31 Days of Halloween: Day 31

THE SHINING

PLOT SUMMARY: A family heads to an isolated hotel for the winter where a sinister presence influences the father into violence, while his psychic son sees horrific forebodings from both past and future.

WHERE TO WATCH: Max

JAIMEE’S NOTES: It’s almost winter, time to head on up to the mountains for our last movie of the month, The Shining. Jack, who I believe is a kind of a psycho the entire movie, not just the end, takes a job as a caretaker at a hotel in Boulder, Colorado for the off-season. After he accepts the position, the manager is like oh by the way, the previous caretaker, Charles Grady, killed his entire family and himself in this hotel. And Jack is like oh okay, NBD man. It might be fun to have an entire hotel to yourself, unless you’re with these weirdos, then maybe not. Also Jack has a wife, Wendy, who needs to get a grip, and a son, Danny. Danny has an “imaginary friend” who lives in his mouth and talks using Danny’s finger….his name’s Tony. Also NBD. To top it all off, this hotel was built on an Indian burial ground. The hits just keep on coming. We finally meet a sane adult, Mr. Hallorann, who is the chef at the hotel. He sniffs out that Danny is kind of telepathic, he says he calls it shining and he has it too. Hallorann thinks Danny might feel some things in this hotel and Danny asks about room 237. Hallorann is visibly shaken but doesn’t say why. A month goes by and Jack just cares about his writing. Uhhh, wasn’t this his job? Wendy is doing all the work here. Super side note, I love the carpet work in this movie. Crazy ass carpets. Jack continues to be an asshole and has started hallucinating a bartender and a party and all sorts of things. Danny is getting scared and attacked by ghosts and having seizures. And Wendy needs to grow some balls, your husband is going to kill you and your son is possessed. Thankfully Hallorann feels something is wrong all the way in Miami, and he must go find out what’s going on. What a guy! Things start getting real, are Wendy and Danny going to be able to get the hell out of here in a snowstorm?! You will probably recognize the more famous parts of this movie if you’ve only heard about it and never seen: the twins, the bloody elevators, and Here’s Johnny! The Shining was originally a book written by Stephen King. The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado was his inspiration and it is highly reported to have multiple hauntings. They also have a Shining Tour! How fun would that be!? Stephen King didn’t have anything to do with the actual movie, so he had a few things to say, mainly that he didn’t care for it much. I very much agree with this quote from Stephen King, “The character of Jack Torrance has no arc in the movie. Absolutely no arc at all. When we first see Jack Nicholson, he’s in the office of Mr. Ullman, the manager of the hotel, and you know, then, he’s crazy as a shit house rat. All he does is get crazier.” Amen, Stephen, amen.

SCARY RATING: 5/5 Ghosts 👻👻👻👻👻

31 Days of Halloween: Day 30

HUBIE HALLOWEEN

PLOT SUMMARY: Despite his devotion to his hometown of Salem (and its Halloween celebration), Hubie Dubois is a figure of mockery for kids and adults alike. But this year, something is going bump in the night, and it’s up to Hubie to save Halloween.

WHERE TO WATCH: Netflix

JAIMEE’S NOTES: If there’s one thing I love, it’s Adam Sandler movies. And we are lucky enough to get a Halloween one! Hubie lives in Salem, Massachusetts and his goal is to be kind to and protect everyone around him especially during Halloween, since you know, Salem, but the people in this town are mean as hell to him, except for his mom and his crush Violet. Hubie is also afraid of everything. When Halloween rolls around, people start disappearing. Hubie (and his thermos) and the police set out to investigate. Is it Hubie’s new suspicious neighbor, Walter? Or maybe the escaped mental patient, Richie? Or is it one of the countless meanies in this town? I loved this movie so much, it was funny and heartwarming. We of course have the regulars that are in every Adam Sandler movie. Also, Ben Stiller reprises his role as Hal, the orderly, from Happy Gilmore. And we get an O’Doyle rules as first featured in Billy Madison. There are also some nods to horror movies: Jaws, Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street, Christine, and Halloween III: Season of the Witch. And also, Adam Sandler has his entire family in this movie so that’s just cute as hell. Enjoy!

