SPOOKY MOVIE MONTH 2022

[Xenomrph]

BONUS: Halloween Ends (2002), theatre



The moment I started seeing reviews saying that the movie was wildly divisive, I basically put an embargo on myself and didn't read anything more (spoilers or otherwise) and decided to see the movie blind.I'm conflicted about this movie, and I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing, and I'm also going to put this review in spoilers because the movie just came out.

Spoiler

I appreciate that it was trying to do something different, and it certainly did that. It had some interesting ideas - the mere idea of Michael Myers "infecting" the town of Haddonfield and basically spawning a copycat killer is pretty novel, although I'm not entirely sure it was executed that well; Corey's fall to darkness felt a little bit abrupt and sort of as clumsily handled as Anakin Skywalker's fall to the dark side in the Star Wars prequels. Sidelining Michael for the vast majority of the movie certainly was a choice, but I'm not sure it was the right one - I saw another review where they said the movie should have either had a lot more of Michael or should have cut him completely, and I think I'm on board with that. The kills were still pretty neat; blowtorch to the face is pretty metal, and the DJ's tongue and the skipping record was pretty memorable. I go back and forth on whether it was a misstep to have Corey only target people who he felt "deserved it" instead of Michael butchering innocent victims left and right. I mean I guess it's a way to differentiate Michael's "pure evil" from Corey's violent tendencies but I think it would have worked better if perhaps he wasn't shown as an accomplice to Michael that Michael actively spares (until he doesn't) and maybe had a eureka moment when he realized that he's nowhere near as evil as Michael. It's another idea that is novel on paper but not really well executed.

[close]

All in all I liked it (and for the record, I liked Halloween Kills). It's different, and not what I expected, but I don't think that's a bad thing. It misses the mark sometimes, but overall I'm glad I watched it. And it most certainly is an End, the movie leaves no doubt about that.


15. Black Sabbath (1963), Shudder



This was a neat little horror movie. I think the first story (about the stalker on the telephone) was the weakest, and even though Rosy's friend literally spells out on a piece of paper why she was making threatening phone calls, I feel like it sailed right over my head and I was still a little hazy on what happened (and then she gets killed). I'm reading the plot synopsis on Wikipedia as I write this and things make a lot more sense, I guess maybe I'm bad at paying attention. The second story was a highlight, and I got a lot of 'Pet Sematary' vibes from it for some reason - the way everything goes tragically wrong for everyone because they let emotions overwhelm their reasoning and don't deal with clearly dead and dangerous things the way they should, and it comes back to bite them (pun intended). It was a little long, and I thought things were meandering a bit when Vladimir and Sdenka run off and the plot follows them along (I genuinely thought they'd coincidentally dodged a bullet and had just... exited the story permanently, and the story was going to end with Maria killing her husband and getting murdered by Boris Karloff), but even though it started to feel like it was getting a little long in the tooth (pun intended again) it managed to wrap back around in a pretty satisfying way. The third story was a neat little ghost revenge story with some pretty creepy corpses and some pretty effective spooks, although it got undermined by, of all things, my love of cats - every time a cat showed up on screen or meowed off screen, I let out an involuntary "KITTY!" because I am a literal child. I guess I learned nothing from 'Pet Sematary'. Cool movie, well shot, manages to be effective without having a ton of gore or violence.

1. 'Tales from the Crypt' (1972)
2. 'Trilogy of Terror' (1975)
3. 'Southbound' (2015)
4. 'The Vault of Horror' (1973)
BONUS: 'Smile' (2022)
5. 'Creepshow' (1982)
6. 'The House That Dripped Blood' (1971)
7. 'All Hallow's Eve' (2013)
BONUS: 'Deadstream' (2022)
8. 'Cat's Eye' (1985)
9. ' The Monster Club' (1981)
10. 'Body Bags' (1993)
11. 'The Field Guide to Evil' (2018)
BONUS: 'Hellraiser' (2022)
12. 'The Dark Tapes' (2017)
13. 'Trick 'r Treat' (2007)
14. 'Deadtime Stories' (1986)
BONUS: 'Halloween Ends' (2022)
15. 'Black Sabbath' (1963)

[Xenomrph]

16. ABCs of Death (2012), PlutoTV



At nearly 3 hours long, I knew I was in for a ride with this one. Unfortunately it has quite a few more misses than hits. I'm not going to go through every short, but the movie did put the absolute worst one ("Pressure", wherein a kitten gets stomped to death for some reason) right next to the absolute best one ("Quack" by Adam Wingard, which was hilarious and was an excellent palate-cleanser after the previous short which very nearly got me to turn the movie off). The first few shorts were pretty solid and got the movie off to a good start, meanwhile the last few all sucked and left me with a bad taste in my mouth at the end. All of the Japanese shorts universally sucked for some reason. It was nice seeing a Lee Hardcastle joint among the crowd, he never disappoints. Here's hoping the sequel is better overall; it's got a better rating on IMDb which is promising I guess.

