It's been a few days since Halloween. Fright Film Spectacular had to take a break after watching 22 horror movies in 31 days. Even though that's a few less than last year's total, it's still a lot of mayhem for the ol' brain to absorb. So after giving my mind a rest, it's time for a quick recap of this year's Fright Film Spectacular.
After three decades of watching the original Halloween nearly every Halloween night, I decided to break with tradition. I've seen the movie so many times I nearly have it memorized, plus I caught the end of it on AMC one night a couple of weeks ago. Add to that I had really intense night at work on Halloween night and I decided I needed something that didn't require a lot of brain power or effort.
The final decision was to go with The Mummy's Hand, a Universal pseudo-sequel, or perhaps re-imagining is more accurate. The Mummy's Hand came out in 1940 and concerns an archaeologist and his assistant who team up with a magician to search for a lost mummy's tomb. The mummy is guarded by an ancient Egyptian society, whose head honcho passes the torch to another scientist, who tries to stop the expedition at any cost. Of course, the mummy is eventually released and mayhem ensues. It was a fair-to-middling offering from Universal that dragged in places and mixed in a little too much humor. I gave it 2.5 stars.
It was a mediocre ending to a marathon that paled slightly to last year. But to be fair, I watched a lot of classics and bests last year while going with a few more off-beat choices this year. The final list for October with ratings, in chronological order:
Piranha 3.5
Black Sunday 5
Rodan 3
Phantom of the Opera 3
Eyes Without A Face 4
Attack of the Crab Monsters 1
Frankenstein and the Monster From Hell 3.5
Dear God No 0
The Raven 3.75
Outpost 3.25
Creepozoids 3
Vampyr 3.5
Frankenstein's Army 4
Day of the Dead (2008) 1.5
Dracula (1931) 5
My Amityville Horror 2.5
House on Haunted Hill 5
Psychomania 2.5
Hellraiser 4
House of Seven Corpses 2.25
Dead of Night 2.75
The Mummy's Hand 2.5
The average rating is 3.11. I don't have last year's average at my fingertips, but when I find it I'll add that information. My favorites of the movies I'd never seen were Black Sunday, Eyes Without A Face and Frankenstein's Army, though I'm still a little disappointed that the last one was a found-footage film. I also enjoyed The Raven, Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell and Vampyr. The worst, by far, was Dear God No, a complete and utter disaster of a movie that would've probably gotten a little leeway from me had it not suddenly decided to take itself seriously after an hour of utter camp and cheese.
Other highlights: Gained two celebrity followers, Return of the Living Dead's Beverly Randolph and scream queen Linnea Quigley. In addition to transferring Fright Film Spectacular from Twitter to Blogger, Fright Film now has its own Twitter account and the blog will now be year-round. I'll aim for one or two entries a week. And a podcast is a possibility if Fright Film Spectacular gains enough of a following. The Twitter archive from last year is being compiled and should be up shortly.
See you soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment