UTW Spotlight: Spooky Movie Revue (part 1)
It’s October, so that means it’s time to watch nothing but horror movies (as if real life isn’t already a horror show). Here’s a rundown of some of the horror movies and dark thrillers, both new and old, that we’ve been watching this month.
Re-Animator (1985)
The first of Stuart Gordon‘s several H.P Lovecraft adaptations, Re-Animator re-imagines Lovecraft’s original short novel as a horror-comedy set in the 1980s, focusing on the misadventures of a medical student obsessed with brining the dead back to life. While the movie is light on scares, it has plenty of excellent gory practical effects and wild gags those with a dark sense of humor are sure to enjoy. The movie’s oddball sense of humor is helped by the perfectly unhinged performances delivered by Jeffrey Combs as the mad scientist Herbert West and David Gale as the twisted egomaniac Dr. Carl Hill. By not taking its source material too seriously, Re-Animator proves to be one of the best Lovecraft adaptations around.
Where to watch: Shudder, Amazon
Verdict: Witness
From Beyond (1986)
With the cult success of Re-Animator, it’s easy to understand why Gordon followed up with another Lovecraft adaptation the very next year with From Beyond. While more of a straight horror/splatter movie than Re-Animator, From Beyond features much of the same excellent special effects work as well as returning cast members such as Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Crampton. The story follows Jeffrey Combs as the assistant of a mad scientist, who develops a device that stimulates the pineal gland and allows those under its influence to view an alternate dimension filled with horrible monsters. When the mad scientist is eaten by one of them, Combs is blamed for his death and teams up with a psychologist (Crampton) and a policeman (Ken Foree) to prove his innocence. As they work with the machine, the characters confront the most perverse parts of their own minds and audiences are treated to some of the best gross-out creature effects since The Thing (1982).
Where to watch: Shudder, Amazon
Verdict: Witness
Bliss (2019)
Bliss is a psychedelic vampire movie about a desperate artist who takes a mysterious hallucinogen in order to overcome a creative block and descends into a haze of sex, murder, and madness. The movie has a lot of interesting ideas in terms of camerawork, editing, and special effects, using them to create a hypnotic and unsettling atmosphere with plenty of hyper-violent payoffs. Unfortunately the movie struggles quite a bit in the story and character department. The narrative is straightforward and unsurprising and the characters are poorly developed and generally unlikeable. In addition, much of the dialogue is so heavy on the swearing it becomes difficult at times to understand what people are actually saying. If you’re a horror die hard, this movie has some great visuals to chew on, but not much else.
Where to watch: Shudder, Amazon
Verdict: It’s Fine
That’s all for now, but stay tuned for more as we round out the month of October with even more spooky movie reviews.
