61 Nights of Halloween (2025 Edition)

[Kane52630]

Anyone remember the tv special that aired before the movie came out?

 

[DarthSkywalker]

 

[Lily Adler]

 

[DarthSkywalker]

Night 46

115. Young Frankenstein (1974) dir. Mel Brooks

Bite-Sized Review: No human being has ever been more effortlessly funny then Gene Wilder.

****1/2

116. Crimson Peak (2015) dir. Guillermo del Toro

Bite-Sized Review: The closest thing GDT has had to a dud post-Pan's, still has a lot of quality filmmaking. Especially compared to that Haunted Mansion abomination.


***1/2

117. Love and Monsters (2020) dir. Michael Matthews

Bite-Sized Review: Such a genuinely sweet and at times melancholic, film. We need more Henwick in the world!

****

118. The Shape of Water (2017) dir. Guillermo del Toro

Bite-Sized Review: It should've been Pan's but fish dick was acceptable.

****1/2

 

[DarthSkywalker]

Tonight...

Being a teen is hard.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

 

[Link]

October 12th:
The Protagonists (1999)

Luca Guadagnino's first — and worst. The Protagonists blends true-crime documentary and dramatized reconstruction to retell the murder of Mohamed El-Sayed, an Egyptian chef. Both portions of the film are bafflingly callous.

The supposed highlight of the documentary segment is Tilda Swinton's interview with El-Sayed's widow which climaxes with Swinton inquiring about the late husband's sauce recipes. It’s awkward and out of place, made even more jarring by the fact that we’re not watching the interview itself, but the crew watching it back on tape. The Protagonists, indeed.

The detached callousness is intentional; this is made obvious by a monologue Swinton delivers later during yet another reconstruction of the murder. I imagine the project is supposed to be intellectualized as a critique of the true-crime format and its hungry audience (long before its heyday), but the point comes across as painfully hypocritical when it's tacked onto a film that at best comes across as an insensitive vanity project.

El-Sayed's death is restaged three times in a film that includes copious nudity (including a full-frontal shot of a female cast member's genitals), extremely sexualized and questionable portrayals of the murderers, and even musical numbers. All of this in the same project that interviews the heartbroken real widow of the man murdered only four years earlier.

What I’m ultimately saying is that Luca Guadagnino made a Ryan Murphy film in the ’90s — and I never want to go back.

October 13th:
Crystal Eyes (2017)

Style as substance. Crystal Eyes is a micro-budget slasher, but among the countless films trying to emulate the ’80s, this might be the most successful one I've seen. A fashion model dies on the runway, and a year later, a masked killer emerges to eliminate anyone daring to take her place.

It's clearly crafted with pure love for cinema, particularly giallo — though its influences range from Hitchcock to telenovelas. The blend works immensely well. Crystal Eyes is pure camp: its killer, dressed to the nines as a living mannequin, catwalks and strikes poses amid the chase sequences.

Statuesque divas, a sparkling synth score, and a breezy 82-minute runtime easily balance the weak kills and a paper-thin story populated entirely by dead meat.

Argentina knows how to pull off a legacy slasher, damn.

 

[Drizzle]

Going through the streamers, here's what I've got left for my Halloween season spooky movie watch that I haven't seen before:

Bodies Bodies Bodies
Children of the Corn
Slither
Terrifier 3
Sunshine (I think it counts since it's a thriller?)
A Different Man (ditto?)
World War Z

And then I've got some rewatches which I'm not prioritizing as much but would still like to get around to them before or on Halloween, like the Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th remakes because I might as well, and Sinners and Nosferatu since I now own them on 4K UHD.

Should be easy to do before the 31st.

I really wanted to watch GDT's Frankenstein in theaters but this theatrical release is even more limited than Glass Onion was so it looks like I'll be watching it on Netflix with everyone else.

EDIT: I forgot World War Z!

 

[Kane52630]

I'LL SAVE YOU PADDINGTON

 

[DarthSkywalker]

Going through the streamers, here's what I've got left for my Halloween season spooky movie watch that I haven't seen before:

Bodies Bodies Bodies
Children of the Corn
Slither
Terrifier 3
Sunshine (I think it counts since it's a thriller?)
A Different Man (ditto?)

And then I've got some rewatches which I'm not prioritizing as much but would still like to get around to them before or on Halloween, like the Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th remakes because I might as well, and Sinners and Nosferatu since I now own them on 4K UHD.