SCARY RATING: 1.5/5 Ghosts 👻

31 Days of Halloween: Day 29

CANDYMAN (1992)

PLOT SUMMARY: The Candyman, a murderous soul with a hook for a hand, is accidentally summoned to reality by a skeptic grad student researching the monster’s myth.

WHERE TO WATCH: Peacock

JAIMEE’S NOTES: Yes, we are going with the original, not the remake which is actually a sequel. Sorry Jordan Peele, maybe next year. I honestly forgot how fucked up this movie is. We are in Chicago and it’s full of bees. Helen and her colleague, Bernadette, are writing a thesis or something about urban legends. This is just like the beginning of one of our favorite movies from last year’s list, you guessed it: Urban Legend. Anyway, Helen fixates on one urban legend, Candyman. The legend is that you say his name five times in a mirror and he appears behind you and kills you with his hook hand. Helen’s husband, Trevor, who is an asshole, is also teaching about urban legends. Apparently at this college, they have bells? Weird, class is over. Helen’s working late and a custodian overhears her recorded interview with someone. The custodian is like oh I know Candyman, he lives in Cabrini-Green in the projects. Oh? Okay, cool. The custodian also said he killed a lady named Ruthie, came through her wall, yikes. Helen somehow figures out that Lincoln Village, where she lives, was originally supposed to be a housing project but they changed them to condos instead so they are set up the same as Cabrini-Green. She takes her medicine cabinet off her wall and behind it is not wall but the medicine cabinet of her across the wall neighbor. Helen and Bernadette go to Cabrini-Green to take pictures of where Ruthie died I guess and there is lots of gang activity. Helen is going through all kinds of holes in the wall, wtf Helen, you crazy girl. She’s out there finding candy with razor blades and shit. They meet a lady that currently lives in the housing project, Anne-Marie. She invites them over and tells them what she knows about Ruthie. Later at dinner with colleagues, we learn Candyman’s supposed origin story. Which honestly, when you learn his story, I’m kind of like ehhhh…I get it Candyman. Like maybe stop killing, but I understand. Helen keeps going back to the projects to take pictures by herself and she gets lit the fuck up by this gang. Helen then goes absolutely nuts and starts seeing Candyman all over the place. She passes out and wakes up in Anne-Marie’s apartment with blood all over, it appears that Helen has killed the dog (you can tell it is fake, I promise no dogs were harmed in the making of this movie) and possibly stolen her child? We find out that this is actually Candyman, he is kind of framing Helen. He keeps murdering people in her presence and she’s always the only one there. Not looking good for you Helen. Candyman really wants Helen for some reason, he keeps asking her very nicely to be his victim. Eventually we gotta put Helen in a psych ward but Candyman gets her outta there, oopsie. Candyman says he has Anne-Marie’s baby and will let him go if he can have Helen. Helen is like sure, my life is trash, let’s do it. Will Candyman keep his word? He’s got a mouth full of bees and nothing to lose. This movie is insane. Tony Todd, who plays Candyman is a great, great underrated villain. But you must get to the end of this movie, it is all worth it! Always remember, Trevor is a dick.

SCARY RATING: 5/5 Ghosts 👻👻👻👻👻

31 Days of Halloween *BONUS* TV Episode: October 28

ARE YOU AFRAID OF THE DARK? S2: E5 “THE TALE OF LOCKER 22”

PLOT SUMMARY: A young French immigrant having trouble at her new school, uncovers a mystery about a girl, the former occupant of her school locker, who died in 1968.