1. 'Tales from the Crypt' (1972)
2. 'Trilogy of Terror' (1975)
3. 'Southbound' (2015)
4. 'The Vault of Horror' (1973)
BONUS: 'Smile' (2022)
5. 'Creepshow' (1982)
6. 'The House That Dripped Blood' (1971)
7. 'All Hallow's Eve' (2013)
BONUS: 'Deadstream' (2022)
8. 'Cat's Eye' (1985)
9. ' The Monster Club' (1981)
10. 'Body Bags' (1993)
11. 'The Field Guide to Evil' (2018)
BONUS: 'Hellraiser' (2022)
12. 'The Dark Tapes' (2017)
13. 'Trick 'r Treat' (2007)
14. 'Deadtime Stories' (1986)
BONUS: 'Halloween Ends' (2022)
15. 'Black Sabbath' (1963)
16. 'ABCs of Death' (2012)

[Xenomrph]

17. V/H/S/99 (2022), Shudder



This movie was a little bit of a mess. I think trying extra hard to hammer home the point that it was set on 1999 and really shoehorn as many 90s references in as possible kind of dragged the movie down - I rolled my eyes when one of the characters referenced Bockbuster Video and Radio Shack back to back in the same sentence. "The Shredders" had a pretty bog-standard premise and in general it could have been okay, but the absolutely excessive VHS tracking effects and bizarrely spliced-together footage took me right out of it; the mediocre effects didn't help, either. "Suicide Bid" is probably my favorite out of the lot, and I was actually much more onboard with it before it introduced the supernatural - the whole "buried alive" thing was scary and compelling enough. "The Gawkers" had a cool payoff but it was one of the more egregious "LOOK IT'S THE 90'S!" offenders, and it took way, way too long before it got spooky. I should have seen the "twist" coming, in retrospect it hints towards it pretty heavily. "Ozzy's Dungeon" started out alright and I think it would have been just fine as a revenge tale, but instead it made a sharp turn towards the supernatural in the last 5 minutes and it kind of took me out of the story. "To Hell and Back" was pretty neat, the set design was cool, the effects were cool, all around I think it was the most even in quality out of all the stories, but seeing the actress who played Mildred in 'Deadstream' show up and over-act like crazy kind of dragged things down a little bit. The ending felt a bit unsatisfying, too. Overall I'd say it's maybe my third favorite VHS movie, I guess?

1. 'Tales from the Crypt' (1972)
2. 'Trilogy of Terror' (1975)
3. 'Southbound' (2015)
4. 'The Vault of Horror' (1973)
BONUS: 'Smile' (2022)
5. 'Creepshow' (1982)
6. 'The House That Dripped Blood' (1971)
7. 'All Hallow's Eve' (2013)
BONUS: 'Deadstream' (2022)
8. 'Cat's Eye' (1985)
9. ' The Monster Club' (1981)
10. 'Body Bags' (1993)
11. 'The Field Guide to Evil' (2018)
BONUS: 'Hellraiser' (2022)
12. 'The Dark Tapes' (2017)
13. 'Trick 'r Treat' (2007)
14. 'Deadtime Stories' (1986)
BONUS: 'Halloween Ends' (2022)
15. 'Black Sabbath' (1963)
16. 'ABCs of Death' (2012)
17. 'V/H/S/99' (2022)

[Xenomrph]

18. Twice Told Tales (1963), Amazon



Neat little movie, very tame by today's standards, the only really "spooky" story was the third one - the others were more about science gone awry if anything else. I'm not familiar with Nathaniel Hawthorne's writing so I don't know how faithfully it adapted his work, but I'm kind of curious. Vincent Price is always a good time. I think I liked the third story the best since it was the spookiest, although the second story was pretty neat. Vincent Price manages to play a pretty bad person in all three stories, albeit for different reasons in each one.

1. 'Tales from the Crypt' (1972)
2. 'Trilogy of Terror' (1975)
3. 'Southbound' (2015)
4. 'The Vault of Horror' (1973)
BONUS: 'Smile' (2022)
5. 'Creepshow' (1982)
6. 'The House That Dripped Blood' (1971)
7. 'All Hallow's Eve' (2013)
BONUS: 'Deadstream' (2022)
8. 'Cat's Eye' (1985)
9. ' The Monster Club' (1981)
10. 'Body Bags' (1993)
11. 'The Field Guide to Evil' (2018)
BONUS: 'Hellraiser' (2022)
12. 'The Dark Tapes' (2017)
13. 'Trick 'r Treat' (2007)
14. 'Deadtime Stories' (1986)
BONUS: 'Halloween Ends' (2022)
15. 'Black Sabbath' (1963)
16. 'ABCs of Death' (2012)
17. 'V/H/S/99' (2022)
18. 'Twice Told Tales' (1963)

[Xenomrph]

