Film posts
I've posted reviews (are they reviews? notes? ramblings?) of films off and on for years, but it became regular when I attempted the 2020 #31DaysofHorror film challenge. I discovered I loved having a structure around watching films, and making myself write a few paragraphs embedded the film a little more in my brain.
That led to watching the films of David Lynch in chronological order in 2021, and then Dario Argento in 2024. It’s a form of curation. It helps me find a path through the forest of films when everything is always available.
Film challenges so far:
October 14 2023, 12:00
Scream (2022)
Ah, the plot. It’s a whodunnit, but with lots of stabbing. Twas ever thus. David Arquette’s Dewey is the best thing about it. I think I’m finally too old for Scream films. [more...]
October 13 2023, 21:15
There’s Nothing Out There (1991)
A mix of Cabin in the Woods, Friday the 13th, Evil Dead and Scream, but with no budget. It’s fun, a broad horror comedy that isn’t afraid of the horror. Cheap but clever. [more...]
October 12 2023, 06:01
Castle Freak (1995)
The Reilly family arrive in Italy to inherit a castle left to them by an elderly Duchess. The creature she’s been keeping in the dungeon breaks free. Gothic melodrama and cannibalism ensue. [more...]
October 11 2023, 06:11
Re-Animator (1985)
A gory take on Frankenstein with a psychopathic scientist, an evil academic, and a morgue full of reanimated corpses. The ever-present syringe of neon green liquid is iconic. [more...]
October 10 2023, 06:10
65 (2023)
An alien gets stranded on Earth when an asteroid hits his ship. There is a fellow survivor. There are challenges. There are dinosaurs. [more...]
October 09 2023, 06:09
The Pale Blue Eye (2022)
A nineteenth century murder mystery set in the snowbound US military academy at West Point, where a cadet is found hanged with his heart removed from his body. [more...]
October 08 2023, 06:08
The Exorcist III (1990)
A flawed film filled with wonders. More of an existential downer than I expected — yes, it’s about a demon bringing hell to earth, but it goes strong with what that might mean. [more...]
October 07 2023, 06:07
Survival of the Dead (2009)
An exiled patriarch tempts four soldiers to his island with a hope of settling an old score. Tonally weird — part western, part comedy, not much zombie threat — it’s a clunker. [more...]
October 06 2023, 06:06
Diary of the Dead (2007)
Found footage Romero style. A student film crew try to stay alive as the dead come back to life, but the director decides to film everything putting pressure on the people around him. [more...]
October 05 2023, 06:05
Eye in the Labyrinth (1972)
Julie is looking for her missing psychiatrist (hard relate) and travels to a Greek island to search for him. There she stays at a clifftop villa with a commune of shifty artists. [more...]
October 04 2023, 06:04
Strip Nude For Your Killer (1975)
Sometimes the algorithm wears you down, and the familiar cover art catches you in a vulnerable moment, and you choose a film that you know will be bad... except it’s good! [more...]
October 03 2023, 06:03
The Broken (2007)
A mirror falls off a wall during a party, releasing cold-hearted döppelgangers from a mirror world who begin to replace their counterparts. [more...]
October 02 2023, 06:02
The Cursed (2021)
Kelly Reilly plays another mother, this time on a remote estate in nineteenth-century rural England, and is visited by a ‘pathologist’ instead of Poirot. A curse is made, werewolves ensue. [more...]
October 01 2023, 06:01
A Haunting in Venice (2023)
I started this year’s #31DaysofHorror with a classic whodunnit mashed with a ghost story. Kenneth Branagh plays around with spooky children, Viennese masks and fish eye lenses to fun effect. [more...]
August 07 2023, 19:41
Meg 2: The Trench
Teeth and tentacles chomp, devour, squeeze and rip through submarines, boats, research stations, and eventually a holiday resort. People die. Lots of people having fun die. [more...]
October 31 2021, 18:28
In the Earth (2021)
A fascinating, horrible, blackly funny film about Covid, nature, group dynamics, and how humans exist in relation to other forms of life. [more...]
October 30 2021, 19:47
Ghostbusters II (1989)
To finish my parade of eighties sequels, I went with this, which I can remember seeing in the cinema at a birthday party. The chemistry isn’t the same, and Bill Murray is... unpleasant. [more...]
October 29 2021, 06:33
Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981)
Five years after the killings of Crystal Lake, a new camp has been created, and a killer again picks off the counsellors one by one. [more...]
October 28 2021, 08:16
Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988)
Ten years after the Haddonfield killings, Michael Myers escapes, forcing Loomis to return and protect Laurie Strode’s daughter, Jamie. [more...]
October 27 2021, 06:13
Halloween II (1981)
When Michael Myers’ body goes missing, Dr Loomis continues his search on the streets of Haddonfield, while Laurie is taken to hospital and sedated. [more...]
October 26 2021, 06:01
Planet Terror (2007)
An accidentally released biochemical weapon turns soldiers into a pack of marauding flesh-eating mutants. Soon the local population swamp the hospital creating a relentless circus of cheesy dialogue and amusingly extreme violence. [more...]
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