Right, my Halloween schedule’s all worked out. Every day, I’m going to watch a creature feature from the 30s/40s/50s/60s (I think the most recent from that bunch will be The Return of Count Yorga from 1971); it might be a good one like The Bride of Frankenstein (1935), it might be a bad one like The Beast of Yucca Flats (1961). Then, later on each evening, I will watch a horror double-bill. Might be an obviously connected double-bill (Hellraiser and Hellbound: Hellraiser II), or the movies might not be connected at all. So, I’m attempting three films per day, every day in October. Can’t imagine I’ll succeed but I’m bound to get a fair bit of horror in.
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40 DAYS OF NIGHT: WEEK 1
Watched so far:
- Lifeforce (1985, Tobe Hooper) “…works best if you take it for ironic semi-comedy”
- Prom Night (1980, Paul Lynch) “…the final act is a great fun”
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Frontiere(s) (2007, Xavier Gens) “…a sign of its time on a subconscious level”
4.The Funhouse (1981, Tobe Hooper) “…visually very impressive and uses its grotesque location to a great effect” - Knock Knock (2015, Eli Roth) “…what it is trying to be”
- Naboer (Next Door, 2005, Pål Sletaune) “…if I haven’t already seen so many similar films”
More details here: 40 Days of Night: No Sleep 'til Halloween, a list of films by mavuku • Letterboxd
@last.caress You’re loco, amigo!
I reckon I’ll get at least 22 early-evening creature features watched; there are 22 weekdays in October and there’s always a “dead zone” on British telly from 6pm til about 8pm I can exploit during the week. I’ll be watching my horror double-bills late though, so although I reckon I’ll successfully watch every “first” movie of the double-bill I’m pretty sure I’ll struggle with many of the “second” movies. Plus, since there are so many movies, I won’t be able to play catch-up if I miss any. I’ll just have to move on.
Fridays and Saturdays are always a bastard whenever I attempt these sorts of movie-viewing challenges, too. Real life always manages to intervene. Stupid real life.
[quote=“titoli, post:1302, topic:405”]
Watched so far… [/quote]
Love Frontiers, don’t like Prom Night, wish I could say I liked Lifeforce more than I do, Knock Knock is still a film I want to get around to seeing despite some less than stellar reviews, The Funhouse has never appealed to me sadly (I feel terrible dismissing two Tobe Hooper films like that, especially given I’ve only seen one of them!) and I’ve never previously heard of Naboer.
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Well, my 31 Days of Halloween kicked off yesterday with Dracula (Browning, 1931) as my creature feature along with a late-night double-bill of The Wicker Man (Hardy, 1973) and Kill List (Wheatley, 2011).
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Today’s a bit of a mini-marathon. I’ve already watched my creature-feature - It! The Terror From Beyond Space (Cahn, 1958) - and one of the double-bill pictures I intended to watch tonight: Alien (Scott, 1979), which leaves me with Event Horizon (Anderson, 1997) still to watch later on. But I’ve also got a Stephen King double-bill today too, which wasn’t officially built into my October viewing challenge: I’ve already watched the Netflix original movie Gerald’s Game (Flanagan, 2017) starring Carla Gugino as a woman left handcuffed to a bed in a remote Summer house after a kinky sex game with her husband - the titular Gerald - goes badly wrong when he suffers a heart attack and falls dead onto the floor; and in awhile @MazzyStar and I are off to see the much ballyhooed It (Muschietti, 2017). I love the novel but I was never hugely struck with the 1990 TV mini-series, so we’ll see if this picture has done (half of) the novel justice.
Yesterday’s creature-feature was The Wasp Woman (Corman, 1959), and the double-bill was Altered (2006) and Seventh Moon (2008), both written by Jamie Nash and directed by Eduardo Sánchez, whom some of you may recognise as one half of the directing duo behind The Blair Witch Project (1999), which I hope to tuck into later on in the month.
Today, my creature feature was The Bat (Wilbur, 1959), and I’ve just begun my double-bill with Banshee Chapter (Erickson, 2013), which I will follow up with Renny Harlin’s The Dyatlov Pass Incident (aka Devil’s Pass, 2013). Both are found-footage tales with premises that begin rooted in historical truths and which are pretty creepy but which also could have - and really should have - been quite a bit creepier. They’re both decent enough though for forgiving genre fans who don’t mind taking things a little slowly.
Incidentally, It was good - very good, in places - but not the all-conquering behemoth into which it’s been hyped at this point. It’s biggest failing - and sadly, it’s quite a biggie - is that it’s just not scary. I’ll take a low-budget all-pervading sense of dread over jump scares and cgi gore all day long. But that’s subjective, and in fairness It is in all likelihood about as good an adaptation of the backstory portion of the source novel as it could be, and it’s already considerably better than the 1990 TV mini-series adaptation.
