The Addams Family (2019):

If you're familiar with the Addams Family, then you know what to get here. It's the traditional Addams-style of humor that embraces the macabre and every sort of dark humor.

The runtime felt a bit short so some subplots felt rushed and others dropped quickly. The marketing made this movie felt like a Wednesday-centric movie, but you also have the Pugsley side plot which was needed because to be honest Pugsley didn't click right as a character to me in the older adaptations and was more like a joke to make Wednesday shine more, so I really appreciate making him relevant and making me care about him.

8/10

P.S.: Why Snoop Dog of all people?!

P.S. 2: Thing with a foot fetish...

===============

And with this movie, Halloween 2019 ends for me, and sadly I announce that I'm ending this tradition that I began in 2013. I can no longer sit through 31 movies everyday as I used to. This got a bit exhausting for me even if it's for a month. So next year, someone needs to take it over from here.

A Quiet Place:

The pacing was too quick I was shocked to find that I reached the ending. I guess this is what happens when there's very minimum dialogue to focus on.

Suspense was great, though I didn't like the alien designs that much. Felt very generic insect looking.

8/10

Get Out:

Wow was it good. Like, really good. The suspense and paranoia are top notch here. But I'll admit, I thought the "racism" was a little bit on the nose here. Maybe if it was set in the 60s for example it would've worked perfectly instead of contemporary USA.

8.5/10

The Dead Don't Die - Jesus christ, what is up with this string of horror movies from this year suddenly? Child's Play, The Lighthouse, Midsommar, and now this? Okay, granted, I had no expectations for Child's Play, but come on. Here we have a zombiedy movie that showed a lot of promise in the trailer and it turned out that the trailer pretty much showed all of the best scenes. It wasn't necessarily a bad movie, as it did have some funny bits, but ultimately, it was 30 minutes longer than it needed to be. There was also a lot of pointless characters that took up several minutes of screen time, such as these three friends who are on a road trip. We see them driving into town, have this long and drawn out moment of them watching the news, they have a conversation with the cops, and then the next time we see them they are dead. There was absolutely no reason for them to exist at all. Such a shame. Thankfully, the chemistry between Adam Driver and Bill Murray saved the film from being a total disaster. I'm going to give this one a 6/10 just because of that.

Speaking of Adam Driver, I do need to ask, why the hell is he brilliant in every role he plays EXCEPT as Kylo Ren?

Midsommar - It's pretty much The Wicker Man, but feels like it goes on forever. To be fair, the first 90 minutes went by pretty fast but my god did the last hour drag on. It was utterly ridiculous. Then again, it was also annoying at how predictable this film was. It did have a lot of cool visuals and music, ultimate though, it's nothing we haven't seen done before and done better. No suspense, no tension, yet, unlike The Lighthouse, I don't regret watching it, so that's good. I'm giving it a 7/10 as it is worth at least one viewing.

Halloween 2018 - 9/10

The Thing - 10/10

It Follows: So let me get this straight: Having sex makes you cursed to be stalked by a shape-shifting entity that is invisible to everybody else and if it catches you it rapes you to death? So the enemy is a walking STD? Yeah, this is one of those weird movies... nice music though... 6.5/10

Under the Skin (2013):

This movie is not for everyone. It's an abstract and artsy movie instead of a traditional dialogue-heavy 3-act structure. The dialogue here is minimum and it contains loads of bizarre, erotic imagery even though they're supposed to be scary.

7/10

Trick 'r Treat:

Not many Halloween movies explores the roots of Halloween, so this one's for you if you're interested in that aspect.

I liked the anthology structure, but you might feel some parts weren't long enough like the "The Principal" which I found too short

8.5/10

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street: Good songs, a nice little revenge story, but it's movies like these (and Child's Play 3) that I prefer to shave at home. Strangers with blades on my face are things I never get comfortable with. 8/10

The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008):

People said this remake was good, but I didn't like it.