WHERE TO WATCH: Paramount+

JAIMEE’S NOTES: Our last Are You Afraid of the Dark of the season! We finally got here, a crowd favorite amongst my family and friends, LOCKER 22! In case you forgot, in the 90s…the 60s were the coolest. Julie is a transfer student from Paris (oui, oui!) and she gets a shitty locker at her new school in a dungeony hallway. People at this school are, of course, mean as hell, teachers included. She does make one friend, Chris. She also keeps seeing a hippie looking girl but the girl always suddenly disappears. When Julie is leaving school with her adult briefcase, she is shook. She tells Chris that she thinks she saw a ghost and then she gets a prank phone call from an idiot pretending to be a ghost…ALO? (We used to answer the phone like that solely because of this AYAOTD episode…..yes I abbreviated) She’s pissed because she thinks her only friend is making fun of her but he said he only told one person because she is not the only one who has mentioned seeing ghosts in the school. Julie goes to her locker for the day and some beads fall out, she puts them on and boom, she’s in the 60s! Her locker belonged to a girl named Candy and everyone in the 60s thinks she is Candy. She also brings Chris to the 60s so he believes her. They are determined to figure out who Candy was so they go yearbook researching and they find her! Candy died in 1968 when she was 17. Julie is convinced Candy keeps appearing because she is trying to tell her something. Chris asks an older teacher if he remembers Candy and he then learns the story of her tragic death. But while he is doing that, Julie goes back to the 60s to see first hand… Can Chris stop her in time!? This is not a scary AYAOTD but it does have something else we love, going back in time!

SCARY RATING: 0/5 Ghosts 🎃

31 Days of Halloween: Day 28

FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY’S

PLOT SUMMARY: A troubled security guard begins working at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. During his first night on the job, he realizes that the night shift won’t be so easy to get through. Pretty soon he will unveil what actually happened at Freddy’s.

WHERE TO WATCH: Peacock or your nearest movie theater!

JAIMEE’S NOTES: This is a brand new movie that just came out yesterday! And as is the trend recently, it is based on a video game. Mike has sole custody of his little sister, Abby. I totally thought it was his daughter for the longest time. He also has a poster of Nebraska on his ceiling which may seem sad at first, but it gets much, much more sad. Mike got fired from his security job at the mall because he thought he saw a little boy being kidnapped and immediately beat the shit out of the guy, but it was just the child’s not so great dad. So since he is jobless, he is at a career counselor’s office. The career counselor, Steve, offers him a not so great security job at a Chuck E. Cheese/Gigglebee’s (that one’s for the South Dakotans) type place that has been closed for years. Mike is just supposed to keep people out, eventually he accepts the job. Mike has been struggling for years with the kidnapping of his brother, Garrett. He believes if he can have lucid dreams, he can remember what happened and who took his brother. Mike and Abby’s aunt is trying to get custody of Abby and he is trying to keep that from happening. Mike has some weird experiences at his new gig and eventually meets a nice cop lady, Vanessa. She explains that there were five children who went missing from Freddy’s and that is why is closed. They were never found. Meanwhile Abby has had some imaginary friends for awhile and Mike takes a closer look at her drawings. Turns out, Abby is a little psychic. She’s just like that little girl in Children of the Corn, draw girl, draw! We find out something super normal, the animatronics are possessed by the ghost children that went missing. Oh sure! And they….want….Abby. Mike has to try to save her while also trying to solve the kidnapping of his little brother. This must have been a hell of a video game, such a story! There were some twists and turns I didn’t see coming and overall I had a great time watching this movie. I mean, I might try to play the video game, it seems intense! And I think there are video game sequels? You know I love a sequel…

SCARY RATING: 3/5 Ghosts 👻👻👻

31 Days of Halloween: Day 27

THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT

PLOT SUMMARY: Three film students vanish after traveling into a Maryland forest to film a documentary on the local Blair Witch legend, leaving only their footage behind.

