My #31daysofhalloween challenge 2024

 31 days of Halloween, 2024

Its been a good one this year. This time I had the aid of an Arrow subscription. Have been meaning to try it out for years and I really like the service. Might get one on a longer term when I can afford it again.

There are well over 31 films and other forms of spooky media on this list so I don't feel the need to number the list this time. I will say a little about each one though. All of these are first time watches unless stated otherwise.

Oddity - new Irish feature film. Great start to the month, creepy and unsettling.  (Shudder and elsewhere)
Blood of My Blood - Italian gothic, very atmospheric and creepy but not scary. (Mubi)
Imprint - Takashi Miike's spot on the Masters of Horror anthology. Was considered to extreme to broadcast and never made it to TV. A disturbing period piece in the tradition of Teruo Ishii that draws on some of the darker parts of Japanese social history that get too easily romanticised. I loved it. (Physical)

Dracula's Ex-Girlfriend - a 30 minute short from Abigail Thorne of the Youtube channel Philosophy Tube. The idea of Dracula as an abusive ex partner is fun and they do a lot with it. (Nebula Exclusive)

Bubba Ho-Tep - Re-watch, but considering that the last time I watched it was probably about 20 years ago, and all I could really remember was parts of the ending I might as well have been watching it fresh. Thoroughly enjoyed it, Campbell here is the best he's ever been outside of The Evil Dead franchise. (Amazon)

In a Violent Nature - I didn't really enjoy it. I was thoroughly impressed with it and get what it was trying to do but it left me a bit cold. Still, nice to see something fresh being done with the Slasher genre. (Physical)
Boys From The County Hell - A horror comedy from my own neck of the woods, well Northern Ireland anyway, and it's good and it does our sense of humour without being cringe. Shocking. 

Stopmotion - Recent British horror film about a woman making one of my favourite types of film, creepy stop motion! And it drives her to obsession and madness! Hell yeah! Good show (Shudder)

Images - An old one from Robert Altman. A woman may be in the grip of madness or possibly the victim of an elaborate conspiracy or some supernatural 'tings are going down. Hard to say and either way its a disconcerting experience that uses the edits and cuts to put you in the head of someone who might be loosing it. Good stuff.
El Conde - As you know I like to try and watch a film from each of the habitable continents when I'm doing this. This is from South America, Chile to be exact. Its a darkly funny political satire on the idea that Pinochet was a literal vampire. It's funny enough, the narration from Margret Thatcher is a clever touch. (Netflix)
Manborg - Canadian retro-90s comedy action horror. Same team that did Fathers Day. This was a lot of fun. (Amazon)

Childsplay - This is the 2019 one. I really like this, its a sci-fi about the horrors of AI instead of a questionable Voodoo explanation for the murder-doll. Chucky isn't evil, he just has the safeties off. (Netflix) 
The Purge - Rewatch, chosen by my Sister. I liked it before and it was fine on a rewatch. I like the setting and the premise, could do with watching the whole series but I can't mind which ones I have and haven't seen. (Netflix)

Carrie - Another rewatch, again its been ages so it was fun watching it again. Knowing the ending doesn't make it any less impactful as it all plays out. Also funny watching it now since seeing Phantom Of The Paradise, you can see all of DePalmas stylistic touches, except its not as balls to the wall mental as that film, its all there but paired down and directed. Deserved classic status. (Amazon)

House - Probably the worst horror film to be simply titled "House". Its the American one that was the start of an ongoing series. (Arrow)

Wolf Guy - Now this is more like it, the sort of thing I got the Arrow sub for. Weird Japanese stuff, nonsensical plot, some cool gore effects and tits. I'm easy pleased. (Arrow)
Juju Stories - The token African film for the list. Nigerian Urban-Folk horror anthology. Good stuff, each of the three sections was well executed and the acting and writing were all on point. It's always nice getting a window into another culture. (Amazon Prime)
Over The Garden Wall - Rewatch of this eminently re-watchable animated mini series which can be consumed in 10 minute bites or all at once as a 2-hour ish complete story. It's great. Lots of detail and depth, you get a little more on each rewatch. Every section is a joy in itself. (Amazon Prime)
Hellraiser: Bloodline - I've heard that the Hellraiser sequels from 3 onwards are hard going. This wasn't great but it does some interesting things with the mythos.
Run Rabbit Run - Our trip to the Antipodes of the season. Unoriginal Ozzy spooky-kid movie. (Netflix).
The Strange Hostel of Naked Pleasures - Another South American price, this time Brazil's Coffin Joe. Neither as horny or as fun as it sounds unfortunately. (Arrow)

