Saturday, November 1, 2014

What Was the Best/Worst Movie You Saw During #ScaryMovieMonth?

It was glorious, but now it's over.

Our most successful #ScaryMovieMonth EVER has ended, and thanks to all of your hard work and devotion to watching shit-tons of horror movies it was BIG BIG FUN (also Doug's high school nickname). We can't thank you enough for making this the best place to be on the internet during October and ALL YEAR LONG.

So let's debrief. What's the best movie you saw during #SMM? Was it something new or an old favorite you revisited? What was the worst thing you saw? Did you have a good #ScaryMovieMonth overall? Are you already looking forward to next year's as much as I am?

Thanks again, everyone. You real are the best community we could ever hope to have.

#ScaryMovieMonth 4EVA.

63 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. My favorite new viewing experiences were The Changeling, Nosferatu, Shadow of the Vampire, Black Christmas, House of the Devil, Night of the Creeps, and Tales From the Crypt. Village of the Damned (1960) was also pretty cool, and a movie I will revisit in the future. I got lucky that most of the new stuff I saw was a hit with me.

    My favorite things that I saw on re-watch were Carrie, Misery, The Dead Zone and The Shining. Stephen King rules.

    Except for Maximum Overdrive, which, unfortunately is of the worst new viewings I experienced this year. But what took the cake this year was Silent Hill: Revelation. That was 90 minutes of pure shit. I also came to the realization that Hammer horror just doesn't do it for me. Even The Vampire Lovers I find pretty boring. Lastly, I found Stage Fright to be pretty dumb. The whole "musical horror" thing, as they presented it, just didn't work for me.

    Still, I loved every second of this month. Thanks, everyone!

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    1. Black Christmas was new to me last Scary Movie Month and like you it was a highlight. I am so glad I bought on DVD at the time so I can revisit it.

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    2. It was surprisingly good and a neat piece of history as the "true" first slasher movie. I could definitely see the early signs of what would come soon after. I enjoyed it.

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  3. Pretty happy with my total of 16 movies. I know it's not as much as some of you freaks... I mean aficionados, but still. And now I have a goal to reach next year.

    My favorite movies of the month were Sauna, a small Finnish movie, and the crazy John Dies at the End. Also, Berberian Sound Studio was an interesting experience, to say the least.

    The worst movie was the 80's campy slasher Aerobicide, but it's the fun kind of bad. You know, with weak plot twists, laughable dialogue and gratuitous shots of girls in skimpy outfits.

    Of course, the true highlight of the month was getting a mention on the podcast. I can die happy now.

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  4. Picking the best is difficult (Abominable Dr. Phibes was SO GOOD) but I'll have to go with I Saw the Devil. The acting is extraordinary, the violence is some of the most intense I've ever seen, and I had no idea where the story was going, which is a thing I really love about a lot of Korean cinema. It's beautifully shot and there are numerous images that will stick with me.
    The worst is easy: Vampire Boys. I found it on iTunes under horror because I was looking for a scary movie with queer protagonists. The very first line, I burst out laughing. I've never laughed so continuously at a movie, ever. The dialogue, the acting, the slo-mo, the abs, my God, the abs--it was terrible on every level and takes itself so seriously. Not scary, not sexy, not even really a movie. Only to be watched ironically with other hipster douchebags.
    All in all, though, this has been such an awesome experience. I watched films I never would have normally picked up, finally ventured into the local cult videostore, and went through the books on scary movies that my grandfather left me. The reviews people have left are priceless, and it was great to finally join in on the conversation after listening to the podcast for years. Thank you for a fantastic Scary Movie Month, all.

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    1. Also! Thank you so much for the mentions on the podcast. Like Mikko said, that was the definite highight.

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    2. I didn't write a review for it because I wasn't sure if it really counted as horror or not, but I, too, saw I Saw the Devil, and it was very, very good. Intense, but good.

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    3. Why did I not think to watch I Saw the Devil for #SMM?! Very nice choice!

