Scary Stories (from a Dark Allie)

Okay, I’m not at all sure why I put this on my calendar. It’s a two and a half hour film by Lars Von Trier, who also made Melancholia, the worst movie I have ever seen (which is saying something, especially for a film with Kirsten Dunst AND Kiefer Sutherland).

This might be my absolute favorite Alex Garland work. He wrote it, and Danny Boyle (28 Days Later) directed it, and it’s very good.

Sometimes I worry that I’m too Americanized and I only like heavy Hollywood horror…but then I watch things like this that have at least a little more subtlety, feel a little more “indie” (or at least, not full-on Hollywood), and I remember what I like about them.

This is a fairly standard slasher film of the 1980s. The story isn’t very original (group of folks around a campfire discussing an urban legend no one believes in), the acting isn’t great, and the “madman” isn’t super terrifying.

So, I’ve had some trouble with horror-comedy films this year. Several of them haven’t been great on either the horror OR the comedy side, and they’ve been kind of a slog to get through. I’m happy that this month seems to have redeemed the horror-comedy genre a bit for me.

I had a lot of fun with this one! I didn’t know much about it going in, which I think helped, as I didn’t really have any hopes or expectations. And it was a lot of fun!

This was okay. It’s a pretty standard horror-comedy film. Well, a pretty standard vampire horror-comedy. It’s funny enough, not all that scary, and not all that original.

(Apologies, probably lots of spoilers for this one) It’s hard to really talk about this one without spoiling it, but I want to talk about it, so I guess I’m going to spoil it?

There’s a lot about this movie I like. It’s an earlier Mike Flanagan film, so there’s a lot of interesting direction and story. There are definitely some scary moments here.

Okay, well, it goes. I liked this one about as much as the original, even though it was not insignificantly longer.

I must be getting to the part of the year where I’m tired and I don’t have much to say. I still don’t have much to say about this one.

This is another one I heard a lot of hype about. I found it just okay.

Oh good, a movie I enjoyed more than I was expecting! Feels like it’s been a little while since I came across one of those.