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 a...

"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...

  (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 t...

  "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...

  "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 r...

 . "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. Afte...

  "You're gonna die tonight." Urban Legends is a movie that I probably should have watched a long time ago, I remember hearing about it but I think I always got it confused with Final Destination  which came out two years later.  This movie is wonderfully 1998, referencing pagers, those couple of years where swing music made a comeback thanks to Swingers , not being able to us ethe phone when someone was using the internet and even a pretty cute Dawson's Creek  reference with Pacey himself.  Aside from  that, it's pretty much what you would exepect. The premise is a cool concept, murders based on urban legends (some of which I had not heard of like the flashing headlights at a car apparently means war) . The way it was executed I think could have been better, especially when you find out the killer in the end and how impossible it is for a person with that frame to do the things and setup they did.  Also noticeable to nerds like me and maybe normi...

  You Drugged Lenny. When I saw the art work and description for this movie last year, I knew I had to watch it.  I waited to this year to watch it and was very excited to do so.  I hate writing things like this because I know nobody sets out to make a terrible movie but that is the case with Bad Candy. The description says the movie is a montage of short stories similar to Creepshow  and Trick r' Treat but let me tell you that is where the similarities stop.  It starts out very promising, with friends getting ready to trick or treat, gorgeous cinematography and production design for this first scene.  Then it leads into a devil clown lighting up some kid's head and turning him into a figure.  This is where the movie first lost me because the tone of it changed out of nowhere here, then that led to one of the friends having the power to draw things that come to life. I literally said, "whaaat?" After this we see necrophilia, a big bat creature (see abo...

 Wanna See a Magic Trick? As sooon as I saw Ethan Hawke in this cool looking mask, I knew I wanted to watch The Black Phone.  To my surprise, this movie is a period piece, taking place in the 70's in the United States. Possibly in California since the town seemed pretty ethically diverse. However, it doesn't matter what ethnicity you are becase The Grabber takes all kids.  The Grabber is what they call this guy up above in the picture who likes to kidnap young boys and then do stuff with them.  He is a serial killer who seems to have been influenced by John Gacy, instead of him being a clown, in this film, he is a comedian. The movie itself is more suspenseful than horror, but those moments of suspense are pretty intense.  There is a black telephone that somehow keeps ringing and helps move the story forward.  The movie almost feels like a true crime podcast come to life where you're in the middle of a crime scene similar to other scenes you have heard....

  "Dark Meat" I don't have much to say about this movie other than it gave us what we were clamoring for for years.  It is  a scary movie that has Kelly Rowland, Freddy and Jason.  I mainly came here to bring up how Freddy casually says that line up above and how it seems a little racist.  Imagine if Freddy only killed White people .  Anyway, I remember watching this movie in a theater and being annoyed by that comment as well as Kelly Rowland calling Freddy a slur back. Of course there is a bit more to this movie and it give sus a bit of what the title promises but you are left with the feeling that it could have been way better.  It took about 18 revisions of the script to get what we got so I imagine it was a miracle we got this movie at all.  The takeaway is that the movie is just ok  at best and a waste of a good crossover and wasted talent of Robert Englund at worst.  Th eother takeaway is that cinematically, Kelly Rowland will pro...

  Respect. Renew. Rejoice. Kiss me if I'm wrong but They/Them is the first horror movie with a non-binary protagonist and maybe the first with a majority LGTBQIA+ cast.  That in itself is pretty cool, to be the first horror movie and maybe even the first movie to do so.  The setting is a gay conversion camp which might scare some people for different reasons.  The idea of having to go through that might scare some while the idea of "gays and lesbians" might scare others.  Don't let that stop you though because this movie is also a slasher film. The movie starts out wonderfully for a horror movie and with Blumhouse producing, that is not surprising.  It really hooks the viewer and poses various questions about what is going on.   We then get introduced to the characters from alphabet city and Kevin freaking Bacon.  He is probably my favorite part of this movie, he is amazing and we get to see why he is a great villain, shades of Sebastian Sha...

  "Grandpa's strict liquid diet keeps him as fresh as a rose." The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2  is a really freaking weird movie.  It came out in 1986 but I just fully saw it tonight.  I had seen a clip of it in horror film class and had always wanted to watch it but clearly not enough to actually do it.  After watching it, I have several questions and overall, seemed like an entertaining cash grab.  First, I will say that if the chainsaws are replaced with other weapons, this could have been an original movie.  The only things tying this movie to the original are the names of certain characters. Everything else is briefly mentioned to service the script.  Tobe Hooper directed this sequel as well and I am wondering why he did not tweak a couple of things in the script to make it an original story. This was released twelve years after the original TCM , he could have easily done so.  Dennis Hopper is in the film for a couple of scenes as a relat...

  "I'm just crazy about this store." First of all, just look at that artwork, talk about attention grabbing,  A lot of the times, the artwork has nothing to do with what happen sin the movie but in this case, I can confirm that the images above appear in the film.  I found out about this movie on Tik-Tok of all places, all the kid had to say was 80's horror and Sam Raimi and I was interested.     Intruder  starts off slow and then the violence, gore and suspense starts, it's what  presumptuous  film forks call a "slow burn."  It takes place in a grocery store with a "Ranch Market" sign outside which reminded me of several Ranch Market   grocery stores from my hometown.  The gist of the story is a girl 's ex boyfriend who got out of prison interrupts the workday of the store employees, manhandles his ex girlfriend and makes her bleed.  This gentleman's name is Craig and he seems to be an alien of an MMA fighter from 2020 be...

 "That's what I love about LA, all the damn vampires."  Day Shift  is the second spooky movie to premiere in a streaming format in the month of August and after finishing watching this movie, I predict it will do good numbers.  It takes place in LA (the San Fernando Valley) and has Snoop Dogg and Jaimee Foxx.  It was an enjoyable movie with a good balance of horror, action and comedy Basically, Jaimee Foxx is an undercover vampire hunter that goes around LA killing vampires for money until one day it comes back to "bite" him.  Now with the help of his union delegate/ sidekick Dave Franco, he has a couple days to go  for the biggest hunt and sve his family.  The movie is way more interesting than that non-spoiler description.  Dave Franco is funny and the action scenes are great.  The movie follows its own vampire lore and mythology which works in that universe.  There are vampires of all races because it is LA and that was interesti...

  "You can't see that I'm killing you, and it won't either." Happy spoopy season! We back baby!  Just because I'm workin on a podcast doesn't mean this year's festival is postponed, no sir! That's three concurrent sentences with exclamation marks, I'm goigto tone it down now.  You see, I had some very strong coffee about 10 hours ago and it is currently 3:04AM, I'm almost starting to get sleepy.  In any event, what a way to start 2022's Images of Fright Festival, this is year 13! I'm calling it now, I do not think I will see a better movie this year than what I just watched, but of course,I hope I am wrong. Prey  is an amazing movie for a myriad of reasons but right off the bat, let's start with the obvious, a female hero!  I do believe chronilogically, the character of Naru, is the first final girl.  Unless there is a horror movie about the Salem witch trials out there that I havent seen.  Honestly, we had to read  The Crucible...