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  5. The Battery and The Bay were far and away the best of the month for me. The Battery was an incredibly fresh take on zombies, a subgenre I thought was completely tapped out. I watched The Bay a few days ago and I'm still feeling lingering fear from it. So scary.

    The worst were The Entity and All Hallows' Eve by a longshot. Ugly, rapey, misogynist garbage movies that exist for no reason other than to be repellant. I want Sondra Locke's character from Sudden Impact to turn her sights onto the people responsible for those movies. That movie is classy in comparison, which if you've seen it should tell you something about how ugly these were.

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    1. I just saw The Battery last night. It's really f-ing good.

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  6. I'm really looking forward to the next Scary Movie Month. I botched this one for sure. I realized how much I missed by skipping the MBOH and most of the Massacre this year. It just wasn't the same after that. Also, I had to travel for work a ton this month so it didn't leave as much time as usual in October for horror movies. A little disappointing but I plan to make up for it next year.

    The best things I saw were Misery (first viewing) and Asylum. Both were movies I really enjoyed. The worst was obviously The Houses October Built. Ugh. That Movie. Ouija would have been close behind as well.

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    1. I love the heck out of Misery. It's tough to call what my favorite King adaptation is, but it's up there, for sure. Kathy Bates gives one of my favorite performances in all of horror, and I enjoy James Caan in just about anything. I'm glad you liked it, Adam.

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  7. Because horror movies are the bestiest, the only downside of SMM was that I, for reasons I still cannot fathom, sat through the Vincent Price House on Haunted Hill four separate times. The highlights were plentiful: Trilogy of Terror and Day of the Dead at the Massacre and Magic in Patrick's basement. And yes, that last one is a euphemism.

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  8. Though I still enjoyed the hell out of it - the great columns, awesome podcasts and amazing amount of clever 7-word reviews, I would have to call this a slightly botched Scary Movie Month for me as well. It was a busy month and though I did my best - pretty much falling asleep on the couch in front of a movie every night (and then finishing it the next day and falling asleep halfway through a new one, rinse, repeat) - I came nowhere near my goal of watching about a half-dozen different franchises. I didn't even get through all of the Friday the 13th blu-ray set - fell asleep halfway through the last one after coming home from a party last night (I'll finish it today though dammit). But whatever, still fun, but I'm hoping to do much better next year!

    Best movie of the month pretty much hands-down was May, followed by (and in a VERY different way) Sleepaway Camp. The worst were a few of the Ft13th movies and though I kind of regret the time I spent with them instead of new stuff, somehow my affection for the franchise as a whole actually grew this year so that was okay too!

    Can't wait until next year, but I get the feeling I'll be watching a lot of scary movies (so many intriguing recommendations) in November too! Thanks everybody!

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  9. Best SMM Movie? WNUF Halloween Special, by far. A live 1987 news broadcast from a haunted house in Maryland, commercials and all. And all the commercials. Not in the least scary, but the only found footage movie to put the format to intelligent use, and a love letter to vintage TV graphics, attitude, and style. As a matter of fact, I think it was the 3rd best movie I saw this year.

    Worst: The Hills Have Eyes (2006). Boring, ugly, insulting, unnecessary, irritating, and overlong. I've never understood Aja's popularity, since it seems the only legitimate movie he's made was High Tension (which I'd never liked either,) and that he's done nothing but hurt horror since. Here's hoping he doesn't botch Space Adventure Cobra; the original was so awesome that doing so would be a cinematic war crime.

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    1. I've heard nothing but good things about WNUF Halloween Special but haven't been able to track down a copy. Do you know where I can find it?

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    2. You can't buy a copy from amazon. You can only buy the dvd directly from the distributor at alternativecinema.com. If you don't mind taking food out of the director's mouth, it's all over the file-share-o-sphere as well. In fact, he uploaded it to a few file sharing sites himself, as well as left unmarked VHS copies behind in horror convention bathrooms.

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    3. Not a file-sharing guy, but I appreciate it! I'll definitely go to the distributor's site. Thanks!

