Spawn (1997) 1h 36m

If I ever have a child and he asks me "Papa, what were the 90's like," (I picture my child as a small British boy if you're wondering what that should sound like) then I would show him this movie.  Then if he asked me what "horror" is then I would tell him "not fucking Spawn the movie!"  Unfortunately Netflix thinks Spawn is a horror movie, so here we go.  Fuckin' 90's out the ass!

If you're not familiar with Spawn, this is a film adaptation of a comic book.  Originally created by Todd McFarlane, Spawn really pushed comics in both good and bad directions.  I could go into this for more than I could talk about this movie but this is a fucking horror film blog!  Not comic nerd talk!  That's if I want to start another blog.

The plot of Spawn is simple:  Al Simmons is murdered, then he gets offered a chance at revenge by the ruler of Hell (Malebolgia) if he promises to lead the army of Hell once Al is done.  Thus, Al becomes Spawn.  We have our angel and devil characters in Cogliostro and Clown.  The one attempts to turn him to the side of good while the other works for Malebolgia and pushes for chaos.

Clown is what truly makes this movie.  John Leguizamo fucking destroys everyone else in this film with this character.  Who would have thought?  You don't hear much about him, but this one film he nails the role perfectly.  Also he actually bit into a piece of pizza covered in live maggots during the filming.  Way to go the extra mile, John.

As for the rest of Spawn... well... this film combines the worst elements of the early comics and puts them in here while also glossing over the concept of "when you use up your power you die for real."  Hell, the comics eventually dropped this plot device too.  There used to be a counter at the end of every issue telling you how much power Spawn had left, then they deus ex'd it and that was that.  So this movie is mostly guns and really really dated CGI.  Fucking goofy flames, Malebolgia does not hold up in CGI form, an army of CGI spawns that move in 3-second loops and have multiples of themselves... shit is wiggity wiggity wack by today's standards.  As a kid though I fucking loved all of it...

So while not a horror film, and still tinted a bit by nostalgia, this film ends up being a fun mess.  The soundtrack is full of spooky 90's bands like Marilyn Manson and "techno."  I use quotes because electronic music and the EDM scene has come a long fucking way from when we used to just refer to it as solely "techno."

You don't have to know a thing about Spawn to watch it, and that may work out to your advantage.  Otherwise you end up nitpicking shit like me.

I give Spawn 2.5 bad CGI bee things out of 5:

They're Watching (2016) 1h 35m

I was on board with They're Watching at the start.  Really, I was.  But then we got to the last 15 minutes and it was like they realized they had a bunch of money left over and promptly use it for some rough CGI to shart all over the ending.  So much CGI.  Borderline SyFy CGI.

They're Watching takes place in a random Eastern Europe village where a rich white woman and her European husband buy this absolute trash cottage.  It is part of a home-fix-up show where the filming crew comes back some time later to film the progress that was made on the house.  Since this is the case the entire film is done from the POV of each of the film crew cameras.

The village itself has a story about a woman that was burned as a witch when the village children got sick.  This is a continual theme, especially after two of the film crew intrude on what ends up being a funeral for some children.  The village turns against the crew for this trespass. After that everything starts to spiral down the Blair Witch hole.  Which sounds like it's some weird theme porn.  The Blair Witch Hole!  Like Debbie Does Dallas, only in the woods and filthy!

I think that's a good point to step away from the plot here in case anyone reading this wants to watch it.  I will say that up until the terrible CGI kicks in, I was relatively engaged.  It isn't hard to follow the threads left out while viewing this, but, for as much as I complain about this style of horror movie,  They're Watching did it well.  Just that fucking CGI... god fucking damnit!

I give They're Watching 2.5 flipped houses out of 5:

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Day 14: Little Dead Rotting Hood (2016) 1h 28m

At this point in this initial 30-day run I find myself craving a film that is from the last century.  It seems that most of the movies I have been watching recently have been post 2010 and not a single one has really lived up to some of the older horror films I really like.  Case in point, today's rusty screwdriver to the eye: Little Dead Rotting Hood.

Set somewhere in Pennsylvania (something I only know because I recognized the PA plates on the cars), this whole mess starts when a wolf chases down and attacks a teenage-ish-maybe-IDKWTF girl dressed in red.  Eventually her grandmother tells the wolf to leave and explains to the dying girl that she is sorry but someone needs to protect the town.  The girl is then buried with a red cloak and sword (something that seems to get totally forgotten until the last quarter of the movie when it becomes the Deus Ex Machina of the film) and the grandmother does a suicidal blood ritual.  Don't worry, when they try to explain how everything works later in the movie, it actually makes it more confusing.

So wolves begin attacking people when they're about to get their swerve on.  I thought it had something to do with the old horror adage of if you have sex then you'll die, but really it just seems like a reason to show tits.  When the town tries to hunt the wolves the wolves start wrecking their hunting party.  There is a CGI wolf head explosion here, and I laughed really hard at that because it looked so hilarious, but that's the only part of this movie I was entertained by.  While their buttholes are getting wrecked by these wolves we see our girl in red reappear as some monster lady type thing.  She has cat eyes, some kind of fangs, and really long metal nails now?  I'm not sure what she is supposed to be.  I think she only kills one wolf here but the rest fuck off and then she leaves.

Eventually it's discovered there's a "den mother" for these wolves which are actually hipsters that turn into werewolves via shaky cam pop n' lock break dance moves.  That's a long description, but trust me, it's the only way it can be described.  The den mother ends up being the cop that knew a lot about wolves (big surprise there) and looks like someone tried to make a werewolf from the Underworld series out of a 3D rendering program they got for free with a PC World subscription.  She is defeated by Red only after her boyfriend finds the hooded cape and sword AND is then eventually killed.  His death gives Red the rage to kill the mother because up until this point she was just getting swatted away.

So now Red is the new defender of the woods, or a Planeteer, or Voltron lion pilot, whatever.  I don't care.  They tried to leave the end set up for a sequel which I hope never fucking happens.

This movie is rife with bullshit.  For starters, someone starts an iPod by pressing the next song arrow, people have large rifles and shotguns apparently just lying around all the time, and Grizzly Adams just has a flamethrower somehow.  This movie was put out by The Asylum, which also put out Sharknado 3, so that explains a lot.  The best note I have for this film is actually "I want to play Altered Beast."

I give Little Dead Rotting Hood 1 Altered Beast cabinet arts out of 5: