In addition to the usual reviews and comments you would find on a horror movie blog, this is also a document of the wonderfully vast horror movie section of the video store I worked at in my youth.
To all those who came here from the event or Storm Crow's FB page, welcome! I am Jay, one half of the horror trivia quizmasters and this is my humble blog. Here's the selected list of titles mentioned at the last event. Click on the titles to be redirected to their Imdb listing.
Horror Trivia Night happens at Storm Crow Manor in Toronto. If you're in the area, come on down! Register here. If you're not local, we do occasionally stream the event on @ruemorguemag Instagram.
To all those who came here from the event or our FB page, welcome! I am Jay, one half of the horror trivia quizmasters and this is my humble blog.
If you heard a title while at the last event and thought “oh that movie sounds cool, I should check that out”, here's a comprehensive list of all the films that were mentioned. Click on the titles to be redirected to their Imdb listing.
For everyone else, maybe there's one or two here you have yet to catch. Horror Trivia Nights happen at Storm Crow Manor & Offworld Bar in Toronto. If you're in the area, come on down! Register here. If you're not local, we do often stream the event on @ruemorguemag Instagram.
It has taken me a week to let things
percolate and now that this year's TIFF is behind me, here's what I
thought of David Gordon Green's interpretation of the Halloween
mythos.
Set forty years after the events of the
first film, a re-incarcerated Michael Myers escapes to Haddonfield to
finish what he started. In the meantime, Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis)
has sacrificed living a normal life with her daughter (Judy Greer)
and granddaughter (Andi Matichak) in order to prepare for his
inevitable return.
First I'd like to say that evening
spent at the Elgin was a one-of-a-kind experience that I wouldn't
trade for anything. As cliché as it sounds, there was a palpable
energy in the air, as everyone awaited the first first few bars of
horror's greatest piece of music.
I wanted to love Halloween 2018, and
there a plenty of people online doing that – I'm glad they are
excited – but I had some issues that kept me from being one of
them. This film felt very disjointed to me, like it was originally a
longer movie and was subsequently cut down. I obviously have no proof
of this, but when characters are dropped without warning – and by
dropped I don't mean offed by Myers, I mean they just literally
disappear – I have to wonder if something got lost in the
edit.
For me, this caused an identity crisis
within the film that certainly did not speak to a singular vision. I
saw Gordon & Danny McBride's voice, but I also saw the Blumhouse stamp,
as well. Most of the time, they worked in tandem, but sometimes also
at odds. When it was neither, Halloween 2018 cherry picked the best
bits from other installments, sequences from the first sequel, H20's
motif and the high body counts from the entries of the late eighties.
I can't really fault them for the latter though, as I feel like they
were making up for what they couldn't get away with then.
I think the fundamental problem was
that the heart of the picture should have been Laurie vs. Michael,
that is what made H20 – despite all its production foibles –
successful, but here this theme got bogged down in its ensemble.
Laurie barely felt like a main character until the third act and the
super-intriguing thread of three generations coming together to
destroy their inherited evil didn't feel earned until the movie's
final moments. For instance, I cared more about the babysitter
character than I did Laurie's actual granddaughter and that's
troublesome.
Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode in Halloween.
All that said, I by no means think
Halloween 2018 was a bad movie, as there were a ton of solid set
pieces that went way beyond simple homage – the Halloween II-esque
tracking shot from the trailer notwithstanding. I really liked the
physicality of Myers with the original Shape Nick Castle doing double
duty with James Jude Courtney. And as one would assume, the music
provided by Carpenter and his son, Cody was superb and included
several new movements with Myers' departure from Smith's Grove being
a real highlight.
I've heard some rumblings about fans
not being on board with the comedic undertones, but I wasn't
bothered. There's always been room for that in the Halloween series
and 2018 offered up one of the best lines since Bud's
Amazing Grace serenade.
The Shape returns.
I have to admit that after Get Out, I
was hoping this pair of outsiders would offer up something special. I
hate the term “elevated genre” as much as any horrorphile, but
I'd be lying if the seed wasn't planted leading up to the screening.
