Scary Stories (from a Dark Allie)

I was hoping that a follow-up to a movie I remember liking quite a bit might not be a disappointment, and yet…sigh. I’m still down, I’m still not feeling talkative, and I definitely wasn’t impressed with this film.

I’m really hoping that before the end of the year there will be at least one more film that gets me talking.

I thought watching some more scary movies would somehow make me more talkative, but it hasn’t.

I like this movie quite a bit, despite it doing that stupid thing of showing a scene from later in the film at the very beginning. Stop that! It’s not necessary! It definitely wasn’t necessary here!

I liked this one more than I expected, but since I’m still watching this post-election (as opposed to yesterday’s movie which I actually watched pre-election), I’ve got very little to say.

I worry it’s going to be difficult to say too much about this movie without spoiling it, but I’m going to try, because I liked it more than I anticipated.

I’m going to be so honest right now that I’m watching this the day after the US presidential election and I am certain that’s having a major impact on how I feel about this film…but I found it so weird and funny and entertaining.

I don’t really have too much to say about this one either. It’s another that had a neat concept and could’ve been more interesting than it was, but falters a bit in execution.

I so badly wanted to like this movie way more than I did. It has such a clever name! I love the idea of it! Even the performances are pretty good! But something about the execution here just isn’t it.

So, I originally found this film when I wanted to watch the 1999 movie Memorial Day for the Memorial Day holiday, but unfortunately couldn’t find it streaming ANYWHERE. There were a few places that had the DVD for sale, and I bought it! But I wasn’t sure if it would ship in time…plus there’s another movie by the same name from the same year, and I was a little worried I’d accidentally get THAT movie instead…

Well, I DID get the (correct) movie in time! But I already watched this movie just in case. It came up when I was searching for other Memorial Day horror movies. I don’t think it’s exactly on theme for today (though the main character is a veteran!), but it’ll work. Plus it has Larry Fessenden and Ethan Embry, so it seemed somewhat promising? And it’s available on streaming platforms.

So this was…certainly a movie. And not a very good one. Nor was it a very original one.

I originally watched this way back in 2016 and was going to write about it for the original run of this site, but there was some distribution issue and I wasn’t sure it was technically available anywhere so I put it aside and am finally getting back around to it.

Okay, I was…hesitant to watch this, because it’s a two and a half hour movie, but it IS Mike Flanagan (AND Stephen King), and I watched The Shining last time around, so it had to be included here. And I’m glad it was.