31 Days of Halloween

The Sentinel is a movie that can be pretty fairly described as a bit of a trend hopper, but the trends it was hopping on were mostly good ones. The film, about a woman who moves into an apartment that turns out to be an entrance to hell which the Catholic Church assigns a “sentinel” to watch over, was plainly greenlit as part of the wave of religiously themed horror movies that arrived in response to the success of The Exorcist although the film actually might more closely resemble Rosemary’s Baby. The movie was directed by Michael Winner, the dude who made Death Wish and was kind of an exploitation mercenary throughout the 70s but outside of this never really much of a horror guy. He was however able to gather an incredibly stacked cast for this of old timers hoping to get a Charles Bronson-like comeback like John Carradine, José Ferrer, Ava Gardner, and Burgess Meredith as well as before-they-were-famous younger actors like Chris Sarandon, Christopher Walken, Jerry Orbach, Beverly D'Angelo, Tom Berenger, and Jeff Goldblum. Granted a lot of these people are in one scene nothing roles but it was an impressive assemblage just the same. The film itself does at least present something of a twist on the haunted house type narrative and there is a mid-movie twist that did sort of take me by surprise. Also while hardly the most shocking movie to come out of the 70s it was a bit more liberal with the graphic content than I was maybe expecting from one of these more legitimized studio horror flicks of the time. There are a couple cool scenes in it and while I’m not exactly sure the ending makes sense in terms of the system the church has come up with to deal with its hell portal problem there is a certain darkness to how this wraps up that did get my attention.

Days 27 and 28: Horror Franchises Launched by James Wan that Returned in 2023



The summer of 2023 so the return of the Insidious franchise after a five year absence, directed by series star Patrick Wilson, to a resounding thud. Box-office wise the film has been a sizeable hit, but critics have been far less kind, including the kind of critics more likely to champion a horror franchise entry like this. I guess I'm the odd one out because I rather liked The Red Door. I think it's easily the best Insidious movie since James Wan left the series and a rather successful piece of studio horror filmmaking, in no small part because of Wilson's direction. The film's style certainly doesn't drift far from what's already been established and it certainly doesn't shy away from your typical jump-scares, but it doesn't rely on them. Wilson puts in the work to generate an uneasy atmosphere and delivers with a series of horror set-pieces. For all the overt demons and ghosts and grossness, the most chilling aspect of Insidious: The Red Door are the recurring shots where something out of focus in the background slowly creeping towards the camera and the characters in the foreground. One Wilson eventually indulges in the more outlandish, it is earned, a climax to a build-up rather than just a sudden jolt in a sea of nothing.

I was also pretty into the story. I can't say my memories of the old Insidious movies were too concerned with the characters, but seeing how the Lambert family has changed (and kind of fallen apart) since 2013 proved rewarding enough, especially how Josh and his son Dalton's relationship has deteriorated. I also appreciated how the ending allowed the story to come to a natural conclusion rather than throwing in a last-minute jump-scare to supposedly leave audiences looking for some frights satisfied.

That's not to say the writing is perfect or even great. While I quite enjoyed Sinclair Daniel's performance as a friend Dalton makes in college, her character does feel a bit more like a convenient plot device than a fully formed person. There's also a comical frat boy character who both overstays his welcome and is also thrown aside just when it felt like he was going to become important. I also would have cut Elise's first appearance as her final scene would have been way more impactful if it was the only time we saw her. Overall though, I rather enjoyed Insidious: The Red Door. It's an effective piece of mainstream horror filmmaking and I'm a bit surprised its reception has been so weak. It's clearly better than Insidious 3 or 4 if nothing else.

B-


Saw X



The tenth film in a franchise, especially a horror franchise whose quality has always been suspect, is not supposed to be the best film in the series but I think that's where I'm at with Saw X. The film is quite successful in finetuning the charms of the Saw movies. Returning director and editor Kevin Greutert has not totally done away with the early 2000s' "xtreme" editing and cinematography choices exactly, but he uses them with more precision. The first trap, for example, has a lot of that crazy Saw cutting and whirling camera, but punctuates the frenzy with static shots of relative stillness and measured movements. The movie's third act is also a parade of convoluted yet also obvious twists, but the film places them in a narratively satisfying context. The details are silly when you think them out, but very fun in the moment.

Perhaps most importantly though, Saw X fully acknowledges the franchise's ace in the hole is, and always has been, Tobin Bell. Bell spent most of his career as an anonymous character actor showing up in very minor roles before being cast as the villain in a low-budget horror movie which redefined the genre. Since then, Bell has always been a bright spot and Saw X finally relents and treats him as the protagonist. That would seemingly be an issue given Jigsaw's ideology, while very principled, is also illogical nonsense, but the film is able to sidestep this by making him the victim of a pretty heinous scam that does warrant some retribution, even if Jigsaw's is a bit extreme. That said the film also adds enough nuance to the underlings involved in the scheme that their deaths are undeserved, allowing for some more pseudo-intellectual discussion about the validity of Jigsaw's methods.

The film does get a touch tedious when the traps really take center stage. The Saw films have long followed a very predictable pattern of trap where the victim inflicts as much personal damage to themselves as possible only to fail at the last second and die horribly, insuring as much gore as possible. Saw X follows that template to the letter and after ten of these I think I've had my fill. It doesn't help that, while the traps are gory (almost hilariously so), they aren't the most clever from a puzzle-solving perspective. The film also carriers over the crazy timeline of the franchise proper, set at some point between Saw I and III (hard to place it exactly where given how loaded with flashbacks these movies are) and while that is admirable, it also means you need the scaffolding of the rest of the series to provide context. Still, this is much, much better than I ever would have expected from the tenth film in the Saw franchise and I suspect the die-hard fans will connect to this one much better than Jigsaw (which I will defend to an extent) or Spiral: From the Book of Saw (which I will not defend to any extent). Saw X delivers the goods and it's also shockingly sincere. I almost could not believe that final shot.

