***Official 23rd Annual HTF October Scary Movie Challenge 2022*** (1 Viewer)

[sleroi]

Truth be told, I'm in the opposite camp. I watch the remake of Invasion every year. (I've got the 4k lined up for this weekend). But I only vaguely remember seeing the original when I was a kid.

I'll see if I can find a copy and make it a double feature.

 

[dpippel]

OCTOBER 4:

* next to film title = new to me

7) The Vampire Doll* (1970) (iTunes HD Streaming) 3/5 stars - The first film of "The Bloodthirsty Trilogy," along with Lake of Dracula and The Evil of Dracula, produced by Toho in the early 70s. While they have no plot connections other than being "vampire" films, all were directed by Michio Yamamoto. When a young man's girlfriend doesn't answer his telegrams about coming to visit after he returns from traveling abroad, he sets out for her family home to investigate and supernatural trouble ensues. Not a traditional vampire movie by any means, it does feature some of the common tropes of the genre. I was impressed with the production values, cinematography, and direction here, and the lead actors are all really quite good in their roles. I picked all three of these up on iTunes during one of Arrow's $2.99 sales, and I'm glad I did. Looking forward to watching the other two!

 

[Malcolm R]

I don't think I've ever watched any version of Body Snatchers.

 

[dpippel]

I don't think I've ever watched any version of Body Snatchers.

You should rectify that situation post-haste!

 

[Malcolm R]

You should rectify that situation post-haste!

I would, but would have to track it down. I don't seem to have any of them in my collection.

But I see that I do have Val Lewton's The Body Snatcher, with Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi. Not the same film, I know, but sounds like it might be creepy too.

 

[dpippel]

I would, but would have to track it down. I don't seem to have any of them in my collection.

I have yet to see the 4K release of the remake, but it's high on my list for this Challenge.

 

[Neil Middlemiss]

I have yet to see the 4K release of the remake, but it's high on my list for this Challenge.

Me too. It's sitting on my shelf and I'm just waiting for the right moment in this year's challenge to spin it.

 

[Malcolm R]

Trick 'r Treat

An anthology of sorts, though the stories are all interwoven with the characters from each subplot crossing paths with each other throughout rather than a sequential series of vignettes. All are connected by the presence of a diminutive trick or treater wearing a burlap "mask" who seems to keep watch over the festivities and make sure the "rules" of Halloween are being observed. Along the way we get serial killers, bratty kids, werewolves, mean girls, and zombie ghosts.

A well done film that I enjoy watching every couple of years with a pretty good cast including Brian Cox, Anna Paquin, and Dylan Baker.

 

[Michael Elliott]

Sharkula (2022) * 1/2

Villagers force Dracula to jump into the ocean where he is bitten by a shark. Soon that shark has vampire wings. Mark Polonia is best known for SPLATTER FARM but here recently he's been making some really cheesy movies. He previously did SHARKENSTEIN so I guess it was just a natural fit to do a shark and Dracula. Well, I knew what I was getting into it but it just wasn't as much fun as it should have been.

Mutant Hunt (1987) **

Cyborgs are taken away from their creator and turned into killing machines so a woman and bounty hunter must stop them. This was better than the director's ROBOT HOLOCAUST but there just wasn't enough here to keep me fully invested. The special effects were quite good for the budget and there were some nice slimy scenes but the characters were boring and we've seen this type of thing too many times before.

Sixteen Tongues (1999) ***

Scooter McCrae's insane mix of horror, sci-fi, action and..... I'm not sure what else. This is a very strange movie set in a S&M hotel where a lesbian couple get involved with a cyborg cop. I won't ruin what happens in this film but it's dark, perverted, twisted and just downright nasty, confusing and strange. There's really not another film out there like this. It's going to turn a lot of people off but if you stick with it the thing pays off.

