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[#Horror #reTweet] 31 Days of #Halloween #HorrorMovies 2014: Week One Recap

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10 years ago

October 11, 2014

31 Days of Halloween Horror Movies 2014: Week One Recap
By Goon

It’s that time of the year again when I give up a little part of my sanity to watch 31 horror movies in 31 days. Yep, its Halloween. Last year was the roughest year I have ever had doing this. I had a lot of real life responsibilities at the time but I wasn’t going to let that break my long running tradition leading up to Halloween.

As I said last year this is by no means a “Best Of” list or even movies I recommend you watch over the Halloween season. This is mostly just movies that I missed when they first came out or movies that have been sitting in my Netflix que for WAY too long. Let’s get this shindig going..

October 1st: Carrie (2013)

If you are a horror fan you have probably seen the original but if not I’ll give you a quick run down. Carrie is a young girl in High School who is constantly picked on by the “popular” kids when she discovers she has a special ability. She can move things with her mind. However her god fearing mother believes it is some form of witchcraft. When Carrie gets invited to the prom.. well lets just say things don’t go well for anyone.

Overall this remake wasn’t entirely bad. But I did have a couple problems with the characters. The main antagonist is just WAY over the top. In the original she came across as just slightly twisted or a bully. However in this remake the girl is just flat out crazy or evil. Pick your poison. They did do a pretty good job of exploring Carries powers this time around though which was a nice touch. For some reason I think I also felt more for Carrie this time around. It was just more heartbreaking for some reason. The best part of the film however was probably Julianne Moore’s performance as Carries mother. She really stole the show. Worth checking out at least once.

October 2nd: You’re Next

This is pretty much your run of the mill home invasion film with a pretty cool twist at the end. I had heard quite a bit about Adam Wingard’s latest but I just never got around to giving it a spin. I wasn’t a huge fan of his A Horrible Way to Die so I put this one off for awhile. But it turns out this was actually a really entertaining little flick.

The cast in this is really good and it was funny to see Ti West playing a director. It actually took me awhile to realize that Barbara Crampton was playing the mother. This is a pretty mean film so if home invasion type films are not up your alley you may want to avoid this one. However you would be missing out on one of the best kills I have seen in years, death by blender.

October 3rd: The Sacrament

Again this is another movie I have had on my radar for quite some time and just never had the time to sit down and watch it. I think my interest in this one came simply from the fact that Eli Roth was involved. Plus there was a lot of buzz going into this one.

Oddly enough two days in a row I watched a movie with both AJ Bowen and Joe Swanberg playing big parts in both movies. This movie could basically be a slightly fictitious documentary about Jonestown. They definitely lifted a lot from that real event to use in the movie. Everything from the pavilion to the Kool Aid. Again this is probably worth checking out at least once.

October 4th: Insidious Chapter 2

I’m going to admit right off the bat that I was not a huge fan of the first film. The whole “dream world” or “spirit world” whatever they called it was not very interesting to me. That’s one of the reasons why I never bothered to check this one out. But it was sitting in my Netflix que and it was something I felt I had to watch just to give a good opinion of the franchise.

Thankfully I was pleasantly surprised by this one. It’s kind of a weird film to explain without spoiling the first film as well. So basically its about a family dealing with some unhappy spirits who can inhabit your body. Like the first film this one has a couple spooky spots and the main spirit in this entry is actually pretty cool. If you skipped out on the first film or, like me, didn’t care for the first one this might be worth checking out.

October 5th: Toad Road

I really had no idea what I was getting into when I decided to watch this one. I had remembered talking about it here on Horror-Movies.ca and hearing some buzz about it but I honestly had no idea what it would be like.

This film is basically one big acid trip. A bunch of kids do drugs and then in the search for some kind of higher consciousness they try to find a bunch of gates that legends say lead to Hell. This is one of those unusual films that just showcases a certain moment in someones life and then leaves you with nothing to go on. It picks up with them experimenting with drugs and then leaves without much explanation of what just happened. I can’t say that I would recommend hunting this one down but if you are into art house type horror films, you might like this.

October 6th: All Hallows’ Eve

I had picked this DVD up awhile ago and just let it sit around for awhile. So the other night I was looking at the insane clown on the cover and thought this would be perfect. It also gets bonus points for taking place on Halloween night.

This is anthology that for the most part follows Art the Clown. The first and third segments are really good. They are both extremely violent and gory. However the second segment is just out of place. It really doesn’t have much to do with the clown and even on its own is not very good. The wrap around is also pretty entertaining. If you are afraid of clowns or Pennywise scared you, this will make you shit your pants. All Hallows’ Eve is definitely worth watching this Halloween especially if you like anthologies.

October 7th: The Monkey’s Paw

Now going into this one I thought this was the film that Sam Raimi’s Ghost House Pictures had been working on. After watching it and looking around online I don’t think this is it. It had been on Netflix for awhile and I only just now got around to watching it and I kind of wish I had just let it sit in my que.

The basic premise is that this monkey paw will grant anyone three wishes but it will twist each wish. So if you wish for a million dollars your parents will die and you will get the inheritance. That kind of thing. This was just not very good, plain and simple. Production values were OK but it was one of those films that just reeks of straight to DVD. Pass on this one.

Extra Credit: The ABC’s of Death 2

I did have some extra time on the 6th so I decided I’d watch another one for a little extra credit. The problem I have with anthologies is the in order to really enjoy them every segment has to be at least decent. When you are dealing with 26 different segments you begin to run into a problem.

Overall not a bad little film. Of course there are a couple of segments that you could probably skip but there are definitely a couple stand out ones. That is really the good part about an anthology though, if one of the stories is shitty you can just skip ahead to the good ones. The best segment of the bunch in my opinion was “O is for Ochlocracy”.

Well that wraps up my first week of viewing for my 31 Days of Halloween. This time around was not nearly as trying as last year and I even got an extra film in to boot. Make sure you keep checking in for my weekly updates and if you think there is a particular film I should check out be sure to sound off below. Until next week!

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