Enuffa.com: 31 Horror Movies in 31 Days

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Wednesday, November 4, 2015

31 Horror Movies in 31 Days: Psycho

by Dan Moore
@SouthieDanimal

The final review #31Movies31Days

Psycho (1960)

Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Starring: Anthony Perkins, Vera Miles, John Gavin, Martin Balsam, John McIntire, Janet Leigh

This was it. The big one. The very first horror movie I ever saw in my life. Psycho. I watched it at my Aunt's house on the Movie Loft with Dana Hersey on WSBK TV 38, Boston. And it scared the bejesus out of me. The requisite "no more showers" was promised by myself, and I'm quite sure I held onto that pledge for a solid week.

The plot, of course, involves Norman Bates and his eponymous hotel. When Marion Crane, who is on the run after robbing her boss of $40,000, checks in, she meets this strange boy who has an even stranger infatuation with his little-seen mother. Mother resides in the creepy house overlooking the hotel, and if I thought the hospital in Session 9 was scary, check this shit out.

BURN IT! BURN IT ALL DOWN!

The movie is iconic for a myriad of reasons. The house. The hotel. The music. The still-scary-to-this-day shower scene. And of course, Mother.

31 Horror Movies in 31 Days: Session 9

by Dan Moore
@SouthieDanimal

Here we are, the final reviews. Join the discussion on Twitter with #31Movies31Days

Day 30: Session 9 (2001)

Director: Brad Anderson
Starring: David Caruso, Peter Mullan, Stephen Gevedon, Paul Guilfoyle, Josh Lucas, Brendan Sexton III

New shorts. That's what you'll need after watching this one.

The movie's plot involves an asbestos removal company doing a job in a dilapidated mental institute. And the place looks real nice. Honestly.

Perhaps I'll summer here

Strange things start to occur once the crew gets in the building. One of the workers starts listening to old reel-to-reel session recordings, adding an even creepier layer to the happenings and the goings on. To tell more of the plot is not fair to the new viewer. Needless to say, you'll be scared.

31 Horror Movies in 31 Days: Wes Craven's New Nightmare

Day 29: Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994)

Director: Wes Craven
Starring: Heather Langenkamp, Robert Englund, Miko Hughes, John Saxon

Freddy Krueger is one of the Big Five when it comes to your slasher types. Along with Jason, Michael Myers, Leatherface and Chucky, ol' Freddy has been around for decades, hacking up teenagers and making jokes all along the way. A long series of sequels, each varying degrees of quality, really watered down Frederick. This was a character that was a demonic child molester who murdered people in their sleep. He should have been the scariest of the bunch. Instead he became comic relief. And then the studio killed him.

31 Horror Movies in 31 Days: Phantoms

Day 28: Phantoms (1998)

Director: Joe Chappelle

Starring: Peter O'Toole, Rose McGowan, Joanna Going, Liev Schreiber, Ben Affleck, Nicky Katt, Clifton Powell

For years I've been hearing "Affleck was the bomb in Phantoms, yo."

From these two noted film critics

And they're right. He's the bomb, Rose McGowan is the bomb, the plot is the bomb, the special effects is the bomb, the whole friggin' movie is a bomb. This is legitimately one of the worst horror movies I've ever seen. The plot is simple enough: two sisters go on a vacation to a quiet Colorado resort town. When they arrive, everyone's gone, under sinister circumstances.

31 Horror Movies in 31 Days: V/H/S

Day 25: V/H/S (2012)

Day 26: V/H/S/2 (2013)

Day 27: V/H/S Viral (2014)

Director: A buncha different folk
Starring: A buncha other, different folk

Anthology movies are alway an uneven affair. It's their nature. Different writers, actors and directors for each vignette are gonna give you different shifts in tone & talent. These VHS movies are the perfect example of this.

These flicks consist of 4-5 different short, horror movies with a wraparound story that tries to tie everything in together. Right off the bat, I'll let ya know, the wraparound segments are the weakest parts of all three of these movies. I understand the reasoning for these creators to want this to be all part of some grand mythology, but the wraparound plots are so thin, they're pointless. They exist just to link together these other, longer movies, but they're pretty pointless and not scary.

31 Horror Movies in 31 Days: Mimic Trilogy

by Dan Moore

@SouthieDanimal

Join the discussion on Twitter with #31Movies31Days

Day Twenty-Two: Mimic

Director: Guillermo del Toro

Starring: Mira Sorvino, Jeremy Northam, Josh Brolin, Charles S. Dutton, Giancarlo Giannini

F. Murray Abraham

Day Twenty-Three: Mimic 2

Director: Jean de Segonzac

Starring: Edward Albert, Alix Koromzay, Will Estes, Bruno Campos

Day Twenty-Four: Mimic 3:Sentinel

Director: JT Perry

Starring Lance Henriksen, Karl Geary, Alexis Dziena, Rebecca Mader

Del Toro's first English language movie has all the hallmarks of his later, more polished works. There's insects, monsters and dark creepy places. I'm a big fan of his, yet had never watched Mimic before. Did I make a mistake?

