Spooky Season 2026
A poor showing from me this year. It was a rough month.
Backrooms
- It took about 45 minutes for everything to start to click together and around 80 minutes for me to get it, but Backrooms mostly knows what it's doing. There are some excellent individual moments. I thought Clark being an architect was a little much, but it works better than I expected.
Night of the Comet
- Well that wasn't what I expected. For better or worse I don't know if there's another movie quite like it. Not sure I'll come back to this one though. I was expecting something a little more zombie focused.
Evil Dead Burn
- I had high expectation going into this. I really enjoyed Infested and I'm glad to see Sébastien Vanicek bring that energy to Evil Dead while keeping everything that makes Evil Dead fun. Evil Dead 2 is still on top for me, being a gory horror flick you can throw on at basically any time, but I think this takes the #2 spot.
The Midnight Meat Train
- Some of these effects are goofy as hell in the way that overdone 2000s CGI is. Could almost be charming. The editing's also too overdone in a way that's very of its time and I don't think it gives the film the tone it needs. Doesn't skimp on the gore, which is nice. Some directorial and editing tweaks would put this in my semi-regular watch list.
Terrifier
- Art the Clown has a great aesthetic, it must be said. No wonder I've been seeing him all over Spirit Halloween. And it was seeing him at Spirit Halloween that finally convinced me to try watching these films. I had the same hesitation I did with the Saw flicks, the worry that the extreme gore was all they had going for them, making them at best a tedious watch. Those fears were unfounded, of course. Strip away the... reputation? Terrifier has and underneath it's the kind of low-budget schlock I love to come across of a Spooky Season. There are some really nice touches to certain scenes that bring the kind of finesse I like in a gore flick. This one's probably going on the rewatch list.
Return of the Living Dead Part 2
- Kind of the ideal movie title, you know? Also kind of the perfect sphere of pop-culture zombies - rising from the grave, craving brains. Not a lot of zombie films actually have those elements, I've found. Anyway, I am unsure exactly what audience this is aiming for. It honestly seems like it's trying to be a kid-friendly zombie movie until a guy gets his head bitten into. Definitely a comedy, at least.
Terrifier 2
- Not to my liking as much as the first. The deaths are really drawn out in this one, especially that bedroom scene. Some really great visuals though. Excellent individual moments. We get more of a final girl fight than I would have expected based on the first movie. But overall the film does overstay its welcome somewhat. Not the Clown Cafe stuff, that jingle's a bop. All-timer of an after credits scene too.
Scream
- I spent a long time thinking slasher flicks were uninteresting before finally seeing Halloween and having my perception corrected so it's taken me way too long to get to Scream. I was also afraid that I'd need to build up some kind of encyclopedic knowledge of slasher films before seeing it, but it's big namedrops were Friday the 13th and Halloween, both of which I've seen. Scream's good! Gorier than I expected, which is a plus.
Scream 2
- Loses most of what made the original great, in my opinion. But I think it's fine for a slasher sequel.
The Belko Experiment
- I remember trailers for this film being everywhere when it came out. It's okay. Another one that's gorier than I expected which is a plus. Every movie like this is unfortunately still chasing what Battle Royale's got. It sure is commenting but whether it's good commentary would require a second watch which I'm not sure I'll ever actually get around to.
Return of the Living Dead 3
- Good to see all of the Return of the Living Dead films keep up the grody zombies. Some of the best in the business. And it is still good to see a movie actually using the "zombies crave brains" trope. Return of the Living Dead was not the series I expected to try and tackle a story about someone slowly becoming a monster. It doesn't get quite the attention it deserves but it does include a really great "transformation" towards the end.
Halloween (1978)
- A rewatch but I needed to invoke a Halloween spirit upon me this year so I was trying to overdose on literal Halloween movies. It's a good movie! Some really excellent framing, excellently paced, and THE horror movie theme. Crediting Nick Castle as just "The Shape" is also an all-time masterstroke.
Halloween 2
- A solid sequel. Successfully builds on the first, and drops what I guess is one of the most important bits of lore in the Halloween series. It's funny that Loomis spends a whole hour of the movie just kind of faffing about.
Halloween 3: Season of the Witch
- Look I get that if you associate Halloween with Michael Myers then all the stuff this throws out will throw you through a loop. But it's surprisingly gnarly and the ending is actually pretty nightmarish. I'm team Halloween 3.
Halloween (2018)
- I was really interested in seeing how this re-quel trilogy handles things without the big reveal from Halloween 2. This is "just" a Halloween sequel, but even 40 years later I think it does enough to justify its existence. Hits a really good vibe with how it presents Michael, I think. Honestly I'm surprised how good some of these kills are. Has a couple of moments that genuinely shook me and that's good! It's a horror movie! It's supposed to be horrific!