October 2014 Recap

Here are my top and bottom films for the month of October in no particular order:

Top 5:
1. The Taking of Deborah Logan
2. ABC's of Death 2
3. Horns
4. Redd Inc.
5. Nekromantik
Runner Up: Zombeavers

Bottom 5:
1. Sex Tape
2. See No Evil 2
3. Gone Girl
4. The Cold Light of Day
5. Curse of the Blue Lights
Runner Up: none

394. Zombeavers (2014)

October 31, 2014

In this deliberately terrible film three girls go to a lake house for some alone time after one of them was cheated on by her boyfriend. One of the girls invited the boys though, so it was more awkward time than alone time. Turns out a barrel of toxic waste fell off a truck and into the lake, turning the local beaver population into (as the title suggests) zombeavers. The now undead critters trapped the kids in the house and started eating them one by one. After getting scratched or bitten by a zombeaver, the humans turned into zombies too, creating yet another obstacle for the few remaining survivors to defeat. It was extremely silly which was what we expected, and it made for a highly entertaining and fun film. Definitely give this one a watch.

393. The Taking of Deborah Logan (2014)

October 30, 2014

I don't get scared that often, but 'The Taking of Deborah Logan' had me jumping. A friend of mine recommended it and said he had nightmares after watching it, and he doesn't scare easy either. It is about a crew of documentary filmmakers trying to make a senior thesis about Alzheimer's patients. They visit a woman named Deborah Logan who has the disease and follow her as she goes about her daily activities. Things begin to get strange when the woman starts to exhibit signs more similar to possession than Alzheimer's, and it is up to the crew and the woman's daughter to find out a way to save her. It was a really well made movie that deserves a bigger release. For now it is on Netflix, and I strongly recommend you check it out.

392. Stigma (1972)

October 29, 2014

After serving time in prison for performing an illegal abortion, a young and talented doctor moves to a small coastal town to practice medicine under his mentor. Unfortunately for him, his mentor passes away before he arrives, and several people in town are incredibly racist and try to run him out. He perseveres though, as his mentor would have had him do, and gets to the bottom of a potentially widespread syphilis outbreak in the town caused by all the young folks having rampant, unprotected sex on some rocks by the ocean. It served not only as an entertaining movie, but also as an educational film about the devastating nature of sexually transmitted diseases. I dug it.

391. Hot Moves (1984)

October 29, 2014

Using one of the most original ideas of all time (a group of high school guys pledge to lose their virginity over summer vacation!), and giving it the craziest twist of all time (when given an opportunity to lose said virginity, one of the guys turns it down in favor of going back to his celibate but beautiful girlfriend, Jill Schoelen who is so moved she ends up doing it with him!), ‘Hot Moves’ was a creative and fascinating piece of cultural significance that begs to be revisited time and again. Only kidding, it was as generic and stupid as every spring break movie from the 80s, and if you’ve seen one of them, you’ve seen them all.

390. Pets (1974)

October 29, 2014

Sometimes I'm just in the mood for an exploitative film that is essentially about nothing. 'Pets' was basically about nothing and at the same time it was about a lot of things at once. A young girl gets abused by her brother and runs away, when she meets another young girl and the two of them steal a man's car. The second girl drives the car to the man's house and steals his money while the first girl watches the man. The man gets as raped as a man can get by a beautiful woman, so... good for him, I guess. Then the girl gets picked up by an artist who lets her live with her if she just allows her to paint her portrait. A man breaks into their house and the girl keeps him in her room to have sex with him because she is tired of having sex with the painter and she just wants a man. The painter freaks out and the girl escapes and runs off to be with an eccentric and super-rich art dealer who desires to keep all women as pets in his home. He wants to keep the painter too, so he goes after her but the girl has other tricks up her sleeve. So, in summary, this movie was so all over the place that it almost didn't work, but I really liked it.

389. Scream (1996)

October 28, 2014

There are a few standby movies you just have to watch this time of year. 'Scream' is one of them. The Scream franchise is Wes Craven's second revitalization of the horror genre, and probably the most parodied movie of all time. This is the movie that defined the rules for all slasher movies in no uncertain terms. It looks a bit dated now, but it still holds up as a really cool movie. If you haven't seen it, it is about a masked killer known as Ghostface who calls his victims and toys with them before ultimately cutting them to pieces. The cops aren't much help, so a handful of teenagers try to stop Ghostface before it is too late. There is obviously more to it, but you should see it for yourself.

