31 Days Of Horror (Films)

[dookeyXXX]

DAY 13
SOLE SURVIVOR - streaming on AMC+ and Shudder

Written and directed by Thom Eberhardt (best known for his cult classic Night of the Comet), this 1983 slow burn horror thriller is the undisputed spiritual precursor to the Final Destination franchise.
Granted, it’s not as gonzo or gory as those films, but it still packs a decent amount of creepy tension.
The acting isn’t terribly great and the cinematography has that 1980s made-for-tv look, but the story is intriguing and quite a lot of the shots of an empty Los Angeles at night are unsettlingly cool.
In the grand scheme of things it’s very much like an extended Twilight Zone episode.

[dookeyXXX]

DAY 14
SHE WILL - streaming on AMC+ and Shudder

Cabin in the woods?
Check.
Weird allusional folk horror trappings?
Check.
Creepy score?
Check.
Witches?
Check.
Owing an obvious debt to Dario Argento (who just so happens to have produced this effort), Charlotte Colbert’s debut feature is a dreamy, art-house horror offering that slides by the eyes with lush imagery and an eerie tone of feminine vengeance and nature’s immense power. A little uneven at times (there’s a somewhat incongruous comedic performance from Rupert Everett, for example), the film is beautifully shot, has fantastic sound design, and the preternatural elements stir up enough unease and tension to make it thoroughly engaging, not to mention just a tad thought provoking.
The concepts of transformation and revenge are as old as the horror genre itself, but here they are unleashed with such visual flair as to make them seem sufficiently fresh.

[dookeyXXX]

DAY 15
SEANCE - streaming on Shudder and AMC+

Simon Barrett, best known for penning two of my favorite genre flicks from the past decade—You’re Next and The Guest—steps behind the camera for this slick and entertaining swipe at late 90s/early oughts ensemble horror films.
Mixing Mean Girls-styled melodrama with ghost stories, Ouija boards, masked killers, and a tale of revenge, Seance tweaks tired tropes just enough to keep things interesting. Sure, a large chunk of the ending is utterly predictable, but there’s decent enough red herrings swimming throughout, a passable double-twist, and a well choreographed boffo brawl to even things out.

[dookeyXXX]

DAY 16
THE SADNESS - streaming on Shudder and AMC+

This Taiwanese update on the inner city zombie outbreak is a strange, uneven, yet relentless beast of a film. Definitely not for the faint of heart as the gore is insanely gruesome and stomach churning. I have a pretty high threshold when it comes to cinematic violence and I found myself wincing more than once; the bloodletting is in that video nasty grindhouse vein a la I Spit On Your Grave
and makes Tom Savini’s work look like amateur hour.
I mentioned the film is uneven and that’s due to stop-and-go pacing, which initially is kind of frustrating. There are bouts of intense violence followed by seemingly long stretches of dialogue that feels like mansplaining exposition. This technique also made it predictable as to when crazy stuff was going to jump off. It was distracting until I realized that it may very well have been intended to mimic the actions of the zombies.
The ending, at first, feels like a cop-out. But when you realize the subtle nastiness of it, it becomes quite brilliant.
The film manages to mix in Covid hysteria, politics, and conspiracies rather nicely, too.
And stalwart horror geeks should no doubt recognize the obvious homage to films like Dawn of the Dead, Night of the Comet, and The Crazies.

[dookeyXXX]

DAY 17
SHREDDER

If you shred, you’re dead!
Somebody is killing off all the obnoxious snowboarders poaching the closed (and possibly haunted, or so the locals claim) Rocky Summit ski resort.
Welcome to the world of Shredder, where being a snowboarder is hazardous to your health.
Snowsports are sorely underrepresented in horror movies. Sadly, this effort doesn’t up the ante all that much.
A veritable paint-by-numbers affair teeming with mediocre acting, lots of outdated slang, over stereotyped stoner boarders, and ho-hum kill scenes are intermingled with okay boarding and skiing sequences (this ain’t no Aspen Extreme or Hot Dog, though).
The major takeaway: KNOW THE CODE!!!

