Halloween Horror Movies and Brief Review with Ratings

 My Rating System 

0- walked out and don't intend on finishing. 

1- Watchable but objectively bad.

2- Entertaining, but brings nothing new to the table. 

3- Exciting, thought provoking, interesting techniques, unique style, but only to a limited extent. 

4- Perfect. Down to the last minute detail.

5- GOAT

Movies

Coraline. Some say there are only two horror fans. Slashers, blood, shock horror and Sophisticated Poe-esque horror. Wrong. There is a third. The inner spooky teenage girl.  4/5

The Babadook. The first hour of this movie is just a kid screaming. My anxiety went through the roof, but the movie and the kid won me over. 3/5

Vampire Hunter D. If you love anime and love Gothic conventions, this is for you. It feels like a very long first episode of an anime. 2/5

Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation. (The one with Mathew McConaughey.) Mathew McConaughey steals the show from Leatherface who quite literally becomes a background character. Tragically miscast, his overpowering performance never comes across as menacing. He just screams funny noises at his hillbilly family for an hour. I couldn't stop laughing. 1/5

Van Helsing. This came out after Underworld, an action movie with a vampire paint job. This movie is in the same tract, an action movie with a Classic Hollywood Horror paint job. 2/5

Terrifier. Delightfully cruel. I found myself rooting for the enigmatic Art the Clown, as he is not just a killer, but a performance artist. Low budget, violent, but practical. 3/5

Terrifier 2. It's everything that's rich about the the first movie, the performance art in clownish murder, the enigma that is Art, the Clown, but now it actually has a storyline. 4/5.

IT Chapter II. Here's the entire movie. Jump Scare. CGI Monster. Joke. Repeat. 2/5.

Terrifier 3. More fast paced than the second with everything that made the first two so special. Not sure why it's a Christmas movie, but still ghastly and brutal. 4/5

The Fall of the House of Usher (Netflix). A nice twist on Poe stories with satisfying results. Some episodes may be too long, a few long winded speeches. However I love how it takes Gothic tales from the 1800s into the modern era. 3/5. 

Late Night with the Devil. A fictional documentary about an an air disaster that happened when a failing talk show host decides to bring the daughter of a demonic prophet onto his show.  3/5.

Vampire Hunter D Bloodlust. A cool world they created that surpasses the common vampire story. It's got all the style and monsters that made the first one so cool, the story is thin,  but this one actually feels more like a movie than the first. 3/5. 

Halloween (1978). This movie hasn't aged well. It used to be my favorite when I was a kid. Michael Meyers had a sensuality in his slow, stealthy movements. I always thought he was an evil spirit that came to his old house every Halloween- the movie series insists that he is a man but that doesn't make sense. Anyhow, upon rewatching, nothing really happens until the final 10 mins. Michael Meyers stands there. The dialogue sounds like things adult males think teenage girls say. 3/5

Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974). This movie has aged very well. There's not a boring moment, even tho the teenagers do seem quite stupid at times. What's fascinating about this movie is how they couldn't afford the effects at times so they really did put the actors in danger, cut them, force their heads into things. The conditions were bad and they didn't get paid much. This movie famously builds tension and horrifies without a bloodbath. 4/5

Graveyard Shift. This movie was supposed to be Paramount's big Halloween movie. Instead it bombed and I see why. It's quite watchable in a laid back way, it's one of those movies where the horror doesn't start until the last half hour, the rest of it follows a bad boss who cheats on his wife, blackmails his employees, and forges documents. 2/5.