Saint Frankenstein (2015) *** 1/2

Scooter McCrae short has a hooker (Tina Krause) going to a motel where she meets Shelley, a woman with scars all over her body. As they get undressed Shelley tells the hooker how she got to be who she is. This is a very dark and very strange take on the Frankenstein story and it works perfectly. The atmosphere is off the charts and there's just a really weird sexual vibe. There are a couple twists in the story that work extremely well. Plus, I have fallen in love with Krause this year and she's currently my favorite Scream Queen.

Goodnight Mommy (2014) *** 1/2

I'm very late to the game on this horror film but my wife actually asked me to watch it. She never asks to watch a foreign film so... I must admit that I never caught on to the twist until it was actually revealed. This is a very slow burn and I loved it for that. The tension slowly builds as does the mystery. The three lead performances were wonderful and overall I had a really good time with this. We will sit down for the American remake at some point this month.

 

[Jeff Flugel]

4. Idle Roomers (1944 Three Stooges short)
In this typically madcap and very funny short, the Stooges play bellboys in a hotel who are terrorized by Lupe the Wolf Man (Duke York), who escapes from his cage and goes on a rampage whenever he hears music being played. The wolf man make-up looks pretty damn cool. Lots of great gags here, including a fun broken mirror bit between the wolf man and Curly. Frequent Stooge co-star Christine McIntyre is the requisite hot blond who was about the same height as the boys, but towers over them in her stiletto heels.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

(See my 2022 Summary for information on color coding and rating categories)

06) 10/05/2022 The Outsider 1x01 - "Fish in a Barrell"

This miniseries adapts Stephen King's novel, the fourth to feature his neurodivergent investigator Holly Gibney.

Terry Maitland is a beloved little league coach and school teacher in the fictional Cherokee City, Georgia. When a young boy that he coached is brutally assaulted and murdered, there is overwhelming physical evidence, eyewitness testimony, and surveillance footage tying him to the crime.

But after Maitland is very publicly arrested and shamed, equally compelling physical evidence, eyewitness testimony, and news footage places him at a conference for English teachers at Cap City, over an hour's drive away. Maitland's attorney has enough to establish reasonable doubt in the jury's minds, while the detective investigating the case has two sets of evidence that can't be reconciled.

One thing that struck me watching this is that the story only works because the detective wouldn't go along with the DA's desire to bury the exculpatory evidence. If Terry Maitland wasn't being investigated by a honest cop, and didn't have a top notch defense attorney he could call to advocate for him, he wouldn't have had a chance.

This show has a great cast, and the first episode was genuinely unnerving. My only criticism would be the nonlinear editing, in which scenes unfurl out of sequence. It seemed needlessly confusing, without adding anything that wouldn't have played better in chronological order.

 

[HawksFord]

2.
The Red House (1947) NEW — This noirish thriller was the Noir Alley presentation for the first weekend of October. Edward G. Robinson is excellent and Delmer Daves is always a solid director, but the story is just too weak for it to be completely successful. It’s worth seeing once but probably not worth repeated viewings.

 

[Jeff Flugel]

5. Prophecy (1979)
A crusading doctor, Robert Verne (Robert Foxworth), is hired by the E.P.A. and sent to a remote wilderness in Maine to file a report on whether chemical run-off from a paper mill there is causing any environmental problems. Verne is accompanied by his (unbeknownst to him) pregnant wife, Maggie (Talia Shire). Verne soon finds himself in the middle of a heated conflict between the loggers and the local native American fisherman, who have been experiencing illness and birth defects over the past several years. Meanwhile, something monstrous is prowling the woods, eviscerating a search-and-rescue team and a family of campers. The paper mill's boss (Richard Dysart) blames the deaths on Native American leader John Hawks (Armand Assante), but a tribal elder (George Clutesi, also seen in Nightwing) claims the creature to be Katahdin, a mythical forest spirit out for revenge on those decimating the wilderness.

