I'm Not There

  Save your breath for screaming. 2022 has been the year for remakes, reboots and revisits of spooky properties.  We started this year's festival with a revisit/prequel and are ending with a reboot.  Looking back, most of the films were decent and there were a couple that could have been way better.  In this case,  Hellraiser  falls into the decent category making for an enjoyable watching experience. I know that I have seen the original  Hellraiser  before but at the same time, I do not remember it very clearly.  I remember it being slow and boring with some cute cenobites thrown in.  I don't even remember the puzzle box which plays a big role in this film.   In other words, when it comes to comparing this to the original, there is not much there in my brain to recall.  Maybe that is a good thing because I saw this film with semi fresh eyes.  I knew the Pinhead character as well as the cool looking cenobites and that they liked to inflict pain. That is the only baggage I bro

"Are you the psycho or the freakshow?" Halloween Ends , the last installment of the  Halloween  reboot, premiered a couple of days ago and it got mostly, negative reviews from the core audience.  I watched it and decided to give it a couple days to gather my thoughts and in the end, I decided that this movie while not terrible, is an odd way to end the franchise. Jamie Lee Curtis has said this would be the last time she would be playing Laurie Strode in a  Halloween  movie and the first two films set up a great rivalry that was to end the lives of one or a couple of the protagonists.   In the end, that did happen but the way the film got there seemed messy and forced.  The issue I and other nerds have with this film is that it is telling two separate stories, one of which has nothing to do with the previous films.  Not only that, but it seems the Michael Myers story, the story everyone has been excited to see, is sandwiched between the Cory Cunningham story and not even a g

  (Horn honks) Holyyyyyyyy crap.  When Damien Leone said he knew this movie had to outdo the original in terms of violence and gore he was not kidding.  From the very beginning, Terrifier 2  is a bloody splatter-fest that has you glued to your seat.  This is the most bloody and gory film I have ever seen in my entire life.  At 2 hours and 18 minutes, you are in for a ride friend! This movie expands on the original and introduces several new characters that are potentially going to be in future installments seeing as how this movie did so well at the box office.  The main characters are high school kids who unfortunately, have a run in with Art the Clown and most of them do not make it until the end of the movie.  I bring that up to say that the kills in this movie are phenomenal and so well done that they should get prizes.  Having said that, the movie at times does feel like it is too gory and violent and brings to mind this scene: Another thing this film does really well and often is

  "Chin, no pueder ser."  Chile, a couple months ago when I heard that Marvel was going to put on a Halloween special starring Jack Russel, I almost spit my water out.  For you see,  Werewolf By Night   is my favorite Marvel character besides Deadpool.  Over time he has become a very obscure character, appearing mostly in team-ups after his story for the Marvel Max line.  Anyway, to have this character suddenly announced as the protagonist of a Halloween special, my favorite holiday and he was going to be Hispanic AND it was going to be done in the style of the old Universal horror films, the movies that got me into horror in the first place?  This is truly, truly, truly what it feels like when doves cry.  I have a  Werewolf By Night  issue #1 that was gifted to me a couple years back that is now going to be worth a lot more. Please excuse my rambling about my love for this character and let's get to the special. Of course, I had high expectations for this and boy were

  "Remains to be seen." Yikes. This is the second "remake " in the festival this year and one that a lot of people were very excited about.  A lot of those same people ended up complaining about many aspects this film.  Personally, I was excited to see what Rob Zombie would do to re-imagine The Munsters  and what resulted was an over the top too silly live action cartoon for children that sometimes references the original show.  Yeah I didn't like it. Maybe it was me but all throughout the promotion for this film, I never once heard that this was a prequel to the series.  Had I known that from the beginning, it would have helped me stop wondering why the characters were acting so out of character and like elementary school goofballs.  Herman specifically for some reason in this version was in a band and Lily Munster had a crush on him and stalked him to meet him thanks to her brother Lester who is a gambling werewolf who owes gypsies money?  You read that right.

 . "Lock up your children! Yes, Salem, we're back!" Hocus Pocus 2 has been a long time coming and we finally got to see the end product today.  The original movie brings a lot of good nostalgic memories to kids who watched it when it originally came out as well as people who are new to the series.  This sequel does justice to the original in terms of tone and performances, even if the plot falls a little flat in the end. The excitement that this movie has generated has been overwhelmingly positive.  Again, nostalgia and the fact that the main characters and actors are back for the second time really got people excited.  Interestingly, the original didn't pick up steam until years after it was first released, it got what nerds call a "cult following,"  One of the only few downsides to this movie is that he original human charaters do not return nor do we know what became of them.  However, we do meet a group of new kids who carry the story forward. After a fa