31 Days of Halloween Horror Movies 2014: Week Two Recap

I’m back again with another recap of my horror viewing escapades during my 31 Days of Halloween marathon. Last week had a pretty good line up of movies that I hadn’t seen that were also relatively recent. You can check out last weeks recap right here.

I always preface by saying this is by no means a list of movies that you should watch for Halloween. There are plenty of lists out there that will suggest what to watch during our favorite holiday season. This is just a bunch of movies that I somehow missed or have had sitting in my Netflix que for way too long. Without any further ado lets get this going.

October 8th: Cabin Fever: Patient Zero

I was a huge fan of the first film but the second film left something to be desired. This time around they went back to the source of the outbreak to tell a well contained story that can stand all on it’s own without any knowledge of the first two in series. So whether or not you liked any of the previous films I think you can still get into this one.

A staple of this franchise is the extreme amounts of gore and this one isn’t short in that department. One scene shows a woman basically being skinned alive when someone loses there grip on her arm. Yea, it gets pretty grizzly. Sean Astin has a brilliant role in this movie. His character is probably the best in the entire movie. You can also count on a really cool twist at the end. Definitely worth picking up.

October 9th: Satan’s Little Helper

I had seen this movie a long time ago but I thought since it was Halloween it would be worth revisiting. This film got a lot of attention when it first came out because it was Jeff Lieberman’s first film in a long time. At first I think it came off as a bit of a disappointment because it didn’t quite live up to his previous work but years removed it is a pretty entertaining little film.

It has a really dark sense of humor about it. A small kid is following around a serial killer helping him dispatch of several people. Only this kid thinks it is all a game. I think this probably had a bit of social commentary back in 2004 when it came out but I’d say it probably still holds up now. Like I said there are actually a couple pretty mean scenes but the fact that is done tongue in cheek actually lessens the blow.

October 10th: Joy Ride

As I always say when I do this marathon I am always up for suggestions. Joy Ride came from my coworker Angie who didn’t remember the name of the movie but remembered the “Candy Cane” line. Plus it’s one of the only horror movies that has a maniac driving a semi truck hunting down Paul Walker.

I don’t know if I ever watched this movie all the way through until now. I’m sure I had seen bits of pieces though because certain scenes were definitely familiar. Joy Ride really reminds me of the type of horror movies that were coming out in the late 90’s early 2000’s. It’s a pretty solid film. RIP Paul Walker.

October 11th: Jug Face

Now this is one of the movies that I remember hearing a lot about but never got around to actually watching it. Unfortunately I have to say I don’t think it lived up to the hype that I remember hearing a couple years ago.

This one was really slow and didn’t feel like the build up amounted to much. I think if it was told a little better they could have made the story much more tragic but the way it was just seemed a little flat. Larry Fessenden was definitely the bright spot in this one. At its core it’s a really cool concept but it just didn’t work out.

October 12th: The Purge: Anarchy

I thought the first film was pretty good but the concept I felt wasn’t fully explored enough. However I feel this time around they definitely delved head first into what the purge was all about with many more story lines and motives.

This film really focuses on one group as they try and make their way across the city on the night of the purge. As I said earlier it was really nice to have a rag tag group of people all with different motives together. It really allowed for everyone to see all kinds of madness that would happen on that night. I was really surprised how much I enjoyed this one. I would recommend you watch it if you haven’t already.

October 13th: Scream Park

I heard about this indie horror flick awhile back when MrParka reviewed it awhile back. I love any film that has some kind of amusement park or carnival theme so this was already on my radar. I had actually forgotten about it until I was trying to think of what to watch. So I decided I’d check it out.

Going in I knew this would be a pretty low budget slasher so I knew what I was getting into. On the whole this wasn’t an entirely bad movie it just didn’t grab my attention. The twist was pretty good and having Doug Bradley make an appearance with the puzzle box was actually pretty cool.

October 14th: Gingerclown

After watching Scream Park and posting about it on Facebook one of my friends suggested not watching Gingerclown. Well given that it was another carnival movie with a pretty damn impressive cast I had to check it out. Now the trailer gave me a really good idea of what I was getting into, a so bad its good ordeal.

Out of the entire cast the only voice I really picked up on was Brad Dourif. His scene is truly fucking gold. Although he didn’t have the best line in the movie. That honor belongs to this line, “I’m a fucking tea kettle asshole, who did you think I was Marilyn Monroe?”. Cinematic gold.

One really weird aspect of this movie were all the Back to the Future references. The main antagonist was named Biff and the main character had a sports almanac in his back pack. It was just strange. Overall the best parts of the movie was when all the monsters would come out otherwise it was pretty bland. If the entire movie was all of them just swearing about how shitty things in the park were this would have been a kick ass movie. I’d say check it out just for Brad Dourif’s part.

Week two is now in the can. This year is actually coming along much better than last year. I haven’t had any major conflicts to interrupt so far so lets hope that’s the way it remains. Don’t forget if you have any suggestions on what I should watch don’t hesitate to comment. Stay tuned because we still got two more weeks and a full wrap up coming.