Both Days Nine and Ten were spent at Camp Crystal Lake. My wife had never seen Jason in action, but before we could get to Jason, we had to start at the beginning with Mrs. Voorhees in Friday the 13th on Day Nine. Then we watched Friday the 13th Part 2 on Day Ten. Boy, I'd forgotten how bad that one is. My wife enjoyed them both, liking how straightforward they were and how the survivor was always a girl (she had never heard of the "final girl" trope before). She does she that the first one is better than the second one.
Day Eleven was meant to be spent at Bly Manor, but I had only gotten about four hours of sleep the night before and wasn't up for a nine hour binge, so we flipped the schedule and watched The Final Girls, which was also fitting given Marisa's introduction to the trope over the last two days. I had never seen this one anything it had long been on my list, and I wasn't disappointed. It was clever and a lot of fun, an affectionate spoof/tribute to the slasher genre. My wife thought it was really funny but very predictable and said it wasn't scary say all but she liked how it brought more heart than usual to the slasher genre.
We finally got to watch The Haunting of Bly Manor on Day Twelve. I had been looking forward to this ever since The Haunting of Hill House blew my mind, and I was not disappointed. It's very different than Hill House, more of a slow burn; it might not grab you right away but stick with it, it's worth it. The cast is great, full of talent and chemistry. It's creepy more than scary in a very gothic way. It's hard to say anything more without spoiling things, but I definitely recommend it. Marisa loved this one by the time it was over, but I had to push her through the first few slow episodes. She very much loved the narrative structure and the ending and thought it was very well done overall. We were both just a little disappointed that it wasn't as scary as Hill House but loved it as it's own thing.
For Day Thirteen, we watched Black Box, the second of the four Welcome to the Blumhouse movies on Amazon Prime. This one was moderately better than The Lie, with Sam interesting concept, but the execution didn't live up to that concept and it wasn't scary at all, just a creepy moment here and there. I'm really hoping for more from the two remaining installments. My wife agreed that the premise was interesting and liked it more than I did, even though it was more of a mystery/thriller than horror.
We had to change things up again on Day Fourteen; we were supposed to watch 1408 but I couldn't find it streaming for free anywhere so I swapped on one of our alternates, The Monster. This was a fairly gripping, gritty movie about a mother and her young daughter who have a very fractured relationship, stranded in their car in the woods under attack by a monster. I enjoyed it a lot, although aside from the emotional content it was pretty by the numbers. Marisa thought this was an interesting movie, mostly good but not scary. She wished there was a little more to the fairly abrupt ending and liked the relationship and growth between the characters.
The plan for Day Fifteen, the halfway point, was to break up the horror with a little bit of stupid comedy. Even though things haven't been as scary as we hoped, we stuck to the plan and watched Adam Sandler's new Netflix movie, Hubie Halloween. And boy, did we get stupid comedy. It's stupid as hell, but it's also hysterical, and the twist actually psyched me out a bit. My wife really liked this one, she liked the cast, the gags, and said it's just a really fun Halloween movie, and I have to agree.
Lastly, on Day Sixteen we had to change the schedule again. We were supposed to watch Love and Monsters, the new video on demand release, but that just wasn't in the budget. So I went to the alternates again (only one alternate left now so hopefully things go smoothly from here!) and we watched Would You Rather, a slightly torture porn-ish flick I'd seen before and it's pretty good overall. Marisa didn't like this one; she didn't like any of the characters and thought they were all just stupid, so she was sort of rooting for them all to die, which just isn't good.
That brings us up to date. Later today we'll be watching Leprechaun, and tomorrow we're going to binge the new Marvel show on Hulu, Helstrom, which was meant to kick off a Marvel Horror line before things changed. I'll have another update for you at the end of the week! In the meantime, are there any horror flicks you've been watching to get into the season? Drop a comment, let's talk about it!
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