WHERE TO WATCH: Paramount+

JAIMEE’S NOTES: I love a “found footage” film. And Blair Witch is said to have revived found footage movies as evidenced by the many paranormal activities and the like which follow. The Blair Witch Project is also said to be the first movie that was marketed primarily on the internet. The first movie to go viral! They made a website for the film featuring faux police reports as well as interviews about the missing students. Because of this, lots of people would debate if the film was real-life or fiction. During screenings of the film, they also passed out flyers asking viewers to come forward with any information about the missing students. And to top it all off, the IMDB page listed the actors as missing, presumed dead for the first year of the film’s availability. In other words, they went super hard. At the beginning of the movie we learn that this is footage from three film students from 1994, Heather, Mike and Josh. They are making a documentary about the Blair witch which is a legend in Burkettsville, Maryland. Their first assignment is to talk to the townspeople and learn about the legend which include lots of stories about children and adults being abducted and murdered. Some people believe there is something out in the forest and that it is cursed, others say they are just stories. On day two, Heather, Josh, and Mike go out to the woods to begin filming there. They start to hear some little noises at night and see some weird things in that forest, piles of rocks and stick figures and such. At first they are capturing it all and kind of laughing at it and every day, they get a little more scared. Oh also, they get fucking lost. Like big lost. It’s the 90s, they don’t have a cell phone or GPS, they have a map that they fight over and a compass. This chaos creates lots of tension in the group and everyone is so angry. These people seem to kind of hate each other. Whatever is after them gets closer and closer to their tent every night and one night they wake up to find Josh is gone. Heather finds something disturbing and they start to hear Josh’s voice at night. This leads them to an abandoned building and…..yikes. I think some of the scariest parts of this movie are just the idea of being stranded in the woods with seemingly no way out and the idea of what could be happening. This is actually not a movie where you see a lot of things but it’s still a little frightening, especially if you were one of those people that thought it was real. This must be a big surprise to you then.

SCARY RATING: 3/5 Ghosts 👻👻👻

31 Days of Halloween: Day 26

THE BIRDS

PLOT SUMMARY: A wealthy San Francisco socialite pursues a potential boyfriend to a small Northern California town that slowly takes a turn for the bizarre when birds of all kinds suddenly begin to attack people.

WHERE TO WATCH: Peacock

JAIMEE’S NOTES: We are getting our Hitchcock on again! If you know me, you know I very much dislike birds so I expected this movie to be both gross and terrifying but also potentially hilarious. Killer birds circa 1963 have gotta be a little funny. Melanie is a rich lady in San Francisco who runs into a man named Mitch at a pet store. Mitch is looking for love birds for his sister’s birthday. She pretends to work there and to know what she’s talking about but he can see right through her. He says he knows her from court. Apparently she had to go to court for a practical joke? Damn girl, are you Ashton Kutcher? Mitch leaves and Melanie decides to stalk the hell out of him. She copies down his license plate number, gets the birds he wants and tries to deliver them to his apartment, but his neighbor tells her that Mitch goes to Bodega Bay every weekend. Melanie is off to Bodega Bay! Melanie is a crazy driver, she is all over the road. She is also super thirsty. She goes to a general store to ask where he lives and also the name of his sister. The clerk tells her to go to the school to get his sister’s name, it’s just that easy. Melanie goes to the school and meets the teacher, Annie. Annie makes it pretty clear that she used to date Mitch, okay girl. Melanie gets all her info and rows a boat to the house where Mitch lives with his mom and sister. She just barges right in and leaves the birds since she sees they are all out of the house. Mitch goes back in, sees the birds, and runs out to catch her. He has the most powerful binoculars ever and drives to meet her at the boat rental. On her boat ride back, she gets jacked up by a bird! Mitch takes her to the nearby restaurant to first aid her up and she says she was in town because she’s visiting her friend, Annie. Liar. Melanie briefly meets Mitch’s mother, Lydia, and he invites Melanie to dinner. Lydia does not seem pleased. Lydia is also all frazzled because something is wrong with her chickens. Apparently Melanie is a mainstay in the gossip columns and she’s doing some freaky shit, Mitch and mother have questions. Melanie is like I gotta get out of here, so she goes back to Annie’s and has some brandy. While they are talking a bird hits her front door and dies, yikers. Mitch wants Melanie to come to his sister, Cathy’s, birthday party the next day so she does. Everyone is outside having a good time and the birds start dive bombing the children! And then, something even more disgusting happens. They are sitting in the living room and birds just flood in through the fireplace, there are thousands. I would have had to move after that event. Lydia goes to ask her farmer friend about his chickens the next day and she finds him deceased in his home….suspect #1: birds. These birds continue to just attack the hell out of children and other groups of unsuspecting victims. Who has a gun around here!? This guy in the diner keeps saying it’s the end of the world. It is literally mass chaos, the birds even start a fire. Arsonist birds. A random woman at the diner is like this only started happening when you came to town, Melanie! And…she’s not wrong. Melanie and her green business woman skirt set got here like four days ago and neither have been washed. The birds come for Melanie at one point and Mitch is tending to her wounds. He’s like, “GET THE BRANDY!” And I agree, I’ve been saying for years, it cures all pain. One thing about this movie, we never find out why the birds are insane. They’re just like yeah well that sucks, I guess we live like this now. THE END! So great.

