For the first Halloween in some time, my entire “Halloween” watch stack was on physical media. I put “Halloween” in “quotes” because it was really the couple of days leading up to Halloween and then the week after.

I know quite a few people do the “31 Days of Halloween” type thing and end it on Halloween. I’m a bit more the kind to start around Halloween and just plow through until long enough in the new year to feel satisfied. I mean, in Alabama, Halloween tends to be the start of the autumnal vibe. Here in Belgium, we have a more proper fall but still.

The movies pictured above, just in case you can’t or don’t want to zoom in to see:

  • VHS Viral*
  • Boys from County Hell (x2)
  • Sinners
  • In the Mouth of Madness*
  • VHS 2*
  • The Substance*
  • Borderline
  • One Cut of the Dead (x2)
  • Trick R’ Treat*
  • Blacula [note: only the first one]
  • VHS*
  • As Above, So Below*
  • The Thing* [the cover got turned around while I was setting up the shot]
  • Noroi: The Curse*
  • 28 Years Later

All those marked with (*) asterisks are rewatches. In the case of a few like Trick ‘r Treat, it is well rewatched. Probably the one I’ve seen the most but both Carpenters — in the Mouth of Madness and The Thing — I have seen four or fives times, each. Just TrT is my standard seasonal watch so gets brought out at least once every year. Sometimes more. I’m kind of in the mood for rewatching my favorite things more than digging too deep into the new. It’s nice.

The (appropriately) 2 marked x2 I watched twice this past ten-days. Both because I first watched them on my own and then later rewatched them with my spouse, Kazumi. Kaz was with also with me me for Sinners; The Substance; As Above, So Below; and 28 Years Later as well. The bulk I watched on my own. Some I sat through some extras and commentary, but that’s a bit beyond the scope of this post.

If I had to put my favorites of the non-rewatches, it would be, in order:

  1. One Cut of the Dead
  2. Sinners
  3. Boys from County Hell

Maybe Blacula. I really enjoyed the sort of games it was playing. It was technically a rewatch, but I remembered nothing about it. Years ago, I would regular host watch parties where we would sit around and watch movies together. However, when I tried Blacula, the group just zoned out and talked through the whole movie. I kept trying to watch but I missed a lot of details. If you are sitting on the fence with it just know that it is mostly a solid piece of 70s horror where the title is largely a throw-away jab from near the beginning and then it kind of does its own thing.

One Cut of the Dead is probably my favorite new movie in years. The header is from one of the stills.

The biggest irony award winner was watching the Umbrella edition of Noroi in high def. It’s a gorgeous physical object but the source is so low-def (by design) that it was mostly seeing the pixels even bigger. Really could taste the grain.

My least favorite of the new movies was Borderline but that’s mostly because its theme of “deadly stalker” just never quite seemed funny enough for all the humor. All of the actors and a lot of design was just perfect. I just never quite got into the vibe as well as I would like. It either needed to be more obviously funny or more obviously scary, I feel.

Hopefully, I’ll get some reviews and commentary up about these over time.