Everyday Is A Horror Movie

[KissingSunlight]

I decided to challenge myself to watch a horror movie everyday until Halloween. Then I'll post a quick review of each one that I have just saw. If anyone wants to take this challenge with me or suggest any interesting horror movies I should watch in the next few weeks, I would appreciate it.

My take on the Horror genre is that it's really close to how comedy works. There is a setup, suspense, and then a payoff to get an involuntary emotional reaction from you. When it's badly done, people laugh at horror movies instead of being scared. Also, a lot of horror movies are cheaply made and badly acted to take seriously. I am going to take this opportunity to explore classic horror movies, revisit movies I haven't seen for a while, and go through a box set of 50 horror movies I bought in a bargain bin a couple of years ago. I hope I'll develop a better appreciation of the genre.

The first one that I watched yesterday was Willow Creek.


It was written & directed by Bobcat Goldthwait. He's best known for being an extremely manic cop in the Police Academy movies. He is also a stand-up comedian. This is a link to his performance from Comic Relief. It's NSFW. http://youtu.be/O0qAfWWQJ5w Now, he has been doing a series of independent movies that are mostly underrated gems like God Bless America, Sleeping Dogs Lie, and World's Greatest Dad. This is his first horror movie. It addressed the problem with "found footage" movies. Most of them are obviously staged for a movie. Willow Creek is very realistic on how found footage would look like. It lives and dies by that premise. While the first part of the movie interviewing people in the town that is a tourist trap for Bigfoot fans is really funny and authentic. When the couple goes out to the woods and start looking for Bigfoot, that is when I started to lose interest in the movie. There is a 20 minute segment of the couple whispering inside the tent while there is noise and commotion going on outside. I just had a hard time making out what was being said above the ambient noise in the scene. I know that would be realistic in an actual found footage. Yet, it was hard to follow. The ending kept it real as well. I'll let you decide if it was worth the wait. Overall, not the best movie Bobcat Goldthwait has done. I would recommend his other movies before this one.

 

[KissingSunlight]

I had two reasons to be hesitant to watch this movie today. The first reason is that this movie is considered to be a classic. Two things about classic movies that always peeved me. One is that people can't believe you have never seen it yet. There are literally thousands of movies that are considered "classic". Quite a few of them are going to slip through the cracks. Regardless of how much you watch movies. The other peeve about classic movies is that you are expected to say that the movie was great regardless if you think so or not. I'm sorry not all classic movies are great. Some of them are dated and doesn't hold up well. Sometimes the myth around the movie is more intriguing than the movie itself.(I'm looking at you, Citizen Kane.)

The second reason I was hesitant to watch this movie. It's one of those horror movies that claim to be based on a true story. I feel that this is a cop out. You can get by with more lazy writing when the audience bring in the baggage of "This would have ruined my suspension of disbelief, but they said it was a true story."

So, with that, I'll give you what I thought when I saw this classic movie for the first time today.


This movie was more WTF than scary to me. Maybe, I'm jaded, because I've seen so much gore in movies & TV that it doesn't bother me. There was one moment that freaked me out. It's when cut a woman's finger open and stuck it in the old guy's mouth. He started to suck on it. Ewwww! I got the chills just typing that. If this movie has any message to it, it could be argued that this movie was for the Castle Doctrine. Most of the people Leatherface killed were the ones who broke into his house. Seriously, I think this movie was more about being pro-vegetarian. They talked at length about the slaughterhouse they drove by. Before they started to stumble upon the neighbor's house, and got slaughtered like cattle.

Overall, I like this movie. More for what it didn't do, than for what it did. There was no explanation for this family of killers. Also, there wasn't the cliché of the virgin woman killing the monster. (Only to rise up in the end for the sequel.) Also, bonus points of having the handicapped man being the voice of reason in the group. I still have some questions about the movie which I hoped it will get answered on repeated viewing and in the audio commentary.

 

[Arakasi]

If you end up thinning out on ideas, I'd recommend Cinemasacre's Monster Madness. It's been running for years.

 

[briankoontz]

I assume you're covering The Cabin in the Woods at some point. The Devil's Rejects is great, The Last Broadcast, Let the Right One In, Pan's Labyrinth, Room 237, Tucker and Dale vs. Evil, and Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon are good calls.

 

[Robert B. Marks]

My list of candidates (in no particular order):

Hellraiser
Hellraiser II
Event Horizon
John Carpenter's The Thing
John Carpenter's The Fog
Pandorum
A Nightmare on Elm Street (the original)
Scream
Wes Craven's New Nightmare
John Carpenter's In the Mouth of Madness
Cube
1408
The Lady in Black
The Sixth Sense
The Ring

And that's off the top of my head...

