Now if you aren’t fully aware of what exactly this month entails for me, it’s a month where I watch nothing but horror movies every night and only horror. It also goes without saying that my film reviews will be nothing but horror movies as well. Hence a month of horror!
To mix things up this year, I’m going to be doing something a bit different. Since I have a limited amount of reviews to write and so many movies on my list to watch, I thought it might be interesting to give a kind of weekly wrap up of all the movies I saw that week and if maybe they were worth checking out or not. I’ll be posting these weekend wrap-ups on Sundays all month long, so keep an eye out for that if you’re interested.
Here’s what I accomplished the first week…
The First Purge – I found this to be the weakest in the franchise. It suffers heavily from a lack of budget. It seemed cheap and almost slapped together like some of the later Saw movies. Like they needed to just get it out in theaters as quickly as possible, using stock blood VFX you’d find for After Effect and stock sound effects you’d get for free if you google royalty free sound effects. I would have liked it if it connected more to the previous films. It would have been perfect to go back and show how the resistance started that we saw in the last film. But nope, just random characters that you’ll never see again. Also, stupid title, really stupid title. RENT
Slice – This one was very disappointing for me. Horror comedy is my favorite genre but rarely is it ever executed properly. This felt less like a movie and more like a tv series that was edited down into a movie. It had potential but in the end it really failed to deliver. Get it, “deliver” a pizza delivery pun… because the film is about pizza delivery… anyway, instead maybe check out Freaks of Nature, a film that successfully pulls off what Slice couldn’t. SKIP
Hostile – This one was pretty good, worth checking out I’d say. I had to check several times if the version I was watching was actually dubbed, as it is pretty flawless and I really couldn’t tell. It’s a contained horror film, mostly taking place in an upside down truck. Ending slightly made my eyes roll, but besides that it, it was worth the watch. RENT
Blood Fest – I shockingly enjoyed this one. A mix of over the top gore and humor. I particularly liked the line “his next film was going to be a rom-com! I was going to be the rom!”. It’s by rooster teeth, the YouTube gaming channel. They’ve previously done two other films before this and by far this is their best work. RENT
Lake Placid Legacy – This had some ok writing and acting, about what you’d expect from a film like this. But oh man does the awful croc CGI kill it for me. Bad practical effects have a sort of charm to them but bad CGI is just so damn painful to watch. SKIP
American Fright Fest – The last in the “fest” films. Terrible writing with the added bonus of terrible acting. If that wasn’t bad enough, the film also felt somehow unfinished. Like they didn’t have the money to film some scenes, so things sometimes didn’t make sense. On the plus side however, all practical effects. SKIP
Trench 11 – A really boring version of the first Resident Evil film. Not much else to really say about this one. Mostly they sit around talking to each other when a film like this should be high intensity at all times. They’re stuck in claustrophobic spaces, we should felt as frightened as they are, or at least on edge as something could corner them at any second. Something the film The Descent did very well. After that film came out, a ton of films just like it started rolling out and from what I remember, all pulled it off pretty well like The Cave and The Burrowers. SKIP
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