Three in a row for the first day of October 2016

Here we go again. It's going to be another October where horror reviewers fall over themselves to watch as many movies as they can, and nobody will read their blogs because they are all too busy writing their own.

I usually take a break from blogging around this time every year because Americans yawping on about the Hallowe'en non-holiday get right on my tits, but owing to the fact that I've hardly watched anything new at this point, I may as well join in the circle jerk.

I'm not sure whether to label these three movies as horror or thrillers, but I watched them and moatly enjoyed them. You might like them too.


Hush (2016)



"A deaf writer who retreated into the woods to live a solitary life must fight for her life in silence when a masked killer appears at her window."

A bit of an updated version of "Wait Until Dark", "Mute Witness", "Blink", "Blind Terror", "Julia's Eyes", and a plethora of others where an attractive but disabled woman gets menaced in her own home.

There's a cat in it named "Bitch" who survives, so that's a point in its favour, but the Apple product placement is blatant for those of us who notice such things.

Nothing new here, and one scene apes "The Collector", but it's a nicely done home invasion movie. I believe that Blumhouse produced it (which usually is the kiss of death) and Netflix are distributing it.


The Good Neighbor (2016)



"A pair of mischievous high school kids create the illusion of a haunting on an unsuspecting neighbor. While keeping his every reaction under surveillance, they see much more than they bargained for."

As much as I hate writng "neighbour" in the misspelled American way, this is an American film, so I'll leave it alone.

Not much to say about this other than the leads are pretty good, the twist is unexpected, and the story managed to keep my attention until the end. In some ways it reminds me of "Killer Net" (1998) at the beginning, but the story soon heads in a very different direction.

Another cat has an important part to play in the denouement. How interesting.


Don't Breathe (2016)



"Hoping to walk away with a massive fortune, a trio of thieves break into the house of a blind man who isn't as helpless as he seems."

If you've already watched the previous two movies, there really is nothing original in this one. It's yet another home invasion featuring a disabled "victim" with a secret. No cat this time though.

Out of the the three, this is easily the weakest, not least because of its setting, obvious SJW panderings, and the huge mistake of trying to make anyone feel sorry for the thieves. Personally, I wanted all of them to die.

A lot of younger movie enthusiasts think this is good, and if you haven't seen anything like it before, I suppose it's okay.


Hopefully, I'll have something much better for you tomorrow.

TCM's Horror Schedule for October 2013

What a difference a year makes! The last time I posted one of these TV schedules, there were loads of classic horror movies to watch. Sadly, apart from a ton of Public Domain and Vincent Price movies, there's not much else to look forward to this month. Shame on you TCM! How very disappointing.

Since they've also stopped providing a convenient .pdf file, I've manually reformatted the official schedule and corrected the typos. It's easier to print out and tick off the movies as you watch them this way, but as we've all got huge horror DVD collections and/or Netflix, I doubt that any of us will bother.


Tuesday, October 1st
NOTHING!

Wednesday, October 2nd
NOTHING!

Thursday, October 3rd
12:45am - The Collector (1965)
3:00am - Dr. Crippen (1963)

Friday, October 4th
8:00pm - Carnival of Souls (1962)
9:30pm - Night of the Living Dead (1968)

Saturday, October 5th
1:30am - Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
3:00am - Frankenstein Created Woman (1967)
4:45am - The Wasp Woman (1959)
10:30am - The Gorgon (1964)
12:00pm - The Devil's Bride (1968)

Sunday, October 6th
2:00am - Billy the Kid Vs. Dracula (1966)
3:15am - Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter (1966)

Monday, October 7th
NOTHING!

Tuesday, October 8th
NOTHING!

Wednesday, October 9th
NOTHING!

Thursday, October 10th
NOTHING!

Friday, October 11th
8:00pm - Horror of Dracula (1958)
9:30pm - Isle of the Dead (1945)
11:00pm - Dead of Night (1945)

Saturday, October 12th
1:00am - The Haunting (1963)
3:00am - The House of Seven Corpses (1974)
4:30am - Horror Castle (1963)
12:00pm - The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll (1961)
4:30pm - It Came from Outer Space (1953)
6:00pm - The World, the Flesh, and the Devil (1959)

Sunday, October 13th
NOTHING!

Monday, October 14th
12:00am - Nosferatu (1922)
2:00am - Vampyr (1932)
3:15am - The Vampire Bat (1933)
4:30am - The Vampire (1957)

Tuesday, October 15th
NOTHING!

Wednesday, October 16th
NOTHING!

Thursday, October 17th
NOTHING!

Friday, October 18th
8:00pm - Burn, Witch, Burn (1962)
9:45pm - The Tomb of Ligeia (1964)
11:15pm - The Seventh Victim (1943)

Saturday, October 19th
12:30am - Curse of the Demon (1958)
2:15am - I Walked with a Zombie (1943)
3:30am - The Leopard Man (1943)
10:30am - The Devil's Own (1966)
12:15pm - The Plague of the Zombies (1966)
8:00pm - Freaks (1932)
9:15pm - Mark of the Vampire (1935)
10:30pm - The Devil Doll (1936)

Sunday, October 20th
2:15am - Incubus (1965)
3:45am - The Hypnotic Eye (1960)

Monday, October 21st
12:00am - Haxan (1922)
2:00am - Kwaidan (1965)
6:15am - Eye of the Devil (1966)

Tuesday, October 22nd
4:30pm - A Place of One's Own (1945)

Wednesday, October 23rd
NOTHING!

