BobO'Link

I've watched a couple of the movies from that DVDTalk prize package I won in the pre-challenge "contest."

Alligator (1980):
A pet baby alligator is flushed down a toilet and survives in the city sewers. 12 years later, it grows to an enormous size thanks to a diet of discarded laboratory dogs injected with growth hormones. Now, humans have entered the menu.

I watched the "Theatrical" version - it also has the "TV version" which runs longer... This is not a title I'd ever have considered purchasing - just not my thing (sounds like the typical "SyFy" channel "exploitation" type stuff). I see that it was written by John Sayles (Battle Beyond the Stars, The Howling, and The Brother from Another Planet - a fair SF, excellent horror, and "needs to be released on BR" superb SF) so maybe there's hope... Aaaand... it's about what you'd expect for this type of film and what I've come to expect from the "SyFy" channel. It's not one I'll rewatch often, if ever.

I'm Dangerous Tonight (1990):
Amy is a HS student who, tasked with locating props for a play, purchases a chest from a yard sale, finding a cloak inside. When she takes her finds to school, one of the students puts the cloak on and becomes homicidal, terrorizing the cast/crew with a rapier until the cloak slips off his shoulders. Amy, liking the color, turns the cloak into a dress and discovers it's cursed. Whoever wears it comes under its evil influence.

This one's a made-for-TV movie that sounded more interesting than Alligator, and it was. Yet, it's also quite cliche' and predictable. Tobe Hooper directed and does a good job on this otherwise rather standard and tame production. I more enjoyed seeing Mary Frann, Dee Wallace, Natalie Schafer, and Anthony Perkins in the film. Perkins' role is more to set up the main action and provide the final, predictable, conclusion - really not much more than a walk-on part. Turn off your brain (there are many issues with internal logic not being consistent) and you'll likely enjoy the film. It's actually pretty good for a made-for-TV affair and I'd rewatch it - but not that often.

WillieMLF

I grew up watching Alligator, and I've always thought of it as one of the grandads of 'when animals attack' movies. It along with Grizzly set the template for all those cheesy animal attack movies of the 80s. Alligator in 4K was my number one purchase last year, right behind Alligator 2. There used to be this film series in town that showed all these crazy movies, and I bought one of the glow in the dark prints for Alligator.

jholmes

Yes, I had a nightmare the other night and I woke up thinking it had to be the challenge.

I like Alligator, though I love creature features in general.

Last night I watched The Sorcerers (1967), which was a pleasant surprise. A very old Karloff plays a "scientist" who's invented this device to put people under hypnosis but also somehow gain access to their mind on an ongoing basis. He and his elderly wife hypnotize a young swinging 60's dude and live vicariously through him, seeing what he sees, feeling what he feels. But then Karloff's wife turns out to be a sadist and makes the dude do horrible things. She's so delightfully evil and petty, and there's a lot of tension as it goes on. Definitely a keeper.

brainee

Yes, I think I avoided this one for a while because I thought it was one of Karloff's awful late-60s Mexican movies. It's one of only 3 movies directed by Michael Reeves who died at age 25. The other two being The She Beast, a good Barbara Steele movie that fits right in with her other Gothic horror movies ... and Witchfinder General, one of Vincent Prices best acting performances (he is absolutely not in "ham" mode in this one).

MysterioMan007

Going to see Halloween Ends after work. God, I hope it doesn't suck.

Chad

If your wallet hasn't taken enough of a beating post Scream Factory sale, well, here's another one.



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Chad

The mid-week reminder.

MysterioMan007

I remember seeing the original Halloween when I was just a kid. I wasn't really all that impressed back then. I was a Friday the 13th guy. It wasn't until around 1995 that I revisited Halloween and could appreciate the building tension, the atmosphere, and the foreboding cloud of death that Michael Myers brought to the slasher genre. I remember becoming obsessed for a number of years with the Halloween franchise. I played the series on repeat. I still have all of the novelizations, comics, and outside novels that were written. Michael was the scariest because he was a kid, just like all of us were at one time, and then just started killing people for no rhyme or reason. He was just evil to be feared. Halloween H20 was the first to "ignore" previous entries in the series, but I shrugged it off because with some imagination, you could still say that 4-6 and H20 could coexist in the same universe.

The less said about Halloween: Resurrection, the better. But, they got Rob Zombie into the director's chair and decided to restart the franchise altogether. I hate Rob Zombie's Halloween with a passion. Halloween 2 was decent, but still had the stink of Rob Zombie on it.

