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The Best and Worst Halloween Movies of 2021

October 31, 2021 Cassandra Morgan

Alas, we have come to the end of Spooky Season. While that does mean that the Halloween movie reviews have ended, it also marks the beginning of Christmas movie reviews. There is something like 135 new Christmas movies this year between all of the various channels. I won’t be able to watch all of those but I will be watching a lot. (I think it’s like 95?) Before the Christmas spirit descends, let’s take one last look at the best and the worst Halloween movies of 2021

The Best

5. The Medium
4. Fear Street Trilogy
3. Squid Game
2. Midnight Mass
1. Nightbooks

Honorable mentions: Till Death, Malignant, Horror Noire

The Worst

5. Lamb
4. Hypnotic
3. We Need To Do Something
2. Prey
1. In The Earth

Dishonorable mentions: The Guilty, Intrusion, There’s Someone Inside Your House

Let me know your favorite and least favorite scary movies this year!

In Halloween movies Tags Halloween 2021, Halloween movies
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Horror Noire | 2021 Halloween Movies

October 31, 2021 Cassandra Morgan

Anthology series, especially horror anthology series, vary a lot. There are way too many terrible horror anthologies out there. Thankfully, the few black horror anthology series I have seen have been amazing. Let’s look at the latest one.

Horror Noire is a six-story anthology show on Shudder. “The Lake” stars Lucifer’s Leslie-Ann Brandt as a woman who moves into a lakeside house. She is told not to swim in the lake but she doesn’t listen. “Brand of Evil” gives us Brandon Mychal Smith as an artist commissioned to draw some mystical brand artwork for a mysterious client. “Bride Before You” is the story of a new bride (Lenora Crichlow) tasked with giving her husband a son. When she has difficulties conceiving, she turns to a magical old woman. “Fugue State” has Malcolm Barrett becoming a victim of a cult. “Daddy” turns a insecure father (Luke James) against himself. “Sundown” twists racist sundown towns into the supernatural.

These are all amazing stories. I don’t think there was one that I didn’t enjoy. My favorites were “Sundown,” “Brand of Evil,” and “Bride Before You.” I love that all of these stories took stereotypical black issues and twisted them into something new. Yes, for the most part, they all still held onto their racist core but they took that history and gave it a supernatural life.

I absolutely recommend watching Horror Noire. The show definitely needs more eyes on it. And since each story is only about 20 minutes long, if you don’t like one particular story, another will be starting soon!

In Halloween movies Tags Shudder, Horror Noire, black horror, Leslie-Ann Brandt, Brandon Mychal Smith, Lenora Crichlow, Malcolm Barrett, Luke James, Tony Todd, Rachel True, Sean Patrick Thomas, Lavell Crawford, Erica Ash, Tone Bell, Halloween 2021, Halloween movies, anthology show
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Nobody Sleeps In The Woods Tonight 2 | 2021 Halloween Movies

October 30, 2021 Cassandra Morgan

In 2020, Netflix released a Polish supernatural horror film titled Nobody Sleeps In The Woods Tonight. The movie had all of the right things - good acting, a decent plot, and an interesting twist that made you wonder where the characters would go. Thankfully, the sequel came out recently and I am dying to see what they do.

Despite being a police officer, Adas (Mateusz Wieclawe) is a rather meek person. When he arrives at the station, Adas finds both Zosia (Julia Wieniawa-Narkiewicz) and the brothers locked up. As they wait for a more capable unit to arrive, Sergeant Waldek (Andrzej Grabowski) takes Zosia back to the house to figure out what exactly happened in the massacre. At the house, the meteorite transforms Zosia into one of the monsters. Is this the end for humanity?

Nobody Sleeps In The Woods Tonight 2 takes a different turn from not only the original but most horror movies in general. Like most horror movies, the first one was about the victims, how they died, and how they tried to get away from the murderers. This time the movie focuses more on the monsters. I thought it was an interesting change of pace.

This is a difficult one to recommend. I liked it but there are a lot of people that thought it was too slow and didn’t focus on the killing as much. Which is true. It is a little slow and there aren’t a ton of murders. However, I thought that seeing the monster relationships was different. If you are into that sort of thing, you’ll probably like this sequel. (You should watch the first for context though.) But if you are looking for something more bloody, this isn’t where you will find it.