388. V/H/S Viral (2014)

October 28, 2014

The third part in the continuing found footage V/H/S series, 'V/H/S Viral' had nothing to do with the VHS format, nor was it found footage. That said, I liked it better than the first two. It was a lot less shaky, and I was thankful for that. It was also a lot weirder. I think I need to go back and watch it again though. I was carving pumpkins while watching it (multi-tasking!) and may have missed a few pieces. It followed the usual format of short films tied together with a wrap around, only this time instead of some folks who watch some gnarly old tapes we just followed an ice cream truck that seemed to cause people to go crazy. The short films were pretty cool for the most part, we had a magician with a real magic cloak that required human sacrifices, skateboarders vs. an undead cult in a Mexican skate park, and some sort of portal that opened a door to a bizarre parallel universe. I liked it, and I would recommend it even without seeing the others.

387. Eight Legged Freaks (2002)

October 26, 2014

It's been about a decade since I've seen this movie, and for the most part it holds up as being pretty entertaining. The effects are abysmal, but about what you'd expect from a silly giant bug film from 2002. A financially troubled town becomes infested with gargantuan spiders after a barrel of toxic waste falls off a truck and into a water supply just up the road from Tom Noonan's spider farm. David Arquette leads an interesting cast including Kari Wuhrer, Doug E. Doug, and Scarlett Johansson in trying to save the town and kill all the spiders. It is as cheesy as it looks, but definitely fun to watch.

386. Creatures From the Abyss (aka Plankton) (1994)

October 25, 2014

This bizarre movie featured a handful of people who, after getting stranded on their boat in a storm, happened upon a seemingly empty yacht and made themselves at home. Things took an unfortunate turn for them when they discovered that the yacht was home to several carnivorous and sexually voracious fish-like creatures. When some of the group started turning into the fish creatures, the rest of them decided it was time to go, but they were doomed from the start, and leaving proved to be far too difficult. It was a stupid movie with terrible acting and I had a lot of fun watching it.

385. The Cold Light of Day (2012)

October 25, 2014

Libby and I went up to my parents' house over the weekend and my dad had checked out a few movies from the library. 'The Cold Light of Day' was one of them. With Bruce Willis and Sigourney Weaver's faces on the cover, how could they go wrong? Well, they did. Willis and his family were out on a yacht where he and his son (Henry Cavill) argued about things that never came up again in the story. Cavill went for a swim and when he came back the family was gone. The local authorities seemed to be in on it and they tried to attack him. Suddenly, from out of nowhere, Willis attacked the cops holding his son, and they got away. Willis admitted to being some kind of special agent and said the people who kidnapped his family wanted some briefcase back and the CIA or whatever agency he was with wanted everyone associated with the briefcase dead. That was about as much as Willis was in the movie. My guess is they gave him a dollar amount and asked him how many minutes that would afford and he said five to ten. So Cavill had to try to rescue his family by stealing a briefcase from some corrupt lunatics and giving it to the Israelis. It was never clear who the good guys were, if there were any, and the contents of the briefcase were never disclosed. Poorly written and executed, 'The Cold Light of Day' is one I'm glad came from the library and we didn't actually pay money to see.

384. Deadly Eyes (aka Rats) (1982)

October 24, 2014

Small dogs dressed like giant rats terrorize a big city in this fun creature feature. After corn contaminated with steroids was destroyed by health officials, the rats that had been feeding on the corn had to move elsewhere, and they quickly spread through the city into people's houses and into the subways. A teacher who happened to be somewhat familiar with rats fell for the lady who gave the order to destroy the corn and together they tried to destroy the rats before becoming food. I had a good time watching 'Deadly Eyes', and you will too!

383. Gone Girl (2014)

October 24, 2014

I didn't like this movie. It was made very well, and the acting was fantastic, but I couldn't stand the direction they took it (I hated the ending). The basic premise is a woman appears missing or dead and her husband is the prime suspect. I don't want to say more than that because it is still a relatively new movie and I don't want to give any spoilers in case anyone wants to see it. I'll just say I think it could have had a much better ending.

