Horror Movie Talk

As the title of this episode states, we witness the origins of the Bent-neck lady, and learn more about Nell leading up to her death.

In this episode we learn quite a bit about Luke and his bond with drugs, the Hill House ghosts, and his twin sister, Nell. This episode really helped me to see the humanity in addicts, and those who have suffered a loss.

In this episode we are given Theodora’s back story and are shown how keenly perceptive she is as a therapist as she helps a young girl being haunted by “Mr. Smiley”.

This is the story of how Theo became the funeral director that she is today. It also does a good amount of setup for many episodes to come. The Haunting of Hill House

In the first episode of the series, we are introduced to the Crain family, both past and present. First we are shown the young Crain family being awoken by the young Nell (Violet McGraw) who apparently had seen “the bent neck lady”.  Her father Hugh Crain (Henry Thomas) explains how her dreams spilled over and that she was just imagining seeing the scary lady. Jumping forward, we see all the children now as adults with adult problems and an extreme amount of baggage in relation to the Hill House.  Something terrible happened in the past that led the family to flee from the house, and now in the present, it seems it is calling back to them. The Haunting of Hill House

Rosemary’s Baby is probably in the top ten most influential horror movies ever made. It prays on the rational and irrational fears of something truly universal, pregnancy. This movie is controversial, well-done, and important. @dgoebel00 on Instagram provided this amazing artwork. Follow him and check out his website. Watch Rosemary’s Baby Watch on Amazon Click here to Watch Synopsis Rosemary’s Baby is the story of Rosemary, a seriously delusional and paranoid woman who is impregnated and kept safe by her loving husband, and caring neighbors. She gives birth to a totally normal baby and all is well.  Actually, Rosemary’s Baby is kind of the inverse of everything I just said. Rosemary (Mia Farrow) and her husband Guy (John Cassavetes) move into a new apartment in New York City, and are immediately greeted by super-nosey neighbors, Minnie (Ruth Gordon) and Roman (Sidney Blackmer).  Small hints of things not being normal are dropped continuously throughout, but the young couple decide to try and have a child.  Their neighbors, the Castevets, offer a bit too much help for comfort, even in the friendly age of the 60’s with everything from advice to daily vitamin shakes for the newly pregnant Rosemary. Her entire life seems to become supplanted by offerings and suggestions made by the neighbors and enforced by Guy, her actor husband.  Guy has come into a bit of good luck as the understudy for a play, but it’s because of the misfortune of the lead of the pla (obviously).  As the gaslighting of Rosemary progresses, the audience knows that something is up, but it’s hard to read too much malice into it until the end. Review Rosemary’s Baby is one of the most influential films of the 60’s and is a masterpiece of storytelling and suspense. Direction and screenplay by Roman Polanski, it’s just as horrific and perverted as him. Everything about this film is wonderful, but the casting, acting, and story is really what makes this movie shine. It’s not full of the most artistic shots, and it’s as slow as they come, especially for today. Perhaps the real triumph here is the effort that goes into stringing the viewer along. There are tons of little clues and nudges that we receive as we make our way through this sometimes innocent, sometimes diabolical journey that poor Rosemary is forced to endure. It’s always interesting to see movies that tap into our most innate fears, and what could be a more natural minefield for worry than a mother’s journey through pregnancy? Rosemary’s Baby takes the little flap of cuticle and peels it all the way up to the elbow. It was clearly the inspiration for many movies and moviemakers since. While watching this, I kept drawing parallels with Hereditary. Watching this movie is like scaling Mount Everest – it’s a slow and dangerous journey, but the view from the top is second to none.  Score 10/10 Final Recommendations This is one of the easiest recommendations I have ever made. Everyone except, or maybe especially those who are pregnant or are trying to become pregnant should see this movie.

At long last, and after much misunderstanding, we turn to the 1984 cult classic (at least in Sweden apparently) Rats: Night of Terror. We did it. It’s done. Let’s never talk of it again. @dgoebel00 on Instagram provided this amazing artwork. Follow him and check out his website. https://youtu.be/NlOcKL2l_m0 Rats can be found on streaming platforms for rent now. Rats: Night of Terror Poster Synopsis A tribe of rats called the Jellicles must decide yearly which one will ascend to the Heaviside Layer and come back to a new Jellicle life. Oh wait that’s not right. Rats is about a post nuclear apocalyptic world in which all vegetation is destroyed and humans are separated in to two factions, one above ground and one below. This has little to nothing to do with the actual plot of this movie, but the filmmakers thought it important that you know this.  Rats is really about killer rats. That’s it. Review of Rats: Night of Terror Rats is bad. Sure it can be argued that it is so bad it’s good, and there are many times that I can point to where I laughed that the ridiculousness of certain scenes, but when it comes down to it, it’s a bad movie. What makes it worse is that we were forced to watch it, which in essence makes this a school book report. No one likes reading books for a book report. It took me about 2.5 hours to watch a 1.5 hour long movie, because I had to just take a break from the boredom every couple minutes. The worst part about Rats is the snails pace in which anything happens. Even if you are looking for a gory exploitation horror film, this one falls short. Most rat attacks just look like a bunch of dead rats being dumped on someone, proceeded by the victim lazily rolling around among some lazy and disinterested rats. Score 1/10 Rats Add the Blu-ray to your collection or stream it now Buy Now Go to http://manscaped.com/ and get 20% off + free shipping with the code: HMT #manscapedpod 

