Rate the Last Film You Watched

[HWR]

31 Days of Halloween 2024! Day II: eXistenZ (1999, David Cronenberg)


Halloween wouldn’t be complete without at least one David Cronenberg film making the list, and eXistenZ is one I’ve been meaning to check out for a while now. This film sees Cronenberg melding his body-horror auteurist approach with the subject matter of video games being ported right into the body.

There’s something fascinating about the premise and seeing the ending come together (whilst explaining the random accents and slightly off-kilter performances - or does it?), and despite not being one Cronenberg’s strongest efforts this was still worth the watch. 3.5/5

 

[Vincentdante]

Day 2



First time checking out a Hitchcock film. As a movie this was pretty damn good actually. It's a product of it's time but not really in a negative way. Everything it does, other movies have since done 100 times over by now, but what it does is still very well executed. Which is definitely more than I can say for other famous "firsts" I have checked out (Night of the Living Dead comes to mind).

The characters behaved in a believable manner, the actors all did their job very well. There wasn't any mystery to the movie, no asking who is behind the hockey mask as we all know who the killer is. So we are just watching the characters figure out what the audience already knows, but that's fine as well in it's own way. Honestly I'm finding it difficult to talk about without going into spoilers, this is a movie that once shocked audiences but by modern standards it's inoffensive at worst, and that's a pretty strange to consider by itself.

Score: Pulling back the shower curtain / 10

 

[HWR]

31 Days of Halloween 2024! Day III: Bride of Chucky (1998, Ronny Yu), Seed of Chucky (2004, Don Mancini)



After the Child’s Play films began to lose their lustre the series was reimagined with these two features from Ronny Yu and Don Mancini, whose takes are overall more comedic and made for a change of pace from the straight slasher horror predecessors.

Bride is certainly the stronger film on offer here, carving a firm fun identity with Tiffany being a good foil for Chucky’s expanded role here. Seed, meanwhile, goes a bit too far with the comedy and overall oddness - Glen’s inclusion is a mixed bag too. This is still a slightly better entry than the second film though and it has John Waters in a memorable role so there’s that.

However, I can see why the series went back to its horror routes with the next entries - those will come tomorrow alongside a Chucky-themed documentary. 3.5/5, 2.5/5

 

[Vincentdante]

Day 3



Cabin in the Woods

This is a second viewing on Amazon Prime but this is a really good movie. This movie is best described as a tear down of the horror genre. It is for the most part a "cabin in the woods" movie with evil zombie hillbillies as the title lets on. This is a movie that uses every trope you can think off and then proceeds to tell you exactly what is going to happen and then amazes you when it does, because that's the point of this movie.

On top of being a cabin in the woods movie this is also basically an SCP movie in all but name, anyone who knows what SCP are will get the reference I am sure, plus there are a lot of other famous movie references mingled in for fans of the genre to enjoy.

Score: Contained / 10

 

[Vincentdante]

Day 4



Sleepy Hollow

It's kind of debatable if this is a horror flick or not, but it's definitely a folktale with witches and dullahans so I still consider it seasonal. Set at the turn of the century when science meets superstition it's an interesting classic that mixes both elements to tell a pretty unique murder mystery with supernatural elements. I only have one criticism and that is the ending not really covering what constable Crane is going to do to prove the case he was sent out to actually achieve. I guess that whole plot thread of "science is the future and I will prove it" was deemed unimportant.

Score: Found my head / 10

 

[HWR]

31 Days of Halloween 2024! Day IV: Curse of Chucky (2013, Don Mancini), Cult of Chucky (2017, Don Mancini), Living With Chucky (2022, Kyra Elise Gardner)




Both Curse and Cult of Chucky try interesting new ways of keeping the series fresh, with Curse taking on a more psychological approach to its horror, and Curse going back to the stories’ roots by bringing back Andy Barclay from the original trilogy.

I enjoyed both of these and thought they were consistently good. It also took me a stupid amount of time to figure out that the lead in both films is Brad Dourif’s daughter Fiona Dourif, and she gives a great performance throughout.