382. Trick 'R Treat (2007)

October 21, 2014

'Trick 'r Treat' is the single greatest Halloween film of all time. No other movie has embodied the spirit of the most wonderful holiday of the year so passionately and profoundly. Taking place on Halloween night, the film follows four interweaving stories involving werewolves, murderers, ghost children, and most importantly Sam, Halloween's newest hero. If you've seen it, then you know how great it is. If you haven't seen it, this is the one you need to see. This is the ultimate Halloween movie that you can watch any day of the year, but you absolutely need to watch it this time of year.

381. The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)

October 19, 2014

Although it has been more or less taken over by 'emo' kids who spend their parents' money at Hot Topic, Henry Selick's 'Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas' is no less impressive than it was 21 years ago when it came out. I remember my uncle taking my brother and I to the theater to see it opening weekend and then taking us to the Disney store and buying us some of the little figures. This is a movie that begs to be seen this time of year, somewhere between the Halloween season and Christmas. When Jack Skellington, the king of Halloween, finds himself tired of the same old routine each year and he accidentally wanders into Christmasland, he gets an idea to try a new holiday. He gets all of the creatures of Halloweentown to work on getting ready for Christmas and he has the real Santa Claus kidnapped by Lock, Shock, and Barrel, Halloween's finest trick or treaters. Jack's Christmas fails miserably and with the help of Sally, his rag-doll love interest, he rescues Santa Claus from the clutches of the nefarious Oogie Boogie to save Christmas. If you haven't seen it yet, please do. Everyone needs to see this movie.

380. Curse of the Blue Lights (1988)

October 19, 2014

'Curse of the Blue Lights' is another film I've been wanting to watch for years but hadn't got around to it until now. I actually picked up a bootleg DVD years ago when I couldn't find it available anywhere and it didn't have sound. Fortunately, Code Red DVD has done their usual magic and put out a very nice release for this low budget monster movie. Unfortunately, it was about as boring as watching paint dry. The effects were spectacular though. For as low as their budget must have been, they did a great job there. The acting was abysmal and the writing was painfully dull. Some kids go out to the Blue Lights, a popular make out destination, where they run into some other guys who they don't seem to like, but they quit making out so they can all hang out. Then they notice some strange activity down the hill and go to investigate, and they find a statue sticking out of the ground and a disc with strange writing carved on it. They leave to get a truck to pull the statue out but get stopped by the police. When they go back the statue is gone. Turns out some demons took it and now they need the disc to bring back some kind of monster thing. The kids meet a witch who brews up a potion to kill the demons, but they aren't quick enough. The demons summon an army of zombies to do their bidding and then the kids brawl the demons with swords and knives. It was definitely ambitious, and it felt a bit like a really good student film, but there were parts that were so tedious that I could have easily fallen asleep. If you want to see some great special effects in between quick naps, this is your movie. I don't know if the trailer is on YouTube, but here is the whole movie:

379. Nekromantik (1988)

October 18, 2014

I tried to watch Jorg Buttgereit's 'Nekromantik' when I was much too young to appreciate it and I didn't last long. I don't remember how I found a copy (probably got it at the library), but I remember being pretty disturbed. Now that I'm at least somewhat more mature, I can easily say that it is the most beautiful film about necrophilia I've ever seen. A man who works for a cadaver cleanup service brings home bits and pieces (and occasionally entire dead bodies) for him and his girlfriend to lovingly defile. When he loses his job, his girlfriend leaves him and he tries to find love elsewhere, but just can't make it with the living. Due to the subject matter, I won't recommend it to most people. It is a work of art, however. The gore effects and the taboos it portrays and especially the gorgeous score make this obscurity well worth your time. If you're not easily offended, absolutely check it out.

378. Dead Shadows (2012)

October 16, 2014

During the opening credits of the French alien invasion thriller 'Dead Shadows', a dedication comes up that says, "To my father..." or something to that extent. Then in the first scene of the movie a dad slices his wife's face up in front of a young boy. I don't know if anyone else made that grisly connection, but I have to say that was an odd and most likely unintentional touch. After that, I'm not really sure what happened in this movie. The kid grew up and was still afraid of the dark, but for more legitimate reasons than most people have. A comet flew over Paris and a bunch of people started turning into aliens or zombies or something. It had really great special effects and is worth watching for that alone, but I honestly am not sure what was going on for most of this movie.

