Miles Watson's Blog: ANTAGONY: BECAUSE EVERYONE IS ENTITLED TO MY OPINION - Posts Tagged "halloween"

It's October again, folks, and you know what that means: it's time for your least favorite writer, blogger and YouTuber to watch 31 horror movies in 31 days, culminating, of course, in a final horror flick on Halloween Night. I've been doing this for four or five years now, and I see no reason to deviate in the Year Of Our Lord 2025.

Full disclosure: I began this campaign quite a bit earlier than usual, because I got tired of going into November still owing half a dozen movies. So as it happens, for once I am ahead of my own schedule -- considerably so. So without further ado, here's what I've watched as of the first week of the season.

Do Not Open Until Christmas (1984). This weird old British horror film pits a maniac with a grudge against Santa Claus against the London police at holiday-time. It's noteworthy mainly for its violently energetic absurdity and a couple of cast members I recognize from classic "Doctor Who." It did hold my interest, somehow.

The House on Sorority Row (1982). Sorority girls are a played-out megatrope for horror movies, but I really enjoyed this spirited flicktoon about a gaggle of gals who play a prank on their dragon landlady which goes horribly wrong, spiraling into yet more murderous wrongness. This movie deserves its small cult fandom.

Visiting Hours (1982). I don't know what the hell to make of this Canadian movie. Starring the redoubtable Michael Ironside, it also features William Shatner in a strangely pointless role as the beau of a female newscaster stalked by a relentless predator through the halls of a conveniently empty hospital. Too much plot armor weighs down a fairly earnest attempt at fright. It didn't suck, but it should have been better.

Happy Birthday to Me (1981). I remember the advertisement for this banger in the local newspaper when it debuted. How did it take me so long to watch it? "The Ten" are a gang of too-cool-for-school co-eds who have fallen afoul of a merciless and very inventive killer with a grudge nobody can understand. A well-crafted, well-acted story balances relentless violence with a gnawing mystery and a fairly fresh take on the "college kids getting slaughtered" trope so often found in these films.

The Initiation (1984). Despite an impressive cast, that features Daphne Zuniga, James Read, Vera Miles and Clu Galagher, this is merely another in an endless list of sorority-themed slashers spewed out in the 80s that features a bunch of bimbos and their boytoys trapped in a mall on initiation night while a loon with the usual hidden grievance hunts them down. Everyone does work hard in this film and there is a twist, but it's fairly forgettable.

Food of the Gods (1976). I watched this because the poster was in the lobby of a trailer house I worked at in Los Angeles. It's pretty fucking bad. A riff on an H.G. Wells short story, it's about a greedy corporation whose chemicals transform the local rat population on Vancouver Island into gigantic ravenous killers. Silly and low-budget, I spent more time laughing at the awful effects than covering my eyes.

Empire of the Ants (1977). What would horror be without silly monster movies? This entertaining piece of nonsense pits giant ants against a group of hapless investors trapped on a peninsula. The entertaining part comes mainly when they effect their escape, only to discover the ants have partners that walk on two legs.

House of the Devil (2009). This could have been a helluva movie. As it is, it is an interest-holder that never quite lives up to the promise of the first hour. A college girl strapped for cash gets a suspiciously large cash offer to babysit an old woman in a remote, creepy old house in the middle of nowhere. Bad idea honey. "House" does a fine job of building dread and suspense early, and there are some nasty surprises, but turns silly, predictable and portentious down the stretch. I call this type of film the two-and-a-half-star kind; just a half-star short of good. Still, it's worth a watch.

Kill List (2011). This ultraviolent flick is the tale of two killers for hire, one British and one Irish, who accept a contract from a mysterious employer to kill a series of people, only to discover their targets seem suspiciously eager, even thankful, to be killed. As their campaign of murder proceeds, they become increasingly baffled by what they encounter. Are they really the ones with the power, or are they being set up for something? It's an arresting and well-made movie, but even the director admitted the story is incoherent and the mystery without a solution.

Ghost Story (1981). Four old men are haunted, quite literally, by a long-ago crime they committed, and must come to terms with what they did before the vengeful ghost gets them all...and anyone else who gets in their way. I found this "small town horror" piece smart, well-acted and engaging, if a trifle stolid for a horror movie.

Threads (1984). Threads is not strictly speaking a horror movie, but it is far more horrifying than almost any horror movie ever made. A documentary-style depiction of what a nuclear war would do to Britain, it is even more devastating than "The Day After" in its no-holds-barred depiction of radiation poisoning, physical destruction, and societal breakdown on a massive scale. This movie is not for the faint of heart.

Alligator (1980). I watched this tongue-in-cheek debacle in honor of Robert Forster, a gentlemanly actor I used to encounter on my hikes in Hollywood. It's about, well, an alligator which lives in the sewers of Chicago after being flushed down a toilet as a wee nipper. The gator feeds on some plot-convenient chemically infused carcasses, and grows up big (36 feet) strong, mean, and well, hungry. You can imagine the rest. Forster plays a hard-luck cop tasked with convincing the powers that be that, well, there's a giant gator eating people in Chicago. It's silly rubbish, but undeniably fun.