Then, in 2018, the "new and improved" timeline debuted. I will admit I enjoyed the first viewing of Halloween (2018), mostly because I was just glad to have another entry in the series and with some imagination, you could still say that everything before still happened. Halloween Kills came along and you couldn't do that anymore. I wasn't as impressed with that one as I was with 2018, even though subsequent viewings have dropped my opinion of 2018 altogether. Kills did the pointless idea of killing off all of the legacy characters outside of Laurie and Lindsey, which infuriated me. Furthermore, the atmosphere wasn't there anymore and Haddonfield no longer seemed like the sleepy little town I enjoyed in the other sequels. Now, Halloween Ends brings a "close" to the series, as if I believe that they aren't just going to reboot again in a few years. But, I digress. It wasn't a terrible movie, but it was unfit for a so-called "end" to the series. Most of the movie is spent with a character we've never seen before and, as if the Thorn idea didn't infuriate the fanbase in 1995, Michael Myers getting a protege sure will. Fuck Corey Cunningham and his storyline. I appreciated what they were trying to do with his character, but it fell flat and the character was kind of pointless in the end. Hawkins and Lindsey were barely in the movie and two returning characters, one of which couldn't have survived in Kills, make cameo appearances. I don't understand why they never returned to Pasadena to film the sequels. Haddonfield doesn't have the same look or feeling and I honestly wouldn't have known it was Halloween in this movie had they not said it was...no atmosphere whatsoever. But, Michael is definitively killed and we're done with this thread until they reboot again. Now, I'm reading news stories about Heather Langenkamp wanting to do the same type of thing with the Elm Street series. Just stop. Please. Ignoring the hard work of other people just to satisfy your own ego is the wrong way to do things. Take what's there and build on it. I'm glad this trilogy is over, but to me, it was an overall failure.

Darkgod

Best New Watches

Last night in Soho
Smile
Deadstream

jholmes

Thanks for the review of HALLOWEEN ENDS. I still plan to watch it but my expectations are lowered.
I started THE MIDNIGHT CLUB last night. After the first two episodes, I'm disappointed. I adored MIDNIGHT MASS so much last year. So for this new show is more personal medical drama than anything supernatural and just not all that exciting. They have already milked the obnoxious Anya character for drama since she's the only source of it, and I'm over her. I hope it gets better. Feedback from anyone who has watched more of it is welcome. I'm guessing it's not wonderful since people haven't been talking about it on this thread.

Darkgod

Rip Mike Schank.. time to watch American Movie again

Toddarino

I’m ready to bail myself on Midnight Club. The Irish wheelchair broad is pushing me to my limit.

alyxstarr

I'm about 2/3 of the way through The Midnight Club, and I'm liking but not loving it. It's been a steady decline for me with Mike Flanagan's Netflix shows -- I loved Hill House, liked Bly Manor but less so than HH, and Midnight Mass was my least favorite -- until now. But it sounds like I'm still enjoying it more than others here. It's clearly designed to resonate with a somewhat younger crowd than his other stuff, so maybe it's really just that we're not the target audience. But I'm holding out hope that in the last three episodes they'll do more with Samantha Sloyan's character and/or the cult/"ancient religion" aspect.

I re-read the Christopher Pike book at the beginning of this month, and please believe me when I say the show is a vast improvement on the source material -- which, for one thing, was really not very horror-y at all, aside from being about a bunch of terminal kids. It was mostly teen drama, and Ilonka remembering her "past lives." It honestly made me wonder just how rose-tinted my glasses are in looking back at some of his other books (Slumber Party, Weekend, Chain Letter) that I read soooo many times when I was 10-ish... (Just kidding, I already knew those glasses must be tinted blood-red.)

(Oh, and possible bad news for those of you who like Flanagan's shows but don't like Anya the wheelchair user: Ruth Codd -- who is actually an amputee, by the way -- is on the cast list for Fall of the House of Usher. But I will say, she's playing Anya pretty close to the way she was portrayed in the book, so maybe she'll come across as less obnoxious in another role...)

clckworang

I watched Speak No Evil last night. It was the first time this month that I felt I needed a palate cleanser. I'm not entirely sure on the ending. Part of me finds it realistic and another infuriating.

So, that palate cleanser ended up being Blades. It was supremely silly and goofy, which is exactly what I needed. It's a Jaws parody set on a golf course. I was iffy about it in the beginning, but it won me over by the end. The performance from the guy playing the groundskeeper was great. He took it so serious, which made it work.

I'm doing Maniac Cop 2 and 3 for the theme today and thinking about hitting the back half of a double feature tonight at the drive-in to see Smile.

brainee

I am really hating Shudder right now. It's always been a glitchy app on the Fire Stick. But a relatively easy reset of the device would let me watch again if I got an error. But last night, in the middle of Watcher, it crashed. I tried everything I could think of ... resetting Fire Stick, clearing cache and data, logging out and back in, completely uninstalling and reinstalling the app. Nothing worked. It played on my laptop but the sound was messed up if I tried to run the HDMI out of the computer to the tv. After wasting an hour, just ended up watching the 2nd half of the movie on the laptop ... which is a less-than-ideal viewing experience.

clckworang

Shudder on my Roku has been really buggy for me also. When I try to watch something, it will come back with a message saying something like, "Unable to play video. Too many devices accessing account." But there are no other devices using it. I'll try a few times, and it will usually start for me. If not, I add the title to my list. When I try to play it from my list, it will play without issue. Just weird.

shadokitty

@ Trevor. Thanks. No exact date yet, but we are considering January or February of next year.

No real stand out first watches so far, but I did kind of enjoy My Friend Dahmer.

malazar

I agree with your thoughts on this one except the amazing Henry Silva performance brings me back to it from time to time.

WillieMLF

I know exactly what you mean regarding Speak No Evil. I'm still conflicted on it, but I'm leaning toward being infuriated with it. Glad to see I'm not alone on this. I watched Blades tonight and I really did like it a good bit. It's just one big homage to Jaws. The balloons were a nice touch, and these guys made a fun movie. 'Roy, you better get up here'.

I'm finishing up the night with the Slumber Party Massacre remake and then off to bed.

lrend

I’m one of the few people who loves Rob Zombie’s version of Halloween. I think I love it so much because I like a villain origin story.

I watched Halloween Ends tonight. As a fan of the franchise, I found it disappointing. I agree with just about everything you said about it. I’m not sure why they added a brand new character. To me, the protege fits more with Zombie’s version since you see that Michael was bullied when he was younger. I think they should be done with reboots and let us just enjoy the versions of Halloween that we currently have.

Shack

Agreed with the earlier posts on Halloween Ends. Very disappointing. First of all...Laurie repeatedly says of the new character "he's just like Michael" which makes no sense at all. Secondly, the script really gives Jamie Lee Curtis terrible dialogue; she deserves better. Thirdly, yes, no sense of what was effective about Haddonfield in the first place. I'll stop now...

jholmes

Bummed to hear the negative reviews of HALLOWEEN ENDS. I'll watch it anyway, but I was hoping for better. Damn.

Last night I watched CLIMAX (2018), which has been on my tbw list forever. I can't express how much I hated it. The early dance sequences were too long and obviously filler content, the dancer's chatty dialogue was either vapid or misogynistic, and when the LSD kicks in, we get the camera following people around as their off their heads--screaming, vomiting, wandering in a daze. There was no real "climax" in the sense of some big thing happening during this drugged out period, just a lot of individual people being stoned. That is NOT entertaining. Dang. I can't believe it's so well reviewed.

Then, for something completely different, I watched the new CURSE OF BRIDGE HOLLOW on Netflix. Much like HUBIE'S HALLOWEEN last year, I found this a fun, family-friendly palette cleanser that I sorely needed at this point in the challenge. The script is well-written and smart, and the idea of Halloween decorations coming to life is cool. Check it out if you need something light.

I also started the new LET THE RIGHT ONE IN series, and I really like it. The main boy character is a weak actor, unfortunately, but the vampire girl is good as are the parents. There's a new sub plot set up with a different vampire character that is promising. Overall, the series is off to a great start. Way better than THE MIDNIGHT CLUB. Can't wait for more episodes. I'd say this one and the new INTERVIEW WITH A VAMPIRE series are both very pleasant surprises this season.

exharrison

About a week into the challenge in earnest for me. Last night we watched Ghostbusters Afterlife because my wife likes the band of kids thing. And honestly, I had high hopes for it and was quite disappointed in most of the movie. Am I entirely missing the charm of the film here?

Also, yesterday afternoon before the tracking even showed it as picked up, I got my prize pack from Golden Wheels. Great pack of items. Thanks again, GW!
And thanks to Chad for running the contest and this whole dang event.

clckworang

I went to the drive-in for Smile last night. It was scheduled to start at 10, the back half of a double feature. I get there about 15 or 20 minutes early. I wanted to be ready to find a good parking spot during the inevitable exit between features. It turns out there was a spot front row center. Perfect! I park and start putting the shades on my windows.

As I'm doing so, I keep thinking the first feature, Lyle, Lyle Crocodile, seems to have a lot more gas in its tank. Worrisome. 10 o'clock arrives and no credits in sight. I sat through about 45 minutes of that damn movie before it finally ended. Horror indeed.

I liked Smile all right, but it doesn't reinvent the wheel or anything. I'd say there are bits and pieces of several different movies, though it made me think the most of It Follows.

Before the drive-in, I watched Men. That was an interesting watch. It had some striking imagery and great performances, but it will not be a film everyone will like.

SterlingBen

She was the best one.
Nah it sucked. It was OK-ish until Paul Rudd gets to Walmart, after that the wheels fell off.
We are going to need a bigger van.