[buttahflake]

Is anyone on shudder or amc+? This thread kinda blows, dude.
I watched Hell House LLC on Prime a couple of nights ago, very enjoyable. I am a sucker for found footage though.

https://youtu.be/n8OE1wNMHE4

[SB]

Tuesday is soylent green day.

[dookeyXXX]

Tuesday is soylent green day.

Wrong genre.


However, this horror film from Down Under has a nice (and twisted) homage to Soylent Green:

[dookeyXXX]

DAY 18
BLACK MAGIC 2

While the Shaw Brothers first Black Magic film was lacking, this not-quite sequel goes full gonzo.
We’re talking man-eating alligators, hopping zombies, empty eyed ghouls, breastfeeding evil sorcerers, slutty living dead escorts, grave robbing, worm and writhing maggot infested wounds, melting faces, and blistering skin. There’s a bit of clunky kung fu tossed in for good measure, too.
Imagine a Hammer horror film gone awry, then crossed with voodoo and The Devil’s Rain and you’ve only just scratched the surface.
This is pure midnight movie madness.

[MontuckyFried]

DAY 18
BLACK MAGIC 2

While the Shaw Brothers first Black Magic film was lacking, this not-quite sequel goes full gonzo.
We’re talking man-eating alligators, hopping zombies, empty eyed ghouls, breastfeeding evil sorcerers, slutty living dead escorts, grave robbing, worm and writing maggot infested wounds, melting faces, and blistering skin. There’s a bit of clunky kung fu tossed in for good measure, too.
Imagine a Hammer horror film gone awry, then crossed with voodoo and The Devil’s Rain and you’ve only just scratched the surface.
This is pure midnight movie madness.

Now THIS one looks like my cup of tea. Solid suggestion. Haha.

[dookeyXXX]

DAY 19
TERRIFIER

Part stalker, part slasher, part torture porn, and part supernatural injected evil entity, this 2016 low-budget effort owes a huge debt to Halloween and Friday the 13th, amongst other like-minded horror outings.
While the gore is splatterific, there just seems to be an inherent meanness to the film. Art the Clown is creepy AF—imagine Marcel Marceau as a demonic butcher—but he’s also sadistic beyond reproach and comes off even more empty and evil than Michael Meyers, if you can believe that. The film definitely would have benefited from a bit more humor as much of the action just feels callous.
That said, I was pleasantly surprised by the acting, production value, and the weird intro.
Ultimately, however, this is aimed purely at gore hounds who favor violent onscreen kills over story and character development.

[SB]

Lol

[dookeyXXX]

DAY 20
THE MIND’S EYE

Certainly not a great movie by any stretch, it is at least, in many ways, ithe spiritual sequel to Scanners, as it’s heads and tails better than either Scanners II or Scanners III.
Director/screenwriter Joe Begos inserts a few interesting elements into his story about people with super acute mental powers and his antagonist is promising. The film flounders, however, by not making the villain dastardly enough and by not taking the effects and gore to more creative levels; Begos, who is known for his over-the-top splatter effects, keeps things rather tame here. Plus he more or less sticks to the blueprint devised by Cronenberg. The one stand-out is the sound design (the film even begins with the prompt: This Film Need To Be Played LOUD.”)

[dookeyXXX]

DAY 21
POSSUM

Best described as “psychological horror,” this British export is disturbing and unnerving. There is a sinister undertone that runs at a constant velocity leaving you wondering exactly what in the hell is going on. The exposition is left to an almost nonexistent bare minimum, requiring the viewer to fill in the blanks. This is a tricky tactic that actually ends up working, as it helps to create an even more oppressive sense of eerie dread.
I’m not even gonna talk about the titular character; it’s harrowing and nightmare inducing, to say the least. And Sean Harris is brilliant as the ostracized loner who may or may not be crazy.

[dookeyXXX]

DAY 22
DEAD OF NIGHT
streaming on Kanopy

This 1945 anthology is a veritable Old School horror film, relying more on creepy atmosphere and supernatural allusion than jump scares and gratuitous gore. Produced by Ealing Studios (the oldest continuously operating movie studio in the world) it was apparently a rarity for the time as Britain had banned the production of horror movies during WWII. Additionally, it has been name-checked by Martin Scorsese in interviews.
While not particularly scary, it does resonate with a strange eeiriness and is definitely a precursor to things like The Twilight Zone and Final Destination.
The wraparound story is particularly cool and a delicious bit of a mindf@$k.

