Ninth Annual FMS Scarelicious October Movie Series: #22 Wolfcop

It is because of my abiding love for werewolf movies that we end this year's Scarelicious October Movie series with the truly ridiculous Canadian C-movie: Wolfcop.  It's pretty much all there, right in the title.

Deputy Lou Garou (see what they did there?  "Loup-garou" is French for werewolf) is a hard-drinking waste of space, a poor excuse for a cop in small town Woodhaven.  Not that the bar is set particularly high: the Woodhaven populace seems to consist of thugs, drunks, drug dealers and hunters.  When investigating a disturbance call one night, Lou is knocked unconscious and wakes up back in his own bed with heightened senses, a pentagram carved into his chest and facial hair that sprouts faster than he can shave it.  His initial transformation comes that night and since it happens while he's taking a leak in a bar bathroom, he transforms penis first, which is not anything I ever thought I'd see.  Soon enough he is making the rounds in wolf-guise, stopping liquor store robberies and busting up meth labs.  Lou is a better cop as a werewolf than he ever was as a regular guy.

This movie is not good.  It is pretty much incoherent and stupid; there's some "plot" about a sinister cabal turning people into werewolves and sacrificing them for "reasons," but the only - and I mean ONLY - reason to watch Wolfcop is for the practical effects.  While Wolf-Lou's fully-transformed facial make-up is not great, the transformations are pretty good, especially given the low, low, low, low budget.  The gory fight scenes are good too, with Wolf-Lou pulling off arms, legs and faces.

And there's a hot chick with big boobs having sex with a werewolf in a jail cell.  She lit candles.  It was something.

That's all for this year, folks! Hope you found something here you want to see (not Wolfcop).  We'll do it again in 2019 for the Tenth one!

Ninth Annual FMS Scarelicious October Movie Series: #21 Hush

Home invasion flicks are not really my thing but, as previously mentioned, good (for me) horror movie streaming options are limited, so why not try Hush?  And it's only 82 minutes so that's a plus.

Writer Maddie lives alone in a lovely house in the middle of the woods.  She is deaf and mute from a childhood illness but totally self-sufficient and her nice neighbors, Sarah and John, walk over now and again to check on her.  One night, as Maddie is cleaning up after dinner, she fails to notice a screaming, crying Sarah pounding on her door, trying to get away from a masked man who then guts her, right there on Maddie's porch.  After dispatching his prey, the killer is fascinated that Maddie has shown no sign of hearing him.  He can't stand not having her attention so he sneaks into her house, steals her cell phone and alerts her to his presence by sending her photos of herself while she is on her computer, struggling with the seven possible endings to her latest draft novel.  When he goes out of the house to cut her power and wifi and slash her car tires, she locks him out.  Then begins the cat and mouse game, as he stalks and torments her - both of them know he could break a window and get into the house at any time.  Plus, she can't make a run for it because he has a crossbow, giving him a range advantage.

Hush seems to unfold real-time once the killer makes himself known to Maddie.  Even so, 82 minutes seemed to drag a bit, although there isn't any lull in the action once it gets going.  The ending is seriously telegraphed right from the first act - so totally obvious that even I picked up on it, and I'm usually oblivious to such things.  This is a straightforward horror movie: a little suspenseful with no cheap jump scares (for which I was grateful), with brutal violence combated by some serious girl power (nevertheless, Maddie persisted).  It isn't really scary and the outcome is obvious but you could certainly do worse.

Ninth Annual FMS Scarelicious October Movie Series: #20 Life After Beth

Life After Beth is a horror(ish)-comedy(ish) with a stacked cast: Aubrey Plaza, Dane DeHaan, Molly Shannon, John C. Reilly, Cheryl Hinds, Paul Reiser, Anna Kendrick, Adam Pally and "Jerry" from Park and Rec.  Granted, several of these folks are really only making cameos but still, impressive showing from this odd little film.

Zach (DeHaan) is bereft after his girlfriend Beth (Plaza) dies from snakebite during a solo hike in the California hillside.  His family are blithe idiots so he ends up finding some consolation with Beth's parents, smoking dope and playing chess with her dad Maury (O'Reilly) and going through Beth's things with her mom (Shannon).  One day, things get a little weird in the neighborhood, with a dude running scared down the middle of the street and a long-lost mailman showing up not really all there mentally.  Zach doesn't think too much of it until he gets to Beth's house: Maury won't let him in and then Zach catches a glimpse of Beth, alive(ish) and well(ish).  Her parents believe it was a miracle but Zach thinks she may be a zombie.

Of course Beth is a zombie, although it takes a little time for the zombification to really kick in.  At first she is forgetful and a little vague, but still basically herself, and Zach can't help but love being around her again.  Then she starts to deteriorate, with episodes of extreme rage, strength and panic, and a weird love of smooth jazz which comforts her.  Then she eats a neighbor.  The zombie apocalypse comes quickly, y'all.

Life After Beth is supposed to be a horror-comedy, ostensibly along the same lines of my beloved Shaun of the Dead because: zombies.  But it is not really scary or gory - any zombie kills happen off-screen - and it isn't as funny as SotD or, say, Tucker and Dale vs. Evil.  It just doesn't go quite far enough in either direction.  That being said, the smooth jazz gag is hilarious and Aubrey Plaza must have had a blast with this character.  The reviews were not especially good but I thought it was okay.

Ninth Annual FMS Scarelicious October Movie Series: #19 The Ritual

For the record, Netflix has a crap selection of horror movies available for streaming.  Their DVD offerings are somewhat better but I have had a hell of a time coming up with decent movies in between DVD deliveries.  Which is how I ended up with The Ritual, available as a Netflix original.

After the death of one of their friends in a liquor store hold-up gone wrong, four British dudes embark on a hiking trip in northern Sweden.  This is something their dead friend wanted to do and they do it to honor him, holding a little ceremony at a mountaintop to remember him.  [Note: this is not the titular ritual, IMHO.]  Shortly thereafter, one of the dudes hurts his knee and then a storm moves in.  To try to limit the misery (the hurt dude is a wicked complainer), they decide to leave the established trail and take a "shortcut" through a forest.  [Note: don't do this if you are in a horror movie.]  With the weather deteriorating, they take refuge in an abandoned cabin which has a fucking freaky headless effigy with antlers for hands up in the attic.  They stay anyway and are all awoken in the middle of the night by bad dreams; in addition, one dude has claw marks on his chest and one is found naked in the attic, kneeling before that effigy. 

Things actually get worse: they start arguing and shouting amongst themselves, the complainer insists that they follow a path they find instead of keeping to the compass bearings and they are being stalked by a creature that is apparently fond of hanging disembowled elk in the trees.  Fun!  Things get even worse as people start getting picked off and/or kidnapped by Swedish hillbillies as sacrifices for their "old god," a Jotunn.

I won't go into any more details than that because The Ritual ... isn't terrible.  But it is much slighter than it should be.  Like The Descent, it has a bunch of friends out in the wilderness, dealing with supernatural forces the likes of which they could not conceive.  Unlike The Descent (a vastly superior movie in all ways), the four protagonists are unlikable and largely indistinguishable.  All they do is shout and swear at one another, make bad decisions and never actually talk about anything - and as a result, I really didn't care at all when the blood started flowing.

The monster is the best part: never seen completely clearly, it is a great design - like a giant gnu with an anthropomorphized spider crab where its head should be - and quite scary.  It had enough weight that I think it was mostly a practical effect too, which I love.

Ninth Annual FMS Scarelicious October Movie Series: #18 Scream 4

What is there to say about 2011's Scream 4 (or, Scre4m, if you must)?  It's bloodier and not nearly as clever as the very clever first installment, and is truly not at all scary.  There are jump scares here and there but at this point, entirely unoriginal and, to me, a let down from the dream team of Kevin Williamson and Wes Craven.  Maybe that's the point: all the characters are all in on the joke, big horror fans themselves who know that horror movie sequels continue with diminishing returns.  But what would have been wonderful would have been if yes, all the characters acknowledged that ... and then this fourth Scream movie turned out to be amazing, to put a lie to it all.

Scream 4, as the third sequel, is governed by the rules of modern horror remakes - per the meta-commentary of the movie's high school Cinema Club: patterned after the structure of the original but with more extreme kills, plus throwing the rules of the original out the window.  I guess they did that?  SPOILERS Certainly we had a female villain, and excellent Final Girl Sydney Prescott (Neve Campbell, returning the role once again).  But it sure felt like more of the same, all over again.  Props to Hayden Panettiere who is pretty funny as horror movie fan Kirby.

Also, this is two horror movies in a row about fame-obsessed teenagers as slashers.  Fear for the future, my friends.

Also?  LOL with Adam Brody up there on the poster: I don't think he even had three lines before getting offed.  Put Neve Campbell up front where she belongs!

Ninth Annual FMS Scarelicious October Movie Series: #17 Tragedy Girls

I had high hopes for Tragedy Girls, despite not remembering hearing about it at all when it was released.

Two high school girls, Sadie (played by Brianna Hildebrand, more widely known as Negasonic Teenaged Warhead from the Deadpool movies) and McKayla, capture Lowell Orson Leemon, a serial killer (played by Kevin Durand) to help them up their social media profile.  "We're about to graduate and go to college and we still haven't started our first killing spree," they explain to their furious captive.  They need help too, because each murder they do gets reported as an accident or running away and isn't getting the high profile press they're desperate for.  Charismatic and narcissistic BFFs, the fame-hungry girls get their friendship tested when Sadie gets together with Jordan, the local sheriff's put-upon son who helps them edit videos for their website.  Sadie pulls away from McKayla, who takes it badly.  Being a little psycho (at least more overtly so than Sadie), McKayla teams up with Lowell Leemon and the shit hits the fan at prom, of course.

