Films

Horrortober 2022 #5 & #6

Hellraiser (2022)

I don’t want to be involved in these annoying peoples lives for 2 hours. The main character is an idiot, and it takes so long for the Cenobites to turn up. There’s no reason for her and the guy to instantly go straight to “we must investigate who owns the warehouse” etc… as a solution, rather than just throw the box away. Everything but the Cenobite costumes is stupid. Yelling “I dont know, I dont know” and “What the hell is going on” and being hysterical isn’t suspense. Everything about the characters and almost everything they do is pointless except for occasional out of place seemingly random choices needed to keep connecting the most basic “story” elements together. The twist that the BF is working for the box “owner” is brutal to experience after almost an hour, such a tired cliche. It takes so long to get to the Cenobites. Jesus it just wont fucking end. The only good parts are when the Cenobites are on screen, and even then they are too often wasted. This needs to be cut down, edited and re-released 100% focused on the Cenobites.

I guess its not really THAT bad, its just disappointing.

1.5/5

★★

Wikipedia
IMDB

Anatomia Extinction (1995)

The film starts with train station announcements and new presentations about overpopulation and city congestion, and murders. A businessman witnesses a murder and is then chased around by a strange mutant guy who “recruits” him to be an “Engineer” by infecting him with something (?). The businessman starts being wracked with pains and receiving hallucinations and messages telling him to “reduce the rats” and “be the engineer”. H meets the mutant guy again at a crime scene. The news on his TV is now overtly discussing murdering people as population control. He keeps having fits and freakouts, fighting the urges to kill? He has an altercation with the police shooting one of them and getting shot himself before killing the other with some kind of mutant weapon that his arm has turned into. He steals their car and goes on a killing rampage. Cops chase him to his home and there is a confrontation. He destroys them all, and when we see him next he is all fucked up and mutated. We then see scenes of other mutated Engineers around the city. We then suddenly see him and he is fully normal, walking in a crowd, he looks at his normal un-mutated hand and smiles. A voice announced “The Latest Congestion Update…” and the film ends.

A highly stylised film with almost zero dialogue. Its very low budget, but still visually nice. Different and very 90’s Japan. Remade as Tokyo Gore Police in 2008. 2/5

★★

IMDB

Films

Horrortober 2022 #3 & #4

Hider in the House (1989)

Gary Busey lives in the walls of someones house!

This is a psychological thriller (that counts as scary I guess) staring Gary Busey, Mimi Rodgers and Michael McKean. Jake Busey appears in scenes where Garys character is a child.

It sounds like it should be hilarious, but it isn’t.

Gary escapes from a mental institution and starts living in the attic of an unoccupied house. Then a family moves in. He spies on them, kills their dog, and starts interacting with the wife. Gary ends up trying to kill the family members and is killed by the cops. Its a TV movie and its not great. 1.5/5.

★★

IMDB
Wikipedia

Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)

The best of the Halloween sequels, and one of the best horror films ever.

I have seen this before but not for a long time. It isn’t directed by John Carpenter like 1 and 2 (Carpenter and Debra Hill produced, Carpenter also co-wrote the music), and there’s no Michael Myers. How is this even a sequel?

A toy company, Silver Shamrock, makes a Halloween mask that every child wants. Each mask contains a microchip with a piece of Stonehenge in it. Upon watching a special commercial to be aired on TV anyone wearing the masks will die and insects will escape their body killing anyone nearby. The masks creator wants to sacrifice children like ancient Celtic pagans did, presumably to gain powers!

Just insane stuff! 4/5

★★★★

IMDB
Wikipedia

Films

Horrortober 2022 #1 & #2

HauntedWeen (1991)

“Nobody knows it really happening – People are dying, and people are laughing.” – IMDB review

Some kid named Eddie Burber accidentally kills a girl in a Halloween haunted house run by his family and has to leave town. Skip to 20 years later, he is living in the woods with his mother who suddenly dies and he decides its time to return home. A fraternity in the town need to raise money to pay for fees and they decide to use the “Old Burber House” to host a Halloween haunted house event, the same house where Eddie killed the girl 20 years earlier. A stranger appears at the fraternity and says they should use the house and gives them a key.
During the Halloween event Eddie turns up in a mask and starts executing the fraternity members running and acting in the event, and none of the townsfolk attending know its real.
A surviving fraternity member eventually kills Eddie.

