30 Days of Plight Special Halloween Post!

30 Days of Plight on Werewolf Ambulance!!

Hello to any Werewolf EMTs that made their way over after listening to the latest Werewolf Ambulance podcast.

As I mentioned earlier, I joined Katie and Allen to record an episode focusing on one of my favorite horror-comedy films, Murder Party.  The episode is officially out and you can find it on iTunes under the Werewolf Ambulance podcast or go to werewolfambulance.libsyn.com to listen to this and previous episodes of their podcast.

Just a reminder, despite being on break between Cuts right now I will be doing a special Halloween post next week.

Also, if you haven't yet, you can go over to Facebook and like our page on there.  I will occasionally post related updates between Cuts and any other 30DoP news.  Just click on the banner to the upper right or go to facebook.com/30daysofplight

See you in a week!

3rd Cut Wrap-Up

Holy shit!  I'm actually getting around to doing a wrap-up this time.  Before I jump into that I want to say "thank you" to you, the readers.  30 Days of Plight passed 3000 views during the course of this Cut and I can't help but be amazed and grateful.  When I started 30 Days of Plight I wasn't even sure if anyone other than my fiancé would read this blog, so seeing that people do read this make me know I'm not just torturing myself with awful movies.

Next, I want to let everyone know that I recently was a guest on the fantastic horror podcast Werewolf Ambulance.  We discussed one of my favorite horror comedy films, Murder Party, and I will post a link to it once it's up in the next few weeks.

Finally, I want to do something special for Halloween. While I'm trying to narrow things down, I haven't come to a conclusion just what yet.  So I'll have a post then, but otherwise I will begin the 4th Cut the last week of November/first week of December.  I promise this time to post as consistently as possible.  I know this Cut has had some large gaps.

So without further ado, here is the rundown of the last 30 films I've watched and what I rated them.  My overall recommendations from this Cut are Baskin and Hush.  They're definitely worth it.  Also, I guess I fucked up this Cut and did two films as #23.  So bonus film?

1. The Vampire's Coffin (1958) 1/5
2. Necrofobia (2014) 0/5
3. Mercy (2014) 1/5
4. Cam2Cam (2014) 0/5
5. Hangar 10 (2014) 0/5
6. Splatter (2009) 2/5
7. Baskin (2015) 4/5
8. Convergence (2015) 2/5
9. The Fog (2015) 1/5
10. Dementia (2015) 0/5
11. Kill Zombie (2012) 2/5
12. 12 Days of Terror (2004) 1/5
13. Da Sweet Blood of Jesus (2014) [didn't rate because it wasn't a horror film despite it being listed as one]
14. Para Elisa (2012) 1/5
15. The Abandoned (2015) 1/5
16. Spiders (2013) 2/5
17. Curve (2015) 1/5
18. Exit to Hell (2013) 3/5
19. High Lane (2009) 1/5
20. The Diabolical (2015) 3/5
21. Killennial (2016) 3/5
22. The Barn (2016) 4/5
23.1. He Never Died (2015) 3.5/5
23.2. Indigenous (2014) 0/5
24. Odd Thomas (2013) 4/5
25. Hush (2016) 5/5
26. Bloody April Fools (2013) 0/5
27. Final Destination 3 (2006) 3.5/5
28. V/H/S/2 (2013) 3/5
29. Exeter (2015) 3/5
30. The Amityville Horror (2005) 2/5

Day 30: The Amityville Horror (2005) 1h 30m

I don't mind remakes if they're true to the source material and don't go too off the rails.  However, a big part of the original movie was that George Lutz ran back in the house to get the dog, fell through the steps, almost into the hell portal, and the dog helped pull him up.  In this one, George fucking killed the dog about a third of the way into the movie.  Also, what the fuck was the deal with the huge push of John Ketchem in this one?

I'm getting ahead of myself here, but I've had an affinity for the Amityville Horror house.  Hell, I've been to the damn house!  Look at that picture!  That's me!  That's the house!  Although they did change the windows in the attic to try and keep people from doing what I am literally doing in this picture.  Oops.

 

Me in front of a spooky house during spooky Christmas!

Going back to the 2005 remake of The Amityville Horror, this movie kept its foundation around the original story.  A man goes insane and kills his entire family.  He claims he was possessed and heard voices telling him to do it.  Jump ahead many years and the house is for sale, cheap.  Enter the Lutz family, who buy the house and move in.  After a series of frightening events they eventually leave the house one night, fleeing for their lives.  They claim to never return and leave all their crap.  We know of the story because they recorded audio tapes of their encounters in the house and sent them to an author that made the bestselling book of the same name.