377. Cujo (1983)

October 16, 2014

Stephen King is undoubtedly the master of horror writing. It often seems like a lot of his work doesn't translate very well to film, which is a shame, however Lewis Teague's ('Alligator', 'Stephen King's Cat's Eye') 'Cujo' is a very good film. As far as rabid dog movies go, 'Cujo' is probably the best. Dee Wallace and Daniel Hugh-Kelly star as a couple dealing with car trouble, financial issues, and marital stress (she's cheating on him with a handyman). When Wallace and their son, Tad, head over to the mechanic's house in the middle of nowhere, the junkyard dog (Cujo, a St. Bernard that was bit by a bat at the beginning of the movie and is now rabid as a result) attacks them and won't let them leave. Their struggle for survival is intense, with a surprisingly good performance by the little kid. I'd recommend 'Cujo' to fans of Stephen King and fans of horror movies in general, but maybe not dog lovers. Over, done with, gone.

376. Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986)

October 16, 2014

This was the second time I watched John McNaughton's 'Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer' this year. It was one of those movies my wife hadn't seen yet that she says I always talk about, so she decided to give it a watch. I think she enjoyed it, but it was a little hard to tell. This movie is so artistically crafted and brutally realistic and I love every minute of it. Michael Rooker and Tom Towles give amazing performances as Henry and Otis, respectfully, and their depravity knows no bounds. Rooker's unflinching portrayal of one of the most merciless serial killers ever put on film is a true testament to how great an actor he really is. Since I went over the plot a bit more back in February, I'll skip that part here, but I do seriously recommend it. Of course, if you're the kind of person who would enjoy a movie like this, you've probably already seen it a million times.

375. The Unseen (1980)

October 15, 2014

This movie was OK. It wasn't great, but it had some good moments. Three female reporters for a news station find their hotel reservation was lost and they don't have a room to stay in for some festival they were covering. A local museum owner allows them to stay at his house and they graciously accept. Unbeknownst to the girls, their host is a bit of a lunatic who slept with his sister and fathered a monster (Stephen Furst) who now lives in the basement and remains "unseen" for most of the movie. Overall, the movie felt a little on the long side. There were several scenes of people walking around a seemingly empty house, calling out to people who weren't there. They could have trimmed it down a bit and possibly had a much better movie. It was still good enough to watch though, and I would recommend it to anyone looking for a semi-obscure, early-80's horror film.

374. My Demon Lover (1987)

October 14, 2014

After 'Edward Scissorhands', 'My Demon Lover' is probably the movie I watched most as a kid. I've always loved this movie. Michelle Little plays Danny, a woman in search of someone to love, whose kind and forgiving nature often leads to men walking all over her. Scott Valentine plays Kaz, a saxophone playing vagrant with a good heart living with a curse that makes him turn into a demon anytime he gets sexually aroused. When the two meet and become really good friends, Danny tries to take the relationship to the next level. Kaz knows what would happen if he did, so he keeps his distance while trying to find a cure for his affliction. With the help of Fixer, a street psychic with a real gift, he finds out what he needs to do and winds up battling another demon on top of a castle. It is a really cheesy, but wonderfully fun film that pretty much everyone watched on HBO back in the day, but has regrettably gone by the wayside in the digital age (although Warner Bros did release in on DVD-R as part of their archive collection). If you haven't seen it and you get a chance, check it out.

373. X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)

October 12, 2014

It had been a while since I've seen any of the X-Men movies. To me it felt like they were making the same movie over and over, so I'd more or less given up on them. This one was pretty good though. I was entertained, and that is good enough for me. I feel like I may have missed something that was possibly in one of the other movies though, because when it started I was totally lost. New characters with new powers in some future time with giant floating robots trying to kill them were swirling around my head as I tried to figure out what was going on. I eventually caught on, and here is how it went for me: Ellen Page had the power to send someone back in time, so she sent Wolverine back because he could heal himself better than more intelligent mutants. She sent him back to a time where he could stop Mystique from killing Peter Dinklage because that would be the turning point in a war between humans and mutants. Wolverine had to get young Professor X and young Magneto on board, which wasn't that difficult. Beast was there. They had a Quicksilver character who could basically stop time because he moved so fast. I thought that he should have been in it more. Eventually things worked out, which leads me to wonder if they just erased all of the other X-Men movies? Essentially, since they changed history, nothing that happened in the other movies actually happened now, right? I don't know, I'm a little confused by that part, but I still liked the movie.

