Showing posts with label October Challenge. Show all posts
Showing posts with label October Challenge. Show all posts

Thursday, October 12, 2017

October Horror Movie Challenge: Burn Witch Burn! (1962)

Also known as Night of the Eagle, this is one of the many versions of Fritz Lieber's Conjure Wife and one of my favorite versions of it.

this version cleaves much better to the spirit of the book, but it is also missing significant portions of the book and some of the elements that made to book so good.  In particular, it changes the entire ending.  To be fair, the movie ending fits the movie better, but I do prefer the book ending more.

The whole bit where Tansy looses her soul is also missing.  The movie does not suffer for it, but the story has less punch.

Janet Blair and Peter Wyngarde are very good as the young college professor and his witch wife Tansy.  They look very much like I would expect them to look from the book.

My son Connor did not watch this with me.

Wednesday, October 11, 2017

October Horror Movie Challenge: The Initiation of Sarah (1978, 2006)

Ok. This one didn't post either.

The 70s were weird.  Today I might draw a very distinct line between "witches" and "psychics" and even online they are considered different things depending on who you ask. 
The 70s, not so much. 

Case in point, one of my favorite 70s guilty pleasures, The Initiation of Sarah from 1978.
I think for the longest time I associated sororities with witchcraft. 

The story follows two girls, Sarah and Patty Goodwin, raised as sisters as they go college and pledge in different, competing, sororities. 

Patty, the overtly pretty one, is accepted to Alpha Nu Sigma (ΑΝΣ) and Sarah, the other one, accepted to the weird Phi Epsilon Delta (ΦΕΔ).  Patty has to deal with Alpha bitch Morgan Fairchild played in only the way Morgan Fairchild can while Sarah has to deal with likely drunk (in the story and real life) Shelly Winters.

It seems to me that both houses are in truth witch covens and have been at war with each other since, well, who knows how long.

The film is pure ABC Made for Television cheese really and not a lot to redeem it.  But I love it to this day.  So many untapped ideas here.

The movie was remade in 2006 as a, you guessed it, a made for TV movie.

This time Sarah is played by the far more attractive Mika Boorem and her sister Lindsay, played by Summer Glau (who gets on my nerves).  Morgan Fairchild is back and still look great and playing the alpha bitch. This time she is the girls mother, but you will be forgiven if you think she is playing the same character.  Jennifer Tilly replaces Shelly Winters.

There are differences in the plot, mostly to bring it upto date, and others that actually make sense.  Are you a virgin and about to be sacrificed? Yeah, there is a way to fix that. And they do.

Different people die, different people live.  It is cut from the same block of cheese as the original and despite some better acting (not Summer Glau, she is horrible) it doesn't fare as well.  Must be the nostalgia.

In 10 years I want another remake, this time with Morgan Fairchild in the Shelly Winters role.

Tuesday, October 10, 2017

October Horror Movie Challenge: Alien Covenant (2017)

Another new one.  Plus I am running out of tape material.

Note: Spoilers ahead.

Alien Covenant attempts correct some of the mistakes from Prometheus.  Not sure how well it succeeds. For starters, this is a proper Alien movie, with xenomorphs, spaceships, a crazy android. Everything that made the first one a sci-fi and horror classic.

This one doesn't quite work as well.

It's a good sci-fi flick and has some good moments, but otherwise, it is only ok.

I am not exactly sure why that is.

I talked to my wife and son about this.  They pointed out that the alien was not really the enemy. They were only a tool. The real bad guy was the android, David.

Well, I had hoped for more.




Monday, October 9, 2017

October Horror Movie Challenge: The Mummy (2017)

A bit of a change of pace for this Challenge.
This is a first time view. It's a Tom Cruise movie (whom I can't stand). And the movie is not as bad as I was lead to believe.

The idea is an interesting one, but it is the same as many of the Mummy movies since Boris Karlof. Though Sofia Boutella is better to look at it.
There are some neat ideas and personally, I wanted to see more of Russel Crow's Jekyll and Hyde.

Connor enjoyed it but thought they did some stupid things.
I tend to agree.


Sunday, October 8, 2017

October Horror Movie Challenge: Dracula 2000 (2000)

Not one of my favorite Draculas to be sure, but it is satisfying that I also got to finish a tape.