Its rather low budget, the generic characters and setting don’t require any fleshing out, the general idea is a good one, and it goes rather fast for 127mins. Its still only a 2/5 being generous.

★★

IMDB

Malignant (2021)

“In 1993, Dr. Florence Weaver and her colleagues Victor Fields and John Gregory treat a violent, disturbed patient named Gabriel at Simion Research Hospital. Gabriel is able to control electricity and broadcast his thoughts via speakers. He kills several staff members. Dr. Weaver determines that he is a lost cause and the “cancer“ must be removed.

27 years later…” – Wikipedia

Yeah there’s a weird and convoluted storyline. The important parts are all the weird WTF moments, the straight acting, the genre and style mashing, the style choices generally, the creepy shit, and the insane action scenes and horror. It feels kind of like a collage of genres and styles from different films, that meld and even overlap each other even in the same scenes. It feels ridiculous and that is in no way a bad thing.
Argento films, Homicide: Life on the Street, Possession, Blade, Exorcist 2? I have no idea…

It makes no sense to watch a film like this and rate it low for being this ridiculous, that’s not how the Horror genre works. And the more confusing and ridiculous it got the more I liked it.
Its a fucked up ride. 3.5/5.
(The “Where is my mind” musical stabs were the dumbest part)

★★★★

Wikipedia
IMDB

Event, Films

Horrortober 2022

As per previous years: Watching 31 Horror/Spooky/Scary type films from any genre during October.
31 total films, but not trying too hard for 1 per day, because that actually sucks to keep up.

Previous watch lists HERE

Drinks

Some Long Weekend+ Beers.

A Lot of beers over the Long Weekend plus Thursday, some better and/or fresher than others, but all pretty good. Altbier is a fantastic style, very happy to have discovered it.

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Little Bang – Geezer Pleaser, ESB. 5.5% 375ml can. First beer from this brewery. Canned in Feb, but shouldn’t be an issue for an ESB. Nice colour, decent carbonation. Caramel malt and some kind of hops on the nose. Taste is nice straight bittering hops, thats where this shines, and caramel malts rounding it out. Takes a bit of warming up, obviously, to really shine. Its straight up and nice. 2.5/5

Rocky Ridge – Mel’s Gin, Sour Ale. 4% 375ml can. – Packaged in March so I was expecting this to not be great, but I do try and try all Rocky Ridge stuff I can find. Its surprisingly still minty on the first few sips. No melon, no gin. Its a kettle sour (or however they do the short and stopped sours these days), so it has that particular character of sourness. The mint is definitely there and its strange possibly unnatural, at first, but the sourness eventually removes it from being detected anymore. I would like to know what this was like fresh. 2/5.

Mash Brewing – Red Cat, Red IPA. 6.5% 375ml can. – Nice colour, very nice head that becomes real cloudy and lumpy. Smell is a big malty, sweet, super fruity, IPA. Taste, Its a big malty almost cloying IPA with that red malt bite crossed with that big piney resinous hops. All the things I dislike. Dont usually expect to encounter a IPA like this in 2022 outside of like Sierra Nevada Torpedo. Its really not that bad. Its well made, hits all the points for style and more. I just unfortunately cant handle 375ml of this style of beer anymore. Its 2.5/5 because its good, possibly very good, despite my dislike.

