Sixteenth Annual FMS Scarelicious October Movie Series: #2 Heart Eyes

 I have a friend from grade school (!!!!) who has been urging me to watch Heart Eyes.  We both love horror movies, and although they have a higher tolerance for jump scares and really nasty stuff than I do, and they didn't like Midsommar (!!!?!), I tend to seek out their recommendations.  It's on Netflix, for those interested.

The movie dives right into it: over the past couple of years, a serial killer has been targeting couples on Valentine's Day in different cities.  Now it's February 14 in Seattle, and the ol' Heart Eyes Killer (or "HEK" for short) is at it again, making mincemeat of a couple in their tacky, staged "surprise" proposal at a local winery.  The bride-to-be gets squishy in a grape press, to good effect.  Oh.  Spoiler.

Going on at the same time, Alli is struggling in her advertising job and her ruthless boss has brought in a ringer, Jay.  Of course, just before the big meeting, Alli and Jay have a meet-cute in a coffee shop, so things are awkward.  Jay asks Ally out for dinner so they can work on the replacement ad pitch and while they're there, HEK picks them out for murderin'.  "But we're not a couple!" they shriek, as the maniac chases them.

Heart Eyes is pretty cute for a horror film, billed as a horror rom-com.  While it isn't scary or even at all tense, some of the kills are pretty bloody.  I thought the killer's mask was cool with its light-up eyes.  I liked the female lead and it was nice to see Devon Sawa and Jordana Brewster pop up as detectives investigating the Seattle HEK murders, in callbacks to some late 90s/early 00s horror (Final Destination and The Faculty, respectively.

Sixteenth Annual FMS Scarelicious October Movie Series: #1 Longlegs

We ended last year's October movie series with a Nicolas Cage movie and by heck we're going to start this year's off with one too!

After young FBI agent Lee Harker (Maika Monroe, from It Follows) has an accurate and unusual hunch right before her partner gets killed, she gets reassigned to a serial killer case.  The senior agent (Blair Underwood) is hoping her sixth sense will help them solve the string of ten different families being murdered under very strange circumstances.  More than that, Harker finds that she is connected to the case, which is confirmed by a recently re-awakened mental patient (Kiernan Shipka) and Harker's own mother (Alicia Witt), who seems just this side of disturbed herself.

Nicolas Cage plays Longlegs, the Big Bad (NOT A SPOILER), of course.  He is nearly unrecognizable under the make-up and he is very creepy.  Maika Monroe is terrific: tense, angular, innocent, awkward, horrified, contained.

Written and directed by Osgood Perkins (Psycho's Anthony Perkins's kid), Longlegs is unsettling,  moody, slowly paced and weird as fuck, punctuated with startling bursts of violence.  Oz Perkins is making a name for himself with sophisticated, uber-atmospheric horror: see also The Blackcoat's Daughter, I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House, Gretel & Hansel).  And this one is at the top of the list.