Sure seems like there's a trend of me watching a non-horror movie during October--a month I just devote to nothing but horror films--that makes me go, "Oh, I have to talk about this." Last year was Are We Not Cats, and this year it's the amazingly titled Needle in a Timestack. Teams of people read that name and thought, "This is perfectly acceptable"? Remarkable. Anyway, it's a movie about time travel and it's... certainly something.
2.5 stars
Average.
Book of Blood (2009)
Not every movie in this interlude near the middle of the Hellbound Halloween is going to have ties to Hellraiser. The previous two films--Nightbreed and Lord of Illusions--are connected through comics and novels, but that still counts (sort of). Book of Blood, however, is just a ghost story. It does have ties to other films, but no obvious connection to Pinhead and his ilk. They can't all fit the theme perfectly.
Hellraiser: Bloodline (1996)
Welcome back to the Hellbound Halloween! Today's entry is the fourth film in the Hellraiser franchise, Hellraiser: Bloodline. Man, we're making good time with all this--four down and only six more to go. At this rate I'll be done well before October is over! Hm, if only I had planned for that eventuality and had some tricks up my sleeve... Anyway, let's talk about a film directed by Alan Smithee. Oh, that's never a good sign.
Tell Tale (2009)
I want to say that I found this movie by looking up superhero movies. Tell Tale is a film written by Mr. Dave Callaham, who is credited as the writer on Wonder Woman 1984, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, and the upcoming Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse 2. Hell, Callaham also wrote 2021's Mortal Kombat and all four The Expendables movies--no, you're not having a stroke, the fourth one hasn't come out yet. Or that I found it looking up movies based on Edgar Allan Poe stories. All those are things I would talk about here, so it would make sense. But no, I discovered this obscure movie in a way that leaves me honestly feeling a bit embarrassed...
Beethoven’s 5th (2003)
In a sane world, this would be the last Beethoven movie. Sure, in a saner world there would would only have been the original movie and none of these sequels, but either way that's not the world we live in. No, when both The Land Before Time and Air Bud franchises have 14 movies each, we clearly live under the oppressive boot of capitalism, taking your nostalgia and trying to wring as much profit out of it as it can. So here we are with Beethoven's 5th, the film that feels like a Scooby-Doo episode. Maybe that's why I didn't completely hate it?
What Happened to Monday (2017)
Once upon a time, my husband's favorite movie was Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, a video game-themed comedy based on a comic (graphic novel, technically). That makes sense if you know him and I like that movie, too. Then he watched What Happened to Monday, and this dystopian sci-fi thriller became his new favorite. The only thing the two movies have in common is a focus on the number 7. After finally sitting down and watching it, did I also like this film? Well... not really. Sorry, babe.
The Matrix Revolutions (2003)
I would like to start this post with a bit of a public service announcement: The Matrix Revolutions is the third film in The Matrix trilogy. I know this may be pretty obvious to some, but I hadn't watched these films in nearly two decades, and since Revolutions and The Matrix Reloaded both came out in 2003--albeit 6 months apart--I was confused as to which one came first. So if you're finding this post and haven't read the one on Reloaded, there's nothing I can do to force you to go back, but I do build off stuff I talked about in that review. We good? Welcome back to Pride Month, which I am celebrating once again by talking about a movie that followed a very queer coded film, but is predominantly straight. Oops.
Haunting Me (2007)
I want you to know that there are times when I go above and beyond for this blog. Netflix has the Oh My Ghost films, a Thailand horror/comedy series starring a group of aging kathoeys--kind of like drag queens, kind of like trans women, kind of a third gender option... Similar to "baklâ" in the Philippines, which I talked about in the ZsaZsa Zaturnnah Ze Moveeh post. But I wasn't satisfied with those films, because there's a piece missing. Oh My Ghost is marketed as the first of four films, but it's actually the second of something like six. The first is Haunting Me, AKA Hor Taew Tak, translated to something like Taew's Dormitory is Broken. But Netflix doesn't have Hor Taew Tak, so I spent far too much time searching before finding it on AsianCrush. Let's hope that's a trustworthy website, cause we're continuing Pride Month by taking about haunted ladyboys from Thailand!
Wer (2013)
Don't you hate it when a movie gets spoiled by its trailer? I can't even begin to count the number of films where I watched the trailer and thought, "Well that's got to be 90% of the plot." Which brings me to Wer, a movie that makes you wonder whether the antagonist is actually supernatural or not, while the trailer flat out says, yeah, he's a werewolf.
Iron Man 2 (2010)
With Iron Man 2, the ball is rolling on the Marvel Cinematic Universe, just like the ball that is MCU March! Gotta mention the event in ever post, no matter how awkward! Marvel Studios had achieved success with Mr. Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man, and The Incredible Hulk did decently with a Tony Stark cameo linking the movies together. The road to the The Avengers continues in this movie by adding a new recurring character and giving a new face/actor to an existing one.
Chwineka Watches 