Horrorfest: What I Do In October

THE ENTITY
(Sidney J. Furie, 1982)
Barbara Hershey stars as a woman repeatedly being sexually assaulted by an unknown force in her LA home. Interestingly, this is one of the few films I can recall that ever combined hauntings with rape. (Well, I think Scary Movie 2 did, but we'll leave that alone.) The scenes of her breasts being fondled are - from a visual effects perspective - very well done and realistic. The Entity probably runs about 15-20 minutes too long, but overall it works. Something cool I noticed is that the score when the attacks happened was used by Tarantino in Inglourious Basterds. GRADE: B

INSIDIOUS: CHAPTER 3
(Leigh Whannell, 2015)
Barbara Hershey-less prequel to the Insidious films, which depicts how Elise (Lin Shaye), a former psychic, revives her gift to help a family make contact with their dead mother. Of course, something else comes back. I loved the first installment in this franchise and absolutely hated the second. The third falls in the middle. It's thoroughly mediocre, but Shaye is always enjoyable and it was fun to see how she got together with her assistants. The first two films had a distinct aesthetic that is sorely missed here. GRADE: C

SINISTER 2
(Ciaran Foy, 2015)
It's also a Barbara Hershey-less sequel. (Last time, I promise.) Ethan Hawke-less sequel (more of a spinoff, really) that follows the character from the first film named Detective So & So (yes, that's actually correct!) as her becomes entangled with a woman and her two sons on the run from her abusive husband. The sons are seeing the ghosts of the kids from the first film, and being urged to murder murder MURDER! James Ransone plays the detective. He's an actor I usually like, but his performance here is so tone deaf. This feels a lot more like a Children of the Corn sequel, than a Sinister one. I'm not the biggest fan of that film, but it had some elements that worked. There is a doozy of a death/gore scene in here that was pretty amazing. It involves rats and apparently was actually a medieval torture method. Other than that, it's entirely skippable. Shannyn Sossamon (remember her) also appears. And as far as hot pieces of horror ass go, the actor playing the ex-hubby (named Lea Coco) worked for me. GRADE: C

WE ARE STILL HERE
(Ted Geoghegan, 2015)
This is a good for a watch because I think the director has a lot of promise. The film follows the parents of a recently deceased college student who move to a new home with strange noises, a malevolent history and creepy neighbors. As first, it seems like an old fashioned haunting movie, but things turn deliriously violent in the final act. Some of it is derivative of The Fog and several other movies. There's a few too many plot holes and the acting ranges from decent to bad, but it does capture a mode. I also LOVED the last moment in the film. Genre fave Barbara Crampton stars. In fact, it's the rare horror movie with a cast of mostly older actors. GRADE: B-

WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS
(Jemaine Clement & Taika Waititi, 2015)
YES! A BROAD COMEDY! THANK YOU! More like this, please. Mockumentary following a clan of vampires trying to live and love and murder in the modern world. It's not a great film, and even at just under 90 minutes it feels a little long. However, the stuff that works really works. The cast (led by Jemaine from Flight of the Conchords) is razor sharp, and there are some serious laughs. A line early in the film comparing drinking a virgin's blood to a sandwich almost made me fall on the floor. It's all very slight, but I'm grateful for a horror-themed laugh out loud comedy. The werewolves would make a great spinoff. *hint hint* GRADE: B