Horror Movie Database
9 words.
Movies in the database, starting with the most recent.
recentTracking 184 movies watched.
- 🤷 means I don't have much confidence in my memory of the movie.
- 👀 means it's a movie I want to watch or possibly re-watch.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. 2023, James Mangold. ⏰🚂🚗🛥️🐍🪦🛩️🏛️🙂 Not a thrill ride. Not the same as the old days. Not fantastic. Not groundbreaking. Watered down, safe, corporate Disney affair. Checks all the boxes. Basically fan fiction. But I didn’t hate it, and only a few times got bored enough to walk away from the screen. (I didn’t hate Crystal Skull either, which took way more chances.) Every review I read was like “omg they de-aged Harrison Ford but they didn’t change his voice so it was so fake!” and I thought, huh, I didn’t even notice. His voice has always sounded the same to me through the years. I thought it was one of the best de-agings I’ve seen to date, except for the action parts where the face was moving a lot. There’s a weird sort of unnatural post-processed motion-blur look that a lot of heavy effects shots have. I mean I say it was good, but there was never a moment when I was looking at the de-aging that I thought I was looking at an actor instead of a visual effects shot, but it was fine. The whole thing was fine. Nothing special, like most blockbusters. The more I talk about it, the closer I get to the most dreaded condemnation of all… It was mediocre. But I can’t really point to anything I didn’t like. But the bad thing is I also can’t point to anything that I particularly liked. It was… unmemorable. It was like watching a really expensive clip show. Actually, I thought of one part I liked. I thought the best character moments came in the very last scenes. Where was the rest of that movie? (Disney+.)
Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part 1. 2023, Christopher McQuarrie. 🌊🔑🛩️💣🚗🕺🏃♂️🤜🤺🔪🚆🛤️🪂🔑 Woo new Tom Cruise Mission Impossible movies have become one of the most exciting action movie events in modern cinema. I don’t know who is doing the music for this one but they sound like they’re trying for a note-for-note reproduction of the Inception soundtrack by Hans Zimmer. Overall, the AI stuff was silly, of course, but it was still a fun movie full of fun action sequences. (Amazon Video.)
Psycho. 1960, Alfred Hitchcock. 🏆💋👩💵🚗👮♂️B🎱🏨🛀🔪🚗🌊🕵️♂️🔪👨👩🪑💀🧐 Number one on the AFI 100 Thrills list. First time I’ve ever watched it all the way through. “It’s hot as fresh milk.” She’s a thief! Frantic music. Are we meant to think she’s imagining these voices while she drives or are these actual events happening elsewhere? Huh, The Iconic Scene is less than halfway into the movie, wasn’t expecting that. Such an unusual structure to this movie. Starts one way then completely changes to something else. The field of psychiatry always seems to play a prominent role in these older movies. This actor at the end who has to deliver all this dry expositional dialog to explain everything has a tough role. Hard to decide how to rate this. I wasn’t particularly affected by it. I examined it like one of the stuffed birds that Norman Bates made in the movie. I’m not entirely sure why the AFI ranked it higher than The Birds. I guess just because it had never been done before. (Amazon Video.)
The Birds. 1963, Alfred Hitchcock. 🏆🦜🚗🛥️🦅🩸🏠🥳🦅🏃⛽️🔥🦅🏠🦅🦅🚗 Now consulting the AFI 100 Thrills list to find early horror films. I have a vague memory of being scared by this movie on a weekend re-run seen on the tiny black-and-white kitchen television as a kid. My aunt was terrified of birds, and I find them slightly discomforting to this day. Anyway. Ms. Daniels is quite the obsessive stalker, you see. Why does this dude in California have a New England accent. Seriously what is this lady’s deal? A tetanus shot for bird claws? Read a book, 1960s people! OMG she’s a pathological liar, you see. Jessica Tandy. I’m finding all the verbal chess pretty unexpected and amusing. A surprising amount of the movie is a light entertainment afternoon soap opera. Little Veronica Cartwright, who later plays Lambert in Alien. Impressive composite work to overlay all the birds into these scenes (using “yellowscreen” techniques, apparently). There’s no music. The birds sound synthetic, because they were created on a synthesizer. The children’s song goes, “Ristle-tee, rostle-tee, Hey donnie-dostle-tee knickety-knackety, Rustical quality, Now, now, now.” There must have been at least 50 cigarettes lit and smoked in this movie. I noticed quite early on there’s a lot of actors stepping on each others’ lines, but I think it’s intentional to keep it snappy, so there’s never any verbal pauses. (Some mid-Atlantic accents, too.) Tipi Hedren’s face is always slightly out of focus in closeups. Impressive overhead shot of the town and the burning gas station. Yeesh these loud synthesized bird sounds are creepy and unsettling. It’s such a long movie for 1963! And these old movies just STOP when they’re done, don’t they? Anyway, it’s pretty good. Surprisingly suspenseful, without any music or jump scares, and a surprisingly engaging, if quaint, story. (Make sure to check out the trailer on the Wikipedia page, too. Funny stuff.) (Amazon Video.)
