On the surface, Lord of Illusions has very little to do with the Hellraiser franchise. One is about a shrewd detective in way over his head among supernatural nonsense, while the other is all about Hell. But what if I were to tell you that they take place in the same universe? Because that's absolutely the case, straight from Mr. Clive Barker himself. So this film actually does fit into this year's October themed event, The Hellbound Halloween! But I'm getting ahead of myself.
cults
Hellraiser: Deader (2005)
There's something about franchises--particularly big horror franchises--where it sure seems like each one has a film that just refuses to stick in my head. I wrote about Children of the Corn: The Gathering just last year, but even then I still only remember the barest of details without looking at the post. Something about a fever...? In that same vein, was it Leprechaun 2 or Leprechaun 3 where he was at a pawn shop? And A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master is just a total blank to me. The point being I've seen all 10 Hellraiser films before, but had no memory of what the hell Hellraiser: Deader was about. But now I've rewatched it and can safely say that I'll most likely forget every detail of this boring movie--again--by next month, if not next week.
The Lodge (2019)
The Lodge was one of the movies that I was super excited to watch and it just... somehow passed me by. No local theaters were showing it back in early 2019 and by the time I got the motivation to travel to see it, it had disappeared from all theaters. So this one has been on my to-watch list for a while, and I figured a month dedicated to horror movies would be the perfect time! Which makes it such a shame that I really didn't like it.
Tag (2015)
Tag caught my attention the first time I read a summary of it and thought, "Holy shit, are they fucking serious?" Before I get to what made my jaw drop, I want to specify which Tag this actually is. It's not 2018's Tag about grown men playing a game of tag. It's not 1982's Tag: The Assassination Game with Linda Hamilton. It's not even 2015's Japanese Tag where heads explode. No, this is 2015's American Tag--or 2012, or 2014, or 2016 depending on which site you check--where McLovin gets sucked into one man's plan to spread HIV to as many people as possible.
The Empty Man (2020)
You know what I did recently? I had a friend over to my place... and neither of us wore our masks! Scandalous, I know. He was one of the Movie Night guys, and the fact that we haven't had one of those in over a year is really getting to us. It was a thing we did every week for over a decade! But it was nice to have someone over watching a horror movie with me, even if we were as far apart as possible while not sitting on the floor. Anyway, we watched The Empty Man on his recommendation, and it was a fun experience all around.
Children of the Corn: Runaway (2018)
And here we are at last: October of the Corn has reached the final movie of the Children of the Corn franchise. I mean, at least for now as even coronavirus apparently can't stop the upcoming reboot. But Children of the Corn: Runaway is an interesting one as it's a sequel to 2009's Children of the Corn made-for-TV reboot, but made after Children of the Corn: Genesis, which by all accounts appears to be in the original continuity. Then again, if Scorpion King: Book of Souls can come out after Tom Cruise rebooted The Mummy, the sky's the limit! Enough faffing about, let's finish this franchise.
Children of the Corn (2009)
We are so close to finishing October of the Corn... And October too, but this spooky month doesn't exhaust me like these last few Children of the Corn movies do, and the remake to 1984's Children of the Corn is no exception. This film is far more faithful to the original short story, but at what cost? For me the cost is that it's an absolute slog to get through. So without further ado...
Children of the Corn: Revelation (2001)
Going through all these Children of the Corn movies for October of the Corn, we see that the movies so far have covered a lot of ground (or, as much ground as you can cover when the main focus is a creepy kid cult). We've had the cult be active in the modern day and also a relic of years past. We've had the setting be a corn field and also urban Chicago. We've had the cult led by children, and also an adult who happened to have once been one of those kid leaders. And now we come to Children of the Corn: Revelation, a movie about the ghosts of the cult haunting... an apartment complex. Man, moments like this really hammer home that this is no one's favorite franchise.
Spiral (2019)
Leading up to talking about horror movies every weekday in October I got a Shudder account. If you don't know what that is, it's a streaming service that caters specifically to the horror genre. That's actually where I watched Mandy after Amazon was a lagging piece of garbage! I don't know if I'll keep with it after the free month is over, but in the mean time it has been interesting to watch some Shudder exclusives like 2020's Spiral, a queer horror thriller! Not to be confused with 2021's Spiral, which is the revival of the Saw franchise.
Children of the Corn 666: Isaac’s Return (1999)
I see what this movie was trying to do with "666" instead of "Part VI," but... why? 666 is traditionally regarded as the number of The Beast, but that's from the Book of Revelation (remember, it's singular, not plural). So it's very Christian... and while the child cult of He Who Walks Behind the Rows has performative Christian aspects, it's definitely not the same religion. So having "666" in the title makes no sense!
Chwineka Watches 