[dookeyXXX]

DAY 23
HOUSE
streaming on The Criterion Channel and HBOmax

This 1977 Japanese flick is a trip. Imagine if Hanna, Barbera, and Sid & Marty Kroft had collaborated on a horror film. Yeah, it’s that wacky and weird, plus it’s a bugged out mind-fugg to boot.
The insane blend of pure strangeness, tilted humor, and off-kilter horror obviously rubbed off on cats like Sam Raimi (specifically Evil Dead II), Tim Burton (mainly Beetlejuice), and Sion Sono (Tokyo Vampire Hotel). Heck, you can even see this film’s influence on the similarly titled 1985 American horror comedy starring The Greatest American Hero and Norm.
But enough of those ruminations. Nobuhiko Obayashi’s film is off-the-nuts entertaining. While not particularly scary, it is creepy and eerie and the sheer manic absurdity is near brilliant.
It’s the type of film one wishes they could see in a packed midnight screening or at the drive-in with a large crew and a keg of brew.

PS
It would make a killer double-feature with Black Magic 2

[dookeyXXX]

DAY 24
THE EYES OF MY MOTHER
streaming on Kanopy

Borrowing a page or two from the Ed Gein mythos by way of Psycho and the likes of Polanski’s Repulsion, writer/director Nicolas Pesce’s debut film presents a good case against home schooling.
Filmed in crisp black & white, it’s a steadily paced descent into supreme dysfunctional family fallout. Pesce does a fantastic job with alluded to gore and grue and keeps the macabre musings moving along with enough cringe worthy moments to keep you unnerved.
Sure, most of the plot points are old hat, but the cinematography, pacing, and acting insure that things feel just fresh enough.

[dookeyXXX]

DAY 25
THE CURSED (aka EIGHT FOR SILVER)
streaming on Hulu and Kanopy

Holy hairballs and gnarly fingernails!
Despite an ever-so-brief theatrical run, this film has largely flown under the radar, which is a shame because it’s a nicely made little neo-gothic horror gem.
Dripping with moody atmosphere (copious amounts of fog and shadows, plus some great camera angles and shots), well-paced action and drama, and containing some solid thespian turns (all you Yellowstone fanboys can rejoice at seeing Beth Dutton gussied up in 1882 French couture), the film delivers on the chills and thrills.
The only slight is the debatable CGI, but thankfully it is used sparingly; the film definitely would have been better served with more practical FX, though.
Still, it has this opulent Hammer-esque sense of production design, great period costumes, and a keen air of suspense.

[dookeyXXX]

DAY 26
RABIES

Incompetent map readers.
Incest.
Peeing in the woods.
Sexual assault.
Land mines.
Animal cruelty.
Jealous lovers.
Rusty bear traps.
Tennis.
Serial killers.
These are just some of the things bubbling through the insanely bugged out plot of this 2010 release.
Billed as Israel’s first horror film, Rabies is a strange melange of genre tropes, yet despite its familiarity it resonates with a fresh sense of off-kilter consternation.
The best thing about this ensemble piece is that you never know just exactly where it’s headed; it starts going one way and then veers precariously into a completely different direction. Keeping the audience on their toes and constantly guessing is its major strength. That and a wonderfully weird sense of macabre humor.

[dookeyXXX]

DAY 27
THE ENTITY

Think 1 part The Exorcist, 1 part Ghostbusters, and 1 part Prince of Darkness and you’ll kinda nail the vibe of this overlooked 1982 jewel. Although, this film is based on the 1978 novel which fictionalized a real 1974 parapsychology case, so perhaps it actually influenced the latter two films mentioned above.
Regardless, this is a thrilling and disturbing endeavor, one which expertly utilizes all the patented horror film tricks to great effect.
There’s discordant music, jump scares, and Dutch tilts up the ass. Such techniques could easily have come off gimmicky, but here they work wonderfully, creating unease, confusion, and terror. And while the blood and gore is beyond minimal, the violence portrayed is palpable and unnerving.
Sure, it dips into hokey territory at times, but the pacing and the use of all the aforementioned techniques make this a brisk and entertaining edge-of-your-seat experience.