Well, there's also Showgirls, but that's scary and horrifying for completely different reasons...

 

[KissingSunlight]

Thank you for the suggestions. A handful of titles that you mentioned I have already and will watch again for this project. I will check out the other titles that I haven't heard of before. Can anyone suggests any international horror movies? I think it would be interesting to see what scares people from different countries.

 

[ItouKaiji]

I just watched a Chinese horror movie called Rigor Mortis that I though was pretty awesome. It is visually stunning save for a few instances of crappy CG, has some memorable characters and a generally creepy feeling to the entire thing. The movie is one bit classic ghost story and one part Chinese vampire story which is the impressive part because Jiangshi are lame and almost always used in a more comedic way or in Z grade films, but this movie manages to do them in a scarier way.

 

[KissingSunlight]

It's interesting to try to figure out why something is popular and why something else gets overlooked. I just watched a movie that should have generated a lot of buzz. Just from the cast alone. Their previous works were Alice In Wonderland, Star Trek, Doctor Who, and The Hunger Games. The lead actors have played The White Queen from Narnia and Loki from Avengers...

...And they are vampires!


I can not think of a more beautiful looking vampire movie ever. It's more about the beauty of culture and history than it is about drinking blood. Honestly, without the main characters being vampires, you would be hard-pressed to call it a horror movie. It's romantic without being schmaltzy. It is also a Jim Jarmusch movie. So, don't expect a story with a point or message. Not much happen story-wise to the romantic couple. Their lives do get upset by their "sister" played Mia Wasikowska. She is not so much as a sister to them, as she is a bratty daughter. Overall, I enjoyed it for the great acting from a stellar cast. Beautiful cinematography. Mostly, for what it has to say about life.

 

[KissingSunlight]

I am a Browncoat. I am an unabashed fan of the Jossverse. My handle is a reference to a line in a Buffy episode. I even watch Shakespeare when Joss Whedon is involved with it. http://youtu.be/KT8TWSJYrJU So, when I heard Joss Whedon is co-writing a horror movie with one of his former staff writer. I knew I was going to love it.

So, here is my very biased opinion about


This movie is a meta-commentary about the horror genre. It features a lot of twists and turns in the plot that even start during the opening credits. So, it makes it difficult to talk about the movie with much details. All I can say about watching again today is that I really appreciate the subtle acting of the cast playing the college students. Especially Fran Kranz, who played his character like a wiser Shaggy. I think the real scares come from Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford. They both gave well-rounded performances of the ennui of institutional evil. They are both competent employees who are just following orders. The real appeal of the movie is in the last third of the movie where all hell breaks loose. I could ramble on like Stefon from Saturday Night Live what you will see. My favorite is the evil unicorn. It had me singing this song http://youtu.be/7X1VjGsZeyw out loud the very first time I saw it. Overall, if you haven't seen it. Even if you don't like horror movies. See it! It's great! Why am I using so many exclamation points?!?!!!

 

[KissingSunlight]

I started this project with movies that are artistically ambitious. The reason horror movies get a bad rap is that most of them are just really horribly made. Sometimes the best part of the movie is the title. So, with that, I'm proud to announce that I just watched...


This movie is horrible! I think the horror lies in watching this movie, rather than anything you see on the screen. It commits the worst sin that a horror movie can make. It is boring as hell. It makes no sense at all. They didn't even bother carry out the promise of a bikini party. Sure, there are some women in bikinis in some of the scenes. That's about it. If you are a fan of the "It's so bad that it's good." This movie will test your tolerance for bad movies.

 

[sky14kemea]

This sounds like a fun idea. I tend to watch a lot of horrors so I struggle to find decent ones I've already seen. Though I am kind of picky because I don't like the really old ones, and I don't like B movies. (I get the old ones are classics, but it's just not my thing.)

I may keep checking in to see if there's any I've not heard of. Good luck to you!

 

[KissingSunlight]

After the horror of seeing a really bad movie, I had to run back to a tried and true classic to get the bad taste out of my eyes. I actually wanted to see this movie again after I heard they are going to remake the movie by gender-flipping the cast. I have a quick thought about gender-flipping and (for a lack of a better term) reverse white-washing of established characters. There is a school of thought in Liberal ideology that believes that two wrongs make a right. Anything bad that had happened to a minority, then the minority is justified to treat men and white people in a bigoted way. Anybody who is mature realize that two people doing the wrong things to each other makes both of them wrong. Not to say that there couldn't be interesting movies made by flipping the gender of the original cast. How about an all-female Dirty Dozenhttp://youtu.be/ff1V6ywnWcY? An all-male All About Evehttp://youtu.be/uHVYTPFgCqE? Having said that, I am still curious about Ghostbuster XX. I like the talent behind the screen. So, until then...


