Isis

I haven't watched the second and third Ginger Snaps movies. Prime are ruining my life with this, the swines. I watched a film called Scapegoat on Netflix this week about a guy who bumps into someone who is a dead ringer for him and they swap roles. It's a quiet little period piece really (it's got Andrew Scott in it, for any fans of his). It's fine for a Sunday afternoon, mildly diverting and harmless. It's got a bit of a Poirot/Downton Abbey type vibe.

I'm excited for this! I listened to a podcast with the author of the book, but she was talking about her second book and the host was like, 'and what's happening with production of The Burning Girls? She said, 'oh, it's starting on Paramount in a couple of weeks'. Also, yay for me getting some more use out of my Paramount account. Then I was all excited about the first episode but I got snowed under with work and semi-forgot about it. Just remembered again yesterday. Managed to do the full Halloween weekend triple bill of American Werewolf in London, Dog Soldiers and Ginger Snaps. Somehow (no matter that I have seen it LOADS of times) I always seem to forget how many one-liners there are in Ginger Snaps. Really want to watch the sequel but Prime has it as 'not available in your area'. I'm home alone this evening might rewatch The VVitch.

Watched The Pale Blue Eye at the weekend and it was fine in a 'historic' murder mystery with a strong cast type of way. Did Christian Bale feel like he was dialling it in a tiny bit? Possibly, yes. It passed a couple of hours and was vaguely spooky. I wasn't a huge fan of

Vividly recall seeing Halloween 3 in a hotel room on a trip to New England about 10 years back, Maybe I will just watch parts 2 and 3 and then stop.

I've been seeing mixed reviews from horror authors on this one. Will have to find out for myself. I watched the original Halloween this weekend (for the first time). It's only one year younger than me I think lol. I've seen some of them already. I know - it's all a bit weird. I would like to watch all of them this month actually. Also watched Color out of Space, which frankly cemented for me, once and for all, that cosmic horror really doesn't do much for me, per se. It was fine? But I just didn't care about anyone or anything in it - it's just a boring concept.

In the Mouth of Madness will be up next, I expect. But I've never seen this so at least it might be a bit more interesting for me. I had a double feature of two disappointing Resident Evil adaptations recently (both via Netflix). First up the film RE: Welcome to Raccoon City was just bland and nothingy. I mean, they just took the familiar stpry and just did...hardly anything with it.? Then, for some reason, I started watching the Netflix series, Resident Evil. I feel bad for Lance Reddick. Although he was one of the best things in it, I guess. Now, this started out a bit more interesting because it had the dual timelines, but it just tapered off with a whimper. The lead was unconvincing and unsympathetic. It felt like it didn't even have an ending! Are they leaving it hanging for a second season? LOL.

Is this a bit of a busman's holiday for her? We watched Prince of Darkness yesterday. I saw this as a kid in the late 80's and was a bit non-plussed by it at the time. I love John Carpenter so I thought I might 'get it' a bit more as an adult, but no, I still couldn't get into it. Also not scary at all? The only way it was really entertaining was by enjoying the TERRIBAD 1980's hair and make up. Anyway, at least my husband will stop asking if we can watch it now.

Just watched Host (2020) and thank goodness it is only 56 minutes long. It packs a lot of tension and scares into that time. I made of point of watching it before it got dark and that was pretty smart of me. The film does a good job of capturing those early lockdown zoom meetings with friends, and by extension it does a great job of lulling you into thinking everyone is just messing about. Would recommend if you are in the mood for a short, sharp shock.

Trying to push myself into spooky season! Watched Last Night in Soho yesterday. Not sure what I was expecting really but I found it very engaging. Wish I had gone to see it at the Curzon Soho though. Charlotte Street, Goodge St, the BT Tower and all that is really close to where I work, so lots of familiar sights there. Nothing mind-blowing, but something a bit different I guess. Started watching Ghost Wars, again for something a bit spooky/different. Weird stuff. I'm not hooked yet but I'll certainly try another episode. Still watching From. About halfway through S2. I understand that there is another season happening. There has been a lack of monsters in recent episodes. I like the mystery but I also need monsters. Last ep I watched had a great line though 'Only monsters live in the woods', which is a great name for a cocktail (that I am in the process of trying to devise).

Started watching the Netflix Resident Evil series. OOOOOOOHWEEEEEEEEEE Please hire me as the very basic science advisor for anything involving looking at blood down a microscope as I'm an expert at this and could stop people doing and saying fully ridiculous stuff that defies the laws of science. Even allowing quite a lot of leeway in general for dumbing stuff down and allowing for that fact that you cannot show everything as absolutely photoreal because it might not work on screen to convery the storytelling, I still had to stop watching a few times solely because of the bad technical science on screen. That said, I'm partway through episode 3 and I want to know what happens so I will keeo watching a bit more. Also making my slow way through S2 of Yellowjackets. We kind of stalled out in S2 of The Leftovers. I just think we aren't in the mood for it at the moment due to a lot of actual bleak shit happening to us in real life recently. Finally, new Bake Off host is a further step down. I really wish people wouldn't get their teeth whitened so much that they look distracting due to being so artificial looking.

Did anyone in the UK watch the UK version of Alone? I think it aired earlier this year. I've been watching it on catch up. Totally different vibe to the couple of seasons of the US version I've seen. It's very subtle and low key compared to the US version but I've been quite sucked in by it? Currently down to the final four contestants. I'm absolutely amazed that someone managed to last three weeks without catching any food at all, just living off of berries - and they walked out looking normal. Completely mad.