Thursday, I kept things decidedly snowbound with The Thing From Another World (Nyby, 1951) as my creature feature, and Blood Glacier (aka The Station) (Kren, 2013) and The Thing (Carpenter, 1982) as my double-bill. Brr!
Yesterday, my creature feature was the piss-poor but harmless enough Attack of the Giant Leeches (Kowalski, 1959), and my evening viewing consisted of Hellraiser (Barker, 1987) and Hellbound: Hellraiser II (Randel, 1988). More holes in the combined plots than a full wheel of Emmental but they both still look the part and, of course, Pinhead is a better source for wicked one-liners than Dirty Harry. “The box. You opened it, we came.”
Today, my creature feature is simply one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen: The Beast of Yucca Flats (Francis, 1961). I’m currently stalling by watching Bond movies, but I’ll get to it soon enough. Then, later, my double-bill will consist of a pair of remakes: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Nispel, 2003) and Evil Dead (Alvarez, 2013), neither of which I feel are anything like as good as their predecessors but neither of which I dislike (I quite like the TCM remake tbh) and both of which are long overdue a re-watch.
He he, I liked the The Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake more than the original, which I only watched once.
Having watched it again last night I have to say that it really is very good. A couple of cgi set-pieces and an absence of the dread which, for me, permeated almost every frame of the original keeps it from exceeding Tobe Hooper’s picture imo but it was certainly wrong of me to suggest it’s “(no)thing like as good as (its) predecessor”; it’s a very worthy remake. Technically superior in every way of course, but that’s to be expected. Evil Dead was also superior to the original across the board from a technical standpoint, but it remains a frustrating beast.
The Evil Dead remake is as boring as the original, so somehow faithful. 
The Hooper original is interesting, but partly dated.
Sunday:
Creature-feature: Godzilla (Honda, 1954)
Late-night double-bill: The House of the Devil (West, 2009) and Rosemary’s Baby (Polanski, 1968)
Monday:
Creature-feature: The Giant Gila Monster (Kellogg, 1959)
Late-night double-bill: Splinter (Wilkins, 2008) and The Ruins (Smith, 2008)
Tuesday:
Creature-feature: Was supposed to be The Phantom From 10,000 Leagues (Milner, 1955) but I didn’t manage to watch it. First fail of the challenge so far.
Late-night double-bill: Candyman (Rose, 1992) and Drag Me to Hell (Raimi, 2009)
Today:
Creature-feature: The Wolf Man (Waggner, 1941)
Late-night double-bill: A pair of Neil Marshall pictures; as I write this, I’ve just finished watching Dog Soldiers (2002) and I’m about to tuck into one of my favourite horrors of all time, The Descent (2005).
I also managed to fit in a first look at Open Water 3: Cage Dive (Rascionato, 2017). Alas, although it’s not comicly bad as many shark pics are, and it does possess a few decent ideas, the movie is undone by terrible shaky cam which robs the impact from any potential scares (it’s a “found footage” pic), and a gaggle of utterly unlikeable characters robbing us of our potential to give a toss about what happens to any of them. Ah well. My hopes weren’t high (and it probably still just about creeps into the lower end of my ten favourite shark pics given the low low return on truly decent ones).
One of mine too. Excellent horror film with all the attributes I look for in the genre done well.
I knew I was never going to manage a film every day. October is my busiest month of he year at work plus there’s the baseball post season to keep up with.(MLB.TV has been my best investment since football became so painful) Anyway, these are the one’s I’ve managed so far. I’m pretty much concentrating on British from the 60s and 70s for no other reason than that I have a soft spot for such things.
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The Mummy’s Shroud (Gilling / 1967)
One of Hammer’s weaker horrors and certainly the weakest of their 3 Mummy films but fine for a Sunday afternoon watch. -
The Beast in the Cellar (Kelly / 1970)
Soldiers are being ripped to pieces in a quiet country setting by someone or something unknown and Beryl Reid and Dame Flora Robson are a couple of old sisters with something to hide in their cellar. Obviously the two are connected but how? Quite a nice little story well played by the old girls and I enjoyed it for what it was. Robson was a surprise in such a low budget flick as this. -
Dementia 13 (Coppola / 1963)
Not British but made in Ireland and features Patrick Magee so good enough for me. Plus, it was an early Francis Ford Coppola film which I hadn’t seen. Still can’t say I’ve seen all of it. Fell asleep about two thirds through as bored shitless. Not one I’d recommend. -
Beware My Brethren (Hartford-Davis / 1972)
Patrick Magee again. This time as the preacher of a nutter christian cult sect which spawns a murderous sexually repressed member who knocks off any poor young woman silly enough to get their tits out. -
Tales From the Crypt (Francis / 1972)
An old favourite. I love these old Amicus portmanteau films. 5 great little stories with the brightest, least convincing blood in the history of cinema. -
The Vault of Horror (Ward-Baker / 1973)
Another Amicus portmanteau and possibly my favourite. I love the blend of the macabre and comedy in these stories. Very glad I bought the BluRay double bill. -
The Hand (Cass / 1960)
Mistakenly categorised as horror by Talking Pictures TV (my new favourite station here in the UK) it turned out to be just a crime film really based around the nasty premise of men having their hands chopped off by the Japanese during the war and this being linked to some killings and another amputation in modern day East London. I include this because I thought it was a horror when I sat down to watch it.
