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

[sleroi]

The first two TCMs, both by Hooper are the best IMHO. I've tried to watch some of the others, but tonally they aren't anywhere near the first two and just haven't clicked with me.

The first one is genuinely creepy and disturbing, quite an accomplishment considering their miniscule budget. I wouldn't call it a slasher in that there is not a singular monster hunting down teens one by one with ridiculous kills until a final showdown. Instead it's about a group of people who stumble into a horrific situation. Much more atmosphere and suspense than gratuitous violence.

The second one is essentially the same basic plot, even recreating some exact scenes and gags. it is WAY bloodier, but equally, if not moreso, terrifying. There is a little more plot thrown in and a few more characters, but it is played as black comedy. I watch part 2 every year and can't wait for the promised 4k disc later this year, (hopefully it is part of VSs Black Friday sale).

 

[TravisR]

I think that's what happened to me with TCM. It wasn't really kept from me, but I never got around to watching the original until just a few years ago. After decades of hype as the "most terrifying film ever made, bar none," it just didn't reach those heights for me.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was another one that I saw waaaaay too young (again, 8 or 9 years old) and I think it terrified me because it wasn't like a 'real' movie. It looked cheap and realistic and I was too young to understand that it was because of the budget, etc. I mean I understood it wasn't real but it had an air of reality that the movies like Friday The 13th or A Nightmare On Elm Street that I was used to did not have.

Dawn Of The Dead was another one that I saw as a kid that really scared me. That one basically starts off with a feeling of doom that was really scary to me as a kid and the end where members of the biker gang get torn up and eaten is one of the few times I can really remember being sickened to a point of nausea by a movie.

Ahhh, all these fond childhood memories.

 

[Michael Elliott]

I'm glad to be the only person alive who enjoyed TEXAS CHAINSAW 3D. I thought it was much better than the recent Netflix film, although I'm glad we still have more on the way. I'll never grow tired of these films. I wish we could get new Chainsaw, F13, Nightmare, Halloween and so on every year.

I took two of my kids to see THE EXORCIST last year and both hated it. They both found it to be boring, not scary and it just didn't work for either of them. This and TCM scared my father when he saw them and I think that's why he wouldn't allow me to watch them. I finally talked my grandmother into buying me the VHS when I was around 9 because I told her I had a school project to do on it. My dad found out and hide the VHS tape on me. I finally managed to find it a few years later and watch it. I was like, you let me watch PORKY'S but not this?

 

[EricSchulz]

3. Mystery of the Wax Museum 2.5/5

A famous wax sculptor is nearly killed when his partner starts a fire in his studio for the insurance money. Twelve years later he opens a full museum (with the help of his trained sculptors since his hands were burned badly in the fire) but a nosy reporter starts wondering why one of the figures looks exactly like a recently killed woman whose body disappears from the morgue…
The movie is uneven, unfortunately. It doesn’t know if it wants to be a horror/mystery film or a wisecracking comedy courtesy of the reporter. The scenes with Lionel Atwill are great! It’s too bad that his story isn’t the focus of the movie to a greater extent. The comedy just doesn’t work for me. At least in the remake (House of Wax) you have the cheesy 3-D effects to pad out the story! A good, but not great classic thriller.

 

[JasonRoer]

9. Discovery of Witches S1 EP3/4
The series continues to be intriguing, and as noted before, I'm happy my wife introduced this to me. 4 witches out of 5

10. It Came From Outer Space
And from a deadly pace... It's a classic sci-fi/horror black and white picture. It needs to contain only those two elements and I'm going to watch it. But this one has that special something that has kept us all returning to it throughout the years. While not in the league of The Thing From Another World in my mind (my favorite of this genre), I love the creature design, the story, and some of the shots are fantastic. 4 giant eyeballs out of 5

11. Deep Red
I love Giallo films. The style just does it for me. Here we have one of the masters of the genre cutting loose with a solid mystery slasher flick. Absolutely fantastic score, great style, a helping of humor, and a generous helping of blood. 4 creepy animatronic kid dolls out of 5

 

[JasonRoer]

12. Mandy (new)
I had such high hopes for this film given the reviews, but it was painfully slow and boring for much of the film. Self-indulgent, sloppy filmmaking that had me checking my watch so much my forearm hurt from the rotation effort. Still, I also read the second half of the film was supposed to be a gorehound's wet dream with a little bit of the ultra-violence, so I decided to stick it out. Finally at 1hr21min01sec we got a smallish act of violence from Nic Cage. Then at 1hr23min42sec the blood starts flowing, and not even in earnest, as there's even far too much time between kills. There's really no story to speak of here, so if you want to see a little violence and gore, I've given you the time stamp. However, nothing Nic Cage does to the bad guys compares to the torture of watching the film. 1 waste of my time out of 5.