Director John Frankenheimer was reportedly rather embarassed with how this film turned out, claiming later that he wasn't well enough acquainted with the horror genre at the time. The film actually plays pretty well for much of its runtime, despite the sometimes uneasy combination of serious-minded social commentary and full-on monster mash. What lets it down, really, are the sub-par monster effects. Hey, I grew up on cheesy '50s monster movies and classic Doctor Who, so rubbery, man-in-a-suit special effects generally don't bother me. But coming from a skilled craftsman like Frankenheimer, and being released in the same year as Ridley Scott's landmark Alien, one can't help but expect something a bit more state-of-the-art. On the plus side, the movie is almost entirely filmed outdoors (with British Columbia standing in for Maine) and the attractive setting adds considerably to the atmosphere. Leonard Rosenman provides an overly-strident score.

 

[sleroi]

15. Muppets Haunted Mansion - S (D+) - Gonzo and Pepe are challenged to spend Halloween night in the Great Macguffin's Mansion, the scariest house on earth, on the 100th anniversary of his disappearance. Pepe is seduced by a black widow with a penchant for looping off her husband's head with an axe, while Gonzo is trapped in room 999, or is it really 666? Lots of ghosts, monsters, atmospheric sets, and creepy set ups (which quickly devolve into Muppet absurdity). The muppets' Halloween costumes are really clever, and there are a ton of celebrity cameos, some obvious and some very well hidden. This was a fun one, and anyone who has ever been to the haunted mansion will appreciate the nods to the attraction.


16. MalNAZIdos (Valley of the Dead) - S Netflix -. A Spanish zombie movie. A narcissistic Captain and a 17 y.o. private in WWII are sent on an apparent suicide mission driving through enemy territory. They take a shortcut and wind up captured by rebels behind a Nazi barricade where they find several rebel bases where the soldiers have been massacred and are coated in a mysterious blue powder.
The sets, outdoor cinematography, costumes, period vehicles and planes, and acting are top notch and the script is clever and witty. But they forgot to leave any budget for make-up. The zombie soldiers are only recently dead so haven't had time to rot, so I don't mind that they don't have much make-up. But the solution to killing them is to shoot them in the head, which unfortunately is represented by a light mist of digital blood, always in far or medium shots. I want to rate this higher, but the digital blood is really a cop out, and kind of annoying.

 

[John Stell]

Bold - Denotes first ever viewing

Rating - Out of a possible 4

014) 10/04/2022 The Legend of Bigfoot (1975)

Beast-hunter Ivan Marx documents his search for the legendary creature in this questionable record of his efforts. Maybe if this were 1975 and I had just walked out of this, I would be rolling my eyes. But as an artifact of the bigfoot craze, this is frequently amusing thanks to Marx's enthusiastic narration and frequent self deprecation. I'm sure it's all BS but there were a few effective moments and interesting observations. And I'm also too stupid to know what parts of this were stock footage versus his actual filming. Its brief running times also helps.

015) 10/04/2022 Night of the Demons (1988) 1/2

On Halloween night, a group of teen partygoers make the mistake of gathering at Hull House, an abandoned funeral parlor where a demon lives in the basement. It decides to join the festivities and possess the attendees. I know some really dig this film, but I find it pretty stupid. Writer Joe Augustyn was determined to write the most cliched, obnoxious characters and he succeeded. The crux of this film is its special effects, which get quite gruesome. But ultimately this is a crashing bore.

016) 10/04/2022 Night of the Demons 2 (1994) 1/2

Oh no! More obnoxious teens go to Hull House! They've snuck out of their boarding school to have an unauthorized party and...you know the rest. Maybe this is slightly better than it's predecessor because some of the characters aren't total jerks. But it still has the same overall problems. I pretty much checked out early on when the nun that manages the school starts acting like her ruler is a sword. Really corny, cheesy, and gooey.

017) 10/05/2022 Fright Night (1985)

OK, now for the great stuff. Teenager learns his new neighbor is a vampire but can't get anyone to believe him, not even the local horror host who claims to believe in the undead. The script is clever and funny. But the real stroke of genius is how writer/director Tom Holland shifts the focus from the teens to the adults, namely to Chris Sarandon as the vampire and Roddy McDowall as the ham actor turned host. They're terrific, especially McDowall. Add to this top notch special effects and a bravura finale and you have one of the best horror films of the 1980s, one that holds up very well today.