Tragedy Girls is a lightweight slasher-esque movie that badly wants to be satire, skewering both today's youth and their thirst for likes/re-tweets/mentions/etc., as well as the traditional girls' roles in horror movies.  Unfortunately, it just doesn't go far enough to truly be satire but I did find it entertaining enough.  Slightly gory, not scary.

Ninth Annual FMS Scarelicious October Movie Series: #16 Devour

In which I am led astray by my Jensen Ackles crush ... I solely picked Devour because he was in it - baby-faced too, at age 27.  I knew it was going to be bad - it had to be bad.  And it was, starting with the terrible music at the opening credits.

Young Jake (JA) is a nice young man/student/computer nerd who has been having waking nightmares for a while.  For his birthday, his friend Conrad signs him up for a secret video game where the game calls you and gives you tasks to do.  (Note: it's really not a video game, despite the EVIL VIDEO GAME!! promos; you sign up online and then get phone calls that mess with your head.  Not actually a video game.)  Conrad and Jake's one-time hook-up Dakota (Dominique Swain) sign up too and before you know it, (1) Conrad has shot two kids in his dorm and then killed himself, and (2) Dakota butchers a professor who won't stop coming on to her and then kills herself.  Jake starts investigating what's going on, hooks up with Shannyn Sossamon, nurse/Tarot afficionado, and soon enough he's tracking down devil-worshippers because WTF is going on with this movie. 

I dozed off for a moment and woke up a little lost but I don't think it matters because all of a sudden it turns out Jake is adopted (did we know this?) and SPOILER not only is he Shannyn Sossamon's character's lover but also her son because she is a demon.  And then Jake gets hauled off to jail for killing everyone.

My notes:  THAT WAS RIDICULOUS AND ALSO TERRIBLE.  I mean, a little gross but not scary and pretty incoherent.  And it's like the writers started doing an evil video game movie, then decided halfway through to switch to demonic possession but didn't bother to go back to fix the first bit.  Not at all recommended.  And WTF is with capitalizing the V in "devour?"  I'm not doing that.

Ninth Annual FMS Scarelicious October Movie Series: #15 Cargo

Australia!  Zombies!

After an outbreak of who-knows-what, Andy (Martin Freeman, who really does commit to every role he's in), his wife Kay and infant Rosie take to a houseboat to avoid the diseased populace on shore.  They're running out of food, however, and when they moor near a wrecked sailboat, Andy sneaks over and scavenges the sailboat, bringing back a bunch of tinned foods and a bottle of red wine.  A closed closet door makes him nervous but he doesn't say anything to Kay back on the houseboat.  Later, while Andy snoozes, she sneaks back over to the sailboat, looking for a corkscrew to open that bottle of wine.  That closet door opens and she gets bitten. 

The whole run of Cargo, no one says "zombie" or "walker" or "living dead."  The outbreak is treated like a disease and everyone carries an emergency kit including medicine (ineffectual), tourniquets and a switchblade-like pick to put the infected down.  Also included in the kit is a Fitbit-like watch which counts down from 48: the infected have just that long before turning.  The little family goes ashore, looking for a hospital.  The clock is running out for Kay and when they have a car crash, Andy is knocked unconscious for hours and his wife has gone full-zombie by the time he comes to.  He manages to get himself and Rosie out of the car but not before Kay bites him.  Now Andy has 48 hours to get baby Rosie somewhere safe.

While all this is happening, there is a parallel story of an Aboriginal family who are dealing with infected family members of their own.  After Andy and Rosie head out on their own, their paths cross with Thoomi (Simone Landers, terrific), the twelve-year-old Aboriginal girl who is just trying to save her infected dad.  She and Andy are at odds at first but, as he is fighting his losing battle against the infection, their relationship changes.

I thought this was a novel take on an overworked genre, especially being given a peek into Aboriginal culture and spirituality.  There's not a ton of zombie action for a zombie movie but that's okay; as it often is with zombie flicks, the surviving humans are sometimes the real terrors.  Interestingly, Cargo started as a short (linked here) which is terrific.  It hits all the highlights of the movie, without any of the full-length film's sometimes draggy pace, although it has none of the Aboriginal focus.

Ninth Annual FMS Scarelicious October Movie Series:#14 Tales of Halloween

Another October and I take another stab at a mediocre Halloween horror/comedy anthology series: 2015's Tales of Halloween.  Ten tales, connected by taking place in one town on one Halloween, where the kids starring in one segment show up as background trick-or-treaters in other segments.