The original was a very good anti-war movie, but here they turned to some pro-environment movie that turned the aliens to entitled assholes who think the earth is better be destroyed for the sake of the environment with a stupid "Technology is bad" ending.

I want to say Keeanu Reeves is the saving grace of this movie, but his character was not likable to call it that. The effects are dated and the McDonald's part was so forced.

3/10

Halloween - 10/10

Bram Stoker's Dracula - 9/10

Zombieland: Double Tap:

The humor is still there, it still made me laugh at a lot of its jokes including the "You-Know-Who" reference and unexpected cameo while still making fun of the zombie apocalypse without making it stupid.

8.5/10

=========== House of 1000 Corpses: So I've been seeing this clown character a lot but couldn't tell which movie he belongs to. It wasn't until later that I found its name, only to hear the news of the passing of the actor. This movie was weird. That's the best way to describe it. It's a weird exploitation movie that doesn't have a clear point beyond showing the gore. I thought Spaulding was the main villain so I didn't expect the evil redneck family to be the main villains here while he was taking a backseat to the whole thing, so I was disappointed for not getting to see more of him. 6.5/10

The Devil's Advocate:

The build up takes a lot of time you'd think you're watching a normal court drama, and when it switches to horror it feels like a different movie with weird payoff .

Al Pacino and Keanu Reeves are on an opposite terms of acting it's a bit laughable

7.5/10

Candyman:

You know, when someone says "Candyman", a normal looking black guy with a hook hand in a pimp coat is not the first thing that comes to mind...

Anyway this movie is good. I knew this character is a talking slasher and I expected something closer to Freddy's attitude, but man is Tony Todd's voice scary it's almost otherworldly.

8.5/10

Ma - An interestingly unoriginal idea put together with some great actors to provide us with an utterly boring as all hell movie. What a waste of time this was. 5/10

The Shining - 10/10

Vampyr - For being titled Vampire and being based on Carmilla, it didn't really feature a vampire. The vampire was in the movie for maybe a total of 30 seconds, if that. The ending was pretty lackluster and didn't pay off. Thankfully, there was a lot of creativity inputted into the film, especially with shadows that had a personality of their own to keep you engaged, but overall, I give it a 6/10. It did nothing for me.

Simpsons THoH XXX - What a crock of shit this was. I thought we had already had the low point of these specials but nope, they have proven me wrong. The intro was easily the best thing about the episode and that was only for a couple of laughs it gave me. Not only was the Stranger Things segment not even remotely funny, but it didn't even make sense. Add on top that you can only get the jokes if you have seen Stranger Things and you have one of the worst first stories ever. The second story was even worse and repeated a Homer plot that has already been done in these things. The final one, meant to be a "parody" on The Shape of Water was just down right disgusting. I walked out of the room as I was done. Such a worthless pile of garbage for what was supposed to be celebrating the 666th episode of the series.

Night of the Living Dead (1990):

Excellent remake, but I feel the original cast gave a better performance than here. Barbara was an improvement though.

8/10

Let the Right One In: Okay, how many vampire movies have I seen already? This one was another one I was recommended to watch and it's also the first Swedish movie I've ever seen. Story is not that unique. It's a boy who befriends a vampire girl living next door, however instead of having the girl murdering random people (mostly), they show us her father being the one doing the killing to bring her the blood. It would be a nice change and shows us the girl in a more sympathetic look, but it was dropped to have her being a monster. There wasn't much scares here and the focus was more on the romance between the boy and the girl and the troubles they were having with one having to deal with bullies and the other dealing with her condition believing it to be an illness instead of being a vampire. Not sure how the American adaptation is, but this one I'd say was a okay. 7/10

Lord of the Flies (1990): The acting here is much better than the stilted acting of the original movie, so here the kids are much frighting and the death scenes are more heartbreaking. But the original movie had a creepier atmosphere to back it up, especially being in black & white. This version didn't put much focus on the monster and we didn't get a parachutist to give us the "fly" in "Lord of the Flies". 7.5/10