19. Scare Package (2020), Shudder



This movie was a hoot. I didn't really know what to expect going into it, but once I started to figure out that it was kind of a riff on horror tropes but in an ultra-silly way, I was very onboard. There was a TON of silly gore, like oh my god there was blood all over the place, it was crazy. I think I liked the psycho killer in the woods story the most, it takes the wildest left turn when the psycho killer shows up and just doesn't stop escalating. I think "Girls Night Out of Body" might have been the weakest, it wasn't particularly spooky or funny so it kind of fell flat. "So Much To Do" also wasn't particularly great, the woman essentially having to kick her own ass was entertaining enough but it was definitely one of the weaker entries. Everything else, though, oh man. And a

Spoiler

Joe Bob Briggs

[close]

cameo out of nowhere, haha. The last story is a little bit like a cheap knockoff of 'Cabin in the Woods' because it's a little on-the-nose, but the gore was wild and it kept my attention all the way through so I didn't mind. I think a lot of your enjoyment of this movie depends on recognizing that its basically a gory comedy and also being familiar with horror tropes (and how silly they can be), thankfully the movie sets the tone very early on.

1. 'Tales from the Crypt' (1972)
2. 'Trilogy of Terror' (1975)
3. 'Southbound' (2015)
4. 'The Vault of Horror' (1973)
BONUS: 'Smile' (2022)
5. 'Creepshow' (1982)
6. 'The House That Dripped Blood' (1971)
7. 'All Hallow's Eve' (2013)
BONUS: 'Deadstream' (2022)
8. 'Cat's Eye' (1985)
9. ' The Monster Club' (1981)
10. 'Body Bags' (1993)
11. 'The Field Guide to Evil' (2018)
BONUS: 'Hellraiser' (2022)
12. 'The Dark Tapes' (2017)
13. 'Trick 'r Treat' (2007)
14. 'Deadtime Stories' (1986)
BONUS: 'Halloween Ends' (2022)
15. 'Black Sabbath' (1963)
16. 'ABCs of Death' (2012)
17. 'V/H/S/99' (2022)
18. 'Twice Told Tales' (1963)
19. 'Scare Package' (2020)

[Xenomrph]

20. Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983), Tubi



It's been a while since I watched this one, and I mostly still like it. I think the gremlin on the wing of the plane story is the best of the lot, I like the gremlin effects, the tension is great, Lithgow plays a good crazy person, all around I like it quite a bit. I didn't realize that story was directed by George "Mad Max" Miller, though, that's pretty cool. It's hard to talk about "Time Out" without bringing up the helicopter death, although for some reason I swear I've seen the footage of it even though it's not actually in the finished film, I don't know where (or if) I saw it but for some reason I remember it. I dunno. "Kick the Can" is alright, and it feels very Spielberg, and IMDb trivia tells me he was going to do something spookier but then chose to do that story instead as lighter fare in the wake of the fatal helicopter tragedy that happened on the set of "Time Out" and it makes me want to see a legit scary Spielberg-directed horror movie. Like yeah he's directed stuff with horrific elements (like the goddamn Holocaust), but I'd like to see him try his hand at some real scary fictional stuff. I think the story about the kid who can make wishes come true is probably the weakest of the lot, although the moment the giant scary rabbit came out of the hat I thought to myself "huh, that looks like Rob Bottin's work", and sure enough I was right.

21. Asylum (1972), Shudder



I liked this one quite a bit for the most part, each of the stories had good spooks and were very different from each other, although I think they got a little worse as the movie went on. I definitely liked the revenge ghost body parts freezer story the most, the effects were great, the tension was great, my only criticism is that as a story being re-told from the perspective of one character (as is the narrative conceit for each of the stories), it doesn't make a whole lot of sense because she's not present for like 70% of the story so she shouldn't have known what happened. Like as a stand-alone spooky story it's great, but within the narrative framework of the movie it's in it kind of doesn't work. The story with the tailor is neat, Peter Cushing is cool, I didn't see the ending coming that

Spoiler

the clothing material literally reanimates inanimate objects

[close]

. The Lucy story was alright even if you could see the "twist" coming a mile away. I think the last story was the weakest mostly because it blended itself with the framing narrative too heavily, and unlike the other three stories (which had a modicum of plausible deniability that each storyteller might genuinely be crazy and that the story didn't happen), the last story full on had crazy stuff happen in the frame narrative itself which undermined the throughline a little bit. It didn't help that the crazy stuff was kind of tame compared to the rest of the movie. I kind of guessed the final "twist" early on and wasn't surprised that I was right, although I was expecting

Spoiler

the young psychiatrist to have a mental breakdown and he would get committed to the asylum himself

[close]

but oh well.