Truthfully though, Halloween 2018 was just another sequel in a
long line of redos and revisionism. I'd put it somewhere in the
middle, miles above the maligned sequels and Zombie's canon, but it just
didn't resonate with me like the first four & H20 do.
I feel like the Twitter love-fest isn't
really doing the rest who have to wait a month any favours. Hype is good, but
OVERhype can be a movie's worst enemy. My message would be
not to expect anything more than an entertaining sequel revisiting
two of your favourite horror avatars and you'll have some good fun in
the dark.
It's 2018 folks! Not the greatest start considering man baby numero uno just basically tweeted “my missiles are bigger than yours”, but let's try and forget we're a button push away from living post-apocalypse Bruno Mattei style and talk about some upcoming horror flicks, shall we?
I'm happy that two of genre's hottest directors, Robert Eggers and Jeremy Saulnier, have projects coming out this year. Eggers is following up his brilliant 2015 debut The Witch with an ambitious retelling of Nosferatu. I wouldn't blame you for being skeptical, but if there is anyone who can do justice to this vampire touchstone, it's him.
On the strength of Blue Ruin (2013) and Green Room (2015), we should all be very excited about Saulnier's newest project Hold the Dark. Adapted from the William Giraldi book, it stars Riley Keough & Alexander Skarsgård and takes place in the Alaskan wilderness.
I'm going to offer the theory that due to the strength of TV's Legion and last year's mega-hit It, horror has bled into the superhero genre and given us The New Mutants. Not that I wouldn't have seen this already with Anya Taylor-Joy & Maisie Williams in the cast, but with a trailer like this, I'm so in.
It looks like we get some promising giant monster movies this year - and I'm not talking Jurassic whatever. After almost two decades of attempts, the giant shark flick The Meg is finally coming to fruition as a Jason Statham action vehicle. Any port in a storm I say.
Perhaps a little bit more respectable is Alex Garland's Annihilation with Natalie Portman & Jennifer Jason Leigh. I like the trailer, even though it does have that whiff of disposable sci-fi. However, some of us probably thought the same way about Ex Machina at first glance.
Then there is A Quiet Place. I find the “silence is survival” hook really intriguing, but it's heartbreaking that the first thing I thought about after seeing the trailer was not “man that is going to be intense” but “all I'll be able to hear during the tense bits is fucking mouth breathers chewing their popcorn”.
In terms of the A-list creepers, Winchester has potential. The scares in the trailer look old hat, but I'm counting on the production design of the house and Helen Mirren and company to add the necessary gravitas.
Out of the sea of sequels, two stick out as promising. Even though I don't really need it, I'll check out Strangers 2. They've had a decade to work on it, so hopefully it's good.
Then there's Halloween. I'm gonna give it a chance for three reasons - John Carpenter, Jamie Lee Curtis and Jordan Peele. No, I know Peele isn't involved, but when I heard about who was doing this new iteration of Halloween - or the Pumpkin Express I remember calling it - I thought what the fuck do these comedy guys know about horror? Then Get Out dropped like a fucking culture bomb.
Sometime ago, a member of the Laser Blast Film Society put forth the idea of doing a Hellraiser marathon. Similar endurance tests had been undertaken before with the likes of the Resident Evil and Saw series' - plus that legendary time we watched films for twenty-four hours straight - so no big deal, right? Well, I'm not sure we were all aware - at least I wasn't - when we signed up for this that there were actually nine fucking titles to the Hellraiser franchise. I myself had previously only seen five with vague recollections of three of them.
So last weekend, we did it. We absorbed nine films in fifteen hours and emerged with our souls relatively intact. But we had to get creative. We started with Hellraiser, mainly because not all in attendance had seen it and we wanted to create a base. Going forward though, we decided to watch the rest of them at random - our fate decided by a dice roll.
Whatever number came up, we watched that sequel. In keeping with the theme of hell, we also employed some penalties for various transgressions. For instance;
If you arrived late; PUNISHMENT!
