Apologies for the boring screen shot of the cover art- technology is not cooperating, so that might be what we get from here on out.

And we are back to anthology land! This one has a fairly clever wraparound story about a group of film students who don't seem to actually want to put in the work to, you know, make films. But burn effigies of cameras to get spooky films from beyond the grave? What could possibly go wrong?

All of the shorts are stylish and visually interesting, although they come across a bit as more "For The Aesthetic" rather than the visuals supporting compelling storytelling. Nothing deeply memorable for me, but nothing that I hated either. The wrap up at the end felt a bit rushed and forced.

Oh, this one hurt. This one made me ugly cry. Heart wrenching performances. Difficult to watch, but so good. That's all I have to say.

We were scrolling through Amazon,, watching the trailers of terrible looking movies (because that is the sort of thing we do for fun,) when we came across this truly execrable cover art:

I mean- awful, right? So we watched the trailer, and...it did not look bad. at all. It had Allison Scagliotti in it, who I had enjoyed in Warehouse 13. We thought it might be fun to watch after "Once Bitten" since we have similar themes presented at different times. We expected it would be way better than "Once Bitten" We were hoping for a funny and feminist film. And then we watched it, and...

Oh you were so so disappointing, Chastity Bites. Now, so many of us have gone through that "I'm not like other girls!" stage. Internalized misogyny is a helluva thing. We have felt secretly superior because we weren't that into makeup, or boys, or...whatever. A lot of that tends to be a useless defense mechanism against the attitudes and treatment we see towards women/femmes in our society. But hopefully, we outgrow that and realize that even if we have different interests, other women can be awesome. Liking makeup doesn't mean you are shallow. Calling other women "sluts" is shit behavior and perpetuates misogyny. And running like hell from anything coded "feminine" unfortunately does not mean you will not also be subject to the exact same rain of crap from the patriarchy. Skills coded "feminine" are not less-than those coded "masculine." Even Xena, Warrior Princess could do embroidery, for hell's sake.

Our main character oozes her own sense of superiority over the "shallow, slutty, popular" girls.  Despite the fact that this movie thinks it is skewering the whole "abstinence education" thing, there is slut shaming like whoa. Having sex is okay if you can spout feminist philosophy while you're doing it, apparently. (Oh, and your life is in danger. That too. )

The dialogue from the "popular" teenagers is painful and unrealistic. I'm pretty sure whoever wrote it was yelling at kids to Get Off Their Lawn in between looking up slang on urban dictionary. Sure, teenagers can be mean and teenagers can be selfish and self-absorbed. I get that. (For that matter, adults can be mean and selfish and self absorbed.) But they are also human beings with all the complexity that brings, and if you want to write them successfully, even if they are the villains, you need to realize that. (And they are not even the true villains of the piece, just convenient victims.)

There are just so many damaging tropes - we have a lonely, single, desperate cat lady. (Who dies. I'm not sure how you write that scene and still think you have pretensions to feminism.)
We have a giggling group of "mean girls" with stereotypically feminine interests.(Yup. Every single one of them dies. every. single. one. But they are not "cool" like our main character, so we are very obviously not supposed to care. In fact, it's fairly obvious that this movie wants us to think they "deserved" their fate, which...victim blaming much?)

There is a line from the main character about perpetuating the Madonna/Whore complex, but - this entire movie is basically just another form of that. If you are smart and snarky (especially about the mean girls) you get to live. If not, you apparently deserve to die. The whole thing ends up coming across more like a revenge fantasy against the girls who were mean to you in junior high or high school than any sort of feminist statement. But hey, we have the main character strut about in a "this is what a feminist looks like" shirt, and quote Simone de Beauvoir so it's all good, right? (barf)

Oooh boy. I had watched this a million years ago when it came out in the 80s. I had fond memories of it as a goofy horror comedy with a young Jim Carrey, a smoldering Lauren Hutton, and (be still my heart!) a dance battle in the middle of it all.

I still loved the slapstick humor. I still guiltily enjoyed the ridiculous dance battle. I was prepared to cringe for the homophobic and sexist humor that was prevalent during the 80s. I was pleasantly surprised by the butler/chauffer character Sebastian (played delightfully by Cleavon Little) who was quite clearly gay and treated with respect and affection (and silly but not hurtful "closet" jokes.)  And then we turn right around and use really nasty homophobia for laughs. Looking back it's hard to get that disconnect. I suppose we could assume that it goes along with the queer coding of "evil" characters- but Sebastian is always a very sympathetic character, and he has one of the sweetest moments in the film when he promises to take care of the Countess after she loses her youth and beauty. It's just a really weird contrast, even though homophobia for laughs was an unfortunate staple in the 80s.

"We're going to travel around the world and make a documentary!" goes terribly, terribly wrong. But this movie goes terribly, terribly right. I like and care about the two main characters within the first couple of minutes of the movie (and also suspect this might end up being one of those horror movies that ends with me in tears. Spoilers: no tears, but I came close.) A unique twist and shift of point-of-view for a vampire movie. Really good use of the modern day trope of posting EVERY THING on YouTube. The best thing about this is the open and loving friendship between the two men.

BRB, I'm writing fanfic where these two run off together.

The lighting in this thing is ridiculous, but I sort of loved it. It would have worked better had they pushed the unrealistic atmosphere even more. I actually liked a lot about this one, although the "older man mentoring a tough young girl" with romantic overtones is a little played out. And this feels like a bit of a Buffy clone, although it was a fun ride.

This one kept popping up as I was scrolling through the Amazon Prime movies, and I kept scrolling right on by. The name is absolutely ridiculous. It's been around long enough that if it was something special, we would know. (And there would possibly be Pumpkinhead 4,5,6, and a reboot) But, out of curiosity we watched the trailer.  It did not look terrible. And the effects looked cool. (It is from Stan Winston after all.)  So, with a shrug and a "Well, it can't be worse than Prom Night!" we watched it.

Okay, so the name is ridiculous but apparently comes from a poem. I still think I might have tried find a different name for the movie, because it just does not quite do the job of inspiring fear. It's not quite a bad movie (and oh my, it is pretty.) It's disappointing because it just could have been so so good- an interesting exploration of tensions between "city folk" and "country folk" and responsibility and forgiveness, and all that - and it never quite fulfills that promise.  This came out in the 80s, so almost every horror movie of this ilk had to have a final girl (and I LOVE me a final girl,) but the choice in this one felt forced, and a different choice for the lone survivor could have been much better.

Because of course I did.

Meh. This was kind of fun, but not near the giggle fest horror comedy I was hoping for. The characters were likeable enough. I'm not big on the choice to lampshade the "we know we're using offensive language that is used to demean and dehumanize a group of people" by having the dad's daughter protest his assholery. (The fact that he was supposed to be a sort of loveable asshole was made quite clear without it.)

I am super not big into the idea that dads are the protectors of their daughter's sexuality, and that made up a rather big subplot. Which is too bad, because the relationship between the dad and daughter was mostly pretty sweet. There was some enjoyable music, if you are into songs bragging about how totally bad ass the singer's grandma is. And how can you not love that? 

I had wanted to watch this, but had been putting it off because from the previews it looked very intense and very uncomfortable. And it was, but not exactly how I had anticipated. It was also absolutely lovely. Very visually compelling with great performances. I was fascinated by how much of the "horror" came not from outside choices, but the decisions the characters were making.

There was one scene that had nudity that I can't quite make up my mind on. Was it gratuitous, or another complex layer of the story? The fact that I can't decide probably speaks to just how accustomed we are to gratuitous (female) nudity and sexually abusive content... Overall though, I am so glad we decided to watch this.