Sunday, October 12, 2014

31 Days of Horror Year 7: Part 1

This has been the most scatter-shot 31 Days of Horror yet, and because of this, I'm going to change-up how we do things this year. I'm stripping down all the bells and whistles and just focusing on the movies, my experiences with them, and whatever else comes to mind.
In other words, a lot of yammering on and on. I have stories to tell friends, so come on over and sit a spell...

Movie 1 - The Exorcist III
So the very first day of October was thrown for a loop when a close friend of mine suddenly had to give birth to her baby a full month early, due to complications. And because of this, I was asked to house/dog-sit for the family, while they were in the hospital(everything is ok, now).
I decided to start the month with Exorcist 1 & III, but Matt from Dinosaur Dracula suggested I watch them in reverse order. I agreed.

I made it about 10 minutes into Exorcist III before I had to turn a light on.

Exorcist III is really good,  and has some truly frightening scenes, but it has klunky editing. Despite this, it's worth checking out.

Movie 2 - The Exorcist
I was dog tired when I started this one, and fell asleep a few times towards the end. Obviously it's not boring, but it had been a long day.

Movie 3 - Hellraiser
My tv broke earlier this year. It was a used, 42" flat-screen. Since I bought it used, it did not come with a stand. Since it did not come with a stand, the slightest bump into the dresser that it sat on would make the TV fall forward. Well, it's latest fall would be it's last, as a small handheld LED flashlight, sitting on my dresser, would stab my TV's heart like it was a flat-screen vampire. Sadness.
Last week I finally got a new tv from my parent's house: a 13" tube TV/VCR dealy. It's hilarious.
I watched a VHS copy of Hellraiser on that tiny TV, to test it out. I certainly wasn't going to test my Big Box copy of Video Violence on an old VCR.

Movie 4 - Resident Evil
My brother put it on. I watched the first 10 minutes before bed. It's a decent movie.
This film came out a few months after the Final Fantasy movie, which was Hollywood testing the waters on making all CG films, actor's included. That failed, despite Final Fantasy being a decent film.
A guy I worked with insisted that Resident Evil was another all CG film, even thought I assured him it wasn't. He's dead now.

Movie 5 - Odd Thomas
We lined up Lords of Salem to watch over my buddy's house, but for whatever reason, his blu-ray player wasn't working, so we randomly chose Odd Thomas on Netflix.
Odd Thomas is on odd film(pun intended) because it rides a fine line of having really awesome action scenes with horror elements, and eye-rollingly bad dialogue. Thankfully, the good outweighs the bad, and Odd Thomas is an enjoyable film, despite how badly it tries to pretend it's written by Diablo Cody.

Movie 6 - The Sacrament
Still at same friend's house with the non-loading blu-ray player, we all agreed to watch a film that none of us had seen. We quickly settled on the latest from Ti West, the man who brought us one of my favorite films: House of the Devil.
The Sacrament is good, but I personally felt that it had a weak dog-fart of an ending. It's certainly one of the best in the Found Footage genre, even through there seems to be way more than two cameras filming towards the end.
It's worth a watch. but I'm personally glad I didn't blind-buy it.

Movie 7 - Cabin in the Woods
I wanted to watch You're Next, but was vetoed.
I honestly feel that if you're a horror fan who did not like this movie, you probably have a stick up your ass.
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Today is the 12th of October, and I've only watched 7 films. There are several reasons for this, none of which I feel like getting into at the moment, but I do plan on attempting 31. I doubt I'll achieve that, but I sure as hell will try.