The stories are: (1) "Sweet Tooth," a cautionary tale about sharing (or not sharing) your candy; (2) "The Night Billy Raised Hell," where in Billy and the actual Devil paint the town red; (3) "Trick" with murderous children collecting lives instead of candy - and a nice, dark, little twist at the end; (4) "The Weak and the Wicked," pretty weak itself as three bike-riding bullies get their comeuppance; (5) the "Grim Grinning Ghost," which seems to be a first-draft sort of thing; (6) "Ding Dong" has the Wicked Witch wishing for children of her own - very, very weird; (7) "This Means War" is the battle of the Halloween decorations; (8) "Friday the 31st," with a deformed slasher and an alien, which turns into some over-the-top crazy goriness a la Ash vs. the Evil Dead; (9) "The Ransom of Rusty Rex" wherein a kidnapping goes horribly wrong ... for the kidnappers; and (10) "Bad Seed" which is kind of Pumpkinhead, Jr.

The framework samples Adrienne Barbeau from the wonderful classic The Fog.  There's a decent cast, including Greg Grunberg, Clare Kramer, Barry Bostwick, Barbara Crampton, Pollyanna McIntosh, John Landis and Sam Witwer.  And some of the segments aren't terrible.  But I thought it averaged out to a sold meh, so you can take it or leave it, I guess.

Ninth Annual FMS Scarelicious October Movie Series: #13 Raw

Does a smart, coming-of-age, cannibal horror movie sound good?  If the answer to that is a resounding YES, then have I got a movie for you!  Raw, meet everyone; everyone, meet Raw.  Some SPOILERS ahead.

Young Justine is a bit of a prodigy, getting into a top veterinary school at a young age.  It's clear that she's been sheltered by her parents to this point: en route to dropping her off, they stop for a meal and when Justine finds a bit of sausage in her mashed potatoes, her mom freaks out at the restaurant, saying that they're strict vegetarians.  At school, Justine is unprepared for the traditional first week of hazing.  With her new, gay roommate and only friend, Adrien, at her side, she - and the other first year students - are subjected to midnight raids, being doused with animal blood a la Carrie and hedonistic raves.  They are also forced to eat raw rabbit kidney and Justine is understandably dismayed when her older sister Alex, an ensconced vet student, doesn't stand up for her and, in fact, pushes the tidbit into her mouth. 

As the week progresses, Justine starts to experience some changes, but hers are not quite the same as most college-age students away from home for the first time.  She gets a horrible rash and then starts craving meat: first schwarma and kebabs with Adrien, then raw chicken out of the fridge, then - after an accident - her sister's finger.  She also finds that she is not alone in these cannibalistic cravings but she is not quite ready to give in to them entirely, seeking solace with her roommate and her sister, with various degrees of success.  I'm disinclined to say much more because Raw really should be seen.

This is a smart, feminist horror movie with themes of sexual awakening, complicated sisterly relationships and one's relationship with one's own body, parked right alongside Ginger Snaps.  For a cannibal flick that apparently caused some viewers to faint and/or vomit, it is not a gore fest - but there are some very squirm-inducing scenes, including a Brazilian wax that I had to look away from and an extended trichophagia bit that made me gag.  Raw is in French, with English subtitles, streaming on Netflix and I wholeheartedly recommend it.

Ninth Annual FMS Scarelicious October Movie Series" #12 The Innkeepers

Another Ti West flick - man, this guy really knows how to make me jump.  As I got the DVD for The Innkeepers spinning, my initial notes say: "I think this is going to be scary/jumpy" and I was right.  Haunted house and ghost story horror movies are difficult for me because I am SO jumpy; I ended up watching much of this movie with my glasses off, not because it was actively scary - once the scares really started, it was easier to watch - but because of the anticipation.

On the last weekend before the Yankee Pedlar Inn closed for good, hotel staff Claire (Sara Paxton, excellent) and Luke (Pat Healy, quite good) are bored out of their minds.  Friendly with each other but adrift in their own lives, there aren't enough guests to keep them busy so they decide to see if they can find evidence of the ghosts said to be haunting the inn.  Luke has some recording equipment and the hope is to upload some evidence to the website he's building based on the inn.  They take turns manning the front desk and when it's Claire's turn, she wanders the creaky corridors, calling out to Madeline O'Malley, a woman said to have died on her wedding night.  Some odder than normal hotel guests check in, Claire gets a little paranoid and as the weekend wears on, things start to get a little weird.  Whether you (as the movie goer) believe that it's really supernatural or that it's just the characters' paranoia kicking in, shit still gets real.

I thought The Innkeepers was great.  It absolutely isn't for people who like their horror with big gore and giant jumpscares and naked boobs and lots of pandemonium.  Like The House of the Devil before it, The Innkeepers takes its time and, I think, is all the better for it.  Much of the movie is just Claire and Luke hanging out, dealing with hotel guests, taking out the trash, being funny and realistic.  That meant, when things got tense, I cared about them.  Makes a huge difference.  Plus, there are lots of shots of long corridors and dark corners that last just a little too long, ratcheting up the suspense and convincing me that something horrible was about to happen.  And yes, the Yankee Pedlar was a real hotel in Torrington, Connecticut, and yes, it was rumored to be haunted, and yes, it has, in fact closed and may never reopen.