If you looked on your phone for too long; PUNISHMENT!
If the die rolled outside the area; PUNISHMENT!
If you rolled a previously rolled number or a 10; PUNISHMENT!
Punishments involved us watching ten minutes of various terrible Halloween specials, namely the animated David S. Pumpkins' and Michael Jackson ones. Worst of all by a large margin was the Big Bang Theory special. Holy fuck, I'd rather watch all nine Hellraiser films again rather than suffer anymore of that. It is mind boggling how agonizingly unfunny that show is.
We were also “treated” to the Hellraiser fan film No More Souls featuring a sixty-year-old Pinhead lamenting Shakespearean-style about days gone by. Then the two Cenobites from Hellworld walk out and stab him to death. Hurm. That the director of this (though an accomplished FX artist) was in fact responsible for the upcoming tenth film in the franchise did not instill me with a lot of confidence.
Anyways. The first Hellraiser film.
Where it all began. It is still the best and the make-up effects are straight up terrific. What a breath of fresh air Clive Barker was circa 1987. In a world of slashers and creature features, he brought forth not only iconic imagery, but interesting and provocative themes. I always forget that considering how iconic The Cenobites are, they had very little screen time. I also found it quite funny that Pinhead was, in fact, relatively easy to trick. Kirstie (Ashley Laurence) was super good at it.
Kirstie: Frank escaped you!
Pinhead: No one escapes us!
Kirstie: He did, I've seen him.
Pinhead: ...Suppose he did escape us...
OR in Part II
Pinhead: Time to play.
Kirstie: Wait!
Pinhead: No more deals.
Kirstie: No deals, just information.
Pinhead: ...Go on.
We were watching the Arrow Blu-ray release of the film and as a result I noticed for the first time there were a couple of dicks nailed to that turning pillar of carnage at the onset.
So now that we had a good foundation, the first die roll was a 9. Yes folks, we went right to the shit.
Revelations, the super cheap flick from 2011 that was seemingly made just to keep the rights. The movie is by far the worst out of the bunch and thank God we got it out of the way early. I am one-hundred percent sure we would have not finished if we watched them in numerical order.
I don't even know where to begin with this. The shitty found footage setup? The fat Will Forte looking mofo playing Pinhead? The boring family stuff which played out like a porno with the sex scenes cut out? The characters yelling Tijuana! to remind us that's where they were supposed to be?
The horror. The horror.
I think the worst thing was that, unlike parts 5-8 which put on different skins, Revelations just aped the first movie. It was more like a really shitty reboot of Hellraiser, than a sequel. It was painful, but thankfully only seventy-five minutes - trust me we checked to see how much time was left on several occasions.
Hellworld was released in 2005, and the third and last Hellraiser sequel directed by Rick Bota. I knew nothing about it, except it had something to do with a Hellraiser-themed MMO. From what I understand, a good number of these Hellraiser sequels were unrelated horror scripts with some Pinhead shoe-horned in at metered intervals. I can see that. This movie was definitely made in the wake of Saw. There's a scene you could have stuck in one of those movies and you wouldn't know the difference. Also, it had this veneer of self awareness where the franchise existed in this world so characters wore Pinhead apparel and used terms like “the Lament Configuration” and “wall-walker”.
Kathryn Winnick in Hellworld.
However, despite that this movie ended up being my favourite of the post-canon sequels for two reasons. First, it starred, unbeknownst to me until the opening credits, both Lance Henriksen and Kathryn Winnick. Secondly, in Saw-like fashion, Hellworld had a ridiculous hail Mary plot twist that made no sense that somehow made the movie infinitely more entertaining. We were all confused as to why Pinhead - when he was in it - had become a stock slasher villain and said twist explained that. I'm pretty sure it was unintentionally clever on the filmmaker's part, but I'll take it!
Bloodline was the last true Hellraiser movie and also the last theatrical release - which I saw in its original run. I remembered very little, except that it was in space - a trend popular with fourthinstallments. I appreciated that director Kevin Yagher attempted something a little higher concept with the multiple time periods, but it was a little dry and I don't think that was all due to studio tampering. Even though the series was getting stale, there were still a lot of great effects in this with two practical explosions - one you get to see twice!