1. 'Tales from the Crypt' (1972)
2. 'Trilogy of Terror' (1975)
3. 'Southbound' (2015)
4. 'The Vault of Horror' (1973)
BONUS: 'Smile' (2022)
5. 'Creepshow' (1982)
6. 'The House That Dripped Blood' (1971)
7. 'All Hallow's Eve' (2013)
BONUS: 'Deadstream' (2022)
8. 'Cat's Eye' (1985)
9. ' The Monster Club' (1981)
10. 'Body Bags' (1993)
11. 'The Field Guide to Evil' (2018)
BONUS: 'Hellraiser' (2022)
12. 'The Dark Tapes' (2017)
13. 'Trick 'r Treat' (2007)
14. 'Deadtime Stories' (1986)
BONUS: 'Halloween Ends' (2022)
15. 'Black Sabbath' (1963)
16. 'ABCs of Death' (2012)
17. 'V/H/S/99' (2022)
18. 'Twice Told Tales' (1963)
19. 'Scare Package' (2020)
20. 'Twilight Zone: The Movie' (1983)
21. 'Asylum' (1972)

[Xenomrph]

22. Chillerama (2011), Tubi



This movie sucked, full stop. Weird, goofy, gross-out childish humor from start to finish, the only short that was almost interesting was the Hitler Frankenstein one and half of that was listening to Hitler spout gibberish "German" and the other half was Kane Hodder as a Jewish Frankenstein monster. Whatever this movie was trying to do, I bounced off of it real hard. Neat movie poster, though.

23. Dr. Terror's House of Horrors (1965), Tubi



This one was a good palate cleanser, although 3 of the 5 stories had the same problem that they ended just when they were getting interesting. The practical effects were cool (especially the sentient plants and the disembodied hand), the stories were really varied which was a nice treat, other than the stories feeling a little half-baked I thought they were pretty neat. I guess if I had a criticism it's that it hews too close to 'Tales from the Crypt' (1972) and 'The Vault of Horror' (1973) (or perhaps it's the other way around since Dr Terror came out first) in that even though the stories are treated as "predictions", the outcome of the movie ends up being "oops all of the characters are actually dead and in purgatory" or something, which kind of undermines it all.

1. 'Tales from the Crypt' (1972)
2. 'Trilogy of Terror' (1975)
3. 'Southbound' (2015)
4. 'The Vault of Horror' (1973)
BONUS: 'Smile' (2022)
5. 'Creepshow' (1982)
6. 'The House That Dripped Blood' (1971)
7. 'All Hallow's Eve' (2013)
BONUS: 'Deadstream' (2022)
8. 'Cat's Eye' (1985)
9. ' The Monster Club' (1981)
10. 'Body Bags' (1993)
11. 'The Field Guide to Evil' (2018)
BONUS: 'Hellraiser' (2022)
12. 'The Dark Tapes' (2017)
13. 'Trick 'r Treat' (2007)
14. 'Deadtime Stories' (1986)
BONUS: 'Halloween Ends' (2022)
15. 'Black Sabbath' (1963)
16. 'ABCs of Death' (2012)
17. 'V/H/S/99' (2022)
18. 'Twice Told Tales' (1963)
19. 'Scare Package' (2020)
20. 'Twilight Zone: The Movie' (1983)
21. 'Asylum' (1972)
22. 'Chillerama' (2011)
23. 'Dr. Terror's House of Horrors' (1965)

[Xenomrph]

24. XX (2017), Hulu



Framing story was pretty dumb, if you can even call it a framing story. It was animated well enough and eerie in that sort of "aping Tim Burton's style because anything Tim Burton touches is inherently quirky and dark" but otherwise I don't think it added anything to the movie. The first story was probably the spookiest, although it got a little long in the tooth once it became clear that the son wasn't eating (they belabored that point a little bit). The thought of seeing something so unsettling that it just makes you... stop eating, permanently, is pretty creepy, and I'm glad they didn't reveal what the kid saw, I think it works better that way. The second story was lame in a very "surface level dark Weekend At Bernies" kind of way, and in reading the IMDb trivia page it says that the woman who wrote and directed it hates horror movies and scary stuff so she intentionally made something not scary, and I'm sitting here thinking, if you hate horror movies then why on earth did you sign on to contribute a full 1/4 of a horror movie, you just torpedoed 25% of the movie. Zero spooks, mild dark comedy that's been done better elsewhere. The third story was cool even if it was more rote "horror monster" fare, effects were pretty good, the actress portraying the feral monster did a good job, all around I liked it. The fourth story was alright, very Rosemary's Baby (which the IMDb trivia tells me was intentional, it's literally meant as a serial-numbers-filed-off sequel/epilogue to that movie). It was a little by-the-numbers for the premise and then the ending was really abrupt.

