My October Challenge 2021
Sept 30, 2021 16:05:19 GMT -8
Post by guttersnipe on Sept 30, 2021 16:05:19 GMT -8
Salutations to you all, and apologies for my negligence regarding this place of late (IRL is very much getting in the way). So last year I figured that I had probably carried out my last October Challenge, and wouldn't you know it but I found a bundle of (probably terrible) 1950s horrors on YouTube and there's a handful of interesting unseens on Edgar Wright's Top 1,000 that I should be able to hunt down also. Between those and a sprinkling of other appealing pictures (a few of which at the cinema, and I wasn't able to expect that last year), and I once again have a pool of forty-odd titles to spend my witching month on. I hereby raise my hot chocolate (it's late on Thursday night) to my October Challenge 2021!
1) Fire Maidens from Outer Space (1956, Cy Roth) - 2/10*
2) A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987, Chuck Russell) - 5/10**
3) I Remember You (2017, Óskar Thór Axelsson) - 6/10
4) The Giant Gila Monster (1959, Ray Kellogg) - 3/10
5) Slender Man (2018, Sylvain White) - 4/10
6) Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (1974, Terence Fisher) - 6/10
7) The Severed Arm (1973, Tom Alderman) - 5/10
8) Ashura (2005, Yojiro Takita) - 5/10
9) St. Agatha (2018, Darren Lynn Bousman) - 6/10
10) The Witch: Part 1 - The Subversion (2018, Park Hoon-jung) - 6/10
11) The Angry Red Planet (1959, Ib Melchior) - 4/10***
12) The Black Scorpion (1957, Edward Ludwig) - 5/10
13) The Werewolf (1956, Fred F. Sears) - 5/10
14) The Monster That Challenged the World (1957, Arnold Laven) - 3/10
15) It Conquered the World (1956, Roger Corman) - 6/10****
16) Wild Zero (1999, Tetsuro Takeuchi) - 6/10
17) Messiah of Evil (1973, Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz) - 7/10*****
18) Meatball Machine (2005, Yūdai Yamaguchi and Jun'ichi Yamamoto) - 6/10
19) The Hidden (1987, Jack Sholder) - 6/10******
20) Boardinghouse (1982, John Wintergate) - 3/10
21) Indestructible Man (1956, Jack Pollexfen) - 4/10
22) Cello (2005, Woo-cheol Lee) - 5/10
23) Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation (2018, Genndy Tartakovsky) - 6/10
24) Womaneater (1958, Charles Saunders) - 3/10
25) The Brain That Wouldn't Die (1962, Joseph Green) - 6/10
26) The Devil's Men (1976, Kostas Karagiannis) - 5/10
27) Roadgames (1981, Richard Franklin) - 7/10
28) Dead & Buried (1981, Gary Sherman) - 7/10
29) Bride of the Gorilla (1951, Curt Siodmak) - 4/10
30) The House That Screamed (1969, Narciso Ibáñez Serrador) - 6/10
31) Elvira's Haunted Hills (2001, Sam Irvin) - 5/10
+++
32) War of the Colossal Beast (1958 Bert I. Gordon) - 5/10
33) Poseidon Rex (2013, Mark L. Lester) - 3/10*******
34) Burke & Hare (1972, Vernon Sewell) - 4/10
35) The Boogeyman (1980, Ulli Lommel) - 7/10
36) The Legacy (1988, Richard Marquand) - 5/10
37) The Man from Nowhere (1975, James Hill) - 6/10
38) Dracula (1974, Dan Curtis) - 6/10
39) The Magnetic Monster (1953, Curt Siodmak) - 5/10
40) Beginning of the End (1957, Bert I. Gordon) - 4/10
41) I Was a Teenage Frankenstein (1957, Herbert L. Strock) - 5/10
42) What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice? (1969, Lee H. Katzin and Bernard Girard) - 5/10
43) The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993, Henry Selick) (rewatch) - 8/10
* The only moment of note in this film is when a secretary enters and exits a room in an unbroken shot of her walking down some stairs, opening and closing two gates, dragging a chair a few feet and sitting down to take some mission notes so brief they needn't really be written down - before doing everything in reverse as she goes. I know that the male gaze is a thing, but it's not usually employed to show women carrying out painfully laborious tasks
** Boasting the musical dream-team of Angelo Badalamenti and Dokken
*** One of those films where a stunning poster masks the reality that it's largely comprised of interminable scenes of boy-howdies dicking about in an unconvincing spaceship
**** These films aren't in any way related, but their titles deployed in tandem extends me a bit of private amusement. Incidentally, Conquered would get so much more praise if the monster didn't look so much like one of those inflatable tube figures you see outside car showrooms
