Creepy Cinema 2019 : Season of Nostalgia

It’s my favorite time of the year once again. Fall definitely crept up faster than I thought, but I won’t complain. Not going to lie guys, Markus and I have had our Halloween decorations up since the second weekend of September.

For our eighth year of Creepy Cinema, we’ve decided to watch 12 films that remind Markus and I of our youth. There are a lot of classics that I haven’t seen so I’m excited to see how they’ve held up over the years! Check out the list below and let me know if any are your favorites, and get ready for Creepy Cinema: The Season of Nostalgia!

• Halloween (1978)

• Phantasm (1979)

• Return of the Living Dead (1985)

• Aliens (1986)

• Lost Boys (1987)

• Child’s Play (1988)

• Arachnophobia (1990)

• It (1990)

• The Addams Family (1991)

• The Craft (1996)

• Scream (1996)

• Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019)

Creepy Cinema 2018 | Attack of the VHS | Week Four

Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors - 1987

Surprisingly, this is my first Nightmare on Elm Street movie. From what Markus tells me, this is one of the better films in the franchise, and for those of you that don’t know the lore of Freddy Krueger, I’ll break it down real easy for you. When he was alive, Freddy Krueger was a child murderer and was burned alive by an angry mob of parents who live on Elm Street. They thought that would be the end of Freddy, but in reality it was only the beginning of the nightmare. Freddy becomes a sort of dream demon and begins killing all the children of the Elm Street parents (who burned him alive) in their sleep. This movie picks up the story line from the original Elm Street by reintroducing Nancy, the main protagonist from the first film, who is now on a mission to finally put an end to Freddy’s rein of terror.

 Dream Warriors is an interesting movie. I wouldn’t say it’s great but I wouldn’t say it’s awful either. I liked finally seeing Freddy Krueger in action, and there were some really creative death scenes. I also enjoyed how Freddy would take something from your life and twist it into something macabre, just like a true nightmare. He’s definitely a creep, but not as scary as people made him out to be. The scene with his bones being reanimated was a little much and felt very out of place. I mean, how does Freddy even know how to reanimate his bones? And how does he even know where they’re located? I do think that if I watched this movie in the 80s I would’ve been terrified. I mean a guy who can literally murder you in your dreams? That’s pretty clever. Strangely enough, this movie made me want to watch more in the Elm St. series.

The Hunger - 1983

Of all the films on this year’s list, this was the film I was anticipating the most. If you know me, the reason is quite obvious and takes upon the form of the beautiful human, David Bowie. Prior to this year, I never heard of this movie, which seems strange for me since it has ALL the things I like: Bowie, vampires, tragedy and 80s music. It’s like The Hunger was made for me. The film follows an extremely attractive vampire couple, Bowie and Catherine Deneuve as well as a doctor played by Susan Sarandon. At first I thought the film was going to be similar to the 2013 film Only Lovers Left Alive, and boy was I wrong.

So I think that my rating of “so good” is somewhat skewed by a couple things. One being my absolute blind love of Bowie and how extremely attractive he is in the first half of the movie. The other thing is that the first 20 minutes and the last 20 minutes are pretty great. It’s just the in-between that’s mediocre. The pacing is slow and it’s a bit to arthouse for me. Also the director shoots in a very interesting way where the camera is always close to the actors’ faces. It gives off this weird sense of awkwardness, of course that might have been the director’s intention. The cast is pretty great in this, and the makeup and special effects are truly amazing. I mean, they managed to make Bowie unrecognizable, which is hard especially with his unique eyes. The climax and conclusion of the film piqued my interest again, so I felt comfortable enough giving it a tentative “so good,” but with a warning that it might not be for everyone.

The Fly - 1986

As long as I’ve been with Markus, he’s been talking about this movie. I’ve been able to hold out on watching this movie for the past 15 years, but this year was definitely my reckoning. I mean, I’m a huge Jeff Goldblum fan, but even he couldn’t convince me to watch this movie sooner than this year. The Fly was directed by, the brilliant yet disturbing, David Cronenberg — who also directed Scanners and The Brood. I’ve covered both of those films in previous years of Creepy Cinema, and found both to be a little unnerving. And as I expected, this movie was far more than unnerving than the aforementioned films. It was down right nightmarish for me.