But, getting back on the subject of tricking Pinhead, the best part in the movie is the priceless look on Pinhead's face when he gets duped by a hologram.
I think by this time my brain was starting to short circuit because I only remember bits and pieces of this one. Adam Scott in his period getup, the cool Cenobite design of Angelique, that Kim Myers - the Meryl Streep lookalike from NOES 2 - was in this one and the entertaining space station effects.
Inferno was the first direct-to-video title and also the first re-appropriated script - a detective noir thriller. The influences are many, but Lost Highway, The Bad Lieutenant and the stuff David Fincher was doing in the last-half of the nineties are right up front. It has a few interesting sequences, namely the cowboy poker game, but it - like many of these middle sequels - often meandered into watch glancing territory. The ending was pretty pedestrian and has been done better on a least half-a-dozen occasions.
We were getting into a rut, so it was fortunate that Hellbound came up at this point. This is a lot of people's favourite and I'd agree the most visually interesting. It brought back the characters from the first movie and successfully expanded the universe. The effects built upon the grotesqueness and even marched into cringe-worthy territory. It even has some sweet stop-motion stuff in it, as well. Hellbound was just the pick up we needed, before falling off the ensuing cliff.
This one was a slog that starred Kari Wuhrer as an investigative reporter tracking down a death cult of people called Deaders. It was shot back-to-back with Hellworld in Romania. It was a pretty dull affair, but I'll take Wuhrer over Inferno's Craig Sheffer any day of the week. I do recall two memorable things, the first being two sequences that took place in a club that happened to be on a running subway car and the other involved a bloody scene where Wuhrer tries to pull a knife out of her back. It was oddly arousing -- oops did I type that aloud?
We were pretty happy with this roll, because it meant we got to end on something fun with Hell on Earth. Hellseeker was the only non-canon sequel I had previously seen. I remembered it being pretty good. My memory lied to me. This was even more of a chore than Deader. And it even had Ashley Laurence back as Kirstie! It was another uninteresting noir that couldn't even be saved by the talents of Dean Winters.
I feel ya, bro.
I realized that for some reason this series seemed better suited to female protagonists. Someone brought up the point that many of these sequels are even Bechdel approved, as there are several women team-ups over the course of the series (Kirstie/Tiffany in 2, Joey/Terry in 3 and Amy/Marla in 7). Equality shows up in the weirdest places it seems.
While I still maintain that the scene where Pinhead and company march down the street while dispatching cops was the point-of-no-return moment of the Hellraiser series, after watching all the non-canon entries Hell on Earth was a helluva lot of fun. I think the theatrical version I saw might have been cut because I didn't remember a lot of the gore in this. I believe this one has the most Cenobites per capita, as well. Even if Pinhead was pretty much doing his best Freddy Krueger impression by the end, I can still appreciate it.
Hell on Earth came out in 1992, right when mainstream horror was in its death throes before being revitalized by Scream a few years later. This movie had a decent start, but by the third act, director Anthony Hickox was basically throwing everything at the screen and just hoping something would stick.
And then we were done! This marathon was not nearly as painful as I was expecting. Hellseeker & Deader weren't great, but still miles better than Revelations. I think that was the only one that really tested our mettle and, as I said, it was a Godsend that we got that over with quickly. Should you ever attempt to do this yourself, know that it is possible.
Hello all! I hope you're enjoying your weekend and that sweet spot in between Canada Day and Fourth of July. Here's what I've got for you.
Bava Buffet.
While it is often that I wish I could attend something that is screening in NYC, this takes the torta, so to speak. The Quad Cinema in New York will be celebrating the work of Italian icon Mario Bava in July by playing twenty-one (!) of his classic films.
I can only pray to any higher power that will listen that some organization in the Big Smoke will bring this series to Toronto. I'm crossing my black gloved fingers.
Trailer Two-Fer.