The Last Matinee - An international co-production of Uruguay, Mexico and Argentina this time, more recent and much more enjoyable. A killer on the loose in a movie theatre that is showing a slasher film, set in the 80s. Its very meta and has some fun kills. Decent. (Arrow)
DellaMorte DellAmore - This was great. Italian giallo horror comedy-satire. It looks gorgeous and has a great turn from Rupert Everett as a town cemetery employee who has to fight the undead every night. The satire element would probably be more apparent if you know Bava's work like The Beyond but I defy anyone to watch this and not get something out of it. (Amazon Prime)
Madhouse - I don't mind admitting that it was Movie Bob's youtube channel video on this that got me to watch it. This was amazing, dark mystery / horror with Vincent Price and Peter Cushing, its about the horror movie industry which gives them an excuse to do a bit of meta commentary on the genre. Price is amazing as always, this tme playing a version of himself. If you like the old Corman Poe adaptions or Hammer / Amicus etc era British technicolour horror you need to see this. (Physical)
Tales That Witness Madness - Speaking of which, this is an old Amicus anthology film with Donald Pleasence in the framing story. It has a lot of charm. (Recorded from TV)
The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane - wasn't sure whether to include this. Its not really a horror film though it does have some touches of horror. The scariest thing in it is Martin Sheen being a nonce to a very young Jodie Foster. Its really good though. Like an episode of Colombo meets We Have Always Lived At the Castle. (Amazon Prime)

Shaun Of the Dead - Rewtach. One of my favourite films ever. Just a stone cold classic of horror comedy. 10/10 no notes. (Netflix)
Queen of The Damned - I wasn't expecting much and thats what I got. Stuart Townsend was a good choice and could have been a great Lestat in a better film. Good for a cheesy Nu metal is Good Actually 00s nostalgia kick. (Physical)
The Platform 2 - loved the first one. This was okay but sort of undoes some of the interesting subversive / radical messaging that the first one had without adding much of interest. (Netflix)
The Rocky Horror Picture Show - Rewatch, of course. Love it. 10/10 no notes. (Disney+)
Black Rainbow - Supernatural Thriller about a dodgy medium who might actually have other worldly powers, enough to seemingly predict murder. Very well done, the seance scenes were suitably creepy. One of the good finds of this season. (Arrow)
Hocus Pocus 2 - Terrible. Not even a cameo from Omri, like FFS. (Disney+)
Grim Prairie Tales - Rewatch. Western Horror anthology, James Earl Jones and Brad Dourif telling scary campfire tales to each other. It looks like a TV movie, but its fun and the second story has a memorable ending which is worth the price of admission alone. Nice to revisit after nearly 30 years. (Its just on Youtube)
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice - Was intending to see this in a cinema this month but missed out and ended up skinning in with my mum and sister for the stream on Halloween night. I am a huge fan of the original, found it genuinely creepy an unsettling when I was wee. The other people I watched it with really liked it, I wasn't that enamoured with it. Glad I watched it though. (We got it through Prime)

And thats it. I only got to read through one horror novella, Coraline by Neil Gaiman. I've not been reading as much this year. Not a bad selection over all.

Jordan Peele's Us, discussion and analysis (spoilers, lots of them)

Please don't read this unless or until you've seen the film. If you're in two minds about whether to see it or not, go watch it. Its great.

Coming out of the film, which I'll say off the bat that I really enjoyed for the most part, I had a lot of questions. I don't have answers to many of them and I reckon a second pass at some point in the future may help but for now this is just a collection of thoughts rather than my concrete conclusions.

