Shoctober, Round #1

Ghostwatch

Reading about the history of the 1992 BBC mockumentary is almost as fun as watching the trailblazing film known as "Ghostwatch". Set up as a real life exploration of a haunted house, the film earned the trust of its audience as something very true by the involvement of BBC personalities. A bit dated in its terms nowadays, the film is still an effective and enjoyable watch as the cameras catch flickers of things in the corners and hiding behind curtains. Then there's this split-second door opening that made me rewind and slow for about 3 minutes until I could make out the mustached man hiding behind it. For all its loopy British charm, "Ghostwatch" is the perfect atmospheric little horror film to start off the month with.

Before I Wake

The modern master of PG-13 horror (see also "Ouija" for some generic but well timed scares), Mike Flanagan's "Before I Wake" has lingered on Netflix for some time now and its well worth the time. Not only does it feature a couple of marvelously rendered moments of terror, but it features a denouement that not only makes everything that's come before it utterly believable. but crystallizes what most child horror films fail to recognize.... which is that memory and innocent brain synapses often propagate the real nightmares in our world.


Zombi 3 

Lucio Fulci never met a  fog machine he didn't like. For "Zombi 3", it's in every scene and, really who cares. The idea here- about a biohazard experiment called Death One that is loosed from a research facility onto the population of a nearby town- is just as crazy as it sounds. Floating heads out of freezers. Zombie hands borne from the womb of a woman. Some zombies move slow while others move lightning quick and fight like ninjas. Consistency isn't the film's strong point. But what we do have is a gorefest that's wild, unbelievable and wholly entertaining in the way only Fulci could make.