31 Horror Movies in 31 Days: Tremors 3, 4 & 5

by Dan Moore
@SouthieDanimal

I love horror movies, so I'm watching one a day in October. There's no rhyme or reason to the flicks I'm watching. Some I've never seen, some I have. Join the discussion on Twitter with #31Movies31Days

In case ya missed it, Jingles and his old lady went to some wedding and couldn't post. So these reviews are from this past weekend. Luckily, I watched three of the same series, so it's Tremors Thursday.

Day Sixteen: Tremors 3: Return to Perfection (2001)

Day Seventeen: Tremors 4: The Legend Begins (2004)

Day Eighteen: Tremors 5: Bloodlines (2015)

Director: No one cares because
Starring: MICHAEL EFFIN' GROSS! (Or for you 80's kids, STEPHEN EFFIN' KEATON!)

You will get no analysis of these movies. Nothing subjective, objective, collective or introspective. No sir. Look elsewhere. The fact is, I love two very dumb things about these movies.

1. Giant desert worms named Graboids. A unique, disgusting horror movie baddie. When they die, the carnage they wrought sounds & looks disgusting.

2. BURT EFFIN' GUMMER (who, if you don't know, is played by MICHAEL EFFIN' GROSS! Ya know, Family Ties dad, STEPHEN EFFIN' KEATON!)

31 Horror Movies in 31 Days: The Lazarus Effect

Day Twenty One: The Lazarus Effect (2015)

Director: David Gelb
Starring: Mark Duplass, Olivia Wilde, Donald Glover, Evan Peters, Sarah Bolger

In a plot line that reminded me of 1990's Flatliners, a bunch of surgeons are working on a serum that's supposed to be used to help coma patients. But in fact, it's able to (DUN-DUN-DUUUUUN!!!) bring the dead back to life.

Duplass and Wilde are the head doctors in this mad scientist's lounge. They're also loooovers. Once they figure out this Romero juice works, the first thing they use it on is a dead dog. He breaks out of his rusty cage which is being guarded by others in the lab. It takes this pup about nine minutes before he goes all Cujo on these sorry sons of bitches. The stunt with the dog gets their funding taken away, so these dopes decide to break in to steal their serum. In a freak accident (Are there any other types in these movies?) Wilde's character gets killed, so of course these geniuses pump her up with reanimating 'roids and she comes back.

31 Horror Movies in 31 Days: Below

Day Twenty: Below (2002)

Director: David Twohy
Starring: Bruce Greenwood, Matthew Davis, Olivia Williams, Holt McCallany, Scott Foley, Zack Galifanakis, Jason Flemyng

Setting a horror movie in a singular location is quite common. A house is your typical haunted setting. Below brings a very unique setting for the haunting. A World War II submarine is where things go awry here. The submarine in question, the USS Tiger Shark, is on patrol somewhere in the Atlantic when they pick up three British survivors, two men and a woman (or as one of the crew puts it "Two teabags and a bleeder"). The woman, Claire (Williams) seems to have a bit of amnesia, and the commanding officer, Lt. Brice (expertly played, as usual by Bruce Greenwood) is very suspicious of the boat's new passengers. They're also being pursued by a German warship and that's when strange noises and occurrences start to happen. Is it a coincidence? Sabotage by the newcomers? Or something supernatural?

First and foremost, the cast is top notch. You'll probably recognize the vast majority of these folk as "that guys." All recognizable faces, and all pros. They all put in great performances (with a semi-serious turn from Galifianakis). I've been a huge fan of Greenwood's since I saw him on an old UPN show, The Nowhere Man. He's got this laid back, Everyman quality to his acting and he's a natural in this as the acting CO, who's only in charge due to the mysterious circumstances surrounding his commander's demise.

31 Horror Movies in 31 Days: The Taking of Deborah Logan

Day Nineteen: The Taking of Deborah Logan

Director: Adam Robitel
Starring: Jill Larson, Anne Ramsay, Michelle Ang & Ryan Cutrona

Another in the found footage genre, The Taking of Deborah Logan is a derivative, boring horror movie. A documentary team is researching Alzheimer's and start filming the elderly Miss Logan, who doesn't want to be filmed. Her daughter reminds them that they need the cash the documentarians are paying for the film. She displays more and more odd behavior, which culminates in a mishmash of a possession plot, demons, haunted house and monster movie.