While this movie had a lot of shirtless Ryan Reynolds to look at, the rest of it wasn't anything really interesting.  They seemed to add a story of the ghost of Jodie (the youngest from the murdered family) making friends with the girl because she was lonely?  The youngest daughter did claim to have an "imaginary" friend named Jodie in the real story, but this additional emotional attachment to the spirit was unnecessary for this film.  Add in the fact that they decided to have this "remote" house being used as a sanctuary that Rev. John Ketchem was using to torture Native Americans?  First off, John Ketchem was lightly mentioned in the book and really isn't related to any of this.  More than likely he is just there to add a spooky "devil worship/witchcraft" factor to the story.  Also, you see that house, and there's nothing remote about it.  There's an equally huge house built prior to it also in this picture!  That was a huge community!  Remote my fucking left nut!

I mention and complain about all of that because at one point George starts having visions of these torture rooms and then busts through a wall and finds them?  I don't even know.  I don't even fucking know here.  The moment George killed the dog, this movie went off the fucking rails in a bad way.  The acting was solid though.  That's what's really disappointing with this re-imagining of this film.

I give The Amityville Horror (2005) 2 photos of the house's lame kitchen out of 5:

Day 29: Exeter (2015) 1h 31m

An excellent day for an exorcism... except an exorcism here won't really help and they don't know how to do one properly anyway.  They try.  Believe me, they try to do an exorcism.  It devolves into splashing holy water and saying "the power of Christ compels you!" pretty quick.  If they knew anything about doing a proper exorcism then they would know you need to make the demon or entity tell you its name.  This helps in gaining power over it... not that I'm speaking from experience or anything... Hey, look!  Another paragraph!

Shitty exorcism (which may be my new metal band name) aside, Exeter takes place in what used to be one of those horrible state hospitals for children living with various disabilities.  After countless human rights violations it was shut down and now they want to turn it into something that I forget.  It was church related, but only exists as a plot device as to why Patrick knew of the location since he was helping to fix it up.  What is meant to be a small group of friends turns into a huge party and suddenly Patrick's younger brother is showing signs of possession.  Then everyone is locked in.  It's on!

About 10 minutes in I thought this film was going to be a bore.  However, once the possession happens Exeter held my interest and some of the gore got me really excited.  Wait... that sounds wrong... fuck it.  NO WAIT!

In all seriousness, Exeter was great.  The story turns in ways I didn't expect and the twist at the ending caught me off guard.  Very rarely do I completely lose consciousness of an entire piece of the puzzle, but Exeter had so much going on it redirected my focus and made the finale that much stronger.  I do have two complaints though.  The first one the overuse of panther sound effects for the possessed, and the second is the misuse of the term "Wiccan" for what really should have been "Witchcraft."  Wiccan doesn't really fit what's going on with this film.

I give Exeter 3 statues of St. Bernard getting ready to choke slam someone out of 5:

Day 28: V/H/S/2 (2013) 1h 36m

I think I've seen all of the V/H/S series.  It's tough to remember because there are a lot of these horror compilation style films out there now.  Looking back at Creepshow and moving all the way up to more modern ones like Southbound, they all begin to melt together.  I do remember seeing V/H/S/2 though.

Technically there are five films in one here.  The first involves a man seeing more than he bargained for when he gets his new experimental eye implant.  Number two, which is my favorite of the group, is a zombie with a GoPro.  Our third film involves a strange Indonesian cult and a documentary crew.  The fourth pushes the focus more into a sci-fi/horror realm with a group of hormonal teens and tweens.  The final one is the very shoddy glue of V/H/S/2 which focuses on some private investigators trying to track down a college student, breaking into his home, and piecing things together by the VHS tapes and a laptop video.

I call the final one shoddy because I feel like they really had no clue how to fit together each of those shorts and they just created this component to make it work.  It's more like duct tape, or bubble gum and tooth picks.

Out of the remaining four, V/H/S/2 has two strong shorts, one decent short, and one that is forgettable. It's not bad, just forgettable.  The great thing about these short film collections is that if one isn't that great you know something else is coming soon.  For that, I say V/H/S/2 is pretty strong.