Ninth Annual FMS Scarelicious October Movie Series: #11 Triangle

Let me first state for the record that I did not have high hopes for 2009's Triangle, starring Melissa George and the second best Hemsworth brother (who gets sixth billing).  I didn't much care for it when I finished it BUT when I read this Den of Geek review, I decided I liked it better in retrospect.  So, if you watch Triangle and aren't crazy about it, go click on that link and see if you like it more then.

With that rave opening ...

There are a couple of feints thrown into this little movie.  At first you think it's going to be a lost-at-sea/Bermuda Triangle thriller.  Six people board a sailboat (christened the Triangle): owner Greg, deckhand Victor (Liam Hemsworth), Greg's rich friends Sally and Downy (WTF kind of name is that?), Sally's friend Heather (with whom Sally is hoping to fix up Greg) and Jess (Melissa George), a girl Greg kind of likes but who seems really out of it.  After some sailing, they are suddenly becalmed and then a freak storm capsizes them, washing Heather away, never to be seen again.  RIP Heather.  Then, a cruise ship appears and the remaining five climb aboard.  Even though there is edible food still set up in the ballroom, and the engines are running just fine, they can't find any passengers or crew.  Until someone starts killing them off, one by one, until only Jess is left.  She battles this masked stranger and, just as she knocks her assailant overboard, the killer shouts, "You have to kill them all!"  Then Jess hears voices and sees the capsized Triangle, with herself, Greg, Victor, Sally and Downy on board, and she watches as they board the cruise ship again.

Then this little movie turns into a timeloop thriller, with Jess (but which Jess?) trying to figure out how to break free.  I'm not going to try to unravel the plot because I don't want to spoil anything.  I'm also not going to go into any detail about the third act either, because it totally changes the stakes of the game and was where my interest was piqued.  Throughout the course of the movie, the myth of Sisyphus is mentioned: as punishment for his sins, Sisyphus was condemned to roll a boulder up a hill for eternity, only for it to break free each time he reached the top and roll back down to the bottom.  In Jess's struggles to free herself from this loop, she experiences the same panic and desperation over and over again, unceasingly.

Truly, the more I read about Triangle the more I think I appreciate it - although it is absolutely not a horror movie but a thriller - I just feel like the first half of the script should have gone through a few more drafts before filming started.

Ninth Annual FMS Scarelicious October Movie Series: #10 Emelie

A bad babysitter flick recommended to me by a friend from grade school (!!).  It's a decent entry into the genre - only I watched it too soon after Hereditary and, quite frankly, nothing is going to seem scary after that one.

Emelie (on Netflix streaming) starts out with a bit of a startle:  teenaged Anna, walking down the street, talking on her phone to a friend about tonight's new babysitting gig, is abducted in broad daylight.  Next scene:  "Anna" is picked up by the dad for a new babysitting gig since the family's regular sitter, Maggie, canceled on short notice.  The parents are a little concerned about a new sitter but are excited enough about an evening out that they push their worries aside.  Before long, however, the new sitter is revealed to be not quite right.  First of all, her name is Emelie, not Anna.  She lets the three kids paint on the walls, she feeds nine-year-old Sally's pet hamster to eleven-year-old Jake's python in front of the kids and she shows the parents' sex tape to the younger two children.  She is rough with Sally and both teases and ignores Jake, but it's four-year-old Christopher of whom she seems fond.  During Christopher's bedtime story, we get Emelie's backstory: she was a young, single mom who tragically lost her baby.  She snapped and now she's looking for a replacement, aided by some whackadoo guy.  Jake is a smart kid and he gets suspicious; when she slips cold medicine into the kids' drinks, he makes himself vomit it up, then he has to try to rescue his unconscious siblings before Emelie runs off with Chris.

There are some tense moments to Emelie, probably more so if you have kids of your own.  Any violence happens off-screen and there's not that much to be scared about.  I felt it was more like a hard-core Home Alone than anything particularly scary, so if you're looking for something slightly jumpy, kids-in-peril-but-not-really thriller, this should do the trick.

Ninth Annual FMS Scarelicious October Movie Series: #9 Hereditary

The Graham family is grieving in the wake of the death of Annie's mother.  Annie (the amazing Toni Collette) is a miniaturist/diorama artist and throws herself into intricate, miniature depictions of her own spaces.  Her older husband (Gabriel Byrne) tries, consistently and yet ineffectually, to support his family.  Their son, stoner high schooler Peter, wasn't particularly close to his grandmother but their very weird, intensely shy, kind of funny-looking daughter Charlie was, and she seems lost now - uttering a strange verbal tic and constructing toys/figurines out of plastic, wire and - ugh - actual animal parts.  Annie tries a grief-counseling group and unleashes a terrible monologue about the history of mental illness in her family: her father killed himself by starvation, her brother killed himself after accusing her mother of "putting people in him" and her mother was cold, distant, secretive, manipulative and deeply strange.  The Grahams' time at home together is tense and very uncomfortable.

