Horror Movie Talk – Details, episodes & analysis

Incantation is a classic tale of three ghost hunters who travel to a secluded village in order to learn more about their spooky traditions and gather footage for their Youtube channel. However their journey quickly goes from silly to incredibly horrifying. Years later, the curse of the mother Buddha deity still remains.

Incantation is one of my favorite horror movies in recent years. Its kind of a hidden gem with no theatrical release. A lot of people in the horror community talk about wanting to find a movie that is actually scary and I really do think that this is it. I don’t want to hype it up too much for those of you who haven’t seen it because I don’t want you to have unrealistic expectations, but when I watched this movie for the first time I had to pause it and turn on the lights because I got too scared. It pulls the viewer into the story making you apart of the nightmare and for that this feels more like an experience than a movie. It wastes no time and gets scary within 5 minutes. If you haven’t checked it out please do yourself a favor and watch Incantation.

Score: 10/10

On a live broadcast during Halloween on sweeps week in 1977, a failing late night talk show starring Jack Delroy (played by David Dastmalchian) interviews a cult survivor supposedly possessed by a demon. The audience is amazed and horrified by the demonstration and Delroy soon finds himself out of his depth. But instead of heeding caution, he doubles down on the bit to save his show from cancellation to disastrous consequence.

This movie has a great premise. What if you showed Regan from The Exorcist on a talkshow next to obvious fake psychics and debunkers that often appeared on late night. The talk show is a format that everyone is familiar with, and even the guests previous to the possessed little girl should all be recognizable stand ins for real life talk show guests such as Uri Gellar and James Randi.

The biggest setback is that the writing and acting a little too on-the-nose, and it ends up feeling a little cringe. In what could be a super compelling and real-feeling found footage film, the artificiality really pulls you out of the moment and you definitely feel like you are watching a movie. It’s like when you see a movie or show about a stand up comedian, and the actor isn’t able to be convincingly funny but is met with uproarious laughter from the fake audience. It’s a type of uncanny valley that is created when actors aren’t able to match the charisma and timing of a seasoned professional, in this case, talk show host. 

They made the genius move to explain that this is a failing talk show, so Jack Delroy’s wooden presence and indiscernible personality actually sells the “why”.

That being said, this movie does have some good bones. The plot structure and utilization of the talk show format is great. It lends a new backdrop to the horror cliche of demonic possession.

The tension ramps up convincingly, and the inevitable trainwreck that is foreshadowed is satisfying.

I just wish they would have aimed for more realism in the writing and acting.

6/10

The Exorcism is about Farther Gabriel Amorth played by Russel Crowe, who…wait no sorry that’s the popes exorcist I keep getting confused. The exorcism is really about Anthony or Tony played by Russel Crowe who is a washed up actor who tries out for a leading role in an upcoming exorcism movie while attempting to overcome his serious drinking problem. With the loss of his wife, Tony sends his teenage daughter Lee to a catholic boarding school, but when she is kicked out for in her words “protesting” but in the words of the law “vandalism”, she returns home and the reunion is tense. When Tony lands the role as the exorcist in this new emotional drama in the format of a horror movie weird things start happening on and off set. Will Tony survive the making of this movie? Will his family survive his alcoholism? Will Russel Crowe be in another exorcism movie next year? Whose to say.

My review for the exorcism is that it is pretty much exactly what I expected it to be. Its a catholic horror movie about a demon who needs to be exorcised. The scares aren’t that interesting, and some of the jump scares are so loud and quickly cut that I literally didn’t even know what happening. It was just startling and gave me zero information about what was actually going on in the film. Russel Crowes acting was actually pretty good in my opinion, but I think his voice is so deep and gravelly that it could be that I just enjoyed listening to him talk. The other star of the movie for me was the director played by Adam Goldberg who delivers both the funniest lines in the movie and the most emotionally brutal lines. The rest of the cast is kind of whatever to me. My favorite part of the movie was how it demonstrated the exploitation of trauma in the film industry which was pretty sad to watch. My least favorite parts were anything dealing with the demon cause I didn’t even really get what was happening or why. Maybe this really was a drama cloaked as a horror movie after all.

Score 4/10

You called. We answered again.

When you’re smiling the whole world smiles at you. Maybe not in this case, but most of the resto of the time.

Dr. Rose Cotter, a workaholic psychiatrist at a busy hospital, sees a troubled patient that complains of hallucinations of people with creepy smiles terrifying her every waking moment. Initially Dr. Cotter doesn’t believe the young woman, but when the same phenomenon begins happening to her, she must investigate the origins of the mysterious curse before it is too late.

Smile is the first feature length film from writer/director Parker Finn and is a retelling and expansion of his short Laura hasn’t slept. I haven’t been this excited about a new director since Ari Aster.

