October/Halloween/Horror Recommendations

I much preferred Midsommar to Hereditary.

Ally Dick wrote: »

Christ of almight

My review is in the Midsommar thread. I explain why I preffered it.

I loved how in your face Midsommar was with the set up.

LOVE Grave Encounters.

That location is scary as hell

Some more i've watched in the last week...

Boar – 4/10

A cliché ridden, Australian giant hog film with lots of gore and practical effects. It appears to know how ridiculous and silly it is, but it just isn’t that much fun. The relentless Hog attacks get very tiresome and they don’t spend any time trying to flesh out the characters, so you end up not caring about anything that’s happening. The best moments come from the Aussie locals regaling us with tales of giant Hog sightings and from Bernie, a retarded man-mountain who enjoys rapping along to Vanilla Ice.

There are better, low budget creature features out there.



Hannibal – 5.75/10

I don’t think Ridley Scott was the best choice of director for a sequel to such a perfect film. Scott tends to bloat his films out with needless guff. The first hour here is extremely slow and dull. Whilst he uses the gothic setting of Florence very well, what should be a very simple set up is convoluted.

Although the second hour is a vast improvement, it still feels oddly lacking. Julianne Moore is nowhere near as good as Jodie Foster and Ray Liotta is completely wasted. The choices they make for Lecter don’t seem to chime with the original film. At times it feels he is reduced to the role of pantomime villain and Scott seems to think he is cool rather than scary.

There’s a couple of interesting set piece towards the end and seeing Oldman acting under layers of prosthetics is always enjoyable, but this is a film that I could’ve done without. It left my nipples feeling soft and unused.



Tigers Are Not Afraid – 8/10

A Guilermo Del Toro-esque modern fairy-tale set against the harsh backdrop of Cartel ridden Mexico. The story follows 5 young orphaned children who are struggling to get through each day as they try to evade the local drug cartel. Much like Pan’s Labyrinth and Devil’s Backbone, this film uses real life atrocities to balance out the fantastical elements.

Every now and then a film will come along and completely catch me off guard. Seeing as I was streaming this on the horror site Shudder, I was expecting big scares but was surprised by how moving it was. The film does have scary moments but they’re a little bit too tame for me. It more than makes up for it by having huge heart and affection towards the children and their plight.

This is film that deserves more attention. A rare gem. It's worth noting that all of the children are first time actors and they are all terrific.




Not horror but rewatched Blue Ruin last night. Such a brilliant and brutal film. It's great to see a revenge thriller starring a human being, rather than a movie star. Grounded and gripping.