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    4. One last one: Contracted (2013)

      "California deserves whatever it gets." - Don DeLillo

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    5. Just finished V/H/S. My second 0/10 of the year, and the 4th worst movie I've ever seen.

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    6. Funny, I think of New York the way DeLillo thinks of California, but probably more so.

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  10. I watched so many movies I cant even remember which is which. Its a big brilliant messy blur. My highlights were a rainy sunday and not being in work. I felt like I really tried hard and did 6 or 7 movies that day. My lowlight was the next day the 24hr massacre podcast dropped where you did 13 movies. I felt like I wasent trying hard enough ;)

    There was lots of bad films so I will just name a few I rediscovered. God told me to, Visiting hours. Night of the Creeps. Halloween 3. The deadly spawn. Demons 1 and 2. But not 3 urrrgggg

    The amount of columns and podcasts was amazing. Great work from everyone at the site. I was struggling to keep up with all the podcasts and columns and movies. And if someone went through the effort of writing I want to read them all. Thank you

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  11. It was a great month! I watched 30 horror movies I’d never seen before (and re-watched one, The Exorcist).

    Top 5:
    Willow Creek (2014)
    Rock ‘n’ Roll Nightmare aka The Edge of Hell (1987)
    Phantom of the Paradise (1974)
    King of the Ants (2003)
    Tombs of the Blind Dead (1972)

    Bottom 5:
    Wolfen (1981)
    Mr. Jones (2013)
    Bizarre aka Secrets of Sex (1970)
    Hatchet III (2013)
    The Dark Half (1993)

    A highlight of the month was Adam Riske stating he preferred Satan’s Little Helper to Halloween. That takes balls sir. It honestly made me re-evaluate if I had would have the guts to make such a bold claim about any personal favorites… Also getting mentioned on the podcast (a thrill) and reading everyone’s 7 word reviews. I guarantee nowhere else on the internet will you find so many truly clever and hilarious comments. Can’t wait til next year!

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  12. This was my first Scary Movie Month, and it was a total blast. Despite the risk of failing several classes, I managed to get in exactly 30 movies, plus one which spilled over into November 1st so I didn't count it. Loved reading all the awesome reviews from everyone else, and actually managed to get one of mine read on the podcast. I watched way more good movies than bad, so it's really hard to pick a favorite but I'll try.

    Favorite "re-watch": Psycho. It's my favorite horror movie, and I just never get tired of it. I actually ended up watching it twice because a friend had never seen it. I didn't mind one bit.

    Favorite first viewing: The Blair Witch Project. This movie was a sensation when I was a kid, but I never got around to watching it. I figured it would be dated and cheesy, but for some reason it really affected me. I think whether this movie scares you depends alot on how much time you've spent in the woods in your life. As someone who has done my fair share of camping, it really worked for me.

    Worst movie: Scream 3. Of all the Scream movies, this one is the least interesting and has the least to say. Scream 4 might be just as bad, but at least it had sort of a distinct personality and tried to change things up a bit. I watched Scream 3 a couple weeks ago, and I honestly don't think I could recount the plot. It's the definition of forgettable.

    Overall it was an awesome month! Hope everyone else enjoyed it as much as I did.

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  13. My worst viewing is easy : Witchfinder General (first viewing). I am sorry! Not my thing!

    My best viewing could be more of a top 10 list, but when I initially read the post I immediately thought An American Werewolf in London. I have to watch it every Halloween.

    I am looking forward to next year! Thank you to everyone at F! This Movie and their community for making this one fun October! I enjoyed reading everyone's 7 word reviews.

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    1. Also, have to agree with other commenters, what a nice moment to have one of your 7 word reviews mentioned on the podcast! Thank you to the team behind F This Movie for being so engaged with and dedicated to your readers!

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  14. The best new-to-me movies this year were CONTRACTED, which totally freaked me out, and STAGE FRIGHT and HAUNTER, which were great "roller coaster ride" horror.