Having watched it again, I realized it's been a long time since I've seen a big budget screwball comedy. A movie with big action scenes, explosions, special effects, and most importantly comedy. The three leads have great chemistry together. It was like watching a combination of The Three Stooges and The Marx Brothers. Regardless who they cast in the remake/reboot/gender reassignment version of the movie, nobody is going to top Sigourney Weaver. Everybody in this movie was cast perfectly. Seriously, this is one movie that people should just leave alone. No sequels and no remakes. OK. If I was going to cast the all-female Ghostbusters: Ellen Page as Peter Venkman, Melissa McCarthy as Ray, Tina Fey as Egon, Gina Torres as Winston, Sigourney Weaver as Dana, and Fran Kranz as Louis.

 

[KissingSunlight]

My boss gave me sadistic amount of overtime this weekend. It resulted in me not being able to watch a movie on Sunday. I'll make it up in the next couple of days with a double feature. Can anyone recommend a horror movie that features an evil boss or an evil workplace? I got a feeling it will be cathartic.

This sounds like a fun idea. I tend to watch a lot of horrors so I struggle to find decent ones I've already seen. Though I am kind of picky because I don't like the really old ones, and I don't like B movies. (I get the old ones are classics, but it's just not my thing.)

I may keep checking in to see if there's any I've not heard of. Good luck to you!

Thank you. One fun thing about this project was shopping for movies that I haven't seen before or for a long time. Looking over what I purchased recently for this project, most of them are from the 80's. The 80's was a great decade for horror movies: Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, Hellraiser, Halloween, John Carpenter, Wes Craven, etc. I also have a handful of obscure gems from the last 15 years I am going to share with the project. Like this one suggested by briankoontz.

I assume you're covering The Cabin in the Woods at some point. The Devil's Rejects is great, The Last Broadcast, Let the Right One In, Pan's Labyrinth, Room 237, Tucker and Dale vs. Evil, and Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon are good calls.

I don't know why you assumed I was going to do Cabin in the Woods. It was a good call though. I was intrigued by one of your other suggestions to check it out.


My initial reaction was mixed. The tone of the movie shifted a few times. It started with hand-held camera documentary style. Which was funny and an insightful examination of horror movies. My favorite moment was the killer lamenting the reason why he has to do cardio. It then changes the style completely to a straight up horror movie. It changes again to surveillance footage accompanied by an obvious classic song by The Talking Heads. The more I let the movie sink in. The more I think about the quiet moments in the movie. It is helping me understand why they went with those styles. The biggest disappointment was the notable character actors in the movie wasn't given much to do. The only exception was pre-Walking Dead Scott Wilson. Even though, he was really good in the movie. The meta-reason why he was in the movie was that he portrayed a real life killer Dick Hickock in the movie In Cold Blood. I don't really like the idea of using real life murders this way. The hook of the movie is killers like Jason, Freddy, and Michael Myers actually exists. Leslie Vernon wants to be the next big name in the psycho killer game. I did like this movie. It's one of those movies I feel I will appreciate more on repeated viewings.

 

[KissingSunlight]

I am doing a double feature today to make up for missing a day. The first one I watched is an open source artistic collaboration. Which is one of the few innovations that the internet has provided that I like. Other projects like this I would recommend are Life In A Day http://youtu.be/bT_UmBHMYzg and Playing For Change http://playingforchange.com/ What would happen if nearly 150 people collaborated to remake one of the all-time classic horror movie?


This movie is created with every imaginable art media that you can think of. From drawings, Claymation, Legos, puppets, video games, and much, much more. As a viewing experience, it kind of like watching an hour and a half slide show. It was hard to keep my interest after the novelty wore off. One thing I did like was that they kept the original soundtrack. The actors' voices, music score, sound effects, etc. from the original movie was used in this one. The only thing that was changed was the visuals. For people who like something really different and artistic will love this. I think it would work better as something playing in the background at a Halloween party.

 

[KissingSunlight]

The second movie of the double feature today was a star-making turn for an actor I don't like. I am not a Christian Bale fan. I believe he gets credited for being a great actor, because of the stunts he does for his roles. Like gaining weight and having an ugly comb-over in American Hustle. Losing an insane amount of weight for The Machinist. Even speaking in an annoyingly abrasive growl when playing a popular comic book hero. Here is one role that I do like Christian Bale in.


I feel Christian Bale is at his best in roles where he doesn't emote much. When he does emote in American Psycho, he is so hammy and over-the-top. You get swept up in his performance. Especially, during the classic monologs when he praise the greatest of Huey Lewis & The News and Phil Collins. I do want to ask the people who have seen it before: Do you remember how it ends? When watching it again, I could not remember it. That is really the biggest flaw of the movie. The movie is so funny, scary, bloody, and tense. You forget about the quiet ending. I recommend this movie to anybody who haven't seen it yet. Also, to people who haven't seen in a while.