Off sick from work today so will probably watch a couple more before the day is out as I am not moving far from the couch.
GET OUT (2016, Jordan Peele)
A much hyped movie, and it’s easy to see why people like it, but I don’t share their enthusiasm
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Yes, I liked Get Out and I really liked the performance of lead Daniel Kaluuya, but I wasn’t blown away by it in the way many seem to have been by any means whatsoever. It appears to be a bit of a dead cert for many enthusiasts’ top ten lists of 2017 but it won’t make mine.
I liked it though, it was okay.
Having a fang-tastic day today: Creature-feature earlier was The Loves of Count Iorga, Vampire aka Count Yorga, Vampire (Kelljan, 1970), a movie so poor - and not even in any gloriously so-bad-it’s-good way, either - I think I might just toss it (and its sequel, since it’s a double-bill blu-ray presentation) in the bin. I’ll be giving The Return of Count Yorga a run out tomorrow and I’ll decide then. Right now, I’m into the final twenty minutes of the wonderful 80’s staple Fright Night (Holland, 1985) and I shall be following that up with the underrated vampire comic book adaptation 30 Days of Night (Slade, 2007), one of my favourite vampire movies and one which returns the legendary creature to its monstrous roots at a time when vampires in film and TV had almost entirely been watered down into sparkly emo teenage crush fantasies. Even the f*ckawful Fifty Shades of Grey began life as a piece of Twilight fan-fiction.
The British Horror marathon continued with:
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Burke and Hare (Sewell / 1972)
A strange blend of bawdy romp and murder which doesn’t really work on any level. A bit like one of those Spaghettis that has a massacre, a rape and some bloke catching fire interspersed with a slapstick bar room brawl, a gun in the shape of a vacuum cleaner and a tattoo on some bird’s arse leading to the confederate gold. -
Virgin Witch (Austin / 1972)
Two sisters get embroiled in a coven of witches set up mainly for the orgies it would seem but one turns out to be born for it and uses her natural esp powers, newly discovered spell book and breasts to take over the crowd for her own purposes. Entertaining enough nonsense from the “tits out for the lads” school of cinematic philosophy. You know the sort, first the girls do on arriving at the country house is have a chat while one of them showers. -
Horror Hospital (Balch / 1973)
Camp classic starring cheeky chappy Robin Askwith and Brit Horror stalwart of the “If I can get there I’ll do it” school of thespians Michael Gough. Apparently made on a budget of 22 grand all in. Which may well have bought you a couple of decent houses in 1973 but clearly wasn’t enough to cover any decent prosthetics or a second camera. Very enjoyable for all that though and another in the let’s chat while you have a shower script types.
The Monster (Sasdy / 1975) (aka I Don’t Want to be Born)
Joan Collins rejects the advances of her dwarf erotic dance partner and pays the price of his curse on her future child who is as big as the dwarf is small and resents being born. Think low budget The Omen with a dwarf possessed baby rather than a devil possessed child and you get the general idea. Not sure why Ralph Bates has to play an italian but apart from that it is quite an enjoyable bit of schlock with the added benefits of Donald Pleasance, Caroline Monroe and John Steiner.
13th - The Objective (Myrick, 2008) (this was a late substitution for The Return of Count Yorga. I just couldn’t face any more bloody Yorga), and then my late-night double-bill was Friday the 13th part VI: Jason Lives (Mclaughlin, 1986) and Friday the 13th (Nispel, 2009), what with it being the appropriate day and all. My favourites from the Friday the 13th franchise are The Final Chapter (Zito, 1984), A New Beginning (Steinmann, 1985) and the delightfully daft Jason X (Isaac, 2001) but part VI and the 2009 reboot were the pair I felt were most in need of a re-watch.
14th - The outstandingly crap/magnificent (crapnificent?) Robot Monster (Tucker, 1953), plus a double-bill of The Last Exorcism (Stamm, 2010) and The Last Exorcism part II (Gass-Donnelly, 2013).