I have a couple of trailers here, the first of which is for the newest Child's Play movie, Cult of Chucky.
I still haven't seen the one from a few years ago yet, but fortunately a friend is having a Chucky marathon this month so I'll be able to catch up soon enough. Second is the trailer for Black Fawn's newest The Heretics.
Each picture these guys make as part of their eight picture deal with Breakthrough is better than the last and having worked with two of the leads (Ry Barrett & Jorja Cadence) in the past, I am expecting good things. Look for both titles later this year.
If Only.
Lastly, since I'm still clocking in nightly sessions with Gun Media's Friday the 13th game, I thought this mock-up was particularly awesome.
I'm afraid I don't know who is responsible for this, but I like to think there is an alternative universe where these titles actually exist. What a childhood that would be!
While I don't really have much interest in the new Ring movie that is coming out (last year's Sadako vs Kayako seemed like a nice exclamation point on both franchises) I did get a kick out the viral prank video they made for the release.
Samara also showed up on The Today Show by way of special delivery, as well. For those interested in the new flick, it releases this Friday.
My Favourite Thing.
I found about an upcoming project called My Favorite Thing Is Monsters this week. Created by single mother from Chicago named Emil Ferris, this part graphic novel, part fictional diary has captured high praise from those who have read it so far.
The story behind this piece is very intriguing, and I can't wait to check it out when the first part (of two) is released Feb 13th. For more info on My Favorite Thing Is Monsters, check out this Forbes article here.
R.I.P. John Hurt 1940-2017.
Sadly, we lost another legend this week. Sir John Hurt passed away this week after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 77. Hurt was a prolific actor with other two-hundred credits under him. He was a man who appeared in all manner of productions, but always added an air of legitimacy to any project when you saw his name in the credits.
Sir John Hurt 1940-2017
For me, he will always be Kane, the ill-fated crew member of the Nostromo in Ridley Scott's 1979 film Alien. His death sequence still remains one of the most iconic scenes in movie (let alone horror) history. Almost as resonant with me was his voice work in the Richard Adams adaptations of Watership Down and The Plague Dogs.
All right... First Messenger post of 2017! Forgive me if I seem a little groggy, I was up until four a.m. playing an incredibly engaging video game. Here's what I have for you today.
Look What Came In From The Cold.
One of my fave horrors from 2015, Oz Perkins' February (now re-titled The Blackcoat's Daughter) is finally getting a release in 2017.
I'm happy to see that, as I thought for sure this had been relegated to Netflix oblivion. The plan is to premiere on DirecTV in the midd le of (coincidentally) February with a theatrical release on March 31st. This flick features three great performances from its young leads Emma Roberts, Keirnan Shipka & Lucy Boynton and seethes with atmosphere. Be sure to check it out.
Blood Makes Everything Better.
Much has been said about the family Christmas caper Home Alone's cartoonishly violent undertones, but YouTuber BitMassive has done one better by digitally inserting realistic physical trauma on the two thieves, Harry & Marv. These are really great.
Guess Who's Back?
Here's something I wasn't expecting. A new Chucky movie! Here's the teaser below.
As long as Brad Dourif is still doing the voice, I'm in.
We made it, guys! Here were are in 2017
with a new slate of horror films for which to look forward. Let's
take a look.
Since it's January, we can first look
to Park City and I see three possible winners in Damien Power's Killing Ground, Cary Murnion & Jonathan Milott's actioner
Bushwick and the anthology XX.
The horror anthology has made a full-on
comeback in recent years, so I'm hoping this female-centric affair
keeps the momentum going. The pedigree is certainly there, as Karyn Kusama
killed it with The Invitation last year and up-and-comers Roxanne
Benjamin and Jovanka Vuckovic could really cement their reputations.
I am fully aware I may be the only one,
but I'm super chuffed I get not only a new Resident Evil movie to
start the year, but also an Underworld flick. I love these two ladies
so much. I'll watch them dispatch monsters for as long they want to
do it, God bless 'em.
