Day 7 – Goosebumps (2015)

On October 7, 2021 By loweritupIn 31 Nights of Horror, 31 Nights of Horror - 2021Leave a comment

2015

In the last 25 years, I have not experienced the same intense amount of peer pressure that I had as a kid to read the Goosebumps books. As it will come as a shock to zero people reading this, I was absolutely terrified of them. I ended up reading exactly three titles from start to finish, and I still remember feeling very uneasy. I think I read 14 Baby-Sitter’s Club books to level out. Give me 13-year-olds in charge of 9-year-olds on a deserted island over those terrifying stories. Never mind, all 1990s kids’ book series were messed up. So many absent parents and no cell phones.

I’m going to admit that as an adult, I actually liked this movie. It was fun. But I think we need to start discussing a new rating system and that involves putting another film rating in between PG and PG-13. Frozen is PG. So is You Got Mail. Also Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Either we put more info in these ratings or just abolish them all together. They make zero sense. PG now basically means no boobs, no blood splatter, and no “F-word.” Everything else is on the table! Including plenty of monsters. So. Many. Monsters.

The plot is very meta. Jack Black plays the mysterious next door neighbor to a teenage boy (Zach) and his mom who have moved to this small town after the death of the teenage boy’s dad. Jack Black ends up being the actual R. L. Stine, and he hoards his crazy and his daughter which seems suspicious until you realize he’s a horror writer. Horror writers get a lot of passes once they sell a certain number of novels. Even if the ones for children.

Zach and his new (only) friend Champ sneak into the house because they suspect Stine is holding his daughter, Hannah, hostage. Instead, Zach accidentally unleashes all the monsters that R. L. Stine has every written about by opening the locked manuscripts of each book. Apparently, Stine’s magic wasn’t just infiltrating pre-teens’ nightmares. He was also able to physically manifest every horror he ever wrote about.

The remainder of the film is the four of them chasing down and rounding up the monsters, before they destroy the entire town, and possibly the rest of the world. The only way this can happen is if R. L. Stine writes the book on his magic typewriter. I’m not sure how this works when he needs to actually get his books published, but I have to keep reminding myself this is a kids’ movie. For children. Not for me to be scared of anymore. I’m not scared, I’m an ADULT.

The ending obviously leads to the possibility (definitely) more sequels. Which I may watch. Or I’ll watch the Baby-Sitter’s Club on Netflix again. I prefer my nostalgia without nightmares, thank you.

Scare Rating: 3 out of 10 ghosts

Day 6 – The Fog (1980)

On October 6, 2021October 7, 2021 By loweritupIn 31 Nights of Horror, 31 Nights of Horror - 20211 Comment

1980

When a film opens with an old timey sea captain baby-sitting children by a campfire, telling them ghost stories, it’s safe to assume the town isn’t exactly on stable footing. For one, the story goes way over the children’s heads. They don’t understand maritime law or leprosy and why John Carpenter likes watching Jamie Lee Curtis get tortured. Some mysteries should be left to adults and lawyers.

Although there’s not a lot of good adults in this town anyways. A small coastal fishing village has somehow stayed alive in Northern California for 100 years. The town believes the charter was established legitimately and by no way had any terrible history. White people get a lot of things wrong, but gosh darn it, they are gold-medal award winning at denial!

A priest (it’s always a priest) discovers his grandfather’s diary in the walls of the church after some masonry falls off the wall. They don’t exactly give the denomination, but if this old dude is Catholic, he shouldn’t have a grandfather that was a priest. But who knows, Episcopalians and Lutherans can be in horror films too; this is still America.

In the old diary, it’s revealed that 6 of the original town founders decided to sink a ship carrying a wealthy man with leprosy and his friends (who also have leprosy). The lepers wanted to leave their current situation and establish a colony just north of the seaside town. The original Karens apparently got together, and decided that ew, no, we don’t want them. Let’s just murder them and steal all their gold, then use the gold to build the town! We know where this is going.