The Living with Chucky documentary, meanwhile, was part series retrospective part insight into the life of the documentarian and her personal experience with how the series affected her growing up, making for a very mixed bag I would love to see a Crystal Lake Memories/Never Sleep Again style documentary one day. 3.5/5, 3.5/5, 3/5

 

[HWR]

31 Days of Halloween 2024! Day V: Witchfinder General (1968, Michael Reeves), The Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971, Piers Haggard)



Two entries from Tigron films courtesy of 88Films’ new 4K releases, offering a slice of British horror in this marathon. Both of these offer some great performances and solid folk horror experiences, with WG boasting a typically great Vincent Price performance whilst the latter has an especially gruesome sequence involving a girl (portrayed by Wendy Padbury of Doctor Who fame) being targeted against her will for a deadly ritual. 3.5/5, 3.5/5

 

[Vincentdante]

Day 5



Shutter

According to Wikipedia this was originally a Thai film remade by Americans during the Asian horror boon who then filmed it in Japan. Feels kind of disrespectful.

Well I can't comment on the Thai original film as that wasn't available to me but this version I can say was not great. It relies too much on jump scares that were kind of comical once the shock wore off. The story is about a newly wed couple who go to Japan for a work trip as the husband is a professional a photographer. The trip doesn't go so well after the wife runs over the ghost girl on their way to their new studio, resulting in ghost girl haunting the husband for the rest of the movie by ruining his pictures. The idea this movie presents is that the ghost can only be seen on photography, except that they throw that whole idea out the window in act 3.

Turns out at the end ghost girl was in love with husbando and if she can't have him no one can. But don't feel bad for him, he's kind of a dick and deserves it. I will avoid spoilers though.

Score: Yandere ghost girl / 10

 

[HWR]

31 Days of Halloween 2024! Day VI: The Lawnmower Man (1992, Brett Leonard), Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace (1996, Farhad Mann)



A Stephen King adaptation and its sequel that I can’t imagine many asked for. These films (especially the first) made an ambitious use of CGI which has aged especially poorly, but I do appreciate the filmmakers experimenting with the technology.

The first film has some rather interesting ideas but also comes off as slightly ridiculous in places, and the director’s cut doesn’t really justify its length, but it was an entertaining enough film despite its flaws. The sequel, however, is very messy and doesn’t provide the same level of fun, making instead for a rather poor and underwhelming sequel. 3/5, 1.5/5

 

[Vincentdante]

Day 6



The Wicker Man

The OG folk horror. Midsommer could never etc. A very surreal look at life on an island full of cultists with a ton of religious undertones kind of makes it a Christian horror in many ways. I knew the ending before coming into this which ruined the shock factor unfortunately but it was worth a watch all the same.

Score: Blood for the blood god / 10

 

[Geriatric hedgehog]

A Stephen King adaptation and its sequel that I can’t imagine many asked for.

I didn't know that it was a Stephen King adaptation, always wanted to but never got around to watching it in the nineties. If they ever put it on terrestrial TV, like channel 4, I'd certainly like to give it a go.

Day 6

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The Wicker Man

The OG folk horror. Midsommer could never etc. A very surreal look at life on an island full of cultists with a ton of religious undertones kind of makes it a Christian horror in many ways. I knew the ending before coming into this which ruined the shock factor unfortunately but it was worth a watch all the same.

Score: Blood for the blood god / 10

Classic! I watched it for the first time only a few years back and whilst I didn't know the ending, as you said it has been done so many times now that it wasn't really shocking. But I still found it excellent and not forgetting the legendary Christopher Lee. As you said Midsommar could never and all. I thought the latter was quite overrated, not to mention with terrible acting in my opinion. There is a very good British one in this mould from a currently prominent Brit director, from the 2010s I think, that I won't mention just in case of spoilers, but will to see if that comes up in any of you guys' posts.

