Racketboy Month of Horror 13

[prfsnl_gmr]

I actually really liked The Conjuring. I thought Annabelle was horrible and boring, though; so, I haven’t tried any of the others yet. I will give this one a shot on your recommendation, though.

Also, how is The Conjuring 2? I have it on a few watchlists, but I don’t know much about it.

Last night, my wife and I watched October Kiss (2015), a Halloween-themed Hallmark Channel rom-com. (I got my Covid booster and flu shots yesterday; so, that film was about all I could handle.) In it, a widowed father of two forsakes a beautiful, intelligent professional woman so he can date the cute, but extremely annoying and incompetent, woman serving as a nanny to his children. It reinforces traditional gender roles SO HARD, and unlike most Christmas rom cons, it actually makes use of its seasonal setting. (The characters go to a Halloween store, decorate for Halloween, go trick ‘r treating, etc., unlike in most Christmas movies, which just feature seasonal decor in the background of a few scenes.) It was not very good, but it was not so bad that it was enjoyable. Accordingly, I have a hard time recommending this middling rom com unless you just really want to watch a mostly boring movie with a Halloween setting.

[PretentiousHipster]

Hallmark stuff is known for one person wearing green, and one wearing red in the poster. It'd be amazing if this one has one wearing black, and the other wearing orange.

[Michi]

I actually really liked The Conjuring. I thought Annabelle was horrible and boring, though; so, I haven’t tried any of the others yet. I will give this one a shot on your recommendation, though.

Also, how is The Conjuring 2? I have it on a few watchlists, but I don’t know much about it.

I certainly think it was much better than the first one. I found it to be a rather enjoyable romp, but I think your enjoyment of Comes Home will come down to how much you like the kids. Cause it's pretty much their movie and just watching them run around while around a dozen ghosts try to kick their ass/kill them/eat their souls, etc. etc. It's fun and tense, but very rarely scary..... Except maybe the Ferryman. He's pretty spooky.

As for The Conjuring 2, I liked that one better than the first. I thought it was maybe a little long, but it's got great visuals and some very tense and creepy moments. I think the budget must have gone up for the second one.

The third Conjuring is... okay. Still good, but I don't think it reaches the level of the first film, let alone the second. I was glad that they pulled away from the whole "haunted house" narrative though.

[Michi]

The Driller Killer



Hey! I'd heard of this one before, I just hadn't seen it yet! It's....not exactly what I thought it was going to be. Huh. Interesting. It's certainly bloody and gory, but it's more of a psychological, art-house film than the slasher I had always been lead to believe. I still liked it and thought it was pretty good though, minus a few annoyances, like the sometimes grating New Wave soundtrack (I could totally understand Reno finally snapping after having to listen to that all day.) Though my biggest complaint is that rather than building up, the tension instead started to dissipate towards the end, which took a lot of the "Oomph" out of the finale. Oh well. Still pretty good though. Definitely better than some of the other low-budget horrors I've watched recently.

[REPO Man]

Anyone else watching the new season of American Horror Story? Subtitled NYC, it's set in the greatest city in the world, albeit circa one of its worst eras. Ryan Murphy definitely knows his audience, given how the men are hot, the women are fierce and blood and gore are on the menu.

[Ack]

The Driller Killer



Hey! I'd heard of this one before, I just hadn't seen it yet! It's....not exactly what I thought it was going to be. Huh. Interesting. It's certainly bloody and gory, but it's more of a psychological, art-house film than the slasher I had always been lead to believe. I still liked it and thought it was pretty good though, minus a few annoyances, like the sometimes grating New Wave soundtrack (I could totally understand Reno finally snapping after having to listen to that all day.) Though my biggest complaint is that rather than building up, the tension instead started to dissipate towards the end, which took a lot of the "Oomph" out of the finale. Oh well. Still pretty good though. Definitely better than some of the other low-budget horrors I've watched recently.

I greatly enjoy The Driller Killer as a piece of sleaze. It's grungy like The Toolbox Murders but never feels as gross.

[REPO Man]

Speaking of killers using power drills, anyone see Slumber Party Massacre? IIRC it's on Arrow's streaming service, possibly alongside the aforementioned Driller Killer.

Speaking of retro horror on streaming services most people don't have, The Criterion Channel has a collection of '80s Horror films this month, and yes I know I should have mentioned it AGES ago.