SCARY RATING: 2.5 Ghosts 👻👻 (Unless you have ornithophobia than it’s obviously more)

31 Days of Halloween *BONUS* TV Episode: October 25

FREAKS AND GEEKS S1: E3 “TRICKS AND TREATS”

PLOT SUMMARY: Halloween doesn’t go as expected for Sam, Lindsay, or their parents.

WHERE TO WATCH: Hulu, Prime, Paramount+, PlutoTV

JAIMEE’S NOTES: We come to yet another show I absolutely love! Freaks and Geeks is set in the 80s and focuses on the Weir family, Lindsay who is considered a freak and Sam who is considered a geek. The episode opens with Sam and his best friends, Bill and Neal, mixing weird stuff together in a blender and making one of them drink it. A classic pastime. Oh and it’s Halloween! Sam and Lindsay’s mom, Jean, is discussing Halloween with her kids. She’s expecting Sam to go trick or treating but he thinks he is too old now since he is in 9th grade. And she is excited for Lindsay to hand out Halloween candy with her. Sam’s English teacher says their essays suck and they need to grow up and read Crime and Punishment, this makes him not want to grow up. So he convinces Sam and Neal and their friend Harris to dress up and go trick or treating one more time. Lindsay is trying to hang with the cool kids, Daniel, Kim, and Nick, but she also feels bad ditching her mom. She then finds out that her friend Millie, who she thinks is a loser, has a boyfriend so she makes it a point to go on this double date with Nick. Lindsay ditches her mom for another favorite high school pastime, driving around! Those were the days! Jean is not having a good night, she made cookies as treats and the moms do not like her handing out unwrapped treats, oh and her daughter ditched her. Lindsay is also not having a good night, she’s getting into some shenanigans involving pumpkins, mailboxes, and eggs…..you know. And Sam is having the worst night. He gets embarrassed and beat up and also loses all his candy. This night is shitty for all. Lindsay eventually comes home and tries to make amends and Sam reluctantly decides, maybe it is time to grow up. To each of their issues, I feel like we’ve all been there in one way or another. For real, this show is great and there is only one season so I highly recommend watching it all! Also, I think my favorite part of this episode was Bill’s Bionic Woman montage. Just perfection, lol.

SCARY RATING: 0/5 Ghosts 🎃

31 Days of Halloween: Day 25

THE FACULTY

PLOT SUMMARY: When Casey Connor, Herrington High School’s newspaper photographer, witnesses the murder of a nurse and sees her alive again, he decides to investigate the bizarre happenings.