    I also really enjoyed 2012's THE POSSESSION. After watching THE CONJURING and both INSIDIOUS movies, I thought, "Great, here's another one of these." But no, THE POSSESSION is very much its own movie. Sure, it borrows heavily from others, but it has an energy and a vibe that is all its own.

    Speaking of unique vibes, TWIXT has a reputation of being the worst thing ever, but I actually liked it. I can see why some people wouldn't, but the movie's weird, quirky tone really spoke to me.

    As for worst, what can I possibly say about DARIO ARGENTO'S DRACULA? The only explanation I can come up with is maybe, just maybe, Argento is in on the joke? Like he's gone out of his way to make an improbably bad Dracula movie to satirize how there are so many bad Dracula movies? If that's not the case, then I got nothin'.

    Also in the "worst" category, I reviewed DRY BONES for DVD Verdict, and it's just the most awful garbage: http://www.dvdverdict.com/reviews/drybones.php

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  15. Vamp (1986)

    I CAN'T STOP DOING SEVEN WORD REVIEWS!!!

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  16. The highlight of my Scary Movie Month was getting to see Psycho in theaters. My favorite movie that was new to me was The Innkeepers, and the worst thing I watched was Troll 2. Obviously.

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  17. Best movie was Housebound. I thought it captured the horror/comedy genre perfectly which is a genre I generally do not like at all. Second, oddly enough, was Suburban Gothic, another horror/comedy with the emphasis on comedy. Demon's Rook comes in at third.

    Worst - Oh man this is tough cause I watched a ton of bullshit, awful films. VHS: Viral gets the gas face, Mockingbird, The Houses October Built, Extraterrestrial, Exists all suck. Seriously, I've had it with found footage. I get it, it's cheap and studios love it, but fuck that. Lynch made Eraserhead for like 20 grand or something, Take out a goddamn loan, sell some shit, try the crowd funding thing, even consider renting a freakin' camera and please, please, please just make a friggin' movie. Exists could have been a great Bigfoot genre film had it been an actual FILM.

    Sorry for the rant!

    Btw - I was looking up a movie on IMDB and noticed a review that said - "Worst movie made in history of movies." Not only did I crack up, but I noticed it was seven words!

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    1. But, was Exists as bad as Curse of Bigfoot?

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    2. Hmmmm...I haven't seen that but if it's found footage I'm guessing yes!

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    3. OH! The '70's TV movie?! If so, blows Exists away.

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    4. Seriously? Worse than a "Bigfoot" with a paper mache head?

      I have to see this....

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    5. There's a difference between ambitious failure and an absolutely soulless film. Exists only "exists" as "another FF movie", it add's nothing to the genre.

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  19. Bad has to go into two categories..

    "Bad because no one involved in the thing had any business being near a camera much less making a movie yet not awful enough to be funny"....that would be The Last Slumber Party. There might have been a tie with a Christmas themed slasher film called To All A Goodnight but I never got to finish that.

    "Bad and most people involved are talented enough to have known better" goes to Annabelle. One good jump scare does not a movie make. The main characters in this film are not people - they have no family, no friends, no neighbors (except the parents of the kids on the stairs that the husband supposedly knows but we never see him talk to them or hear what the result of that was). No matter how many strange things happen they're wandering around dark basements leaving the baby alone upstairs...which I don't think you do even under normal circumstances....and they run into no one except the lady in the bookshop who somehow knows the answer to all their problems.

    Best movies I saw (for the first time) were Don't Blink and Hello Mary Lou, Prom Night II. Plan to watch them again before next SMC.

    That latter choice isn't just because Prom Night was so BOR-ING that it benefited by comparison.

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  20. Best viewings? Probably getting to see The Birds in theaters, going through the Classic Universal Monsters blu-ray pack (stand-outs being The Invisible Man and Frankenstein) and stumbling upon the sheer brilliance of Vincent Price in House on Haunted Hill. Also driving over an hour to finally see The Guest aka the best movie of 2014!

