Movie Time 2.0: TT mini reviews

[Octopus Prime]

Two drastically different SPOOKYFILMs this weekend

Child’s Play 2 was an absolute hoot; it leaned in hard to the silliness of the original movie without hitting parody. Chucky is a great villain because he’s really only dangerous when you don’t see him coming; at all other times he’s something that a small child can handle easily. And because he’s a doll there’s no limit to what you can do to him. He’s a horror movie villain punching bag.

Suspiria is far less of an Octo movie. Really not sure if it’s supposed to be scary or just lit weird; because boydid they use a lot of colours and have scare chords punctuating that the lighting was weird. I guess the lesson it had to teach us is that Italian Ballet Schools are weird sometimes but also sometimes run by murder witches.

 

[jpfriction]

Totally Killer is great. Halloween and Back to the Future work together surprisingly well, although the slasher bits take a definite backseat to the “man the 80’s were kinda fucked up” bits.

 

[Paul le Fou]

Prince of Darkness was weird. I'm a little surprised to find out that it came out 5 years after The Thing, because it really just seems like a slightly worse prototype of the same concept (people around you being turned by a malevolent force into its agents one by one, except PoD didn't have any of the mystery or suspense about who was being turned). I wonder if that's why it's part of the same "trilogy." It did have a vial of gooey green subatomic Satan though. Also, it had the future VHS dream thing that didn't really have anything to do with anything and just felt kinda thrown in there. None of the characters were particularly memorable either, except the gay guy with the racist jokes and the MC's mustache. I don't think I liked it very much, in retrospect.

 

[Octopus Prime]

Nah, the unifying element of the trilogy is the idea that because the monster exists at all, that’s the ballgame, the movie just shows the parts before that becomes obvious to anyone outside the main cast.

PoD ain’t a movie for everyone, but it’s easily one of my favorites both in Carpenters filmography and of cosmic horror in general

 

[Octopus Prime]

Friday the 13th (2009) is in that unfortunate liminal space where it’s too good to say it’s bad, but not good enough to recommend. Just… right in the middle of the road. It also does that annoying “Sequel That Ignores All the Other Movies and Just Uses The Name of the First One Again” thing that Halloween and Candyman also did. Though I guess it beat them to the punch by a good decade or so.

The highlight was the opening sequence where they were speedrunning a Ft13 movie by cramming all of one into 20 minutes as a Fakeout before the real movie starts… which is basically the same storyline but dragged out over an hour instead.

It’s got Sam Winchester in it though!

 

[Octopus Prime]

“Horror” is a hit of a strong descriptor, but tonight’s SPOOKYFILM was Dave Made a Maze, and *holy mackerel* I loved it. One of the most fun movies I’ve seen in recent memory.

It’s equal parts Cube and Labyrinth and it’s so damn delightful all the way though.

 

[Exposition Owl]

“Horror” is a hit of a strong descriptor, but tonight’s SPOOKYFILM was Dave Made a Maze, and *holy mackerel* I loved it. One of the most fun movies I’ve seen in recent memory.

It’s equal parts Cube and Labyrinth and it’s so damn delightful all the way though.

Yeah, I really liked that one, too, but I really don’t know why I keep seeing it filed under “horror.”

 

[Octopus Prime]

well, I guess they’re being chased by a monster and, whimsical as they are, people are killed when they fall into traps.

Possibly except for Brynn, that was… vague

 

[Issun]

I absolutely loved The Last Voyage of the Demeter, and while it may not be for everyone, Dracula as Alien on a boat is extremely my jam, as it turns out. A big part of the appeal is that, in telling a story from the early 20th century, it also takes its cues from the horror of Stoker and Lovecraft, including how it presents its pacing and atmosphere. My one quibble would be that the editing occasionally gets away from itself, but otherwise it's a good time. Might be my favorite flick of the year so far.

This is probably as close as we're ever going to get to a film adaptation of Return of the Obra Dinn, people.

 

[Octopus Prime]

Instead of a spookyfilm, I watched a whole bunch of spooky films, specifically, this playlist, as curated by Random Horror 9, one of my favorite horror movie podcasts.

In hindsight, I should have watched this *before* listening, since they did spoil all of them as a matter of course, and while that normally doesn’t bug me, it’s nice to go into a 2-10 minute movie that’s built off delivering one twist. Anyhoo

Lights Out; A good start; held back by the fact that I've Seen a whole bunch of movies that used the same premise. Still, effective.
Moonstruck; straight up an adaptation of one of the Local 58 shorts, just presented like a movie instead of a weird public service announcement. The end was pretty horrifying, so good for it.
The Ten Steps; Possibly the scariest short from the list, and definitely the cheapest to produce.
Abracitos; Didn’t grab me so much, possibly because I was interrupted by a Cheezits commercial midway through. Had some j7mp scares jarring enough I damn near peed my pants, however.
Portrait of God; the only short on the list to rival Ten Steps for freaking my beacon the most.
In Good Hands; One of the “funny” ABCs of Death shorts, pass
Teaching Josh; Good premise, and it would succeed at being creepy, but it’s a Brian David Gilbert video and I can not really accept him as a Scary Movie Guy, and it’s really not in his particular strong suit as an entertainer.
Bedfellows; a much stupider take on an old urban legend. Whuff.

And then the list ends with Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared, which… kind of feels like it’s missing the intended vibe check. I mean; I’ll never object to being presented with it but… not really reading the room.

 

[Purple]

Years later I'm still surprised at just how low the batting average of The ABCs of Death was. I don't think I actually LIKED one single short. There were one or two I was somewhat bemused by, but that's it.