31 Horror Movies in 31 Days: Saw

Day Fifteen: Saw (2004)

Director: James Wan
Starring: Cary Elwes, Danny Glover, Monica Potter, Michael Emerson, Ken Leung, Tobin Bell, Leigh Whannell

This is not a good movie. It has terrible acting, God awful production value, and one of the most improbable plot twists in movie history. And I love every fucking second of it.

The first in a series of one of the most successful horror franchises of all time, Saw was not at all the type of movie I thought I was going to see alone (shut up) in the old Quincy Center movie theater. From the ads on TV, it played like a ripoff of Se7en. I really didn't foresee the bloody, gory horror movie I was in for. Adam (screenwriter Whannell in his only notable role...seriously, he's awful) and Dr. Lawrence Gordon (Cary Elwes, on a vacation from acting) are trapped in a basement by Jigsaw. He's a non-serial killer, a mysterious dude who goes around kidnapping folk he thinks take their lives for granted. He subjects them to "tests", typically giant torture devices rigged to kill the subjects if they fail to complete 'em in a certain time period. The Doc and Adam gotta get outta the basement or the Doc's family dies.

31 Horror Movies in 31 Days: The Babadook

Day Fourteen: The Babadook (2014)

Director: Jennifer Kent
Starring: Essie Davis, Noah Wiseman, Daniel Henshall, Hayley McElhinney

One of the most critically acclaimed horror movies to come along in years, The Babadook lives up to all the praise it's received. Davis plays Amelia, single mother to Wiseman's Sam. They live alone in a suburb of Australia. Sam's father was killed on the ride to the hospital on the day Sam was born. Neither Sam nor his mother has really ever gotten past this tragedy. Sam is a troubled child both in school and at home, which puts many levels of stress on Amelia. She can barely sleep, her work suffers, as does her relationship with her sister, Claire (McElhinney).

One night, Sam chooses a new book off his shelf for a bedtime story. The book, the Babadook of the title, starts a cycle of terror that swallows up both Amelia and Sam. This strange creature starts haunting the family, making sleeping even more impossible. Amelia slowly slips away psychologically. She's on edge due to her insomnia, her difficult time with her son and of course, the Babadook. She soon realizes that the only way out of this nightmare is to face her fears.

31 Horror Movies in 31 Days: Creep

Day Thirteen: Creep (2014)

Director: Patrick Brice
Starring: Mark Duplass & Patrick Brice

Creep is quite the oddball film. Aaron (Brice) is a videographer who answers a Craigslist ad to film Josef (Duplass, who plays Pete in the FXX comedy series The League). Josef is dying of cancer, and he's paying Aaron a thousand bucks to record a video diary for Josef's unborn son. They're camped out in Josef's remote wooded cabin. What follows is a strange exercise in extreme creepiness.

Throughout their day together, Josef displays some truly bizarre behavior. He has Aaron film him during a bath. He dances around his house in a large wolf mask he calls Peachfuzz that he says he got from his father, but whose origins are much more sinister. You can tell right off there's something majorly incorrect with Josef. It's tough to tell what is truth when he speaks and what is lies. What follows is an odd Fatal Attraction-type stalker film. It's frankly, quite odd and true to the film's name, very creepy.

31 Horror Movies in 31 Days: Friday the 13th (2009)

Day Twelve: Friday the 13th (2009)

Director: Marcus Nispel
Starring: Jared Padalecki, Danielle Panabaker, Amanda Righetti, Travis Van Winkle, Derek Mears, Willa Ford

I love me some Voorhees. When this reboot came out, it was one I was actually looking forward to. The man in the hockey mask has been a staple of my horror movie viewing for as long as I can remember. I was hoping this movie wouldn't disappoint. It didn't.

A combination of essentially the first three Friday movies, this new generation version comes outta the gates hot. It dispenses with the Mrs. Voorhees killer quickly, and moves on immediately to our favorite homicidal goalie. Jason is your standard isolated murderer, just wanting to be left alone in his campgrounds. When some uppity teenagers try to steal his weed, he slaughters them all, save one. A young lady that reminds our little mama's boy about his mama. So he keeps her, setting off our plot of a new group of teens going to look for their kidnapped friend.

31 Horror Movies in 31 Days: Dark Was The Night

by Dan Moore

@SouthieDanimal

I love horror movies, so I'm watching one a day in October. There's no rhyme or reason to the flicks I'm watching. Some I've never seen, some I have. Join the discussion on Twitter with #31Movies31Days

Day Eleven: Dark Was The Night (2014)

Director: Jack Heller

Starring: Kevin Durand, Lukas Haas & Bianca Kajlich

There's a sense of impending doom that permeates throughout the entire film Dark Was The Night. And that's a good thing. A very good thing. It's the story about a small town sheriff named Paul (Durand) who is racked with guilt over a recent personal tragedy. He's estranged from his wife (Kajlich) as they share parenting duties. Paul wakes up one morning to see that throughout the entire town are weird hoof tracks that have set the whole community into a panic. It's up to our intrepid sheriff to see if it's just a teenage prank or if he should listen more closely to the towns folk mythical creature stories (spoiler: it's the latter).

31 Horror Movies in 31 Days: Drive-Thru

Day Ten: Drive-Thru (2007)

Directors: Brendan Cowles & Shane Kuhn
Starring: Leighton Meester, Nicholas D'Agosto, Melora Hardin, Larry Joe Campbell & Lola Glaudini

And I thought ATM was stupid? Holy SHIT this movie is dumb. Horny the Clown, yes HORNY THE FUCKING CLOWN, is the mascot at Hella Burger. He's also a serial killer. He's bumping off all the neighborhood kids and customers. Which probably won't help with Hella Burger's IPO. One of the kids, Mackenzie (Meester), starts to see a pattern as the kids getting bumped off all happen to be the children of a group of parents that accidentally murdered neighborhood weirdo Archie Benjamin on his 18th birthday. Is Horny the Clown Archie come back for revenge by killing the children of his murderers? Is this plot a sad rip off of Nightmare on Elm Street? Did I really watch a movie with a killer named Horny?

31 Horror Movies in 31 Days: The Monster Squad

Day Nine: The Monster Squad

Director: Fred Dekker
Starring: Andre Gower,Duncan Regehr, Stephen Macht, Stan Shaw, Tom Noonan

After viewing the despicable Cannibal Holocaust yesterday, I had to cleanse my pallet. I needed something easy to watch. Something fun. Something with nards. Yes people, the time had come for The Monster Squad. A true classic from my childhood. It's about a bunch of misfit kids fighting off the re-imagined Universal monsters. But you know that already, right? Because if you haven't seen this flick at least 100 times, GET THE HELL OUT OF MY OFFICE!

31 Horror Movies in 31 Days: Cannibal Holocaust

Day Eight: Cannibal Holocaust

This is the nicest poster I could find

Director: Ruggero Deodato
Starring: A buncha people you've never heard of nor care about.

A dumb American camera crew goes to the Amazon and disappears. Later on, an anthropologist leads a rescue group to try to find them. They meet the hostile, cannibalistic tribe, and retrieve the film the other Americans filmed. What follows is some of the most raw, exploitative, violent footage mine eyes have ever seen.

What can be said about this movie that hasn't already been said in the last 35 years? Easily the most despicable, disgusting film I've ever seen. It's a very strange movie. The narrative is set up in such an odd way, going back and forth from New York, as they explain about the expedition and discovery of the films, talking about the original film crew, moving onto the rescue efforts, and ultimately showing the snuff-style footage that was documented by the first crew. Interspersed between all this are appalling scenes of authentic looking tortures and death. The whole while, the strangely beautiful score by Riz Ortolan plays under scenes that get increasingly hard to watch. For example, look at this scene:

31 Horror Movies in 31 Days: YellowBrickRoad

Day Seven: YellowBrickRoad (2010)

Director: Jesse Holland and Andy Mitton
Starring: Cassidy Freeman, Anessa Ramsey and Laura Heisler

Solid premise to this one. During WWII, the population of a town in New Hampshire just ups and vanishes. They walk up a mountain trail and disappear into the woods, like a bunch of untrained Bear Grylls (so just like the real Bear Grylls). Decades later, an expedition is set up to see what happened to these meandering folk in the wilderness. While this group treks out there, some sort of strange music is heard the whole way, confusing the group's navigation and driving certain members of the party nutso. They either off themselves or others. This first hour is really cool. I bought into the whole concept. The freaky music was eerie as shit. It was very unsettling and had the perfect effect for a horror movie.

31 Horror Movies in 31 Days: Curse of Chucky

Day Six: Curse of Chucky

Director: Don Mancini
Starring: Fiona Dourif, Danielle Bisutti, A. Martinez and Brad Dourif

I was ten years old when I saw the original Child's Play in 1989 (it came out in '88). I was at Timmy Bothwell's house for his birthday. His parents rented it from Video Paradise on Broadway in South Boston. All my little friends watched and laughed along. I did too. But I was scared shitless. That little doll wreaking havoc all over the place frightened me, mainly because I had a My Buddy doll at home. He resided in the basement for his life's duration after seeing this flick.

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