It's an interesting tale. Bringing Dracula into the modern age, trouble is that we have seen this story many times and many times it has been better.  The twist here is that "Dracula" is actually Judas.
The movie starts out ok, I like the idea of a quasi-immortal Van Helsing dealing in ancient arms.

Somewhere along the way through the movie falls apart for me.



Saturday, October 7, 2017

October Horror Movie Challenge: Gothic (1986)

Gothic is another one of those films that you either love or hate.  I enjoyed the hell out of it. The story of how Frankenstein and the Vampyre came to be? Ken Russell as the director? Gabriel Byrne as Lord Byron, Julian Sands as Percy Bysshe Shelley, and an absolutely lovely Natasha Richardson as Mary Shelley (in her film debut)?  Music by Thomas Dolby? What's not to love?
Well plenty it seems.  The movie was a commercial bomb, though it did make good money on the home video market.

Connor hated it. Though he did recognize Timothy Spall who played Dr. John William Polidori here and later Peter "Wormtail" Pettigrew.

I watched this a few Challenges back but for the life of me I can't find the write up.  My wife hated it then too. It does feel dated and the music is very much mid-80s synth.  But it is still a lot of fun.





Friday, October 6, 2017

October Horror Movie Challenge: Lair of the White Worm (1988)

On to my vampire tapes now.  I am not going to review all of these since I had done so many of these in past Challenges. But there are few that stand out.

Lair of the White Worm (1988) is one of those movies.  Rather infamous at the time and a lot of the same visuals from director Ken Russell that made Tommy (1975) so good.

The star of this is a deliciously sexy-evil Amanda Donohoe as the snake-vampire thing Lady Sylvia Marsh.  I read that the role had been offered to Tilda Swinton. Could you have imagined that? I think it would have been awesome. Of course watching it now it is a very young looking Peter Capaldi with a thick northern accent as archaeology student Angus Flint.

I know this is based on a Bram Stoker novella, but it's not a very good novella really.  I read it, gods, back in my university days.  Connor wanted to know why worms, dragons, snakes, and vampires were all getting blended together in this.  It's a good question really.





Thursday, October 5, 2017

October Horror Movie Challenge: Dark City (1998)

This must be my Alex Proyas tape.  Dark City was one of those movies that came up a lot on the old Kult RPG list I was on.

Connor thought it was cool, but had a lot of his own theories and questions.

As much as I talk about the Occult Revival 70s, there is also the Paranoid 90s.  Everything is a conspiracy and THEY are always out to get you or keep you from the truth.  You can see this in the X-files and movies like The Matrix and They Live.

Games like Kult (1991), Conspiracy X (1996), Beyond the Supernatural (1987), Chill 2nd Edition (1990), even to a degree Alternity's Dark Matter, all captured different aspects of this feeling.

I was involved in many online debates on what system would do Dark City justice.  I had always put my chips in a Conspiracy X/WitchCraft hybrid.








Wednesday, October 4, 2017

October Horror Movie Challenge: The Crow (1994)

No movie captures the "Noir of the Nineties" more than "The Crow".

It has been said that the only difference between a slasher flick and an action flick is if the "Last Girl" is a woman or a big action star.  The Crow does this in reverse.
The "Last Girl" is Brandon Lee's Eric Draven. Who is not a big hulking action star, but a man engulfed in sadness.   The plot, minus the supernatural elements, is not much different than Steven Seagal's "Hard to Kill".  The difference, of course, is that Eric Draven is an undead champion of vengeance.  He is not a zombie though and he still feels, well, everything.

This leaves us the question. Is The Crow a horror movie?
I still say yes.  The horrors visited on Eric and his fiancé Shelly are enough to merit a "Horror" tag.  Eric himself, an undead force of vengeance is akin to Freddy and Jason; he just kills bad guys.

In truth, this movie influenced a lot of what we think of as the Modern Supernatural out now.  This struck the same chords in people (and often the same people) that "Lost Boys" did.  While Lost Boys was very much a product of the late 80s, The Crow is a product of the mid 90s and it's influences reached far and wide.  Watch the scene where Eric confronts Top Dollar and his gang and then watch Heath Ledger's Joker confront the criminal underworld in The Dark Knight.

