4th Annual N&G 31 Days* of Halloween (2022)

MOVIE #35
Hellraiser (1987)
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Decided to give this a rewatch in preparation for the remake. This is definitely one of my personal favorites of the 1980s. The premise is creatively creepy and the effects are top-notch. Not many horror movies freak me out, but there's something about the atmosphere and imagery here that I find legitimately unnerving. The new one has big shoes to fill, but considering I greatly enjoyed the director's previous film The Night House, I'm going to remain cautiously optimistic.

Rating: 💀💀💀💀💀

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A ★★★★★ review of Hellraiser (1987)

Rewatching in preparation for the remake tomorrow. I'm consistently floored every time I revisit this. For me, it's a near-perfect film. There aren't many movies that can successfully give me the creeps, but this is a notable exception. It's darkly imaginative, genuinely unsettling, and the...
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13. The Exorcist (1973)
Rating: 💀💀💀 🦴
First time seeing The Exorcist and I enjoyed it. I think i might need to rewatch to fully absorb it. There's a lot going on in the story building in the beginning that I feel like I missed. Overall really well put together and I understand why people think it's a classic.
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zomgbear said:
13. The Exorcist (1973)
Rating: 💀💀💀 🦴
First time seeing The Exorcist and I enjoyed it. I think i might need to rewatch to fully absorb it. There's a lot going on in the story building in the beginning that I feel like I missed. Overall really well put together and I understand why people think it's a classic.
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I got to see it in theaters twenty-some years ago, which was cool. It messed my buddy up something fierce though! That was a trip.
 
avecigrec said:
I got to see it in theaters twenty-some years ago, which was cool. It messed my buddy up something fierce though! That was a trip.
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I think the problem with watching something like this for the first time is that I've already seen a lot of it. Just from clips and popular culture. It would probably be a lot more impactful if I didn't. I still enjoyed it tho
 
zomgbear said:
I think the problem with watching something like this for the first time is that I've already seen a lot of it. Just from clips and popular culture. It would probably be a lot more impactful if I didn't. I still enjoyed it tho
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He'd encountered a lot of bits in popular culture too, which is why it was so surprising he got so messed up about it!
 
MOVIE #36
Werewolf by Night (2022)
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Technically a television special and not a movie, but since I watched it I figure I might as well count it. I thought it was neat! One of the cooler things Marvel has put out this year in my opinion. I definitely preferred the second half, but the story overall was alright and kept me interested. It felt very much like the kind of set-up you would see in an old monster movie, which I'm guessing was the point. The black and white cinematography looked nice and I was honestly surprised how violent it got towards the end. This would have been pretty hard PG-13. I think it's cool that a straightforward horror-themed Marvel Halloween special even exists, and obviously as a werewolf fan, I had a lot of fun.

Also - MAN-THING!!!

Rating: 💀💀💀💀
 
#25.

Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989) 💀 💀


Ugh. This one just makes me upset. Tina is annoying. Loomis is just a creep. The bumbling cops music is just really odd. Making Jamie a mute is probably the worst thing about it...even more than the mask they used on this one.

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gaporter said:
MOVIE #36
Werewolf by Night (2022)
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Technically a television special and not a movie, but since I watched it I figure I might as well count it. I thought it was neat! One of the cooler things Marvel has put out this year in my opinion. I definitely preferred the second half, but the story overall was alright and kept me interested. It felt very much like the kind of set-up you would see in an old monster movie, which I'm guessing was the point. The black and white cinematography looked nice and I was honestly surprised how violent it got towards the end. This would have been pretty hard PG-13. I think it's cool that a straightforward horror-themed Marvel Halloween special even exists, and obviously as a werewolf fan, I had a lot of fun.

Also -
Rating: 💀💀💀💀
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I'm super looking forward to checking this one out later. My co-worker was raving about it when he got to work this morning (he watched it on his bus ride in)
 
Hellraiser! Gosh, it feels good to be happy about this one.

Bruckner and Co. made a great decision going back to the bargaining spirit of the early films while adding their own complexity to things in a way that paves the course for new longevity.

There's some trippy callbacks to The Ritual sprinkled throughout that prove Bruckner was totally the right fit for the job of depicting the cenobites' interdimensional nature.

💀💀💀🦴

boxd.it

A ★★★½ review of Hellraiser (2022)

Things are looking up for Hellraiser penitents. Bruckner and Co.'s return to the fateful bargain of the early franchise gives fervent fans a lot to love while simultaneously expounding on the limitless possibilities of our cenobites' playful puzzle of pain. Characters. Conflict. Complexity...
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EvanBenner said:
Hellraiser! Gosh, it feels good to be happy about this one.

Bruckner and Co. made a great decision going back to the bargaining spirit of the early films while adding their own complexity to things in a way that paves the course for new longevity.

There's some trippy callbacks to The Ritual sprinkled throughout that prove Bruckner was totally the right fit for the job of depicting the cenobites' interdimensional nature.

💀💀💀🦴

boxd.it

A ★★★½ review of Hellraiser (2022)

Things are looking up for Hellraiser penitents. Bruckner and Co.'s return to the fateful bargain of the early franchise gives fervent fans a lot to love while simultaneously expounding on the limitless possibilities of our cenobites' playful puzzle of pain. Characters. Conflict. Complexity...
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I think you hit on the good parts in your review that I fully agree with. I almost gave it the same score. Subsequent rewatches might bump it up for me.
 