WarGames: Saw this years ago and I wanted to see it again. And wow, it is amazing how it's both dated and relevant at the same time. The computer technology of course is dated as hell but the super AI and online hacking are so relevant for the modern age. Young Matthew Broderick's acting though... and you'd think he got better as her got older and more experienced... 8/10

Fright Night (1985): Another recommended to watch and it's another vampire movie. Though this one is a bit refreshing since it l vampire rules a little bit loosely than usual (We need more vampire movies that don't stick to the traditional ways). The Vincent Price parody character was great and easily the best character in the movie next to Evil. 8/10

Dracula (1979): First off: Yes, I saw it because it was referenced in Fallen Kingdom. Frank Langella is an underrated Dracula. He's like Christopher Lee and Bela Lugosi combined into 1. Also from my understanding he's the first Dracula to play it in a more romantic take as opposed to the previous ones, so he did have an impact for the vampire culture. I won't harp on the story because at this point I've seen enough Dracula movies and each of them had the same basic premise with few changes here and there, but this one had Donald Pleasance and Sylvester McCoy so that's a double win in my book. 8/10

Phantasm:

Another movie I was recommended to watch. This Tall Man was something alright. I liked Mike and Jody, especially when they didn't play the "Jody needs to believe his brother" for too long. The pacing felt a little off though, a little slow and unfocused at time.

7/10

Soylent Green:

I heard this reference a lot and it gave me the impression the movie is a cannibal horror movie, but I got a dystopian feature with people turning to snacks. I wouldn't call it scary, but it did have the build up for the reveal, and it gives the scary idea of eating people without knowing it or just the idea of failing to give the warning. 7/10

Gremlins + Gremlins 2: The New Batch:

I saw the first Gremlins years ago and it's still as good as I remember. Gremlins 2 on the other hand, this is a weird one. Yeah, they were going for more comedy with this but it was just too jarring. When it acts like a proper sequel and takes itself seriously it works, but when it's doing random 4th wall breaking jokes or just being overtly cartoony it doesn't work to me.

Gremlins: 8/10

Gremlins 2: 5/10

Child's Play 2019 - Well, at least it wasn't as bad as the remake to Nightmare on Elm Street, that's something, right? Seriously though, this was complete and utter shit. It was cliche, it didn't feature a single likable character, there was not a single sense of pacing, but most of all, it was utterly boring. The movie didn't even try to do anything original at all. Not to mention it totally wasted Mark Hamill, but I bet he loved the paycheck they gave him for this shit. Also, who the hell in the real world would also want to own a doll that looked like that? It looked like someone immortalized the face of a pedophile in doll form. Like seriously, that shit looked creepy. No kid would want anything to do with that. Jesus fucking christ this sucked and I'm not even that big of a fan of the original. I'm giving this shit fest a 2/10 because there were two funny moments in the movie.

Stephen King's It:

So for a long time, the impression I had on this movie was based on the Nostalgia Critic review and thanks to that I thought this was nothing but a horror movie that's too silly to take seriously.

Ignoring the differences from the book and the new movies, this was kinda, sorta okay. The scares are lacking, but the build up scenes are still well done. Pennywise is scarier when it's just his voice, but when he's on screen he's more annoying than scary. The only scene I thought was remotely scary was Pennywise's cemetery moment when he asked Bill to pick his grave, but that's it. The adults are wooden so their reactions are also wooden. And the ending was pathetic. So all what they had to do was just shove Pennywise aside and beat him up with their hands until they reach his heart? It makes all the talk about facing their fears kinda pointless when simple punches were the answer all along.