Question - Has anyone ever felt annoyed while watching a film? I absolutely felt this way around the 30 minute marker of Mandy until the end.

 

[Malcolm R]

Question - Has anyone ever felt annoyed while watching a film? I absolutely felt this way around the 30 minute marker of Mandy until the end.

Yes. As I get older, I find I have less and less patience with movies that don't seem to be going anywhere. I start checking the time, rolling my eyes, heaving big sighs, muttering to myself, and occasionally shutting down the film before the end.

 

[BobO'Link]

October 3rd
*=First time viewing

16. The Crimson Cult (1967)*

When his brother disappears, Robert Manning pays a visit to the remote country house he was last heard from. While his host is outwardly welcoming, and his niece more demonstrably so, Manning detects a feeling of menace in the air with the legend of Lavinia Morley, Black Witch of Greymarsh, hanging over everything.

A passable "revived-witch-taking-revenge-on-present-day-ancestors" story with a very good genre cast that's mostly wasted. Barbara Steele appears only painted in green with few lines, Michael Gough is a mad butler uttering cryptic portents who turns up dead in a coffin without any explanation, Christopher Lee mostly holds it all together as the "host" who denies any knowledge of what's going on yet you know better, with Boris Karloff having some of the best lines. It's OK but should have been much better considering the talent in front of the camera. Kino's release is superb.

17. White Zombie (1932)

A young man turns to a witch doctor to lure the woman he loves away from her fiancé, but instead turns her into a zombie slave.

Bela Lugosi in what's considered to be the first feature length zombie film. An early talkie that's best in its silent sections, it's still quite effective and eerie at times. Kino's release is a mixed bag. The "restored" main version has far, far, too much DNR applied and the "Raw" bonus version needs some work but, IMHO, looks better. A compromise somewhere in the middle would have been superior. At least it wasn't Kino who did the work but some company called "Holland Releasing."

 

[Neil Middlemiss]

October 3: The Blob (1988) - 3.5 out of 5

A meteor carrying a deadly organism crash lands in small town America, grows exponentially while absorbing various townsfolk. The town’s motorbike riding reprobate (Kevin Dillon) and the leader of the cheerleading squad (Shawnee Smith) wind up working together to save their small town, and the rest of the world, from the monstrous and destructive blob.

Without the sly sense of humor that courses through the veins of this film I don't think it would work nearly as well. With a screenplay by Chuck Russell (who also directs) and Frank Darabont (who later would make The Shawshank Redemption and help get The Walking Dead made into a television series,) there’s a bit of a wink and nod through the whole things that gives it a surprising freshness. The premise on paper is preposterous but it somehow works. Some of the left turns the film takes, playing with conventions somewhat, also give it a boost. And while the foundation is silly, the film balances taking it seriously and having fun with it all, delivering a fun time at the movies.

I have always been a fan of this film. With fine visual and practical effects at its disposal and Kevin Dillon's ridiculous mullet, what’s not to love!

 

[Michael Elliott]

Without question the dumbest thing I've ever done in regard to binge watching movies. I had planned on watching ten or so Dustin Ferguson movies but I then decided to challenge myself into watching as many as possible over a two-day stretch. He's basically the producer, editor, director, writer, cinematographer and does every other job possible. The film's probably have a budget of a couple grand each. Each run 40-70 minutes. More times than not they're actually much shorter than their listed running time because the end credits might go in slow motion for ten-minutes. Re-uses footage from previous films, has a lot of stock footage and is just about as cheap as cheap can get. Sometimes he will have a character watching a movie for 20-minutes and he uses that twenty-minutes from another movie from someone else. He's working with Brinke Stevens and Lynn Lowry a lot in these recent years.

