What I Watched In February
2/7 The Mangler 2
Wow was this bad. The Mangler in this case has zero to do with the story or the first movie. Instead, it's evil software that our protagonist, Jo, loads into her school's network. It then takes over and starts offing people. It was a good, if somewhat tired, idea that was not executed well and is made even less satisfying by a truly staggering number of dumb decisions the characters make. Not even the presence Lance Henriksen could help this despite the amount of the movie's budget that clearly went into his third-act makeup effects.
2/9 Body Bags
This is a 1993 anthology directed by John Carpenter and Tobe Hooper, and gosh is it fun, fun, fun. The wraparound is John Carpenter as a coroner, and wowzers the cast and cameo list: Tom Arnold, Robert Carradine, Roger Corman, Wes Craven, Sheena Easton, Mark Hamill, Deborah Harry, Stacy Keach, Charles Napier, David Naughton, Greg Nicotero, Sam Raimi, Twiggy. It's delightful.
2/11 The St. Francisville Experiment
It's a damn good thing this was on Tubi, 'cuz if I'd have paid to watch this crap, I'd have been pissed. Four dimwits, haunted mansion, blah blah blah. Little to nothing of significance happens until about the last 10 of its interminable 79 minutes. The acting is staggeringly bad, the characters are gratingly annoying, and I couldn't wait for them to die. Well guess what, spoilers, they don't even! Seriously, not one of these stupid fuckers takes a dirt nap. Don't waste your time.
2/12 The Mangler Reborn
While not good, it was far better than Mangler 2 (in fairness the bar is on the floor for that one). Hadley (okay that was clever since the original machine is a Hadley-Watson) purchases the original machine from the first movie (which looks absolutely nothing like the original massive piece of equipment) and becomes obsessed with first restoring and then "feeding" it. There are some surprisingly effective scares and creepy moments.
2/14 Benny Loves You
I can't believe I'm about to admit this, but not only is the ending kinda heartwarming, I actually liked that about it. I must be gettin' soft. Picture a homicidal Elmo and go from there. It's a blast to watch.
2/15 Bad Milo
Milo, it turns out, is a demon that lives in, oh let's call the intestinal tract, of the main character, Duncan. It's released by stress and/or anger then goes on a rampage, killing the source of said stress/anger. Not quite as fun as Benny Loves You, but they'll still be a great double feature of right entertaining vengeance horror comedies (a subgenre we could all use more of).
2/19 Willy's Wonderland
I rewatched this some time after we recorded our first triple feature with this, Five Nights At Freddy's, and The Banana Splits Movie. I have to applaud any vehicle for unbridled bonkers Nicolas Cage-ness (which is in no way affected by the fact that, spoilers, he Never. Says. A word).
2/20 Ghoul
I may have mentioned before that my eldest and I have gone down a found footage rabbit hole, and the next few titles are several more of those. This one centers on yet another intrepid film crew off to make yet another riveting documentary, in this case about cannibalism in 1930s Ukraine. It's surprisingly effective for what it is. Admittedly the supernatural angle gets a little foggy as we bring in a tenuous connection to Andre Chikatilo, but that ultimately adds to the serious creep factor of the ending.
2/21 After Chernobyl (aka Ghosts Of Chernobyl)
I thought Chernobyl Diaries was better than many other folks did, so I was game to give this one a shot as well. Not great, but not bad. There's a surprising jump scare that is one of the more effective ones I've seen recently. I don't want to say more about that other than it was unexpected and disturbingly realistic. A nice, eerie ending as well.
2/21 The Mothman Tapes
Holy crap was this beyond bad. I mean, this was so bad, I have to wonder if they were trying to be funny and make a parody. I'm still not sure. If not, they failed. If so, they failed even more abysmally. The Mothman itself was, for low-budget CGI, not as bad as you might expect. Can't really say the same for the actors, and their characters were firmly in the So Annoying They Can't Die Fast Enough category. Huh...I think I smell a podcast episode.
2/25 Unfriended: Dark Web
I loved Unfriended, and this is one of those delightful occasions where the second movie outshines the original. It's enjoyable enough when the original is a flaming bag of excrement that gets utterly eclipsed by its follow-up, like Ouija being destroyed by Ouija: Origin Of Evil. It's that much more satisfying when the first movie is pretty damn good, and the next is even better.
2/26 The Fly
We took a brief break from the found footage genre when it was revealed that, horror or horrors, my daughter had never seen this Cronenberg/Goldblum masterpiece. The computer stuff is dated, but not as badly as you might think, and the practical effects still hold up better than some effects today and so many others from the shoulder pad/Aquanet 80s. This is vintage Goldblum, and if you've never seen it, drop everything and fix that.
2/28 The Andy Baker Tape
Aaannnd back to the found footage, regrettably in this case. Food blogger Jeff is made aware that he has a half-brother, Andy. What follows is about the most predictable Creep ripoff I've ever seen.
"We can't trust the insect." -JT
