#88 The Purge: Anarchy #89 Sinister

The second Purge movie is pretty good. It's another one of the recent rash of action movies parading as horror, but at least it keeps things moving. It is just interesting enough and has just enough political commentary to keep me engaged. Is the very basic idea of this movie kind of stupid? Yes. Is the conversation that it would inspire about human nature and morality just as pointless? Pretty much. At least this one dealt with some real people instead of the upper class yuppie douche bags that we all kind of wanted to die who were the center of the first one. I kind of cared if a couple of these people lived through the night. And that'll do, pig, that'll do.

Then I watched Sinister. Holy slut farts! This movie was actually kind of scary! Ethan Hawke is quietly becoming the king of modern horror. He has taken on vampires, purgers, and now an ancient creepy guy who eats children! The style and tone of this movie, while sadly humorless, actually provides a few intense moments and some of the best jump-scares that I've witnessed on film in quite a while. There is a little bit of overabundance of Hawke wandering around in the dark (doesn't this dude ever turn on a light!), but other than that, I can officially give this sucker a 'thumbs up'. Good times.

#85-87 World War Z, An American Werewolf in London, The Conjuring

World War Z is great if you love Brad Pitt and Zombies. If you can watch Brad Pitt make hard decisions for 2 hours while zombies are trying to kill him, this movie is for you. There really isn't anything else going on in it. It's also not a horror movie. It's an action movie, just like Arnold used to make in the 80s, except now the terrorists have been replaced with the undead.

American Werewolf in London is, simply put, great. The last 5 minutes of this movie are probably the best ever constructed for the horror/comedy genre. This flick toggles from sexy to scary to hilarious at such a rapid rate that sometimes it's hard to keep up.

The Conjuring is a lot better than I remember it being. I was much more engrossed in the style of it all this time around. The first half of the flick actually inspires terror, because it stays true to the source material and within the bound of what is actually possible when dealing with the supernatural. That makes it genuinely freaky. The end kind of pushes everything too far, but what-r-ya-gonna-do, it's a Hollywood movie, not a documentary.

#83 Buffy the Vampire Slayer and #84 Trick 'R Treat

Before there was Avengers and Ultron or even Dollhouse, there was Buffy. And before there was the groundbreaking television show about Buffy, there was this cheesy movie. Joss Whedon has said that this flick didn't turn out as he'd hoped, but it is still fairly good. Rutger Hauer (Hobo with a Shotgun) and Paul Rubens (Pee-Wee Herman) tooling around together as a couple of powerful but silly vampires is reason enough to watch for me. Throw in Oscar winner Hillary Swank (The Next Karate Kid) doing her best valley girl impression, and that guy from Office Space (Trailer Park Boys) as the principal and we've got ourselves a movie!

Trick R Treat pretty much gets better every time I see it. The interweaving stories cover most of the ground that you want explored in a good Halloween yarn. And they do it in, like, an hour and twenty minutes. That sounds like success to me.

#82 It

Another sweet Stephen King adaptation. This one would probably be my favorite if it didn't kind of peeter out in the last 10 minutes. After 3 hours of awesome, this one just ends with a spider. But along the way we get some of the best page to screen transformation that King's horror work has ever had. The nostalgia factor is high, the stars are all television regulars. Then there's Tim Curry's Pennywise the Dancing Clown. This image still haunts a generation of horror fans.

#81 Mr. Boogedy

Bud Bundy, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the guy in the group who kills himself instead of going back to fight It, and a couple of other people take on a ghost in a cloak in this made for The Wonderful World of Disney classic from the 80s. It's pure kid Halloween fun and gives me all the nostalgic feels. The only way to get it is a bootleg copy that comes complete with tracking problems and the counter from the VCR in the corner of the screen. Fabulous! So, good, for real.

#80 Cottage Country

Wow. Here's another recommendation that paid off. It's a dark little tale about how not to try and cover up a murder. I thought that this flick might run out of steam after the initial violence, but it actually gets into some super dark territory as it explores human nature's overwhelming compulsion for self preservation. It also has some wicked commentary on family life and relationships. Gotta love those Canadians.

#79 Blood Night: The Legend of Mary Hatchet

Caught the first 20 minutes of this flick on HBO last night (free HBO, by the way). I was totally not planning on watching it, but that 20 minutes included a kid killing her mother, a mental institution rape that causes a mental institution baby, who dies, causing a mental institution massacre. Then I turned it off and went to bed.

In the spirit of the marathon, I found it on HBO go, because we never leave a movie behind. So I put it back on and ran straight into 20 minutes of crass teenager banter that passed for 'character development'. That and some of the cinematography are the only real complaints I have about this flick. Sometimes, I think budgetary reasons constricted any real 'shooting style' to 'moving the camera kind of fast'.