I knew that there was going to be some gore and body horror in this film, but still nothing could prepare me for what it actually was. I found The Fly to be somewhat deceptive because the first half appears to be standard 80s horror movie affair. Nothing too awful, just a boy and girl who find themselves drawn to each other, and then an inciting action begins that throws them down a nightmarish path. The film follows excentric scientist, Seth Brundle (Jeff Gloldblum), who performs a series of teleportation experiments. He begins with teleporting inanimate objects from one booth to another. Soon he repeats the experiment with animals and eventually moves on to himself — which was probably the worst idea ever. I will say that the special effects makeup is incredibly well done and strikingly believable. There were a few times where I literally felt a bit nauseous and had to look away. Overall this film is actually great! The acting is top notch, the special effects and makeup are incredible and the story is compelling. It’s just that the body horror was WAY too over the top for me. I can’t envision a scenario where I would willingly rewatch The Fly, but for those of you that like that sort of thing, I recommend this movie. For those that are squeamish, at least give it a try — but then stay far-far away!

Creepy Cinema 2018 | Attack of the VHS | Week One

The Thing from Another World - 1951

This movie was the inspiration for the 1982 film, John Carpenter’s The Thing, which is one of Markus’ favorite movies. We watched it for the first year of Creepy Cinema, and I have never been the same. So it was very exciting to watch the film that inspired that nightmare inducing bottle movie. The Thing from Another World follows a group of scientists and military crew that discover a crashed alien spacecraft in the North Pole. The group investigates and realizes that there is some “thing” frozen in the water next to the crashed ufo. The rest of the film follows the aftermath of finding the unknown creature and how it affects the isolated group. There are some bad decisions made by the military and the scientists to their detriment. I actually spent some time yelling at the TV when people made poor decisions or went on to “investigate“ a situation.

Overall it was a really fun movie and quite scary for the era it was produced in. The film also has an exciting and explosive third act conflict that is a must see. The titular Thing never speaks, is quite menacing and frightening in its own right. However despite all these monstrous qualities, humanity again shows that it truly is the real monster. It’s easy to see why this film would influence and inspire Carpenter to create such a beloved cult classic. Definitely give it a watch.

Evil Dead 2 - 1987

One of my favorite movies we’ve watched for Creepy Cinema is Evil Dead. I’ve never been more terrified in my life. I remember watching with my legs bent up in to my chin the whole time and screaming at anything, even if it wasn’t meant to be scary. I screamed so much that I even freaked out Markus. It was a great time. Seriously, when a movie is so good at scaring the audience, but also interesting and compelling — I kinda get why people become horror fans. Prior to this viewing, I watched Evil Dead 2 years ago and I remember really enjoying it. I always described Evil Dead a true horror movie, because it’s terrifying and Evil Dead 2 as the lighter and funnier version.

The real star of this movie is obviously Bruce Campbell as the lead character, Ash Williams. I mean come on, look at the dude, he’s so charismatic it’s unreal. While the first film focused on Ash’s character with his friends, this one spent a lot of time with him alone in the infamous cabin. It’s really great to see him grow as an actor and character, and ultimately become the Ash that we all know and love. I will say that I liked the first film a bit more because it was scarier, which I know is so strange. This movie was still incredible, but for different reasons — and it of course lays the foundation for the incredibly awesome movie, Army of Darkness.

Bats - 2000

Oh man, it’s not like I didn’t know what to expect. I mean the movie really is about bats, and a ton of them. Before we saw the movie at the store, I actually didn’t know it existed. But how could I say no to Lou Diamond Philipps and Dina Meyer, aka Dizzy Flores, from Starship Troopers — one of my favorite movies of all time. It has all the trappings of a great B-grade creature feature, like Gremlins and Critters, but it just really falls flat.

Phillips is the sheriff in a sleepy Texas town that is suddenly invaded by a huge swarm of genetically altered bats, who are also carrying a terrible virus. In order to capture the bats and contain the epidemic, the CDC call in a zoologist who specializes in “batology.” At first, the film is off to a running start and is quite action packed. When we get to the town and finally introduce all the characters, it just slows down and get’s really uninteresting. There were too many scenes with bats attacking people, and said people being unable to defend themselves. I kept rolling my eyes the entire time, because the townsfolk simply continued making the worst decisions. When we finally reached the movie’s resolution, I wasn’t invested in a single character and honestly couldn’t tell you what happened to them. It’s really unfortunate because this could’ve been a really fun flick, but it ultimately disappointed me.

Creepy Cinema 2017: Week 3

I cannot believe how fast this month went by! The older we get the faster the days go by, it's crazy. Thank you for sticking with me this month and I hoped you enjoyed the movies and my thoughts on them. Check out the last four films of this year below and don't forget to let me know what you think in the comments below!

It is definitely one of my favorite movies from this year. I’ve been spreading the gospel of It to anyone that will listen, and I think people are getting sick of me talking about it. I’m actually quite surprised at how many people find clowns terrifying. I get it, I don’t really like clowns either. A grown man with a painted face and a permanent, sinister smile - it’s unnerving. This film definitely draws from that fear and turns it up more than a notch.