So, the biggest question I had was, what the fuck did I just watch?

Well, the plot is pretty mental, but its not nonsensical either.

From imdb: "A family's serenity turns to chaos when a group of doppelgängers begins to terrorize them." Thats basically it, a creepy twist on the home invasion scenario, then we get into the second act wherein it turns out that this isn't just happening to the family we're following, there's some weird apocalyptic shit going down. Everybody has a double, who in the film are called The Tethered, tonight is the night of the untethering and everyone's other self is out to get them. The family survives after a certain amount of high-jinx and having to kill their other selves, presumably to escape, but everyone else is fucked.

So that's it, that's the story.

But what it this film about though? Jordan Peele has gone on record as saying that there isn't a single detail in the film that doesn't have some significance. This is no more a film merely about creepy dopplegangers that It Follows was merely about a demon or The Babadook was about a haunted childrens book. There's a lot here that demands to be unpacked.

He's also said that the film is about duality, and yes that is the core motif that holds the film together visually and thematically but that on its own doesn't say a whole lot.

Well I don't know about the rest of you but coming out of the cinema I was mostly confused. I was expecting it to be about racism in a more direct fashion. From the premise I thought the obvious place to go, would be internalised racism, an actualisation of the conflict inherent to W.E.B. Du Bois's concept of "double consciousness" which he discusses at length in "The Souls of Black Folk" - i.e. the idea that for a person of colour one must adopt an almost schizophrenic concept of the self, both being oneself in the world while always being conscious of how you're perceived by the dominant white society. That is kind of in there but its not the main focus (unless I'm missing something, I'm not African American myself so there's a fair bit in probably not getting) as I had been expecting it to be.

Since watching the film I've seen a few interviews with Peele and he's said categorically that that isn't what is about anyway. It seems to be partly inspired by his own personal fear of Doppelgängers. Which fair play, is a creepy concept and works well. But obviously it has been loaded with a lot of symbolism. There are a few lines in there that are clearly meant to be ominous. When asked "what are you" the Mother doppelganger says "We are Americans". Earlier in the little girl of the family says "oh yeah, that's right nobody cares about the end of the world". So there you have the notion of America literally tearing itself apart while the younger generations fears for the future go unheeded.

When you get past the home invasion stuff and realise that this is going on everywhere that seems to play into the notion of social upheaval, revolution that classic gothic trope of The Return of the Repressed. When you find what The Tethered actually are, this horrible dehumanising thing that's also necessary to maintain the world that we know, one can't help but think of the exploitative relationship between the 1st and 3rd world, the fact that the most basic decent standard of living that the least of us enjoys is predicated on unspeakable horror that's always just beyond our field of vision.

The whole thing as well of The Tethered in their own environment: human beings just mindlessly going through the motions without real choice or active thought, speaks to fears about the atomisation and alienation inherent to modern living too.

I think there's another level where this is about trauma and mental illness. Adelaide seems to be suffering PTSD, The final reveal the final reveal seems to speak to the idea that real trauma takes away a part of who you once were. Through the set up she displays depressive, paranoiac and magical thinking. Reading profound significance into coincidence is again something that is not uncommon in people with mental health problems. That the whole home invasion kicks off just after her having that conversation with her partner is not insignificant.

Is there a connection here between the personal and political? I feel like the answer is yes but I'm not quite sure how.

Now all of the elements above are in the mix but none of them are the focus of the film. So maybe that's fair enough. Get Out was very on the nose as to what it was about. This isn't but actually, its cool, it doesn't have to be. There's still a lot in there I don't get like what the significance of the Rabbits or the Scissors are. I look forward to hearing what anyone else has to say and unpicking the various threads that have been so deftly woven in there. And what's with all the Micheal Jackson stuff? Well, at least we have that from the horses mouth.

If anyone has any alternative takes or wants to expand on anything I've brought up I'd be really interested in hearing it.

