12/2/16 - Witchcraft 2: The Temptress (1989)

So the first dialogue in Witchcraft 2: The Temptress is a spooky witch's spell. It made me laugh, so why the hell not:

12/1/16 - The Shunned House (2003)

So, this hasn't happened before... I was very ill today. I had some sort of bug or food poisoning or something like that where I was all sore and had the chills and whatnot. Not the ideal conditions for watching a movie. But, you do what you gotta do. I looked for something I didn't really care about, since it seemed like that I would be drifting in and out of it. Luckily for me, I picked The Shunned House - I stayed conscious for the whole thing, but the film sort of drifted in and out of itself. Let me explain:

The Shunned House is a sort of loose adaptation of three H.P. Lovecraft stories - "The Shunned House," "The Music of Erich Zann," and "Dreams in the Witchhouse." The film tells these three tales in a very non-linear way - in the "present" day, a couple is investigating an old house with a horrifying past (murders, mutilations, disappearances... all that good stuff). Basically, we are constantly cutting back to scenes from the house's past, which you eventually piece together into these separate stories. It's a discombobulating way to proceed, but it also kind of works. For some reason, equating "Lovecraft" with "Doesn't make sense" works for me. For being (obviously) low budget, The Shunned House gets a good mood going, and I was pleasantly surprised by how well it worked.

11/30/16 - Satanic (2016)

Satanic kind of pissed me off. More than most bad movies I see. Not because I was upset with the portrayal of Satanism or anything. Which I know nothing about, to be honest. Watching a lot of horror movies and listening to metal doesn't amount to much in that department. (Although I bet the characters in Satanic would tell you otherwise.) But Satanic commits two unforgivable sins: (1) it treats you like an idiot, and (2) it creates tremendously annoying characters, and then doesn't give you the satisfaction of watching them die. Boo on you, movie.

11/29/16 - The Death of April (2012)

The Death of April starts out really frighteningly. And not in an "oh my, this is scary" way - more like an "oh no, is this whole damn thing shot on a laptop?" kind of way. Turns out, it's about a young woman (confusingly not April) who kept a regularly updated video diary when she moved from California to the East Coast. But strange things are afoot in her new apartment, and luckily her video diary was there to document them.

And luckily for us, the video diary isn't the sole means of telling her story. The Death of April is set up as a documentary - so while the diary plays a big part, you also get interviews with friends, family, paranormal researchers, etc.

11/28/16 - The Giant Claw (1957)

The Giant Claw is pretty much perfect as far as super cheesy 50s monster flicks go. It's corny, kind of stupid, and overly earnest but still really fun. It moves briskly and has a goofy looking monster that you see cause a decent amount of destruction. Good times all around.

11/27/16 - Dark Amazon (2014)

Alexis, take me to Dark Amazon - where you can buy drugs and guns with one-click shopping? Or Dark Amazon Smile, where .05 % of your snuff film purchases will go to a charity of your choice!

Obviously, no. I doubt the fine folks at amazon.com would allow for such a thing to happen. This Dark Amazon is a crappy found footage jam about some folks searching for a cure for cancer in the Amazon. Rainforest, that is. Do you think kids today even know that the Amazon is actually a place and not a website?

Anyways, Big Spoilers ahead for a movie that I think you shouldn't see.

11/26/16 - Body (2015)

I think there should be some sort of genre/term for films where the characters back into a horrific situation by making really poor decisions. You know, where a group of generally okay people are innocently hanging out, an accident happens, and then it all goes to shit because of infighting or deciding to zig when you *clearly* should zag. (You know what, I'm making a "Bad Choices" tag. We'll see how much use that gets.) That's what's happening in Body, and it's kind of a horror movie by default. There's not a lot of blood or gore or anything, but these three women make a bad situation terrible, solely by their own making.

This is going to be a short and vague write-up. Body is the kind of movie where the plot is the movie, so describing it would basically ruin it. And it's a pretty decent watch. The set-up gives you a little to think about, and overall the film is well executed. It's not must-see, but it's solid.