Shocktober: The Bride!

The Bride!

In years past, we’ve ended our Shocktobers with Sean reviewing movies that he deemed “horrorble”. I’m not entirely sure if I would put The Bride!, the last film I chose to review for this year’s Shocktober, in this category as we bid farewell to spooky season on this fair Halloweekend. I say that not because this is a good movie, since it’s not. There’s really very little about it that actually works. However, it’s still a movie that takes a ton of big swings and clearly has a ton of ideas behind it, courtesy of second-time director Maggie Gyllenhaal. But about half of those big swings and ideas are a little baffling, making for a movie that’s never boring but also feels like a waste of several Oscar winners.

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Shocktober: Clayface

Clayface

Somehow we live in a timeline where Clayface is not even the first (or second!) live-action origin story of a member of Batman’s rogues gallery to makes no mention of the Caped Crusader. This effort is the most palatable yet because, unlike something like Joker, I had my expectation-ometer set to “reasonable” by way-too-online DC boss James Gunn, who made it abundantly clear: this a standalone story akin to the animated series’ classic “Feat of Clay” two-parter that may or may not leave room to one day bring this character back in some other adventure … and also they haven’t even cast Batman yet. The only problem? You take Batman out and you’ve only got half a story.

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Shocktober: Buddy

Buddy

If you’re a millennial, Casper Kelly may have been a bigger part of your childhood than you realize. We all know Too Many Cooks, the definitive Adult Swim infomercial. You might also know the Adult Swim show Your Pretty Face Is Going to Hell and, if you’re cool (like me), Final Deployment 4: Queen Battle Walkthrough and Kelly’s two Adult Swim Yule Log films. But even before all that, Kelly was a key contributor to Cartoon Network in the late ’90s, arguably its peak.

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Shocktober: Hokum

Hokum

While haunted houses are a prime location for many a horror movie, haunted hotels are not quite as abundant. While there are a few iconic creepy movie hotels that come to mind, such as the Overlook Hotel or the Bates Motel (if we’re including motels), but after that, there’s… the hotel from 1408 I guess? Because of this, I didn’t mind checking in for a short stay at the hotel in the woods at the center of Hokum, even if there isn’t inherently anything that exciting or novel about a movie set in one location where a bunch of strange things happen. While I can’t vouch as much for the strange things that happen, I will say that the hotel at the center of the film is a top-notch creepy destination, even if I could’ve used a few more answers about what happened within its walls.

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Shocktober: Lee Cronin’s The Mummy

Lee Cronin’s The Mummy

What does it take to get a director’s name above the title of a movie? One way is to become an overnight sensation. Think John Carpenter after the 1978 smash hit Halloween. Another way is based on reputation and years of success in the industry. Think Frightmaster Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (1994). Another way, though risky, is to put the director’s name above the title in the hope that this is the film that solidifies their status. This is what Lee Cronin’s The Mummy attempts. But does it earn it?

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Shocktober: Backrooms

Backrooms

As fun and exciting it is to celebrate Kane Parsons, who, at 20, became the youngest director to have a number one movie at the box offices, the question we really have to grapple with regarding Backrooms is: should we be adapting 4chan? I’m just kidding, I don’t care. I wish I had an interesting angle or any angle at all with which to explain the fascination with Backrooms but having watched it… I’ve got nothing. I dig the aesthetic. It was fine.

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