Monthly Movie Recap - October 2015

Hey, Halloween fiends! The night is finally here. Whether you're staying in, or staying up late, here's a few suggestions for something spooky to watch. If you can find Tales of Halloween on demand/streaming, you should definitely check it out tonight!

It might be the final night of the Countdown to Halloween, but I'm hoping to be back with some pics from Salem tonight. On with the flicks!

Splatter (2015, Netflix)
This isn't a movie, but a 3-part interactive series produced by Roger Corman and directed by Joe Dante. Don't have Netflix? You can watch the first episode free online. It's Corman at his finest (take that how you will) and will be interesting to see how it goes. There's a good write up of the ambitious series at Hero Complex.

R.L. Stine's Monsterville: Cabinet of Souls (2015, Netflix)
It might be RL Stine, but this very much feels like a Disney tween version of Something Wicked This Way Comes. I don't necessarily mean that in a bad way. I think the Disney vibe is coming from lead Dove Cameron, who recently starred in Disney Channel's The Descendants, and the pop songs in the movie. I enjoyed it, but it you definitely need to be in a younger state of mind to do so. If you're able to watch other RL Stine shows and no be bothered with the "kiddie level" you should be fine.

Cool: Set around Halloween and a sinister carnival? I'm all in!
Lame: It's a little predictable but hey, I'm way older than the target audience
Rating: 6/10

Zombeavers (2015, Netflix)
Look, you should know from the title what you're getting into! If the SyFy Channel did better, R-rated original movies this is probably what they'd be like. Zombeavers knows what it is and goes for it, no apologies.

Rating: 7/10, campy fun

Tremors 5: Bloodlines (2015, Netflix)
Back to the Tremors universe with Burt Gummer (Michael Gross)! It's pretty much an amusement park ride, I don't know it's quite a roller coaster but it's fun. For a direct to video release, the effects look really good and there's some good kills.

Rating: 6.5/10

Hellions (2015)
I'm still a little on the fence on this one. On one hand, it is a creepy, trippy, and beautiful looking movie and once the creepy starts it sucked me right in. On the other hand, once the chunky exposition drops it takes some of the fun and weirdness out of it.

Cool: Great visuals and atmosphere
Lame: Is she dreaming, hallucinating or just what the hell is going on?
Rating: 6 or 7/10

All Hallow's Eve 2 (2015)
An assortment of stories mostly set around Halloween. Some of them have more flavor than others and a couple of them barely have any story to them.

Cool: A good variety of tales
Lame: The bookends feel useless as opposed to the original where the villain appears throughout the segments. And when you stop to think about it, it's really odd that someone would have these segments on a VHS tape when they're definitely not in the found footage style.

Rating: 6/10

Tales of Halloween (2015)
Until we get an actual sequel to Trick R Treat, I think this will hold people over! 10 stories ranging from truly horrific to splat-stick comedy and plenty of cameos from some genre giants. I love the way the stories are sort of tied together and they avoid the anthology problem of bookend segments.
I can't recommend this enough to fellow Halloween fiends!

Rating: 8/10

Pay the Ghost (2015)
A lot of reviews nail this one to the wall but maybe I didn't have high expectations going in because of Nic Cage. It wasn't completely horrible but it does feel a bit Insidious-ish.

Cool: I actually like the backstory of the ghost
Lame: Way too much Cage chasing after visions of his kid

Rating: 5/10
 
It Follows (2015)
An interesting twist on the usual supernatural slasher movie. Is "It" something particular? There's plenty of room to interpret how you want. One of the things I love about this movie is how somewhat random it is. There's no real backstory or mythology to It and the overall feel is very different. I have to give them huge props for making what probably sounds like the worst movie on paper into something great. Probably my 3rd favorite horror movie I've seen this year.

Cool: The soundtrack! If you're into Carpenter-style music, this will delight you. It's also part of what makes the movie creepy and unnerving.

Rating: 8/10

*Shocker (1989)
After Wes Craven's passing I decided to revisit this one because I hadn't seen it since it was released. I had some fun memories of it. Unfortunately, those memories turn out to be the last 20 minutes of the movie. They rest of the movie is so-so but sometimes weirdly fun mainly due to Pinker.

Cool: Great soundtrack; Mitch Peliggi as a scenery chewing serial killer
Lame: For some reason the main character being psychic doesn't sit right with me but I see how why they did it. Could have been a bit shorter.

Rating: 5/10

Tucker & Dale vs Evil (2011, Netflix)
I don't know why it took me so long to finally see this one but it is every bit of a riot as I was expecting! If you need something to pass the time tonight until Ash vs Evil Dead comes on, this is a good neighbor to that universe. It's got plenty of grisly, splatstick deaths.

Rating: 8/10, a real hoot!

Month Total

 New: 9  Rewatch:1

Year Total

 New: 66  Rewatch:4

Darn, if I only could have fit in 2 more rewatches...

Before you run off to check out all the Cryptkeepers at Countdown to Halloween, here is today's audio Trick or Treat mix: Tonight's the Night Samhain Returns