TODAY I WATCHED... (Movies, TV) 2019

I've never been a big fan of the TCM flicks either. They're OK I guess but it's still my least favorite of the big horror franchises.

You guys need to go rewatch all the Scream or Halloween or Friday the 13th flicks again to see "big horror franchises" that really suck. Holy crap, the whole Scream franchise sucks from movie 1 IMO. Halloween is OK for the first 2 (and I love the third one which has absolutely nothing to do with the first two) and Friday got stale after 2 movies.

And don't even get me started on the Nightmare On Elm Street franchise which took a great idea and just totally drilled it into the ground.

Ha! I agree with everything you said, except for the Scream series. I thought that was pretty good.

And my take on the Nightmare On Elm Street series is once Freddy became a talkative wisecracker, it went to shit.

Elm Street would be my 2nd least favorite horror franchise, haha. Loved'em when I was a kid but for they've aged about as well as milk.

I didnt mind the "Scream" flicks but I've never felt compelled to re-watch any of 'em either, so it's been years since I've seen any of em.

I will admit that I have a soft spot for certain F13 (part V, VI and VII and the ridiculous "Jason X") and Halloween (II, III and 4) installments, though. The F13's were basically the same movie over and over, so at least you can say they were consistent. On the other hand, the "Halloween" series was all over the map. There are more bad Halloween installments than good ones.

Yeah it's kind of interesting how each franchise has its own quality arc. Nightmare tanks straight DOWN, although I think the biggest misstep was the confused #2 entry. TCM has a variety of titles that just bob to the surface every now and then to remind us that Leatherface is a thing, none that are terrible. Halloween is one big squiggly line, man; you'll get a couple that are interesting and some that are lame and not one of them feel satisfactory to any degree.

F13 though? Hell yeah, that's a ride in so many ways, mostly coasting at or above watchable. No two movies are alike in terms of tone (debatable maybe), yet they copy the same story elements (or however few there are) while shoehorning in little twist to add flavor, like those packets of Crystal Lite. Navigating those films is like going through a series of fun houses. They tend to be pretty awful, but bizarre enough to captivate me to some degree. Note that I still need to see five.

Hellraiser is a franchise I need to finish before delivering a thorough opinion, but I'm up to five and it seems a lot like F13 so far. Haven't seen one I hated.

Don't get me started on Saw.

Slowly kickin' into Schlock-Tober gear with today's double feature:

"Tales of Halloween" (2015)

Cool "Creepshow" style anthology of ten spooky tales, all set in the same small town on Halloween night. Not every segment is a home run but the ones that are have plenty of splashy gore, cheap laughs, and nice nods to classic horror flicks of the past. This one has become an October perennial for me, along with "Trick r' Treat."

"My Name Is Bruce" (2008)

A teenage horror movie fanboy accidentally unleashes a homicidal Chinese demi-god (?) onto his small town. So who's he gonna call? His idol, "Evil Dead" legend Bruce Campbell, of course (who plays himself, and also directs)! When Bruce answers the summons he naturally thinks that this is just another low budget movie gig, but of course he steps up when he eventually realizes that the monster is "real" this time.
Silly slapstick horror fun that gives Bruce a chance to poke fun at himself, his career, and horror movies in general.

Next Of Kin (1985)



A woman inherits a retirement home and soon starts experiencing strange happenings. She soon discovers that her mother experienced the same happenings before she had passed away in this slow moving ineffective thriller.

The Evil (1978)

The

A doctor and his wife buy an old dilapidated mansion to turn it into a rehab home. Unbeknownst to them, the mansion sits on a gateway to hell. Soon they and a group of friends are stuck inside and dealing with the evil. A decent enough movie with an odd casting (Victor Buono as the Devil?)

Dead Of Night (1977)



A 1977 anthology movie by Dan Curtis with 3 stories from Richard Matheson. No blood and just a little violence (it was a tv movie after all) but a cool little peak into how awesome 70s tv was.

Mayhem (2017)



A virus that causes its victims to act out their wildest impulses spreads throughout a high rise just after a lawyer is wrongly fired from his job. With an antigen being pumped into the ventilation system, the lawyer,along with a woman who also holds a grudge against the firm, decides to fight his way to the penthouse office of the board to make things right. An enjoyable violent dark comedy.

I just watched the newest Family Guy episode.

The Walking Dead season premiered

So this is pretty cool. Back in 1991 there was a made-for-TV movie that aired on ABC called "The Hit Man," not to be confused with a same-titled Chuck Norris video that came out the same year. I loved this movie as a kid. Basically the story has a Spielberg-level celebrity film director (played by the engaging Dennis Boutsikaris) employing his crew and elaborate special FX to overthrow a loan shark. Think of it as a young viewer's version of the FX movies. I saw it once, when it premiered, thought it was great fun, and never saw it again. It's been entirely unavailable in any format since except for a uber-rare Swedish PAL cassette (under the name "Chaos in Hollywood"). There's little-to-no info about this movie on the internet. Even IMDB has only a bare entry on it. I thought this title lost and confined entirely to what little memory I'd had of it...

Until recently. It may be the quality of raw sewage (it's the PAL cassette), but thanks to a kind internet stranger, I've been able to revisit The Hit Man. It was like a nostalgic gut punch!