15th - My creature-feature was one of the greats: The original King Kong (Cooper/Schoedsack, 1933), followed up that night with The Exorcism of Emily Rose (Derrickson, 2005) and horror grand-daddy The Exorcist (Friedkin, 1973). Why so many exorcism movies over 24 hours? The power of Christ compelled me!
16th - I missed my creature-feature for Monday (it was supposed to be Haruyasu Noguchi’s 1967 kaiju pic Monster From a Prehistoric Planet aka Gappa: The Triphibian Monster) but I still caught my double-bill, It Follows (Mitchell, 2014) and A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (Amirpour, 2014), neither of which I loved quite as much as I did the last time I saw them. Hm. Maybe I wasn’t in the mood for them.
Yesterday - My creature-feature was the dismal Creature From the Haunted Sea (Corman, 1961) and my double-bill was The Cabin in the Woods (Goddard, 2011) and The Midnight Meat Train (Kitamura, 2008), both of which I enjoyed quite a bit more than I did the last time I saw them. Hm. Maybe I was properly in the mood for them.
Today, I’ve just finished the f*ckawful but amiable enough The Killer Shrews (Kellogg, 1959), and tonight I shall be tucking into a pair of Stephen King pics from 2007: The Mist (Darabont) and 1408 (Håfström). We’ve only just beguuuuuuuuun…
Missed my creature-feature (It Came From Outer Space, Arnold, 1953) AND the second half of my intended double-bill (James Wan’s 2013 powerhouse The Conjuring) yesterday, so my October horror was limited to just the one picture: Scott Derrickson’s Sinister (2012). If I’d known I was only going to manage to stay awake for one, I’d have watched The Conjuring instead; it’s just a stronger picture all round imo, although the scuzzy “home movie” sequences in Sinister are still deliciously unnerving.
20th - Didn’t do a creature-feature, but had a paranormal double-bill with Paranormal Activity 3 (Joost/Schulman, 2011) and Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones (Landon, 2014), my personal favourites from that franchise.
21st - Watched Creature From the Black Lagoon (Arnold, 1954) for my creature-feature but I haven’t watched a creature-feature since. I think I’ve abandoned that facet of my October/Halloween experience; it’s just not working for me over a whole month. Still, the double-bills are working and on Saturday I had me some anthology action in the form of the fantastic V/H/S/2 (Barrett/Wingard/Sánchez/Hale/Tjahjanto/Huw Evans/Eisener, 2013) and the uneven but still quite fun Southbound (Radio Silence/Benjamin/Bruckner/Horvath, 2016).
22nd - Not strictly part of my October/Halloween challenge but still pretty f*cking horrific in its way, I watched Irréversible (Noé, 2002). For me, it’s kind-of like Michael Haneke’s Funny Games (either version) in that it’s undoubtedly interesting and well made but I can’t see myself watching it again anytime soon, if ever. I’m never going to be hopping through the TV channels looking for some entertainment and suddenly exclaim to myself: "Hey! I fancy getting into some Irréversible right now! Yeah, bwooooy!" You know?
Anyway, my double-bill for the evening had a hotel vibe going on: The Shining (Kubrick, 1980) and The Innkeepers (West, 2011).
23rd - Looked east on Monday, as I tucked into Ju-on: The Grudge (Shimizu, 2002) and Ju-on: White Ghost and Ju-on: Black Ghost (Miyake/Asoto, 2009). Now, I know many find the Ju-on pics to be played-out, derivative nonsense. I get that. Nevertheless, as a concept it still hits ALL my buttons. Brr! (that said, Black Ghost isn’t very good. Might even be the weakest entry in the entire franchise)
24th - Went for some found-footage shenanigans with the decent As Above, So Below (Dowdle, 2014) and the underrated Grave Encounters (Minihan/Ortiz, 2011). I LOVE that picture (the sequel was crap, though).
Yesterday - my LE Arrow blu-ray of The Thing (Carpenter, 1982) arrived so I had to give that a look (as well as the new extra features) even though I’d already watched The Thing this month. Still, fck it. Any excuse to watch The Thing again is a good excuse in my book. My double-bill was the almost Lovecraftian Brit-horror The Borderlands (Goldner, 2013) and the simply fcking weird (in the good way) YellowBrickRoad (Holland/Mitton, 2010), although thanks to the evening’s addition of The Thing and its sundry features, my double-bill ran bloody late and I fell asleep barely twenty minutes into the latter of the two pictures. Bugger.
Tonight - “What went we into this wilderness to find?” I’ve just finished watching arguably my favourite double-bill of the entire month: The Witch (Eggers, 2016) and The Blackcoat’s Daughter (Perkins, 2017). Without a doubt, these movies are where my “horror” head is at right now, and they complement one another fantastically, I think. “Hail Satan.”