Don't have much time on my hands for my version of Octoberfest but can't decide what I should fit in. Series may be easier... Maybe I'll rewatch the two Boogiepops that I've been wanting to, but then maybe I should go for something from my list that I haven't seen like Ghost Hunt. Or I'll just do a Netflix where I spend the whole October browsing my options and not actually watching anything

 

[HWR]

Yeah the Lawnmower Man is based on a Stephen King short story from 1975, Reportedly though it barely adapts the story at all and King actually sued to get his name removed from the film in the end.

 

[HWR]

31 Days of Halloween 2024! Day VII: The Crow (1994, Alex Proyas)


The Crow is moody and broody with a damn good soundtrack and a stylised approach that makes for a great watch.

The story is a basic revenge tale as a man murdered by a criminal gang is given a second chance of life and dispatched of them one by one, all while gradually gaining the trust of a police Sergeant (Ernie Hudson) who is meant to be tracking him down.

Of course, the breakout role in this film is Brandon Lee’s, who was killed during production owing to an onset incident involving a prop gun, and it’s an absolute tragedy Lee didn’t get to do more films as his performance here should have been the breakout role of his career. 4/5

 

[Vincentdante]

Day 7

I cheated. Instead of a movie I played a bit of forbidden siren. It's a good if very difficult horror game from the creators of Silent Hill.

 

[Vincentdante]

Day 8



Ju-on: the curse 2

After watching the first one last year this was overdue. I'm glad I waited in some regards as 20 minutes of the runtime was old footage from the first movie. The new stuff however expands on already existing characters. Showing the fate of the people that we didn't see before and watching the curse spread to other locations. I enjoyed it but it wasn't as strong as the first curse movie

Score: Meow / 10

 

[HWR]

31 Days of Halloween 2024! Day VIII: Scream and Scream Again (1970, Gordon Hessler), The Horrible Dr. Hichcock (1962, Riccardo Freda)



As I whittle away at my Radiance Films backlog, I have a number of horror films to watch, the first one being one of British origin in SaSA which stars legends Peter Cushing, Vincent Price, and Christopher Lee, making for a stacked cast (Peter Sallis and, bizarrely, 60s act Amen Corner pop up as well.)

However, these acting legends seldom interact except for one scene, and Cushing shares no screen time with Price and Lee at all, which is disappointing. The science-fiction horror plot here that around several plot threads during its run time and the tone is all over the place, making for a more muddled than enjoyable experience.

The second watch of the evening, THDH, is an Italian gothic horror film focusing on the vile titular character and his charades involving killing his wife whilst enacting his kink for the deceased, only for her to come back to life as he attempts his sinister tricks on a new victim. Robert Flemyng and Barbara Steele are solid leads here and Riccardo Freda offers some fittingly atmospheric direction with a wonderful mansion setting. 2.5/5, 3/5

 

[HWR]

31 Days of Halloween 2024! Day IX: Visible Secret (2001, Ann Hui)


Whilst the acting and some of the special effects were decent here, I found this just a bit on the underwhelming side, despite some effective moments of horror. This has a sequel though the Radiance Films release doesn’t include it, so maybe I’ll check it out eventually. 3/5

 

[Vincentdante]

Day 9


Prince of Darkness

I bet this would have been quite a controversial movie at one point in time. A John Carpenter classic I don't see talked about as often but still a damn good film with a creepy atmosphere. The "possessed" are very intimidating and the idea of being trapped in a room with an unmoving demon just watching you, uncertainty with what it will do for a few days is unnerving.

Score: The other side of the mirror / 10

 

[HWR]

31 Days of Halloween 2024! Day X: Messiah of Evil (1973, Gloria Katz & Willard Huyck)


An effectively eerie and overlooked gem from the 70s, MoE utilises a seaside town setting wherein a young woman attempts to track down her missing father, encountering the strange residents and mysteries that unfold. Radiance Films did well to bring this to their line as it was well worth a watch. 3.5/5

 

[Vincentdante]

For day 10 I wanted to play more Siren. I have really gotten into it. Very difficult game but rewarding and spooky.