I loved this movie.

It has depth, it’s well crafted, and it features excellent performances from its cast.

Lets start with the tone and theme of the movie. It’s an on the nose allegory for the long lasting emotional effects of trauma, which specifically uses trauma as a device in the plot. The fact that it is so on the nose and that I didn’t feel like it was ever ham handed in it’s delivery, makes it all the more impressive to me. The tone is dark and helpless, and only sinks deeper throughout.

The direction and editing was fantastic. It has some of the best jumpscares I have ever witnessed, and somehow they seemed innovative instead of hacky. I jumped and yelled out several times in the theater. In so doing, it reaches the elusive praise of being “scary” by which some viewers judge horror movies. 

The sound design and music should almost get top billing on the poster. I’ve never been so disorientated and terrorized by ringing phones. The music is deeply unsettling and is composed by Cristobal Tapia de Veer, who did the music for White Lotus on HBOMax

Sosie Bacon, relative of the famous Travis Bacon, plays Rose, and her devolution into madness was convincing and heart wrenching.

The characters felt fleshed out, and the relationships felt real. There was one scene between Rose and her fiance played by The Boys’ Jessie T. Usher, that felt false to me, but eventually his character and that relationship was framed in a way that even made that one moment make sense.

It’s a movie that can be easily compared to It Follows and Th e Babadook, but it doesn’t ever feel derivative.

I didn’t think I’d find another horror movie this year that I’d love as much as Barbarian, but here we are, just weeks later.

I can’t stress this enough. I am a jaded, pretentious movie reviewer (see my comments on Terrifier 2’s review for proof). I no longer watch horror movies out of love or desire. I watch them out of obligation. This movie and Barbarian opened my cold heart and gave me childlike joy and terror, much like the critic at the end of Ratatouie. My faith in filmmaking is restored when I see new creative writer/directors that can still shock and delight me in the movie theater.

Thank you Parker Finn

10/10

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We watched Terrifier 2 and were treated to a homage to 80’s slashers with a runtime of a Lord of the Rings movie.

@dgoebel00 on Instagram provided this amazing artwork. Follow him and check out his website.

A year after his original massacre, Art the Clown (David Howard Thornton) returns to terrify Miles County. This time instead of killing random people, he seems to have an agenda and a renewed sense of humor.

Art targets the friends and family of Sienna (Lauren LaVera). He is twisted, hateful, and worst of all – inappropriately humorous.

As he mutilates kids and adults alike, he kind of helps to bring Sienna’s family together, which is as weird as it sounds. 

This is the third Art the Clown effort by writer/director Damien Leone, who was obviously beaten by his father as a child.

I think that it’s fair to say that Art the Clown has earned a place among the likes of Michael Myers, Jason, and Freddy, although his brand of slasher is a much more horrifically violent one, with a kind of through the looking glass feel to the whole thing. 

Terrifier 2 is the longest slasher I’ve ever seen. It’s fucking long. It’s longer than The Return of the Jedi by 20 minutes!!

Lots could have been left on the editing room floor. This movie has so much extra dialog and mood scenes that I question whether or not they were just going for some kind of record.

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Does the runtime make it bad? No, it just makes it less good.

Terrifier’s brand seems to be astonishingly fucked up gore set to slapstick and deadpan comedy. Some of the kill concepts in this are truly gruesome and will never leave your mind. 

Is this movie good? I don’t know, it’s not my favorite thing to see horrendous gore, but I have to say, if I am going to see horrendous gore, I would choose to see it with Art the Clown. He a pretty funny guy.

This is not a real movie to me, this is some sort of attempt at a world record. It’s a pretty interesting thing to see. It pays homage to slashers of olde while cramming sex and blood down your gullet in a way that truly sickens me and makes me want to ask, “what is wrong with kids these days?” But that’s the whole point.

If that sounds like a good time to you, you probably didn’t need to listen to my review.

6/10

You called. We came twice.

If you’re ready for a howlin’ good time, look no further than Dog Soldiers. The setup of a group of soldiers provides an ideal level of character development and werewolf fodder in this 2002 monster movie.

In the highlands of Scotland, a group of soldiers are deployed in a training mission. Before long they stumble across the scene of another squad that has been ripped apart by an unseen monster. The lone survivor, Davos Seaworth, is close lipped about what they were attacked by and why they were there, since they were using live rounds and not a part of the training mission. Soon howling and fast moving creatures start picking them off until they run into a zoologist named Megan, who knows exactly what is hunting them, werewolves.

This is honestly the first time I’ve even heard of Dog Soldiers. And it doesn’t seem surprising given that it never had a wide release outside of the Sci Fi channel.

