There's a backlog here -- warning, warning!
My habit has always been typical when it comes down to watching horror films. I do watch movies I’ve seen before - mostly because it’s either a childhood favorite or an actually pretty awesome film worth watching again.
Movies that I’ve seen more than two times and no less than 100 times
Friday the 13th and the 3rd sequel were viewed very recently as it was on cable. The first time I watched Friday the 13th, I didn’t like it very much because I was a die-hard Carpenter fan and nothing was going to beat my obsession with Michael Myers. The whole Jason persona seems very white trashy to me - much like my disdain toward Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I didn’t find a guy with a deformed face scary - more pitiful and sad than anything. However, the thing that most people may not pay attention to when it comes down to watch Friday the 13th (especially the Drew Barrymore character Casey in ‘Scream’ when she answered the question incorrectly) is that the original killer wasn’t Jason at all or that Jason never wore the hockey mask UNTIIL the 3rd sequel. (The second sequel was some guy walking around with a sack over his head - if you don’t find that hilarious, then I feel bad for you). The name ‘Jason’ wasn’t uttered in the 3rd sequel but was just that ‘thing with the deformed face running around scaring young girls in the woods’. I started to like Friday the 13th and the sequels because unlike Halloween, it is meant to be taken as a hilarious jokes with nice asses and pretty boys. It’s alright.
April’s Fool Day is a childhood favorite. When I was a kid, my parents would let me stay up to watch Saturday Night Live but when they weren’t paying attention, I would switch the channel to watch whatever pornographic or horror films that was playing late at night. April’s Fool Day was literally one of the first movies I remembered so vividly and clearly that it scared the shit out of me although the movie itself wasn’t actually showing kill scenes - just bodies hanging out - including falling into a well and seeing two dismembered heads or a guy’s stabbed crotch. It sound terrifying but actually, it was pretty tame watching it this time around. My 8 years old self didn’t sleep for two weeks, though.
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The Uninvited is not exactly a terrifying film and is quite tame but it’s a great paranormal film and it was interesting to watch after The Haunting which was on previously on TCM. The Uninvited was ahead of its time with its own weird lesbian-vibe from a Mrs. Danvers-type woman, dysfunctional ghosts and a way too close brother/sister living in the mansion.
Scream and Scream Again is a terrible film but it had both Vincent Price and Christopher Lee so it was going to be an awesome HOT MESS. Hell, even Price said in interviews that he never understood what he was doing in the movie. Price who was the king of b-movies proclaiming that Scream and Scream Again was terrible, says a lot (I can say the Oblong Box is just as equally bad). I’m still unsure what happened except some guy who must be high on some drugs (maybe it’s a scene from Corman’s ‘The Trip’) killing go-go dancers in plastic white dresses and as it turns out, he was being controlled by mad scientists - for whatever reason, I don’t know.
Scarecrows are much like Aliens in term of bad-ass motherfuckers running around with guns and trying to get away from the creatures. In this one, the creatures happen to be scarecrows. Enough said. It’s better than Night of the Lepus which saw Janet Leigh battling huge rabbits so it isn’t ALL THAT BAD.
Deep Red is so gory that Argento’s other works seem tame. Seriously: watch this shit and be prepared to cringe.
There are two versions of the Toolbox Murders and both are awesome. The latter being much cooler basically because it starred the actress Angela Bettis (May) but the former being a little scarier because of the tools used to torture/kill the residents of an apartment building.
Spider Baby should be watched only to see Lou Chaney Jr proclaiming that it was going to be a full moon tonight.
Tales from the Crypt: season 6 - not a movie per se but can be considered part of the horror movies month with its excellent and yet idiotic episodes including ‘You, Murderer’ which had a killer getting plastic surgery so he can look like Humphrey Bogart. Yeah…
Candyman is a great film where the female protagonist does absolutely nothing. It’s not like Laurie Strode in Halloween, Ripley in the Aliens franchise or even Sarah Connor in the Terminator franchise. She does absolutely nothing except being her pretty self screaming and crying while Candyman comes for her. I love it, though because Virginia Madsen plays an emotionally stunted character well.
Movies I watched for the first time
The Loved Ones is basically a cult favorite that was made in 2010 but released early this year. It’s pretty much Jeffrey Dahmer-type of character meet Carrie except in this one, there is a background story for the boy who was forced to go to the prom with the psychotic mini-Dahmer girl. Much like the characters in Halloween or even The Burning, you sympathize with the characters. You want them to live and most horror films always have the girl who got away. In The Loved Ones, it was a self-harming teenage boy who kicked ass despite the fact his feet were nailed to the floor. It’s gory, it’s disgusting and it’s awesome.
The Sentinel is a much older film with a stellar cast although it reminds me quite a bit of the later horror film House of the Devil which is pretty much a movie where the character did everything she was not supposed to do. If rent is way cheap, don’t move in. If things are moving around or there’s some weird sounds and people who seem to live there (but actually don’t), get OUT!
Hatchet is gory, campy and the bad guy is similar to Jason from Friday the 13th except he’s way gross. Having seen the sequel with Danielle Harris (the best current Scream Queen thus far), I didn’t really want to see the original as it didn’t have Danielle Harris so I’m like whatever - but much like its sequel, it’s just as equally awesome.
New Year’s Evil is something that I sorta saw before but don’t quite remember. It’s one of those horror films that is just recycled crap released in the early ‘80’s after the popularity of Halloween and Friday the 13th. Someone gets killed in every time zone at midnight - and like, okay..I get it. New Year Eve..whoo hooo but it isn’t good at all - although way better than any horror films with Gary Busey.
The House that dripped blood is not closed captioned at all so my review is pretty much just on the surface of what I see -which was actually really confusing for me. So many different characters and having no fucking idea who they were… it’s not like Friday the 13th or Halloween where some guy is stalking a bunch of teenagers - this one is a little more complex and have some story line that may be better understood if it was subtitled. Not really a review per se, but hey, I tried.
Bava’s A Bay of Blood is another one of those badly dubbed movies but I sort of got the gist of it. It’s not a serial killer or a pissed off mom killing specific type of people. Everyone DIES. The ending was weird but then again, this is Bava we’re talking about.
Your vice is a locked one (and only I have the key), I found on youtube on my lunch hour. I was happy to have found a giallo that was fully subtitled and full of beautiful women (getting slaughtered, that is). The killer’s plan is foiled by a fucking cat named Satan! It’s awesome.