Hemotep said:
I think you hit on the good parts in your review that I fully agree with. I almost gave it the same score. Subsequent rewatches might bump it up for me.
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I think what kept this from being 4+ stars for me is that they wrote themselves into using too many characters.
They could have trimmed back and used unnamed bit characters to fill a couple of the sacrifices while layering more onto the consequences/burdens of Riley's decisions.

It had the potential to lean further into Mike Flanagan plot territory, which would have really succeeded for me like it did with The Night House. And that's proof positive that someone needs to let Flanagan adapt Barker as he recently expressed wanting to do.
 
EvanBenner said:
I think what kept this from being 4+ stars for me is that they wrote themselves into using too many characters.
They could have trimmed back and used unnamed bit characters to fill a couple of the sacrifices while layering more onto the consequences/burdens of Riley's decisions.

It had the potential to lean further into Mike Flanagan plot territory, which would have really succeeded for me like it did with The Night House. And that's proof positive that someone needs to let Flanagan adapt Barker as he recently expressed wanting to do.
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Spot on.
 
As an unapologetic fan of A24's killer dress film In Fabric, I've had my eye out for writer/director Peter Strickland's other works.

Earlier this week, I managed to catch his kinky melodrama The Duke of Burgundy before it dropped off Tubi (reaction posted in the general Movies thread since it wasn't horror). Now, I just wrapped up on his latest, the culinary black comedy Flux Gourmet on Shudder for both my HoopTober challenge and the Horror Queers Spooky Season theme of the day "Dorm Daze of Terror."

A trio of performance artists takes up residency at an auspicious school for the pretentious art of "sonic catering" (noise music made with food). It's a hysterical premise with bewitching results, channeling everything from Suspiria to Velvet Buzzsaw to Yorgos Lanthimos, and I loved it.

💀💀💀💀

boxd.it

A ★★★★ review of Flux Gourmet (2022)

Another Strickland success—Flux Gourmet is a hilarious and uncanny send-up of performance art, gastronomy, and cults of personality. There's something rather bewitching about this culinary black comedy with its Suspiria-like psychedelia and satirical, Velvet Buzzsaw-esque view of modern arts...
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EvanBenner said:
As an unapologetic fan of A24's killer dress film In Fabric, I've had my eye out for writer/director Peter Strickland's other works.

Earlier this week, I managed to catch his kinky melodrama The Duke of Burgundy before it dropped off Tubi (reaction posted in the general Movies thread since it wasn't horror). Now, I just wrapped up on his latest, the culinary black comedy Flux Gourmet on Shudder for both my HoopTober challenge and the Horror Queers Spooky Season theme of the day "Dorm Daze of Terror."

A trio of performance artists takes up residency at an auspicious school for the pretentious art of "sonic catering" (noise music made with food). It's a hysterical premise with bewitching results, channeling everything from Suspiria to Velvet Buzzsaw to Yorgos Lanthimos, and I loved it.

💀💀💀💀

boxd.it

A ★★★★ review of Flux Gourmet (2022)

Another Strickland success—Flux Gourmet is a hilarious and uncanny send-up of performance art, gastronomy, and cults of personality. There's something rather bewitching about this culinary black comedy with its Suspiria-like psychedelia and satirical, Velvet Buzzsaw-esque view of modern arts...
boxd.it boxd.it

1UTJ3SBsmTB0ZEtmRhbUp3iwaj2.jpg
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This has been on my list, but the wife doesn't want to see it, so I've been waiting for a solo night.
 
Watched the new Hellraiser last night and liked it for the most part. I had low expectations because I absolutely love the first two and didn’t expect it to be better. I would have liked more Cenobites, suffering, souls being torn apart etc and less teens running around. I miss the more adult hedonistic grittiness of the original, however I appreciate they tried to not just remake the first movie. I left wanting more, but specifically more about leviathan, the box, spooky hell world, and the Cenobites. If they can bring a sequel with more of this I’d be all in. Overall though this is a step in the right direction for the franchise. As much as I get sick of reboots/remakes, this was the best way imo for them to get past the straight to video shit fest that the sequels became.
 
MOVIE #37
Hellraiser (2022)
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Wanted to sleep on this one before I posted my thoughts, since it left me with mixed feelings. I'll echo what @Hemotep said in that it surpassed my expectations but still left me a little unsatisfied. I think @EvanBenner hit the nail on the head that the story was more complicated than it needed to be, and I think that's why, in spite having a lot of praise for the atmosphere, acting, direction and effects, I can't say I loved it. I did like it, though, and I'd say on a rewatch, I'll probably be less critical, and be able to appreciate it more on its own merits, but these are just my first impressions.

Rating: 💀💀💀🦴

boxd.it

A ★★★½ review of Hellraiser (2022)

Conflicted on this one. I definitely liked it more than I disliked it, but I found myself wondering why I wasn't getting into it more than I was. The first Hellraiser is one of my favorite films of the 80s, so any remake (or "reinvention" as the Hulu description puts it) was going to have pretty...
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