Then - and I don't want to say any more than the bare minimum - in a shocking, SHOCKING event, a truly horrific accident happens and the family is hurled deeper into grief, pain and horror.  When unexplainable things start happening at the house, it is unclear whether they're really happening or it's Annie's own schizophrenia manifesting itself.  The end of the movie ramps up with violence, haunted house scenarios, witches and devil worship but really, truly, it is the earlier focus on the family's real pain in the face of loss that is the most scary.

Wow.  That was awesome.  Toni Collette was absolutely incredible and Alex Wolff, who plays son Peter, was top-notch as well.  Super-tense and uncomfortable, very effective scares and visuals both arty and gory.  At two-plus hours Hereditary is maybe a little long but it is definitely one of the good ones.

From my notes:  "Those ain't no flowers in the attic."

Ninth Annual FMS Scarelicious October Movie Series: #8 Pandorum

I also quite like space horror ... usually.  In 2009's Pandorum, it is 2174 and Earth has pretty much exhausted its resources, sending a massive spaceship out with colonists in search of a habitable new planet.  A couple of Flight Crew 5 members - Bower (played by Ben Foster) and Payton (Dennis Quaid) - are awakened from their cryosleep (or whatever) with no immediately recollection of who they are or what they're doing.  They are locked into their cryobay (or wherever) and can't raise anyone else anywhere on the ship.  While commanding officer Payton stays behind to work on the computer interface (or whatever), Bower crawls through the air ducts to try to open the locked door, find any other living person and restart the ship's reactor which is about to melt down (or something).

Out in the rest of the ship, Bower is dismayed to find two sets of survivors: a couple of awakened colonists who look like space versions of Mad Max and cannibalistic mutants who look like a cross between Firefly's Reavers and The Descent's monsters.  Plus there is some sort of space madness called "Pandorum" that makes humans go crazy and kill each other/themselves.  It's not really explained all that well.

Nothing in this movie is done all that well, to be honest.  It's very dark so it's difficult to see what's going on.  The editing is choppy and the action scenes are sped up, making things difficult to follow.  It's violent but not terribly bloody except for a couple of intestine-eating scenes.  And they went to the trouble of hiring Norman Reedus (my beloved Daryl from The Walking Dead) for what scarcely counts as a cameo before SPOILER he gets dragged off and eaten alive.  What a waste.

I give this one a solid "meh."  Also, WTF with this poster:

Ninth Annual FMS Scarelicious October Movie Series: #7 The Company of Wolves

Of all the horror movies I watch, monster movies are my favorites.  And of all the monster movies (which to me include zombie flicks), I like werewolf movies the best.  The problem is, for some reason there just aren't that many good werewolf movies.  American Werewolf in London - yes oh yes.  Ginger Snaps - you betcha.  Dog Soldiers - can I get a hell-yes.  But past that, pickings get slim.  (The Underworld series = ugh.)

So I've tried to search out some more wolves this year and I found this one:  The Company of Wolves, directed by Neil Jordan (The Crying Game, etc.) with a screenplay credit by Angela Carter, who based it on her short story of the same name from her short story collection, The Bloody Chamber.  It's from 1984 and is more nightmarish fairy tale than out and out horror, although there is one particularly gruesome transformation sequence where the transforming werewolf (Stephen Rea) strips off his human skin before wolfing out.

The outside framework of the movie is set at the country estate of a wealthy family.  The younger daughter is having fever dreams, including one where she and her family are living in Ye Olden Times.  This dream is the main setting of the movie, with characters telling additional stories within the dream.  Werewolves plague Ye Olden Times, werewolves plague the inserted stories - (1) a bridegroom leaves his wife on their wedding night, returning years later and wolfing out when she hasn't waited for him; (2) a boy wolfs out when trying out some snake oil potion; (3) a scorned village witch turns her former lover's wedding party into wolves and makes them howl for her every evening; (4) a wolf girl seeks refuge at a church - and at the end, werewolves break into the younger daughter's waking world, heralding the loss of her innocence.

Some of the images are quite striking, especially the transformed wedding party and the wolves running through the country estate.  The movie itself is a little disjointed - I'm not sure the country estate framework story really worked - but I really enjoyed the fairy tale aspect.

Photo: www.aoaff.gr

Ninth Annual FMS Scarelicious October Movie Series: #6 Suspiria

I have finally watched Dario Argento's Suspiria, that 1977 Italian giallo classic.  It was a trip and, to be honest, a little difficult to describe.  The plot is largely meaningless but, if you really want to know - SPOILERS AHEAD: young American ballet dancer Susie Banyon arrives in Germany to enroll in Tanz Dance Academy.  The night she arrives, another student runs screaming out into the dark and stormy night and no one will let Susie in.  The escaping student and a friend are brutally killed and when Susie finally gets into the academy, everyone is all atwitter with the news.  Other very weird things happen, like maggots falling from the ceiling, Susie falling ill from her food, the blind pianist's Seeing Eye dog killing and eating the blind pianist, another student falling into a room full of razor wire.  You know, usual dance academy stuff.  Susie is tough, resourceful and persistent, however, and soon figures out that the academy is run by a coven.  After she dispatches the main witch, she strides off into the night, strong and beautiful, as the academy burns down behind her.