At midnight of the 100 year anniversary of this tragedy, a bunch of mysterious things start happening. There’s also numerous tremors (still California), random glass breaking (salt air can corrode things). A weird fog shows up on the weather radar. And the strangest thing of all: Jamie Lee Curtis hitchhikes right outside of town and gets picked up by a guy who DOESN’T murder her. In fact, they fall in love!

The fog is actual a vessel for bringing in the ghosts of the leper ship. They call them revenants, which I guess is cooler than “leper zombies” which just sounds redundant (no offence to current or future lepers). The leader of these ghouls leads them through the town murdering people with all the tools you would expect to find on an 1880’s ship about to set up a new town: fish hooks, bigger fish hooks, machetes, scythes, hoes, and the occasional saber. The lepers had a mission to make the town pay.

However, in the end, they just wanted 6 dead bodies and the remaining gold. I figure that is a fair deal between priests and lepers gone wrong. I mean they did cheat them out of prime Northern California coastal real estate for 100 years all because they didn’t want lepers to not live just north of their town. They didn’t even want to live IN their town. This is the reason why I think HOA’s were manufactured in hell.

Scare Rating: 5 out of 10 ghosts

Day 5 – The Exorcism of Emily Rose

On October 5, 2021 By loweritupIn 31 Nights of Horror, 31 Nights of Horror - 2021Leave a comment

2005

Before watching this, I found out it was based on a “true story” about a Catholic girl in Germany in the 1970s. I’m sorry, WHY aren’t we seeing that one? That’s way more scary than some farm girl in “small town modern day America.” Are middle-America Catholics the most pious people in world? Probably not. I’ve met Baptists and Irish grandmothers. In fact I don’t think I’ve ever met another Catholic that doesn’t put their ethnicity before their religion. Like they need to double down on how much they love their mother and their intense guilt.

Obviously I’m not winning anyone over with my theology on this one. My issues with organized religion aside, this film did get one thing very, very right: a Catholic archdiocese will stop at nothing to protect their reputation; even when it was their direction that put everyone in this predicament.

Emily Rose is a young Catholic girl who gets accepted to a nearby university, and against her parents’ hesitation decides to go in order to become a teacher. She’s a pretty, kind, naïve girl. Even without the devil lurking in the bursar’s office, this girl was going to get eaten alive at college no matter what. The possession happens shortly after she decides to go dancing (gasp!) and meets a boy (double gasp!). At first it just seems like Emily developed epilepsy. And perhaps schizophrenia or psychosis. However, her condition gets worse, even under the care of doctors.

It is decided that she will leave college and try to recover at home. Being the pious girl she is, the family allows the local parish priest to counsel her. Honestly, this isn’t a bad idea at the beginning. Many priests are trained to act as social workers and offer guidance. But of course, this is Halloween, not Arbor Day, so we’re about to deal with demons. Multiples. At least 6, which VERY impressive resumes.

The priest decides to perform an exorcism which doesn’t work and Emily ends up dying shortly after. The film is about the trial against the priest, after he is accused of negligent homicide. Not really sure why the parents aren’t up on trial, but that’s not “sexy” for horror movie tropes. Please of parents abuse their kids in real life. We need the fantasy of a priest talking to demons in the middle of a corn field, gosh darnit!

A hard hitting (read: heartless) lawyer (played by Laura Linney) is hired by the archdiocese to defend the priest. Even though the archdiocese OK’d the exorcism, they don’t want to look “silly.” Once the lawyer gets involved, she also starts to become affected by the demons. Or carbon monoxide poisoning. Lots of explanations surround hallucinations. At least that’s what I tell myself because I don’t like the idea of the devil sending minions to take up residence in anyone’s house, much less a lady just trying to do her job.