372. The ABC's of Death 2 (2014)

October 12, 2014

Substantially better than its predecessor, 'The ABC's of Death 2' was surprisingly awesome. If you're unfamiliar with the format, they get 26 directors from all over the world to make 26 short films about different ways to die starting with each of the letters of the English alphabet. Rather than try to give a synopsis of all 26 short films, I'll just recommend that you watch it for yourself because it was a lot of fun. Some of the shorts were creepy, some were funny, some were just really weird (some were pretty awful), but overall it was a cool collection and very entertaining.

371. The Englishman Who Went Up A Hill But Came Down A Mountain (1995)

October 12, 2014

Featuring what is easily one of the longest movie titles of all time, 'The Englishman Who Went Up A Hill But Came Down A Mountain' is a decent movie. Hugh Grant plays his usual character - charming and British. It is based on the true story of a town in Wales that believed they had a mountain until a surveyor came out and told them it was only a hill. Determined to keep their mountainous status, the townsfolk gathered together to throw as much dirt on top of the hill as possible in order to gain about 20 feet more height, all while making sure the surveyor couldn't leave until he'd given their mountain another measure. It was entertaining, and good for a lazy Sunday afternoon movie.

370. See No Evil 2 (2014)

October 10, 2014

Here is another one that will be up there with the absolute worst movies of 2014. This totally unnecessary sequel comes to us 8 years after everyone forgot about the first 'See No Evil'. After making a truly fantastic movie with 'American Mary', the Soska sisters have dialed it down about as far as it'll go with this one. In the first movie, Jacob Goodnight (Kane) was clearly dead. Dead in the way that only true slashers can come back from (and Jacob Goodnight is not one of them). This movie takes place right where the last one left off, only in an alternate universe where apparently Twitter existed in 2006. It takes place in a morgue (where good looking young people work, naturally). After getting off the late shift in the morgue, Danielle Harris finds that her friends have arrived and are having a surprise party for her on the night when the notorious serial killer Goodnight's body was brought in. Goodnight obviously gets up off the slab and starts killing all of them. They all run away from him down different colored hallways so you never know where anyone really is in relation to anything else. 'See No Evil 2' was a failure on so many levels that I really have to wonder how they went from 'American Mary' to this. I don't recommend it at all.

369. The Love Butcher (1975)

October 9, 2014

Even though 'The Love Butcher' was awful in every sense of the word, I just can't help loving it. I guess it helps that I went into it expecting an awful movie, so I wasn't at all disappointed. After the deaths of several young women who coincidentally have the same gardener but nobody seems to notice, the police frantically yell at each other about how much they care about finding the facts. The gardener, Caleb, is a frail old man who wouldn't hurt a fly, but occasionally he becomes his alter ego, Lester, whose smooth talking and suavity make him able to sleep with (and kill) all the ladies. Caleb and Lester were played by Erik Stern, and to be honest, it was actually a really good performance. If you've watched and liked any of the other movies I've recommended that are so bad they're awesome, then you will like this one too. You'll have to go out of your way to get your hands on it, as the Code Red DVD is out of print and hard to find now, but I'd say it is totally worth it. Just feast your eyes on this:

368. Horns (2013)

October 8, 2014

'Horns' was awesome! Aside from the completely illegible closing credits, this was a fantastic movie. It was also surprisingly predictable for such a weird movie. Anyway, I love that Daniel Radcliffe has been able to shed his Harry Potter identity without resorting to alcoholism or drugs. Instead, he is making competent and successful horror movies! Not that 'Horns' is necessarily a "horror" film, but it has several of the elements (and he did do 'The Woman in Black'). Radcliffe stars as a young man whose life is stripped from him when his girlfriend ends up murdered and everyone thinks he did it. One day he wakes up with horns growing out of his head that everyone can see but nobody seems to mind. The horns cause people to divulge their darkest secrets to Radcliffe and do things they normally wouldn't do (they basically bring out the bad in people). He uses his new powers to get information out of people about any clues that could point him to the real killer. I really enjoyed this movie. I figured out who the real killer was about ten minutes in, but I still had a great time watching it and I hope Radcliffe continues to make more movies like this.