    Worst viewings: Witchfinder General (sorry Vince :/ ), Piranha and The Frighteners.

    This really unlocked my love of horror and I'm already looking forward to next year! But I'll probably never be able to replicate my 58 horror movies in one month record (only logged about half on the site sorry guys!)

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    1. http://letterboxd.com/adodson7/list/scary-movie-month-2014/

      My rankings on letterboxd (the film lover's dream website). Hopefully it sparks some fun discussion!

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    2. You watched an impressive amount of horror movies! Is your Lettboxd list in order of preference?

      I also made one to keep track of my SMM!

      http://www.letterboxd.com/ghostdinosaur/list/2014-halloween-horror/

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  21. My favorite 1st watch for this Scary Movie Month would be a tie between Village of the Damned (1960) and the Phantasm series.

    The Worst 1st viewings are also a tie between ABC's of Death, and 3 on a Meathook.

    I enjoyed this Scary Movie Month, I didn't participate last year, and regretted it. I'm glad I added some 7 word reviews this year. I watched a boatload of movies, largely consisting of new-to-me flicks. My wife just happens to be out of town for the whole month, so I was able to clear through most of my backlog. I guess my favorite part was reading peoples seven word reviews. There would always be a couple that would make me laugh, or remind me of something I should watch.
    Great way to spend October, and I can't wait til next year!

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  22. My favorite surprise of the month would probably have to be In the Mouth of Madness, which I had never seen before. I thought the Lynchian mood of uneasiness was really effective and pretty damn scary at parts. It might also be one of my favorite John Carpenter movies after the Thing and definitely one his last great films. Sam Neill was fantastic as well and it makes me sad that he wasn't in more stuff.

    The worst was probably Maximum Overdrive, but since that isn't an original answer I'll go with Saw 4 or 7. I worked my way through all the Saw movies in the last two days of October, which was a huge mistake because after 3 they all just began blurring into one long CSI style flash and cut montage and I'm pretty sure I dreamt up at least one of the movies, again, not sure which. 3 is my favorite of the series because of some of the themes and it has some of the best acting out of any of the movies. 4 and 7 weren't movies, they were some kind of Jigsaw-like test of my patience.

    But great Scary Movie Month! At this pace there will have to be 10,000 7-word reviews by 2020, just in time for V/H/S 9.

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  23. This is my first year participating in SMM, but it was a pretty big success. I started out the month swamped with school and work and didn't know how many horror movies I would actually be able to fit into my schedule, but I ended up seeing 26. Not quite the one-a-day I was hoping for, but pretty strong showing considering I couldn't always watch what I wanted. Next year I hope to do even better.

    Best first-viewing this year was probably Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Pulse. I'm a big fan of Kurosawa and it's a movie I've been meaning to see for years, so it was nice to finally see it and that it wasn't a let down. I think his play with genre is pretty excellent (the ghost manages to be both comically self-aware and legitimately scary, a balance that is almost impossible to pull off), and I think his ideas about the dissolution of self in the contemporary age are truly terrifying. Existential dread is the best kind of dread.

    The worst for me was probably Witching & Bitching, which I feel bad saying because Bromley recommended it and I usually really like Alex de la Iglesia. The Last Circus was one of my favorite movies of the year in 2011, but I think his satire of Franco and the Catholic Church is much more cogent than his ideas on gender politics. I don't think I laughed once in Witching & Bitching, and I cringed a lot.

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    1. I totally understand cringing at Witching & Bitching; it's a mess and a lot of it does't work. Sometimes I have to recommend movies that might be interesting and haven't been recommended by me or anyone else, which gets tough when there's a limited selection on Netflix. I don't see myself going back to the movie, but if it's the worst thing you saw all month you might be pretty lucky.

      Thanks for all of your contributions and a great #ScaryMovieMonth!

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  24. Like a fair few other people, this was my first SMM too! Got through just over 20 films total!

