There are two types of bad movies--okay, there are way more than that, but just go with me on this. The two types are movies made sincerely, and those that are not. The Room is a masterpiece of bad cinema because Mr. Tommy Wiseau really, truly thought he was making art. But all the Scary Movie films and their spin-offs were made to be intentionally bad, and they end up being bad in a different, less enjoyable way. So which is Under ConTroll, the German sequel to Troll 2? Well there's nothing sincere about this movie, so that's telling.
possession
Paranormal Sexperiments (2016)
I fully know that I have no one to blame for this but me. I went down a weird rabbit hole on Tubi and found a horror porno called Haunted Hellcats, but IMDB had never heard of it. It had heard of Paranormal Sexperiments with the same cast and crew, as did Amazon dot com. But both the Amazon and Tubi versions were too short to be the full movie, and a couple minutes into the Tubi version--like hell am I going to give Amazon any of my money over porn for straight men--it was clear that it was heavily censored. So much like The Mummy's Kiss before it, I had to turn to porn sites to find the full movie. Was it worth it? No. No! Absolutely not! Why would you even ask that?!
Malignant (2021)
Look, I don't want to pat myself on the back too much. This blog already is a bit of an ego trip, but I'm just a normal guy. I put my pants on one trite quote at a time. However, after hearing that the twist in Malignant was supposed to be completely surprising, I figured it out in something like 20 minutes. What, like it's hard?
The Suicide Squad (2021)
So my plan was to see The Suicide Squad in theaters. I had some friends lined up, we had the date all planned out, then a COVID scare dashed all our plans. This is the unfortunate world we live in, highlighted also in the fact that this fun movie is considered a box office bomb during its second week because a majority of people don't feel safe in a theater yet. I'm not sure what movies are actually thriving right now, but maybe new metrics will be needed to judge movies during this post-pandemic pandemic. Where was I? Right, The Suicide Squad, emphasis on "The!"
Revolutionary Girl Utena – Season 1, Episodes 1-3
Okay, so this one might need a little explaining. I am a "geriatric millennial," a term I saw once and cannot get out of my head, which in this case means I was on the internet back in the heyday of anime music videos, or AMVs. People would take anime clips and cut them together with a song and at the time it was high art. One AMV that stuck with me was Kusoyaro mashing up Bjork's "Bachlorette" with the film Shōjo Kakumei Utena Aduresensu Mokushiroku, AKA Revolutionary Girl Utena: Adolescence of Utena. It's my favorite AMV and the reason why I include "I'm a fountain of blood in the shape of a girl" on most of my social profiles. But I'd never actually seen Utena, so when a friend gave me access to his I got my own Funimation account, I figured it was time to fix that starting with the show that came before the movie. Time to look at some vintage 90's girl power that isn't Sailor Moon!
Fear Street: 1666 (2021)
I did it! I actually took the time to reread The Fear Street Saga books! And it's a good thing I did, because the parallels between that trilogy of books and this trilogy of movies are... uh... Okay, so there's next to no connection and I can't get too excited about reading a novella written for teenagers, but still. Back to the topic on hand, Fear Street: 1666 ties all the threads from Fear Street: 1994 and Fear Street: 1978 together, revealing the truth behind all the bad things that happen in Shadyside. And I'm going to talk around that as this is a mostly spoiler free review. Yup, being super inconsistent about that with this trilogy.
Fear Street: 1978 (2021)
Okay, so I didn't actually reread The Fear Street Saga as I suggested I might while talking about Fear Street: 1994, the first in this trilogy of horror. I'm going to try again this weekend, but I make no promises. It's not like it really matters anyway, since these films are more inspired by the Fear Street series, as evidenced by Sarah Fier being a central character in the films who isn't in the books. With that out of the way, I do have something positive to report: my expectations for Fear Street: 1978 were pretty low, and this movie sailed over them! It's not perfect, but it's better than most Friday the 13th films, so it gets thumbs up from me. Prepare for full spoilers this time, cause I want to talk about that ending twist.
Fear Street: 1994 (2021)
One thing this blog lacks (as of writing) is an "About the Author" page. I've thought about it multiple times and even have a draft saved, but so far nothing has felt quite right. Early on I even considered doing a series of posts where I explain my history with the horror genre: from AOL public domain stories posted around Halloween by some guy named "Lovecraft" to The Fear Street Saga, three books that told the history of the cursed town Shadyside. I even still have those books! Well, imagine my surprise when they announced a trilogy of Fear Street movies inspired by the book series of the same name. Hell, they even got Mrs. Leigh Janiak--the director of Honeymoon, one of my favorite movies--to direct all three! These movies were specifically made for me, which is a bit sad cause the first one was... it was fine. It's fine. It was fine.
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!
The Field Guide to Evil (2018)
I think this is the first anthology I've reviewed on the blog? The only other time I've used that tag was with The Star Wars Holiday Special, and that was mostly a "for lack of a better word" situation. The Field Guide to Evil is a horror anthology that focuses on multicultural folklore, broadening our horizons by showcasing creatures and demons from around the world. But unfortunately for this film, not every story is told as well as the others. There were some shorts I loved, and others that just left me feeling meh.
Chwineka Watches 