october (movies 28, 29, 30)
October 29th, 2023 @ 7:15 pm
caught up?! i’m actually AHEAD of schedule (it’s a rainy day, nothing to do but lay around and watch movies).
1. when a stranger calls (remake) – tl; dr: a teenager girl ends up babysitting two sick kids (they’re sleeping in their room when she arrives, so she doesn’t meet them) for a married couple. they go out for the evening and leave her in this large modern house. she starts getting phone calls with someone breathing and hanging up, and then he starts freaking her out by saying he can see her. he keeps asking if she’s checked on the children… her best friend stops by and tells her the garage was open after the house alarm was set off and doesn’t realize it actually went off for a reason. i won’t spoil the rest.
while i would have much rather watched the original, i couldn’t find it on the streaming services that i utilize. so i settled for this one. i actually remembered not hating it, so i let it ride.
the original movie is super darker and carol kane plays such a good part. it was before the days of cell phones too, which to me, adds an extra layer of creepy.
2. the fog – tl; dr: there is a small town in california that is turning 100 years old. midnight rolls around and a fog starts to roll in and ghosts start doing well, violent, ghostly stuff. apparently back in the day, the founders of this small town robbed a clipper ship of their gold and started the town with it. there were 6 people said ghosts were coming for. a few people start dying and this fog is CREEPY and takes over the town. i won’t spoil the rest…
i have no idea how i’ve never seen this movie before, especially seeing as that it’s a john carpenter movie (?!), but i loved it. i wish the ghosts looked creepier – maybe they should have had less detail… their glowing, red eyes were super creepy. i know there’s a remake i might watch, just to see if the effects are any better… but this original one was really good.
side note: one of the main characters is a radio dj that works from a lighthouse. there’s a moment where she ends up going on the roof of the structure to get away from the ghosts, and there’s a visual where she’s climbing up the roof and all you see are her hands and her nails scratch the roof while she struggles to get to the top. a VERY similar scene exists in halloween 4, when rachel is on the roof of the house where they go for safety from michael, while she’s struggling to get to the top/pitch of the roof. i wonder if it was a little homage…
3. dark night of the scarecrow – tl; dr: a mentally challenged man is close friends with a young girl in their rural town. people seem to think the friendship is creepy and she ends up gets attacked by a dog while they’re playing. the town ends up thinking she’s dead and that the mentally challenged man did it. a group of goon/hick vigilantes decide they’re going to take matters into their own hands to avenge the girl. they go to his mother’s house to find him and she says he’s not home. she disguises him as a scarecrow and they shoot him to death, then immediately find out afterwards that the girl lived and that a dog did it. the scarecrow starts appearing and handling revenge. i’ll leave it at that.
i actually really liked this one and it turns out it was directed by the same guy as the entity, one of my top 3 scariest horror movies. i’m glad i ended up clicking into this one, i almost passed it up. it’s from the year i was born and was made for TV, which surprised me. it was pretty creepy/dark for tv.