In Halloween movies Tags Netflix, Nobody Sleeps In The Woods Tonight 2, Mateusz Wieclawe, Julia Wieniawa-Narkiewicz, Andrzej Grabowski, Zofia Wichlacz, Wojciech Mecwaldowski, Sebastian Stankiewicz, Izabela Dabrowska, Halloween 2021, Halloween movies
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In The Earth | 2021 Halloween Movies

October 29, 2021 Cassandra Morgan

This is the movie that broke me. You don’t need any more of an intro than that.

In The Earth is a thriller released on Hulu back in April 2021. The plot is pretty sparse. There is a deadly virus ravaging the world. Scientist Martin (Joel Fry) and guide Alma (Ellora Torchia) head into the forest to meet up with Martin’s former colleague Olivia (Hayley Squires) to assist with her studies. On their way to her camp, they come across Zach (Reese Shearsmith). Zach kidnaps Martin and Alma in order to force them to help him…contact a sorcerer in the forest? Eventually the pair escapes, only to be subjected to similar pains when they finally find Olivia.

Supposedly, this movie was written and filmed in 15 days. And it shows. There are giant holes in the plot that make no sense. There are these strange flashing images that seem to have nothing to do with the plot either. It feels like writer and director Ben Wheatley wrote a handful of pages and filled the rest in with strobe lights.

I watched this movie almost a week ago. This review was supposed to be written on Monday. I couldn’t bring myself to talk about this pile of crap because I was so upset I watched it in the first place that I didn’t want to address it. But it should be addressed. People should know how terrible this “movie” is. I mean, look at the poster! They couldn’t even put together a good poster. They just cut the eyes out of characters. (Yes, there are multiple posters - one for each character.)

Gah, don’t watch it. It’s terrible. Hulu should just delete the damned thing and we should all forget it even existed.

In Halloween movies Tags Hulu, In The Earth, Joel Fry, Ellora Torchia, Hayley Squires, Reese Shearsmith, Ben Wheatley, Halloween 2021, Halloween movies
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Hypnotic | 2021 Halloween Movies

October 28, 2021 Cassandra Morgan

I haven’t written a review in a couple of days because I have been extremely disappointed in the spooky movies recently. While a lot of the Hallmark/Lifetime Christmas movies are boring, the Halloween fare lately has just been bad. I might try to squeeze in two extra reviews over the next few days in order to make up for the two days I’ve missed but, to be honest, that will depend on the quality of the movies I find. Then again, maybe I’ll give in and write the bad reviews anyway. Until then, here’s one of Netflix’s newest releases.

Hypnotic is about a woman named Jenn (Kate Siegel) who is feeling stuck in life. She doesn’t have a job currently and she suffers from depression after the death of her child and subsequent collapse of her romantic relationship with Brian (Jaime M. Callica). She turns to psychiatrist Dr. Collin Meade (Jason O’Mara). Dr. Meade hypnotizes Jenn in order to help her overcome her troubles. But this is only the beginning of her troubles.

As I said before, boring movies are different from bad movies. This one is just boring. Before the movie even reaches the halfway mark, we know what is going to happen. Thriller movies are only thrilling when you don’t know what is going to happen next. The suspense comes from knowing something bad will happen but not knowing what that something is or when it will happen. Hypnotic spells it out for you. Even if it didn’t tell you up front what was going to happen, this plot has been done before. Multiple times.

The sad part of this movie being boring is that it actually has a decent cast. Kate Siegel was amazing in Midnight Mass, Jason O’Mara was in the acclaimed Amazon Prime series The Man In The High Castle, and Dulé Hill’s career is way longer than any of us realize. These are people that could have some stunning things with a better script. It makes me sad that their talents were wasted.

Needless to say, you shouldn’t watch Hypnotic. Go watch literally anything else. You’ll thank me later.

In Halloween movies Tags Netflix, Hypnotic, Kate Siegel, Jaime M Callica, Jason O'Mara, Dulé Hill, Lucie Guest, Halloween 2021, Halloween movies
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Till Death | 2021 Halloween Movies

October 25, 2021 Cassandra Morgan

Till Death actually came out back in July 2021. But it is more of a thriller than most of the October releases so we’re going to look at it anyway.

Emma (Megan Fox) is unhappily married to Mark (Eoin Macken). She’s been cheating on him with his employee, Tom (Ami Ameen). On their anniversary, Mark takes Emma to a secluded lake house. They have a fairly nice evening but when Emma wakes up the next morning, she finds herself handcuffed to Mark. Mark then shoots himself in the head, leaving Emma handcuffed to his corpse. Besides having to drag around her dead husband’s body, Emma also has to avoid being killed by the men Mark hired to murder her.

