High Tension (aka Switchblade Romance in the UK) resides in the elite circle of horror favorites that helped shape me into the Manster I am today. It might be my top foreign film, my #1 foreign horror for sure. 17 years removed it holds up perfectly intact today.
Patty Jenkins’s (Wonder Woman) directorial debut Monster is a dramatization of the crimes committed by serial killer Aileen Wuornos, a prostitute who gunned down more than a few of her johns 30 years ago in Florida. It released in 2003 with Charlize Theron (Mad Max: Fury Road, Bombshell) winning a slew of Best Actress awards for her portrayal of Wuornos. The film beats out Bone Tomahawk for the least-horror choice this MASSACRE MARATHON so far, which isn’t surprising to me since I knew she killed with guns (as opposed to more traditional slasher weapons) going in. Still, I thought the movie might have been more thrilling.
I believe this is my first foray into Into the Dark on Hulu, the Blumhouse conception aimed to please those who run out to see any half-assed horror flick in theaters by producing these bite-sized, holiday themed options that are available right at home. I second-guess myself because there are so many now that it’s hard to keep track of what I may have turned on one random night before passing out in my Beefaroni. Into the Dark classifies itself as a TV anthology series, but I hate to break it to ya: when your “episodes” are all feature-lengths (80mins or above), are self-contained with completely different casts, and there are monthly gaps between releases, then they are movies not shows.
Tales of Halloween is following the new trend of everything being an anthology. I guess the studios’ figure that when throwing a bunch of small self-contained stories at the wall something will stick. Well, with this movie, everything slides down the wall and into a garbage can.
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Trick ‘r Treat is a Halloween staple. It is the embodiment of the holiday, just like its mascot Sam (pictured above) is the manifestation of Halloween himself. The film ties a handful of terror-ific tales together brilliantly into an anthology that invokes laughs, SCREAMS, and everything in between.