The Car (1977). James Brolin versus a car from hell? Sign me up. A stupid riff on "Jaws," a sort of "Jaws on wheels," this is nonetheless a watchable low-budget flick which may have been the inspiration, of sorts, for Stephen King's "Christine." It's about...well, an evil car that runs people over, and the sheriff who tries to stop it. There are some very good set-piece scenes in this otherwise throwaway movie.

White of the Eye (1987). One of the five weirdest movies I've ever seen, "White" is about a serial killer prowling back-country Arizona who murders promiscuous women. It's one of those movies where the protagonist may or may not be the bad guy, and it has a distinctly Outback feel to it despite being set in the US of A. Dunno how else to describe this relentlessly weird, offbeat, unstructured acid trip of a film.

The Beast (Parts 1 & 2). A forgotten novel by Peter ("Jaws") Benchley led to this entertaining if utterly TV-movie-ish TV movie about a giant killer squid which terrorizes the waters off a charming seaside town. William Petersen rises above the mediocre material to deliver his usual excellent performance as an oceanographer tasked with fighting The Beast. This movie is basically "Jaws" with a squid, but it's a lot of fun, there are some very good actors in the cast, and the first of the two parts is hugely entertaining.

The Redeemer (1978): This very low-budget and obscure entry on my list has one redeeming (sorry) characteristic: it tries very hard. It tries so hard, in fact, that it is actually memorable, if not precisely good, or even mediocre. It's about, sort of, a group of people lured to a phony high school reunion and then stalked and murdered by a disguised attacker with a twisted moral code. Called by one modern critic a "proto-slasher," it is at that, though the supernatural angle of the film seems to have been thrown in simply to cash in on the popularity of "The Omen."

Jaws 3-D (1983). "Jaws" was an all-time great movie, and is considered by some also to be the greatest horror movie ever made. "Jaws 2" is an exploitative and totally unnecessary sequel which is nonetheless entertaining. "Jaws 3: 3D" is one of the worst pieces of shit I have ever witnessed. It's about a Sea World type operation that gets a visit from a killer shark. It's cheesy, stupid, preposterous, fake, dumb, boring, silly, stupid, a waste of time, and, uh stupid. What a piece of shit. The cast has a lot of heavyweights who probably want to forget making it.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003). Few franchises have been exploited as mercilessly as the horro classic "Texas Chainsaw," and most of the entries are unwatchably awful, but this remake of the 1974 original ain't bad. Featuring the ass of Jessica Biel (the camera basically follows Jessica around from behind at just below waist level, and thank God for that!), it follows a van full of luckless twentysomethings who blunder into a chainsaw-wielding maniac and his fucked-up family deep in the Texas badlands. While it's not a patch on the original, and it foolishly leaves out the cannibalistic element that made the first so fucking unsettling, it's actually a pretty good movie.

Sputnik (2020). I had high hopes for this Russian story about a Soviet-era cosmonaut who returns to earth with a parasitical monster in his belly, and it's certainly well-made, but in the end it's basically just "Alien" set in the USSR circa 1980 or so.

God Told Me To (1976). Robert Forster quit this picture because the director was abusive. I think the director may have been on drugs, too, because even moreso than "White of the Eye," this movie is like a bad fever dream. It follows a confused NYPD detective on the trail of a cult leader whose followers are committing random murders because, well, God told them to. After a strong opening it rambles incoherently and endlessly toward a bizarre ending that is half-sci fi, half-religious, and all senseless.

The Falling (1988). Another low-budget 80s movie I'd never heard of, this was surprisingly fun. Three dimwitted Americans doing spain by van encounter a virus from space that turns people and animals into murderous lunatics. One of those stories that refuses to take itself seriously, it actually succeeds as a comedy if not a fright flick, thanks to a fairly witty script and actors that seemed to enjoy every moment of their screen time.

The Lighthouse (2019). This movie is technically horror-suspense, or suspense-horror, or psychological horror...who the hell knows? It too is massively weird and bizarre, almost incomprehensible, but I loved it, mainly because the two leads, played by Willem Defoe and Robert Pattinson, absolutely crush their roles as lighthouse keepers who go get cabin fever and go stir crazy manning their desolated rock in the Atlantic. The B & W cinematography is a character in itself, and while the movie is basically a sort of cinematic allegory of seafaring and Greek myths, served with a hefty dose of paranoia and surrealism, it just works somehow.

And that, folks, is it for now. I'm about 22 movies deep, so I can ease back and collect a few more modern entries to round out the collection before Hallowen strikes. And incidentally, they are rerelasing a trulystrange film, "Halloween III: Season of the Witch" in AMC theaters on Halloween, and I plan to be there. H3 is one of the most maligned movies in horror history, but damned if it doesn't draw you in to its web of weirdness.