Surprise! After a four-year hiatus, we're back with 10 W33ks of Spooktober. Get it. The Es are 3s because this is the third time we've done this series. This time, we're starting with I Saw the TV Glow, and Kelli is joining us to chat about this movie. So bathe yourself in the pink opaque, and let's get ready for another season of scary movies.
Read more10 Weeks of Spooktober: The Craft Legacy (Week 10 of 10)
It’s Halloween, which means it’s time to close out Spooktober for 2020. It also means October is coming to an end, which means I’m about to crawl back into my horror hole where I’ll sit and wait until it’s once again the time of year where we can appropriately love ghosts and monsters and witches and blood and death and all that other fun stuff. R.I.P., October. We barely knew ye.
But before we can say goodbye to October for the rest of 2020, we’ve got one more final horror movie to look at. And then at the end, for no reason whatsoever except for the fun of it, I’m going to look back at the second year of Spooktober to examine how successful this Spooktober season was compared to last season. Prepare yourselves.
Cue the creepy, atmospheric thunder and lightning.
Read more10 Weeks of Spooktober: Bad Hair (Week 9 of 10)
The 9th week of Spooktober is coming in hot and really late. Blame election anxiety, friends. I watched this movie last weekend, and I’m finally getting around to writing my review of it. I’m horrible, and I don’t even care. But what movie are we talking about, you ask? We’re talking about Bad Hair, the latest from director Justin Simien, who also directed Dear White People. Among other things. But you probably know him from Dear White People.
Anyway, Bad Hair is a surreal horror film set in 1989. Our main character is Anna Bludso (played by Elle Lorraine). Anna has dreamed of being a DJ since she was a little girl playing with songs on the radio. Now that we’re at the height of music television in the ‘80s, Anna is climbing her way up the ladder at a Black music channel called Culture. There’s only one thing standing in her way from making it to the top: her hair.
Read more10 Weeks of Spooktober: Nocturne (Week 8 of 10)
Welcome back Spooktober fans! Did you miss me last week? I hope you don’t mind Mary filling in for me while I took some time off to vote early and celebrate my birthday. By the way, please vote! If you can, vote early! Let’s do this people. I believe in you.
Okay, on to what you’re all here for. Scary movies.
This week, we’re looking at Nocturne, a new move that is part of the Welcome to the Blumhouse Anthology. Currently, this anthology consists of four films, and I chose this particular movie because I had already heard from many reliable sources that Nocturne is the best of the four. On top of that, this movie was compared to Black Swan, Whiplash, and one of the movies I covered for last year’s Spooktober: The Perfection. So yeah, I thought, sign me up.
Read more10 Weeks of Spooktober: Clive Barker's Legacy Lives On in Books of Blood...Sort Of
Welcome to a special guest edition of Spooktober: 2 Spook, 2 Tober. Mary is filling in for Emily this week to talk about one of her favorite horror franchises, and its latest installment. Don’t worry, Emily will be back next week with another installment all her own!
Hellraiser is a special film, dancing the line between the Gothic grotesque and the strangely sentimental. A lot of Clive Barker’s work feels like that for me, torn between genres and worlds, but always horrific, always devilishly pleasurable and campy.
Read more10 Weeks of Spooktober: American Murder (Week 6 of 10)
As has been tradition for 10 Weeks of Spooktober: 2 Spook 2 Tober, we’re just kind of posting these whenever I feel like it throughout the month of October, despite my honest efforts to stick to Saturdays. My bad friends.
And this is also new territory for Spooktober, because this time I’m covering a new Netflix true crime documentary: American Murder: The Family Next Door. Does this fit with a horror movie series? That’s complicated to answer. Some people find true crime really scary. Which makes sense. Unlike horror fiction, true crime… really happened.
I know what you’re saying. “Duh, Emily. We know that. Thanks for the insight.” But I do have a point. In my head, I know that true crime should probably be scarier because they’re events that really happened. And it’s often really messed up stuff. Meanwhile horror story stuff like ghosts may or may not be real (they are real).
And yet I have never been scared by true crime stuff. American Murder: The Family Next Door is no exception. This isn’t scary. To me. I really don’t know why. Maybe somebody in the comments can explain that to me. But I still wanted to watch this documentary and wanted to talk about it. Why? Well.
Read more10 Weeks of Spooktober: Antebellum (Week 5 of 10)
Well, well, well. I’m a liar. I said I was going to be on time with my next Spooktober: 2 Spook 2 Tober post, but you know what? It’s 2020, and there are no rules, so these are just going up when they go up. Deal with it.
Today, in week 5 of Spooktober (3 days late), we’re going to take a look at Antebellum, the movie that everyone wanted to see because it stars Janelle Monae and was advertised as being from the producers of Us and Get Out. Producers. Not director. Not writer. That should be the first red flag here.
The posters also featured the tagline “If it chooses you, nothing can save you,” which is creepy, sure. But what does that mean? I’ll get to it at the end of this post. Spoilers to follow. But honestly, if you’ve seen the trailer, you know what happens. It’s already been spoiled. More on that too. Here we go.
Read more10 Weeks of Spooktober: The Owners (Week 4 of 10)
I’m finally back with more Spooktober. Yes, I know this is really late. The last one was early. This one is late. It’s 2020. There are no rules anymore.
Anyway, this time I’m reviewing the film The Owners, which is a new horror/thriller film starring Maisie Williams, and since that’s this movie’s only claim to fame, she’s front and center in all of the posters. To be fair, she is a main character in this story, so it’s not totally off base. But when a movie advertises its star this much rather than its plot… you do have to wonder.
And wonder I did. And then I watched it.
Read more10 Weeks of Spooktober: The Babysitter: Killer Queen (Week 3 of 10)
Hi friends. For this next installment of 10 Weeks of Spooktober: 2 Spook 2 Tober, we’ve got another sequel. It’s not that I’m attempting to do a bunch of sequels for the sophomore run of this blog. It’s just sort of turning out that way.
Anyhow, this week, we’re looking at the new Netflix film The Babysitter: Killer Queen, which apparently is the “long awaited” sequel to The Babysitter, starring Samara Weaving, whom I loved in Ready or Not, the movie I covered for the FIRST EVER Spooktober post. So basically she’s legendary. Do you see how I’m creating my own Spooktober mythology here? Spooktober is undeniable.
The reason I put “long awaited” in quotes is because… was anyone really awaiting this movie? Apparently when this sequel was announced people were excited? But I have to say I watched The Babysitter when it first came out, and I don’t remember being very impressed. Honestly, I don’t remember ANYTHING about it. I had to look through this blog to make sure I hadn’t covered it already. It left such a non-impression on me I couldn’t even remember if I had or hadn’t written about this movie franchise before.
So did this HIGHLY ANTICIPATED sequel live up to the non-hype?
Read more10 Weeks of Spooktober: Pooka Lives! (Week 2 of 10)
Welcome back to 10 Weeks of Spooktober: 2 Spook 2 Tober. Yes, it’s the second year of Spooktober, and we’re finally getting that crossover blog post you’ve all been hungering for. What am I talking about? Well, last year, I did a series called 12 Days of Christmas movies, and I rated a Christmas/horror film called Pooka! using my patented (not really) Christmas moving rating scale. Spoiler: Pooka! rated really high as a Christmas movie. Who knew?
Now, I’m reviewing the sequel Pooka Lives! for this blog series. For the second film in the Pooka! universe (or the Pooka-verse), all the Christmas spirit is gone. This is a straight up horror movie. But is it any good? And what happens when you take the Christmas out of Pooka?
Read more