The Ring. 2002, Gore Verbinski. 🏆🕵️♀️📼📺⚫️📞🪜🐎💀📼🙂 Halloween Night Scares. I remember this as one of the scariest horror movies I’ve ever seen, but after finding the original Japanese version a bit meh, I wondered if that was a false memory, so I had to check. It’s got the green The Matrix look. Seems more grounded in reality, which makes it feel scarier than the Japanese version, which was a bit more fantastical (both the characters were psychics or something). Definitely creepier imagery. Somewhat better characters, although the ex-husband is kind of a jerk. There’s a lot of detective work and not very much action. And I’m still not sure I get how the videotape ended up being cursed. Overall it’s not as good as I remember. I almost fell asleep near the end. I must have been in a highly suggestible mood when I first watched it. I can’t remember where I read this, but perhaps it was memorable simply because it was so different from the two decades of horror slashers that preceded it, and ushered in a period of more psychological than monster-based horror. I’ve marked it as canonical for being the first movie to introduce Japanense horror to the West. Also, I swear I remember a scene at the end where they put the tape in a video rental store, but it was missing in this version and ended ambiguously. Maybe that’s just how I wanted it to end. (I’m pretty sure DVDs had replaced VHS by the time this movie came out and Netflix had replaced video rental stores. I’m almost positive I first watched this on a Netflix DVD rental.) Also, Samara clearly inspired the video game FEAR. (Paramount+.)
Ring. 1998, Japanese, Hideo Nakata. 🏆🕵️♀️📼📺⚫️🪮👁️📞🌋💀📼🧐 Halloween Night Scares. I thought I’d watch the original Japanese version, with the expectation that it would be scarier than the English version, which I remember as one of the scariest movies I’ve ever seen, if not the scariest. I remember a lot of creeeeeepy imagery, and I just assumed the original Japanese horror (which I think of as creepier than English horror) would go even further. But as it turns out there’s very little creepiness in the original, and it’s a slightly different story, I think. It’s got weirdly silent interior ambiences, like older movies relying on foley work. I guess this is where the popularity of the industrial ambient horror score originated from. I have to admit I’m finding it somewhat hard to follow, and my attention keeps wandering. Like, it’s not clear how any of this is related to a videotape. Not sure they addressed that in the English version either, actually. I have a sinking feeling that if I re-watch the English remake, I won’t like it anymore. Cool end title music though. I’ve marked this as canonical for being the mainstream introduction of Japanese horror to the world. (Amazon Video.)
The Thing. 1982, John Carpenter. 🏆❄️🚁🐕🛸👹😨🌨️⚡️🩸🔥😀👏 Halloween Night Scares. Rewatching one of the scariest horror movies I can ever recall seeing. The classic survival horror isolation story, often imitated, here done just about as well as it can be done. I’m reminded that there was an early episode of The X-Files that borrowed heavily from this movie. A rare John Carpenter film where someone else is credited for the music, and it sets a creepier tone than usual (there is still plenty of the signature monotonic John Carpenter synth sound though). That classic 80s anamorphic look. Classic red and blue lighting. Isolation, distrust, claustrophobia, and tension. Still great, though maybe a little dated now. (Amazon Video.)
The Fly. 1958, Kurt Neumann. 🏆🩸👩🪰🕵️🔬🐈🍾🐹🪰🕸️🙂 Vincent Price in a supporting role (I believe this movie essentially launched his career). Odd structure to the movie, starting with a murder and working backwards. Interesting subtext about the speed of scientific discovery and whether it’s too fast. Luckily they didn’t know about the Internet back then. The laboratory set looked like it must have blown the entire special effects budget of the time. Anyway, it’s actually a decent movie. Surprisingly good performance from Patricia Owens. I daresay she carried the whole movie. (Incidentally I’ve never seen the entire Jeff Goldblum version because it’s gross.) (Max.)
Mr. Harrigan's Phone. 2022, John Lee Hancock. 📚👦👴📱🪦💀😐 I just happened to finish the audiobook this morning, and I just happened to notice there was a movie version. I didn’t expect it to be very good. Netflix doesn’t have a great reputation for original programming. They can afford great cameras and sets and effects, but they tend to scrimp on the writing and actors. Right away, this kid’s voiceover narration isn’t anywhere near as good as Will Patten’s narration in the audiobook. The younger kid actor is much better at reading than the older kid actor. This was a good example of a movie that was ruined for me by reading the book first. I found the movie quite dull, while I found the audiobook riveting. I doubt that I would have liked the movie even if I’d seen it first, but at least I might have wondered what was going to happen next. None of the acting performances in the movie were as good as Will Patten’s narrating of the audiobook. (Netflix.)
Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. 1977, John DeBello. 🍅🍅🍅🚁🪂🗞️🎶🎶🙂 I mean, of course I’m going to watch Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, because I immediately thought that’s what Rubber was supposed to be an homage to. I also suspected that Attack of the Killer Tomatoes would be a better movie, even though it’s quite famous for being terrible, so I wanted to check my theory. It is terrible. But it’s also an unabashed comedy, with actual proper jokes and everything, beyond the main sarcastic one. The tomatoes actually aren’t in the movie much–most of the comedy is about government ineptitude. It’s got, you know, subtext. Social satire, even. Also a real helicopter crash. When I saw it, I thought, wow that was a weird stunt, I don’t think they’re supposed to do that; they wrecked a whole helicopter for this? Well, no they didn’t. It was a big oops. “This … may God help us … is a cherry tomato.” And yes, it’s better than Rubber. (Tubi.)
Rubber. 2010, Quentin Dupieux. 🌵🔭🛞🐇🐦⬛🚗👮😑 Seen this mentioned a few times. Thought it sounded ridiculous. It is. It might have been a Monty Python sketch at one time in history. Except they would have known when to end the sketch. It reminds me of those NaNoWriMo dailies where you write down whatever fourth-wall-breaking nonsense is in your head to fill the required word count. I guess if you have enough money and/or the right connections, you can turn those pages into a film. Lucky us. It could also be what someone thinks a horror movie made by Rick & Morty might look like (not the makers of Rick & Morty, the characters Rick & Morty), and you can imagine them vehemently defending its integrity. The director is French, so maybe it’s a translation issue. Maybe these jokes are hilarious and culturally relevant to a French or European audience. It’s the kind of humor that feels like they’re directly mocking the audience, like the art piece that’s a banana taped to a wall, not the kind of humor where the audience is in on the joke. This movie had a half a million dollar budget. Can you imagine an earnest young filmmaker trying to start their career seeing that and thinking, They had a half million dollars and they did that with it?? And they still had a prosperous career afterward?? What better example of the adage, It’s not what you know, but who you know, could there be? I watched this entire thing so nobody could say I didn’t give it a chance and it’s hard not to feel angry about it. (Max.)
The Fog. 1980, John Carpenter. 📻👻💨⛵️🔪🏠👦🛻💨💨💨🙂 I’d heard of The Fog before but never had the vaguest clue what it was about or noticed anyone talking about it. It’s atmospheric. The late-night swing jazz radio music backdrop behind everything gives it a sinister vibe. It’s got an eclectic cast of characters. But Jamie Lee Curtis got demoted from the semi-strong female lead in Halloween to a hitchhiker sidekick. I guess this was the inspiration for The Secret World’s Kingsmouth zone. The story rules that govern the capabilities of the spooky fog don’t make much sense. The dated smoke effects undercut the tension somewhat. It’s a nice idea, and I thought it started well, but the conclusion fell a bit flat for me. (Tubi.)
Diary of the Dead. 2007, George A. Romero. 🎬🎥🚌🏥🎥🧟🧟🎥🏠🧟🧟♀️🧟♂️🙂 The fifth in the George A. Romero Living Dead series. I don’t like found footage or handheld camera work in general so I was sure this was going to be terrible. What I will say, though, is that this is a found footage film created by professionals who know how to hire actors and write scripts and block scenes for long takes. So in that sense it’s automatically better than most. And, dammit, it’s actually not bad. Limited motion sickness. Good characters. Decent story. Accurately bleak view of humanity. And it’s another keen George A. Romero observation of society’s faults (this time, in the area of media obsession and media trust and the rise of Internet journalism and populism). It pains me to say I kind of liked it. As with all the ones before, it’s no masterpiece, but it’s worth watching. (Tubi.)
Land of the Dead (Unrated). 2005, George A. Romero. 🏙️🧟🧟♀️🧟♂️🚛🔫🧨🔫🔥🔫🙂 The next in the “Living Dead” movies, following twenty years after Day of the Dead from 1985, capitalizing on the peak zombie media years. I genuinely didn’t know George A. Romero had directed so many of these canonical Dead movies. Here we can definitely see how much the George A. Romero and The Walking Dead universes are creatively intertwined, in the sense that they both highlight life after the zombie apocalypse. DC and Marvel, so to speak. The same, but legally distinct. Wikipedia tells me the first The Walking Dead comic came out a year before this movie. Anyway on to the movie. Nice prologue. It’s a bleak vision of humanity. You can tell by the desaturation. It’s Mad Max Thunderdome with zombies. More action movie than ever before. It’s the continuing theme of humans being humans (“humans being”), this time featuring class warfare. Also smarter zombies. Somebody did a fairly impressive imitation of a Wilhelm Scream that wasn’t an actual Wilhelm Scream at 1:14:23. This installment wasn’t fantastic (none of them are, so far), but it was a decent cast of characters and a sufficiently acerbic metaphor for humanity so it was good enough. (Amazon Video.)