367. Little Monsters (1989)

October 7, 2014

I'm not really sure why 'Little Monsters' isn't considered a classic by more people. It is a really enjoyable movie. Sure, Howie Mandel is exhausting to say the least, but what a great idea for a kid's monster movie! Fred Savage's little brother (his real life brother, Ben Savage) finds a monster (Mandel) living under his bed and convinces Fred to sleep in his room. Fred meets the monster and the two quickly become friends, with Mandel leading Fred to a magical and monstrous land that exists under the beds of all children. Together they wreak havoc on many unsuspecting children, until the reality sets in and Fred figures out that some of the monsters are not so nice. I don't think I really paid much attention to this movie as a kid, but I've grown to love it over time and I definitely recommend it, especially if you're looking for a good, family-friendly monster movie.

366. Daughters of Darkness (1971)

October 5, 2014

'Daughters of Darkness' was a pretty good movie. It was a very atmospheric film. Not a lot really seems to happen, but it is still impossible to look away. A young couple gets married and goes on honeymoon and ends up sharing a hotel with the mysterious Countess Bathory and her assistant. The couple seem supernaturally attracted to Bathory and the other girl and as they get closer together, the couple splits more apart. I would actually really recommend this movie. It was a very beautiful vampire film from the early 70s (and the best vampire films were made in the 70s and 80s).

365. Bad Channels (1992)

October 4, 2014

I'm kicking myself for not having seen 'Bad Channels' before. What a fun movie! A DJ on a local radio station finds himself at the center of an alien invasion when a UFO lands and the alien takes over his station. Using the DJ's voice as a beacon to transmit some kind of signal that could suck young women through the airwaves and into glass jars that it would then presumably take home, the alien was able to collect a bunch of girls that the DJ had to figure out a way to save. It was cheesy, sure, but it was very entertaining. What else would you expect from a Ted Nicolaou film?

364. Sex Tape (2014)

October 4, 2014

This movie started out with a half-way decent idea about a couple (Cameron Diaz and Jason Segel) who filmed themselves having sex so they could spruce things up in the bedroom a bit until they accidentally shared it over the internet. Then it took that idea and made one of the most unfunny movies in recent memory. Granted, I'm not all that into comedies, but I know what I find funny, and this was far from it. After finding out that their sex tape had gone up into the cloud and was consequently being shared with everyone they had given iPads to (turned out there were several of them out there) they set out to retrieve all of the iPads and remove all the evidence of the tape. In order to get it back, Diaz did cocaine, Segel tried to kill a dog, and they broke into a server room for a porn site with their children. It wasn't funny, don't waste your time.

363. The Duchess (2008)

October 3, 2014

Another Keira Knightley period piece... At least this one wasn't terrible. I actually felt sorry for Knightley's character. She played a young woman wed to the Duke of Devonshire (Ralph Fiennes) in order to birth a son for him to have an heir. She could seemingly only birth daughters, so the Duke was a total jerk to her. He started sleeping with her best friend but when she wanted to sleep with someone else he threatened to take her children away. It wasn't my kind of movie, but as far as these movies go it wasn't entirely intolerable. Watch it if you're in to these types of things, I guess.

362. Redd Inc. (2012) aka Inhuman Resources

October 1, 2014

After seeing Nicholas Hope in 'Bad Boy Bubby', I absolutely had to see more of his work. Turns out he was in a recent Fangoria Presents film called 'Inhuman Resources' aka 'Redd Inc.'. After being accused of murder, sent to a psychiatric hospital for "treatment", and faking his own death, Hope kidnaps several of the people involved in his trial and tortures them while he forces them to search for the real killer. It was actually not bad. Hope was great, as was to be expected, and the rest of the cast did a pretty good job as well. It was unexpectedly gory, with a lot of severed limbs and parts. I'd recommend it, but see 'Bad Boy Bubby' first to gain a respect for Nicholas Hope.