108 10/28 Godzilla Vs. Hedorah (1971) 4/5 I really liked this one. Starts off with one of the bleakest pop song bangers you’ll ever hear before launching into an environmental nightmare where a living pollution butts heads with Godzilla. The bad in this is it has a super smart kid in it to play to the children which is annoying and frankly kind of inappropriate. This one goes pretty hard, mashing together heavy handed eco politics, a monster with some THE BLOB vibes and even animation into a heady rock roll trip that is a bit psychedelic. When the final battle goes down the whole thing gets shockingly quiet. It really stood out from the other films and playing like a massive bummer really worked to elevate it.
109 10/28 Alison’s Birthday (1981) 3.5/5 Slow burn film from Australia starts off as a “fuck around and find out” gimmick when a ouija board game at a sixteen year old Alison’s birthday results in a prophecy that starts to come true on her 19th. It takes a left turn to the much more sinister as it slowly builds to a small-scale WICKER MAN remix. It works wonderfully even though you can pretty easily tell where it’s heading. If anything does it no favours is the overall look. Watching this in the ALL THE HAUNTS BE OURS set from Severin, it seems like the Australian aesthetic was low budget television. Once you get past that this one was pretty wonderful and creepy.
110 10/28 The Devil Down Under: Satanic Panic in Australia (2021) 3.5/5 Really interesting short essay that goes deep into the Australian history of the occult while comparing it to the USA version. Absolutely packed with information and clips of both practitioners and the films, I’d love to see a larger look of this.
111 10/28 Hack-O-Lantern (1988) 3/5 Tommy’s weird grandfather has big plans for him when he grows up, since he’s the leader of a Satanic cult. This one manages to be wildly dumb but still some fun. Main problem is it hits its highs early, once the grown up Tommy has nightmare that is one of the greatest heavy metal videos you will ever see, it pretty much peaks with the remainder of the film being a pretty typical “who done it?” slasher. They go hard, lots of over the top gore and porn star Jeanna Fine show up, but it’s all a bit off and tends to slog.
112 10/28 Paranorman (2012) 4/5 When this one started I was so put off by some of the character designs that I was tempted to ditch it. Mainly due to how awful Norman’s dad looks with this pylon head, a head shape that no other character has. Anyways, once the shock wore off and this one settled in I ended up loving it. A fun witches curse story, and the animation is knock your socks off good. The message aspect is a little cheesy but it is a kids movie and it works narratively. Made me want to rewatch CAROLINE.
113 10/28 Scream (2022) 4/5 Despite being of the generation I was never huge on the SCREAM franchise so this one was a nice surprise. They did a good job of updating the original film and while it maybe gets too meta in its self reference it manages to be fun. More fun than most of the original sequels anyway. It’s been ages since I’ve seen them but I’m thinking this is one of the best of the franchise. They pretty much nailed it when you consider that this movie doesn’t need to exist.
109 10/28 Alison’s Birthday (1981) 3.5/5 Slow burn film from Australia starts off as a “fuck around and find out” gimmick when a ouija board game at a sixteen year old Alison’s birthday results in a prophecy that starts to come true on her 19th. It takes a left turn to the much more sinister as it slowly builds to a small-scale WICKER MAN remix. It works wonderfully even though you can pretty easily tell where it’s heading. If anything does it no favours is the overall look. Watching this in the ALL THE HAUNTS BE OURS set from Severin, it seems like the Australian aesthetic was low budget television. Once you get past that this one was pretty wonderful and creepy.
110 10/28 The Devil Down Under: Satanic Panic in Australia (2021) 3.5/5 Really interesting short essay that goes deep into the Australian history of the occult while comparing it to the USA version. Absolutely packed with information and clips of both practitioners and the films, I’d love to see a larger look of this.
111 10/28 Hack-O-Lantern (1988) 3/5 Tommy’s weird grandfather has big plans for him when he grows up, since he’s the leader of a Satanic cult. This one manages to be wildly dumb but still some fun. Main problem is it hits its highs early, once the grown up Tommy has nightmare that is one of the greatest heavy metal videos you will ever see, it pretty much peaks with the remainder of the film being a pretty typical “who done it?” slasher. They go hard, lots of over the top gore and porn star Jeanna Fine show up, but it’s all a bit off and tends to slog.
112 10/28 Paranorman (2012) 4/5 When this one started I was so put off by some of the character designs that I was tempted to ditch it. Mainly due to how awful Norman’s dad looks with this pylon head, a head shape that no other character has. Anyways, once the shock wore off and this one settled in I ended up loving it. A fun witches curse story, and the animation is knock your socks off good. The message aspect is a little cheesy but it is a kids movie and it works narratively. Made me want to rewatch CAROLINE.
113 10/28 Scream (2022) 4/5 Despite being of the generation I was never huge on the SCREAM franchise so this one was a nice surprise. They did a good job of updating the original film and while it maybe gets too meta in its self reference it manages to be fun. More fun than most of the original sequels anyway. It’s been ages since I’ve seen them but I’m thinking this is one of the best of the franchise. They pretty much nailed it when you consider that this movie doesn’t need to exist.