A slacked off on my horror movie run last October and my goal is to get back on track for Halloween 2020.
Vampires vs the Bronx– This movie popped up in the new releases on Netflix and I decided to watch it on a whim. A pleasant surprise, it’s a lot of fun. A PG-13 comedy/horror movie that is good to watch for a lot of people. The only reason it’s PG-13 is for some cursing. Violence is at a minimum and I can’t remember any gore. The most intense effects are vampires turning to ash.
A really cute movie of a couple of kids protecting their home town from vampires. The vampires are moving into the Bronx using gentrification as a cover. Their human familiar is buying up property all over the Bronx and turning those spaces into nests. Miguel Rodriguez is the first to discover that vampires exist and when he brings his friends into it the investigation, the discover the insidious plot and take charge in protecting their home. It’s got some funny parts, is well paced and at about 80 minutes long, just the right runtime.
The Invisible Man (2020)- This turned out way better than I thought it would. Smart modern twist, great cast, and excellent tension building scenes.
The movie starts with Cecilia (Elizabeth Moss) escaping her abusive husband, Adrian. She hides at a friend’s house and only her sister knows she’s there. Cecilia planned each step of her escape, paranoid Adrian will find her. Not long after, he commits suicide and leaves her a large part of his estate. Cecilia is suspicious as Adrian was a control freak so suicide doesn’t make any sense and she quickly becomes paranoid that she’s being watch and Adrian faked his death. Suspicious events suddenly turn violent and Cecilia is forced to prove on her own that Adrian is invisibly hunting her.
There is some fantastic direction in this movie, especially at the start. The special effect is that someone is invisible so they could be anywhere. The camera moves around like it’s as suspicious as Cecilia is, that someone else is somewhere in the room with us. You look down hallways, into corners, at furniture and rugs for the indication of the weight of a person. This movie nails paranoia, which is one effective scary emotion. The escalation of danger and intensity is also fantastic. I really like the pacing as it ratchets up at just the right time and just the right way. I was engaged the entire time and surprised more than once (in terms of scares and plot). Great special effects make it believable too. There are two scenes of intense gore, the rest is pretty tame.
The Devil All the Time– I’m cheating on putting this one in the list as technically it isn’t a horror movie. It’s a messed up crime/thriller that will throw you into a pit of yuck.
Essentially, Arvin has a terrible childhood to teenage years that’s affected by a serial killer and doesn’t know it. He crosses paths with the killer years later in some kind of macabre twist of fate. Arvin grows up extremely poor with a father that is bent on some serious levels of faith belief. When his mother dies of cancer, his father spirals out of control and he goes to live with family members who are also taking care of his cousin whose mother disappeared.
This is a bleak movie where the main character struggles to live a happy life because of incredibly sinister people. With so much pain to deal with, Arvin becomes a protector. One of the things he learns from his father is to pick your battles. And when you do, you make sure it’s clear that you won the battle. This becomes his core survival technique.
I found this to be a pretty enthralling movie with engrossing stories of people being manipulated with faith, trust, and sometimes basic politeness. Throw in some police corruption and you have three stories that start in different places and times that all come together. The boy who plays Arvin at age 9 is fantastic and older Arvin is played by Tom Holland who keeps impressing me with every role he does. Props to Robert Pattinson for bringing to life uber creep Rev. Preston Teagardin. With a lot of memorable characters that travel in extremes, this one stuck with me.
The Babysitter: Killer Queen– I liked The Babysitter (2017) a lot when it came out. A good send up to 80s horror movies, with its mix of horror and comedy. While it’s not a surprise that this movie could get a sequel, I was surprised that it was made and it turned out this way. The weird scenario takes away a lot of the potential making this feel cheaper and forced.
After surviving the cult of the first movie, Cole is now in high school. To say he’s been traumatized is an understatement and no one believes him about what happened because all of the proof of the cult disappeared. So he’s the ultra weird kid in high school and that doesn’t help with his recovery. He’s invited to go to a big party at a lake which he reluctantly goes to. Low and behold, the cult is ready and waiting for him.
The Babysitter took place almost exclusively in Cole’s house. A small scale horror movie that put all of its money into wild SFX. Terrific action and death scenes, perfect for the genre. Killer Queen expands the mythology of the cult and adds locations to make the story bigger. But it doesn’t work too well. Most of the movie takes place in/around a lake that’s surrounded by nothing but dirt and rocks. At the start of the party, it looks like there are a lot of kids and in a matter of seconds, everyone is gone. The story goes from the interior of a boat to a chase away from the lake. It’s very isolating so it doesn’t add anything to the scale of the movie. Plus, every outdoor scene looks like a phony set because there is no way to light the scene realistically with where they are. You can see the giant lights they had to set up. The locations also limited what could be done for deaths so a few of those feel weak as well.
Overall, a disappointment. A stretch to make a sequel, no suspense whatsoever…I think the only thing I liked was the end which was rather touching. It would be best to leave this franchise here.