Deep Red (Uncensored English Version). 1975, Dario Argento. 👩🔪🪦🚗🕵️♂️🕵️♀️🤷🤷🧐 Searching for horror in 1975. Peak Italian giallo horror, according to Wikipedia. Seems like more of a plain old murder mystery to me. From the same director as Suspiria. The ever-popular horror POV shot from the killer. Lots of 70s red paint for blood. 70s film stock devoid of any blue. 70s blues funk band score (Goblin), with instruments slightly out of tune sometimes. I find myself wondering why this pianist is investigating the murder instead of the police. He wasn’t shown to know the victim right? Just doesn’t seem like there’s any motivation to account for characters’ behavior, or story to tie any of the scenes together. The classic “stuff happening is not necessarily a plot” syndrome. Ah well. On reflection, I suppose you could say this is a horror in the sense that it’s a killer stalking a series of victims, like the teen slasher, except that none of them are teens and they aren’t in a confined space. (PlutoTV.)
Dawn of the Dead. 1978, George A. Romero. 📺🎥👮♂️🚨🚁⛽️🛍️🧟🧟♀️🧟♂️🚁🙂 After watching Night of the Living Dead, I found the next one in the mythos, Dawn of the Dead, on an obscure channel called ReDiscover Television after a Roku search on my television. Inexplicably, Rediscover is apparently a family-friendly channel. Anyway, the zombies look more like circus clowns with all that face makeup amirite. Funny how gas pump nozzles haven’t changed since 1978. Seems to lack much of a plot. The characters are just kind of drifting through the movie’s runtime, attempting to survive through means that don’t entirely make much logical sense. Nodded off a bit in the second half during the big tractor trailer endeavor. I didn’t understand what they were doing or why the helicopter needed to be hovering overhead wasting fuel the whole time. I previously thought that Day of the Dead was the origin of all the The Walking Dead tropes but you can see it starting here; that is, the basic throughline of humans versus zombies turning into humans versus humans, and the ultimate end directly tied to human folly. Wait what they had blood pressure monitor kiosks in 1978? (ReDiscover Television.)
Night of the Living Dead. 1968, George A. Romero. 🏆🪦🧟♂️🏃♀️🏠🔨🛻🔥🧟♂️🧟♂️🧟♂️🧐🙂 After seeing Shaun of the Dead, I wanted to see the other George A. Romero zombie mythos-defining movies. I was going to work backwards from Day of the Dead, which I’d seen a few weeks ago, but I couldn’t find Dawn of the Dead anywhere, so it was Night of the Living Dead then. I think I’ve seen this movie before, but I don’t remember it. I believe Max’s version of this film is the Criterion/MoMA remastered 4K version. It occurs to me that these older horror movies could be considerably improved for a modern audience if they simply remixed the sound. Leave the dialog, augment the badly-recorded, sparse foley sound effects, but most importantly rescore the music. It’s mainly the old-fashioned midrange-heavy music score blaring frantically over the long and slow action scenes that make old horror movies so cheesy. Also the foley work from before they made flesh hits sound like Hollywood rather than reality. Judith O’Dea looks a little like Kim Raver from 24. A surprisingly large portion of the runtime is hammering things on doors and windows. Wait it took him an hour to look upstairs? These two dudes just appeared from the basement? The balding father dude looks like Rob Corddry. Showing this television report must have been a technical challenge–I don’t think you could just film a television screen in 1968? (I’m not sure you can today, either, actually.) I imagine they either had to composite it and/or put some kind of cut-out facade of a television panel in front of a projection screen. Feels like this movie is about six hours long. The rifle sounds like a pellet gun. Overall, surprisingly watchable with some surprising twists. But others have done this story better. (Including George A. Romero.) I wish it didn’t feel like it takes six hours to tell a 20-minute story though. (Max.)
The World's End. 2013, Edgar Wright. 🍺🍺🚗💧🤖😂😀 Figured I’d finally watch the other two movies in that Simon Pegg/Edgar Wright trilogy thing. It takes a long while to get to the hook, but luckily it’s engaging until then. How do these losers know kung fu and shiz. But anyway, it’s good stuff. A return to what made Shuan of the Dead great… comedy without parody. (Amazon Video.)
