31 Movies of Halloween Part 2

Thursday, 15 October 2020

 Yay! We're still going strong. It's time for the next five movies I've watched this Halloween season. There's a fun mix so you may just find your next spooky watch.


Cursed



This is a film from way back in 2005 starring Christina Ricci, Jessie Eisenberg, Milo Ventimiglia, Joshua Jackson, Judy Greer, Portia de Rossi, and Shannon Elizabeth. It's about a pair of siblings who get cursed by a werewolf and have to figure out what to do to avoid becoming werewolves themselves.

This was a truly fun movie. Werewolf films are fun but not nearly as popular as zombies or vampires, so it's always nice to find a new one. It's especially nice if it's a good movie. This film here may seem like a 90's cheesey horror holdout, but it's really a fun and cleaver film that wasn't entirely predictable. 

This isn't a perfect film, but it's good enough to be entertaining and stands the test of time. There's nothing hugely problematic or cringey that would keep me from rewatching it so this will now go on my yearly rewatch list. The few times they use CG is obviously outdated but practical effects are used to which keep this from being hard to watch.

Cursed gets an 8 out of 11


The Forest



A woman goes into Japan's Suicide Forest to find her missing twin sister and confronts a supernatural terror (Premise from IMDB) This stars Natalie Dormer from Game of Thrones.

I had been wanting to watch this one for a while. Since I'm half Japanese, I'm quite interested with anything having to do with Japan. Asians don't get a lot of love in Hollywood in general so I'm jump at the chance to see anything with Asian representation (unless it's an awful remake of an Asian film). But for one reason or another I never got around to this one but this year I finally did.

And it was okay. It was just okay. I didn't hate it, but I also didn't particularly enjoy it. The acting was fine, the plot was okay, but it never quite clicked. The characters were a big let down in this film as Sarah was the biggest idiot ever and everything bad that happened in the forest was her fault. I won't say to much so I don't spoil it, but when you go somewhere and experts are telling you not to do something and you go and do it anyway, you fully deserve your fate.

There were also too many jump scares and dream sequences. It was hard to feel any fear when you knew the jump was coming because they were setting you up for it, and also some of the scares had no effect because they ended up being dreams and thus the fear didn't carry over into reality. 

This isn't a bad film, like I said. This was just a mediocre at best film. The Japanese Suicide Forest still has a lot of potential that someone else can try and work with later.

The Forest gets a 5 out of 11


Don't Knock Twice



A mother desperate to reconnect with her troubled daughter becomes embroiled in the urban legend of a demonic witch after her daughter knocks on the witches door, incurring  her wrath.

I had no idea what to expect from this film. I had never heard of it. But my wife wanted me to watch it and she knows my tastes pretty well. What I eneded up watching was an interesting B list horror movie. It has an interesting plot with a little bit of mystery thrown in. Though I could see what the red herring was, I didn't see the ending coming and that served as a nice surprise. 

This movie had good characters who didn't make stupid decisions, which is always good to see in modern horror. The acting was good, better than you'd expect from a non-artsy indie horror. This stars Katee Sackhoff who is no stranger to horror and Lucy Boynton who has been in more well received movies than I had realized (and she was good in them too). So this film has a good plot with a twinge of mystery, good characters, and good actors playing said characters. So all in all, this is a fine horror that I wouldn't mind adding to my yearly rewatch list. 

Don't Knock Twice gets an 8.5 out of 11 


Hubie Halloween


Despite his devotion to his hometown of Salem (and its Halloween celebration), Hubie Dubois is a figure of mockery for kids and adults alike. But this year, something is going bump in the night, and it's up to Hubie to save Halloween. (Premise from IMDB). This stars a lot of people so to keep this short I'll just mention Adam Sandler.

TLDR for my longer review:

The best thing about Hubie Halloween is the strong seasonal atmosphere of the film. Just like Hocus Pocus or Trick 'r Treat, this is a great film if you're really wanting something full of the Halloween spirit. As for the plot? It's mediocre at best. It has promise but is just not very good. Also, is Adam Sandler's Waterboy style voice still okay? Isn't he doing an impression of someone with a mental illness or birth defect? 

Hubie Halloween gets a 5 out of 11


Would You Rather



Desperate to help her ailing brother, a young woman unknowingly agrees to compete in a deadly game of "Would You Rather," hosted by a sadistic aristocrat. (Premise from IMDB). This stars Brittany Snow (Pitch Perfect), Jonny Coyne (Alcatraz), John Heard (Home Alone), Eddie Steeples (My Name Is Earl), Logan Miller (Love, Simon), Robin Lord Taylor (Gotham), and porn star Sasha Grey.

Have you ever wondered what kind of movie someone would make if they just kind of watched Saw once and thought they got the general idea then tried to remake it with an evil Rich Uncle Pennybags as the villain? You'd get Would You Rather! Yay!

This film had a lot of promise. It was an interesting idea that felt like it never got fleshed out. It feels like the script was going through rewrites and they just ran out of time and submitted something half finished. There's a gem of an idea hidden somewhere in the mess that was presented. The cast wasn't bad except for Sasha Grey who felt like a dollar store Megan Fox. 

Would You Rather gets a 4 out of 11

1 comment

  1. I haven't seen any of these, so will definitely check them out!

    ReplyDelete

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