B-

I laughed out loud.

I'd have to dig it out, but I remember it being a steelbook. I do think it had the Rotten Tomatoes thing on it, but it may have been something that could have been peeled off.

But I had to box away a bunch of my discs and I honestly can't remember.

Really fun series of reviews. As someone who had not heard of these movies before, which ones would you recommend to start with?

Day 29: Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me



In denying the easy nostalgia and comfort of the then freshly cancelled TV series, Fire Walk with Me consolidates the things I love most about Twin Peaks. There's still humour and plenty of eccentricities, especially in the prologue set in the inverse Twin Peaks of Deer Meadow, but the film on the whole is far less interested in soap opera parody than it is exploring deep-rooted evil and corruption. The supernatural and the nightmarish images which were relegated to short bursts on TV are now pervasive, even overwhelming. Going through the deleted scenes for the first time reveal the film once had a more balanced tone and while I do like a lot of those scenes in isolation, in practice the lack of escape really benefits Fire Walk with Me. This is a story of doom. Fire Walk with Me's nature as a prequel makes Laura's death inevitable and the film leans on that knowledge consistently. Consider that when Lynch finally does bring us back to the titular Twin Peaks, he does so while emphasizing that murder looms in the shadows.

Focusing so fully on the horror of Laura's final days gives Fire Walk with Me a clarity of purpose. Parts of the plot may be cryptic (because of both Lynchian intrigue and because of scenes being truncated to the point of frustration) but the overall character portrait of a young girl struggling against unspeakable evil is clear and cutting. It is a story of abuse and self-destruction, yes, but also an indictment of a community who did nothing for someone so openly crying out for help. There's a scene in the TV series at Laura's funeral where her ex-boyfriend Bobby turns venomous towards the townsfolk for failing to be there for Laura when she needed it, and boy does that scene take on a new power in Fire Walk with Me. This is another reason the lack of quirky Twin Peaks comedy is a good thing. It's hard to be amused by the goofy antics when we're simultaneously seeing their egregious neglect of a soul in desperate need of some help.

Some people try, of course. Bobby, in his own way, Donna and James all make an effort to help Laura, but none of them are really equipped to do anything and are ultimately pushed away by Laura. This is partially a further manifestation of her self-destructive tendencies, but also a genuine effort to protect her friends. Accepting help and letting people in also means inviting them into the dangers which surround her, both the criminal and metaphysical. It's unfair anyone carry such a burden, least of all a teenager, and watching Laura carry that weight while struggling to hold onto herself is soul-shattering, bolstered significantly by an astounding performance from Sheryl Lee. Lee's image served for two seasons as a ghostly symbol, but the film realizes Laura in flesh and blood, resulting in a far more unsettling and complex character than I think anyone initially imagined.

Where the original series used Laura's murder as a springboard for mystery and intrigue, Fire Walk with Me examines Laura's humanity, and in doing so elevates the whole of Twin Peaks to high tragedy.

A

We must know

Man, this franchise. The Terrifier movies have emerged from the depths of the direct to video horror world catering solely to people who think the Saw movies are too soft to become a series that actually kind of matters. Terrifier 2 is, if nothing else certainly a substantial improvement over the first movie. Where that movie was made for just $35,000, this one was made for an “extravagant” $250,000… or at least that’s what they claim but I have my suspicions as this movie has a whole lot of “stuff” in it and I’m not sure it can truly keep the costs that far down even if it’s shot with cheap cameras and has a cast of complete nobodies. Make no mistake, the violence in this thing is outlandish, almost every murder scene goes further than what you see in most normal slasher movies that are “merely” R-rated. However this doesn’t just feel like gimmickry, the idea of Art the Clown as this mysterious killer laughing and taunting his victims silently is a legitimate hook beyond just the blood and guts and this one in particular feels like a “real” movie than the last one did. This time around we get a legit “final girl” and a pretty good one for that matter and the film is generally a lot better at fleshing out its various victims than the last movie did. The film also does a good job of fleshing out the tropes and iconography of Art the Clown a little without wrecking the mystery and mystique around him and those kills do somehow manage to top what most of what we got in the first film, which is saying something. Where it’s less successful is in establishing some sort of psychological connection between Art and the family he’s terrorizing, which is never fully explained and feels a touch superfluous. Also the running time on this thing is out of control at 138 minutes, and while the pacing actually does make that move pretty quickly there’s still stuff here like a certain dream sequences that we didn’t really need. This is not a movie I’d ever recommend too casually given the content but if you fall under the heading of “hardcore horror fan” and want to keep up with what’s happening on the genre’s cutting edges this does deliver that.
***1/2 out of Five

I was reminiscing through the 2014 Halloween festivities and was reminded that I covered these two movies on the same day.

lol.

Can someone force Doomsday to watch this movie, please. It's hilarious. Trio of little shit-heads go on a murder spree. MTV's Julie Brown co-stars (not to be confused with MTV's Downtown Julie Brown.)








It is the 100th anniversary of Jack the Ripper. A copycat killer is out on the loose. Who do you call? James Spader, of course. Shit - how do we know he's not Jack the Ripper?

It's alright.

This is a borderline Cinemax After Dark film but it does have a serial killer on the loose. It's okay but I wanna see a crossover with the brats from Bloody Birthday. SnoBorderZero, make it happen. Shit, maybe combine all three into one. I'm giving you free ideas here, sir.

I had you at Julie Brown.