31 Days of Horror

I have friends who watch a horror movie a day in October. It's a thing. A thing I have tried to do a few times, and I always seem to fall short. But, inspired by some of those friends, I am going to give it another go. I am off to a good start,and have a good partner-in-crime who wants to see some of the genre classics she has never seen before. Halloween, Evil Dead, The Howling, Eyes Without a Face- the Dr. and I have a pretty long spreadsheet (because, nerds), and I am excited to watch these films with someone who has never seen them before.

Oct. 1
I began with The Haunting, the original from 1963. I had just read Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle, which our library is promoting as this years community read. Check it out if you have never read it, it's quick and unsettling. Perfect for October! The Haunting is based on Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House. Shirley Jackson is a national treasure as far as I am concerned. Robert Wise's film version is best. Julie Harris, Claire Bloom, Russ Tamblyn, and Richard Johnson are staying at Hill House, known to be haunted, in an effort to study the paranormal activity. Well, they didn't know what they were in for. This is the movie that all other haunted house movies can thank for making them popular as far as I am concerned (shout out to the original 13 Ghosts!) Hill House endures. Netflix is releasing a series based on the book on October 12th. Shirley Jackson is forever!


Oct 2.
Someone wrote a list of great horror films streaming in October, and it was a good list, but it included Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2. And I trash talked it. Then I felt guilty. Was it really as bad as I remembered it being? So, I watched it again. It is bad. It's just very gimmicky and isn't really scary.

Oct. 3.
The Axe Murders of Villisca kept getting recommended to me on Netflix. It had a script by Owen Egerton so I thought I'd give it a shot. Sort of Amityville Horror-esque twist on the story of the unsolved Axe murders in Villisca Iowa in 1912. Decent with some good jump scares.

Oct. 4.
I was intrigued by this movie which kept showing up on Shudder with a synopsis that read like a cold diss: "Two men in a secluded cabin are haunted by their dead relationship" COLD! Rokkur (Rift) is a tense, Icelandic thriller kept me on edge throughout, wondering what was going as I waited for the plot to unfold. Also, let me spell this out for you: Gay. Icelandic. Thriller. Seriously, this is one ghost story worth your time.

Oct 5.
I love giallo, even when its really sort of on the edge of actually being giallo. Stagefright (Deliria) was close enough for me. A theater troupe tries getting a show ready based on a local actor who has lost his mind and mutilated several local women. He escapes the mental hospital and ends up at the playhouse where the troupe is. Dun dun DUN!!!  There were a couple good scares and tense moments, but this one is fun for the oddball premise, the score, and the 80's style which is crammed into every frame.

Oct 6.
Last night the Dr. and I watched Cronenberg's Rabid. Neither of us had seen it and what a wild ride! Nobody does body horror like Cronenberg. Nobody. Also, Marilyn Chambers was pretty good as the Typhoid Mary of Montreal, giving people that infecting bite via her armpit. Treat yourself to this one if you've never seen it.

It's October 7th, and I'm not sure what I'll be watching later, but stay tuned, because I will let you know.

Jerks!

Now that winter is here, and it's "you're-never-leaving-the-house" weather, I am finding myself taking in episode after episode of shows I've never had much interest in. Why am I doing this? I watched all of the second season of The Crown on New Year's Day, a show I had very little interest in as I half paid attention to the first season. Last night I finished the first season of Halt and Catch Fire. While watching both of these shows I kept thinking to myself, these are all terrible people. I should insert a spoiler alert here if you haven't watched yet. Am I supposed to feel bad for Queen Elizabeth (I did, a little) or her sister, Princess Margaret? Prince Philip? They really want you to feel bad for that guy- they try so hard in those last 2 episodes but no thanks, I don't feel bad for that whiny baby Nazi. The only person I felt legitimately bad for was the Queen's private secretary Michael, because she made him shave his mustache off. Ugh, royalty.

Halt & Catch Fire AMC

Halt and Catch Fire has been on 4 seasons, and if it weren't for Netflix, I might never have heard of it. It was on AMC, known best for Walking Dead, Mad Men, and Breaking Bad, and set in the early 80's boom of the personal computer. The focus is on the 3 main characters trying to be the first to develop a portable PC (super light at 15lbs!). All three of them- a smooth talking salesman with a vision, a crazy eyed genius engineer, and a coding prodigy- are jerks! Every episode I watch I think why are these people such jerks? They're selfish and awful but yet, I keep watching. Why? Because Halt and Catch Fire, like The Crown, is so compelling. Even if the main cast is all a bunch of conniving, selfish, whiny, ridiculous jerks, it's the storyline surrounding them that makes it worth the binge. It's the set design. It's the music. With The Crown, the historical content is what draws me in. Seeing things I have learned about, but fro this other point of view is so watchable. In the case of HaCF, it's the rush of the computer race! Will they figure that code out? Can they get the money together? The best character in season one is actually engineer Gordon's wife Donna. She's not a jerk, and she isn't a stereotype- which this show has plenty of. She's in a way, the heart and conscience of the show. But, now that I've watched the 1st season, I figure I'll binge the rest and find out if the others become more than just jerks. It's not like I'm going anywhere for the rest of the winter.

The Algorithm of the Night

Almost daily, I find myself perplexed by recommendations made by Netflix, Amazon Prime, and all over my social media feeds. I know it's not a perfect science, and these suggestions are based a bit on guessing, mixed with some formula based on a bunch of variables. I just find myself sighing a lot when I begin to scroll.

I've got a couple Instagram accounts, and one is for my dogs (shameless plug for @pugandpibb). There, I follow mostly dogs, a few cats, one raccoon, and various rescues. It's nice to switch over and just scroll through tons of adorable animal pics. But seriously, all animals. There might be 4 or 5 humans I follow on that account but that's it. So why do I get suggestions  to follow posts for luxury bedding? Or fancy sunglasses? Is it based on my other Instagram account? How do they know one of my dogs isn't actually running this one? Pibb is very clever after all. ps. Instagram, I am terribly myopic, I'd never be able to wear any of those sunglasses. My dogs also won't wear them.

Pibbington J. Whippersnap- Dog Mastermind

Netflix makes some wacky suggestions, but also lets you know what those choices are based on. Because I watched Raw, I might like many other cannibal-themed films like The Bad Batch. Then they toss in To The Bone, which is about anorexia. Um...not quite the same but I can at least see why. Teenage cast, eating disorder (very different interpretations of course). Plus I am sure some of this is based on what the other thousands of Netflix viewers have watched and they throw that into the algorithm blender and come up with this result. Netflix is also really, really, really trying to get me to watch Trip to Spain. They've suggested it based on me watching Wormwood, Broadchurch, Young Victoria (which I have never seen. Sigh, dual accounts, sigh.), My Scientology Movie, and Handsome. Aw, heck, I'll add it to my queue.

Amazon Prime keeps recommending the movie Good Dick which means they don't know me at all.