The Conspiracy – Halloween Horror Month Movie Spectacular 2014 Day 21

The Conspiracy is a mockumentary (I will never like that word) about two documentary filmmakers making a documentary about conspiracy theories and themselves getting drawn in to the world of conspiracies. More thriller than horror I still found myself engaged by the movie. I can’t say it provided any great surprises, but there was certainly a sense of building tension throughout. I don’t know if Jon Ronson’s book Them: Adventures With Extremists was a source of inspiration for The Conspiracy, but having read it previously added to my appreciation of the movie. In particular the book’s sections on the Bilderberg Group and Bohemian Grove. The movie’s well worth watching if you have any interest at all in conspiracy theories or conspiracy theorists. Or, for that matter, if you like a good thriller.

Howling 3: The Marsupials – Halloween Horror Month Movie Spectacular 2014 Day 20

The Howling 3 is a bad movie, and I kind of like it. The first half anyway. Whereas the second movie in the series was bad and kind of dull this one is bad and weird, which is much more entertaining. Really, the fact that the werewolves are marsupials (if you hadn’t guessed from the title) isn’t the weirdest thing about it. Nor are the marsupial werewolves dressing up as nuns. Unfortunately, while the first half of the film moves along at a fair pace with the movie poking fun at itself, once the characters start running around the Australian bush things slow down and takes another weird turn into bizarre drama. Still worth watching to find out where it leads, but not as much fun as the first half.

Night of the Comet – Halloween Horror Month Movie Spectacular 2014 Day 19

Night of the Comet is an odd movie, difficult to quite categorise. A comet passing by the Earth turns most of humanity (and the rest of the animals) literally to dust. Of those that survive, some are affected by a degenerative condition turning them into homicidal maniacs. Against that background, the movie follows two sisters adapting to the new world. The story’s lighthearted in parts, only to turn unexpectedly dark every now and then. I might not call the movie outright good, but it’s charming. The actors manage to make the characters quite likeable, which goes a long way towards keeping interest up when the plot fails to do so.

Event Horizon – Halloween Horror Month Movie Spectacular 2014 Day 18

Event Horizon belongs in a small but very high level of quality genre called Sam Neill Stars In Creepy Horror. It’s one of my favourite genres. Event Horizon could as well have been called Ominous: The Movie. It starts out with a brief glimpse of what’s to come, and then for the most part manages to keep the tension up throughout. It certainly has similarities to Alien, but goes a more supernatural route. While there are no overt ties to H. P. Lovecraft, the concept of the movie could very well have come straight out of a Lovecraft story. A scientific experiment reaches beyond the boundaries of our universe and brings back something malevolent. At the same time, while the likelihood of the events of the movie being explained away is small, there are potentially natural explanations for what goes on. Mainly that the characters are hallucinating due to oxygen deprivation or carbon monoxide poisoning. The ambiguity is slight, but it’s there. Either way, it’s a damned creepy movie.

Resident Evil 2: Apocalypse – Halloween Horror Month Movie Spectacular 2014 Day 17

The second Resident Evil movie is much like the first an enjoyable, ridiculously over the top action affair. I think I might like this one a bit better than the first, but that might be splitting hairs. There’s a story present but it serves the action rather than the other way around. Worth watching when you’re in the mood for something over the top that doesn’t require too much thought.

Wishmaster 3 – Halloween Horror Month Movie Spectacular 2014 Day 16

If you’ve seen the first or second Wishmaster, this is more of the same but not as good. As in the previous two movies, a young woman accidentally releases the djinn from the jewel that imprisons it, and wish-based shenanigans ensue. Because of course all the wishes turn bad.  In the previous two movies the genie needed to trick people into making wishes in order for it to gain power. Once it had reached a certain level it would try to force the person who had freed it to make three wishes, which would allow it to bring hell to Earth. In this movie it apparently can skip to just that last three-wishes part, and all the other wish granting it does is just the djinn being an asshole. That makes the whole thing less interesting to me.

And speaking of less interesting… The guy who plays the djinn in this movie seems like a perfectly fine actor, but he doesn’t come close to the gleeful malice of Andrew Divoff from the previous two movies. In fact the second movie is the best of the series simply by virtue of most of it consisting of the djinn going around with a creepy smile and granting people wishes that kill them in horribly inventive ways. In this movie… someone’s heart explodes. That’s about as exciting as it gets. Not to give the wrong impression, this is a perfectly decent, 5/10 movie. It’s just bland compared to what came before. 

30 Days of Night – Halloween Horror Month Movie Spectacular 2014 Day 15

I never really hear anyone mention this movie so I didn’t have terribly high expectations for it. Luckily it turns out it’s pretty good. Not a timeless classic certainly, but more than good enough to keep you entertained for a couple of hours. The basic premise is that a group of vampires manage to cut off all communications to a small town in Alaska as thirty days of polar night is about to set in. After that, events play out pretty much as you might expect. It was kind of cool that the vampires were talking in their own language. Less cool was that I watched without subtitles for three quarters of the movie until I realised that there was actually supposed to be a translation of what the vampires were saying. I haven’t quite decided if it’s a good thing or a bad thing that I could follow the movie’s story without any problems whatsoever without being aware of significant portions of dialogue.

The Lost Boys – Halloween Horror Month Movie Spectacular 2014 Day 14

I didn’t watch The Lost Boys until a few years ago, which means it invokes no sense of nostalgia in me beyond the hairstyles and clothes of the characters. I suspect that I would like this movie a whole lot more if I’d seen it when I was younger. As it is, it’s OK but not great. A little too much teenage angst for my taste, but not too bad. The characters are likeable enough. And the vampires are menacing in a way that actually would be terrifying if they were real.

Hellraiser II: Hellbound – Halloween Horror Month Movie Spectacular 2014 Day 13

Not for the squeamish. I’m not sure if much else needs to be said about Hellraiser II. It picks up hours after the end of the first movie with a highlight reel of its more gruesome parts. The daughter who survived herself wakes up in a mental hospital, and if that sounds foreboding, it is. She starts having disturbing visions and things quickly get worse from there. The movie is more disturbing than scary, and good gods there is a lot of blood. Enjoyment of the movie will probably largely hinge on one’s ability to appreciate its gruesomeness. It certainly makes a credible attempt at depicting hell.

Necronomicon – Halloween Horror Month Movie Spectacular 2014 Day 12

It’s difficult to articulate an opinion about Necronomicon. Like a thing out of the Lovecraft stories that it is based on the movie seems unknowable and unnamable. It’s not good, but it’s not exactly bad Esther. It’s an anthology of three stories, with a wraparound story starring Jeffrey Combs as H. P. Lovecraft. There are parts and moments of the movie that are really good, only for it to turn outright bizarre. The first story is a creepy ghost story… plus a giant tentacle monster. The first half of the middle story is a surprisingly good adaptation of Lovecraft’s Cool Air. The second half did not live up to the beginning, to say the least. And the less said about the third story the better. All in all, as I said, the movie is difficult to get a grip on. If I had to be more definite, I’d say it is a bad movie with flashes of excellence.