 

[small]

I had two reasons to be hesitant to watch this movie today. The first reason is that this movie is considered to be a classic. Two things about classic movies that always peeved me. One is that people can't believe you have never seen it yet. There are literally thousands of movies that are considered "classic". Quite a few of them are going to slip through the cracks. Regardless of how much you watch movies. The other peeve about classic movies is that you are expected to say that the movie was great regardless if you think so or not. I'm sorry not all classic movies are great. Some of them are dated and doesn't hold up well. Sometimes the myth around the movie is more intriguing than the movie itself.(I'm looking at you, Citizen Kane.)

The second reason I was hesitant to watch this movie. It's one of those horror movies that claim to be based on a true story. I feel that this is a cop out. You can get by with more lazy writing when the audience bring in the baggage of "This would have ruined my suspension of disbelief, but they said it was a true story."

So, with that, I'll give you what I thought when I saw this classic movie for the first time today.


This movie was more WTF than scary to me. Maybe, I'm jaded, because I've seen so much gore in movies & TV that it doesn't bother me. There was one moment that freaked me out. It's when cut a woman's finger open and stuck it in the old guy's mouth. He started to suck on it. Ewwww! I got the chills just typing that. If this movie has any message to it, it could be argued that this movie was for the Castle Doctrine. Most of the people Leatherface killed were the ones who broke into his house. Seriously, I think this movie was more about being pro-vegetarian. They talked at length about the slaughterhouse they drove by. Before they started to stumble upon the neighbor's house, and got slaughtered like cattle.

Overall, I like this movie. More for what it didn't do, than for what it did. There was no explanation for this family of killers. Also, there wasn't the cliché of the virgin woman killing the monster. (Only to rise up in the end for the sequel.) Also, bonus points of having the handicapped man being the voice of reason in the group. I still have some questions about the movie which I hoped it will get answered on repeated viewing and in the audio commentary.

you have to remember too you are watching it at the tail end of 30 years of horror films, but this film practically created the splatter genre plus something to take note of that the horror happens in broad daylight which this was one of the first horror films to do that.

also look at that leatherface costume, picture weeks of shooting, heatwave, and not being able to wash the costume...

great catch on it being pro-vegetarian.. people are reduced to meat

 

[KissingSunlight]

OK. I am going to dip into the unknown. This movie was in a grab bag of DVD's I bought a few years ago and never watched. I don't recognize the title, actors, or director. Hopefully, I won't get burned again like I did with Bikini Party Massacre. So, what is...


This is a really good horror movie. The premise reminded me a lot of The Cabin in the Woods. Prisoners are trapped in a series of cubes. Most of them are rigged with a booby trap. Two things I didn't know before I started watching it. It's a prequel to a series of movies called Cube. So, I accidently took the suggestion of someone who has posted earlier.

snip

If the other two movies are just as good as Cube Zero, I will check those out as well. The other thing I didn't know about this movie. It was a foreign film. Well, Canada. So, I didn't need subtitles. If this is representative of the Canadian horror movie genre, then count me as a fan. Can anyone suggests other Canadian horror movies I should watch?

 

[KissingSunlight]

No horror movie marathon would be complete without visiting one of the original classic horror movies. So, I prepared myself for stilted acting, over-dramatic score, and GASP! black & white.


I am really curious how many people accepted the fact that the creature was evil. I was really sympathetic to the character that they refer to as the "monster". Talk about someone who didn't ask to be born. I was trying to figure out if there was a theme or message to this movie. The only thing I could come up with is it's about a collection of neglectful people. It seems to be about the tragic results of neglecting people you claim you care about. It has a handful of unintentionally funny moments. Including one scene I thought was originated in Young Frankenstein. Movies like these are fun to revisit to remind yourself where cultural references come from. Also, to form new opinions about classic movies.

 

[KissingSunlight]

Heading into the last week in this project I am going to watch movies closer to my fears and concerns. This one scared me more, because I feel it's more relevant today than when it was originally released in 1988.


Propaganda is one thing that bothers me, because people will not or unable to see through the obvious bias. This is a very political movie. Where the aliens from space are essentially conservative US Republicans exploiting the "third world country" of Earth. This movie should generate heated political discussion for years to come. Right now, I just want to focus on the movie. One of the most memorable scene in the movie is what I consider the best one-on-one non-special effect fight scene ever. Roddy Piper and Keith David go at each other for about ten minutes in the movie. Even that scene has a potent political overtone. One was trying to get the other one to see the world as it really is. This a great movie that should be considered a classic.