Before we dig into the Holiday season I wanted to do a quick recap of some movies I’ve seen recently. These aren’t going to be too in depth but I wanted to get them out of my head before it’s time to focus on the best that Christmas cinema has to offer. As always, I’m going to do my best to avoid spoilers, but if you’re really curious about something in one of these movies just leave a comment and we can discuss it there! Let’s start with the biggest of these three releases, Smile 2!
Continue reading…Category: Uncategorized
Terrifier 3 (2024)
Directed by Damien Leone
Art the Clown made headlines when Terrifier 3 seized upon Joker: Folie A Deux’s incredible box office failure and became the number one movie at the box office. I didn’t think I’d see the day when an unrated incredibly gory slasher movie, the third in a series at that, would top the box office in the US, so this must be a Halloween miracle! Even though Art isn’t nearly as famous as Freddy or Jason, he’s carved out a niche for himself with modern horror fans, especially with those who enjoy lots and lots of splattery practical effects. While I’m mixed on the first two movies (one was decent and two were a bit overlong and over the top) I wanted to give this new one a chance, particularly with its wide release.
Five years after the events of Terrifier 2 left Art the Clown without a head and his killer, final girl Sierra, in a rehabilitation center, the town of __ struggles to move on from the brutal killings. Using magic, Art manages to regain his head and, with a helper in tow, goes off on another deadly rampage, during the most wonderful time of the year, Christmas! As the bodies pile up, everyone needs to figure out if Sierra is crazy, or if Art has returned to make this a December to Dismember.
There is one central question that comes up whenever you discuss a Terrifier movie, and it is what separates the Terrifier fans from everyone else – especially other horror fans. That question is; how much do you enjoy extreme over-the-top gore and violence? If you answered ‘a lot’, congratulations, Terrifier 3 is the movie for you! Much like the previous two, Terrifier 3 goes all in on the blood, gore, and violence, lovingly showering the audience with viscera. Not just the amount of gore, but the variety of different…flavors, if you will, of it are truly breathtaking, as are the levels of cruelty and depravity that the killers engage in. I have a pretty strong stomach for this kind of thing and even I had scenes where I struggled to watch what was unfolding.
Everything else comes in second place to the violence and gore in a Terrifier movie, but that isn’t to say that Terrifier 3 is otherwise a bad movie. Most of the performances are at least decent, and the characters are more than enough to keep the storyline going, even when supernatural events keep popping up. I really appreciate the commentary/rant that Sierra has about the true crime genre, which I find interesting in how it juxtaposes how a movie like Terrifier exploits fake violence while true crime movies/books/podcasts exploit real violence. Whether or not you agree with that, I’m glad that Terrifier 3 is trying to say something, and not just be an effects reel.
By now you should have a pretty good idea of whether or not you want to see Terrifier 3, so let me just give a few content warnings. Children are not off limits. Neither are animals or people dressed like Santa. And there is some pretty nasty body horror that isn’t directly related to people getting murdered. If you’re still interested, go check it out, in theaters.
2023 Oscar Best Pictures
I had a lot of fun ranking the best picture nominees a few years ago, so I figured why not give it another go and see just what Hollywood thinks the best movies of last year were. As usual, there are some glaring omissions; the wonderful Talk To Me is nowhere to be seen and the masterpiece of Godzilla Minus One is disappointingly absent, but none of that is shocking. Those aside, let’s go through the rest of the list and see what made the list and where I would put them in the rankings!
Continue reading…Halloween Ends
Halloween Ends
Directed by David Gordon Green
Spoiler Free: A baffling misfire, Halloween Ends can’t decide if it wants to bring the Halloween series in a new direction or pay tribute to its roots, and in the end, it does neither well. Full of breathtakingly bad dialogue and nonsensical characters, a good cast can’t redeem a lackluster ending to this trilogy.
In 1978, Halloween instantly changed the landscape of horror movies, spawning countless imitators and ripoffs, but none of them could match the brilliance of the story of Laurie Strode surviving the night that he came home. Tight writing, nerve-destroying cinematography, and iconic music are all remembered fondly, but it was the more subtle things that made Halloween stand out. The mystery, the intrigue, the unanswered questions about fate, the nature of evil, and the human response to it; have all birthed dozens upon dozens of fan theories and explanations for why exactly Michael Myers and Laurie Strode were what they were. I’m not familiar with all of these theories, some are good, some not so good, but I can say with certainty that all of them are better written than Halloween Ends.
