Hallowe'en 2021 - Horror Movie Reviews

  CABIN FEVER (2002) – 10/11/2021 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0303816/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0                I really didn’t like this movie when it came out.   Some of the actors were recognizable, and it’s filmed in North Carolina, which is cool.   But, I thought it was boring and the characters mostly did the dumbest things imaginable in the face of a deadly virus.   Rewatching it in 2021 feels a little more prophetic.                A group of friends rent a cabin in the woods (trope) for a vacation.   They quickly get infected with a skin-eating virus and the nearby town is totally unhelpful.   The kids turn on the townspeople and the townspeople retaliate, then the kids turn on each other, and then everybody Hamlets.                  El...

  JOHN DIES AT THE END (2012) – 10/05/2021 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1783732/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0                  I first learned about John Dies At The End from reading Cracked.com while I was supposed to be working.   It has been on my to-do list for almost 10 years.   I can honestly say I was not disappointed.                The plot may have been thin and special effects were very dated, but it’s such a fun movie!   Two friends, John (Rob Mayes) and Dave (Chase Williamson), find a drug called Soy Sauce that lets them see and sense things that normal people can’t.   They start seeing dead people that need help and monsters that need to be exterminated.   As the monster infestation ramps up, the movie switches to Science Fiction and sends our heroes to another dimension to face the big boss monster. ...

  THE STRANGERS (2008) – 10/04/2021 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0482606/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0                  Liv Tyler is not known for horror movies.   She probably should be.                  As I’ve said before, I find myself drawn to minimalism more as I’ve gotten older.   Other than the brief wedding reception scene, we only see 8 characters on-screen throughout the course of The Strangers .   Aside from the aforementioned wedding reception, there is only 1 location used—a farmhouse with a barn, some woods, and a long driveway.   The only soundtrack seems to be the single record playing over and over.   All of this creates an eerie feeling of isolation as we watch the couple get trapped in their home one night.   A few years before The Purge (2013), three masked individuals torment and kill...

  IT FOLLOWS (2014) – 10/03/2021   https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3235888/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0                  It Follows landed on my radar when a TV show character called it his new favorite movie.   I then found it on sale at Best Buy for, like, four bucks.   So, I thought for $4.00 I could at least give it a shot.   I have now watched It Follows at least twice, and I can say with all sincerity that I just don’t get it.                               The basic premise of It Follows is that if you have sex with someone who has “it” , the “it” will then follow you S L O W L Y until it catches and kills you.   Like, VERY SLOWLY.   The “it” is amorphous and shows up as any random individual.   The movie explains that “it” ca...

  HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES (2003) – 10/02/2021   https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0251736/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0                  I saw House Of 1000 Corpses during its original release.   I can’t say I was ever a big Rob Zombie fan, but his aesthetic always appealed to me.   So, of course, I thought I should give his feature film directorial debut a look.   At the time, I remember thinking House Of 1000 Corpses was a more faithful update of Texas Chainsaw Massacre than any of the actually Texas Chainsaw Massacre remakes.   Upon rewatching for this review, though, it looks more like a 89-minute long Rob Zombie music video but without the music.                  The plot of House Of 1000 Corpses follows almost note-for-note Texas Chainsaw Massacre .   A group of friends get lost in rural Texas, they...

  SCREAM (1996) – 10/01/2021   https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117571/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_1                  We are approaching the 25 th Anniversary of the release of Scream, the fifth installment of the series is due out next year, and this is handily my favorite movie and series of the genre.   I could have written a Master’s dissertation about Scream .   Wes Craven’s deconstruction of Slasher movies contains satire, references, and in-jokes, and still remains a solid entry into the pantheon.                  In one of the greatest opening scenes in all of horror movie history (and film in general), Casey Becker (Drew Berrymore) finds herself trapped in her house by a masked killer.   This scene has influenced a whole generation of films to find that immediate “gotcha” opening.   From there, the T...