Hey there horror watchers! It’s been quite a year this year. And if you’re anything like me, you have felt some of your motivation wane as the months go by during this pandemic. I am grateful to have the opportunity to work from home during this time (yup, WFH since March 2020) and it has been both a blessing (less chances of getting/getting others sick) and something else (my motivation for most things is a constant struggle).
I’m not going to lie, it’s been difficult to sit down and read a book for fun or watch a movie sometimes. My husband and I were on a movie streak for awhile, and we got a little burned out. But, now we’re back at it with watching some horror every now and then. I thought it was about time I came back and reviewed some movies series. Plus, I have a Halloween movie marathon going. You can keep track of that here at my Letterboxd: https://boxd.it/8nblI My next posts might be some mini reviews of the horror I’ve seen this year. Some that I even hinted at back in February! Oh, younger me didn’t know what was to come lol So, I hope you haven’t abandoned me quite yet. It is October - what a great season to be here and spooky!
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Hello there! I've been gone for SUCH A LONG TIME. What can I say? Life gets in the way sometimes, ammiright? There will be some new reviews coming up - good and bad. So far this year, I've seen Doctor Sleep, Black Christmas, The Grudge... So, you have that to look forward to! (Am I being sarcastic? Maybe a little since my views of these movies are a little all over the board). But, let's backtrack a little since the last time you heard from me, I was going to do a movie challenge...which I did! Kinda... If you remember, this was my Horror Movie Marathon challenge: So - the movies I have seen since posting this are as follows (and they weren't all during October, but a good chunk of them were):
- Halloween (2018) - The Conjuring - What Lies Beneath - Trick R Treat - The Craft (Movie party at the Alamo Drafthouse woo!) - Paranormal Activity Saga (ALL!) - Sleepaway Camp - Scream (Movie party at the Alamo Drafthouse woo!) - 1408 (I watched this at work with my co-workers and boss as part of a friend's birthday party - more on that later!) - Zodiac - Truth or Dare These were super fun to revisit. I ended up enjoying Halloween (2018) and Trick R Treat a lot more than the first time I watched them. It was my first time watching Sleepaway Camp and I truly enjoyed its twist and campy-ness (in all meanings of the term ha!). I will be looking to watch the other movies, so look out for a new challenge for myself soon! So all in all - I'm still here and I still want to make something of this blog - Thanks for hitchin' a ride :) and stay tuned! We can debate forever about whether some of these are horror movies...but I'm not going to because I think each of these has at least horror elements to it. **I have also chosen two alternatives that will also try to watch: House of a 1000 Corpses and The Devil's Rejects. I am not a fan of Rob Zombie movies, but a friend keeps recommending them and I've added them to my mental list.
Synopsis
After a look-alike takes over her account, a cam girl with a growing fan base sets out to identify the mysterious culprit and reclaim her own identity. Possible Triggers: self-harm, paranoia, stalking Review Hey everyone! I'm back! I've watched a few movies while I have been away and I thought I'd start my time back with a Netflix original, Cam. I became interested in this movie after listening to an episode of Books in the Freezer and one of the hosts, Stephanie, mentions it as her non book thing of the week. By the way, this is a fantastic horror book podcast! I love their themes for each episode and I appreciate all the other movies and series they recommend. Lola is a cam girl who desperately wants to be at the top of the cam ratings. Even though she has a set of rules she abides by, Lola goes to great lengths to get where she wants to be - which means that some of her backstories to her cam times start to include some violence. After a night of co-hosting a cam time with a fellow cam girl, Lola wakes up to find that she can no longer login to her account. More unsettling, she notices that her channel is currently streaming. Live. Who is pretending to be Lola? Is she pretending at all? To be honest, I thought this movie was going to be a gratuitous movie - an excuse to see some boobs. Now, don't get me wrong, there are boobs, but there is an actual story to go along with the boobs. It was interesting to see the background of a cam girl (not sure how close to life this is, however), but most enjoyable was to feel the desperation that Lola feels as she tries to gain control of her account and her life again. It's a tangible fear that we get from Lola - something done extremely right by the actress, Madeline Brewer. I don't know what other movies Brewer has been in, but I'd definitely check out other stuff from her. The movie was interesting, fast paced, and had me very curious. The ending was a bit ambiguous, but it didn't deter me from recommending it to others. Upon thinking about the ending, I can see how it is both interesting and plays flat. Click below to see my thoughts about the end (SPOILER!) However, overall I very much enjoyed it and have added it to my To Be Recommended list! Hello fellow horror lovers. I have something more personal to share with you today. If that's not your deal, feel free to stop by again soon - I'll be back to the usual programming soon.