WHERE TO WATCH: Paramount+, Peacock

JAIMEE’S NOTES: We are headed back to my favorite place, a teen movie in the 90s. I am generally not one to be interested in alien movies but I will make an exception because we are starting with one of my favorite songs, The Kids Aren’t Alright….ominous. This movie is full of stars: Jordana Brewster, Clea DuVall, Josh Hartnett, Elijah Wood, USHER, Salma Hayek, Jon Stewart! Crazy. Onto the movie! The teachers are going cuckoo banana nut crazy. Something is in the water, literally. We meet all the students and it’s typical 90s high school cliques: popular kids and football players like Delilah and Stan, poor little Casey is a loser getting beat up, Stokes is a loner, and Zeke is a druggie. Casey finds something on the football field at lunch and brings it to his science teacher, they see it replicate and thrive in the water and then it bites their teacher. The rest of the teachers are getting weird as hell and Mrs. Brummel is slowly melting, you’ll know when you see her. Casey and Delilah try to investigate since they are on the school paper, they go to the faculty lounge to snoop and they see and hear quite the scene. Casey tries to tell his parents and the police but they all think he is crazy. Eventually our gang meets up to discuss and Casey thinks everyone is turning into an alien, nailed it! During this time, the teachers have been infecting the other students one by one. Our peeps get the fuck out of there and go to Zeke’s drug lab. Zeke is a little Walter White. Casey has a sample of the organism and they figure out that the drugs Zeke makes out of caffeine pills kill the aliens. There is a very tense scene where they have to figure out if any of them are aliens so they all do a hit of the drug just to make sure. They believe their next step is trying to find the host of the aliens and kill him or her, then it will all stop. It’s just that easy! But it is super hard to figure out, they are on high alert! Everyone else that is infected is just literally at the football game/playing in the football game and they are killing the other team, just infecting them and taking them out. It’s a rough scene for them. Will our main characters find the host before it’s too late!? Or are we all going to be aliens? I loved this movie, great cast, great twists, great 90s high school nostalgia.

SCARY RATING: 3/5 Ghosts 👻👻👻

31 Days of Halloween: Day 24

THE EXORCIST: BELIEVER

PLOT SUMMARY: When two girls disappear into the woods and return three days later with no memory of what happened to them, the father of one girl seeks out Chris MacNeil, who’s been forever altered by what happened to her daughter fifty years ago.

WHERE TO WATCH: Still in theaters and available to rent or purchase on demand today!

JAIMEE’S NOTES: Wouldn’t it be funny if they did an Exorcist: Belieber for those young girls who really love Justin Bieber? That is one thought I had when going to The Exorcist: Believer in theaters solo. When I first heard that they were doing a new exorcist movie, I was so excited! This was actually one movie where I was like oooh am I going to feel a little scared? A little jumpy? The answer…ehhh not really but I still had a great time and loved this movie! Victor loses his wife, Sorenne, tragically. She happened to be pregnant with their daughter, who does survive, so thirteen years later Victor is now raising Angela on his own. One day after school, Angela and her friend Katherine go into the woods to try to do a ritual to contact Angela’s mom. They subsequently go missing. When they are found, Angela and Katherine have no recollection of what happened and they start acting out of character and violently. Victor, along with Katherine’s parents, one of them being Jennifer Nettles of Sugarland, have to come together to figure out what is going on. They come to the conclusion that these ladies are possessed, YUP! Jennifer Nettles and her husband are very religious so they rely on their priest and God to try to help. Victor does not really have faith in anything anymore so he takes a different route and finds someone who has been through this before, that’s right, Regan’s mom, Chris! In the end, they find that they all have to come together to fight the demon. But things get a little crazy, it’s hard to plan for situations such as this….dun dun dun. One thing about the Exorcist (original and this one) great music. I love the scores of classic horror movies. This was the best horror movie I’ve seen in theaters in a while!…since Scream 6 and Halloween Ends. I guess I just can’t resist a remake…or a sequel, anything really. Go see this movie!

SCARY RATING: 4/5 Ghosts 👻👻👻👻