    The best first time viewing was The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. A frightening, short, engaging and damn scary horror film, and one of the best of all time. It doesn't quite live up to the standards of The Shining though, which I rewatched for Halloween itself. The worst is a much easier choice: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning. That has to be one of the worst films I have ever seen, full of clichés, characters I couldn't care about, unnecessary violence and a stupid plot.

    But overall it was an awesome month! Good work F This Movie!

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  25. This was the first Scary Movie Month in a while in which I wasn't sick of horror movies by the end of the month and was actually sad to see it end. Heck, I did a 24-hour 12 movie horror marathon at two separate theaters in NYC (Brooklyn's Nitehawk from midnight to 9AM, then Anthology Film Archives from noon to midnight) the Saturday after Oct. 31st, and I could have still gone for more. I wasn't planning to watch so many horror films, but I got sucked into the joyful vibe that Scary Movie Month had this year.

    HIGHLIGHTS:

    MONKEY SHINES (1988):
    I only watched this because "How Did This Get Made?" did its most recent podcast on a flick I've gone out of my way to avoid. Now that I've seen it I'm fascinated by how contradictory it's mere existence is. A bad horror movie is forgettable and doesn't make you want to talk about it, and "Monkey Shines" is anything but those things and yet it's in no way a good horror movie. It's like the most interesting two-star-out-of-four mediocre movie I've come across.

    CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST (1980): Given its reputation I wasn't expecting the music score of all things to absolutely floor me. It really works as a juxtaposition/complement to the found footage gimmick.

    CONTRACTED (2013): Didn't see the final twist coming until just before, and until then it was working too well as just a body horror drama anyone can relate to.

    HUMANOIDS FROM THE DEEP (1980): What cheesy 50's creature features hinted at this 80's sort-of remake shows, from blood & guts to giant girl-raping fish. It wallows in its own depravity and it earns it by being proud and upfront about it.

    NIGHTMARE CITY (1980): It's "World War Z" but set in one city and with the zombies aboard the plane instead of Brad Pitt. And are these radiation-created zombies a mean bunch of smart and vicious SOB's! Most out-of-nowhere pleasant find of SMM.

    LOW POINTS:

    WATCHING FIRST 4 SCARY MOVIES:
    Why did I do this? :'(

    RESIDENT EVIL: APOCALYPSE (2004): First "RE" was OK but generic and not too memorable. The first sequel is utter shit though, and what they do to Jill Valentine from the videogame series (she looks like Jill but her character is wrong... 1,000% wrong) and the full embrace of the gravity-defying heroine worship of Milla Jovivich's character make this too painful to sit through again... which I will because there are several commentary tracks.

    UNDERWORLD: EXTENDED CUT (2003): See above.

    C.H.U.D. (1984): Garbage. Not even John Heard and Daniel Stern mugging for attention can save the other '84 horror flick besides "Ghostbusters" to make the FDA the bad guy.

    DR. BUTCHER M.D. (1980): Everything "Cannibal Holocaust" does right this zombie-meets-cannibals mash-up emulated poorly.

    DISAPPOINTMENTS:

    YOU'RE NEXT (2013):
    Not a bad movie (far from it), but given the hype preceding it I was disappointed it's more of a cool idea/premise that a good movie that executes said idea/premise.

    HELLBOUND: HELLRAISER II (1988): Even with most of the movie's first cast and Clive Barker still onboard the "Hellraiser" sequels fall precipitously in quality starting with this one. I prefer "Hellraiser III" to "II," and "III" is pretty terrible in spots.

    HIGH TENSION (2003): The love-it-or-hate-it twist (I... still don't know how I feel about it) doesn't redeem the fact Aja Alexander punched his ticket to Hollywood on the strength of how well it was received here.

    PSYCHO IV (1990): Both Perkins, the series and Joseph Stephano (who, God bless him, tried really hard) deserved better than this as the swan song.

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    1. Forgot one for the low points, which speaks volumes about how little I remember or even want to think about it: V/H/S VIRAL. It doesn't get uglier, less interesting, more forgettable and least-enjoyable in 2014 horror than this clunker.