Friday the 13th Part 2 is the continuation and borderline recreation of the first part in the franchise.  The old proverb, “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.” rings so true in this sequel that I’m not even mad that I watched the same movie all over again.  @dgoebel00 on Instagram provided this amazing artwork. Follow him and check out his website. Watch Friday the 13th Part 2 Watch on Amazon Click here to Watch There were new counselors at Camp Blood, er, I mean Camp Crystal Lake and damnit, they had to pay! They never seem to learn, and that’s what I love about kids these days.  https://youtu.be/FX5Cf77kM-E Synopsis Friday the 13th Part 2 picks up the reins from the first movie and just does it all over again.  Holy moly, come to think of it as this episode of Horror Movie Talk releases, Friday the 13th is in just 2 days! Part 2, 2 days, coincidence? There is a new camp in town around Crystal Lake, and wow, it looks pretty much just like the camp from the first movie. The driveway, the doom prophet, the buildings, the boobs, it’s all the same. Two things have changed – there is a new group of campers and a new killer. Our last killer, Mrs. Voorhees, was killed by beheading while seeking vengeance for her son Jason, who died due to (in her eyes) negligent camp counselors.   This time around we get to learn a bit more about Jason, and what makes him tick. Review While Friday the 13th Part 2 doesn’t do much to add anything new to the story, it does give us Jason, and to be honest, that’s enough for me.  I can’t quite pin down the difference in my opinion between Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees, but they are the two least complicated and most iconic slasher baddies. I can say, I tend to prefer Jason. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s the super distilled execution of the script – Horny youth must die. Maybe it’s the unapologetic grab at quick cash – Horny youth pay to see horny youth while horny. Maybe it’s the, well, that’s probably enough. This is a paint by numbers slasher, but it was released only a year after arguably the first honest-to-goodness modern slasher, and that was the original Friday the 13th. So, whatever. It’s still the basis for most slashers to this day and it’s maybe the most engaging of the bunch that I have seen with the exception of meta slashers, like Scream Score 6/10

In which we apologize for an egregious recent error on our part.

We watched Bats on Tubi because Magnus, our Swedish super-fan has been clamoring for it for months. Our fans have united behind Magnus and demanded that we review Bats, and I have to say, I get it! It was a fun movie with a decent but goofy premise and some B-list actors that you will definitely remember from the 90’s! @dgoebel00 on Instagram provided this amazing artwork. Follow him and check out his website. https://youtu.be/3NWlsXlHT9Q Synopsis Bats is about, you guessed it, killer bats. These bats have been genetically tampered with and now have a taste for blood.  This small town in Texas has been hit hard with this new strain of genetically modified bats, and our small team of bats biologists and police need to get it under control before they spread across the continent in exactly the same way that real life scientists told us killer bees would take over in the 90s.  Eventually, the military is called in and everyone gets more bats than they bargained for. Review  Bats is a very stereotypical creature feature from a time when Jurassic Park, Gremlins, and Anaconda were big hits. There was a formula, and if you stuck to it, generally speaking, it paid off.  In this instance, they stuck to the formula but it didn’t pay off, and I’m not totally sure why. Is Bats an undeniably great movie? No. Does it deserve the kind of ire that it drew from critics at the time? Maybe a little bit, but I would argue, no. Bats had me laughing more than a few times, and it definitely left me wondering why I had never heard of this made-for-cable movie. Watch Bats Watch on Amazon Click Here to Watch I was never left totally amazed but I had a good enough time. I think the reason this movie got waylaid the way it did was because it was released on the tail-end of a totally fucked-out concept. By the time Bats was released, everyone was tired of this super generic creature feature  kind of movie because it had been done to death.  I think if it had been released in 92 instead of 99 we would all remember this movie fondly, instead of never having heard of it at all.  Score 5/10 Final Recommendations If you like fun, campy 90’s creature features, this is totally that kind of thing. Is it good? No. Does it make sense? Yeah, pretty much. It’s mostly a good time and a laugh.