6/10

The Stone Tape: This was recommended to me for watching, and it's good. It's made for TV and so it looks like I'm watching a Doctor Who episode complete with dodgy special effects and hammy acting, but without the Doctor. Now if you're scared of loud noises, this will certainly scare you because the screams are many. It's a different kind of Haunted House story as everyone is in the same place but only select few at random can hear or see the ghost, so it makes for an interesting character dynamic, and it's going by science instead of the supernatural. 7.5/10

The Haunting (1963):

Very atmospheric and and it's done with just specific and weird shots at random objects accompanied by good sound engineering to give the impression of a haunted house.

8.5/10

The Lost World (1960): My God was this an embarrassment. This was made in the 60s and the best thing they could come up with are lizards with prosthetics like it's 1940s One Million BC? They couldn't do puppets or stop-motion or anything resembling "dinosaurs"? And Since this movie used real animals it forced real animals to fight and kill each other for real which should never be okay in any time. And it's a shame because the actors were really good but they had to be in such insultingly cheap production like this. 3/10

The Blob (1988):

Production value is vastly superior to the original and the monster is far more menacing, but I think I prefer the original's B-Movie camp feel. I didn't like the main character that much, I didn't like how the blob looked like it tried to copy John Carpenter's The Thing, and I didn't like it being reduced from a wild space monster to an Earth-made biological weapon.

7/10

The Omen 1976 - I saw the remake many years ago and thought it was long and utterly boring. This version was long and only slightly boring. There are some interesting ideas going on in this film but the thing comes to a screeching halt for a good 20 or so minutes before it picks up again around the time the main dude and David Warner head to Rome. There are some elements I did enjoy, however, overall, it was pretty meh. The soundtrack was great though. 7/10

Also have been watching the 80s Twilight Zone series and kicked off Tales from the Crypt Season 4.

The Blob (1958):

Heard about this classic a lot, and it still holds up, except for the fact Steve McQueen looks way too old for what's supposed to be a teenager. The suspense is great and the monster effect still holds up for what is basically a ball of slime.

8/10

The Shape of Water: It was intended to be a remake of Creature From the Black Lagoon, so I thought I'll watch it now while the original movies are still fresh in my mind. So the movie is infamous for the inter-species romance between Eliza and the Amphibian Man, and I agree, it was a little off-putting. The rest of the movie however was solid though. 8/10

The Creature Walks Among Us: Yeah, this wasn't good. Not only they rehashed the previous two movies in one, but they also changed the creature in this stupid looking costume and turned it to a Frankenstein's monster clone. 4/10

Revenge of the Creature:

I heard the sequels were bad, but I actually liked this more than the first one. In fact, this is what I was waiting to see in the first one but all it did was trying to catch the creature until the last moment they changed their mind and let it free/leaving it to die.

The characters are really likable and you get to sympathize with the creature who got subjected to endless experiments. The suit wasn't as good as the original one though. There were shots where the right eye was off and in others you can see the paint is missing from the suit and in one scene air bubbles were clearly shooting from the hole on the top of its head.

8/10

Watched Christine last night. Great movie. 9/10.

Creature from the Black Lagoon:

First time seeing any of the Gillman movies, and this one was... okay for what it gave. Maybe I expected more, but didn't see what made it so special other than the creature itself. Beautifully shot, good music, but the plot was lackluster. 6.5/10

House of Wax (1953):

As a museum lover I couldn't help but love it. It embraces the paranoia you get when you see real-life statues or stuffed animals and expect them to jump to life right in front of you.

Of course, Vincent Price is still amazing (has he ever made bad movies?) and the movie had a surprising amount of humor you almost forget you're watching a horror movie. Mostly dark humor in the house, but still gave me a laugh.

8/10

And I've already started with both Halloween H20 and Resurrection.

Other than Tales from the Crypt and some Halloween movies, I'm not sure what I have in the cards for this year right now. I know I'm going to be moving through as many Ultra Q episodes as I can when the BD comes out in hopes of having that reviewed for my Halloween Month series.

I'll probably pick up the new BD/4K release of The Shining and watch that to get ready for Doctor Sleep (which I wish came out in Oct and not Nov).