Edit:

A couple of good analysis vids on the film up now on YouTube. I liked the RedLetterMedia one because the lads were pretty much spot on and my feelings about the film over all are quite similar both in terms of what I thought was good and was critical of. The ever reliable Wisecrack did some excellent work teasing out some of the complexities inherent to the imagery. The overall take which was that as a film it is purposefully oblique and multifaceted enough to be meaningful in different ways to anyone watching it is spot on imo.

My Top Films of 2018 (Kinda)

My pick of the top films I saw for the first time in 2018 (which may or may not have been released in that year) in no particular order:

(Also please note that I have purposefully not linked any trailers as there's a few of these that are best experienced going in cold.)

Wonder

 It is not often that one sees episodes of ones own childhood rendered on the big screen in a full hollywood production and yet here we are. This was one of the first films I saw at the cinema last year and I don't think anything else really topped it, but then like the kid in the film I suffer from Treacher Collins Syndrome, I've never seen the condition in a film before so this film was basically made for me. I loved everything about this, not least that it had my home boy Daveed Diggs of the industrial hip hop crew clipping in it, of whom I've been a fan for quite some time and am enjoying watching him blow up at the minute. As someone with TCS I liked the messaging in this, particularly the scene late on where the kid who is sort of the antagonist is confronted and then you see why he is the way he is. I honestly think everybody should watch this film, the earlier the better, like they really should be showing it in schools.


Spring

 I'm not usually one for romantic films about young Americans abroad finding love amidst the beauty of a picturesque town in rural Europe, but this was one of the best written films of any genre I've seen in ages. It is legit a great romance film, a timeless meditation on life and love, men and women, sex and romance, the wisdom and charm of old world vs the optimism and cute naivety of the new, and also a boss monster film with charm, humour, subtle observation, real heart and some pretty solid SFX on what looks like quite a low budget. The lads that did this also did The Endless which is on Netflix at the moment, they are 3 for 3 in terms of making solid good films and I love their style and can't wait to see what they do from here on.



Baskin

I went on a bit of a horror binge after feeling somewhat let down by Hereditary, looking all the time for something genuinely unsettling. I watched a lot of stuff and some of it was good but never quite got what I was after. Then this came on TV one night and delivered in spades. Not a perfect film by any means  (doesn't quite stick the mark at the end) but it was a wild ride and got right under my skin as I was watching it and even thinking about the scene: "No, really look and tell me who else is here.... You've seen it. You've always seen it, running in the woods with grandma...." gives me the shivers.


Last Shift

Brought to my attention in a conversation between RedLetterMedia and Max Landis, I was very impressed with this. Proper fucking straight up horror that goes hard in all the ways a horror film should. Lots of nice gotcha moments, slow dread, some really creepy shit and unrelenting escalating intensity. Good stuff.


World of Tomorrow Parts 1 & 2

Two short films from Doug Hertzfeldt, in his  typical doodle-esque /  line drawing style of animation, now with some beautiful moving colourful backgrounds. With dialogue provided by his 4 then 5 year old neice this weaves some truly dank existential sci-fi with the whimsy and innocent optimism of childhood. Both parts are truly masterful, deep, hilariously funny and profund. This was the highlight of the (generally well curated) Belfast Film Festival this year for me.


The Shape of Water

Okay, it won an oscar and shit but seeing this and Get Out win big at the academy awards and beat off obvious oscar-bait and pseudo-intellectual garbage was for me like seeing my local team bring home the European Championship cup or something. Get the fuck in there Guilermo my son! Personally I'm a sucker for a good monster romance and anything vaguely lefty so this hit a few of my buttons, great central performances all round and a good happy ending. Actually an interesting one to watch in contrast with Spring for various reasons, for both how they are and aren't alike yet are completely brilliant.

Climax

The New European Extremity is still alive and well, one of the most singularly satisfying films I've seen at the cinema this year. It did its bit and did not outstay its welcome, delivering something truly unique along the way. There are no other films like this in the world, and its nice to be able to say that.