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    2. Thank god you mentioned "You're Next". I love Wingard but I really thought that move was over-hyped as you mention and I was left empty after seeing it. As for High Tension. It's one of my favorite horror movies within the past 15 years, BUT, F- the ending! That film would have vaulted to my top ten horror films of all time but Aja had to go fuck around and put in the twist. I still wonder if that was the studio's call or Aja's. It's probably my number one fail for an ending to a film that totally detracts from how great the rest of it was.

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  26. I like to play with numbers, cause I'm a nerd, so I went through all the movies in SMC and counted how many watchers each had. Here's the top of the list:

    21 Halloween (1978)
    20 The Sacrament (2013)
    17 House on Haunted Hill (1959)
    15 The Exorcist (1973)
    15 The House of the Devil (2009)
    14 Maximum Overdrive (1986)
    14 The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976)
    12 Annabelle (2014)
    12 Evil Dead II (1987)
    12 Frankenstein (1931)
    12 Friday the 13th (1980)
    12 The Shining (1980)
    12 The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
    12 You're Next (2011)
    11 The Innkeepers (2011)
    11 Night of the Creeps (1986)
    11 Night of the Living Dead (1968)
    11 The Thing (1982)
    11 The Wolf Man (1941)
    10 Event Horizon (1997)
    10 Fright Night (1985)
    10 Scream (1996)
    10 Stage Fright (2014)
    10 V/H/S/2 (2013)
    10 Videodrome (1983)

    You know, if anyone's interested.

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    1. Thanks Mikko! That's pretty awesome actually.

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    2. This is pretty great! I only watched three of the tops. The zeitgeist passed me by.

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  27. I had a great time watching Night Of The Creeps and House Of The Devil for the first time. I was mildly disappointed by The Sacrament and Black Sabbath. Then there is Monkey Shines. Holy shit.

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  28. This one was a bit of a blur for me. Even though I know I watched a bunch, i cant really remember too much to rank them. i had a lot going on this month and the scary movie challenge unfortunately took second place to life.
    Boo, life.

    I missed the weekly movie from last year which was good fun.

    Before doing SMM for the first time I was never really into horror (except for Freddy and Jason), so these last few years have been a great annual education. Its gotten to the point where I see the high rate of repetition and really appreciate when something does something different. Witching and Bitching had that for me this year, mainly with its massive over the top ending. In a time of found footage its so good to have someone actually show (and go all balls out with it too) what the movie had been building to.

    Congrats F this Movie on another successful year.
    Your Gonna Need A Bigger Site

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  29. Favourite new to me movies: Theatre of Blood, Tremors, House of the Devil, Hellraiser (1987), Christine, Dolls (1987), The Red Shoes (2005), Horror Hotel/The City of the Dead (1960) and Child's Play (1988)
    Favourite re-watches: Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, The Masque of the Red Death, Re-Animator, They Live, The Witches and Gremlins.
    Movies that I re-watched that I want to re-watch next October: Sleepy Hollow and The Thing.
    Scariest movie: Three Extremes (2004).

    I know it isn't the weekend but I had this comment ready to go and something happened so I am glad I copy and pasted into onto word just in case! Other highlights include the brilliant podcasts you put out, the shout outs that I got and put a big smile on my face, reading other people's reviews and comments, hearing people I now think of as my friends getting shout outs, and also getting to have amazing conversations with some of you about Scary Movies. Another great year!

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  30. Favourite: The Loved Ones, May, WNFU Halloween Special and Lost Skeleton of Cadavra.

    Least Favourite: My Soul to Take and Friday 8

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    1. If you're a fan of The Loved Ones then you're alright in my book.

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  31. This was my first real attempt at SMM, and I got 11.5 a titles in. Which is something, I guess!

    Favorite new: The Innocents, which just blew me away. Also enjoyed the original Fright Night, though I stopped a little short of loving it.