1. 'Tales from the Crypt' (1972)
2. 'Trilogy of Terror' (1975)
3. 'Southbound' (2015)
4. 'The Vault of Horror' (1973)
BONUS: 'Smile' (2022)
5. 'Creepshow' (1982)
6. 'The House That Dripped Blood' (1971)
7. 'All Hallow's Eve' (2013)
BONUS: 'Deadstream' (2022)
8. 'Cat's Eye' (1985)
9. ' The Monster Club' (1981)
10. 'Body Bags' (1993)
11. 'The Field Guide to Evil' (2018)
BONUS: 'Hellraiser' (2022)
12. 'The Dark Tapes' (2017)
13. 'Trick 'r Treat' (2007)
14. 'Deadtime Stories' (1986)
BONUS: 'Halloween Ends' (2022)
15. 'Black Sabbath' (1963)
16. 'ABCs of Death' (2012)
17. 'V/H/S/99' (2022)
18. 'Twice Told Tales' (1963)
19. 'Scare Package' (2020)
20. 'Twilight Zone: The Movie' (1983)
21. 'Asylum' (1972)
22. 'Chillerama' (2011)
23. 'Dr. Terror's House of Horrors' (1965)
24. 'XX' (2017)

[Xenomrph]

25. ABCs of Death 2 (2014), PlutoTV



Liked this one a LOT more than the first one; there were a few duds, but for the most part the quality was a lot higher and the shorts were more interesting than the first movie. It's hard to really pick a favorite because there were a bunch of good ones, and while some of them were silly and not all of them were scary, the majority at least kept my interest. "Masticate" might be my favorite - the super slow-motion action was entertaining, and learning that it's all due to a bad bath salts trip is pretty funny. "Wish" being a 'realistic' send-up of He-Man fantasy land was pretty fun, too. It's probably easier to talk about the ones I *didn't* like - "Head Games" was lame and the animation was dumb, "Legacy" was bizarre and incredibly low-budget (but I think that might have been a genuine limitation of the filmmaker). "P-P-P-P-Scary" was beyond stupid, and a lame way to get around actually using a "P" word for the short. Most visually disturbing short easily goes to the stop-motion "Deloused", that was pretty gross and bizarre.

1. 'Tales from the Crypt' (1972)
2. 'Trilogy of Terror' (1975)
3. 'Southbound' (2015)
4. 'The Vault of Horror' (1973)
BONUS: 'Smile' (2022)
5. 'Creepshow' (1982)
6. 'The House That Dripped Blood' (1971)
7. 'All Hallow's Eve' (2013)
BONUS: 'Deadstream' (2022)
8. 'Cat's Eye' (1985)
9. ' The Monster Club' (1981)
10. 'Body Bags' (1993)
11. 'The Field Guide to Evil' (2018)
BONUS: 'Hellraiser' (2022)
12. 'The Dark Tapes' (2017)
13. 'Trick 'r Treat' (2007)
14. 'Deadtime Stories' (1986)
BONUS: 'Halloween Ends' (2022)
15. 'Black Sabbath' (1963)
16. 'ABCs of Death' (2012)
17. 'V/H/S/99' (2022)
18. 'Twice Told Tales' (1963)
19. 'Scare Package' (2020)
20. 'Twilight Zone: The Movie' (1983)
21. 'Asylum' (1972)
22. 'Chillerama' (2011)
23. 'Dr. Terror's House of Horrors' (1965)
24. 'XX' (2017)
25. 'ABCs of Death 2' (2014)

[Xenomrph]

26. The Mortuary Collection (2019), Shudder



Clancy Brown can do no wrong, I'll get that right out of the way. He carries a lot of the movie and I've got no problem with that at all, I could watch him in anything. All of the stories were pretty neat, although the dying wife story and the mental patient story had some internal logic problems that tripped me up a bit, but it wasn't enough to derail my enjoyment of the movie. I think the dying wife story was probably my favorite, and the bathroom octopus story was probably my least favorite, mostly because it was so short and lacked substance (something one of the characters straight up points out after the story ends). I didn't see "the twist" coming, although once the twist was revealed I did predict how the movie would end, and I wasn't wrong. Cool little movie, I wish the three stories were a little more balanced in terms of length and quality but oh well.

27. Three Extremes (2003), Tubi



The middle story about the film director was easily the highlight, the other two stories were weaker (and I found the third story nigh-incomprehensible until I read a wikipedia synopsis after I finished it). The first story was cool although it got a little long in the tooth, and it felt weird that the actress lady didn't immediately understand what she was eating when Aunt Mei was throwing around words like "trimester" or basically straight up describing fetus development. Overall it was good, it just could have been trimmed down. The second story was the best, it felt very 'Saw' (in a good way). I think it took a little too long to get moving, but once the director was captured it moved along at a good clip and had a good number of twists and reveals to keep things interesting. I wasn't thrilled with the "delirium" ending but oh well, it didn't ruin the story for me at all. The third story had the occasional creepy moment bogged down by a lot of abstract tangents, and then it straight up pulls an "it was all a dream" ending in favor of a visual that's meant to be "shocking" I guess? It just totally fell flat for me.