A Mother Brings Her Son To Be Shot

There have been some really excellent local documentaries that I would think are sufficiently good as films in their own right that I'd recommend them to anyone: No Stone Unturned, I, Dolores, Unquiet Graves and Massacre At Ballymurphy. No doubt we'll see many more in the near future. One could surmise  that since the 30 year rule now extends to the early troubles and we are far enough away from the hot part of the ongoing conflict here (which hasn't gone away you know...) that the immediate physical danger to its protagonists means that certain things are now accessible and can be said in public that we're ripe for a golden age of documentaries and books that actually tell the truth about what happened here. That said the best (or for me at least the most entertaining) of the current crop is this one, which is about what is still going on in the shitty wee estates on the edges of our metropolitan sprawl, the people that live there and how they live with  the local 'boys', the paramilitaries that are supposedly staunch defenders of their communities against Them 'Uns but are essentially just the same gangs and hoods that run 'tings on estates all over the western world, but in our unusual context. This was about a notorious incident in the Creggan on the edge of Derry and was tragic, shocking and very very funny in a way that is uniquely Northern Irish. Also a dire warning for the future that nobody else seems to be willing or able to deliver.

Best Worst Movie

Documentary about the legendary Troll 2 and the weird fandom that's grown up around it and the general social phenomenon of getting together with your mates and watching bad movies for the crack. A thoroughly entertaining and well made documentary in its own right worth watching as part of a double bill with the film itself if you've got company and that sort of time to kill.

Annihilation

Dumped unceremoniously on Netflix at the start of the year it kills me that this wasn't watchable on the big screen this side of the Atlantic. Boss special effects, lots of really dark creepy stuff and moments of beauty, in that grey area between art house and schlock that I love. This is everything Sci-fi should be on the big screen. Obvious visual and thematic nods to Tarkovsky, Kubrick and Alan Moore (like if you're going to borrow borrow from the best), yet very much its own thing.

Blindspotting / Sorry To Bother You

Two films. Two passion projects from directors with a background in hip-hop. Both star young upcoming African-American actors whose careers on the small screen in the states are blowing up into super stardom partly through their supporting roles on extremely well received situation comedies. Two films dealing in their own way with race and class, white privilege, gentrification. Both employ elements of satire to get their points across and are both incredibly funny, while being quite serious with some heavy moments. Both are masterpieces of modern cinema. Yet, one landed this side of the Atlantic with the hype and aplomb behind it it rightly deserved and got a wide cinematic release and the other didn't, and I can't for the life of me tell you why. If anyone knows do please fill me in.

A Dark Song

Absolute belter. As someone with a bit of an interest in though not a practitioner of magick this hit a lot of my happy places, like I've never tried doing anything like the stuff in this film myself but I know enough about it and the people who do do this IRL to appreciate that the writer and director knows his shit. Also nice to see some more great cinema coming out of my own country (albeit with and all English cast and pretending to be rural Wales). Does tone and atmosphere masterfully, big surprise for a first time director.

Mom and Dad

Yeah, we all loved Mandy but the Nicholas Cage performance of the year for me was this absolute gem. Picked it up from John Waters end of year list. Definitely one of the funniest films I've seen all year (is it just me or is it hard to find a good comedy these days?) again good sci-fi, nice central pleasingly Ballardian) conceit that's used to the fullest to explore something IRL and milk it for thrills, scares and dark dark humour. I look forwards to watching this with my own parents. (Not to be confused with Mum and Dad which I haven't seen yet but intend to).

The Untamed

Mexican cult cinema is really going off at the minute, in the wake of Guillermo Del Toro there is some really brilliant stuff being done, usually using a genre conceit to explore some IRL horror. Tigers Are Not Afraid was another one which was excellent and worth seeking out. The Untamed gets mad props from me for being an example of using a particularly trashy subgenre of sci-fi / horror with genuine thoughtfulness and seriousness. Would seriously recommend, best watched sight-unseen as its one where the less you know about it going in the better.