I'm not sure I'd recommend these to anyone but if you must try some then BEYOND THE GATES OF HELL and DON'T TRICK-OR-TREAT ALONE! are the best of the bunch. BEYOND is a homage to the Lucio Fulci film. The other is his most recent and is a pretty good tale of a girl going trick or treating alone when daddy is too busy and she runs into trouble.

If anyone is actually interested in a film-by-film guide then you can check out my Letterboxd page. But, trust me, don't bother.

Michael_Elliott’s profile

Michael_Elliott uses Letterboxd to share film reviews and lists. 18,002 films watched. Favorites: The Bride of Frankenstein (1935), Maniac (1980), Annie Hall (1977), Midnight Cowboy (1969). Bio: Note on my star rating. Everything is going to be based off a 4-star rating. For films that I believe...

letterboxd.com

Spoiler: DUSTIN FERGUSON MARATHON

10. Apex Predators (2021) 1/2
11. The Clown Chainsaw Massacre (2022) **
12. Reunion Massacre (2014) 1/2
13. Axed to Pieces (2014) * 1/2
14. Blood Claws (2016) *
15. Doll Killer 2 (2021) **
16. Moon of the Blood Beast (2020) **
17. The Legacy of Boggy Creek (2010) * 1/2
18. Ebola Rex (2021) *
19. Terror at Black Tree Forest (2010) **
20. Beyond the Gates of Hell (2022) ** 1/2
21. Conjuring Curse (2018) **
22. Faces of Dying (2015) **
23. Faces of Dying II (2021) **
24. Faces of Dying III (2021) * 1/2
25. Faces of Dying IV (2021) **
26. Faces of Dying V (2022) **
27. Hell of the Screaming Undead (2021) **
28. House of Pain (2018) * 1/2
29. Aliens in L.A. (2019) * 1/2
30. Asylum of the Devil (2020) ** 1/2
31. Don't Trick-or-Treat Alone! (2022) ** 1/2
32. Clowns of Halloween (2019) **

 

[sleroi]

Ash vs Evil Dead Season 2

12. Episode 4 - Another killer episode. Great music choices too, eh?

13. Episode 5 - A nice change of pace episode transitioning from one arc to the next. The first seven episodes of season 1 we're the same:. On their journey they run into some deadites and fight. This season, every episode is something different, and it's keeping me guessing. Only as this episode wasn't as funny or batshit crazy, but it aptly served it's purpose of introducing the elements of what looks to be the next story arc.

And unfortunately, due to a computer glitch with a digital lab kit I got too far behind in my biology class and had to withdraw (with full refund). But on the plus side, taking only one class this term will free up some viewing time.

14. Jaws 3-D - Blu-ray - I know this one gets a bad rap on this site, but I really like it. Sure it's really cheesy, especially with Louis Gossett, Jr. Chewing up all his scenes with a Cajun accent. There's not much plot or action until the big shark shows up for the third act, which is why it doesn't play well flat. But this was clearly conceived with 3D in mind so a lot of the filler shots are really visually interesting, with some great pop-outs, from syringes and spears to an arm that comes really far out of the TV. And the third act is essentially the same plot as Meg:. A giant shark attacks a new, state of the art underwater facility.

 

[JohnRice]

I've never seen the remake. Might have to give it a spin this year. I loved one scene in TCM and that was when Leatherface just bursts out of the door of the house. Reminded me of when the creature comes bursting through the door in the Thing From Another World, one of my favorites.

I was going to suggest the remake, which is quite good in it’s own right. Both it and the original can exist. But… then you trashed Mandy, so never mind.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

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

05) 10/04/2022 I Am Lisa (2020)

This was a Vudu Free With Ads find for me. It's an indie flick shot on a tiny budget in and around Kansas City, MO, with the kind of authentic cut corners and shortcomings that studio horror movies often spend big bucks trying to imitate.

Kristen Vaganos plays Lisa, a young woman who has recently returned home to take over her late grandmother's used bookstore and finishing grad school aboard. The bullies who tormented her growing up and still hanging around to torment her now. When she makes the mistake of trying to report a crime committed by the sheriff's daughter, she ends up getting savagely beaten in a police interrogation room, and then sexually assaulted when she is disposed of in the woods -- left for the wolves to feast on. One does bite her, but she drives it back with a rock to the skull.