Should be easy to do before the 31st.

I really wanted to watch GDT's Frankenstein in theaters but this theatrical release is even more limited than Glass Onion was so it looks like I'll be watching it on Netflix with everyone else.

It counts if you decide it counts.

 

[Kane52630]

Day 17

A ★★★½ review of Black Phone 2 (2025)

Gwen would have owned every Modern Warfare 2 lobby chatroom. A solid sequel with some slow parts. I really liked Scott Derrickson's direction in making this feel like it belongs in the '80s, whereas the first one was deeply '70s-coded. You can definitely see the inspirations from The Shining...

letterboxd.com

 

[Lily Adler]

 

[Lily Adler]

 

[DarthSkywalker]

It took me a very long time to realize what the costume was going to be.

 

[Drizzle]

It counts if you decide it counts.

Until today I thought Sunshine was just regular sci-fi and A Different Man was a psychological drama but there that word was in the genre for both of them:

 

[Luigi]

Speaking of remakes, which version of The Blob did you see first?

The Goosebumps one.

 

[Lily Adler]

Until today I thought Sunshine was just regular sci-fi and A Different Man was a psychological drama but there that word was in the genre for both of them:

 

[Luigi]

1. Together (New)
2. Fear Street: Prom Queen (New)
3. Scary Movie
4. I Know What You Did Last Summer
5. I Still Know What You Did Last Summer
6. Him (New)
7. I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer (New)
8. The Strangers: Chapter 2 (New)
9. The Long Walk (New)
10. I Know What You Did Last Summer (2025) (New)
11. Wolf Man (New)
12. Good Boy (New)
13. V/H/S/Halloween (New)
14. Bone Lake (New)
15. Werewolves (New)
16. Best Wishes to All (New)
17. Red Rooms (New)
18. Battle Royale
19. Cure
20. Scary Movie 5 (New)
21. Little Monsters (New)

Scary Movie 5

Holy ADR, Batman! Wish I could tell you that there were some great gags in here to justify this venture but there wasn't any.

Little Monsters

Wholesome and sweet zombie film, just a fun time all around. Lupita Nyong'o is so damn charming, even when she's decapitating zombies with a shovel.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

View attachment 151286

Why must you post pure horror in my thread?!

 

[Lily Adler]

Why must you post pure horror in my thread?!

 

[DarthSkywalker]

Night 47

119. Freaky (2020) dir. Christopher Landon

Bite-Sized Review: A film's which charms wane with each passing watch.

***

120. Lisa Frankenstein (2024) dir. Zelda Williams

Bite-Sized Review: This one on the other hand, is growing on me. Especially the relationship between the sisters.

***

121. Bring Her Back (2025) dir. Danny Philippou & Michael Philippou (NEW)

Bite-Sized Review: This rocked. I liked Talk to Me well enough, but didn't really feel attached to any of the characters. Here, my empathy was in full swing. Great work from the younger cast to stand toe-to-toe with Hawkins. Their relationship is the heart of the film and it's fantastic work from both.

****

122. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019) dir. André Øvredal

Bite-Sized Review: I fear we will never see the sequel unless John Wick joins the cast. Which, for the record, I'm not against!

***3/4

 

[Lily Adler]

Night 47

119. Freaky (2020) dir. Christopher Landon

Bite-Sized Review: A film's which charms wane with each passing watch.

***

120. Lisa Frankenstein (2024) dir. Zelda Williams

Bite-Sized Review: This one on the other hand, is growing on me. Especially the relationship between the sisters.

***

121. Bring Her Back (2025) dir. Danny Philippou & Michael Philippou (NEW)

Bite-Sized Review: This rocked. I liked Talk to Me well enough, but didn't really feel attached to any of the characters. Here, my empathy was in full swing. Great work from the younger cast to stand toe-to-toe with Hawkins. Their relationship is the heart of the film and it's fantastic work from both.

****

122. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019) dir. André Øvredal

Bite-Sized Review: I fear we will never see the sequel unless John Wick joins the cast. Which, for the record, I'm not against!

***3/4

It's time to watch this:

 

[DarthSkywalker]

It's time to watch this:

View attachment 151306

I've seen it. Though curious, why does this come up?

 

[Lily Adler]

 

[Lily Adler]

I've seen it. Though curious, why does this come up?

I've been referencing the Sebastian Stan eats someone's butt cheek enough, it felt right.