Spiderman: Into The Spider Verse

The very last films I saw in a cinema last year. I went in reckoning that it was going to be good. It wasn't long in before I started to feel like it was going to be the comic book adaption of the year, in what was quite a good year for that sort of thing came out thinking that it was the best comic book feature film  adaption of the current crop, possibly of all time and one of the best animated films ever full stop. I always say that the mark of a good comic book adaption is if it captures on screen the essence of what makes the comic good, down to the formal conceits employed. This did that like few others I've seen. The whole alternate universes being represented by different art / drawing styles is an old trick on paper (the earliest I remember seeing it was in 2000ADs Hewligans Haircut which is from the 80s but I don't doubt it had been done well before that) but this is the first time I've seen it on screen (aside from a throwaway gag in the otherwise shitty Hitchikers Guide film) and it made it a central plot point. That was cool, as was the brilliantly realised character work, the cutting edge animation, the meta inter-textual referential stuff that was just the right level of nerdy to please the die-hards endlessly while never disturbing the enjoyment of anyone else who wasn't in on it, the humour. Every element popped individually, and yet this managed to be more than the sum of its parts, even as good as those parts were.

Iconic Horror Cinema + my introduction to the genre

I came across an old 2000AD "Chilling Winter Tales" special of mine from 1994. It contains a short article by an anonymous features writer under the by-line Roxilla. It was a run down of their favourite horror films. Now these weren't deep cuts by todays standards at all, Starts with King Kong and runs through, Bride of Frankenstein, Psycho, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Nightmare on Elm Street etc through to the 80s, providing some interesting detail about the production and special effects along the way. Entry level stuff for sure but to a 13-year-old-me it was quite important and my first introduction to The Haunting, Suspiria, Near Dark and others which remain firm favorites of mine. 

Actual cover of that 2000AD Winter Special

Now the reason why I'm posting this is that one thing that always stuck with me from the article was the last paragraph: "Its sad that since Near Dark there's not been a horror film released that has come up to the standard of the 13 classics covered here. On the law of averages, you'd expect at least two cracking horror films in a decade. Maybe the classics for the 90s have yet to be made. Here's hoping that's true." 

Now, that's a bit of an exaggeration, by then Braindead had been made and some of the choices seem a bit arbitrary in retrospect (The Shining is a glaring omission for example) no doubt due to the limitations of the format, intended audience (I'm assuming there's no body horror or weird sexy stuff because its for kids / teens so no Hellraiser, Cronenberg etc.), a set word count, etc, but it does raise a question, what were the iconic, ground-breaking, trend setting horrors of the last couple of decades? 

Personally, I'd say for the 1990s Ring and The Blair Witch Project. Ring opened the doors of Asian horror onto an unsuspecting world, Blair Witch wasn't the first Found Footage film but it was the one that broke the genre into the mainstream, doesn't quite hold up today on its own as a piece of cinema so maybe not but as a method and a sign of where horror films were at at the turn of the century its pretty important. 

For the 2000s - 28 Days Later for bringing the zompocalypse survival horror genre up to date with aplomb and doing something new with the zombies and Martyrs for being both viscerally disturbing and thoughtful. This decade, I could be wrong but I can't think of anything that has been able to land with the sort of impact of any of the above. There's been some good ones and some interesting ones but I'm struggling to think of anything that's going to spawn its own subgenre or anything like that. The only thing I can think of is Under The Skin for being the first to bring an abstract art-house sensibility to horror. Maybe Get Out? Horror has always had an element of social commentary (sometimes unconscious) but that is very much what the film is from the surface down, while still being an effective horror film in its own right. 

Or I dunno, maybe the 2-per-decade premise was just a conceit to give a loose structure to the article and doesn't hold up at all under examination. Still, it was a decent introduction to Horror films, and while it wouldn't be defining of my taste in horror gave me a decent grounding in the history of horror cinema on which I would build later. 

For reference the 13 films covered by the article are as follows: 

King Kong 

The Bride of Frankenstein 

I Walked with a Zombie

Invasion of the Body Snatchers 

Psycho 

The Haunting 

Night of the Living Dead 

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre 

Suspiria 

Hallow'een 

The Evil Dead 

Nightmare on Elm Street 

Near Dark