Re: Racketboy Month of Horror 10: The Rebootening
Posted: Sun Oct 20, 2019 9:48 pm
Ack wrote:14. TerrorVision (1986)
Hell yeah! TerrorVision is a great one! I *didn't* know that it had a 0% on Rotton Tomatoes but it absolutely deserves cult-classic status! It's way better than most of the Full Moon pictures Charles Band went on to produce a few years later.
Anyway, I've watched a BUNCH of things (and played one thing) I haven't been writing about! Let's fix that!
You're Next - A family gathering turns deadly as people in masks start attacking people. Normally I pass over "home invasion" movies but I heard enough good things about this one that I gave it a chance. I'm glad I did because it does what it does very well; it's tense and violent and has enough of a plot to keep it interesting. It's nothing too mind-blowing but I really enjoyed it.
Lady in White - This is about a young boy who's locked in a school coat room over a Halloween weekend and sees a ghost... and is attacked by someone who apparently has killed before (though he escapes without learning his identity). The kid then tries to uncover the mystery of what happened. I really like ghost movies, so I was expecting to like this, but... it didn't do it for me. Honestly it felt more like a nostalgia-movie akin to A Christmas Story than a horror film. An interesting change of pace, but it prevented me from really engaging with the emotional weight the movie wanted me to engage with.
Transylvania 6-5000 - Jeff Goldblum and Ed Begley Jr. are reporters for a trashy tabloid who go to Transylvania to find out if Frankenstein's monster is still running amok. The whole thing is pretty goofy with Michael Richards playing a wacky butler and Gena Davis playing a sexy Vampire. The movie has some good points, but overall is just too threadbare to work. I feel like some spookier art design would have really elevated the whole thing, but the horror elements felt too downplayed to really cast a shadow and a lot of the comedy is a bit too cornball. It does have an amazing theme song though! Although for most of the movie they just use "Pennsylvania 6-5000" throughout and it runs thin.
The Frighteners - Peter Jackson's transitional film from low-budget New Zealand films to big-budget Hollywood work! Michael J Fox plays a psychic ghostbuster who scams people by talking to his real-ghost friends and having them fake-haunt people who he then fake-exorcises. Meanwhile people in the town are dying at an unnaturally high rate of seemingly natural causes. The movie has a certain charm as Peter Jackson is still showing some creative flair and it feels like a time capsule representing a certain kind of early 90s movies they don't make anymore. I don't like it as much as his earlier films, but it's solid enough.
Psychos in Love - This is one I'd always see in the video store as a kid but never got around to renting. So I got Vinegar Syndrome's Blu-Ray/DVD which is as good as this movie's ever going to look. It's exactly what you'd expect: it's a mockumentary about a male serial killer and a female serial killer fall in love. It's rooted much more concerned about being a goofball comedy than being a horror movie, but it commits to comedy enough to make it enjoyable in a kind of dumb way. The jokes are bad, but the filmmakers know it and it works enough for me.
The First Purge - The Purge, the one night of the year when all crime is legal, is probably the dumbest core concept a movie could have. But somehow the series manages to be pretty good! And for the fourth film in a franchise and the first to be directed by someone other than James DeMarco who did the first three, this movie is way better than it should be. It still has some dumb stuff (eg on Purge night a cash-for-gold business is still open? WITH THE NEON SIGN TURNED ON???) but the movie very much makes a point of saying what it wants to say. It's focused on a black community in Staten Island who are experiencing the first experimental Purge... and it turns out Neo-Nazies, KKK, international mercinaries, and police are all organized and are trying to kill minorities and poor people while pinning the blame on gangs. Subtle it ain't. But it works!
Black Sunday - Mario Bava's classic about an evil witch and her Vampire boyfriend who come back to life after 200 years to terrorize a noble family. Honestly, this movie has some pacing issues, but I deeply love it anyway. Barbara Steele is the main reason because she's magnificent at playing supernatural/evil beauties. She also plays a good character too, so she's in the movie even more! This movie is stunningly beautiful and dripping with gothic atmosphere. This was a rewatch and maybe holds more joy in memory than in actually watching it, but I like it anyway.
Don't Breathe - Another home invasion film I've heard good things about, THIS ONE completely lives up to the hype. A group of young buglers break into the house of a blind Iraq veteran who's supposed to have hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash in his home. The sense of tension starts strong and DOES NOT LET UP. This is definitely a modern masterpiece. I now think that I should actually watch the Evil Dead remake since it's also directed by Fede Alvarez, he's on my radar now.
American Horror Story (season 1) - I finally finished this and I liked it enough to think that I'll watch more. I had heard people say that the series gets crazy but I wasn't expecting it to get as ridiculous as it got right in the first season. A family move into an infamous "murder house" which turns out to be haunted... by what feels like 47 different ghosts! Seriously, there are a LOT of ghosts in that house, too many to be taken entirely seriously. It also makes the odd creative choice of making just about all of the characters unlikable (the main mom & daughter are the most sympathetic but they still do some frustratingly boneheaded things). Either way, for a horror story that's being told over 12 episodes, it keeps things interesting and that's about all I can ask for. I know the second season is unconnected but apparently all of AHS shares a universe? So I'll look forward in seeing the whole thing take its crazy shape!
Luigi's Mansion (Gamecube) - I had long thought this game was supposed to be "pretty okay" but now that it's gotten a remake, and the second sequel is coming out, it seems that it has developed a following. But really it is mostly a "pretty okay" game at heart. It's fun, but short and simple. I'm glad to have played it but don't plan exploring the series any further.