Going to try and make a weekly post detailing the movies I’ve watched that week as part of the 31 Days of Horror Challenge.
This week:
- Hellboy – The Crooked Man
- Oddity
- Hold Your Breath
- Danger in the Dorm
First up I caught Hellboy – The Crooked Man in the cinema, I Was 1 of 3 people at the screening, I believe they cancelled the cinema release altogether in the USA so it’s unique that it got a release over here. I have a monthly membership to my local multiplex which means I can see as many movies as I want for €15 a month so I end going to see all sorts of terrible movies whenever I get the chance.
Part of me wonders if Hurricane Helene wreaking devastation in Appalachia played a part in the theatrical release being canceled in the US due to the fact that Hellboy – The Crooked Man takes place in Appalachia and there is literally a chapter of the movie titled ‘Hurricane’ with big onscreen text.
I kind of wanted to like this. It’s a low budget horror movie that happens to feature Hellboy which isn’t a bad little concept and it sort of feels like an episode you might see in a Hellboy TV show. Jack Kesey doesn’t have a particularly outstanding filmography but he does a pretty good job of playing Hellboy and he delivers the humour of the character well. But this has got to be the most “I Can’t See Shit” movie ever made. I don’t think it’s ever been this bad. It’s like the actors only agreed to be in the movie under the condition of anonymity and needed their faces blacked out. If you didn’t know Hellboy was red before going into this movie then you’d have a hard time telling here.
I mean, in theory there are some nice shots and well choreographed action, but low visibility just ruins everything. Absolutely unforgivable. This, Cocaine Bear and that last Hellraiser movie are the absolute worst examples of this awful murky colour grading, I really wish this trend could be stopped.
Day 2 was Oddity.
Normally I find I’m a bit too generous when it comes to home grown Irish horror movies and sort of trick myself into liking them more than they deserve, but that’s not the case here as this is a genuinely great creepy movie. The small budget shows a bit as you’re mostly looking at one room for a lot of the run time, but it also makes great use of its budget as the whole thing looks great. Lovely shots and it’s well lit even in dark scenes. Really great creepy vibes throughout.
The only downside is the strange Victorian mental asylum that features. When it first cut to that location I thought this might be a period piece or something but then I remembered there was mobile phones and a digital SLR camera in the previous scene. It just seems like lazy demonisation of a mental health facility being used as a bit of a crutch to give a spooky vibe.
But other than that, great stuff.
Day 3 is ‘Hold Your Breath‘
Great to see Sarah Paulson unshackled from awful Ryan Murphy projects.
This wasn’t too bad.
Nice little slow burn horror with the dust bowl being a brilliant setting.
Ultimately it doesn’t quite live up to expectations with everything falling a little flat when you really want it play around with its ideas just that little bit more.
It looks great, though.
Day 4 and it was time for a Lifetime movie, Danger in the Dorm
I’m a big fan of getting enjoyment out of watching bad movies, and I think watching Lifetime and Hallmark movies to be the advanced level of bad movie watching. I really love when they lean into the horror and thriller genre and play on the anxieties of suburban housewives. The Stalked by my Doctor series of movies starring Eric Roberts are particularly amazing, also Deadly Mile High club is another great one which is basically ‘Stalked by my Flight Instructor’.
Danger in the Dorm plays out like a Lifetime take on a Scream movie with a murderer loose on a college campus and you don’t know who the killer might be.
From what I can gather this is based on a Ann Rule short story that was based on a real life incident in the early 70s. What makes the movie very strange is they’ve sort taken a half assed approach to making it a period piece by setting it in early 2000s. So there are no mobile phones but there are landline phones that are those cool transparent plastic so you can see all the wires and stuff inside. There’s also lots of old school iMacs and big CRT monitors in the computer lab of the college, but then there is also flatscreen displays in the foyer of the campus and very little attempt seems to have been made on costuming or hair styles.
But anyway, this was a lot of fun. And if you’re a bad movie enjoyer like me then I recommend dipping your toe into the vast world of crazy Lifetime movies.