Other than that, this one's a keeper. It is everything that one could ask for out of a modern low budget horror flick. The cast is fairly universally solid and very pretty. They are also down to do whatever the script asks of them, which sometimes is a lot. This flick is drenched in blood, boobs, ghosts, killers, entrails, and just enough of me giving a crap about the foolish teens and their guide (the graveyard groundskeeper) to keep watching. It delivers more than most of these flicks, for sure. I mean, when your main killer is a naked ghost chick, you're doing something right.

#78 Evil Dead II

If you haven't seen Evil Dead II or read my thoughts on it in the past, then you probably have no interest in reading about it now. How come none of these movies make a damn lick of sense compared to the other ones? I mean, Army of Darkness is a direct sequel to this flick and it doesn't even make sense in the continuity. And supposedly this is a sequel to the first one, or so says the tagline. But it doesn't make sense either. What up wit dat? I don't know, they're still awesome.

#77 Treehouse of Horror XXV

It seems to me that the in the past few years, The Simpsons have regained their relevance. When the show started, it was a phenomenon. Then, for a while, it was just kind of there. They still had the ratings to continue, nobody died off (until recently), and the cast and crew took a pay cut at one point to keep the show from petering out. But now, as the show closes in on its 30th season of social commentary, all involved seem to be quite aware of the show's growing cultural significance. This has seemed to affect their rededication to producing quality work. This season's opener, the long awaited Family Guy crossover, was riddled with self-awareness, which kind of made it more relevant.

The landmark 25th ToH is no different. In one of the classic ToH episodes, they brilliantly lampooned Kubrick's The Shining. Now, two decades later, there is a Clockwork Orange spoof that goes off on a tangent wherein almost every other Kubrick film of note gets a nod.

Likewise, the final story talks about the possibility of other incarnations of the Simpsons that may occur in the future. Why not, it has happened to the Looney Tunes, Garfield, even the Ninja Turtles. The difference is that the Simpsons have always been controlled and created by a few core people and have never changed formats. Hell, they haven't even changed days of the week in the 2000s.

Basically, what they are starting to imply, and it is totally true, is that the relevance of the Simpsons is the highlighting of relevance in its topics. If you haven't guest starred on, been referenced or made fun of by the Simpsons, your contribution to the last 26 years on earth isn't that significant.

#s 73-76: Monster Squad, Jason X, Fat Albert and Ichabod!

Got Monster Squad out of the way. I love this flick because it is one of a rash of 80s horror that was simultaneously geared towards kids and also inappropriate for them. The Gate is another one that comes to mind. Monster Squad has thrills, chills, action, comedy, and, of course, the Wolfman gets kicked in the nards. It's way better than Van Helsing.

On the 13th we, appropriately watched (technically) a Friday the 13th movie. Jason X is kind of removed from the original series, occurring away from Crystal Lake, after Jason Goes to Hell and not actually being called Friday the 13th, but it actually totally does the series (and the character) justice in ways that a few of the other ones don't. My favorite aspect of this installment is that the fornicating idiots are literally what bring Jason back from the dead.

After that, we watched the Fat Albert Halloween Special (found in its entirety on Youtube). I'd never seen it before. It plays like a really good episode of Scooby Doo. It has less mystery and more hijinks. Totally dug it and I could tell that Witter was having a nostalgic moment.

Then I got to have MY nostalgic moment. The 'Legend of Sleepy Hollow' segment of the Disney film The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad is my favorite Halloween movie of all time; which, if you are keeping score, would put it high in the running for my favorite movie of all time. In terms of movies that I have watched the most times in my life, it is probably getting to be right up there with Robocop, Clerks, and Tombstone. Suggesting that we watch any of these flicks is a fine way to ensure that I will hang out with you for an evening.

#63-72 American Horror Story: Coven & Specials Galore!

So this week I got closer to being caught up to the average of a horror movie a day. A lot of this was thanks to Mandy, who decided to watch American Horror Story with me and applied her binge watching nature to the whole affair. So I broke it up into two episode entries on the list.

This season of American Horror Story is, for obvious reasons, the most female driven. Anyone who thinks that there aren't enough good roles for ladies should look into this, because there are about a dozen award-worthy performances in this season of exceptionally written female characters. Kathy Bates tops the list, as she usually does, as the immortal racist slave of the coven's house. This woman will do anything for her art! I think I can say with some certainty that she is my favorite female actor of all time. Her ability to find quirky, challenging roles and then throw herself into them so completely that it is (literally, sometimes) scary makes me want to cry with joy. Every moment of her bigoted, ignorant, murderous character's journey is 100% believable, even when she is only a severed head who is still too proud to watch Roots. 

And that is a perfect image to sum up this season. In a lot of ways it is far more linear and straightforward than the previous seasons (its general plot is almost right out of a tween book series), but the magic is in the individual moments and the power struggle between the characters. It has its moments of total schmaltz, but that is forgivable because they are usually directly followed by moments of extreme violence.

