halloween ends? more like my patience ends

there’s not sticking the landing and then there’s teetering & flailing for a frankly uncomfortably long time before flopping straight on your face, and the halloween legacyquels opt quite decisively for the latter.

i spent the first half or so of halloween ends thinking, “okay, i sort of see what they’re setting up, i’m not sure i like it but i guess we’ll see what they do with it” and i kept waiting. and kept waiting. and kept waiting. and it became increasingly clear that they weren’t going to “do” anything with any of this, it was just sort of stuff happening, man.

like, in basically every technical aspect of filmmaking this movie is beyond competent, so it’s easy to be lulled into thinking it’s a perfectly serviceable movie by its solid moment-to-moment entertainment factor, but it just doesn’t add up to anything.

despite never really “losing interest” per se, i turned on this movie hard about halfway through it when i realized it was just thoroughly wasting my time, and subjecting me to plenty of unpleasant bullshit in the process. all while acting like it was a Serious movie with Things To Say.

hellraiser franchise megareview, part 1 (1986-96)

“we have such sights to show you.”

the hellbound heart (novella 1986)

by clive barker

“don’t try to fight. it’s quite beyond your control. you have to accompany me.”

i saw hellraiser long before i read this novella it was based on, so the main thing that jumped out at me was just how surprisingly close this was to the movie. like, if i didn’t know better i would’ve believed the hellbound heart was a novelization (novellaization?) of hellraiser rather than hellraiser being a film adaptation of the hellbound heart.

avatar megareview, part 1 (2009-12)

yeah, hi, it me, the dumbass unironic avatar fan. i did it, i went ahead and read all the avatar books because i’m a fucking nerd.

hocus pocus 2 recaptures the magic

“i’m a witch, i know things.”

alright i’m going to start by trying to talk  about the elephant that was conjured in the middle of the room with some degree of nuance so we can move on to talking about the really terrific movie i just saw that i’m pretty fucking excited about. but yeah i expect i’m not going to be the one breaking this particular news to you, and if i am i’m sorry, but yes bette midler tweeted something kinda terfy and when our community understandably expressed hurt & frustration she issued a non-apology apology. my take on the whole thing is that we’re not so much dealing with a venomous politically savvy terf like j.k. rowling but more just like a clueless, somewhat out of touch old lady who’s doing her best, so i’m somewhat willing to give her a “forgive her, mother, for she knows not what she does” on this one. ymmv, there may be stuff i’m missing, etc etc.

spooky movie season theme: werewolf!, part 1

the wolf man (movie 1941)

i reviewed this one super recently, so i don’t have anything all that interesting to add tbh! while we were watching it my boyfriend mentioned he super wished the movie had been from the point of view of all the drastically smarter romani people (seriously, even in this racist-ass movie they are blatantly smarter & more helpful than any of the white people), and yeah that would’ve been a much better movie. i mean, not the way it would’ve been made by white people in 1941, but you know.