The ending is what it is, but I had a hard time watching this movie. Literally. Every time I tried to stream it, the TV would reboot or I lost audio or the subtitles glitched on the screen. I’m not saying it was supernatural, but whatever devil was hanging out in my house that day and refused to let my toddler take his afternoon nap: I’ll see you in hell.

Scare Rating: 7 out of 10 ghosts

Day 4 – The Descent

On October 4, 2021 By loweritupIn 31 Nights of Horror, 31 Nights of Horror - 20211 Comment

2005

People who are not scientists or vigilante billionaires, but still choose to explore caves….why? The things that are down there spent so many evolutionary reiterations trying to get away from you AND sunlight, and you just go in there with your headlamps and flares and crunchy granola bars and mess with their vibe. They don’t want you there, and this documentary about caves is evidence.

It’s not really a documentary, but I don’t care. Leave the caves alone.

Six extremely attractive women from the UK decide to explore a cave in the Appalachian mountains for a weekend girls trip. If I EVER say that my “weekend girls trip” involves the words “Appalachia” or “spelunking” or “pre-dawn car ride,” I want you all to know I’ve been kidnapped and to call the police. The women know each other, but some better than others. You’ll have to forgive me, but British people all look alike, but I’m pretty sure two are sisters, one is possible the lover of another, and three were best friends before a tragic, gruesome accident one year prior.

They follow all the rules about caving (I know that’s not the correct word, but the other one is hard to spell over and over). They have all the correct gear, file a report with the rangers, remind each other of the procedures, and read up on the cave that’s been explored by thousands of people before. Except it’s the wrong cave. And one of the women (Juno) knew this and did it on purpose. Because she wanted to claim this “unexplored” cave as her own and possibly name it after herself or one of the other ladies. Fucking British and their innate need to still colonize everything.

Of course, it’s not just that the cave has been unexplored and therefore unknown, it’s also inhabited by a sub-human species that knows privileged British ladies are delicious. But throughout the women’s harrowing ordeal of trying to escape the slimy Bat Boy cosplayers, you realize that in the darkness, we all become a little sub-human. There’s a LOT of backstabbing (literally), secrets spilled over how shitty they all are, and a lot sacrificing each other as bait. In the end, the comradery that existed before their trip was obviously bullshit. You don’t need an infrared camera to see that.

By the middle of the movie, I was over it. Mostly because the jump scares and gross ways to maim with caving hooks got tiresome. I was also mildly disappointed the ladies didn’t try to work together against the fine young cannibals. I guess when a girls trip starts with a lie, it’s hard to reel that back in.

One final note that I was very happy to read: they didn’t film in any underground caverns. It was all a set. So thankfully, no actual caves were harmed in the making of this movie that’s almost exactly like another movie that came out a few months later.

Scare Rating: 6 out of 10 ghosts

Day 3 – Chopping Mall

On October 3, 2021October 3, 2021 By loweritupIn 31 Nights of Horror, 31 Nights of Horror - 2021Leave a comment

1986

America doesn’t seem worried about robots anymore. We eagerly invite them into our homes, like Ray Bradbury predicted we would. But because they go by cute names like “roomba” and “Alexa” and “Tickle Me Elmo,” no one thinks they could murder us in our sleep. It’s only a matter of time before Alexa refuses to call the fire department because she thinks we had an attitude when talking to her before.

But anyways, back to the 80s, where people had a healthy fear of robots and an unhealthy lack of fear about having sex on department store furniture. It wouldn’t be a campy slasher film if 25 year olds weren’t playing nude 17 year olds! This one is a little creepy because the director admitted he only hired one of the actresses because he had a crush on her. Ew.

Pervy directors aside, the concept started strong and fell like a 50 year old mall elevator. To save money and supposedly save lives, a shopping mall buys three security robots to “patrol” the mall at night for intruders/thieves/homeless vagabonds. They are just supposed to tase the criminals they find and call the police. We see where this is going.

