Once more we return to my favourite time of year. The air cools to a brisk chill, the leaves go red and brown in that deeply pleasing way and the evenings grow steadily darker. This year it's slightly different for me as major non-threatening life events unfolded earlier this month but amidst a flurry of recent activity I have found time to sneak in that most precious of all October past-times, the Halloween-adjacent horror movie marathon.
This year I've managed to watch more than a film or two so thought I'd give my thoughts in brief on each one. These are mostly films that have been on my to-watch list for an age with an exception or two and there may be more than one movie called Halloween as it happens, maybe even more than two. To the hot takes...
Natalie Portman and team venture into the unknown as a great big spooky field of something slowly expands across a swampy grassland area. Strange thing happen, more strange things happen. Also her partner was sent in previously on an earlier mission but was the only part of his team to make it out alive. This was engaging to a point but lacked a certain something for me. Maybe it could have double downed on the weirdness of the idea, maybe it could have fleshed out the characters some more. Either way it's three roadside picnics out of five!
A Quiet Place (2018)
Aliens invade! The good news is they are blind! The bad news is they found their way to Earth anyway. Also they have very, very good hearing and are capable killing machines as well. Enter our family of characters headed by John Krasinski and Emily Blunt as they try to navigate the perils of life in the new status quo of living in silence or death at a moments notice. This was really good, the minimal dialogue was a nice touch and the set pieces really amped up the tension here. Four sombre silences out of five!
A Quiet Place Part 2 (2020)
See the above mostly as it pretty much applies here as well. I wouldn't necessarily pegged A Quiet Place as a film that needed a sequel but here we are. So yes there were guarded expectations going in to this one but it swiftly put any conncerns to rest. Cillian Murphy joins in the fun and by fun I mean the soul crushing burdens of life in the silent downfall of the human race. It's a really good companion piece to the first film and well worth the time. Four sound bombs out of five!
Possessor (2020)
This was an intriguing one. Mind-jacking corporate assassin jumps into the brains of people who can get close to their target. Upon dispatching said target, the unwary pawn kills themselves as the assassin returns back to their own body. Cue existential dread as the lines between mind-jacker and mind-jacked become very blurred indeed and it all gets a bit unclear as to who exactly is at the wheel as chaos unfolds on the latest job. Really compelling, interesting premise, bit excessive on the violence though. Nice disassociated performance by lead actress Andrea Riseborough, more on her shortly. Four blood soaked murder scenes out of five!
Mandy (2018)
I didn't intend to follow up one Andrea Riseborough film with another but there we have it. Another film that had been on my to-watch list for an age. A trippy hallucinogenic murder oddysey as Nicholas Cage does what he does best and loses his mind in the most cinematic way possible. Said kill spree is prompted by a cult passing through town and taking an unhealthy interest in his love interest and well, it all goes south from there. Visually impactful with some nice violent flourishes, I feel like it did lack a certain something though. Any sense of character development comes to a halt about twenty minutes in and it all becomes a bit senseless and meaningless rather rapidly. Can't say I didn't have fun with it though so that'll be three sets of Nicholas Cage's crazy eyes out of five!
Evil Dead (2013)
No not the original classic The Evil Dead from 1981. No not the first remake of Evil Dead which was Evil Dead II from 1987 either. This'll be that there remake from nigh on a decade ago now. This one was a real mixed bag for me. It has all the essential ingredients of an Evil Dead film but it's hard to capture the manic frenzied energy of low budget horror in a more polished Hollywood production. It's decent but never great and let down by a mostly bland set of characters with a notable exception in the lead. Demonic entities are summoned, arcane evil is evoked and evil spreads like a virus in a small cabin in the woods. It just didn't feel particularly good. Two necronomicons out of five!
Evil Dead Rise (2023)
As the last film left me feeling a little underserved for demonic misadventure I decided to give the more recent Evil Dead film a chance. This on the whole was a much stronger effort with a slightly more compelling set of characters, a nice change of setting and an altogether better approach to the material. Still not as good as either of the first two films but at least it's trending in the right direction. Much like the remake it still suffers from characters having a major case of the brain fog to advance the plot forward. After a certain point it's all just sound and fury signifying nothing but their heart is in the right place. Three demonic turntables out of five!
Halloween (1978)
The first part of my trilogy of films simply called Halloween. This remains a classic even if other films have surpassed it in terms of sheer adrenaline and violence. A superbly paced effort that really does justice to the masked killer at the heart of this series. Michael Myers slips into and out of the frame seamlessly, entering and exiting the shadows like the unstoppable nightmare he is. An empty town in the coming night, a porch light on across the street in the darkness and the sheer autumnal mood of it all. It's quite the piece of work this film and I remain a fan myself. Four William Shatner masks out of five!