When I first heard about Till Death, I wrote it off as one of those terrible movies where the woman gets kidnapped and does stupid things to try to get out of the situation. (I’m looking at you, Secret Obsession.) Boy, was I wrong. Fox’s Emma is smart and powerful. She manages to drag Mark’s stupid body all over the place and, as any good true crime fan will tell you, corpses are heavy. At no point does she give in or just sit and wait for someone to save her. She is always looking for a way to fix her situation.

I honestly don’t want to talk too much about this movie. I really think that everyone should watch it. Especially women. Most of the time women are portrayed as victims or someone who needs to be saved. Emma proves that women are neither. Though maybe we should all learn how to pick a handcuff lock, just in case.

In Halloween movies Tags Netflix, Till Death, Megan Fox, Eoin Macken, Ami Ameen, Callan Mulvey, Jack Roth, Halloween 2021, Halloween movies
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Night Teeth | 2021 Halloween Movies

October 24, 2021 Cassandra Morgan

Netflix has been all over the place this year. We’ve seen good movies, terrible movies, foreign movies, and things that want to be movies but aren’t. But we haven’t had a monster movie, per se. No One Gets Out Alive is the closest we have come. As you can see from the poster, Night Teeth is a vampire movie. Is it a good one though?

In the Los Angeles area, vampires have co-existed peacefully with humans thanks to a centuries old truce that says vampires can only feed on people that consent. Victor (Alfie Allen) is a vampire that has grown bored of the truce. Intending to kill all of the vampires in power, he sends his girlfriend, Zoe (Lucy Fry), and her best friend, Blaire (Debby Ryan), into Los Angeles as a distraction. The girls hire peacekeeper Jay (Raúl Castillo) to drive them for the night but Jay has to save his girlfriend from Victor. Jay’s brother, Benny (Jorge Lendeborg Jr), takes his place. Benny didn’t know what he was getting himself into.

I’m a little confused about what to say about Night Teeth. As a movie, it was good. But it wasn’t a good vampire movie. A lot of the actiony parts of the movie either took place off-screen or far in the background of the shot. There aren’t even a lot of scenes of drinking blood. Well, there’s scenes of drinking blood from glasses but there’s only one real scene of vampires drinking from a human. It’s almost like the vampire part of the story was an after-thought.

Instead of an action-packed vampire thriller, we are given a romantic drama. I would argue that the main plot of the story is the growing affection between Blaire and Benny. The story really is a little Romeo & Juliet-ish. Coming at it from that direction, it is a decent movie. But if they were going for a romantic movie, there should have been a bit more romance in it. There’s a lot of like half-glances and smirky smiles at each other with only one actual kissing scene. I just think they should have tried harder to show each other that they were interested instead of spending all their time hiding it from Zoe.

It’s a fine movie to watch if you have nothing else to do. Just be warned that it is a vampire movie without any real bite to it. Well, there is a cameo from Megan Fox. I guess that is something…

In Halloween movies Tags Netflix, Night Teeth, vampire, Alfie Allen, Lucy Fry, Debby Ryan, Raúl Castillo, Jorge Lendeborg Jr), Megan Fox, Halloween 2021, Halloween movies
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A Tale Dark & Grimm | 2021 Halloween Movies

October 23, 2021 Cassandra Morgan

I enjoy reading the non-Disneyfied versions of fairy tales. When I saw there was a Grimm brothers-related series coming to Netflix this year, I was pretty darn excited. But did it live up to my own internal hype?

A Tale Dark & Grimm is an animated series based on a book of the same name. Hansel (Andre Robinson) and Gretel (Raini Rodriguez) run away from home only to find themselves involved in a number of other stories. Each story somehow gets worse for them, though this makes them stronger as people. And they will need their combined strength when their kingdom is attacked by a dragon!

The series lasts for 10-episodes, which feels way too few for all of the stories the writers are trying to fit in. Each episode is a separate story, for the most part. The last half of the series ditches the stand-alone story format in favor of tying everything together for the big ending. While I appreciate the writers doing their best to bring all of the characters together, I was really enjoying the stand-alone stories. It was interesting to see Hansel and Gretel take part in other stories unrelated to them.

That said, A Tale Dark & Grimm was a highly enjoyable series. It did keep the dark aspect of each story but it handled the more gory parts of the story in a way that wouldn’t frighten children. Usually in a shadow puppet-type of way. Not that this is intended for small children. It is rated TV-Y7, meaning it’s aimed at children older than 7, which is fair but I would probably go with a 9-10 year range instead. There are a few teasers and trailers on the Netflix website. I would recommend watching those first and deciding if your particular child can handle the content.