After the mall closes one night, six teens who work there decide to have a little drinking/sex party in the furniture store where three of them work. They also invite in a husband-wife mechanic couple, who seems way older then them, but details aren’t exactly the strong suit of a movie about robots that was shot in 22 days. They party while outside a strong lightening storm is happening and happens to fry the robots’ control panels. Not sure why the malfunction turns them into deranged Johnny Number 5’s, but again, details.

The robots start murdering everyone they see because they can no longer tell the different between good humans and bad humans. They also can’t seem to tell the difference between mannequins and humans. Since it is after hours, the teens can’t escape the mall because the exits are locked with steel doors until morning. They try creative ways to destroy the robots and in return get murdered in even more creative ways.

For some reason, this “smart” security mall does not have a sprinkler system. At first that’s a problem, but then the teens decide to go to the most flammable part of the mall: The Paint Store (don’t ask why there’s a paint store in the middle of a mall, I didn’t make the rules in the 80s). The teens start a fire to blow up the robots, but also seem to forget that this mall has no fire exits.

Morning arrives but there’s only two survivors and a destroyed food court. It’s a lame ending and I was mad about it. There has even been talk of a remake or sequel. You don’t need the kill the shopping mall, technology already did that. Maybe robots did destroy us after all. We just shop in their world now.

Scare Rating: 3 out of 10 ghosts

Scare Weather Fan

On September 29, 2021September 29, 2021 By loweritupIn 31 Nights of Horror, 31 Nights of Horror - 20211 Comment

I’m either setting myself up for failure or slowly drifting into insanity, but I’m going to do this again: 31 Nights of Horror. This is basically what my blog has evolved into and I’m okay with that. “Lower it up” doesn’t really make any sense and neither did this direction, but here we are. I have no plans outside my house and access to all the content inside my house. Follow me on this journey, as I rediscover grammar and overdone tropes and bad acting.

This year, I’m adding a little theme challenge: Alphabetical titles for the first 26 movies (unless I find a foreign film with a new letter or I discover that Prince released a horror film when he was a symbol) and then numbered titles after.

Here are the films I’ve already watched, so if there are any suggestions for new films (especially in the weird letters) I’ll gladly take them. I’m not counting “The” as the first letter and I’ll be on the fence about “A” depending on if I get desperate with a letter (Looking at you “X”).

Below is all the films I’ve watched so far since 2013 for 31 Nights of Horror. I always try to watch something I’ve never seen before, I really HATE gore porn (the Saw franchise is a no for me), and also limit the brand new films to only a few to avoid too many spoilers.

Bring it on, because after the last 18 months, I’m really not afraid anymore! I’ve also gotten really good at denial!

Happy Spooky Season All!

The Abominable Dr. Phibes

Alice, Sweet Alice

An American Haunting

An American Werewolf in London

The Amityville Horror (1979)

Blair Witch (2016)

The Cabin in the Woods

Don’t Go In The House

Dracula (1931)

Frozen (2010)

The Ghosts of Buxley Hall

Gothic

Green Room

The Haunted Mansion

The Haunting (1963)

The Haunting in Connecticut

The Haunting of Bly Manor (Episode 1)

The Haunting of Fox Hollow Farm

Hell Fest

The Hills Have Eyes (1977)

Hocus Pocus

House on Haunted Hill (1959)

House of Wax (1953)

The Houses October Built

The Howling & The Howling II: … Your Sister Is a Werewolf

Interview With The Vampire

The Invitation

I Am Not A Serial Killer

I Am The Pretty Thing That Lives In The House

IT (2017)

It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

John Carpenter’s Vampires

Killer Klowns From Outer Space

“Kindred Spirits“

Knights of Badassdom

Krampus

Last House on the Left (1972)

The Legend of Hell House

The Little Girl Who Lives Down The Lane

The Monster Squad

Murders in the Rue Morgue

Night of the Comet

Night of the Living Dead

The Omen (1976)

