So Iâm getting the impression that Halloween Ends is a bit shite? Also, it sounds like itâs curiously similar to Jason Goes to Hell, with the whole idea that evil is a transferrable energy?
So this was a fun night - Iâd seen all of them before but only at home, so a real treat to see them in a cinema.
Blair Witch and REC were the clear standouts. The former is just amazing at ratcheting up the tension and the way the characters fall apart, the latter is just proper energetic and overwhelming and has so many actually good jump scares. The only way Iâd watched REC before was on a laptop, so the cinema was quite a different experience (!)
Lake Mungo I really like and I love the journey it takes you on but it was quite slow to be watching at 3am. Spree is really empty and the plot doesnât know what to do but I love how frantic it is.
Really busy night as well - most things were sold out, and there didnât seem to be as much of a drop off late as when I last went in 2019. I donât usually drink at these things but the bar was open until 5am(!!!) so I treated myself to a pint before the Spree, which was lush even if it did basically wreck me.
Oh and the cinema had people dressed as Michael Myers and the Ring girl just walking around the building and going up to people at random, which was quite cool.
Got home at 5:30am, slept until 9:30am, spent all of yesterday just aching. Everything ached.
5/5 will go again next year but will be more organised about tickets 
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Bloosy love Halloween Ends
i did dislike it plenty, but agree with your not-a-Halloween-film take. IDK, set it in a new fictional place that had been terrorised by a killer, have some kid absorb his powers (either fan worship or from bullying and being an outcast) and go on a spree carrying on the trauma of the original killer ⌠thereâs something there
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I went to this about five years ago. Saw the Greasy Strangler. After going to the beer festival at Wylam. Think that was the first film and inevitably didnât make it any further.
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Final push into Halloween over the past few daysâŚ
The Gangster The Cop The DevilâŚ
Obviously South Korean cinema has been pretty hot for ages now, and particularly in the horror and crime genres. This is more in the latter camp, featuring the titular cop and gangster vying to capture a Seoul based serial killer. Itâs nicely filmed and zips along, but is just a bit silly and campy to be really engaging. 6/10
The Ones BelowâŚ
London based story that has echoes of Rosemaryâs Baby/Repulsion. The main cast in this are all excellent - Clemence Posey, David Morrissey, Stephen Campbell Moore and Laura Birn all bring real believability to their characters. I always find anything to do with child imperilment quite uncomfortable, so this really pushed my buttons. The only area this falls down in is that the story unfolds almost exactly as you would expect from about 10 minutes in, and the final twist fails to land as a result. 7/10
The OwnersâŚ
Watched this mainly as it feature Maisie Williams who is reliably entertaining in everything, but was then pleasantly surprised to Dr Who himself (Sylvester McCoy) in the main cast also. This is a decent two parter filmed primarily in a single location with a small cast. Similar to ^The Ones Below however, the twist in this is signposted fairly early on. Nonetheless, enjoyable enough and not as hokey as the poster suggests. 6/10
BarbarianâŚ
Had seen the trailer for this which I was worried had given away too much of the plot as is ofter the case. Was completely wrong obviously. Thought this was an absolute ride - loved the various phases it went through. Everyone was pretty good in this, but special kudos to Georgina Campbell in the lead who absolutely anchored the story. Justin Long was pleasingly slimy also. Definitely warrants a rewatch. 8/10
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think Maisie Williams could do well with a career as a horror lead, somehow she has the energy for it imho
have you seen The Falling with her, from 2014? more a mystery drama but it thoroughly spooked me still - and first film appearance for Florence Pugh too!
I have! Love that film 
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Anyone watched any of The Cabinet of Curiosities? Seen the first three and havenât loved any of them but I got about halfway through the fourth (The Outside by Ana Lily Armipour) and that seemed to be a step up.
I felt quite mixed on the first two, but will persist. Not quite sure why they didnât click, but I think that they would have benefited from being shorter (maybe even just 20 minutes each) because the stories were very thin. I will be gutted if the Panos Cosmatos one isnât very good.
On a gut feeling they also reminded me of the Jordan Peele Twilight Zone reboot (and I mean this in a bad way).
Is the Tipi Market still open across the road? We used to go for some mulled wine before the horror films, after a few youâd start to see some scares over there tooâŚ
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Re-watched The Blair Witch last night and still maintain itâs incredibly fun, and unfairly maligned. It isnât a patch on the original, but you just arenât going to catch lightning in a bottle a second time. As a daft, but very fun, haunted house/thrill ride type film it really works.
The bit where she snaps the twig figure and she snaps in half is a GREAT scare. As is the bit where she reaches for the drone and gets slapped. Love how it expands the mythology that the woods/they themselves are âcursedâ and trapped in a kind of time loop, where they are the various characters from the overarching mythology.
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Another link to scroll through and to agree and disagree on.
Essentially the scariest ending to films. The link there doesnât perhaps make it completely clear.
I scrolled through quickly and just saw the film titles and didnât read their endings.
I see that a film called The Lodge is on there. Might watch it. Any good?
Apparently soâŚ
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scariest ending from what youâve seen
- Blair Witch
- Get Out
- Donât Look Now
- Enemy
- Dressed to Kill
- Men (??)
- The Vanishing
- The Lodge
- Midsommar
- The Birds
- Cam
- The Shining
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Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon was great fun over the weekend too - mockumentary about a potential new serial killer who wants to emulate Michael, Freddie, Jason etc (they exist in the same universe here)
good use of the format, slow start but builds up well, one of those well-judged things where it has you rooting for the obvious bad guy to succeed. Ticked all the right boxes for me, dark and funny and engaging and still nicely brutal
think it achieved its goal more successfully than Censor did (film name spoiled as thatâs a bit of a give away in itself). In that one I was really drawn in by the initial story of the 80s video censor, but it lost me a bit when it turned into a pretty average slasher at the end - would have rather it stayed horror-adjacent or purely psychological, rather than fully descending. I thought Behind the Mask might have the same issue, as we only knew/cared about Leslie and the video crew, so why would seeing the actual slasher stuff play out with those nameless teens mean anything to us? But luckily by linking it all up and drawing in the crew to the game it made it much more interesting and engaging, and the twist with Taylor is the best type where you can see it coming a bit before the film tells you, but not too early to ruin anything. Lovely stuff, big recommend
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Love this film - donât know why it isnât more highly regarded
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ahead of its time Iâd say. Obviously Scream and New Nightmare (and others im forgetting) had done plenty for the meta-horror movement years before, but still this type of approach in 2006 must have been very far from what most horror was doing then? would fit so much better in the world of the mid-2010s, with your Final Girls, Cabin in the Woods, Tragedy Girls etc.
Scariest ending of anything iâve seen in the past 5+ years is that Inside No. 9 episode The Harrowing.
Might be alone in that but it genuinely freaked me out
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