Scary Stories (from a Dark Allie)

This movie is a little difficult to explain. Especially if you haven’t read anything by Grady Hendrix. This is based on the Grady Hendrix novel of the same name, and tries to achieve the same tongue-in-cheek tone his books do.

Okay, I know I said last week that it’s hard to go wrong with Wes Craven, but this one kind of did.

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.