#DontJudgeMe
It looks like last year's The Shallows
performed well enough for this whole shark thing to keep going in
2017. Though the long-gestating Meg won't see the light of day until next year, there's a new found-footage shark tale called Cage Dive coming up. I'll be able to take the sensationalized affair of Meg, but the horrifying reality of this one, man? Honestly, I
wimped out halfway through the trailer.
Some other A-list genre fare that looks
decent are Gore Verbinski's Cure for Wellness and Colm Mcarthy's The Girl with All the Gifts. I saw a listing for Stefan Ruzowitzky's
Patient Zero and was all like “yeah, this sure looks like a zer--
Natalie Dormer's in this??? Ok... I'll watch it (sigh)” More
enticing I think, is Jordan Peele's take on horror with Get Out.
Then there's M. Night Shayamalan's
Split. Fuck man, you never know what you're going to get with this
guy. I enjoyed The Visit and thought it was a good bounce back from a series of misfires, but I don't know. This could be a solid thriller
or a fucking trainwreck. I think it will depend on who M. Night
thinks is the star here, him or James McAvoy.
Out of all the indies in this year's
landscape, the most intriguing might be Monolith. The premise is
delicious and of a new wave of horror that has sprung from our
over-reliance on technology.
Looking through all the titles it was a
veritable sea of remakes and sequels. I know this is par for the
course these days, but holy... so many I don't give a shit about. I
am reasonably receptive to It, or at least I have no desire to shut
it out like Suspiria, F13, Flatliners et al.
These sequels though. I think the only
one I'm actually upset about not being excited for is Alien: Covenant. I don't need more Prometheus. Every single Alien movie that
gets made seems to get us further and further away from what made the
first two remarkable. Anyway, I digress.
My parting words here would be to make
sure you support Julia Ducournau's Raw and Greg McLean's The Belko Experiment when they hopefully hit theatres in 2017. These are the
kinds of films that keep the genre fresh and exciting, not recycled
tripe we've seen a million times before.
This year's Midnight Madness concluded
on Saturday with a classic confrontation between the two horror icons
from The Ring and The Grudge franchises, Sadako vs. Kayako.
After a pair of young women discover
and watch the cursed video tape, they seek the help of a pair of
ghost hunters who hatch a scheme to pit Sadako against another local
vengeful spirit, Kayako.
These type of event pictures are
nothing new, as its been almost seventy years since Abbott & Costello first met Frankenstein. Even in Japanese cinema, Godzilla
once fought King Kong, so I suppose that now that Sadako & Kayako
are now pop culture icons (they even recently threw out the first pitch at a Japanese baseball game) its seems this match-up was
inevitable in much the same way as Freddy vs. Jason was in this neck
of the woods.
I have to say Sadako vs. Kayako was
surprisingly entertaining. For what could have been a cheap gimmick,
it was actually pretty well put together. Director Kôji Shiraishi
(of Noroi: The Curse fame) was in on the joke and made this effort
incredibly easy to digest. I liked the evolution of the lore
surrounding the cursed video tape in that it had become a well known
urban legend, to the point that one character had become so obsessed
with Sadako that he was offering a reward to anyone who could acquire
it for him. I'm not sure why the death countdown was inexplicably
changed from the seven days to two, but I can assume it just better served
the script.
Even though the tone of the movie was
rather light and comedic, there was still room for some fun scares as
Sadako and Kayako continued their modus operandi of being able to
strike from anywhere. It is a testament to their design that no
matter how ridiculous they become (they spent their time in Toronto
getting their hair done, and visiting the candy store Sweet Jesus),
their appearance and accompanying audio cues still manage to put
people on edge.
The highlight of the movie for me were
the pair of ghost hunters that come onto the scene when all seems
lost. I immediately recognized Masanobu Ando from his appearance as
the psychotic Kazuo in 2000's Battle Royale and he and his young
blind sidekick Tamao's (Mai Kikuchi) blunt force humour were pretty
great. The ending of the movie was rather abrupt, but the aftermath
of what happened when Sadako and Kayako were pitted against each
other made for some crazy visuals.