It was an incredible film that 100% met expectations and lived up to all the hype. This movie had everything: an interesting storyline, great actors and most importantly, a terrifying monster. Pennywise is the epitome of what I think a monster should be. He completely lacks humanity, preys upon all your fears and is downright scary. Bill Skarsgård did an incredible job portraying Pennywise, so much so that you forget how hot he is in real life. Pennywise will forever haunt my dreams. The cast of main characters (all kids), also known as the Losers Club, was phenomenal. They all had great character development, and being a “loser” myself growing up, I definitely empathized with them so much. In the past few years, there has been an influx of 80s nostalgia in media, and this movie really cashed in on it, much like Stranger Things did last year. However It wasn’t nostalgic for nostalgia’s sake, and hits all the right notes an incredible film should. I can honestly say, this is quite possibly one of the best horror films I’ve ever seen.

I was pleasantly surprised at how much I liked this movie. Markus has been going on and on about this franchise, and we purposefully waited till this year to watch it so that we could make it a double feature with the sequel. As you may know, I love Unsolved Mysteries and other shows that deal with mysteries and investigations, so this movie is right up my alley. The film is based on the real life husband and wife paranormal investigative duo, Ed and Lorraine Warren. This film is loosely based on their investigation into the Perron Family Haunting in Rhode Island.

I really liked The Conjuring, I thought it was a well done supernatural horror movie. It didn’t feel like the typical film of its genre. Sure it’s draws on the familiar trope of a family being terrorized by some malevolent spirit, but it still felt fresh and interesting thanks to some great acting and direction. There were some genuine scares as well as jump-scares, but the film didn’t heavily rely on those elements. I also enjoyed that the story is told from the point of view of the Warrens instead of the family. It felt more personal and we delved a bit into their other stories and what drives them to do this type of investigative work for a living. The actors that portray Ed and Lorraine, Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga, deliver a genuine performance. Their chemistry is on point and you can really feel how much this pair needs each other -  they really compliment one another on screen. The backstory of the spirit that haunts them was also a really cool mystery that kept me on the edge of my seat. So much so that I was ready to watch The Conjuring 2!

Unfortunately this sequel wasn’t as good as the first, which is usually the case. I still think the concept of these movies are really good and I love Wilson and Farmiga in these roles, but something seemed a bit off. The film opens with the Warrens mid-investigation into the Lutz Family murders, otherwise known as the Amityville Horror. During the investigation Lorraine sees a horrible vision that puts her family in danger, and convinces Ed to stop investigating in order to prevent it from coming true. Of course the Warren’s can’t stay away from their work, and end up traveling to Enfield, England to investigate a series of strange occurrences.

I did like that this film moved the setting to England and focused on a haunting occurring overseas. Most of the famous true crime mysteries are based in the U.S., so it’s always refreshing to watch something that’s set in another country. I also really enjoyed the actress that played the young protagonist, Janet Hodgson. She was a real emphatic, human character and the best part of the film. There was just something about this movie that rubbed me the wrong way, and truly can’t put my finger on it. I had to watch this film in 4 separate parts - I don’t know if it was my fear of that creepy nun at the beginning, pure disinterest, or if I just couldn’t connect with the story itself. Probably just the creepy nun. (shudder)

I couldn’t think of a better film to end Creepy Cinema with, and ease us into the holiday season. The Krampus is an Eastern European Christmas monster from folklore. I first heard about the Krampus when I was younger. Being someone named Noelle, you get curious about all things yuletide. No one knows when and how the Krampus originated, but one thing is sure, he is definitely not Saint Nick. He’s the complete antithesis of the jolly old fellow. He’s described as a horned demon that punishes wicked children and drags them away in chains. When Markus and I first saw the preview for the film, we were so excited and couldn’t wait to watch the movie.

The film follows a very dysfunctional family as they come together for Christmas. It mainly focuses on the younger son, Max, who wants to keep all his family traditions alive, while his parents and relatives fight amongst one another. The tension is quite strong between the family members, and when they’re all finally under one roof, everything goes wrong. A blizzard overtakes the town trapping residents in their homes - and this is when the film becomes a classic bottle movie. We watch as the family tries to survive the terrible weather conditions, handle the growing tensions amongst themselves and inevitably, the arrival of the Krampus. I think for most of us, we know that Christmas time can be a time of great joy, but also stress. So it was fun to watch a familiar situation turn into a horror film. I thought the movie was really enjoyable and entertaining, and the Krampus was totally scari-fying. If you want to hold onto Halloween for just a little longer but still get into the Christmas mood, I most definitely recommend the Krampus! It’s the perfect segway!