This was played on The Cranberries (Zombie) episode of the 60 Songs that Explain the 90's podcast which I just listened to a few days ago. I've not see the film but it was a reminder like, dang, another film I should have watched, I must get to that.

We've watched all the seasons now from 3 onwards (1 & 2 are not available on Paramount + ) and I just feel underwhelmed by it. I was sure there were more music videos in it! And the episodes are so short! Some are like 10 minutes long. I guess it's just me misremembering stuff from 30 years ago, eh? I have not seen the new movie, not sure if I knew that there was one actually. Maybe it is contemporaneous with the latest episodes of the show (I want to say 2008 or something like that), I will see if it's on Paramount +. Other than that, I've been too busy and it's been too hot for watching anything properly. Apart from Masterchef (celebrity version), which I think was the best season in ages as it had people in it that were watchable (as in, not truly awful people), whom you wanted to do well. Ditto Bake Off The Professionals as well.

Have returned to the 90's via the medium of Beavis and Butthead. I really felt like there were more music videos in the show when I used to watch it. I wanted to rewatch as I'm reliving my youth via a podcast called 60 songs that explain the 90s and it gave me this massive craving for B&B. I'm enjoying it but I really want more commentary on 90s bands please.

I've been watching From and I have to say I find the opening credits fairly weak including the theme. It would never make it into my TV Themes playlist. Bit of a mixed bag with the performances too. Whatshername who was in The Affair is middling. I'm still enjoying it though...

Well, well, well, it turns out that we do have the Sky Scifi channel or whatever it's called after all (that's the channel that used to be Sy Fy, right?) so we started watching From on there. Two episodes in. Liking it so far but it can easily go in the damp squib direction. I don't get my hopes up these days. I don't have NowTV and I'll never have NowTV if it requires me to pay anything as we don't watch enough TV to pay for yet another subscription. That's how I feel about it today anyway.

Where are you watching it? I'm not paying £2.50 an episode on Prime when we already pay for a Prime membership. I can't remember if our Sky package covers this but I strongly feel that it doesn't.

Extremely realistic and relevant in 2023 tbh. The things people support and cheer for these days is mind-boggling, stuff which I am sure they would change their mind over if the wind blew from anoter direction. We are watching another super long horror documentary on Shudder, this one is about 1980's films. I think it's about four or five hours long. Love to hear Chris Jericho talking about 1980's horror films. Plus that make up/effects guy who's name I always blank on, who had a cameo in Dusk til Dawn. Tom something...Savini (had to look it up). Really cool hearing him talk about inventing effects for films and how particular stories/scenes were dictacted by what it was actually possible to do on screen at that time. #nostalgia EDIT: I was interested in watching Full Circle, but I bet it isn't available on any channel I have.

Watched The Strays and The House this week. I wouldn't especially recommend going out of your way to see either. I really enjoyed the animation in The House, but I didn't feel like overall it lived up to the creepy promise of the first part (of the three shorts). The other two were less impactful but I did enjoy the voicework by Jarvis Cocker though so if you're a fan you might want to give it a look for that reason. The Strays obviously looks like a British Get Out at first glance. Even though it was quite creepy and absolutely awful to behold in some ways, it was also a little bit...dilute? A bit washy washy? The plot was fine. The ending was fine. I didn't see that it needed any of the titlecard business in the second half of the film, that made it seem a bit laboured. The final scenes could be quite triggering for anyone who's been a victim of domestic abuse and held against their will (there's a fancy term for that these days I think, enforced captivity or something I don't know). Maybe give it a swerve if that's an issue for you. The first half of the film reminded me in some ways of Men - the styling of the shots, the sort-of presentation of an expected lifestyle/appearance. I don't know, actually that felt a bit heavy-handed too now that I think about. Mixed bag, I would say.

Tried to watch Run Rabbit Run but had to switch off after about 20 minutes or so as it was just too omninous for me and I wasn't enjoying anything about it. Then I decided to watch Midnight Express for the first time. I think it's probably in the same ballpark as Jacob's Ladder and Requiem for a Dream, in that I don't think I will ever watch it again because it's so bleak and awful. But it's not quite as extreme a sensation as those two films and I don't think it's as good as them either. I'm not sure it's aged all that well. I checked on imdb because I recognised the guy playing the main guard but when I looked through his list of credits it didn't mention Crimewave and I thought 'but I'm sure it's him!', so I checked the cast for Crimewave and it's him.

Did a second watch of Dune, this time on a smaller screen. I think I liked it better this time round, I was a bit overwhelmed with it in the cinema. There's a weird middle ground where films are quite good without being amazing where I just 'absorb' them and don't have any strong persisting feelings about them. This is one of those I guess. Still not sold on the need for bagpipes in the soundtrack though. Also watched too many bleak murder documentaries - the highlight (lowlight) being Sins of our Mother which is, amongst other horrifying things, a mindblowing example of how simple it seems to be in America to shoot someone and kill them, claim it's an accident, have a quick chat with the cops and go on with your day.

I found it a bit slow, which is a weird complaint for this show I guess but I mean compared to the relatively fast-paced end of S1. I will try another couple of episodes.

I've completed season one of The Leftovers now and moved onto season two. I hope that S2 is going to pick itself up and get going soon. I'm only one episode in but, COME ON!

We watched a really long folk horror doc on Shudder last year but I don't recall the name of it. I think it was about four hours long. This one was about the world history of folk horror, how it isn't just an English thing and there are examples from different cultures. I will look up the one you saw and see it it's the same one. ETA - yes, it is the same one.