In Halloween movies Tags Netflix, A Tale Dark & Grimm, Andre Robinson, Raini Rodriguez, Scott Adsit, Ron Funches, Erica Rhodes, Jonathan Banks, Nicole Byer, Eric Bauza, Charlotte Wilson Langley, Halloween 2021, Halloween movies
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Lamb | 2021 Halloween Movies

October 22, 2021 Cassandra Morgan

What the hell did I just watch….

Lamb is an Icelandic supernatural…horror movie? Maria (Noomi Rapace) and Ingvar (Hilmir Snær Guðnason) are sheep farmers in the middle of nowhere. One of their pregnant sheep gives birth to something extraordinary and the couple decide to raise it as their own child. Ingvar’s brother, Pétur (Björn Hlynur Haraldsson), moves in with them but is disturbed by their sheep-child, Ada. At first, Pétur tries to kill Ada. Instead, he somehow finds himself beginning to care for the child. It isn’t until Pétur attempts to blackmail Maria into having sex with him that Maria kicks him out of the house. While she is taking Pétur to the bus, Ingvar and Ada take a walk into the countryside to fix their broken tractor. On the way, they meet Ada’s true father, which devastates the entire family.

I fully understand that foreign films are very different from American films. I have talked about that a couple of times already this year. Lamb is something completely and totally different from everything else I have seen. We aren’t given any explanations for anything. All we get are vague references that we have to extract information from . Even at the very end when we are supposedly learning Ada’s parentage, we see him but that is it. There’s no explanation about what he is or where he came from. He’s just…there.

The one good thing I can say about the movie are the graphics were pretty good. The Ada character is disturbing in a way that she is supposed to be. I’m still not completely sure how they pulled it off. Was it all CGI? Was it a hybrid of CGI and practical effects? Did the use black magic?

Unless you are really into arthouse foreign films, I would recommend you skip this one. There isn’t a lot of drama or action. It is VERY slow. And there is no real payoff. This very well may be on the bottom of my Halloween list this year.

In Halloween movies Tags Lamb, Noomi Rapace, Hilmir Snær Guðnason, Björn Hlynur Haraldsson, Halloween 2021, Halloween movies
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The Medium | 2021 Halloween Movies

October 20, 2021 Cassandra Morgan
TheMedium.jpg

Shudder hasn’t had a lot of new releases this year. The first one was V/H/S/94. This time, they have given us the Thai film The Medium. Let’s see if Shudder handles foreign films better than Netflix.

Nim (Sawanee Utoomma) is a shaman in the Isan region of Thailand. When she attends her brother-in-law’s funeral, she finds her niece, Mink (Narilya Gulmongkolpech), acting strangely. Even though Mink’s mother/Nim’s sister, Noi (Sirani Yankittikan), doesn’t want anything to do with shamans, she needs Nim’s help to cure Mink. Is it really the goddess Ba Yan calling Mink to the shaman life or is it something more sinister?

When I make lists of movies I’m going to review, I try to do as little reading on the movie itself as possible. I look up when it is coming out and where I can watch it. So when The Medium started and it looked a lot like an actual documentary, I thought I messed up. (Not that I am averse to documentaries, I watch a lot of them. It’s just not the Halloween vibe I’m going for with these reviews.) But, no, this isn’t a documentary. It is a really, really good documentary-style. Totally had me fooled.

Thanks to the pseudo-documentary style, I was completely pulled into the movie at the beginning. I cared a lot about Nim and I thought the movie was going to center around her. It doesn’t. Not at all. Nim is, at best, a third tier character. Don’t get me wrong, Nim is very important and moves a lot of the story along. But The Medium, at it’s core, is about Mink, Noi, and Noi’s relationship to religion. Everything and everyone else is secondary to those themes.

The Medium was such a good movie. I did think the ending was a little weak but I’m going to chalk that up to societal differences. I know that, in very broad and general terms, Asian media prefers to have more open endings where Western media likes to tie all of the plotlines up in a nice little bow. With that said, The Medium is definitely left enough open for a sequel or a Paranormal Activity-type of series of movies. I would love to see another movie that takes place in this universe.

There is no need to ask me if you should watch this. Yes, the answer is yes. Go watch it tonight.

In Halloween movies Tags Shudder, The Medium, Sawanee Utooma, Narilya Gulmongkolpech, Sirani Yankittikan, Yasaka Chaisorn, Boonsong Nakphoo, Thailand, South Korea, Halloween 2021, Halloween movies
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