This is a very simple movie with a relatively low budget. However, it squeezes every cent out of the budget and delivers a fun and entertaining monster movie.

They opted to go completely practical with the effects, which limits a lot of what they can do with the werewolves, but it was the right choice given where CG was at the time. 

There are some shots early on of the werewolves that are pretty laughable, in that they look like peachfuzz from Creep, but for the most part they limit the appearance of the werewolves in ways that hide how goofy they look full on.

Regardless of the special effects, the plot, characters, and dialogue in the movie are what make it worth watching in my opinion. The relationships seem real, the dialogue is fun, and the actors really pull off great performances.

This is a passion project of writer/director Neil Marshall, who is obviously having fun, and puts in a lot of references and call backs to his favorite movies throughout.

While it might not be a “great” movie, the fun is infectious and its a compelling setup with some satisfying twists at the end.

7/10 

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We watched Critters (1986) and were taken on a nostalgia trip the likes of which only an  80’s horror movie can deliver.

@dgoebel00 on Instagram provided this amazing artwork. Follow him and check out his website.

Critters is a fun and simple story about a slew of terrifying little Krites and their escape from prison asteroid sector 17, the bounty hunters hired to track them down, and a small town in Kansas who has to endure their reign of terror. After summarizing it, it seems a little less simple, but somehow it works.

As the Krites crash-land on earth, the town comes under attack. As the bounty hunters arrive, things are thrown into an even more impressive disarray by the single minded and determined bounty hunter crew.

Will the critters take over earth, or will the bounty hunters and earthlings learn how to team up to defeat these tiny terrors?

Critters is a super-fun and easy-going 80’s creature feature with a ton going for it. It knows exactly what it is, which is a Star Wars, E.T. the Extra Terrestrial, Gremlins, Ghoulies, homage slash tribute slash ripoff.

Watching Critters now, I feel like I can hear the producers saying, “People want new stuff that references old stuff in a way that makes them remember the old stuff, but this new stuff has to be it’s own fun thing.” That’s exactly what Critters is, and without shame or even too much in the way of fourth-wall-breaking winks.

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It’s not going to blow you away or even make you feel scared. But it’s not really supposed to make you scared. It’s supposed to be a somewhat risque and fun film for you to sit down with your youngsters on a Friday night and munch on some popcorn over.

This is a PG-13 film and in the eyes of a 10 year old, it earns it. It’s got some decent violence and lots of frightening explosions. 

The Critters themselves are some of the most unique and well-thought-out horror movie monsters that I can think of. Here is a list of some of the more notable traits among Krites:

• Highly mobile when rolling in a ball
• Built in long-range with poison Krite quills
• Always hungry and can eat anything
• Can grow to massive proportions
• Can reproduce limitlessly

It’s hard to hate this movie because it has so much going for it in the way of nostalgia. It uses tons of practical effects and puppetry and has a tangent storyline involving bounty hunters that is fun in a way that I can’t quite describe.

7/10

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The long reign of terror is over. Or is it…? It is. Hopes were high after Halloween 2018, but each installment got progressively worse, until finally, Halloween Ends.

The town of Haddonfield, IL is on edge from the previous Halloween’s rampage from Michael Myers. Not in a way that gets them to be safer or demand justice, but mostly in a way that makes them irrationally blame Laurie Strode for all their problems.

Corey, a good kid, ends up accidentally killing a little prick of a kid, and gets labeled as psycho by the town. He gets pushed around until he finally reaches a breaking point and starts to style himself after Michael Myers.

Laurie Strode herself, after living a life based on fear and vengeance, training herself to be the ultimate mercenary, in this movie says, meh, I’ll just live like a normal grandma now.

And Michael Myers shows up at the end.

After Halloween Kills, my expectations were not high for this film, but nonetheless, it didn’t meet them. I imagine for fans of the Halloween franchise, this entry will be as befuddling to them as it is to me.

You would think that this being the final entry in the franchise, it would focus on what makes it work. Mainly, the unstoppable Michael Myers.

Nope, they play a switcheroo, and focus on attempting to create a Michael Myers stand in protege. 

It’s a bold move, and could be interesting, if they didn’t completely fuck up everything to do with character development and motivation. 

Every character in this movie acts completely irrationally. Your brain will feel whiplash as characters completely change motivations instantly. This serves to make the plot seem completely arbitrary and nonsensical. 

The film attempts to analyze the nature of evil via nature vs nurture, but it falls completely flat, since they don’t present a compelling or cogent argument for either.

I will say that the ending is satisfying. Laurie and Michael do get their final standoff, and it does put a period on the franchise.

After watching this movie, I do hope it is the last.

3/10 

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