for reels: Happy Halloween!
A special spooky edition of a monthly look back at my Letterboxd diary.
Welcome to for reels, a monthly look back at my movie diary on Letterboxd // Today, I’m looking back at October 2021 //
Hey hey, been a while since I’ve done one ‘o these monthly roundups. Figured I’d make this one a special Halloween edition in case y’all, like me, are keeping it low key this Hallows’ Eve and could do with some horror movie recs to fill out your evening.
Horror is a year-around thing at my house, but I also like to celebrate the season by amping up my horror intake in September, building to an all-out binge in October. And the more years I do this the more palpably it feels like my most religious annual act—a ritual gorge of visual and narrative viscera through which the diabolical prismatic specters of sound, color, space, blood, grief, love, laughter, violence and death are at once conquerable and more delicious in their mystery than ever.
Anyway, here are 13 spooky joints from my October ‘21 movie diary. If any stick out don’t hesitate to add ‘em your Halloween queue.
Sledgehammer (1983)
Sorta ushered in the season with this oddly satisfying ‘80s slasher and great piece of shot-on-video outsider art. It really masters the subliminal apparition appeal of big-name masked killers like Michael, Jason, Freddy, and Leatherface. Essential viewing for any fan of the genre.
You can stream Sledgehammer on Shudder or watch it on YouTube.
The Lighthouse (2019)
“You smell like jizzum, like rotten dick, like curdled foreskin, like hot onions fucked a farmyard shithouse!!”
-Abbot and Costello meet the Lighthouse. Nah but every time I watch this I feel more emphatically that the key to understanding it is recognizing it as a capital-C comedy. Sure, it’s a weird, borderline-obnoxiously existential, vaguely lovecraftian nautical horror film (in absolutely stunning black and white), but a slapstick buddy comedy nonetheless. Opens with a fart joke for gods sake.
You can stream The Lighthouse on Amazon.
The Fog (1980)
Listen I’m as freaked out by the Mom-fantasy porn trends of the day as anyone, ngl tho, Adrienne Barbeau as a silky-voiced DJ/single mom with a kid named Andy really compromises me.
Nah but The Fog is at the absolute top of the Carpenter heap, second only to The Thing. An annual watch for me at this point. Relentlessly atmospheric with incredible, economical use of a limited scope of effects. Nautical horror that encapsulates the true story of America: “civilization” founded on violence, paved over by manifest-destiny narratives and lionized in colonial myth. It all comes back to haunt us eventually.
You can stream The Fog on Amazon.
The ‘Burbs (1989)
Wall to wall excellence, this one. A creepy family comedy built around the strengths of its phenomenal cast (‘80s comedy Tom Hanks is the best Tom Hanks) with the help of the singular old-Hollywood charm of the Universal backlot. Pitch-perfect suburban anxiety satire with that Looney Tunes-style Joe Dante magic. An absolute banger and a true “wish they still made ‘em like this” experience.
You can stream The ‘Burbs on Peacock.
House of Wax (2005)
Probably woulda given this like 3 1/2 stars were it not for the 20-30 minutes of fat that desperately needed to be burned (or melted, as it were) off this thing. But once you get further away from the road-trip setup and deeper into to the titular “House of Wax” setting, this thing really cooks. The Texas Chainsaw-riffing story works well and all the wax gore is real good. Fun mid-00s time capsule of a cast, too. Elisha Cuthbert, Chad Michael Murray, and Paris Hilton to ice the fuckin' cake. Super rad lol
You can stream House of Wax on HBOMax.
Halloween II (1981)
With a new Halloween movie out this year and the inevitable reminiscing about the genius of the original, I threw ‘81’s Halloween II on and reminded myself it’s the all-time best Michael Myers joint. By 1981, the slasher flick had multiplied and calcified into a dominant popcorn genre that would own the rest of the decade. But the Halloween franchise, still in a state of relative infancy, secured its top-tier status with this gorgeous sequel, infusing the horror-in-the-shadows visuals of the first one with a moderate but effective (and beautiful) amount of blood ‘n gore.
You can rent Halloween II on Amazon.
Halloween Kills (2021)
With respect to Edgar Wright’s inventive Last Night in Soho, this was the horror event of the season. A premium slasher sequel that ditches the back-to-basics approach of its predecessor for something louder, gorier, and authentically campier, Halloween Kills has proven a divisive entry among die-hard fans. In my recent review for the new Candyman, I touched on my love for horror sequels as a distinct, protected space in Hollywood filmmaking where directors can come in and put a true auteurish spin on a pre-existing property. If Halloween (2018) was a more straightforward ode to the original, Halloween Kills is a timely exploitation romp with an actual take on the material that goes beyond mere homage, reveling in the art of the slasher-kill gag with reckless abandon.
Halloween Kills is still in theaters but you can also stream it on the paid version of Peacock.
Army of Darkness (1992)
Rewatched Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead trilogy this year and listen I know Evil Dead II is objectively the best one, but Army of Darkness has way too many Ray Harryhausen-ass skeletons in it for it not to be my favorite. Adding all the medieval adventure shit to this series’ particular genre soup was an inspired development, and Bruce Campbell does some of his best work as our chainsaw-handed hero Ash. A ghastly, slapstick delight from top to bottom.
You can stream Army of Darkness on HBOMax.
Sheep Theater (2020)
In case you missed it, I plugged Dan Lotz’s indie quarantine horror Sheep Theater this month. Here’s a snippet from that:
Like Lotz’s other films I’ve seen, I find myself completely swept away by Sheep Theater’s camera work, as well as the inventive Sheep puppetry and other no-budget effects. I also dig the way Lotz incorporates various pop-culture objects — a Star Wars comic, a Disney’s Cinderella snow globe, a Mandy t-shirt, a Taxi Driver poster, to name a few — so they come off as both personal and broader cultural, melancholy relics of the “before times.” It might be the most thematically effective use of pop-culture signifiers I’ve ever seen in a movie. There’s also a sort of righteous transgression in using copyrighted songs and images of iconic entertainment in a freely available, micro-budget film that I really vibe with.
You can watch Sheep Theater on YouTube.
The Village (2004)
I’ve always thought (or at least suspected) that 2004’s The Village was Shyamalan’s best and a very good movie in its own right, but I hadn’t watched it in years. Saw it was streaming on Hulu and popped it on the other day and hey turns out I’ve always been right. Just shy of two decades removed from the film’s misleading straight-horror marketing push and everyone being like “the twist was dumb and predictable” or whatever, the beauty of The Village is overwhelmingly evident. This is a spooky, sad, atmospheric genre meditation on generational trauma, the relentless and unavoidable reality of grief, and the things we do to protect our children that, more often than not, end up spawning new mutations of violence and grief. Every performance is spot on, every line is delivered with the right tenor, and every shot is like the best possible shot for every scene, every moment. Folks have underestimated the formal and emotional literacy of this film from day one.
You can stream The Village on Hulu.
The Addams Family (1991) + Addams Family Values (1993)
True to my ‘90s-kid roots, I grew up watching Addams Family and The Munsters re-runs on Nick at Nite, but my predominant image of The Addams Family comes from these two movies. Hadn’t seen either of them in years but had a hunch they’d hold up, which they did. A perfect spooky-season treat for any spooky-leaning family, The Addams Family and its sequel offer up a cornucopia of morbid gags ‘n one-liners that all hit just right.
You can rent The Addams Family and Addams Family Values on Amazon.
Son of Frankenstein (1939)
Hell yeah this one kicks ass. Very much the Aliens to Frankenstein/Bride of Frankenstein’s Alien, ya know? Like it’s an early sequel that transforms an established horror franchise into something lighter and funnier, but no less dramatic. It’s still got the “uncanny” Boris Karloff as the monster, with Sherlock Holmes himself, Basil Rathbone, leading the film as the titular son of the legendary Dr. Frankenstein, inheriting his father’s dank art-deco castle and slowly going mad as he faces the scientific and moral repercussions of re-animating the dead.
You can stream Son of Frankenstein on Peacock.
Vampyr (1932)
This one you just gotta see to fuckin’ believe. The ‘30s were a wild time for movies, man. Films were just up to shit you’d rarely, if ever see for another 30-40 years. Exhibit A: Vampyr, a terrifying exercise in dream logic, nightmare imagery, and the type of indelible atmosphere that only horror movies can achieve when they’re firing on all cylinders. Whatever ideas you might have about super old black and white movies being slow and stodgy go out the window with this joint. Couldn’t do better if you’re looking for a low-risk, high-reward movie to end your Halloween night on.
You can stream Vampyr on HBOMax.
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