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Häxan (1922)
Häxan (1922)
1922 | Documentary, Fantasy, Horror
Very strange...
This collection of 7 silent film shorts are put together in this film Haxan. It's hard to give a plot description in a silent film collection like these. They mostly have to do with witches and the belief in witchcraft through the middle ages up through the time this movie was made. There were also elements of devils and devil worship, paganism, and the occult.

The film tried to make the point some of these people and practices were strange at the time maybe due to not a great understanding of mental illness or psychological problems of those involved.

The way the movie was divided was interesting at times and boring at other times. I definitely enjoyed the sections where there were actual moving images with dialogue cards or subtitles rather than those with still images only.

Since there was no dialogue per say, it was difficult to follow at some points; however, several of the visuals were striking and even a little scary considering this movie is almost 100 years old.

I still rather enjoyed it.

  
Lake Placid (1999)
Lake Placid (1999)
1999 | Action, Comedy, Horror
So-so freshwater Jaws spoof with lots of extra irony; somehow managed to spawn a gajillion sequels, all of them made by and featuring much less distinguished people. Folk start turning up dead in a lake in Maine; various scientists and eccentrics descend, annoying the local police and game wardens; culprit proves to be a giant Asian crocodile which has somehow found its way to North America (this is not the kind of film which worries too much about the details). All the usual tropes and plot twists ensue, played very much tongue in cheek.

You get the sense this is a film everybody involved made on a week off as a kind of joke - the snappy dialogue between the characters is the only bit of the film which truly shines, and it's the gory bits - beheadings and dismemberments which feel out of place (even some of these are played for laughs). Sort of mildly amusing and the croc model is good, but not funny and certainly not scary enough to linger in the memory. I seem to recall the 1980 movie Alligator being a lot more fun.
  
    Metrobolist by David Bowie

    Metrobolist by David Bowie

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    Album

    180g 1LP November 2020 sees the 50th Anniversary of the release of David Bowie’s The Man Who Sold...

Viy (Spirit of Evil) (1967)
Viy (Spirit of Evil) (1967)
1967 | Horror
7
7.0 (1 Ratings)
Movie Rating
Soviet horror movie from the 1960s rather unexpectedly turns out to be a close spiritual cousin of the kind of films that Hammer et al were making in the west at the same time. A trainee priest finds himself compelled to spend three nights reading prayers over the body of (supposedly) a wealthy landowner's daughter - but the corpse bears a striking resemblance to that of a witch he earlier killed...

Not the longest of films, which is just as well as the pacing may require patience on the part of the viewer; after a very eerie sequence early on, there's a long wait until the stuff with the protagonist's vigil in the second half. Nevertheless, it's worth it, mainly because the special effects are remarkably good, well up to the standard of equivalent western films of the same period (and probably better). Not particularly scary or graphic by modern standards, but the climax has a creepy sort of power to it and the overall impression is of a classy and well-made film; if there's a political subtext to it, it's very well-hidden.
  
Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991)
Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991)
1991 | Horror
And so here we are, at the 6th and final (in terms of the OG plot line) installament of A Nightmare on Elm Street and the series has finally nosedived into full cartoon territory, and do you know what? I don't hate it.
There are plenty of things about Freddy's Dead that are terrible, from the screenplay, to the characters, to the hammy acting, to the lack of signature gore, to one of the most laughable plot retcons I've ever seen...it should be a dumpster fire, but somehow, it's ludicrous enough to be pretty damn entertaining. It still has some imaginative sequences, even if some are a little over familiar. Freddy's transformation into his final form of being a quip-laden asshat is complete, and although I would rather scary Freddy any day of the week, he manages to make proceedings pretty fun, even if Robert Englund doesn't seem quite as committed as he once was.

It's easy to dunk on Freddy's Dead and I completely understand why it's a lot of people's least favourite entry in the franchise, but it's so wonderfully bizarre, and as a result, I have a huge soft spot for it.