 

[Paul le Fou]

Don't Hug Me I'm Scared? Like...the puppet comedy? Huh. Doesn't really...seem like it would belong.

 

[Johnny Unusual]

Years later I'm still surprised at just how low the batting average of The ABCs of Death was. I don't think I actually LIKED one single short. There were one or two I was somewhat bemused by, but that's it.

There were a couple I liked but most were just interested in being gross or "transgressive" (in the most base, unclever way) or just meanspirited. I do like the first short in the first one because it's going for what seems like is just gross and then ends on a note that I actually found bittersweet and weirdly empathetic basically, it's a woman coming into a hospital room and clumsily trying to kill them, then giving up, breaking down and the person they just mutilated embraces them with forgiveness and you see out the window it's the apocalypse and this was just a stupid misguided mercy kill attempt that is forgiven).

 

[Octopus Prime]

I like that T is for Turbo go remade into a full length movie that was altogether more lighthearted and fun.

 

[Johnny Unusual]

I like that T is for Turbo go remade into a full length movie that was altogether more lighthearted and fun.

Keep in mind, T is for Turbo never actually made into either movie. Yet another fumble, ridiculously long anthology movie.

 

[Octopus Prime]

Oh, in that case, Nothing Good

 

[jpfriction]

“Horror” is a hit of a strong descriptor, but tonight’s SPOOKYFILM was Dave Made a Maze, and *holy mackerel* I loved it. One of the most fun movies I’ve seen in recent memory.

It’s equal parts Cube and Labyrinth and it’s so damn delightful all the way though.

This was pretty good! I’m seeing all good spoops this year.

I wonder what happened to the Flemish tourists.

 

[Octopus Prime]

I’m assuming they’re not planning on going anywhere until they’re done their picnic.

They’re enjoying their vacation!

 

[Octopus Prime]

Don't Hug Me I'm Scared? Like...the puppet comedy? Huh. Doesn't really...seem like it would belong.

Maybe the one about a healthy diet, but even that might have been the silliest one as well

 

[Neo Skimbleshanks]

Killers of the Flower Moon is incredible. All of the leads are great; I really want to watch Certain Women now.

 

[zonetrope]

Sleuth: Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine act at each other for two and a half hours in an eccentric English manor. I was getting major Knives Out and Glass Onion vibes from this, and upon some investigation this was indeed apparently a foundational movie for Rian Johnson. So check this one out if you liked those.

 

[Torzelbaum]

Sleuth: Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine act at each other for two and a half hours in an eccentric English manor.

But did they do it in an eccentric English manner?

 

[zonetrope]

Oh yes. Michael Caine spends about half of the movie in a clown suit.

 

[Adrenaline]

I watched Five Nights at Freddy's on Peacock. The extent to which none of the characters' actions or experiences made a lick of sense is remarkable.

 

[Pombar]

Sleuth: Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine act at each other for two and a half hours in an eccentric English manor. I was getting major Knives Out and Glass Onion vibes from this, and upon some investigation this was indeed apparently a foundational movie for Rian Johnson. So check this one out if you liked those.

I watched this one this year and it was excellent. In fact, I've had quite a year of discovering old Caine classics (and as an aside, saw the remake of his namesake), just need to tick off The Italian Job + Alfie and I'll be close to done.

I watched half of Kingdom of Heaven's extended cut last night, stopping at 100 minutes with 90 minutes remaining, which I'll get back to on Wednesday. The first 40 minutes made me want to play more Battle Brothers, so I assume it may have been a reference point for those devs haha. But yes, quite solid for its sort, more sword+sandals romantic adventure than Dad Vibes history nerdery like Master & Commander or something, but it does well at that. And what a cast, yeesh - particularly the effortlessly charming Alexander Siddig, who my wife instantly recognised as Mr. Shaitana from an excellent episode of Suchet's Poirot.

 

[Phantoon]

Sleuth: Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine act at each other for two and a half hours in an eccentric English manor. I was getting major Knives Out and Glass Onion vibes from this, and upon some investigation this was indeed apparently a foundational movie for Rian Johnson. So check this one out if you liked those.

It's a brilliant film. Caine was pretty brave to do it; Olivier was one of the best actors of his generation and to do a film where you're the only other actor shows some confidence. I think it ended up doing his career a lot of good.

 

[Pombar]

I hear it's nowhere near as good, but I liked that Caine then played the older Olivier part in the later remake (with Jude Law in the younger Caine role?). Coming full circle and all that.

 

[Johnny Unusual]

Finally watched Nope. I didn't like it as much as Us or Get Out but at the same time Jordan Peele movies are still consistently interesting and well made. "Jaws in the sky" is a Hell of a pitch and I'm so glad the marketing didn't give that away, despite being extremely Speilberg. I like that while Steven Yeun's backstory isn't important to the facts of the film, it fits on real well thematically and is just creepy in a very sad way. Him fonding remembering a Chris Kattan SNL sketch is a stand out monologue, really.

Also, a dramatic reading of "Purple People Eater" is a great case of a director using a gravelly voice to create a classic film trope in a knowingly ridiculous way.

 

[Paul le Fou]

Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes was a marvel of "How did they do that?" structure, as a one-take movie with a lot of recursive elements. The rest of it - the screenplay, characters, performances, etc. - were all fairly unimpressive, but I'd say it's still worth a watch just from the technical standpoint.

 

[Pombar]

Called in sick yesterday and in between naps threw on first the '54 Japanese cut of Godzilla, and then Glory. Both of them suffered from aging ungracefully to some degree, but neither to the point that the whole wasn't still enjoyable.