Here are my succinct, hastily arranged thoughts on a few flicks I've taken in over the past couple of weeks. I wish I could review everything that I watch, but if I did, I'd be mentally spent (moreso than usual). Thanks to a penpal for the title. Satan knows I'm not that clever.
Axe Body Spray has seriously recalibrated their promotional campaign.
Somehow, 1982's Pieces had escaped my prying peepers until just recently. I expected an absent-minded bloodbath, and by (Christopher) George, that's exactly what was presented to me. The gore effects are top-notch. The pace is rapid. I mean, the prologue is followed immediately by a chainsaw offing...in broad daylight, no less! Now, I will forgive the villain for using Leatherface's weapon of choice, but only because Pieces came out eight years after my movie truelove. This would be a good place to link to my review of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Consider it recommended reading.
Wednesday? Shit, I'll have to DVR Lucha Underground.
As much as I claim to love made-for-TV fright fritters, I had not seen 1973's Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, possibly the most lauded of them all. I have seen the remake, and from where I sit, it edges out the original by a slim margin. Heresy, I'm aware. Look, I wasn't a kid when this aired. I didn't view it from behind a sofa and have nightmares about the little archfiends who want to shanghai Kim Darby. Speaking of those pee-wee pests, I didn't find them to be creepy in the slightest. Maybe it was the shot of them stumbling up the stairs, or maybe it was their traffic cone scalps. I don't know, but they didn't do it for me.
That's not to say Don't Be Afraid of the Dark antagonized my senses. It's still a fun chiller, the perfect genre treat to pop in on a drafty October night. The opening credits. Dude. There is more eerie atmosphere packed into those frames than...well, I was going to insult modern horror filmmaking, but I know better than to generalize. The credits are killer. That's all I need to type.
This. This is my soul.
I revisited Halloween III: Season of the Witch. Even though I had this serotinal favorite stored in the ol' memory banks, I had only ever doted on my VHS copy. No joke. This gave me a reason to finally pull out my Halloween Blu-ray box set (alright, I may have pulled it out a time or two before). It felt like a fresh viewing. It's amazing to me how much this sequel's reputation has been rehabilitated in the last 15-20 years. No longer is the cheesy, yet disturbing tale of a pagan warlock flogged as a whipping boy for the sins of low-grade slashers. Fans figured out that this is a cool spectacle. That's justice. Street justice!
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