While Suspiria was a little languid for my frame of mind at the time (and not at all scary), the sets and lighting are simply gorgeous, the music is fantastic and the red tempera paint sloshing everywhere as the buckets of blood is magnificent.  And even though I ended up watching it dubbed in English, the dubbing was pretty good.  Suspiria is really more of a horror concept than anything else.  If you don't need much plot or pacing and just want a technicolor experience to wash over you, if you feel like you should see one of the most influential 1970s proto-horror movies out there, then dive into this one.  (P.S. Speaking of diving, the most amazing indoor swimming pool I have ever seen is in this movie.)

Ninth Annual FMS Scarelicious October Movie Series: #5 The House of the Devil

Yes!  A great one!  Woohoo!  The House of the Devil!

It is the 1980s, from the Walkmans and feathered hair, to the soundtrack, to the camera shots and angles.  Destitute college student Samantha is desperate to score off-campus housing: her roommate boinks random dudes all the time, is a total slob (to Samantha's neat-nik) and can't be bothered to write down her phone messages.  She finds a great little apartment and the understanding landlady (played by Dee Wallace! Cujo! The Hills Have Eyes! E.T.!) waives the first and last deposit.  Samantha still needs to come up with $300 for the first month's rent and manages to land a babysitting job.  When she and BFF Megan (wealthy, with a car, very practical and supportive of her friend; played by Greta Gerwig) drive out to the gig - a gorgeous Victorian - it's creepy.  The weird couple who have hired her don't have a child; the sitting is for an elderly parent who is capable enough, but just in case something happens.  Samantha tries to back out because CREEPY but when they offer her $400, she can't say no.  Megan leaves, the weird couple leave and Samantha settles in.

This is JUST the kind of movie that gives me fidgets.  It is a combination slasher and haunted house film, with some Satanic worship thrown in for good measure - with the slightest tinge of Rosemary's Baby right at the end.  For most of the movie, director Ti West is simply masterful at ratcheting up the tension without showing anything - ANYTHING - to be scared of.  I was so twitchy and jumpy, expecting something to happen and then getting more nervous when nothing did, that I had to get up to get more wine to diffuse some of the tension.  When the slasher portion did kick in, I found it a relief.  Excellent little indie horror movie - highly recommended (unless you prefer really gory and/or torture porn flicks).

Some of my notes:  "DO NOT GO UPSTAIRS people in horror films are SO STUPID" and "JESUS DON'T GO BACK UPSTAIRS" and "SHE FIGHTS BACK"

Ninth Annual FMS Scarelicious October Movie Series: #4 All The Boys Love Mandy Lane

In this pretty terrible slasher-ish flick, shy girl high schooler Mandy Lane got hot over the summer and all of a sudden the cool kids want to hang out with her, to the chagrin of her former nerdy BFF, Emmett.  She goes off with them for a weekend at Red's family ranch, out in the middle of East Nowhere; the group is a bunch of horror movie stereotypes: Red, kind of a loser but rich; Chloe, blonde bimbo; Byrd, nice guy and the only African-American; Jake, good-looking and full of himself; Marlon, brunette bimbo and super-promiscuous.  All the boys hit on Mandy incessantly and, for a shy girl, she fends them off capably; she does catch her breath for a moment when the hot ranch hand, Garth (omg they named him "Garth"), shows up.  There is much partying and drinking and doing of drugs and having of sex among the teenagers and then they start getting picked off one by one: Marlon, then Jake, then Byrd, etc., etc.

NOTE:  After Byrd gets killed - and the killer is revealed, about halfway through the film - my notes read, "This movie sucks & is stupid."

There is a bit of a twist that I should have seen coming, even though it makes very little sense character-wise, but really, to be honest, the most ridiculous part of the whole movie (and there are a lot of ridiculous parts) is that Mandy has no trouble driving a standard-shift truck.

Amber Heard is Mandy (and boy, she is really pretty); Edwin Hodge is Byrd (Edwin played "Wade" on Cougar Town and is also a Purge cast member); Anson Mount, of the universally-panned Inhumans, is Garth, god help him.  Seriously, I can't recommend this flick at all.  It's dumb and not at all scary and I'm not surprised that it disappeared for seven years between its original festival debut and then its wide release.  Meh.

Ninth Annual FMS Scarelicious October Movie Series: #3 Something Wicked This Way Comes

I read Ray Bradbury's 1962 novel, Something Wicked This Way Comes, not too long ago and enjoyed it quite a lot.  And then I watched Disney's 1983 movie version and felt a little let down.  I suppose that I should have known when the Disney logo popped up that this wasn't going to be all I hoped.

