October is always a boon month for horror movies for reasons no one needs spell out. The crop coming out this year is your usual assortment of concept horror films with a Name staring, an entry in a popular franchise, family friendly themely animation, and film festival wide releases.
Sinister
There comes a time in every working actor’s life, it seems, when they take an uncharacteristic plunge into the horror genre. Sometimes that means there’s something special about the film (The Shining) or that their cinematic stardom is on a downward trajectory (mostly everyone else). Ethan Hawke is helming this one, accompanied by Vincent D’Onofrio riding back up.
“Ellison (Ethan Hawke) is seeking inspiration for his latest book when he moves his wife and children into a home where an entire family perished under gruesome circumstances. Terror soon hits closer to home, however, when the writer discovers a box of old family movies in the attic of his new house, and watches in horror as images of various families being murdered flicker before his eyes. Now the deeper Ellison investigates the disturbing case, the more he begins to fear he has stirred an ancient evil that won’t rest until it has claimed his entire family.” (Fandango.com)
Opens October 12th.
V/H/S
A collection of 5 found footage short films linked by an additional frame story, V/H/S had been receiving plenty of praise since it debuted on the festival circuit. While it goes into theatrical release on October 5th, it is currently available On Demand in advance of theaters. I’ll be sharing a review of it later this month and while I don’t believe it lives up the hype as “the future of horror,” some of the short films are genuinely affecting and creepy.
As a warning, the film is extremely gory and violent and may not be for those with more delicate constitutions.
Trailer below, but fair warning – there is blood and gore in this as well.
Paranormal Activity 4
Another found movie horror series, Paranormal Activity promises a closure with the fourth entry in the franchise. I’ve found that this is one of the few series where the individual movies are each strong entries and the conceit of the “found footage” works well within the story arc. I’m interested in seeing where the final chapter goes.
Theatrical release is October 19th.
Halloween
John Carpenter’s classic, staring a young Jamie Lee Curtis (you may otherwise know her as the woman hawking you proactive yogurt), will be re-released in theaters on October 25th for the 35th anniversary of the movie. 35 years! If you’ve never seen the original Halloween, do yourself a favor and catch it on the big screen. There’s something to be said for watching scary movies in a darkened theater full of other like minded viewers. Laurie Strode (Curtis) was the first of the Final Girls – we’ll be discussing them at length later in the month.
9 replies on “31 Days of Halloween with Slay — Day 2 — October Movies”
Do y’all know of any blogs that review/talk about horror movies from a more feminist perspective? Not necessarily academic papers, but something that’s entertaining and can manage to keep from talking about female characters being whores or prudes or how the movie would be better with more naked tits?
(Yeah, I’m getting annoyed with The Horror Club, canyatell?)
Yeah ..as I’m typing this from under my duvet, armed with a electric fly-swatter, it’s clear I’m going to pass on this post.
I used to love horror movies, and then I started to get really nasty nightmares from them in my early 20s. I do enjoy reading about them, though! Looking forward to the rest this month of Slay has to offer!
I can’t watch anything overly gory during Halloween. Â There are some films which are good, but some of them are so over the top and gratuitous. Â Let’s be real: I’m an Arsenic and Old Lace kind of girl, though I did just add Cabinet of Dr. Caligari to my Netflix Instant queue.
My friend and I saw the preview for Paranormal Activity 4 and said well it will probably be a dumb but lets go see it anyway.V/h/s I hadn’t heard of it but looks like one I’m gonna need to see for sure.
I went to see Dredd this weekend (shut up, don’t judge me), and they had trailers for Sinister and PA4. And that’s when I knew it was officially Halloween season.
I saw Dredd too. I kinda liked it really, but then, while I can’t get into slasher films, violent action films are kind of a favorite. And i flinched through all the horror previews and decided to wait until November to see movies again.
Kinda curious about Dredd to be honest, although it’s pretty much stemmed in having Karl Urban and Lena Heady.
If you are at all familiar with the comics, I can say that it doesn’t match them in terms of detail, but then I doubt very much you could make a movie from them. Dredd is less of an asshole with no sense of perspective and the technology is less prevalent and less nigh on magical. It does have a fairly good Judge Dredd feel to it though. Karl Urban never takes his helmet off. And it’s a lot better than the one with Stalone, but then it would almost have to be.
It’s also super gory. As in slow motion footage of someone getting shot in the head and blood splatter gory.