[dookeyXXX]

DAY 28
BRAIN FREEZE

I had high hopes for this Quebecer zombie film based on the fact that the last undead oriented endeavor to come across the border—2017’s Ravenous—was pretty damn bueno.
Sadly, this effort starts out mildly promising and then just deteriorates into a hodge lodge of tired tropes. It doesn’t help matters much that it gets bogged down in long, drawn out sequences where literally nothing happens. That and the gore is sparse, as are the thrills and any modicum of tension. And never mind that the film borrows liberally from the likes of Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, and Z Nation, without bringing much newness to the proverbial table.
To top it all off, there’s an uninspired through line of nationalism (i.e. racism), classicism, and corporate greed, all of which are meant to be thoughtful social-political commentary, but come off as lazy and rote, instead.
The editing is uneven, there are interesting subplots that are brought up, but never followed through, and even the film’s twist ending is lame.

[tylerjames]

solid recs. much gracias dookey

[dookeyXXX]

DAY 29
HIS HOUSE

This entry, which was much heralded when it screened at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, starts out promisingly enough, but ultimately succumbs to trite and tedious tropes.
In the first act we are introduced to a refugee couple who have escaped from an unnamed African nation mired in civil war violence. It is presumed that they are seeking asylum in England, though we never know which city. They are given a rundown apartment in a dilapidated housing project as they await their fate in regards to citizenship.
There are some genuine creepy moments and a few solid jump scares one they being getting settled in their new home, but from there it devolves into "seen it all before" territory.
There is one really freaky sequence where the wife ventures out of the house and gets lost; it effectively captures the whole "stranger in a strange land" vibe.
And there's a nice twist reveal just before the third act.
Ultimately, however, the film becomes a rote exercise in people who have committed an immoral act being punished and tormented by demons, both real and imagined. While it does draw upon some unfamiliar (to me, at least) African folklore, it's still a story that has been told umpteen times before in a similar manner.
Methinks the bulk of critics who applauded this film succumbed to "exotic bias," which I myself have been know to exhibit. Here, though, the routine nature of the story ends up bogging the film down.

[dookeyXXX]

DAY 30
STARRY EYES

This film is an unabashed homage to Dario Argento's Susperia, albeit with less emphasis on colors and set design. But it keeps all the eerie and off-putting elements intact, often ratcheting them up to 11.
It's also a pretty damn bueno critique on the Hollywood mystique and people's continued quest for fame and adoration.
And it presents a genuinely creepy view of casting calls that predates the Harvey Weinstein MeToo revelations of 2017 by a good three years.
Essentially unfolding as a descent into madness, the film follows the ambitions of wannabe star Sarah, who slums at a fast food restaurant between attending auditions. She's surrounded by other like-minded individuals, all grasping for the elusive Tinseltown Dream. The cattiness displayed between the competing actresses, the lechery and power plays of low-level management, and the seedy underbelly lurking beneath the Silver Screen are all delivered with vim, vigor, and tremendous verve.
The ending is a bit hammy, but the journey there is so taut and teeming with sinister undertones that it's worth the trip.

[dookeyXXX]

DAY 31
THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI

Figured I'd end the month with a classic of early cinema. And, surprisingly enough, I'd never seen it before.
While I would hesitate to call it a true horror film, it does contain a lot of the core elements of the genre.
But it's essentially a macabre looking murder mystery with a few twists and turns that have become de rigueur in modern cinema.
A feat of German Expressionism, it's the look of the film, much more than the story, that creates a sense of abstract horror: buildings are slanted, authority figures sit on insanely high chairs in crowded offices, and everybody wears scary make-up (yes, I know this is the style of the time and a holdover from stage productions that used elaborate and heavily caked make-up so that the folks in the back rows could see the facial expressions, but it's still unnerving and weird looking by today's standards). Suffice it to say, one would be hard pressed not to notice the obvious influence this film had on folks like Tim Burton and Joe Dante, amongst others.