Continue reading…Best of 2021
Oh this is a bad trend, me not getting this done again until well into the new year. At least its before March this time so I guess it could have been worse, but I do apologize. I have been extremely busy but I’m planning some new reviews including the newly released Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie and I’ll hopefully have that finished soon. Thank you for sticking with me! What were your favorite movies from last year?
Continue reading…Hausu
Day 16
Hausu (1977)
Directed by Nobuhiko Obayashi
Hausu is the immortal tale of a young woman, named Gorgeous, who takes her friends with her on a trip to visit her estranged Aunt in the countryside. While the girls are out on this trip, they encounter a number of strange situations as they learn that not everything about Gorgeous’ Aunt is as it appears. Those of you who have already seen this movie know that I am massively underselling what happens in this movie so let me make it clear: this is an intensely surreal film full of bizarre visuals, sound design, performances, and comedic interludes. I still think it has an understandable story structure, but nearly every scene includes something very very strange. Sometimes this is as innocent as having all the main characters have silly overly descriptive names: Prof is smart and reasonable, Mac is always eating, Kung Fu is good at Kung Fu, and this can give the movie a sort of fairy-tale quality at times. Other times there are flying heads and people dissolving into blood and pitched martial arts battles. If you can’t already tell, I love this movie.
What makes Hausu work for me is that it isn’t just nonsense for the sake of nonsense, the people who made the movie knew how narrative structure works and they knew how movies are supposed to behave, but took joy in turning every aspect of that on its head. What especially impressed me about the comedic sequences was how well they played into the horror sequences, something that a lot of other horror-comedies can’t seem to figure out. In Hausu, absurdity is funny AND scary at the same time, and when you feel both at once each feeling comes across much stronger, which I always prefer to movies where the horror and comedy feel like they’re locked in separate rooms, each waiting their turn to come out. However, whether or not you will enjoy this movie will have a lot to do with how you feel about surrealist cinema. If you don’t like absurd surrealist productions then you will not get anything out of this movie, except maybe a headache. If you do like really weird cinema then I would 100% recommend Hausu.
In Honor Of Juneteenth
For those who are not aware, Juneteenth marks the day the last group of enslaved African-Americans in Galveston, Texas were freed after the arrival of the Union Army. It’s an important day, should be a national holiday, but the point of the matter is that there is still a nationwide protest to combat systemic racism and white supremacy today. I’ll continue with reviews next week, but for right now if you can please make a donation to one of these great organizations!
If you’d like a movie recommendation for this weekend, I’d suggest Horror Noire, a history and analysis of black horror. It’s an informative, entertaining, and thought-provoking film that chronicles many important black horror films. It’s also currently free to watch on Shudder, with instructions below on how to do so. Thank you for reading and stay safe.
Something More Important Than Reviews.
Due to recent important developments I’ve decided to postpone this week’s planned posts so that we can instead use this time to listen to and learn from the many people who have spoken up regarding systemic racism.
In addition, please take this opportunity to donate what you can to one of the many charities providing support and services for communities of color, like the NAACP. https://secure.actblue.com/donate/naacp-1
Thank you for reading this, I’ll return next week with a bevy of reviews, but this is a bit more important.
Please stay safe.
Top 10 Horror Films Of 2019!
I have come to 2 conclusions after going through all the horror films that I watched this year. 1) This was a damn fine year for horror. 2) I need to watch waaaaaaay more current stuff. I might actually have to do *gasp* research on what good Indies are available! But that’s for the future. Here is my list of top 10 horror films that I personally saw in 2019. If your favorite isn’t on here, I probably didn’t see it. OR I did and am pretending I didn’t so as to avoid any awkwardness. Let’s get started!
Read morePlaying With Fire
Playing With Fire
Directed by Andy Flickman
Please enjoy this review for a somehow child-friendly film about the devastating California wildfires. Before we get into this I want to dedicate this review to my patient and lovely wife, Maria, who took it upon herself to see this movie with me. You really took one for the team here, and I appreciate it. Now, Playing With Fire. It’s a movie. It has John Cena. I watched it while chugging beer in an otherwise empty movie theater at noon on a Saturday. Let’s talk about how that went. I would say it hurt us but that would mean that it had some kind of lasting effect and that certainly isn’t true. My brain is ejecting it from my memories as I write this so I have to speed this up and get to the actual movie.
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