It'll be a week tomorrow since an individual targeting Mexicans attacked innocent people at a local WalMart in my hometown of El Paso, Texas. There have been plenty of articles and news bites talking about my beloved city. Some of it true, some of it stretched. My reality and truth is that El Paso is my home - I was born and raised here and I can't see myself anywhere else. A lot of it because of roots...and now much more because of how hesitant I am of the world outside of home. When people say El Paso is different than other cities, it is not just us being naive or oblivious - El Paso is truly different. Time moves slower and it's more enjoyable. The people are sweet and helpful. Some parts of the city and its people are stuck in a different time. I found myself angry, sad, and distraught after Saturday's events. I work in mental health and I know that these feelings will stay with me for awhile...maybe forever in differing degrees. I find myself wanting some solace in cheap reality television (hello Big Brother), and horror. I started re-watching the Scream series on Netflix and I'm looking forward to staying home this weekend and checking out La Llorona. At the same time that I'm finding my peace in a genre known for its lack of peace, I'm wondering how I can do that. Is it because I've watched horror since I was a kid? Because I've been reading ghost stories since I could pick up a book? Horror, by definition, incites anxiety - so how can it help me with my own very real anxiety? Although it is coming from a different POV than me, I find the article How Horror is My Coping Mechanism by Paul Le describes it best when he says, "More than ever, I relate to the desire for survival." I honestly never would have thought of it in that way, but now that I read that line - it makes sense to me. There is comfort in its familiarity, but now? Yes, I find comfort in survival. Annabelle Comes Home Synopsis While babysitting the daughter of Ed and Lorraine Warren, a teenager and her friend unknowingly awaken an evil spirit trapped in a doll. Review Guys. GUYS. My lovely husband took me to watch Annabelle Comes Home last night for the 10:30 pm showing. I was so excited. I found the movie to be so quiet and spooky. It is truly a classic ghost story in my opinion. I wasn't a HUGE fan of the first Annabelle, but I can appreciate aspects of it after seen Annabelle: Creation. The atmosphere of the most recent addition mimics the mood of the sequel which I very much enjoyed. I especially enjoyed the addition of the "babysitting" aspect that we get in other movies. There are definitely some break-the-tension moments that I don't feel interrupted the mood too much which was great. Let me just say - thank goodness for Bob hahaha The theater we went to was eerily quiet throughout this movie and I was so thankful for it because the movie itself was quiet which just added to the whole ambiance of the film. I look forward to marathoning the Annabelle movies once this one is out on Blu Ray/streaming...and maybe even the whole Conjuring/Warren universe as well. There's Nothing Out There Synopsis See the original film that inspired SCREAM! Three hot body teens look to get away for the weekend at a vacation house on the lake. Little do they know that There's Something Out There! An creature that wants to eat the men and mate with the women. "When a horror film buff tries to warn his friends of impending danger during March Break, they scoff at him, that is, until sinister things begin to happen." (IMDb) Review How could I not watch a movie that people claim inspired one of my ultimate favorite movies, Scream? I was happy to see that Amazon Prime had this to stream, and well...it was quite an experience lol. I want to first add that I believe we can VERY LOOSELY RANDOMLY say that this movie "inspired" Scream. There was definitely some meta stuff going on with one of the main characters being a horror buff. This character, Mike, also gets major points for his fantastic one-liners ("We don't know anything about this creature other than it, like everyone else, hates a mouth full of shaving cream."). He is definitely worth watching this movie for - he's so funny. This movie was definitely more on the comedic side of horror and I can't say I regret watching it! It was out there, dated, but a lot of fun. This week has been quite a week for me in regards to horror movies. I was scrolling down the Alamo Drafthouse app seeing what was going on for that night, and came across Pyewacket. It got my attention because it only had one movie showing for 10:30 pm. Then I read the description and was sold. Talk about witchy goodness. This movie is about teenager Leah (Nicole Muñoz) who currently lives with her grieving mother. Leah's father has passed away, leaving mother and daughter angry and frustrated with each other. Leah, along with her friends, seems to have found solace in the occult. And when Leah's mom decides moving to a secluded cabin in the next town over is best for them to move forward, it sets off a chain of events that no one saw coming. After a particularly explosive argument with her mother, Leah uses her collection of occult texts and places a death curse on her mother. What follows is definitely a descent into a darkness Leah never understood or intended to fall into. I was so happy to have gone out on a limb for this movie. It gave me what I most love in horror movies: a slow burn, witchy goodness, and tension tension tension. This is definitely for fans of The Invitation, and The House of the Devil. Okay - SPOILERS. I thought it was great that most of the movie surrounds Leah. Her actions, regrets, and her fear. We get sucked into her perspective and we can feel the anger toward her mother, as well as the pain when she realizes what a huge mistake she's made. We even fall into her