Hot Fuzz. 2007, Edgar Wright. 👮♂️🏃🎭🪓🏃🔫🔫😂🤢🙂 Figured I’d finally watch the other two movies in that Simon Pegg/Edgar Wright trilogy thing. This one is okay but I didn’t really get into it. The amount of shaky cam is absurd at times. So much so that it’s hard to tell if it was just the standard of the time, a Bad Boys homage, or it was deliberately above-and-beyond the over-the-top to make another joke. The epilepsy-inducing transitions and flashbacks were a bit much this time. Another joke? Maybe, but it came at the expense of physically hurting my eyeballs. Unlike Shaun of the Dead, this one seemed like more of a straight parody. (Amazon Video.)
Shaun of the Dead. 2004, Edgar Wright. 🥱🧟🧟♀️🧟♂️🍺🎮😂😀 A rewatch because I’m tired of trying to find decent new horror movies. Specifically I wanted to see just how much this influenced Tucker & Dale, and how it handled the mixing of comedy and horror. It’s a more expertly crafted movie, and it genuinely manages to be a comedy with horror elements, instead of the other way around, without turning into parody. I can’t think of any other movies that pull that off. Didn’t like all the skaky cam though. (Hulu.)
The Last Exorcism. 2010, Daniel Stamm. ✝️😈🎥🤢🥱⏩⏩😑 The search for a 2010 horror movie. Documentary style. Handheld camera style. I don’t like this style. Didn’t cameras have stabilization in them by 2010? It seems not. Started fast-forwarding after 6 minutes. Not a terrible idea to have an evangelical showman preacher confronting demons, but, you know, the documentary/reality style and the shaky motion-sickness-inducing pictures ruin it for me. Actual documentaries aren’t nearly as shaky as this. (Amazon Prime.)
Byzantium. 2012, Neil Jordan. 🧛♀️🧛♀️👩👧🩸🦇😍😀👏👏 Searching for a 2012 horror movie. Somewhat expository dialog at times. Classically broody goth atmosphere. Coventry carol is best carol. Strong character drama. Mystery. Moral ambiguity. The curse of the vampire. Gothic romance. Riveting. Then more riveting. Then an extra helping of riveting piled on top of the previous mountain of riveting. One of the best vampire movies. Maybe ever? Just maybe. Assuming you like gothic vampire mythos in the vein of Interview With The Vampire, but better. (Turns out, it’s the same director.) (PlutoTV.)
The Woman In Black. 2012, James Watkins. 🤵🏠👻⏩⏩😐 Searching for a 2012 horror movie and this one was ranked sixth in popularity by IMDB. My initial 5-minute impression was that it would be more style than substance, more mood than story, which turned out to be accurate. Generally speaking, a haunted house story needs compelling characters to be the haunters or the hauntees, or perhaps a compelling reason to unravel the mystery of the haunting. This movie doesn’t seem to realize that. Everyone’s flat and emotionless, in the Downton Abbey style. Multiple, lengthy scenes of looking around to find jump scares. Disappointing. I ended up fast forwarding through most of it. (Paramount+.)
Tucker & Dale vs Evil. 2010, Eli Craig. 🧢🧢🛻🌲🪚🐝🪵🩸🐕🔥🙂 Almost positive I started watching this once, but don’t remember finishing it. Ha their “fixer upper” looks like an exact replica of a dilapidated house on my family’s West Virginia property when I was a kid. Surely I’m not the only one rooting for all these college kids to die? Mixing comedy and horror is a tricky business. It makes sense for a horror to have comedy in it, but a comedy with horror in it usually turns out to be more of a parody. This one’s pretty funny though. Classic mistaken identity humor. Also surprisingly touching at times. (Amazon Prime.)
Us. 2019, Jordan Peele. 🎪🪞🏖️🏠👤🛥️💃🐇🙂 Jordan Peele’s second movie. Starts a bit slow and then gets interesting, but it never makes a lot of sense. It’s a fairly unique apocalyptic survival horror scenario, that’s for sure, but I found it a bit thin on story and character development. Interesting visuals, though, despite not making sense. (Netflix.)
The Stepford Wives. 1975, Bryan Forbes. 👨👩👧👧🏠👨👨👨👩👩👩🥱🧐 More like horror-adjacent. Couldn’t sleep so I watched a 70s film to fall asleep. Was curious to see this because I vaguely remember liking the 2004 remake with Nicole Kidman. “Stepford Wife” is one of those terms you’ve heard all your life but didn’t really know what it meant until you saw the movie (or read the book, which I haven’t). Super 70s station wagons on display. Annnnd I fell asleep in the middle. And they say only the younger generation speaks truth to power and confronts delicate social issues. This movie hits issues in the face with a sledgehammer. “The 6 o’clock news scares me every night.” More evidence that all generations are the same. (Tubi.)