    Favorite revisit: tie for Carnival of Souls and Night of the Living Dead. The local coffee shop shows horror movies every year, and they always ask me to host the event. They always show Romero's film, since it was filmed about 10 miles away from where I live. I got to pick the second, so I opted for Carnival. What a great double-feature.

    Least favorite: Hellbound: Hellraiser 2. Ugh. I'm not a huge fan of the first film in this series, but I think it's super interesting, and it has its own weird take on the genre. The sequel dumbs it up something fierce and inserts a pretty forced good/bad dichotomy. It reminds me of what August Derleth did with H.P. Lovecraft's mythos; after Lovecraft died, Derleth continued writing in Lovecraft's world, but changed the nature of the world so it little resembled HPL's original creations.

    Biggest surprise: The Last Days on Mars. This wasn't a good movie by any stretch of the imagination, but I absolutely loved the atmosphere and foreboding in the first 30 minutes.

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  32. Only discovered this site a few months back whilst searching for a decent movie podcast to listen to, I could never have imagined that I'd end up watching over 20 scary movies in a month when I first started listening to the Guardians of the Galaxy episode!

    Whilst it definitely wasn't the worst I'd seen on a technical level, Annabelle was the worst scary movie I watched last month and easily the worst new film I've seen this year of any genre. I found it completely bereft of individuality, the two lead characters were flat and uninteresting, and the ridiculous amount of close ups of the motionless doll started to give me the giggles.

    The best scary movie by far was The Babadook, I'd been looking forward to it for months and it didn't disappoint; the two central performances were outstanding and so well fleshed out that the majority of the movies scares came from a sense of concern for them and their well being as opposed to jump scares and flashy effects. The actress portraying the mother, in particular, gives an incredible performance. What I appreciated the most about The Babadook was how it explored the relationship between a parent and a child in such an original manner, and how the everyday struggles of life, grief and loss were presented to be just as horrific as the supernatural elements of the movie

    The true highlight of SMM for me though was the Monster Squad podcast, it's a film that I loved growing up but never had anyone to discuss it with as I don't know anyone else that's seen it, so it was awesome to hear it discussed in such detail and also hear thoughts about the movie that match my own.

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  33. This was my first formal Scary Movie Month and I saw a lot of great horror films. It was a great experience overall, as the challenge of crafting the 7 word review helped engage me during films that were less than awesome. Reading everyone's reviews also helped me up my game, as there were a lot of very clever approaches that inspired.

    My favorite scary movie for the month was a tie between The Guest & Dead and Buried. I was happy to have avoid learning anything about The Guest before seeing it during its brief run in Seattle: the story was such a delight to watch unfold. There was something so strange and special about the film, something that went beyond its mix of Carpenter and Cameron. Dead and Buried is perhaps the best horror film I've ever seen in terms of presenting something horrific and inexplicable and then gradually unveiling the explanation, which is even more horrible than you suspected. Really haunting stuff.

    The worst film I saw was during the only public movie marathon I got to attend this October, a screening of three Italian horror films (The House by the Cemetery, Burial Ground, and Demons) at the Grand Illusion Cinema in Seattle. It was my first introduction to Italian horror, and it did not disappoint....in being very Italian. The worst was easily Burial Ground: it was like a bad pornographic film, with character and plot being ancillary to the money shots. However, every film featured the same problems caused by looping/dubbing all the dialogue and the obvious lack of film coverage, which made the films’ already clumsy blocking seem laughably slow as well because the editor was presumably forced to find extra seconds in every shot that he could in order to extend the length. Demons at least featured some inventive plot elements as well as better cinematography and art direction, but the obvious desire to keep dialogue to a minimum hurt all the films.

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  34. Now as we've chatted about movies how about Death scenes?

    Out of all the Deaths we have all watched in October for #ScaryMovieMonth

    which one has stood out the most. Been the most shocking or injinuative?

    Whats your favourite Death scene from October from which film?

    This could be fun

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  35. Mine was The Slayer 1982

    A female victim was stabbed with a pitch fork from behind. The prongs went straight through her and came out her chest through her boobs. Lol. Its a classic

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