If you haven't seen the 1986 gem The Worst Witch, you need to get on that stat. If anyone wants to buy the $100 copy on Amazon for me, I won't say no.
Horror movies are high on my list of wonderful things about Halloween. Yes, I'm aware that I can watch a horror movie on any day of the year, but watching horror movies on or around Halloween is better than watching them on a random Tuesday in April. The chill in the air, the sugar hangover from eating too many mellowcreme pumpkins (not a thing - you can never have too many mellowcreme pumpkins), the fact that it's sweater season, all of these things make watching horror movies so much more fun. I've written several posts over the years, detailing some of my favorites. I plan on spending this year watching two of my favorites, Halloween (the original) and Shaun of the Dead, which isn't a horror movie per se, but I like my scary/funny balance so it stays.
Instead of talking about what you should watch, I'd like to spend this Lazy Movie Weekend steering you away from two movies that are only scary in how much of a disappointment they both are. I grew up watching terrible movies on WGN and USA's Up All Night. I've seen the Swamp Thing movies and Troll 2 and countless other crappy horror movies where things like boom mics were visible and costumes were probably made by a group of third graders. What usually happens with these movies is that they're so terrible, they walk down the path of awful and end up being moderately amusing. Or at least an option for my very own Mystery Science Theatre 3000 episode from the comfort of my couch. I'm game to take a gamble on a straight to video release or a Netflix original because it might become one of these types of movies if it doesn't end up being very good. My friend, Emily, committed herself to a "31 Days of Halloween" movie/show challenge. She planned to watch at least one Halloween movie (horror/family/thriller) each day for the entire month. I joined her recently for dinner and a few Halloween movies. We made terrible choices.
I love a horror movie with a strong female lead. Some of the best horror movies, the original versions of Halloween, Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Texas Chainsaw Massacre all feature strong female characters and helped to create the concept of "the final girl." A final girl is the last person standing at the end of a horror movie, after the psycho killer or malevolent force has killed everyone she ever loved. It's almost always a young women, hence the name. There are a handful of final guys, but it's far less common. The 1990s and early 2000s were a great time for final girls in horror, giving us Sydney, Alice, and Julie James (Scream, Resident Evil, and I Know What You Did Last Summer respectively). There have been some great final girls in more recent movies too (Cabin in the Woods, anyone?). Final girls are badass and will fight until the bitter end of the movie. Both of the movies Emily and I selected had such great potential for final girls, but they failed miserably.
Up first, Final Girl starring Abigail Breslin and Wes Bentley. I've had this movie on my Netflix list for awhile now. The premise is promising: Wes Bentley's William trains Abigail Breslin's Veronica to be a killing machine. She then proceeds to go after a group of young men who kill blonde women for no apparent reason. It all takes place in the 1960s in the woods of a nondescript American town. The movie is terribly boring. It's not a horror movie, but it had all the elements of a great thriller, which always qualifies a movie for inclusion at Halloween. The plot was confusing; was William saying the younger men killed his family or were somehow connected to the "bad man" that did? Did we really need a mommy/incest story line for one of the dudes? Why would anyone go to the woods with a bunch of dudes they just met? What is up with the girlfriend's poofy bangs? The most satisfying part of this movie, other than the end, was watching the Frank Sinatra wannabe character get an axe to the chest. I only wish Veronica had punched him in the larynx first. Our time would have been better spent re-watching Little Miss Sunshine (for optimal Abigail Breslin) or American Horror Story: Hotel (optimal Wes Bentley).
If Final Girl failed to be interesting, the second movie, Abattoir, just failed. Again, the premise is the stuff of great horror movies: a journalist and a cop team up to figure out of why a mystery man is buying properties where tragedies take place (murders, suicides, etc.) and then removing the room where the tragedy took place. Of course, it's personal since the journalist's sister and her family are killed. Turns out the mystery man is building an abattoir (a slaughterhouse, if you are not familiar with this term or don't listen to Nick Cave), filled with death and despair. Julia and her cop buddy (the brother from Across the Universe looking like a heroin addict) have to figure out how to save her sister's soul and destroy the house. Cool premise, right? It has all the makings of a great horror movie and it was filmed in Louisiana (from what I could tell) so there are some wonderful settings that add to the creep factor.
Man, does it fail. The movie is set in the present but Julia, played by Jessica Lowndes, better known for her roles in Hallmark holiday movies, really loves the 1950s. In a better movie, this would be a quirky and endearing. Not here. It's annoying and mildly confusing. There's a weird cult plot line that feels like it should have been the focus of the movie but isn't (or maybe a separate movie). The romance between Julia and the cop is forced; I've seen more sparks in a Hallmark holiday movie (and they only kiss in the final two minutes of those movies so this is saying a lot). Dayton Callie is the mystery man and is appropriately creepy. He was great on CSI as the guy they thought was the Miniature Killer. But he can only do so much. The brightest spots were two of my favorite New Orleans actors, Bryan Batt and John "Spud" McConnell, making appearances as Julia's boss and the small town sheriff, respectively. They couldn't save this mess either.
I didn't even stay to watch the end. As I'm an old person and go to bed at 9:30 during the week, I had to drive home from Emily's house. She watched the last 20 minutes without me and reported that I missed nothing. Like the rest of the movie, it was confusing and she wasn't quite sure who all died in the end. You should know who died at the end of horror movie.
What we enjoyed most about this movie was reading the reviews on IMDB. Since the movie was so terrible, Emily and I spent a good portion of our time reading the reviews aloud. Here are some highlights:
- I am still mourning my money that I wasted on this turd of a movie at
the fantasy film fest. Sitting trough this felt like a root treatment
without anesthesia, wearing Spanish boots while listening to Justin
Bieber. I seriously doubt that most of positive ratings are authentic.
It is a really bad movie. Period.
- I seriously wish there was a way to give negative numbers. This movie was awful. Nothing made sense.
- What is this? Why are there so many positive reviews? This film doesn't feel like it needs to explain any of it's "creative" decisions to you. Oh yeah it's a 30's reporter working at a 50's newspaper driving a 50's car in a modern setting. What? That's not creative and not how you do things, I felt like this was a sequel or that I needed some kind of explanation before hand, or some visual clues, something, anything, but no this movie just expects you to just go with it. But it doesn't feel right, it feels forced and uneven and wrong. I mean can you honestly tell me that when you saw her talking to her sister that it felt right, and that that didn't bother you? I don't know what was the goal here. It's a mess.
I think Brian Tallerico sums it up best as "one of the most baffling and ineffective horror films of the year." I haven't figured out how any of those positive reviews even exist. It makes no sense. Julia could have been an epic final girl, but nope, she's a waste of a perfectly good vintage wardrobe.
My advice, dear Island readers? Plan your Halloween horror movie viewing carefully. Don't listen to Netflix when it recommends a movie to you based on your previous viewing of The Craft; that recommendation will lead you to Final Girl. You're better off re-watching both seasons of Stranger Things and thanking the Duffer brothers for giving us the treasure that is Chief Hopper.
Until next Halloween...
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