Alien: Covenant. 2017, Ridley Scott. 🚀💥🌎👂👽🩸🤖🤖🙂 Somehow I’d forgotten this movie came out. Debated whether this belongs in the Halloween horror marathon, but I deem there to be sufficient blood and screaming. Nobody in this universe seems to understand that alien planets might be harmful. Living in a post-COVID world it’s hard to comprehend the lack of basic knowledge about microbiology, let alone xenomicrobiology. Didn’t care for the superhero fight or the superhero rope-swinging physics. Not very memorable characters. Otherwise, kind of fun. Better than Prometheus, maybe? (Amazon Video.)
Saint Maud. 2019, Rose Glass. ✝️👩⚕️💃👞👿🦋🕯️😀👏 Ambient horror soundscapes cut-and-paste from Royalty-Free Horror Soundscapes Volume 47. But other than that, I genuinely don’t know how to describe this movie. Misery vibes. The Exorcist vibes. Serial killer vibes. Discomforting psychosis vibes. Strong character drama. Lots to discuss. I was mesmorized from beginning to end and had no idea where it was going. (Amazon Prime.)
The Cursed. 2021, Sean Ellis. 🪖⛺️🔥🦷🧌⏩⏩🤷😐 Yay WWI. Oh, little concern for accuracy. Flashback 30 years. Another minority group for wealthy Europeans to oppress on screen. Very nice production during the long shot of the tent-burning in one long take. The droning, jangly discordant string score is a bit overused in horror films. Excessive spooky dreams. More mood than story. Couldn’t force myself to care about any of the personality-free characters. Started fast-forwarding about halfway through. I guess everything turned out okay and everyone learned their lesson? (Hulu.)
Cat People. 1942, Jacques Tourneur. 🏆👩👨🐈💕👰♀️🦜🚍🏊♀️🐈⬛🧐 Trying to wash the bizarre taste of Cronos out of my mouth, I saw Cat People from 1942 in the Max recommended movie list, and didn’t realize there was a version that preceded the Nastassja Kinski/Malcom McDowell version, so I watched it. Nobody ever listens to the cats. I imagine this was a scandalous movie for a variety of reasons in 1942, but that might just be my media-distorted view of past generations. Otherwise it’s surprisingly watchable, though it isn’t very scary, except for the lack of assurances that no animals were harmed in the making of the movie. But wait, there’s a genuine jump scare at 44:15! The first one in movie history? It is!! It’s no wonder generations of people feared psychology after movies like this. Nice touch that Irena’s costuming changes from light to dark over the course of the movie. (Max.)
Cronos. 1992, Spanish, English, Guillermo del Toro. ⏰👨🦳🥱🤷⏩⏩😑 Sometimes listed as 1992 and sometimes 1993. Supposedly Guillermo del Toro’s first film. Don’t know what to make of it. Didn’t find it mysterious, interesting, scary, funny, sad, or innovative. Only gross. The horror is all body horror stuff which is gross even when it looks fake, unless you’re really into the art and science of prosthetic gags. But mostly the story is … stuff happening that doesn’t make much sense. Got bored and started fast forwarding. I guess it’s kind of a vampire story? I think? Anyway, it’s not for me. (Max.)
In The Tall Grass. 2019, Vincenzo Natali. 🚗⛪️🌿🌿🪨🌿🌿🥱😐 A Netflix original, and a Stephen King (and Joe Hill) thing I hadn’t seen. A ragtag bunch of regular folks get lost in tall grass and things get spooky. My kind of horror story. The sound mix got on my nerves because they made the distant voices too quiet to hear even though they were part of the conversations. Not exactly powerhouse acting performances. The setup is better than the conclusion. Somehow it morphed from an interesting supernatural mystery to a plain old fashioned survival chase full of gimmicky scares, and I struggled to pay attention beyond the halfway point. (Netflix.)
Let Me In. 2010, Matt Reeves. 👦👧🩸🩸🩸💕⏩⏩😐 Hammer Films is still a thing?! English remake of the Swedish film Let The Right One In. You can tell very early on it’s not as good. I had no idea it ever snowed in New Mexico. Needlessly grotesque. Needlessly American. Needlessly 80s. Poor SFX. They got the gist of it more-or-less, but it wasn’t the same lightning-in-a-bottle and I fast forwarded through most of it. Definitely watch the Swedish one instead. This one isn’t bad, it’s just okay. (Max.)