 

[BobO'Link]

View attachment 156260

Trick 'r Treat

An anthology of sorts, though the stories are all interwoven with the characters from each subplot crossing paths with each other throughout rather than a sequential series of vignettes. All are connected by the presence of a diminutive trick or treater wearing a burlap "mask" who seems to keep watch over the festivities and make sure the "rules" of Halloween are being observed. Along the way we get serial killers, bratty kids, werewolves, mean girls, and zombie ghosts.

A well done film that I enjoy watching every couple of years with a pretty good cast including Brian Cox, Anna Paquin, and Dylan Baker.

I have this one in the wings - a total blind buy based on price and a "I really like it and watch it every year" recommendation from a horror loving coworker. After I told her about the price she ordered an upgrade copy. I'm not much of a fan of anthology stuff - I find most of the stories in them to be rather meh/bland - but am willing to give it a chance as there *are* a few I re-watch on occasion, in spite of my overall opinion of the format.

 

[BobO'Link]

I don't think I've ever watched any version of Body Snatchers.

You should rectify that situation post-haste!

Absolutely - track down the 1956 original and/or the 1978 remake. Either is worthy of your time. I prefer the original by the smallest of margins and will gladly watch either at almost any time.

There were *two* more remakes:
Body Snatchers (1993) - Moves the action to a military base and stays pretty faithful to the overall story. It's also quite good though I like it a bit less than the prior two versions. It's kind of flown under the radar of most SF/Horror fans.

Invasion (2007) - This is the one to avoid unless you've seen the other three and just want to listen to Nicole Kidman scream - frequently. At the very least, save it for last... or maybe watch it first as it'll make the others look that much better.

I own copies of all four releases - the first three in both DVD and BR and the last in DVD only (unlikely to upgrade).

Almost forgot... there's also I Married a Monster from Outer Space, a similarly themed (*very* similar) story that was paired with The Blob (1958) on its initial release (it was the "A" picture but after audiences showed a preference for The Blob it was moved to the "B" slot). I really like that one, too, and have a new BR of it in the wings...

 

[Malcolm R]

I have this one in the wings - a total blind buy based on price and a "I really like it and watch it every year" recommendation from a horror loving coworker. After I told her about the price she ordered an upgrade copy. I'm not much of a fan of anthology stuff - I find most of the stories in them to be rather meh/bland - but am willing to give it a chance as there *are* a few I re-watch on occasion, in spite of my overall opinion of the format.

I agree for the most part. I'm not a huge fan of most older horror anthologies. I've never found the movies of Creepshow, Tales from the Darkside, Body Bags, Cat's Eye, or others that compelling. But I have found several recent anth-type films that I enjoy quite a bit like this one, Tales of Halloween, and A Christmas Horror Story.

 

[JasonRoer]

I have this one in the wings - a total blind buy based on price and a "I really like it and watch it every year" recommendation from a horror loving coworker. After I told her about the price she ordered an upgrade copy. I'm not much of a fan of anthology stuff - I find most of the stories in them to be rather meh/bland - but am willing to give it a chance as there *are* a few I re-watch on occasion, in spite of my overall opinion of the format.

It is absolutely fantastic. I imagine you'll be pleasantly surprised when you get to it. I wish Warner had seen it fit to give it a proper marketing campaign upon release.

 

[sleroi]

I've never found the movies of Creepshow, Tales from the Darkside, Body Bags, Cat's Eye, or others that compelling.

I generally agree with you, Body Bags was especially disappointing as I'm such a big Carpenter fan.

But Creepshow works for me and is probably my favorite anthology style movie. Every story and the wrap around is great, and it really captures the old EC Comics style.

Avoid Creepshow 2 though, it doesn't have the same feel and the stories are weaker.

I haven't seen the Creepshow TV show, but it looks interesting.