1. 'Tales from the Crypt' (1972)
2. 'Trilogy of Terror' (1975)
3. 'Southbound' (2015)
4. 'The Vault of Horror' (1973)
BONUS: 'Smile' (2022)
5. 'Creepshow' (1982)
6. 'The House That Dripped Blood' (1971)
7. 'All Hallow's Eve' (2013)
BONUS: 'Deadstream' (2022)
8. 'Cat's Eye' (1985)
9. ' The Monster Club' (1981)
10. 'Body Bags' (1993)
11. 'The Field Guide to Evil' (2018)
BONUS: 'Hellraiser' (2022)
12. 'The Dark Tapes' (2017)
13. 'Trick 'r Treat' (2007)
14. 'Deadtime Stories' (1986)
BONUS: 'Halloween Ends' (2022)
15. 'Black Sabbath' (1963)
16. 'ABCs of Death' (2012)
17. 'V/H/S/99' (2022)
18. 'Twice Told Tales' (1963)
19. 'Scare Package' (2020)
20. 'Twilight Zone: The Movie' (1983)
21. 'Asylum' (1972)
22. 'Chillerama' (2011)
23. 'Dr. Terror's House of Horrors' (1965)
24. 'XX' (2017)
25. 'ABCs of Death 2' (2014)
26. 'The Mortuary Collection (2019)
27. 'Three Extremes' (2003)

[Xenomrph]

BONUS: Antrum (2018), Freevee



The movie leading with a mockumentary about how the movie you're about to watch is legit honest to god cursed is an interesting angle, and serves to kind of hype the movie up as something spooky before you actually watch it, and it kind of works, but it also feels like astroturfing a little bit because the very movie itself is trying to overtly manipulate you into how you're supposed to feel about the movie before it starts. Compare that to, say, the Blair Witch Project, which leaned on an early-internet ad campaign and general word-of-mouth that the new spooky movie coming out was "real footage". Unfortunately the "cursed" movie Antrum stumbles in the execution because it kind of doesn't commit to the gag that the mockumentary sets up - it claims to be a foreign film, and all the filmmaker names are in another language, but then the movie itself is in English. It also claims to be from the 1970s, but I know what 70s film stock looks like, and the movie was clearly filmed digitally and then a "film grain" filter was applied over it after the fact in post-production. That isn't to say the movie didn't have some unnerving and creepy parts; the multi-layered "subliminal" images of demons was effective, for example. I just think it meandered a little bit, and the whole "I made this all up; oh no it actually might be real" plot point got undermined by a detour to the characters getting captured by not-spooky devil worshippers kind of out of nowhere. The very end set itself up for one hell of a sucker punch ending and then wussed out on it - all it needed to do was have a sound effect of a gunshot as the movie cut to black. It was teed up and everything, and just didn't take the swing.

28. Dead of Night (1977), Tubi



Richard Matheson pens 3 short films? Sign me up. The first story was the most out of place, because it doesn't have anything spooky in it whatsoever, but it does play out like a proto-Back to the Future which was kind of interesting, complete with a car being a time machine, the main character being trapped in the past and changing the fates of characters he meets, and the plot looping back around with some clever reveals at the end. I kind of wonder if Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale had seen this before they wrote BttF. The second story was a neat subversion of the idea of a vampire stalking a mansion and biting people - the title of the short is literally true: "there are no such thing as vampires", and it instead has a cute twist at the end. The third story is arguably the spookiest with a demon-possessed kid stalking his mother around the house, although one of its problems is that the kid just wasn't that threatening - even when he had a knife and a hammer, I felt like the mother could have just tackled him and overpowered him whenever she wanted. If the kid had been a little older I think it might have been more convincing. Still a neat little story though.

1. 'Tales from the Crypt' (1972)
2. 'Trilogy of Terror' (1975)
3. 'Southbound' (2015)
4. 'The Vault of Horror' (1973)
BONUS: 'Smile' (2022)
5. 'Creepshow' (1982)
6. 'The House That Dripped Blood' (1971)
7. 'All Hallow's Eve' (2013)
BONUS: 'Deadstream' (2022)
8. 'Cat's Eye' (1985)
9. ' The Monster Club' (1981)
10. 'Body Bags' (1993)
11. 'The Field Guide to Evil' (2018)
BONUS: 'Hellraiser' (2022)
12. 'The Dark Tapes' (2017)
13. 'Trick 'r Treat' (2007)
14. 'Deadtime Stories' (1986)
BONUS: 'Halloween Ends' (2022)
15. 'Black Sabbath' (1963)
16. 'ABCs of Death' (2012)
17. 'V/H/S/99' (2022)
18. 'Twice Told Tales' (1963)
19. 'Scare Package' (2020)
20. 'Twilight Zone: The Movie' (1983)
21. 'Asylum' (1972)
22. 'Chillerama' (2011)
23. 'Dr. Terror's House of Horrors' (1965)
24. 'XX' (2017)
25. 'ABCs of Death 2' (2014)
26. 'The Mortuary Collection' (2019)
27. 'Three Extremes' (2003)
BONUS: 'Antrum' (2018)
28. 'Dead of Night' (1977)

[Xenomrph]

BONUS: Scream 4 (2011), Tubi



I liked this one a lot! I watched Scream 1-3 for the first time last year and I liked them, and this one did not disappoint. I think this might even be my favorite of the sequels. Thinking back I don't remember much from Scream 3 or even who the killer was, to be honest. Scream 4 was shockingly solid for a 4th movie in a franchise made 10 years after its prior sequel. I definitely didn't guess who the killer was so I got pretty blindsided by that, which I enjoyed. There was a *huge* body count, I think it might be the highest in the series (unless the 5th movie tops it, haven't seen that yet). The meta-commentary was entertaining as always, especially having "updated" for the 10 intervening years between Scream 3 and 4. Definitely liked it, definitely makes me want to watch the 5th one.