Bone Tomahawk. 2015, S. Craig Zahler. 🤠🌵🏇🚶🩼🧌😀 Star power. I like a good western, and there aren’t many, but this is one of them. It’s a minimalist character-driven period western that only veers into survival horror in the final act. A posse of eclectic characters on the trail of (as far as I know, entirely fictional) mute, cannabalistic, cave-dwelling kidnappers, who kill with ghost-like savagery, like proto-Predators, so it’s okay for the audience to view them as straight-up soulless video game monsters (or at least, that’s certainly the hope). Somewhat clumsily distances itself from the problematic tropes of older westerns, but doesn’t go as far as re-writing history. Another horror director who wants to do his own music. Luckily there isn’t much, except the oddly out-of-place operatic end title music. Character performances drive most of this movie. The lack of Hollywood-style over-the-top sound effects and music during the scary bits somehow makes it even scarier. Can’t decide if I liked it or loved it. It’s an indescribably odd duck. (PlutoTV.)
Alone. 2020, John Hyams. 🚗🛻🏠🌲🏃♀️🌲🏃♀️🌲🏃♀️😀 Not to be confused with the zombie movie of the same name in the same year. A character smoking on camera again! 2020 is apparently the year where everyone smokes in movies again. Blue Ridge Mountains? Suitably creepy antagonist. Suitably creepy driving alone at night situation. Taps into the modern cultural fear of the vaguely rural white man who acts like the serial killer in every true crime docudrama. The key to this kind of survival story working is for the victim to survive using their own ingenuity, and they mostly did. Lots of tension. I liked it. (Hulu.)
Let The Right One In. 2008, Swedish, Tomas Alfredson. 👦👧🩸💕😀 The search for more 2008 horror movies than just Cloverfield. Drenched in slow, depressing, nihilistic Swedish film drama. A sad but engrossing story about a kid befriending a vampire kid. Nobody ever listens to the cats. Some occasional “how did they film this without breaking any labor laws” vibes. Lots of visual storytelling. Good flick. Good music. There’s an English remake. (Amazon Prime.)
Friday the 13th. 1980, Sean S. Cunningham. 🏆🌲👫🔪👩🔪👨🔪⛈️👩🪓😑 Just checking the box. I believe this is the origin of the unexpected explosion in popularity of the low budget “group of teens dying one by one” genre that makes studio executives salivate. Never wanted to see it. Never expected to like it. Turns out, I didn’t like it. Nice to confirm the confirmation bias. I don’t like teen movies even when they aren’t getting murdered. Anyway on to the movie. Wobbly handheld POV shots from the killer. Low budget. Cheesy music. Cheesy 70s acting and dialog. Cheesy Kevin Bacon. It occurs to me the teen slasher is a survival horror at its core, which I like, but it seems to be filtered to remove any stakes, which makes them boring. For example, the plot of Friday the 13th is essentially the same as the plot of Predator and Alien, and while those movies keep me engaged and on the edge my seat, Friday the 13th doesn’t. I have a lot of time to think these thoughts and write them down, because the movie’s pacing is quite slow. On the plus side, I didn’t see any obvious instances of characters acting dumb to advance the plot (not counting the killer, who conveniently forgot how to kill a few times). I also enjoyed how the killer just blurted out their backstory and rationale at the end even though nobody asked them. Finally, I did actually jump at the Carrie-style jump scare at the end, because I was editing this text instead of watching the screen, when the sudden blast of noise from the speaker made me jump. (Max.)
eXistenZ. 1999, David Cronenberg. 🎮🔫🔌🫀🩸🦠🙂 The search for a 1999 horror alternative to Blair Witch. A virtual reality gaming cautionary tale I never heard of, from back when virtual reality scared people. Star power. Cronenberg prioritizes the absurdly weird and grotesque more than a grounded story or characters. Has a 1950s black-and-white Martian science fiction feel. The surreal dialog is oddly compelling. The gross squicky organic creature gags are utterly irrelevant. But the warning about getting too immersed in games is still a valid message, regardless of the clumsiness (real life death threats against game developers are extremely common now). I didn’t want to like this, but I kind of did. (PlutoTV.)
Stir of Echoes. 1999, David Koepp. 😵💫🧠👦👻😐 The search for a 1999 horror alternative to Blair Witch. Strange title. Extreme New Yorker Kevin Bacon is kind of annoying. I get the feeling the director wanted a Nicolas Cage impersonation. Reminiscent of Close Encounters with ghosts. Suitable when bored, otherwise not very memorable. James Newton Howard underutilized. (Amazon Prime Freevee.)
The Conjuring. 2013, James Wan. 👨👩👧👦🏠👻🕵️🕵️♀️😐 The grand tradition of the haunted house, and this time it’s apparently an entire cinematic universe. Seems to be a more spiritualistic version of The X-Files. Nobody ever listens to the dog. The only thing that really distinguishes these movies from one another is the characters, and this family and these investigators are pretty flat Midwesterners. I mean you’d think a married couple of traveling paranormal investigating lecturers would be riveting, but they have all the personality of patent attorneys. Otherwise it goes down the list of required haunted house scenes and checks all the boxes. Easy for the mind to wander. (Max.)