Halloween (2007)
From the original we now go to the remake helmed by Rob Zombie and released back in the noughties. It's Halloween but on steroids, a film so relentlessly Rob Zombie it seemingly can't help itself. Everything the original film does in moderation this film does in excess and it really falls apart early on for me. What the original film accomplished for Myers in five minutes at the start takes up the first 45+ minutes here and I don't feel like it had anything interesting to add to the origin story with all that extra runtime. Malcolm McDowell as the doctor was a nice update to that role but otherwise this film was a hard pass from me. One needless remake out of five!
Halloween (2018)
Getting back on track here with the 2018 sequel or 'requel' or who the hell knows but hey at least the film was good. Quick backtrack but you may remember Halloween: H20 as a film which disregarded the events of a number of prior Halloween sequels? Well this one disregards all prior Halloween films apart from the original itself. Laurie Strode is now an understandably PTSD afflicted survivalist who has let her obsession with Michael Myers negatively impact every other facet of her life since the events of the original film. From this nice smart update to the material we get a really good Halloween film that I highly enjoyed. Good ending too, so good in fact they could have ended it there but they did not. Anyhow that's four murder sprees out of five!
Halloween Kills (2021)
The action picks up moments after the previous film with various characters shouting, screaming and/or bleeding in equal measure. Mistakes are made, killers are freed and the town of Haddonfield decides it's had it's fill of masked killers and enacts the always reliable mob to put Michael Myers down for good. It doesn't quite pan out as planned but they do give it the old heave-ho before Michael once again makes with the stabbing. It's a curious sequel this one, not short on ideas to be sure but it's almost like they weren't expecting the 2018 film to be as good as it was and weren't quite prepared for the follow up as a result. It's three quarters of a decent film with a rushed ending that could have been a lot better. Three flaming torches out of five!
Halloween Ends (2022)
My great Halloween marathon of 2023 ends with this one. The most recent entry as of writing and the one that tries to close out the trilogy that started with the 2018 film. Oh dear. Oh dear oh dear. They really didn't seem prepared for a trilogy here and this certainly doesn't feel like the kind of film to close out what should have been the epic final confrontation between. Laurie Strode and Michael Myers. Weirdly it almost feels like a standalone movie at times. Whereas the previous two films take place over the course of a single Halloween night this picks things up a few years later and the momentum really suffers for it. Whilst we do get the confrontation between Michael and Laurie it all ends up feeling like something of an underbaked afterthought. The majority of the film is concerned with a would-be Michael Myers apprentice and his descent into madness but it's almost like the film makers forgot why everyone was watching. Sadly this film was a wasted opportunity and really made me wonder why they even bothered to stretch it out to a trilogy at all? Nice surprise at the start there though. One tragic babysitter out of five!
Midsommar (2019)
Bad times in rural Sweden as a bunch of students attend the arcane festivities of an isolated commune and in turn fall victim to its various machinations. Folksy horror in the vein of The Wicker Man then. It's an intriguing look into cult conformity and the pulling sway of collective groupthink. It's a vivid visual experience too and is not without a certain dreamy hypnotic appeal either. Overall I felt it perhaps ran a little long with the ending telegraphed well in advance of it's arrival. Great performance from the Florence Pugh too as her characters journey takes her into some very dark places. Four sacrificial burnings out of five!
The Shining (1980)
Finally it's a big one, it's a really big one. One of those horror films you can almost watch by proxy given how often its scenes are referenced elsewhere in popular culture. Man gets a job as a caretaker for an isolated hotel up in the snowy mountains. Man takes family to said hotel as it shuts down for winter. Some malevolent supernatural force drives man crazy. Man tries to kill his family as a result. It's a tale as old as time! This was a great film though, with that slow burn dread that really turns the screws on its characters. Add some ambivalence and weirdness to whatever the heck is actually happening and it's not hard to see why this film is considered a classic. Not to mention Jack Nicholson and his ability to channel the crazy into his performance. Yeah this was good, five ghost bartenders out of five!
...and that's it for Halloween Movie Mania 2023. Given everything else that's going on in my neck of the woods it's a wonder I watched anything at all but there you have it. Same again next October perhaps, time, willpower and available film selection on streaming services permitting of course.
Comments
Post a Comment