Other than that, I've peppered in some of the old classic specials to pad my below average movie watching. The most notable are Disney's "Dance of the Skeletons" and the Fantasia Segment for "Night on Bald Mountain." The Fantasia piece is possibly the most frightening bit of animation that Disney ever produced, right next to the tripping scene from Dumbo.

I also watched the old standbys from the Peanuts, Fat Albert and Garfield. I love all of these and have posted about them before. Finally, I watched the Simpsons Treehouse of Horror VI which is, in my opinion, the last of the classic ToHs, ending with Homer being literally dumped into the real world (if there is such a place).

63. American Horror Story: Coven Episodes 1&2 (10/7)

64. American Horror Story: Coven Episodes 3&4 (10/8)

65. Disney's The Dance of the Skeletons and (Fantasia Segment) Night on Bald Mountain (10/9)

66. Peanuts Halloween Special (10/9)

67. Garfield's Halloween Adventure (10/9)

68. Simpson's Treehouse of Horror VI (10/9)

69. American Horror Story: Coven Episodes 5&6 (10/10)

70. American Horror Story: Coven Episodes 7&8 (10/10)

71. AHS: Coven Episodes 9&10 (10/10)

72. AHS: Coven Episodes 11-13 (10/11)

#62 Willow Creek

Have you ever thought to yourself, "Gee I wish that someone would remake 'The Blair Witch Project', only make it about Bigfoot instead of witches. And I also wish that that someone was Bobcat Goldthwait"?

Well, you wish has come true! Willow Creek is, you guessed it, a found footage movie about a couple o' twenty-somethings heading out to the town where the infamous Bigfoot footage was shot. Of course, they encounter tons of backwoods weirdos before isolating themselves in the forest.

I may seem like I'm making fun here, but Willow Creek is actually pretty sweet. Goldthwait's dialogue is snappy enough and the couple is likable enough, and the promise of Bigfoot (which may or may not be an empty promise) is intriguing enough that we stick around long enough to get to the massive single shot of the couple cowering in their tent. It's not a very long wait. The movie is only 80min and the climactic tent scene starts around minute 55. This sequence (which is about 15 minutes) is the high water mark of the flick. It is intense and engrossing. The capper of the movie, where they really get chased, is kind of just the icing on the delicious cake.

#61 Found.

I think that my found gem award this year goes to this movie! This flick is just a super well crafted tale of a young man coming to terms with the troubles he faces. Almost anyone can identify with his struggle with bullies, his friends, his parents, his motivations. The only thing that is different about this story is that our protagonist has a serial killer for a brother.

That's all you need to know about the plot, but pay attention to the writing. It is stellar. Everything grows organically from the actions and motivations of the characters, so that when the peaks are reached, they are all the more horrifying.

The other thing that this flick doesn't do is reach for the horror moments. That alone sets it apart from a lot of horror flicks I've watched lately that feel as though they are just struggling through the dialogue scenes so that they can get to the next kill. Found doesn't have as much violence or gore, but when it arrives, it is more disturbing than your average horror pic.

#60 Zombex

I saw a review on a movie called The Dead 2 that said, "One of the best zombie movies of the year." There are a lot of shitty things about that sentence. One is that there are enough zombie movies being made every year that some qualify as 'one of the best'. Another is that one of those movies would enjoy that review enough to put it on their box. Another is that that same movie couldn't find a review that actually thought it was 'the best' zombie movie of the year.

Anyway, I rented this movie because it has Sid Haig, Malcolm Mcdowell, and Corey Feldman. It is one of the movies that The Dead 2 is probably better than.

#48-#59 Quick Reviews of 12 movies!

48. Nightmare on Elm St. 3- Nancy's back with Larry Fishburne and an Arquette of some kind to battle Freddy for the souls of the last of the Elm Street kids. He kills some, but not all of them. 

49. Nightmare on Elm St 4- Freddy kills the rest of those kids plus a few more. Renny directs and doesn't do a great job.

50. VHS- In an anthology, some pieces are always better than others. The organization of this one is pretty sweet. The first story is probably the best on in this found footage anthology.

51. Nightmare on Elm St 5- Oh man, Freddy kills even more kids and runs amok in an Escher inspired dreamland. Eventually his mom spanks him.

52. Freddy's Dead- So Freddy has killed everybody (including Alice at some point, we assume). Now he tries to kill his daughter in 3D.

53. Texas Chainsaw Massacre- The best. Pretty much a perfect horror movie.

54. Simpsons Treehouse of Horror I & II, III, V- The classics. Make me feel like a kid again.

55. I Heart You- Billy and Devin doing what they do. Probably their best effort to date!

56. Cabin Fever- Skin eating virus kills a bunch of assholes. Hilarity ensues.

57. Shining- See my Stephen King blog.

58. The Purge- Too serious for its own good.

59. Hocus Pocus- Bette Midler's teeth and Sarah Jessica Parker Broderick's boobs. No thanks. Thora Birch is so little!