Creepy Cinema 2017: Week One

Hello boils and ghouls, October has finally arrived and you know what that means! It's time for Creepy Cinema on Ganda-Ganda! I honestly can't believe it's been five years of horror movies. I didn't think I was going to last one year, but here we are half a decade later and we're still doing it. If this is the first time you're hearing of Creepy Cinema, I'll give you a quick rundown. I'm terrified of scary movies, I just can't do them. I get scared by anything and have been known to scream quite loudly at the littlest things. My husband Markus on the other hand, has loved them since he was a kid. His knowledge of horror films is so vast and since he's an incredible husband every day, I decided to give him October to indulge in all things creepy. Thus the beginning of Creepy Cinema.

This year, I'll be watching and reviewing ten movies created from 2010 to this current year. I will say that I've gotten better with some genres of scary movies, but in some cases, I'm still the same and can barely watch in one sitting. There have been some incredible movies this year and some stinkers. This year Markus suggested that I implement a rating system to help separate the tricks from the treats. I hope you guys enjoy the offerings this year and don't hesitate to leave me your thoughts on the films below! 

1. Get Out - (2017)

I’m obviously super late to the party on this one, but wanted to include it because it was such a great movie and truly one of the most terrifying ones in so many ways. So if you’ve been living under a rock and have no idea what Get Out is about, I’ll give you a quick run down. Basically, the story revolves around a young, interracial couple, Chris and Rose. Chris hasn’t met Rose’s parents, so they decide to spend a weekend at her parent’s country estate. From the start, everything seems a bit off. Let’s be real, her family is real WASPy and there are major Stepford Wives-vibes happening. As the viewer you know that these people are doing something awful and that something terrible is going to happen.

The thing I loved most about this film was how relevant and real it was. There was no sugar coating on anything. It tackles the race issue head on. It was so much more than a “horror movie”. Get Out is not only clever and well acted, it makes you think about the social issues of today. It becomes a conversation starter and hopefully sparks the change for something good. At least, that’s what I think. Either way it’s an incredible film.  Usually with these sort of horror movies, I can guess or make predictions and I’m dead on. I was close with this one, but they managed to surprise me with another layer to their horrifying twist. If you haven’t seen Get Out, please do.

2. Beware the Slenderman (2016)

For the first time in Creepy Cinema history, I’m going to write about a documentary, but this documentary is based off of something truly terrifying and worst of all, very very real. Not sure if you know this about me, but I am a huge fan of true crime. I watch tons of crime shows like Dateline, 48 Hours, etc., and listen to lots of podcasts that cover murderers and mysteries. I attribute it to the fact that I watched Unsolved Mysteries with my dad when I was little girl. True crime and mysteries were also so interesting to me, because I always wanted to know why someone could do something so terrible. Also, I don’t trust people, so it’s always good to be educated. So when I heard that they were making a documentary of the horrible story of two 12 year girls that attempted to murder their friend in the spring of 2014, I knew I had to watch.

I don’t want to give too much away, because I think it’s really interesting to know the story and motivation behind why these girls did what they did. It wasn’t something as simple as jealousy or monetary gain, like most true crime stories. It was something completely different, it had to do with the modern day Bogeyman better known as Slenderman. Those that are current with memes and pop culture know who he is and most know that he’s a fictional character meant to scare people. However for these two girls, he wasn’t make-believe, he was very real. The documentary tackles issues of adolescence, parenting, bullying and mental illness. For me, I had problems with the way they tried to downplay the crime that these girls committed. However it does give us an inside look from the point of view of the parents of the two accused girls, and sheds a light on some really tough issues. Of all the things I’ve seen this year, this was by far the scariest and truly hard to watch.

3. The Girl with all the Gifts (2016)

We watched this film on the recommendation from our friends from the U.K. They knew that Markus and I do Creepy Cinema every year and suggested we check it out. Fun fact, scenes were shot in Stoke-on-Trent, the little town we spent Christmas 2016 in. The Girl with all the Gifts is based off the 2014 book of the same name by M.R. Carey. I didn’t know much about the novel or film before watching, and sometimes that’s a good thing. The film is set in the near post-apocalyptic, dystopian future. Everyone pretty much speaks British English except for Glenn Close. Humanity was wiped out by a type of fungal disease that causes everyone to lose their minds and suddenly crave flesh, so this brand of zombies are dubbed “hungries”. The hungries remain dormant, until disturbed by the scent of uninfected humans, at which point they attack you crazy-fast. The only hope for humanity is a small group of gifted children and most importantly one specific girl named Melanie.  

Overall, I thought The Girl with all the Gifts was just okay. It wasn’t terrible by any stretch, but it wasn’t great either. In the past five years or so, there has been an onslaught of these female-driven, post-apocalyptic films as well as heaps of zombie films. So for me, the market is just too saturated with movies that contain a lot of the same tropes. I definitely got some 28 Days Later vibes when I was watching, which was refreshing. I also like that the main character was different from most protagonists, however the storytelling was a bit awkward and slighty unmemorable.