madness when, at the end of the movie, she fulfills her own curse - exactly what Pyewacket wants. Also, the total book nerd in me loved that she went to a book signing at the library for an occult writer's latest work. What kind of library is this??? And there were a lot of people! Sorry, I geeked out, not because I'm "into" the occult, but because...book nerd. The visuals are fantastic, and the unveiling of Pyewacket was creepy as hell! It totally gave me some Japanese-horror movie vibes with that visual. Totally not a bad thing! Guys. Guuyyyyyyyysssss. Look at that poster. Damn. That is scary. So, I have half a day off on Wednesdays, and I get out at noon. I usually run errands or go home and sleep (ha). Yesterday (a Wednesday), however, I decided I wanted to go to the movies. My husband likes horror movies that are more of the possession/paranormal kind, whereas I love them all (mostly). The original The Strangers movie had really terrified me because home invasion movies are the one type of horror movie genre that truly scares me. I think it's because it's something that actually can happen, has happened, and will happen to people. But I digress. (Beware, spoilers - read after you watch) There wasn't much of a backstory with this one, and to be honest, we don't need one. The whole point of this movie is that it doesn't matter who the people are, both victims and perpetrators. All that matters is that...well, it doesn't matter. So, we meet this family who is on their way to taking their teen daughter to what seems to be a boarding school because she's gotten into a lot of trouble. Mom and Dad (Christina Hendricks and Martin Hendersen, respectively) are in the front seats, and in the back we have older, more responsible son, Luke (Lewis Pullman), and next to him, the "bad kid", Kinsey (Bailee Madison). They stop for the night at Martin's uncle's trailer park which happens to be empty due to it not being tourist season in that area. And that's just when stuff starts happening. The family is terrorized by 3 strangers, two have Dollface masks, and the other just a burlap sack over "his" head. They are persistent, and remorseless. The parents don't make it very far in the movie, leaving Luke and Kinsey to try and outsmart and outrun the three strangers. The mix of quiet, Kinsey's panicked breathing, and a warped playlist really did a number on me in the theater. The music, music that I LOVE, came to really creep me out. To give an example - the movie begins with The Muffs's Kids in America, the same song that the Clueless movie plays in the beginning. That - really freaked me out. The position of certain songs played extremely well with what was happening in the movie. Light-hearted pop hits all of a sudden turn ominous. This movie truly pays homage to the Final Girl trope. Though we see both Luke and Kinsey being strong, it is truly Kinsey who is left to deal with the strangers. The part that made me catch my breath was when Kinsey gets a hold of a gun and actually shoots one of the strangers. She doesn't kill Dollface at first, and chooses to remove the mask. What Kinsey reveals is a plain-but-crazed-looking blond girl. Kinsey asks her why they've done this to her family, and the girl responds with a "Why not?". And that's the part I truly find terrifying. There is no motive. There is nothing here against Kinsey and her family - except their existence. Except that they were convenient. There is no answer to all your questions. The Strangers also gives us a throwback to classic horror movies, most notably The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. In the last scene, we see Kinsey having escaped to the main highway, and is actually able to flag down a woman driving a pick up truck with her bored looking son on the passenger side. The woman stops her truck and gets down to ask Kinsey if she's okay, only to back away quickly and back into the cab - because the Ax Guy is standing right behind Kinsey, wielding his weapon of choice. In a blindingly quick thinking move, Kinsey hops onto the bed of the truck, yelling at the woman to gun it. Ax Guy has managed to hold on and keeps trying to take out Kinsey, but, oh, what does Kinsey find in the bed of the truck? That's right, a baseball bat. Thwack - goodbye Ax Guy. We later see Kinsey wake up in a hospital chair next to Luke who is laying in bed and connected to tubes. Kinsey stands up to grab a cup of water, only to drop it after hearing a loud knocking at the door. And that's where the movie ends. This ending appears ambiguous - has a member of the family survived? Are we going to see them murder Kinsey? Is it just a nurse knocking before entering? Who really knows. My opinion? We're shown Kinsey's reaction to the knocking in order to show how far deep her trauma is. A knock will never again just be a knock to Kinsey or her brother. I recommend this movie to all horror fans, especially those extra-terrified of home invasion. This movie moved away from the home invasion aspect of the first movie, but it is fast paced and still an invasion. I truly enjoyed the movie, and thought it was filmed in a spectacular way. During a night of 1983 with full lunar eclipse, Samantha Hughes takes a babysitting job surrounded by mysterious circumstances before she finds out her client's terrifying secret. Review This 2009 horror movie has a great 1970s-1980s vibe. The look of the video is even just the tiniest bit grainy. The viewer watches as the build up of terror happens around Samantha, a poor college student who is trying to make some extra cash to move out of campus housing. What was supposed to be a simple babysitting job turns out to be something much worse. Definitely a must see if ... well, I don't want to give it away. Let's just say the movie plays on some real fears people were having in the 1970s-1980s. |