Thursday, October 24th
8:00pm - House of Wax (1953)
9:45pm - The Mad Magician (1954)
11:00pm - House of Usher (1960)

Friday, October 25th
12:30am - Diary of a Madman (1963)
2:15am - The Tingler (1959)
3:45am - House on Haunted Hill (1959)
6:45am - Tower of London (1962)
8:15am - The Raven (1963)
6:30pm - The Walking Dead (1936)
8:00pm - A Bucket of Blood (1959)
9:15pm - Dementia 13 (1963)
10:45pm - What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)

Saturday, October 26th
1:15am - Sisters (1973)
3:00am - Spider Baby (1964)
4:30am - Village of the Damned (1961)
10:30am - Maniac (1963)
8:00pm - Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
9:30pm - The Mummy (1932)
11:00pm - Cat People (1942)

Sunday, October 27th
12:30am - White Zombie (1932)
2:00am - Psychomania (1973)
3:30am - The Witches (1966)
4:15pm - Children of the Damned (1964)
6:00pm - Them! (1954)

Monday, October 28th
NOTHING!

Tuesday, October 29th
NOTHING!

Wednesday, October 30th
NOTHING!

Thursday, October 31st - HALLOWE'EN!
12:00am - Freaks (1932)
6:00am - The Curse of Frankenstein (1957)
7:30am - The Mummy (1959)
9:00am - Horror Castle (1963)
10:30am - The Castle of the Living Dead (1964)
12:15pm - Dracula, Prince of Darkness (1965)
1:45pm - The Devil's Bride (1968)
3:45pm - Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1969)
5:30pm - Horror Express (1972)
8:00pm - Pit and the Pendulum (1961)
9:30pm - The Haunted Palace (1963)
11:15pm - The Masque of the Red Death (1964)

Continuing Hallowe'en through to Friday, November 1st
1:00am - The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971)
2:45am - Twice-Told Tales (1963)
5:00am - The Tomb of Ligeia (1964)
6.30am - The Conqueror Worm (1968)
8:15am - Theatre of Blood (1973)


What will you be watching?

It's October! And we all know what that means!

Yes, it's that time of year again when all the fairweather horror fans and Horror Lamers start blogging furiously about the second biggest non-event "holiday" (which isn't even a holiday) other than Christmas! Yay!

Prepare to be burnt out by all the tiresome posts about Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers, and God knows how many more slashers which have nothing to do with the true supernatural meaning of Hallowe'en. Except on this blog, of course, where everything stays traditionally old school.

This year, however, I have something slightly different planned for you. Whether or not I achieve it will be another matter, but I'm cutting back on the reviews and adding some more interesting stuff. No, I'm not going to write about the pathetic internet dramas caused by chubby little girls and other attention-seeking cyberbullies whose cowardly actions towards free horror bloggers are fuelled by jealousy, nor am I going to post responses to the tirade of misinformed Disqus comments I get every day from people who don't seem to understand that this is my blog not theirs. Do people honestly think that I'm going to change what I write because they don't like what I have to say? It's not going to happen. That would be as dishonest as their blogs, and be even more boring to read than my usual posts.

What I've got instead is a theme:

Ghoulies, ghosties, long-leggedy beasties,
and things that go bump in the night!

I've been thinking of doing themed months for some time. Last month was Spanish Horror (in case you missed it), and next month will probably be all about Empire and Full Moon. That doesn't mean that I'm not going to talk about new horror movie releases anymore, but it does mean that there will sometimes be more than one post each day (or maybe none at all). Remember how I told you a little while ago that I was going to improve my game? Well, this is it. What else did you expect? I'm only a blogger.

Here's something to whet your appetite:

"They'll get you in the end."

Charles Band recently posted this on Twitter accompanied with "By Halloween!". Thus, I assume that this resin "Ghoulies" figure will soon be available to buy from Full Moon Direct. Fantastic! Maybe Hallowe'en won't be such a non-event this year after all!

By the way, don't forget to "like" my Facebook page. The party (such as it is) continues there!

AMC vs TCM - the October horror schedules

Even though true horror fans all have huge horror DVD collections (plus subscriptions to Netflix, Hulu, VuDu, and God knows what else), for most casual American viewers and "normal" people, October's horror movie selection will either be a choice of AMC's Fearfest or Turner Classic Movies. Nobody except little kids still watches the SyFy channel or Chiller TV, do they?

When I was living in the UK, I was always envious of the horror movie marathons which were available in the US. We were only likely to get a horror movie (usually something by Hammer or Amicus) if Hallowe'en fell on a Friday or Saturday. The BBC and Channel Four had their moments, of course, but until Sky TV and Zone Horror upped the ante by repeatedly showing a load of crap, Hallowe'en usually involved an expensive trip to Blockbuster.

You can say what you like about mainstream American television, its overload of commercials and its hypocritical censorship, but you still can't beat it if you are too lazy to keep swapping DVDs over. With the recession not really showing any signs of improvement, AMC and TCM have offered a very fine selection of classic horror movies for those of us who are also cheapskates.

Here are the schedules (after the jump break) which I've reformatted so that they are easier to print out and tick off as you watch the movies on them.