Black Brewing – Bad Boy BaoBao, Milk Stout. 4.5% 375ml. – I can smell the cherry, and the choc, a Cherry Ripe, theres no hops or malt in the smell. The Taste is a Cherry ripe, sweet and tart, its all on the sides of the tongue. There is dark, and black malts that slowly appear and overpower the cherry and chocolate. Its viscous and tart and sweet all around the sides, but with a dryness down the centre of the tongue. Nice, different, 2.5/5

Artisan Brewing – Great Southern, Belgian Style Table Beer. 3.5% 375ml can. – This is nice. Big fluffy head, nice zesty yeasty smell, cloudy golden almost orange colour. The taste is mild but enough, mainly yeast character; Belgian-y, spicy, peppery. A slight hop bitterness is balanced well with the yeast. There is little to no malt taste. A very soft mouthfeel. A real nice little beer. 2/5

Slow Lane Brewing – Altogether, Altbier, 5% 375ml can. – Insane thick tan head. Smells like a lager, but slightly fruity. Brown-coppery colour, rather hazy. This is nice, and I dont think I have ever had this style before. Like a British Mild but with higher carbonation, and more yeast character. Slightly more hopping, too. Its fruity yeast esters up front and a nice traditional hop bitterness. The malt character is mild, but both dark and sweet malts are detectable. Crisp and clean enough. Nice beer, great style. 2.5/5

Slow Lane Brewing – Simpicity, Helles German Lager. 5% 375ml can. – Cloudy, very light amber, golden colour. Small light head. Smell is light colour malts, slightly bready, kind of fruity? Great bitterness, very defined and clean, all bittering hops. The malt character is very light. There’s a little bit of fruitiness, too. Nice. 2/5.

Mismatch – Dark Ale. 5.5% 375ml can. – I have never seen this one before. Color is brown/dark read and clear, nice tan head. Smell is fruity dark malt, clean yeast. Taste is a very clean, rather crisp dark ale with a nice amount of bittering hops. Good. 2/5.

Drinks

A real Budweiser

Budweiser Budvar. Artesian water, Moravian barley, Saaz hops. This is a really nice beer. A really great malty, lager funky, hoppy smell, it hits all the points. The taste is nicely malty, fantastic Saaz bitterness. Its a real beer compared to US Bud. This is really nice and stands strongly along side any good European Lager and Pilsner. 3/5.

Drinks

Stout & Pastry Stout

Rocky Ridge – Dirty Desert Pastry Stout. 8% 375ml can. Smells like rich mudcake or brownie, kind of boozy, chocolate, obviously some dark roasty malt. The head doesn’t stick around and the carbonation is very light, but that’s no issue. This tastes like a stout just crammed with super rich dark muddy chocolate cake, brownies, chocolate icing. I cant really detect the marshmallow, and there is some lactose sweetness, but that’s all very submerged in the chocolate. Nice mouthfeel and body, fitting but not viscous. Packaged in July, I’m sure something with actual marshmallows and mudcake in it needs to be drank very fresh but this is still very tasty and big and rich and its pretty damn great. A real sipper that just grows as it warms. 3/5.

★★★

Nowhereman – Alpha Ron Stout 2022. 5.6% 375ml can. First off the can art is awesome, its embossed with metallic bits, excellent. Opaque Black. Great super brown head. Smells like a straight up stout, coffee, also burnt toast. Tastes initially like a good straight up stout but as you sip, as it warms, it focuses in on the blacker malts, the darker roasted side, pretty sure all the bitterness comes from the malts, no noticeable hops at all. This is surprisingly bigger than I was expecting. The light body/mouthfeel and carbonation are both deceptive and enhancing of its punch. Another long sipper. Nice. 3.

★★★
Drinks

Hopped Cider

Kinda surprised this tastes pretty much like a real cider with the kinda funkyness, a bit of sourness, a bit of that stank that comes from a natural fermented cider, a little bit wild/farmhouse, it actually tastes like there’s brettanomyces in this, but after a while the sourness seems more kettle soured, so I’m unsure. The hopping though, I’m not so much of a fan. The hops kinda come through more like a hop tea, like there hasn’t been the bio-transformation or whatever happens when you boil and ferment hops in beer wort with beer yeast. It could just be more-so that a sour beer as light and fruity as a cider would usually have little to no hopping, so comparisons are difficult to make. Its not bad and the actual cider tastes really good. I did not think it would be 8%. The non hopped one is 3.4% and is also very nice, its super dry, very tart, but still some of the same sourness and funky stank etc.

Somewhere slightly above 2.5/5.

★★★