Orca

Paranormal Activity 4

Phantasm

Poltergeist (1982)

Population 436

Pirde and Prejudice and Zombies

Pumpkinhead

The Purge: Election Year

Rasputing: The Mad Monk

Raw

Red State

THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW: Let’s Do the Time Warp Again (2016)

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)

Theater of Blood

They’re Watching

The Town That Dreaded Sundown

Village of the Damned

The Void

“The Walking Dead”

What We Do In The Shadows

31 Nights of Horror 2020

On November 1, 2020 By loweritupIn 31 Nights of Horror, 31 Nights of Horror - 2020Leave a comment

Below is a list of the movies I watched in 2020 for 31 Nights of Horror:

Day 1, 2020 – FeardotCom

Day 2, 2020 – The Little Girl Who Lives Down The Lane

Day 3, 2020 – Witchboard

Day 4, 2020 – Hell Fest

Day 5, 2020 – Stir of Echoes

Day 6, 2020 – Night of the Living Dead

Day 7, 2020 – Dracula

Day 8, 2020 – Rope

Day 9, 2020 – House on Haunted Hill

Day 10, 2020 – Hunt

Day 11, 2020 – Phantasm

Day 12, 2020 – An American Haunting

Day 13, 2020 – The Haunted Mansion

Day 14, 2020 – Last House on the Left (1972)

Day 15, 2020 – John Carpenter’s Vampires

Day 16, 2020 – Green Room

Day 17, 2020 – Hubie Halloween

Day 18, 2020 – The Forest

Day 19, 2020 – The Haunting of Bly Manor (Episode 1)

Day 20, 2020 – Interview With The Vampire

Day 21, 2020 – Train to Busan

Day 22, 2020 – Alice, Sweet Alice

Day 23, 2020 – The Ghosts of Buxley Hall

Day 24, 2020 – Population 436

Day 25, 2020 – They’re Watching

Day 26, 2020 – I Am The Pretty Thing That Lives In The House

Day 27, 2020 – Cabin Fever (2016)

Day 28, 2020 – House of Wax

Day 29 & 30, 2020 – The Howling & The Howling II: … Your Sister Is a Werewolf

Day 31, 2020 – The Denouement

Blog on hold

On October 9, 2021 By loweritupIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Family emergency

Day 2 – Boys From County Hell

On October 2, 2021 By loweritupIn 31 Nights of Horror, 31 Nights of Horror - 20211 Comment

2021

At least once a week, I land on Irish TikTok. It’s not hard. If my phone is reading my face, it knows that I have the skin tone of a haunted Victorian doll, and therefore must hail from the sunless isle of Erin. I love it though. I’ve learned more about the Irish and Celtic customs in my two years on that scroll, then I have from 37 years of family stories. However, even with spooky season here, I was not prepared for this film.

For starters, I saw it had an actress from household favorite Derry Girls, so I immediately thought it would be a funny horror film like Shaun of the Dead or The World’s End. It’s day two. I need to stop assuming things.

The description make it sounds like a couple of inept construction crews accidently dig up a grave of a vampire and chaos ensues. Okayyyyy that’s not it at all. For one, they all know there is a large pile of cursed rocks because they’ve lived here their entire lives. For two, the main character Eugene, keeps finding skulls in a nearby farmhouse he’s renovating. I don’t want to perpetuate the myth that blue collar Irish are dumb, but they aren’t doing themselves a service. And lastly, everyone is either angry or drunk all the time. This is easy picking weather for any monster, but especially vampires.

This vampire, named Abhartach, doesn’t change people though. The rocks he is buried under is what makes you a vampire. So you just have to impale yourself on his craggy gravesite, and voila! you are now a vampire! That’s way easier than the MLM-like vampire life. However, in order to stay alive, you have to literally drain the blood from any human orifice with magical “sucking from afar” powers. These scenes were gross. The movie should just be called “Bloody Hell.”