The next morning, she wakes up in the guest room of a woman who frequents her bookstore. While deeply traumatized by what she has endured, she's surprised to discover that her injuries have almost entirely healed. And after a lifetime of nearsightedness, she suddenly has better than twenty-twenty vision. And she can tell what a person ate just by sniffing their breath. And she's improbably strong. And her vegetarian diet no longer appeals, instead she craves meat -- the rawer, the better.

She's a brand new Lisa, you see. And her tormentors better beware.

It's a fun revenge story, with creature makeup adequate enough for me to suspend my disbelief. The only really great performance in the movie is Manon Halliburton as the diabolical sheriff. Kristen Vaganos, as Lisa, doesn't always have the most natural line readings. But Lisa changes a lot through this movie, and she was mostly up to the challenge of embodying that physical, emotional, and behavioral evolution.

The locations and cast of characters add a certain rustbelt dystopian quality; the decay seems to spread out from the sheriff and her minions.

When they get Daryl and/or Negan in an episode, it still generally ends up being halfway decent. Unfortunately, now that they used both of them in one episode, I figure neither character will be around much for at least two or three weeks which means those episodes will be boring and feature characters that I largely don't care about.

I think for me the issue is there there was too much wheel-spinning in the middle seasons. The hopping from character group to character group instead of telling one cohesive story that uses the full cast is a symptom of that wheel spinning.

If they had told this same story with Rick maybe five seasons ago, I would have been a lot more invested.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Do movies like The War of the Worlds and When Worlds Collide count in this challenge?

 

[TravisR]

I think for me the issue is there there was too much wheel-spinning in the middle seasons. The hopping from character group to character group instead of telling one cohesive story that uses the full cast is a symptom of that wheel spinning.

If they had told this same story with Rick maybe five seasons ago, I would have been a lot more invested.

In the comics, the story is pretty similar and it did feature Rick and I was a lot more invested.

 

[JasonRoer]

Do movies like The War of the Worlds and When Worlds Collide count in this challenge?

Absolutely!

 

[JasonRoer]

I was going to suggest the remake, which is quite good in it’s own right. Both it and the original can exist. But… then you trashed Mandy, so never mind.

Yeah, I was definitely harsh on the Mandy review. Perhaps I should have waited a day before writing it? I have far less time this year to watch movies for the challenge beginning next week, so I think what happened was that I really didn't like it and almost turned it off after 30 minutes, but instead, I decided to stick it out. I think I was angry with myself for doing so rather than start a different flick, and hence my... shall we say.... slightly negative review.

 

[Jeff Flugel]

3. Warning Sign (1985)
Don't let the bland title fool you...this is a little gem of '80s sci-fi/horror, confidently directed (by Hal Barwood) and nicely shot (by ace cinematographer Dean Cundey). Pandemonium breaks out in a rural farming community in Utah, when an experimental and deadly virus is accidentally released at what is purportedly an agricultural research center, but is in actuality the site of a top secret germ warfare lab. Local sheriff Cal Morse (Sam Waterston) enlists the help of Dr. Dan Fairchild (Jeffrey DeMunn), an antitoxin expert who used to work at the lab but stormed off the job once he realized what they were up to. Together, the pair infiltrate the complex in a desperate gambit to rescue Cal's wife, Joanie (Kathleen Quinlan), head of security at the lab and the lone person who seems resistant to the contagion. But can they get to her in time before the rage-crazed infected tear her apart?

Also with Yaphet Kotto (as a government official determined to keep a lid on the situation), plus G.W. Bailey, Keith Szarabaika, Jerry Hardin, Rick Rossovich, Bernard Behrens (uncredited), and Richard Dysart as the gene splicing genius responsible for creating the virus in the first place. Gripping and suspenseful from start to finish, with likable leads and a premise that is all too believable even today.

 

[benbess]

Watched last night my Criterion blu-ray of the original Nightmare Alley from 1947. A strong film noir with elements of horror. My rating: A

 

[Malcolm R]

Do movies like The War of the Worlds and When Worlds Collide count in this challenge?

Yes, as Jason said, these are fine. Almost anything goes as long as the film contains some element or theme you find "scary" (at least those were the original guidelines).

I'll probably watch WOTW as part of my list as I just discovered this past weekend that I've already purchased the Criterion blu-ray then forgot I did.