[prfsnl_gmr]

Last night’s film was The Conjuring 2 (2016), which was a very solid mass-market horror film. Based extremely loosely on a true story, it was an enjoyable follow up to the original. Christianity, which is apparently more powerful when spoken in Latin, ultimately defeated the demon in the end, but the demon had some fun scaring people first, I guess. In short, the movie is very, very silly if you think about it at all. It does look nice, though, and the director, James Wan, always does a great job establishing a sense of place. (His best movie is, and will always be, the absolutely bonkers Malignant (2021), however.)

Tonight’s movie is Pumpkin Pie Wars (2016), an October-themed Hallmark rom-com. It involves two rival families competing in a small town pumpkin pie cooking contest. A young woman and man take over cooking for their mothers, and they fall in love, in secret. It’s basically Romeo & Juliet, but terrible. All the jokes fall flat, believe it or not, and the acting is terrible. Also, the leads don’t die at the end. Good times!

What’s everyone else doing? Watching? Planning?

[Ack]

I watched Sadako vs. Kayako today. My horror watching is way down this month due to the long days on set, but I had been wanting to see this since I heard about its release in 2016.



I am a fan of both the Ringu and Ju-On series. While most of these films have been released in English, there are some outliers, mostly along the Ju-On side, that have never made it to the NTSC-U territory (or even most of PAL. Sadly, I do not speak Norwegian). However, I have managed to track down most of them, including the original short films that form the basis of these series. So know that there was gonna be a terrible crossover movie of two franchises I enjoy, of course I was down!

Here's a rough plotline: some college students find the cursed tape from Ringu while a high schooler moves into the house next door to the Ju-On house. Curses ensue. To save them, enter a pair of ridiculously over the top mediums with cringingly awful hand gestures and super powers, who devise a way to save the final girls: why not have them watch the curse Ringu video in the Ju-On house? That way the ghosts will fight each other over who gets to horribly murder them! What could possibly go wrong?

End result, you get mostly filler, with the actual fight occurring with only 20 minutes left in the picture. And then it mainly consists of weird hair stuff and goo explosions. Eventually the two ghosts merge, and we get what I can only call Sadakayakokomo (We'll get there fast and then we'll take it slow). But that's unimportant. What's more important is that we are way, way into both franchises, so both have pretty much lost what really made them good over 20 years ago.

You don't see the original Ringu video. Instead, you see a different video of Sadako walking down a dirty hallway. Also, she doesn't make anyone die of fright, she just makes them kill themselves. Kayako fairs a bit better, but now she apparently can make your feet disappear somehow. And the beauty of the background ghost shots is lost because it only happens once, and when it does, the camera literally zooms in on it to make sure you see it.

Hot take time, folks. There are no good 'Vs' movies. Alien vs Predator is a terrible movie. Godzilla vs King Kong is campy and cheap. Godzilla vs Kong is an attempt to keep interest going in a cinematic universe that I still trying to understand what the end goal is. The less said about Alien va Hunter, the better. Freddy vs Jason is a cash grab and an attempt to keep control of a couple of franchises that were facing death and are now likely facing death again. Aliens vs Predator 2 is probably the best of the bunch, and that's because it gave me xenomorphs killing a natal hospital ward.

And Sadako vs Kayako is just more of that typical cash grab. It's unnecessary, weird, and does nothing to elevate either franchise, failing to capture even the most basic bits of what made these series interesting. Worse, it feels like a goofy showcase for a J-Idol dude to mess around and pretend to act while a little rude blind kid with superpowers talks shit to everyone because...reasons.

Man, I'd rather go back and rewatch 4444444 instead. I believe it's up on YouTube.

[prfsnl_gmr]

Great review, Ack, but…

COUNTERPOINT: Godzilla vs. Kong is totally awesome, and Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein is a classic.

So…I picked up an odd, very seasonal game the other day, and I’m really enjoying it. It’s Once Upon a Time on Halloween, which was originally released for the iircade (a full-sized internet capable arcade cabinet, apparently) and ported to the Switch. With graphics inspired by 1920s and 1930s cartoons, the game looks a lot like Cuphead, but in monochrome, and it has an appropriately seasonal soundtrack and aesthetic. Despite looking like Cuphead, however, and despite some shooting sections, most of the game plays like Tapper, an oft-overlooked, but still incredibly fun classic arcade game. (You fill cups and throw them at pumpkins and bats to collect candy and build up your score. When your score is high enough, you move to the next section.). I suspect I’ll beat it soon, and I’ll post a full review then. In the meantime, however, anyone looking for a fun, seasonal, classic arcade experience, should look into it.