I hope those of you that came by over October for my review challenge enjoyed my reviews and maybe found some films to check out (or avoid). As the month went on I found myself writing more and more and while I really needed a break by the end it’s been a strange few days not writing anything. Fun fact, I did the review challenge last year too, I just didn’t have the blog then so it was straight to Facebook and Minds. But I got such a positive reaction and enjoyed it so much it is the reason I started the blog. A few of those reviews have been retrospectively added to the site, but not all as the Facebook reviews were far shorter and only had the one picture.
My Halloween Viewing.
Much like I did last year, the movie I reviewed on Halloween I actually watched the day before and on Halloween itself I treated myself to a triple bill. Last year it was Nightmare on Elm Street 3, Friday the 13th part 6 and Halloween II. Three of the best Slasher sequels you will come across. This year though I went in a different direction. Not sure there really is a theme outside of just being great horror movies (and short enough to make a good triple bill). While I’m not doing reviews I am going to say a little about each one.
Return Of The Living Dead (1985)
The Return of the Living Dead, is the ground breaking “Zomedy” written and directed by the great Dan O’Bannon (Writer of Alien, Dark Star and the comic book that greatly inspired Blade Runner, see part 2 of my Blade Runner Deep Dive on that one). At some point I may have to do a deep dive just on Dan, simply because he just doesn’t get enough credit for his creative input to a number of classics.
Return was one of only three movies he directed, with the rest of his credits being writing, but he did a good job here. The movie was the first to my knowledge that had zombies that that you couldn’t kill by destroying the brain or removing the head. Every part of their body was animated and they didn’t lose their intelligence either. A few months later Re-Animator also used this kind of Zombie (and was also great). It may also have been the first zombie horror comedy.
Prince of Darkness (1987)
Prince of Darkness is part of the great run of films John Carpenter put together in the 80’s and forms part of what is known as his Apocalypse trilogy (Which spans until the 90’s), which includes “The Thing” and “In The Mouth of Madness”. Amongst Carpenter’s output (and especially amongst the 80’s movies) this isn’t likely many peoples favourite, but it’s still a quality movie and 100% classic John Carpenter.
The cast includes several actors from other Carpenter films such as Victor Wong and Dennis Dun (from the previous years “Big Trouble in Little China”) and Carpenter regulars Donald Pleasence and Peter Jason (Who would go on to appear in five more Carpenter movies). It also has a kick ass soundtrack, a random celebrity known for something other than acting (In this case Alice Cooper) and melancholy, claustrophobic theme involving dark secret truths and has a great ending. You know, this may be 110% classic Carpenter.
Event Horizon (1997)
The final movie of my triple bill was Event Horizon. This was panned by critics on release but turned out to be a cult classic and it is in my opinion is a top five horror movie for the 1990’s (or is at least in the conversation). The movie takes the feel of Aliens and slaps on a heavy shade of Hellraiser.
But the funny thing is it could also be in the same universe as the Doom video game seeing as they somewhat share a premise. In the game experiments in teleportation accidentally connect our realm to hell, in Event Horizon an experimental faster than light drive effectively teleports the ship to hell and back, bringing with it an influence of evil.
It fits quite well with the premise of Prince of Darkness, which suggested the evil we know as the devil is actually alien in origin. The other John Carpenter link here is Sam Neil who also featured in “In The Mouth of Madness” (Another one if the conversation for that top 5 spot) and Neil was really on form in the 90’s. Here he proved how good he can be as the antagonist.
Noirvember
When I first started my blog and right after my run of October reviews in 2021, I did something I called “Noirvember”. Since one of my movie passions is Film Noir and there aren’t a lot of websites out there that review both horrors and Film Noir I decided to take some of my momentum from October and channel it into doing a few thematic reviews through November.
I am absolutely going to do that again. Unlike October this isn’t a review a day job. My aim is to do at least four over November (one per week), but after taking a little break out at the start to recover from the Horror season I may well up that. I think I did about six last year, so expect something similar.
If you aren’t a fan of Noir or don’t really know what it is, perhaps this may encourage you to give these old movies a chance. In many ways they have a lot in common with horror between the lighting techniques and the fatalism of the characters. It’s one of the reasons why I find it a good transition back into general movie watching.
Further Down The Road
After November, I may introduce a few more non-review items on the site. I’m unlikely to do another deep dive of the size of the three part Blade Runner one, but not many films are as complicated a thing to get into as that movie. I do want to do more articles on some of my favourites though. Probably the next one will be on The Terminator, but we’ll see. I may do that Dan O’Bannon article too.
I’m also toying with an idea I’m calling “Movie Pitch” where I look at how I would have done something that didn’t work out so well in real life. For example, how I would revive the Terminator franchise (and yes it can be a franchise), how I would have done Universal’s Dark Universe, how I would reboot the Highlander franchise, what I would do to fix Halloween, that kind of thing. These days there are so many franchise down the toilet that I’ll never run out of things to “fix”. But the idea actually came from a Terminator story idea I had. Maybe it’s good, maybe it’s bad. That’s for you to decide.
On top of that, as the new year comes around I will do a year in review again (Maybe not a three part one this time) and of course I may watch and review some new releases.
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