Halloween Month Movie a Night

Tonight's Movie: Psycho.

This one is a classic. Tony Perkins was amazing, people. Accept no imitations.



Just to catch you up to speed on what I've been watching (I also hit the horror section at Blockbuster a couple of times) in case you do follow along...


Oct 12 The Bride Of Frankenstein. My favorite of the Whale directed Frankenstein movies I think.

Oct 13 The Exorcist. I've watched a few "demonic" movies so far. This one though is the end all be all... it's just so in your face freaky and scary that I still hear that voice and my blood turns cold.

Oct 14 Ginger Snaps. I love a great werewolf movie. One I didn't expect to be as good as it was.

Oct 15 Phantom of the Opera. Lon Chaney, silent, 1925.

Oct 16 Pet Sematary. Not the best of the best Stephen King adaptation but it does deliver the scares.

Oct 17 Mirrors. Keifer Sutherland. Oh yes. And this was UBER freakout inducing.
It's an American remake of a Korean horror film, and not bad. I haven't seen the Korean version "Go To The Mirror" yet.

Oct 18 Drag Me To Hell. Sam Raimi freaked me out before with "The Gift". This one? OMFG!!! Yes! Go get this one and see it if you haven't!

Oct 19 Candyman. This is a twist on the old "Bloody Mary" legend. I thought it quite well done and very, VERY creepy with some good scares.

Oct 20 Deep Red: The Hatchet Murders. If you are new to Argento, start here, I think it's got to be among his best. Gory? You betcha. Warning you now. Good then, you handled that one okay? Try "Suspiria" next.

Oct 21 Grace. OMG just see this one. I can't even.... OMG.

Oct 22 [REC]. prettyh told me I should hunt this one down and I am glad I did. The scares were intense, the buildups quite good.

Oct 23 Halloween. Rob Zombie's take on it. It was so much better than I thought it would be! Still saving the original for THE night however.

Oct 24 The Strangers. Oh lord.... oh lord... not one I should have watched when I'm going to be alone in the house most of the week. OMG OMG OMG OMG!!!!

Oct 25 - Paranormal Activity. Review coming, writing it after I post this.

Paranormal Activity (2009) - Review.

Since the movie is now playing in a close by location, I saved off watching the burned DVD I did and a couple of friends and I went and saw it Sunday night. I'm so glad I went to the theater to experience it!




Well, I had high hopes for this one, because it's been built up so much. Exactly what I went through before seeing "The Blair Witch Project" for the first time in theaters. It's become "the little movie that could".

Done very much in the "lost footage" style of the aforementioned "Blair Witch Project", it only makes it that much creepier and the scares that much more real feeling.


Synopsis:
Micah (Sloat) and Katie (Featherston) move into a new tract home in San Diego. He's a day trader and she's a student, and English major. At first they notice little weird stuff happening at night. As what may or may not be a demon becomes more active, particularly in the wee hours of the night while they are in bed sleeping, Micah gets a fancy camera setup and starts filming their bedroom to capture any evidence of this presence.

For complete spoilers and entire rundown of the film, see here.

My thoughts: Very effective. We all need to sleep, right? And director Oren Peli hits us right where he knows it'll scare us most.
The activity increases, subtly building to its crescendo.

Frankly I ended up irritated with Micah. He didn't take the whole thing nearly seriously enough, treating it like some parlor game. When he brought in that Ouija board I wanted to freaking crown him with it. That's just it though, it's that normalcy of this couple. Their easy chemistry, and real everyday dialogue that just has you gripping the arm rests of your theater seat whenever night falls and off they go to bed again.

The scares here don't rely on what you SEE necessarily. A shadow here, a door closing there, tracks in laid out baby powder ... it's the atmosphere, what you do NOT see, but feel, that makes this so much more effective.

It was incredible seeing this in a darkened theater with a room full of other people, all jumping and screaming out at the same time as you.