Ultimately the movie is sad.
Sad not just for the subject matter, but sad for the real-world death of Brandon Lee.



Tuesday, October 3, 2017

October Horror Movie Challenge: The Shinning (1980)

This might not be the best Stephen King book made into a film, but it is certainly a great one.  This is a Stanely Kubrick masterpiece of insanity, murder, and supernatural happenings that few movies can compare too.

This is Kubrick at his best, Nicholson at his most manic, and Stephen King at his most...well, Stephen King.

Connor loved this one. He had known about the movie and many of the scenes for a long time, I mean how could you not?  So the movie lived up to the hype in his mind.

Rewatching this now, many years later, I am struck by how much I really enjoyed Kubrick's direction here.  His vision may not have been the same as King's, but it is a good vision, even a great one.

This isn't just one of my favorite horror movies it is one of my favorite movies of all time.  It's not perfect of course, but it is great.









Watched: 3

Monday, October 2, 2017

October Horror Movie Challenge: The Car (1977)

Ah. This little piece of cinematic trash made to it TV sometime in the late 70s. I am sure I recorded it back in the 80s at one point, and then transferred to another tape in the 90s.  I WISH I had kept the commercials in this, but I edited them out to make more room on the tape.   That's a lot of work to spend on this movie.

Rewatching this now, 40 years later, I am again taken with the 70s obsession with the Devil.  Plus I will never get that horn out of my mind.
The movie is lack luster really.  Killer car.  People find some really dumb ways to put themselves in the path of this thing.

I remember thinking at the time it was cool concept, but poorly executed.

Connor, predictably, was bored. So was I to be honest.

My memory of this movie is much better than the movie itself.  The final scene where the car is blown up and "the devil" is released was also much cooler in my memory than on this tape.
I remember my brothers and sisters watching this and then laughing many years later when a still of the explosion was later used in a supermarket gossip rag as the "face of the devil" in a storm.

Maybe it is time to remake this one.  Maybe now with a killer drone.







Watched: 2

Sunday, October 1, 2017

October Horror Movie Challenge: The Exorcist (1973)

Let's start this off right with a movie I consider one of the scariest ever made. 1973's The Exorcist.

By today's standard, this movie is slow. In fact my son kept asking for when it was going to get going.  But one it get's going, man does it keep going. It is almost relentless, to be honest.

The cast delivers a top notch performance but obviously, the big nod goes to Linda Blair.  She ended up nominated for an Academy Award and won a Golden Globe and People's Choice award for her role as possessed girl Regan.

There is a lot going on this movie and there is now, of course, an entire "expanded universe", but this is the first, this is the where it started.  Directed by William Friedkin and produced and written (book and screenplay) by William Peter Blatty this movie takes everything I remember about the 70s Occult resurgence and boils it down in a crucible over hell fire.

My son, who has grown up on a steady diet of monster hunting shows like Supernatural, did not see the horror.   He had at least a dozen ways in his mind that the demon could have been gotten rid of.

In the end, though he still enjoyed it.

Still, scares the shit out of me.





Watched: 1

Tuesday, September 5, 2017

October Horror Movie Challenge: 2017, Ready, Set, Not so fast....

It might only be September, but there is a chill in the air here in Chicagoland .  My kids were gaming with their own groups this long weekend and I got stuck doing Term Start duties that most of my instructors were supposed to have done 3 weeks ago.

I did get a chance to look over my list of potential movies for next month's October Horror Movie Challenge.

Like I mentioned last year I am going to go through a bunch of old VHS tapes I have laying around before I toss them.   I have discovered that some of the quality of these tapes though are near-unwatchable.

Artifacts of a bygone age.  Some have a cryptic warning on them, "Be Kind, Please Rewind".
Last year I was hoping that the tapes were in good enough shape and my VCR still worked.  It does, but the tapes are not quite up to it.  So I might be watching some on DVD/Blu-Ray/Streaming then tossing the tape.

My "first-time views" will go down a bit, but my OCD will be happy.
Though there are some here I have not seen in decades.  My youngest son will be joining me for a few of these.  Most will be his first-time views.

One of the movies I want to watch is not on Netflix, Amazon or OnDemand...so I have some digging to do.