After one of Eugene’s friends is changed into a vampire, the remaining intact friends have to figure out quickly what to do to save the town. Even though they were the ones that moved the rocks in the first place. They try all the methods with the stakes and the bullets and the beheadings and the sunlight, and nothing works. There’s a nice little twist at the end to explain why they were able to finally slay the lurking creature, but it required extra stomach-churning special effects.

I was vaguely aware of the legend this type of vampire–remember, there are many types and the least important are the sparkly ones–was based on. Luckily, my husband who is more wellversed in folklore than I will ever be, had to remind me when the film was over. If my terrible review convinces you to watch this movie, I suggest reading up on Abhartach before watching it. Also keep the captions on. I know we shouldn’t make fun of people’s accents but bloody hell, it feels like the wee Irish cubs are just making up words most days.

Scare Rating: 5 out of 10 ghosts

Day 1 – The Addams Family (2019)

On October 1, 2021 By loweritupIn 31 Nights of Horror, 31 Nights of Horror - 2021Leave a comment

2019

I admit it. I’m tiptoeing back into scary movies, but also children could read my blog and they don’t deserve to be left out. Who am I kidding? Kids today are scary. They know how to code. They know ALL of the names of the Paw Patrol characters and how their jobs relate to a larger problem of authoritarianism. They know how to say “red” and “blood” and “maniac” in 5 different languages thanks to YouTube. I don’t ever want to be on the wrong side of a child’s anger.

Even though I’m loathe to like scary things, I did love the 1990’s The Addams Family and sequel and have grown to appreciate their appeal the older I get. So when I heard they were remaking it, I got excited when I started to see the cast announcement, knowing nothing else:

_{Oscar Isaac (yes, perfect little weirdo he will do great), Catherine O’Hara & Martin Short (never miss a chance to see them), Charlize Theron (…ok interesting choice), Snoop Dogg….Chloë Grace Moretz (what–she’s like 22), ohh dangit! This is an animated movie. I’m not the target demographic. Carry on.}

But I saw this come on Hulu when my husband reminded me it existed (because our devices are always listening…) and decided to make it my first movie. I’ve noticed the off-the-cuff comparison of “traditional” TV families versus the the Addams Family in the last few years. It’s not hard to do. Morticia and Gomez are a loving couple that provides a home for their children to explore their ideas and is very supportive of each other’s hobbies and interests. The extended family offers their own quirks, but really, who doesn’t have a rando in the family tree who marches to their own drum circle.

This film offers a brief background as to how the Addams Family establishes their house, explains that the children are home schooled, and also why they haven’t had neighbors. Until now.

Several decades ago, if you lived on inhabitable land, chances are, no one else was going to try to also live there. Safe from development, corporate greed, and climate change because it has built in protection: humans should NOT live there. Obviously that’s not the case anymore and a small underlying message of this film: if you drain the marsh, be prepared for what you find crawling around.

An HGTV-esque suburban “town” is built downhill from the Addams Family mansion for a TV show. Think Celebration, Florida with the deeply disturbing voyeurism of The Truman Show. Once the show’s host and producer realizes the Addams Mansion is an eye-sore, and meets the “freaks,” she is on a mission to destroy them before they destroy her “perfect” development. She does so by posing as different citizens on the town’s version of NextDoor. If you’re not familiar with the absolute bananas insanity that exists in NextDoor, you probably are too millennial to afford a house or too off-the-grid to want a house. It’s like if you took away the cute puppy photos and social engineering surveys off Facebook and was left with the complaining about nothing and the racism. Which I guess is Facebook anyways, but it’s condensed to just people you could possibly see at the grocery store.

There’s several other story lines throughout the film, but in the end the movie is just about family and accepting each other’s flaws and differences. It’s a cute movie, not scary. However there’s a few disturbing images that some younger viewers (or those with arachnophobia) might not like.

Scare Rating: 2 out of 10 ghosts

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