BONUS: The Mummy (1932), Tubi



I'd actually never seen this, and it's the 90th anniversary of the movie so when I saw it was on Tubi I decided to give it a shot. It really wasn't what I expected and I'm not sure how I feel about that. A week or two ago I actually bought the NECA action figure of Boris Karloff as the Mummy because I thought the design looked rad and I like ancient Egyptian stuff and mummies and things like that (I went to a cool mummy exhibit at the local science museum last year, in fact), so I bought the figure without having seen the movie. Imagine my surprise to learn that the figure's design is actually in the movie for all of 45 seconds, and Karloff spends the rest of the movie in his "human" Ardeth Bey getup. I get that the movie is essentially early cinema and that it's 90 years old, and I can see how the movie would have been real spooky in its day, but it ultimately didn't do a whole lot for me. I know it's a culturally relevant movie that was one of the foundational elements of "classic" horror, but it definitely felt like the baby steps being established so that later, better movies could make great strides. I know it's not a fair comparison (especially since it's ostensibly not a horror movie) but I adore the 1999 Brendan Fraser remake.

29. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019), Netflix



I read the books as a kid when I was in elementary school and I remember them (and ESPECIALLY their artwork, holy shit) creeping me out, although nowadays I don't remember the stories well (except for the spider pimple one, which is in the movie) and I only remember some of the artwork. The movie is an okay PG-13 spook-a-doodle aimed at kids, and if I were like 13-16 I could see this movie freaking me out, but it is mostly pretty tame by adult standards. It really stretched the definition of an "anthology" movie and I'm hesitant to even count it as part of my "theme" for Spooky Movie Month this year - the vast majority of the movie is the framing narrative about the stories themselves, with extremely brief spooky scenes "based on" the stories integrated into the framing narrative. I think part of the "problem" with the movie (and I'm not even sure it's the movie's fault) is that it is very explicitly based on a particular set of artwork from my childhood that I only half-remember, and I was expecting the movie to spark recollections from my childhood and spook me, but with the exception of the fat pale woman (which they absolutely nailed) it kind of didn't work. I remember the scarecrow artwork but the movie's version felt "off" compared to it, and I remember the spider-bite artwork but the movie didn't deliver on the money shot imagery from the book with spiders all over the girl's face. I don't remember the artwork well enough for the Toeless Corpse or the Jangly Man to say if the movie captured them well, but what we got in the movie didn't "feel" like the books' art style like the pale woman did. I get that the book's artwork was a bit stylized, and the movie is having to adapt 2-dimensional artwork into full motion 3D live action, so maybe I was just setting myself up for disappointment. I didn't dislike the movie, but if anything it makes me want to go back and check the old books out again and see if they hold up and re-experience the crazy artwork.

1. 'Tales from the Crypt' (1972)
2. 'Trilogy of Terror' (1975)
3. 'Southbound' (2015)
4. 'The Vault of Horror' (1973)
BONUS: 'Smile' (2022)
5. 'Creepshow' (1982)
6. 'The House That Dripped Blood' (1971)
7. 'All Hallow's Eve' (2013)
BONUS: 'Deadstream' (2022)
8. 'Cat's Eye' (1985)
9. ' The Monster Club' (1981)
10. 'Body Bags' (1993)
11. 'The Field Guide to Evil' (2018)
BONUS: 'Hellraiser' (2022)
12. 'The Dark Tapes' (2017)
13. 'Trick 'r Treat' (2007)
14. 'Deadtime Stories' (1986)
BONUS: 'Halloween Ends' (2022)
15. 'Black Sabbath' (1963)
16. 'ABCs of Death' (2012)
17. 'V/H/S/99' (2022)
18. 'Twice Told Tales' (1963)
19. 'Scare Package' (2020)
20. 'Twilight Zone: The Movie' (1983)
21. 'Asylum' (1972)
22. 'Chillerama' (2011)
23. 'Dr. Terror's House of Horrors' (1965)
24. 'XX' (2017)
25. 'ABCs of Death 2' (2014)
26. 'The Mortuary Collection' (2019)
27. 'Three Extremes' (2003)
BONUS: 'Antrum' (2018)
28. 'Dead of Night' (1977)
BONUS: 'Scream 4' (2011)
BONUS: 'The Mummy' (1932)
29. 'Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark' (2019)