The Faculty. 1998, Robert Rodriguez. 🎓🔪👽⏩⏩😑 I didn’t realize this was going to be a comedy. Which makes it somewhat less funny than if it wasn’t a comedy. Otherwise, it’s … a mainstream 90s movie, with a lot of recognizable 90s actors, and a pre-hobbit Elijah Wood. Basically, it’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers with high school kids instead of adults. Couldn’t relate. Not very scary or interesting. Or funny. Fast forwarded through most of it. Amazing to me that a) I don’t remember this movie existing and b) this was the 3rd-highest grossing horror movie of 1998. But then I don’t see many alternatives. (Paramount+.)
Hereditary. 2018, Ari Aster. 🪦👻🚗👧💈🪦🥛👻🧙♀️🤔 Another “elevated” horror movie referenced in Scream (2022). Never seen a movie begin with an obituary title card before. Cool camera trickery at the start. Another movie where “elevated” means quiet and slow with an ambient score. It’s not really about anything, except family grief, until a solid 1 hour and 15 minutes into the movie, which is a long time to wait for a story hook. But it’s pretty creepy if you can stand to wait that long. Then it takes a pretty hard left turn and it feels like two different movies smooshed together. Ended on a somewhat confusing note, but worth seeing. (Max.)
It Follows. 2014, David Robert Mitchell. 👩💋👀🚶♀️👀🚶👀🚶♂️🙂 It was on my watch list for 2014 horror movies, and it was mentioned in Scream (2022) as an “elevated” horror film, so I had to watch it. Talk about yer STDs, amirite? Elevated, btw, means brooding with long, slow camera pans, pushes, and pulls. Creepy, but there’s a bit of dream logic. The story rules don’t quite make sense and there’s no resolution which I guess makes it extra artful? Anyway it’s not bad. It has a very 70s unglamorous look with a very 80s Stranger Things soundtrack. (Netflix.)
Scream. 2022, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett. 👩🔪💀👨🔪👩🔪😂🙂 Deja vu. Ghostface is back for a new generation. Tolerably fresh, but it seems like just a few too many layers of self-referencing to be taken as seriously as the first one. I’m not sure a Gen Z teen slasher even makes sense, given that Gen Z never physically interacts with each other, do they? Shouldn’t a modernized teen slasher be built around SWATing or doxxing or something? (Paramount+.)
Scream. 1996, Wes Craven. 🏆👩🔪💀👨🔪👩🔪😂😀 It’s possible I first saw some or all of this in the 2000s. I don’t remember. I have the controversial opinion that even self-aware teen slashers are still teen slashers, but I have to grudgingly admit there’s some story and mystery and likable characters in this one (and, importantly for a movie, decent acting). I noted that, much like the demon voice in The Exorcist, the voice of the killer on the phone sounds more comical than scary. And thus a generation of horror movie parodies were born. (Max.)
Older Gods. 2023, David A. Roberts. 👨✨🗿🔎🕵️⏩⏩😑 A dude tries to unravel the mystery of his friend’s elder god cult. Infodump to start. A lot of telling, not showing, actually. Just didn’t grab me. Fast forwarded through most of it. (Hard to represent the concept of cosmic elder gods in emoji form.) (Tubi.)
No One Will Save You. 2023, Brian Duffield. 👩👽🏃♀️🏃♀️⏩⏩😑 What if there were a new crop of movie directors who were heavily inspired by M. Night Shymalan movies? What if they made A Quiet Place with even less dialog? What if they made a movie that completely revolves around one character’s mysterious backstory that turns out to be exactly what you thought it was all along? Too many “wtf why” character moments for me. Fast forwarded through the second half. (Hulu.)
A Nightmare on Elm Street. 1984, Wes Craven. 🏆💤👹🔪🥱 Not once since I first heard about this movie in the 80s has it ever occurred to me that I’d ever want to watch this movie. Now I know why. There’s a reason Freddy Krueger is the only thing anyone remembers from this franchise. Formulaic, boring, studio cash cow. Characters deliberately acting thick for the plot. A weirdly Home Alone vibe at the end. Johnny Depp’s first movie. (Max.)
Ghost Story. 1981, John Irvin. 👻🍜💤👩🙂 Based on the very first horror book I ever read (although I didn’t read it until the early 90s). The score’s a bit over-the-top, like a Hammer horror, which gives it a Sunday afternoon made-for-tv movie feel. Solid story, but a bit slow in film form. (Amazon Prime.)
The Host. 2006, Korean, English, Bong Joon-ho. 🥼🐟🐙🏃🏃🏹👧😀 A monster movie with an absurd sense of humor, but I liked it. Good cast and story. More than just running around screaming. But still, lots of overacting. And a blatantly anti-American message for some reason (well, a reason explained on Wikipedia). No idea why it’s called “The Host” though. (Paramount+.)