***** Christ, this rough gem was from the Howard the Duck guy. Is he bipolar or something?
****** Kyle MacLachlan as a young, eccentric FBI agent who teams up with local law enforcement to investigate cases of possession? It'll never catch on
******* Partway into this masterpiece I began to wonder if it took the whole "black guy dies first" to its logical conclusion by wiping out every minority available in order to facilitate whitey's escape. It then proceeded to pursue this ideal with worrying determination
1) Fire Maidens from Outer Space (1956, Cy Roth) - 2/10*
2) A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987, Chuck Russell) - 5/10**
3) I Remember You (2017, Óskar Thór Axelsson) - 6/10
4) The Giant Gila Monster (1959, Ray Kellogg) - 3/10
5) Slender Man (2018, Sylvain White) - 4/10
6) Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (1974, Terence Fisher) - 6/10
7) The Severed Arm (1973, Tom Alderman) - 5/10
8) Ashura (2005, Yojiro Takita) - 5/10
9) St. Agatha (2018, Darren Lynn Bousman) - 6/10
10) The Witch: Part 1 - The Subversion (2018, Park Hoon-jung) - 6/10
11) The Angry Red Planet (1959, Ib Melchior) - 4/10***
12) The Black Scorpion (1957, Edward Ludwig) - 5/10
13) The Werewolf (1956, Fred F. Sears) - 5/10
14) The Monster That Challenged the World (1957, Arnold Laven) - 3/10
15) It Conquered the World (1956, Roger Corman) - 6/10****
16) Wild Zero (1999, Tetsuro Takeuchi) - 6/10
17) Messiah of Evil (1973, Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz) - 7/10*****
18) Meatball Machine (2005, Yūdai Yamaguchi and Jun'ichi Yamamoto) - 6/10
19) The Hidden (1987, Jack Sholder) - 6/10******
20) Boardinghouse (1982, John Wintergate) - 3/10
21) Indestructible Man (1956, Jack Pollexfen) - 4/10
22) Cello (2005, Woo-cheol Lee) - 5/10
23) Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation (2018, Genndy Tartakovsky) - 6/10
24) Womaneater (1958, Charles Saunders) - 3/10
25) The Brain That Wouldn't Die (1962, Joseph Green) - 6/10
26) The Devil's Men (1976, Kostas Karagiannis) - 5/10
27) Roadgames (1981, Richard Franklin) - 7/10
28) Dead & Buried (1981, Gary Sherman) - 7/10
29) Bride of the Gorilla (1951, Curt Siodmak) - 4/10
30) The House That Screamed (1969, Narciso Ibáñez Serrador) - 6/10
31) Elvira's Haunted Hills (2001, Sam Irvin) - 5/10
+++
32) War of the Colossal Beast (1958 Bert I. Gordon) - 5/10
33) Poseidon Rex (2013, Mark L. Lester) - 3/10*******
34) Burke & Hare (1972, Vernon Sewell) - 4/10
35) The Boogeyman (1980, Ulli Lommel) - 7/10
36) The Legacy (1988, Richard Marquand) - 5/10
37) The Man from Nowhere (1975, James Hill) - 6/10
38) Dracula (1974, Dan Curtis) - 6/10
39) The Magnetic Monster (1953, Curt Siodmak) - 5/10
40) Beginning of the End (1957, Bert I. Gordon) - 4/10
41) I Was a Teenage Frankenstein (1957, Herbert L. Strock) - 5/10
42) What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice? (1969, Lee H. Katzin and Bernard Girard) - 5/10
43) The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993, Henry Selick) (rewatch) - 8/10
* The only moment of note in this film is when a secretary enters and exits a room in an unbroken shot of her walking down some stairs, opening and closing two gates, dragging a chair a few feet and sitting down to take some mission notes so brief they needn't really be written down - before doing everything in reverse as she goes. I know that the male gaze is a thing, but it's not usually employed to show women carrying out painfully laborious tasks
** Boasting the musical dream-team of Angelo Badalamenti and Dokken
*** One of those films where a stunning poster masks the reality that it's largely comprised of interminable scenes of boy-howdies dicking about in an unconvincing spaceship
**** These films aren't in any way related, but their titles deployed in tandem extends me a bit of private amusement. Incidentally, Conquered would get so much more praise if the monster didn't look so much like one of those inflatable tube figures you see outside car showrooms
***** Christ, this rough gem was from the Howard the Duck guy. Is he bipolar or something?
****** Kyle MacLachlan as a young, eccentric FBI agent who teams up with local law enforcement to investigate cases of possession? It'll never catch on
******* Partway into this masterpiece I began to wonder if it took the whole "black guy dies first" to its logical conclusion by wiping out every minority available in order to facilitate whitey's escape. It then proceeded to pursue this ideal with worrying determination