are beautifuly done to create a certain sci-fi horror weirdness that just feels and looks right. Oh, and the soundtrack is killer. I want to watch it every Halloween. I’m so happy we found this.

Turds

We uncovered a few movies that are so bad they are good. You shouldn’t watch these alone because you need at least one other person to make fun of these with.

The Traveler

Negative 100 stars. This is a bad movie. Within the first 30 seconds of dialog you can tell this is a bad movie. It’s lazily acted by Val Kilmer and the premise is ridiculous and stupid. You kinda need to see it. Phat Kilmer does something kinda amazing in this movie. He doesn’t act. He’s not acting badly, he’s not acting like himself, he’s just not acting. Ok, so he acts a little. I mean, barely. Enough to get paid. It’s his total awareness of exactly what he’s doing and why he’s doing it that makes this movie. He knows it’s stupid, we know it’s stupid, but all the other actors around him are doing their damnest to act the hell out of this movie. Too bad they all fail. Watch this movie MST3K style for optimal enjoyment.

Devil

Zero stars. This movie brought in almost $63 million at the box office. That is wrong. Most of the action takes place in a stuck elevator. I spent 1/2 of this movie screaming at someone to just call the fucking fire department. “Or the police,” you might add. No, see the cops are already there. They just end up watching people panic and get injured on a monitor. Finally after someone dies, a cop, who has a radio, tells someone else to call the fire department. I can’t type any more review because I’m still annoyed at this film. And you kinda need to see it. The moral of the story is good I guess which is why it didn’t earn negative stars. This could have been 30 minutes though.

Classics and The Rest

• The Shining — A triumph
• Psycho — A triumph
• Rosemary’s Baby — A triumph
• The Omen — A classic
• Carrie — A classic
• Rearview Window — A triumphant classic
• Rocky Horror Picture Show — Duh
• Ghostbusters 2 — Already seen Ghostbusters 3 times this year.
• Resident Evil — Good
• Underworld: Rise of the Lycans — Good
• Beetlejuice
• Orphan — Creepy
• Tucker and Dale vs Evil — Loved this!
• Mullhulland Drive — Love it
• Poltergeist (new) — Not very good. Sam Rockwell is rad.
• Last Days on Mars — Good
• The Gift — By far the most messed up movie in this year’s batch. Pretty good.