Tuesday, November 1, 2016

October Horror Movie Challenge: 2016 Wrap-up and Looking to 2017

Another October Horror Movie Challenge is done.

Final tally: 35 movies watched, 26 were first time views.  Not bad, that is about my average.


While I did great in the challenge, I failed in making these "game related".  I have a few things I am going to post this week that might make up for it.

The Movie of the Month was, of course, The Witch.  So good I watched it twice.
The surprise hits, for me, were Eyes of Fire (1983) and Haunter (2013).

I also promised to talk about what my favorite horror movies of all time are.  That is much harder since there are so many.  I am going to give it more thought.

If you are curious I have set up a Pinterest Board with all the posters of the movies I have watched over the last 7 years of doing this. 228 pins total.




For next year I am thinking of doing something very different.
First, yes, I want to make as many game stats for the movies I watch as possible.  I have to stay true to my first and most loyal audience.

Also, I have all the these VHS tapes that I copied in the 80s and early 90s, about 16 total.  Each one is 6 or 8 hours long with anywhere from 3 to 5 movies per tape, but usually 4.  Rough estimates I put it at 45 movies, give or take.  What I want to do is go through all of those and review all those movies before tossing out the tape.  I would also check to see if there are Blu-Ray or DVD options for the movies.  Now I am totally expecting these tapes to be in complete crap condition.  Some I know have not seen the light of day in 20 years. But I think it would be fun.  Since they are all movies I have seen before, game stats will come quicker to me.

The bottom row are horror tapes.  If this works I'll tackle the row above which is all MST3k.

That is also the problem.  45 movies, all of them are ones I have seen before,   So no first-time views. I hold out that there might be one or two on there I have never seen. It is possible. I used to work nights, so I'd go to the library, check out some tapes, take them home and cue them up to copy to watch while I was in college.

While this pleases my OCD and my need to declutter I am hoping that the tapes are still in good enough shape.  The other issue is I have only one working VHS player in the house (i think) so I am locked to watching these in one room.  I am very, very spoiled with all my on-demand streaming options.

We will see how it goes.

Sunday, October 30, 2016

October Horror Movie Challenge: The Witch (Audio Commentary) (2015)

I wanted to end my Horror Challenge with the movie I began with, The Witch.

This time I watched it with the director's audio commentary.  I also watched the special features that went along with the movie and they were all a treat.

There are some things I noticed this second viewing, but mostly I am still pleased with this movie.

Again I am struck with this idea of burgeoning sexuality = horror.  Thomasin is a threat to this family because she is no longer a child.  Think I am stretching?  Compare this to other characters from this challenge; Dren or on the other side of it all Nancy.

Look at Crimson Peak or I Spit On Your Grave. The women are defined more by their sexuality than any male character.

Even outside of a game this is something worth my effort to look into.  I am still, an academic at heart and practice.

The consensus among people in the 2016 challenge is that this is the best horror movie of the year.



2016 Movie tally
Watched: 35
New: 26


October Horror Movie Challenge: A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

A Nightmare on Elm Street.  This is the movie that changed horror movies forever. It gave us the slasher and it gave us a villain that in many ways it more important that the heroes (though I think I hear Gorjia roaring at me).  But also it made horror a bona-fide box office hit.  Slasher movies in the early 80s were the super hero movies of today.   None were bigger, better and more scary than Freddy Krueger.

I have been wanting to rewatch this one for years.  I had forgotten how good it really was.  Some movies age poorly, especially ones from the early 80s.  But this one is a classic in every sense of the word.  Not just Robert Englund as the iconic Freddy but Heather Langenkamp as Nancy is every sense the iconic "Last Girl".   Lets not forget that this is the movie that introduced us all to Johnny Depp.

I watched this with Connor and he really loved it.  He didn't think it was as scary as "Crimson Peak" but he loved it all the same.

There is a lot to unpack in this movie for a game. But the trouble is it's hard to fully replicate the whole "Last Girl" feel and to get the characters to make "horror movie decisions".

Still. This one is so much fun.  We are going to do more horror movies together next year.



2016 Movie tally
Watched: 34
New: 26



October Horror Movie Challenge: Splice (2009)

Splice is a movie I have wanted to see for a few years.  It is a basic mad-scientist makes a monster movie with some twists.