In broad strokes, in October a sinister carnival arrives in a small Midwestern town.  It's run by Mr. Dark and his assistants, Mr. Cooger and a fortune-teller.  Through their machinations, some townsfolk are overcome and transformed.  Two boys, Will Holloway (blond/a good boy) and Jim Nightshade (brunette/attracted to the dark side) come up against Mr. Dark and his baddies, and with the help of Will's father, finally send the evil carnival on its way.

The book was wonderfully done, with developed characters and truly spooky sequences.  The movie, however, falls flat on nearly all front.  The characters are thin, the dialogue awkward and the child actors are truly terrible.  The special effects are pretty poor for Disney, even for early 1980s.  Mr. Dark (played by Jonathan Pryce) doesn't get much screen time and he's just not that scary.  I get that there's only so much horror you will get with a Disney flick, I do.  But really, I would re-title this one as "Something Disappointing This Way Comes."  It does have a pretty great poster though:

Ninth Annual FMS Scarelicious October Movie Series: #2 IT: Chapter One

I am a huge Stephen King fan.  I cannot tell you how many times I've read the massive tome that is IT.  And I've seen the 1990 miniseries several times: I'm very fond of Tim Curry's Pennywise, Seth Green as Richie Tozier and most of the adult casting (Harry Anderson/Richie, John Ritter/Ben, Annette O'Toole/Bev, Tim Reid/Mike - I just didn't much care for Richard Thomas as grown Bill).  I know the story fairly well and thus was well-prepared to watch the new (2017) IT: Chapter One.

The new IT movies break the story in two:  the first one covers the kids' story, now set in 1988; the second one, not out yet, will wrap things up with the adult versions of the Losers Club.  For much of the first movie, things stay fairly faithful to the source material.  We start with a bang with Bill and Georgie:  Bill making his little brother a paper boat; Georgie chasing the boat in the rain; Georgie getting his right arm chomped off by Pennywise the Clown and then dragged down into the sewers, never to be found again.  Bill and his friends, Eddie, Richie and Stan, are soon joined by tomboy Bev, new kid Ben and home-schooled Mike as they investigate the town's history and the many, many missing kids.  Each of them sees Pennywise, who manifests as each's particular fear, and then when Bev is taken by Pennywise, the rest of the Losers head into the sewers to rescue her.  All the while fending off some hard-core bullying from Henry Bowers and his thugs.

Obviously, with a source book that massive, things needed to be edited down.  Some bits were very faithful:  Eddie's leper, the blood erupting out of Bev's sink, the rock fight.  Some things were changed: Richie being afraid of clowns instead of the Wolfman; Stan's being haunted by a painting instead of drowned children; Mike's parents dying in a fire (and a name-check of the Black Spot massacre); having the entrance to the sewers be an old well-house instead of the "morlock holes;"  using a bolt gun instead of a slingshot and silver shot against Pennywise.  Perhaps the most egregious change - aside from Mike's character being a total non-entity - was turning Beverly into a damsel in distress, needing to be rescued by her friends.  In the book, young Bev is the toughest of them all - brave enough to go into the sewers and the best shot with the slingshot of all of them.  I hated that change.

Bill Skargard as Pennywise was pretty good - nothing goofy about him but being able to turn on a dime from clown-charming to sinister.  Despite his best efforts, however, this chapter of IT isn't terribly scary, despite its rating.  We'll see if they ratchet things up for Chapter Two.

Ninth Annual FMS Scarelicious October Movie Series: #1 Train to Busan

It's October!  Welcome back to as many scary movies as I can cram into one month (a/k/a nearly the only reason I keep this blog going anymore).  First up: Korean zombies with subtitles!

After so many zombie movies, what could possibly be left?  Train to Busan shows us with what is very nearly a bottle episode movie.  When a biotech company has a leak, the ensuing zombie apocalypse happens very, very quickly.  In fact, the whole movie takes place over the course of about twenty-four hours.  We don't get to see the precipitating incident and we barely see the run-up: a truck driver hits a deer and right after he drives off, the roadkill resurrects itself.  The carnage kicks in quickly, however, as various horror movie stereotypes board a passenger train (to Busan!) and one infected woman manages to board just as the train leaves the station.  Once en route, the train can't stop - all the cities have already fallen to the fast-rising zombies - Busan is supposed to be a safe haven.  One larger group of the living has barricaded itself towards the front of the trail; the smaller group of our heroes must make their way from the back of the train up to the rest of the humans, battling their way through multiple cars of vicious zombies.

Train to Busan does a pretty good job of setting the rules for its zombie universe - although I was never quite clear on whether the zombies could actually be killed.  The human characters were sketched pretty thinly, all stereotypes like overworked businessman who ignores his child, said ignored child (very cute), redneck with a heart of gold and a pregnant wife, high school baseball team, self-serving asshole who we hate as much as the zombies.  You know the drill.  Thin characters aside, being trapped on a train - a la Snowpiercer, to which I kept getting flashbacks - focused the action and made it more exciting than the usual running through woods/cities/etc. from lurching zombies.  Good zombie gore, sad but slightly hopeful ending, solid genre entry.