"Creepshow 2" (1987)

Sequel to the classic 1982 Stephen King/George Romero anthology classic features three new tales of terror, involving a vengeful cigar-store Indian, a carnivorous oil slick, and (in the best segment of the three) a hit-and-run victim who refuses to die ("Thanks for the ride, lady!").
It's cheaper looking and not as good as the original, of course, but "2" is still good enough for a few Halloween season laughs.

Lone Wolf (1988)



An aspiring rock band and a group of high school students investigate a series of murders in the nights of the full moon, attributed to a pack of wild dogs. Not a very good movie, with actors way too old to be playing high school kids, some suspect acting, and cheapo looking gore (what little there is).

Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance.

I've never seen anything like it. Hell, it makes Game of Thrones (I gave up on that dumb show, btw) look like Flash Gordon. Can't wait to watch the old movie after finishing the series. Since the movie has a paper-thin story (but boy does it look fancy hoo), I'm happy to see the series really dive into an established narrative. Never known of a prequel that has actually improved a franchise like this one.

And no, it's not for children.

Quote :

"Tales of Halloween" (2015)

Cool "Creepshow" style anthology of ten spooky tales, all set in the same small town on Halloween night. Not every segment is a home run but the ones that are have plenty of splashy gore, cheap laughs, and nice nods to classic horror flicks of the past. This one has become an October perennial for me, along with "Trick r' Treat."

I looked this up on Amazon and discovered I can watch it for free with my Prime membership. I've never seen it so I'll check it out once the MLB post-season winds down.

tohostudios wrote:

Quote :

"Tales of Halloween" (2015)

Cool "Creepshow" style anthology of ten spooky tales, all set in the same small town on Halloween night. Not every segment is a home run but the ones that are have plenty of splashy gore, cheap laughs, and nice nods to classic horror flicks of the past. This one has become an October perennial for me, along with "Trick r' Treat."

I looked this up on Amazon and discovered I can watch it for free with my Prime membership.  I've never seen it so I'll check it out once the MLB post-season winds down.

Cool, man... I think you should dig it!

It's got a ways to go to top that Christmas horror anthology flick you turned me on to a few years back; the one with William Shatner as a DJ doing the "wraparound" that ties the whole thing together.  I watch that EVERY year between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

tohostudios wrote:

It's got a ways to go to top that Christmas horror anthology flick you turned me on to a few years back; the one with William Shatner as a DJ doing the "wraparound" that ties the whole thing together.  I watch that EVERY year between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Yeah that's a great one too! I need to revisit that one this year, it's been a while.

Vampire Circus (1972)



15 years after dispatching a vampire count, a village is cursed by a plague and quarantined from the outside world. A travelling circus somehow appears despite armed roadblocks into the village and sets up to entertain the village. In actuality, the circus is inhabited by vampires seeking revenge on the village for the destruction of the count. Fun stuff in this Hammer Films outing.

More Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance.

YellowBrickRoad(2010)-During the 1940s, the people of the small town of Friar, New Hampshire disappeared without a trace. Years later, a team wanting to write a book about the legend travel to the location to do researcher. Soon, strange occurrences start to happen threating not only the project, but the lives of the team members themselves as they try to make it alive. YellowBrickRoad starts out very promising as the film has a nice, slow build up and has some creepy atmosphere going for it. However, once the action starts to kick in, that's where the movie starts to unravel a little for me as what exactly is happening to them is never really explained and that just frustrates the hell out of me. As you might expect, there are some parallels between this movie others like The Blair Witch Project, and it's well made, it just lost me with all the unanswered questions. I give it 2 out 5.

Grotesque (1988)



Linda Blair stars as a girl ,along with her friend, visiting her family in the mountains right before a group of punks descend on the home in hopes for robbing them. Things get out of hand and murders start happening. Unknown to the punks, the family houses a terrible secret. I really don't know what to say about this one. It starts out as a standard "monster" flick but then takes a weird turn and has an ending from out of left field. Weird

Ha, my day took a downward turn coming in here to all the comments about Hallowee, F13th, NOES, Scream and TCM. Pretty much my life's blood. Ha.

Anyway, last night I watched Hack O' Lantern. That movie was an experience.

At one point a dude dreams he is playing guitar for DC La Croix, and the song kicks ass. Always heard of that band, and now I will be checking them out further.

Midsommnar by Ari Aster, director of Hereditary.

I can't say I enjoyed this as much as Midsommnar. It would take an essay to explain why. But still a great diversion from all the cookie-cutter horror Hollywood has been churning out.

I still recommend the HELL out of Hereditary. What a fever dream.

EDIT: Just found out there's a director's cut around with a whopping 30m edited in!

ZombieHavoc wrote:

Ha, my day took a downward turn coming in here to all the comments about Hallowee, F13th, NOES, Scream and TCM. Pretty much my life's blood. Ha.

Anyway, last night I watched Hack O' Lantern. That movie was an experience.

At one point a dude dreams he is playing guitar for DC La Croix, and the song kicks ass. Always heard of that band, and now I will be checking them out further.

Hey, you like what you like; SCREW what anyone else thinks!  
"Hack O' Lantern" is one I've never heard of so I need to scope it out.

Smackdown