[Xenomrph]

30. Horror Noire (2021), Shudder



I wanted to like this one, but it just felt a little... low rent, I guess? The stories either ended just when they were getting good, had really bad effects, or both, and they all felt kind of tame. The Tony Todd and Peter Stormare cameos were pretty great (and the vampire story was probably the best of the lot, even if it was a little by-the-numbers), and the stories certainly had a good variety of topics which was nice, there just wasn't a very satisfying follow-through for a lot of the stories. The cult story felt a little on-the-nose in a post-Trump and post-Covid world, where the cult members actively denied science and talked about diseases being hoaxes fabricated by scientists, and literally lost the ability to read. It also felt like it was splitting its time between two unrelated plots that didn't seem to come together in a satisfying way (the red-faced murders, and the cult brainwashing). It tried to link them at the end but there just wasn't enough of a setup to the red-faced murders as being cult-inspired to make it convincing in the end.

1. 'Tales from the Crypt' (1972)
2. 'Trilogy of Terror' (1975)
3. 'Southbound' (2015)
4. 'The Vault of Horror' (1973)
BONUS: 'Smile' (2022)
5. 'Creepshow' (1982)
6. 'The House That Dripped Blood' (1971)
7. 'All Hallow's Eve' (2013)
BONUS: 'Deadstream' (2022)
8. 'Cat's Eye' (1985)
9. ' The Monster Club' (1981)
10. 'Body Bags' (1993)
11. 'The Field Guide to Evil' (2018)
BONUS: 'Hellraiser' (2022)
12. 'The Dark Tapes' (2017)
13. 'Trick 'r Treat' (2007)
14. 'Deadtime Stories' (1986)
BONUS: 'Halloween Ends' (2022)
15. 'Black Sabbath' (1963)
16. 'ABCs of Death' (2012)
17. 'V/H/S/99' (2022)
18. 'Twice Told Tales' (1963)
19. 'Scare Package' (2020)
20. 'Twilight Zone: The Movie' (1983)
21. 'Asylum' (1972)
22. 'Chillerama' (2011)
23. 'Dr. Terror's House of Horrors' (1965)
24. 'XX' (2017)
25. 'ABCs of Death 2' (2014)
26. 'The Mortuary Collection' (2019)
27. 'Three Extremes' (2003)
BONUS: 'Antrum' (2018)
28. 'Dead of Night' (1977)
BONUS: 'Scream 4' (2011)
BONUS: 'The Mummy' (1932)
29. 'Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark' (2019)
30. 'Horror Noire' (2021)

[Xenomrph]

31. Horror Stories (2012), Tubi



Wasn't sure what to expect from this one but I ended up liking it a lot for the most part. The first story about the kids with the (haunted?) home invasion was pretty wild and had a lot of good spooks. I really liked the story about the serial killer loose on an airplane, but I'm also a sucker for thrillers set on airplanes so it was right up my alley. It also had some spooky haunted elements mixed in which felt a little out of place, but on the whole I just kind of rolled with it. The jealous sister story was probably the weakest of the bunch, although things kind of started to fall into place in the very end. The zombie ambulance story was pretty standard "zombie apocalypse" fare but it was well done and it kept my attention throughout. The very end felt like a bit of a "gotcha" but on the whole I still liked it.

1. 'Tales from the Crypt' (1972)
2. 'Trilogy of Terror' (1975)
3. 'Southbound' (2015)
4. 'The Vault of Horror' (1973)
BONUS: 'Smile' (2022)
5. 'Creepshow' (1982)
6. 'The House That Dripped Blood' (1971)
7. 'All Hallow's Eve' (2013)
BONUS: 'Deadstream' (2022)
8. 'Cat's Eye' (1985)
9. ' The Monster Club' (1981)
10. 'Body Bags' (1993)
11. 'The Field Guide to Evil' (2018)
BONUS: 'Hellraiser' (2022)
12. 'The Dark Tapes' (2017)
13. 'Trick 'r Treat' (2007)
14. 'Deadtime Stories' (1986)
BONUS: 'Halloween Ends' (2022)
15. 'Black Sabbath' (1963)
16. 'ABCs of Death' (2012)
17. 'V/H/S/99' (2022)
18. 'Twice Told Tales' (1963)
19. 'Scare Package' (2020)
20. 'Twilight Zone: The Movie' (1983)
21. 'Asylum' (1972)
22. 'Chillerama' (2011)
23. 'Dr. Terror's House of Horrors' (1965)
24. 'XX' (2017)
25. 'ABCs of Death 2' (2014)
26. 'The Mortuary Collection' (2019)
27. 'Three Extremes' (2003)
BONUS: 'Antrum' (2018)
28. 'Dead of Night' (1977)
BONUS: 'Scream 4' (2011)
BONUS: 'The Mummy' (1932)
29. 'Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark' (2019)
30. 'Horror Noire' (2021)
31. 'Horror Stories' (2012)