I give V/H/S/2 3 Betamax tapes out of 5:

Day 27: Final Destination 3 (2006) 1h 33m

Note to self:
Here is a list of things to never do:

- ride a roller coaster endorsed by Satan
- use a tanning bed while listening to bad compilation CD's
- use a drive-thru at a burger joint while being a douche bag
- lift weights under a pair of scimitars
- work at a Lowe's or Home Depot no matter what discount I could get
- be around a "Don't Tread On Me" flag (even before this film I was doing a good job of this one)
- be under a cherry picker while looking like a member of Good Charlotte
- ride a subway that is way too clean and thus untrustworthy
- go to wherever the fuck this movie is set

Surprisingly I've managed to live a long and fruitful life without having seen a single one of the Final Destination films.  Even without having seen them, I knew that the premise would be this:  A group of teens/young adults survive a horrific tragedy by exiting or getting off whatever is supposed to kill them (in this case, a roller coaster).  After that they die one by one.  I want to say something dramatic and metal here like "because death comes to claim them for escaping his icy grasp!" but there was no image of the Grim Reaper to be found and I really wanted a giant skull face to show up at some point.

I will say that this movie has some great gore kills.  Color me impressed (or crimson) because I really didn't think these would be as bloody or gut filled, but I guess it's a good way to keep people engaged.  The CGI felt a bit excessive at times, although I might just be splitting hairs since this movie is 10 years old and that's like saying Frankenstein sucks because it isn't in color.  Frankenstein doesn't suck for the record.  It's pretty great and set a lot of the standards that we see in monster movies.

Frankenstein aside, I actually think I might watch the rest of this series at some point.  My only concern is that he first film will feel like they were trying super hard to make a great movie as opposed to bad/good gore fun that I assume the others could be.  I just hope there's such great lines as "Fuck you, Ben Franklin" and an improvised background line of "What the fuck is a bruin anyway?!" floating around in those movies too.

I give Final Destination 3 3.5 weird naked Ben Franklin fan arts (?) out of 5:

Day 26: Bloody April Fools (Los Inocentes) (2013) 1h 5m

The issue you sometimes face with a film from another country is that some things will get lost in translation.  For example, Los Inocentes translates to "the innocents," not Bloody April Fools.  What also doesn't translate well is that while the North American "fool's day" happens to be April 1st, Spain's (which is where this film is from) takes place on December 28th.  So this leads to my big "what the fuck" moment of why is the U.S. release of this film called this?

Bloody April Fools starts off as any good slasher would: the quiet nerdy boy is accidentally murdered during a prank by some jock assholes at a hostel.  On the anniversary of his death (Fool's Day/December 28th) people at this hostel would end up murdered.  The hostel is then closed and said to be cursed.  Enter our group of late teen/early 20-somethings that are lost and decide to stay at the abandoned hostel despite some warnings from the locals.  Much blood and death ensue as well as some Jean-Ralphio looking asshole playing dumb pranks until his death.

Overall, Bloody April Fools did nothing new or original.  While I was having a bit of issue figuring out who the killer was, by the end of the film I realized they were just placing the original Friday the 13th in a hostel instead of a summer camp.  The actors were all on point but their characters were the standard tropes (minus a token) and, even the ones we are supposed to cheer for, I couldn't be bothered to give a fuck about.  The ending makes sense for the Spanish title at least.  I'm still kind of pissed this movie is called Bloody April Fools here.  Also, as another point of griping, I'm pretty sure that nail gun needed to be hooked up to a compressor and is not just a "I'm going to walk around with this shit and shoot 10" nails" type.

I give Bloody April Fools (Los Inocentes) 0 pictures of people enjoying a hostel responsibly out of 5:

Day 25: Hush (2016) 1h 21m

I hope that when I die my tombstone says "Died Fighting."  Even if I die from having a heart attack while masturbating I want people to know I died fighting. "He died fighting his one-eyed monster."  Yeah, dying like I lived...

Hush's plot is a relatively simple one with a well played twist.  Our main character is Maddie, an author who happens to be deaf and she is trying to survive some psycho that is attempting to break into her house.  The fact that the killer has the ability to move around and sneak up on Maddie leads to some tense visuals and experiences with his character.  They also don't over inundate you with Maddie's disadvantage and balance out the film by making it very dark.  This lack of lighting during Hush, at least to me, made me feel that the loss of sight was a greater issue to deal with than the lack of hearing.

I'll admit that this movie felt a bit slow at first.  There are characters introduced in name or picture only that are never brought into the film, but at least give you a stronger emotional connection with Maddie.  This helped me a lot with getting into Hush.  I don't know if other people do this, but sometimes in these films when something happens and the protagonist gets the advantage I get excited and yell "YES!" at the TV as if the Pens have just scored an overtime goal to go to the Stanley Cup.  I did that twice during Hush.  I'm sure my neighbors thought I was having some sort of weird angry orgasm.

I give Hush 5 pictures of the cat from this movie out of 5: