Saturday, 31 October 2020

Halloween Special: Horror Movies That I Would Like to See

 Happy Halloween! If this was a podcast or a video on YouTube I'd have said that in a scary voice. Lol. While some of you are concerned about what you're gonna do today with this pandemic still going on, this year is no different for me than any other year, since I don't normally do anything for Halloween. So, instead I'm here, writing this Halloween themed blog post. I'm not a Horror fan. It's never been a genre I've been interested in, I didn't really grow up with it, and I don't know all that much about it. But, there are a few Horror movies that I would like to see. There's nothing super out there on this list. It's just some basic Horror movies that I would enjoy seeing. There's eleven of them on this list so let's get into it.


The first one on this list is It: Chapter Two from 2019. I just watched It: Chapter One earlier this week and I loved it. I've heard that the second movie isn't as good as the first, but I honestly just want to see how the story ends and where it differs from the book. So I'm definitely planning on getting this movie at some point whether I get it on Blu-ray or on iTunes.

Next up is the original mini-series, It from 1990, starring Tim Curry as Pennywise the Dancing Clown. I've wanted to see this version ever since I first read the book a few years ago. It's such an iconic part of '90s pop culture that it's something I want to see. Especially since I'm familiar with most of the cast. I mean Annette O'Toole, who played Lana Lang in Superman III and Martha Kent on Smallville plays Beverly as an adult, Tim Curry (obviously) as Pennywise, and Richard Thomas, who played John Boy on The Waltons, plays Bill as an adult. Plus John Ritter plays Ben as an adult, so that right there is pretty great cast. 


While I'm well aware of both Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell, I've only seen Bruce in cameo appearances in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man film trilogy and the 2005 Disney live action superhero movie, Sky High, and I've only seen Raimi's Spider-Man movies. So I'm not super familiar with either of their works. But I've been told by several people to watch The Evil Dead because it's a great movie and it launched the careers of both Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell. Honestly I've been super resistant to watching it just because I don't really understand that kind of humour, but after seeing clips of it on the YouTube series, "My Friend Watches..." on Holden Hardman's channel, I'm interested in seeing it.


The same thing pretty much goes for the sequel, Evil Dead II. From the clips I saw on "My Friend Watches..." it looks like the first movie, but with a bigger budget, so that's something I've never actually seen before. Normally a sequel is a completely different story, separated from it's predecessor, not an outright remake, so that should be interesting to see.


The third movie in the Evil Dead trilogy, Army of Darkness, has a bit of a different story as to why I want to watch it, aside from watching the "My Friend Watches..." episode on it. Back in the '90s I collected comic books based on Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation. In Star Trek: The Next Generation #44, there's an ad for Army of Darkness in the book, and I think the ad also appeared on the back of another comic book that I owned, but I don't remember for sure. Anyway, I saw this ad and it stuck with me because it stood out with Bruce Campbell looking all heroic with a chainsaw for a hand and I had absolutely no context for why he had a chainsaw for a hand. I knew it wasn't a movie for kids and I had no idea that it was the third movie in a Horror movie trilogy. Plus the castle in the background reminded me of Castle Wyvern from Gargoyles. So out of the three Evil Dead movies, this is the one that I'm probably the most interested in seeing, just because of that brief history that I have with it. It also looks really funny compared to the other two films in the trilogy. Now we're getting into some more classic Horror from the '70s and '80s.


Look, A Nightmare on Elm Street is probably the most obvious thing to go to when I talk about the Horror movies that I want to see, but Freddy Krueger is an iconic character who cameoed on The Goldbergs two seasons ago for the Halloween episode. Plus I've seen a few people cosplay as him at Ottawa Comiccon, so naturally it's a movie that I would want to check out. I don't hang out with many Horror fans so, despite having seen Freddy Krueger on The Goldbergs, I don't know a thing about this movie. Which is kinda great, because it's not hyped up for me like the It mini-series is.


 Then there's Friday the 13th. A movie that I have no idea what it's really about. I know about the main antagonist, Jason Voorhees, but only by appearance, nothing about him as a character. Again, it's because I don't frequent YouTube channels that talk about Horror movies in depth, and I don't have many friends who actually talk about these movies around me. In a way that's a good thing because I won't have any expectations going in and I won't care as much if I end up not liking it.


The last of the '70s and '80s Horror movies that I want to see is Halloween, the 1978 original. This is another movie that Holden Hardman did on his channel recently for his other reaction series, "My Girlfriend Watches..." and I saw clips of it in that video. It's not super scary in comparison to It or other Horror movies that aren't on this list. Also Jamie Lee Curtis debuted in this movie, so that'll be interesting to see. Michael Myers is the first of the three iconic '70s and '80s Horror movie antagonists, alongside Jason and Freddy, and that's really all I know about him. Which is kind of nice in a way because with all of the superhero movies, particularly the Marvel ones, I hear about those characters constantly and it gets overwhelming. Especially when I'm preparing to see a movie about a character that people love, but I have no attachment to. So to have three characters in a popular genre that I know absolutely nothing about is a real treat. And that is exactly why these are three of the movies that I want to see. I have no real expectations for any of them going into them. Now we're going to go really far back to 1931 for this next movie.


Of course I was going to pick Dracula from 1931, starring Bela Lugosi as the titular character. I watched Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein a couple of years ago and I really enjoyed them. While I have yet to watch the rest of the Frankenstein films, I've had some interest in seeing the Wolf-Man, Mummy, Invisible Man, and Creature from the Black Lagoon films to complete my dive into the classic Universal Monsters universe, the first shared cinematic universe, long before the MCU and the DCEU came into existence. And like I said, I really enjoyed Boris Karloff's Frankenstein. And when talking about Horror, you can't forget to talk about some Horror Comedy.


As you guys know from my reviews of Spaceballs and Blazing Saddles I am a huge Mel Brooks fan, who hasn't seen as many of his films as I would like. And the top of the list of Mel Brooks movies I haven't seen is Young Frankenstein. The only thing I know about it is that Gene Wilder, Cloris Leachman, Gene Hackman, and Peter Boyle, who played Ray Romano's dad on Everybody Loves Raymond, are all in it and it's a parody of the Frankenstein films of the '30s and '40s. I mean, just the fact that it's a Mel Brooks movie is enough to make me want to see it.


The last movie on this list is another Mel Brooks film, Dracula: Dead and Loving It, this time parodying the Dracula movies of the '30s and '40s. Leslie Nielsen is enough to make me want to see this movie since I loved him in Airplane! and in Mr. Magoo, a live action adaptation of the classic cartoon character, which came out in 1997, where he starred as the titular character. And like I said, it's a Mel Brooks movie that I haven't seen, so you know I'd watch it for that reason alone.

And those are the Horror movies that I would like to see. I had originally planned on putting this out yesterday, while doing my review of the season 2 premiere of The Mandalorian today. I decided it'd be more fitting if I did this post tonight instead since today was Halloween. Have a great rest of your weekend guys and I will see you all back here next week where I'm going to be starting a review series on the James Bond movies, starting with the 1962/1963 classic, Dr. No starring Sean Connery as 007. Later.

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