There are some interesting twists in this modern Frankenstein tale. Instead of body parts it's DNA. Instead of a horrible, disfigured monster we get Dren which could be considered cute at first.  Also the issue of burgeoning sexuality.  Side note: Why is it that female sexual awareness scares so many people? It is something so deeply ingrained that we are still seeing horror movies about it today.  Hell, that sounds more like a dissertation than a blog post. Maybe I should do that for my next October Challenge; see where this takes me.

Anyway there is/was room for a sequel ala the new Fly movie, but no idea if it ever happened.

The actors in this were quite good.  That sets this a notch above most horror flicks.




2016 Movie tally
Watched: 33
New: 26



October Horror Movie Challenge: Ghost Ship (2002)

I enjoy a good tale of ghost ships. Ever since I had read about the Flying Dutchman and other tales of ships lost at sea I have had a morbid sort of curiosity about them.

So when Ghost Ship from 2002 showed up on my TV and just starting, how could I say no?

It was not a bad tale really. One we have seen time and time again in the movies.  There is a wreck of a ship floating in international waters and a team of salvagers go out to claim it.  One by one they experience strange things, see things and soon the dying starts.

This one had a few interesting little twists. Emily Browning has one of her first ever screen roles as a ghost.  The "cable death" is by far one of the more gruesome ones.

Desmond Harrington's character is obviously Charon or something like him.

This movie, and this story, is ripe for adventure seeds.  In fact one of the reasons I wanted to watch this one was to scrape it for ideas for this White Star adventure involving a lost starship in a 'haunted" area of space.


2016 Movie tally
Watched: 32
New: 25



Saturday, October 29, 2016

October Horror Movie Challenge: Crimson Peak (2015)

This is one of the big movies I wanted to see this Challenge.  It had such a cool look and I was looking forward to watching it with my son.

Well I have to say it did not disappoint.  It is less a horror movie as it is a movie with horrific moments.  Much like it's not a ghost story as it is a story with ghosts.  I think that set some people off a bit.

The movie was written and directed by Guillermo del Toro and you can really tell.  Aside from all the Pacific Rim guest stars, there is also a Pan's Labyrinth feel to this.  
The actors are great really especially the three leads.

Connor really enjoyed it, loved the mystery but wanted it to be more scary.

Still. I enjoyed it.



2016 Movie tally
Watched: 31
New: 24


October Horror Movie Challenge: Late Night Cable

Been suffering through some migraines this week.  Thankfully a lot of my posts were pre-written and cued up.  Today's post wasn't.
Since I have slept something like 24 hours in the last 48 I was up late last night.  So I decided to cruise the depths of the premium movie channels to see what was on.  Starz and The Movie Channel provided some hits.

First up I Spit on Your Grave (1978) (rewatch).
The older I get I find my tolerance for "torture porn" lessens.  I have seen this movie a number of times and this time I wanted to focus on some the horror I might have missed in the sea of exploitation.  Camille Keaton must have went through a real hell in filming this.
I have now seen the remake and I see there are a host of sequels including one that continues Camille Keaton's Jenifer as an author several decades later.  Morbid curiosity of course calls to me on this, but I doubt I'll go out of my way to watch it.

In a similar vein I also caught Girl House (2015) (FTV).
This is simple slasher flick with a crazy dude obsessed with a cam girl.  Given that this is about an "x-rated" cam show there is surprising very little nudity from our star. That's fine.  The crazy dude, "Loverboy" is more of the focus here. It's an effective mix of both old-school slasher and new-school "the internet is watching" mentality.  Special shout outs go to Camren Bicondova ("Selena Kylie/Cat" on Gotham) as Loverboy's first victim as a child and Wesley MacInnes as the happles voyeur who watches the horror unfold on the cam shows.  He had the best line in the movie, "I am going to so need therapy."  Had to be there for it I think.  The movie needed more Nicole Fox in my opinion.

Watching these back to back I noticed that "I Spit on Your Grave" really set the tone for the modern slasher film.  Not just tone, but how some of the shots were done.



And no. My son did not watch these with me.

2016 Movie tally
Watched: 30
New: 23