Scary Stories (from a Dark Allie)

I really like this movie. I also really like this book. This is probably my favorite film adaptation of a Stephen King story (though it may be tied with The Shawshank Redemption). It’s definitely one of my favorite Stephen King novels, and I think one of the first of his books that I’ve read.

I watched this movie because until I watched Tales of Halloween I’d never seen anything by Mike Mendez, and since I liked Tales so much I figured I’d have to like his other works at least a little (right?). Luckily I wasn’t wrong!

Wow. Umm…this movie was certainly something. It started out weird and creepy, and ended up REALLY weird and REALLY creepy. Like, over-the-top weird. But that was only the last ten minutes or so, so I’ll forgive that.

I like this movie. It’s another Halloween anthology film, though all four (well, technically five) of the stories are by the same writer and director (Mike Dougherty) in this one. Four stories are called out but Leslie Bibb and Tahmoh Penikett star in the fifth story that’s effectively a prologue (…epilogue).

Normally I have trouble rating anthology films. Often the segments vary in quality, tone, or entertainment value. I had no trouble rating this one, though. Five out of five, no question. Well, some questions.

First of all, I’ll admit right now that I haven’t seen any of the other Halloween sequels, so I’m probably missing some context. That said, you could watch this movie on its own and still follow along with the story.

So. Rob Zombie’s remake of John Carpenter’s Halloween. Sorry, I should say reimagining. In some ways, it reminded me of Michael Bay’s Nightmare on Elm Street remake. But mostly it didn’t remind me of that at all. And mostly I liked this one. I just wish it weren’t so long. It’s really long.

There’s not much I can say about this movie that hasn’t already been said better elsewhere.

Hopefully this weekend I’ll have more energy to give you some real reviews (though I am throwing a Halloween party…), but this’ll have to suffice for now.

This movie was long and kind of boring. The story itself was reasonably interesting but the movie was weirdly paced and soooo slow.

October’s feeling like a lazy month for me. I can’t believe it’s almost over! Which means my favorite holiday is coming up quickly. Sadly, I have a lot more to say about delicious candy than I do about this movie.

I liked this one, which is unsurprising in a few ways. The screenplay was written by Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan, two writers whose work I’m familiar with.

The cast has a couple of familiar faces: Alex Essoe of Starry Eyes and Josh Stewart of The Collector/The Collection(apparently Marcus Dunstan likes Josh Stewart), both of whom are great.

I don’t have a lot to say about this movie because there wasn’t a lot going on for most of it. In fact, it was more than two-thirds of the way through before anything really scary happened – before that it’s all just talk about fear.