FrightFest 2023

As it is every October, the family watches nothing but scary movies. This year's spooky screenings started a little early in September, BECAUSE WE JUST COULDN'T WAIT, DAMMIT. There will be more added to the list as we close out the month, but this is a hell of a good start. See what I did there? Hell? Anywho...

Talk To Me (2023)
Oh, this one was a treat. An Australian horror flick about a bunch of kids who get their kicks summoning spirits using the embalmed hand of a deceased medium ...but what happens if those spirits don't ever want to leave? Creepy, gory and legit scary from the very first insane scene all the way to a gut-wrenching ending. And equating the feeling of communing with spirits with an addictive drug high is so clever and plays out in such ingenious ways. I shall say no more, go see it.

Dream Scenario (2023)
In what feels like the unholy love child of Mike White, Ari Aster and Wes Craven, Nic Cage plays against type as a mild-mannered professor who suddenly starts appearing in people's dreams all around the world, and gets drunk on the celebrity that comes with it. But then everyone's dreams turn to violent and horrifying nightmares, still starring him but now as the killer, and his world turns upside down. Couldn't quite figure out a satisfying ending, but still worth it.

Chopping Mall (1986)
Security robots go haywire and start slaughtering everyone in the mall just after closing time, particularly a crew of hard-partying, horny teens. Classic and hilarious 80s slasher that did Robocop before Robocop. Tons of fun, barely 90 minutes long, and every time the robots have a great kill and follow it up with a gentle, “Thank you, have a nice day,” it earns a real chuckle.

Messiah of Evil (1973)
This might just be a hippie horror masterpiece. Marianna Hill (fresh off High Plains Drifter) is on the hunt for her missing artist father, which leads her to the coastal California town of Point Dume. Something evil lurks there, turning the town into an army of undead slashers serving an ancient, blood-soaked god. Extremely clever, good kills, gratuitous sex, crappy 70s free jazz, and a stunt-filled finale with two amazing set pieces in a grocery store and a movie theater. The writers/directors worked on this while writing American Graffiti, and just before doing uncredited rewrites on another little indie movie called Star Wars.

The Boogeyman (2023)
A grieving family tries to get their lives back on track after the death of their mother. But there are monsters out there who feed on families that are falling apart. At one point my wife left the room, saying, and I quote, “I don’t like this. It’s too scary.” Performances are stellar, including Yellowjackets standout Sophie Thatcher. One of the best of the month I think.

Prince of Darkness (1987)
I'm going to just print verbatim the movie logline, which is fucking hilarious – "A priest summons a professor to an old church to see a canister of liquid Satan." Yep, about right. This is every John Carpenter fan's hipster choice for favorite movie. I won't go that far, but some truly creepy, ingenious ideas and images throughout.

Last Voyage of the Demeter (2023)
In a great idea, the filmmakers took the chapter of the novel Dracula that tells the story of the voyage of the ship carrying his coffin from Romania to London, and expanded it out into a floating haunted house movie, with the gore cranked up to 11. It's simple stuff, totally old-fashioned (aside from the over-the-top violence), and was right up our alley.

Threads (1984)
Bit of a cheat because I watched it in September, but hands down the scariest movie on the list. This shocker shows in horrifying detail the aftermath of nuclear war on Sheffield, England, starting the moment of the attacks and tracing the impossibly bleak next hours/day/months/years. There are images here I will never dislodge from my brain. Here’s what I posted while I watched; “Christ, this movie Threads is fucking terrifying. Why am I watching this?”

No One Will Save You (2023)
On a craft level, a very cool home invasion/alien invasion movie, all played out with almost no dialogue. But even with a game Kaitlyn Dever carrying it on her back, long sections drag, and the end doesn’t quite nail it — and this is a movie that really needs to stick the landing to work. Still, pretty cool little flick.

Evil Dead 2 (1987)
Not sure you need a synopsis, but rubber-faced acting god Bruce Campbell accidentally unlocks a doorway to hell and then spends the rest of the movie being absolutely pulverized by maniacal director Sam Raimi in this low budget gore classic. I brag about my kids a lot, but I must roast my youngest son for disliking this movie and calling it “pointless” and “shrug emoji.” He is really smart, but in this instance, he is an idiot.

El Conde (2023)
I have no idea where the fuck writer/director Pablo Laraine thought up the idea of Augusto Pinochet being a 200 year-old vampire still alive feasting off the hearts of victims and turning them into meat smoothies in his secret lair, but I’m glad he did! Because it’s a real treat, as we watch Pinochet's despicable family squabble over his fortune, the Catholic Church send in vampire killers to take it all for itself, and an amazing third act cameo resurrecting another right-wing ghoul from the 80s.

Dead of Night (1945)
Ealing Studios all-star writers and directors take on an anthology horror movie. A little musty and old-fashioned, but "The Golfer's Story" and the classic "The Ventriloquist's Dummy" are both pretty great imho, and have the same bitter taste you get from movies like The Ladykillers. And the wraparound segment builds to a truly unexpected bananas finale.

A Haunting in Venice (2023)
Poirot is back, and this time might actually be encountering a real ghost. This is probably the best of these totally mid Agatha Christie adaptations Kenneth Branagh has been cranking out lately. A solid, cozy, rainy day haunted house mystery — you could do worse.

They Live (1988)
Since it's now available in 4K, why not revisit another John Carpenter joint? Rowdy Roddy Piper (RIP) is an unemployed Everyman lost in yuppie Reagan-era hell who uncovers the mother of all conspiracies — a race of alien ghoul overlords hidden in plain sight, working with greedy human scum to control our planet. SOUND FAMILIAR? I’ve seen this a zillion times, and it must be said the real hero of this movie is the amazing Keith David.

Sleep (2023)
Jason Yu's chiller follows a newlywed couple (Lee Sun-kyun & Jung Yu-mi) expecting a baby, whose life is turned upside down when the husband undergoes some of the most disturbing sleepwalking you will ever see (hint: don't look in the fridge, ever). Is it a medical condition, or is it ghostly possession? When their baby is born and the husband only gets worse, the wife takes drastic measures to protect their family. Without giving anything away, this one plays supernatural against science right to the end in ways that will seriously creep you out.

Frankenstein Created Woman (1967)
Peter Cushing’s Baron Frankenstein is up to his old tricks again reanimating corpses, this time transferring the soul of his dead assistant into the body of the man’s former girlfriend, who then goes on a killing spree. Another really fun Hammer classic — not quite as great as last year’s discovery Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde, but still really weird and mean.

Totally Killer (2023)
Silly, light, and not too bad! A teenage girl goes back in time to stop a serial slasher that will ruin her mother’s life forever. A reasonably clever, funny, gory way to do self referential horror a la Scream, with knowing nods to Back to the Future. Kiernan Shipka is great. I remember thinking back in the early Mad Men days, "I wonder if this kid is actually a good actor." Well, I think we know now.

The Angry Black Girl and her Monster (2023)
A high school girl suffers through life in a violent housing project that claimed the life of her mother and brother, and a racist private school that doesn’t realize she is a literal genius. But is she insane/smart enough to figure out how to raise the dead? There is probably a good movie to be made out of this, but this movie isn’t it. Some cool spins on Frankenstein that don't quite land. Interested to see what this writer/director does next.