Me and my brother watched a bunch of random movies to finish up the month.
1. The Monster Squad (1987)
The second film written by Shane Black (it's co-written by director Fred Dekker) The Monster Squad is a fun throwback to the old universal horror films. Like The Goonies it follows a group of young kids who get in over their heads in an adventure involving vampires, werewolves and other assorted monsters. It's well directed and has plenty of quotable lines (as usual with Black) but I find the characters a little lacking in dimension. Nevertheless the filmmakers clearly have a lot of love for this material and it would be a good entry point into universal horror for the uninitiated. Indeed, I showed it to my younger sisters in this hope.
Score: 8/10
2. Jaws (1976)Another film I showed to my younger siblings this year Jaws is probably my favorite horror film of all time. The sea (and all it's dangerous creatures) is one of the few things that still terrifies modern man and Steven Spielberg's film captures that primal fear better then any other I've seen. The cast is great, the writing is surprisingly down-to-earth and Spielberg's direction, minimalist by necessity and helped in no small measure by John William's harrowing score, is pitch-perfect. The director may have gone on to greater successes but he never made a film better then Jaws.
Score: 10/10
3. Insidious (2010)
The beginning of a resurgence for director James Wan Insidious, like the later and more successful The Conjuring is a haunted house film. Wan has proven that he excels at making this sort of crowd pleasing haunting film but he hadn't quite gotten the hang of it when he made this. It's rather tonally inconsistent and explains way to much that should be left to the imagination. There is plenty of creepy imagery and the acting is solid but the writing and tonal issues prevent the film from really working. Despite this, it shows enough promise that I'm curious to watch the other films in the series.
Score: 6/10
This is a consistently funny and clever send up of zombie films. First time director Ruben Fleischer, along with writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, show their inexperience occasionally but, for the most part, this is a great cinematic debut. It's the main cast, Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone, and Abigail Breslin, that really hold the film up. Each one really imbues their character with personality and they all have great chemistry. It's not quite Shaun of the Dead but it's a ton of fun nonetheless.
Score: 8/10
This bizarre adaptation of the iconic novel contains many episodes and elements from Stoker's work often left out by other adaptations yet it strays much farther then most in it's reinterpretation of the text, portraying the titular monster as a tragic figure, bereaved of his one true love. Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula would have been a more apt title. It is a visually stunning film, as one would expect from the man who made The Godfather and Apocalypse Now yet it fails to find one, distinctive visual style at times hearkening back to German expressionism and at others looking more like a Jane Austen adaptation. The performances are a mixed bag with some being delightfully over-the-top and others rather stiff (sorry Keanu). It's a mess of a film.
Score: 6/10
We also watched the original Halloween and A Quiet Place (both of which I talked about last year) and Ichabod and Mr. Toad (which I reviewed yesterday).
Shocktober 2019 Ranked
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Spielberg's shark movie transcends its campy concept to become a true classic. One of the greatest films ever made.
Ridley Scott's masterpiece of cosmic terror. It gets better on every viewing.
For better or worse, this is still the iconic retelling of Mary Shelley's novel. It's also one of the best Universal Monster movies.
Though it never quite lives up to its predecessor, Aliens is still a great film in its own right.
It's flawed, to be sure, but A Quiet Place spoke to me in a way that few modern films do. It's also filled with a palpable sense of dread that's all too rare in modern horror.
Though arguably not a horror film, The Dead Zone is a fine pshychological thriller with an, at times, chilling tone.
An underrated universal classic that hearkens back to Gothic romances of the Victorian era.
An unsettling, at times confusing film, The Black Cat features Karloff and Lugosi at the top of their games.
A solid Stephen King adaptation, Christine is worth watching for John Carpenter's direction and some above average character work (for this kind of film at least).
A fun, irreverent send up of the zombie genre, Zombieland is a solid horror comedy.
On of the better Stephen King films, Carrie is directed with panache by Brian De Palma and features outstanding performances from Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie.
A really fun throwback to old Universal monster movies, The Monster Squad is an underappreciated 80's gem in the tradition of The Goonies.
More self-aware then the earlier Universal pictures, The Invisible Man is a wonder of early special effects and features solid direction from James Whale and committed performances from the cast.
Though I've never loved this film I cannot deny the level of craft that Kubrick brings to it.
A surprisingly well done King adaptation, Cujo is a solid thriller with well written characters.
A lesser effort from Universal. Worth watching for Bela Lugosi, the atmosphere, and that hilariously fake looking monkey costume.
Perhaps I was in the wrong mood to watch this, but I found it a plodding, fairly dull film, saved mostly by the interesting back story for the titular monster and for Boris Karloff.
Lugosi and Frye are magnificent in this otherwise clunky adaptation of the Stoker novel.
A fairly incompetent and rushed cash grab, this film is saved by a well done and genuinely surprising 3rd act.
The weakest of the early Universal horror films. An otherwise solid mystery that is let down by it's obvious solution.
One of the better entries in the series. The confusing narrative is more then compensated for by the films atmosphere and its balls-to-the-wall ending.
The film that defined the series for better or for worse, the third Friday the 13th is exploitative, campy fun.
Though it's a fairly well done modern/gothic vampire flick I was dissapointed with this film's treatment of Stephen King's characters.
Essentially Carrie vs. Jason, The New Blood is a ridiculously entertaining entry in the series.
A disappointing effort from James Wan. Worth watching for its zany, tonally confused climax.
Though I can understand why people hate this I found (watching through the series within a week as I did) that it moved the series in an interesting direction, even if the execution (no pun intended) is a little lacking.
I've gone back and forth on this one. I was fairly bored by it this time around.
A bizarre adaptation to say the least. Worth watching for the unique visuals.
An interesting, if failed effort from Stephen King and his son. The performances are not enough to save the scatterbrained script.
Though I can understand why people like this one, I found it rather lazy on top of having characters who were dumber and less likable then usual.
A terrible film but less unwatchable then the rest of the (post Aliens) sequels.
Despite some interesting ideas, Alien 3 is a dull and at times infuriating sequel.
A bizarre mess of a film. At least the actors seem to be having fun.
Despite a few fun moments, "Jason on a Boat" is a terribly boring, lazy sequel. The series had clearly run out of ideas by this point.
A pretentious, ponderous, unfocused, ugly film with stale direction and awful writing. This movie made me angry.
Well that's all for this year folks!
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