It’s easy to forget that once upon a time “It” was the prime example of a master class in terror. In a world that’s largely forgotten TV movies, “It” broke all kinds of barriers when it came to primetime TV movies. TV movies were mostly safe melodramas and soft thrillers that were never really about staying power. “It” came along and showed the world that not only could they be an event, but they could be as immortal as theatrical films. You’d think a documentary about a legendary TV movie wouldn’t be prime for valuable film information, but “Pennywise: the Story of IT” disproved a lot of the cynicism I had going in to it.
Category Archives: Movie Reviews
Scooby-Doo and the Legend of the Vampire (2003)
“The Legend of the Vampire” is a bittersweet occasion. As it is one of the many, many “Scooby Doo” animated movies, it is also apparently the first Scooby-Doo movie to feature Casey Kasem, Heather North, Nicole Jaffe and Frank Welker together since 1973. The gang are back together to bring what is a pretty strong and fun mixing of the usual Mystery Inc. exploits and some great rock and roll music. Once again, we see the appearance of The Hex Girls who should, by all rights, have their own animated spin off by now. Ah well, a man can dream.
Black Pumpkin (2018)
I could definitely picture re-watching Ryan McGonagle’s “Black Pumpkin” down the line. If anything it’s so bathed in Halloween ephemera that it’s a decent bit of background sounds for the respective Halloween geek. What holds it back though is that there seems to be so much behind the narrative that we’re not informed on, thus there feels like a big chunk of the intend narrative is either cut out or missing. That’s due to the fact that “Black Pumpkin” is technically a sequel to the 2016 movie “Bloody Bobby,” later-released in 2021 as “The Legend of Fall Creek.”
So, it’s a sequel—kind of. But not really…?
Pumpkins (2018)
Director Maria Lee Metheringham’s “Pumpkins” is a film that would have worked so much better as a short form segment in an anthology horror film. As a feature length film, it falls painfully flat. Everything that needs to be resolved about the narrative is literally resolved in the first half hour. Everything else is merely filler that transforms what could have been an interesting revenge tale in to another slasher film.
Natty Knocks (2023)
With these indie horror films set during the Autumn or Halloween, the filmmakers often tend to forget that Halloween should be a spice, not the main ingredient. Dwight Little who is mostly famed for delivering “Halloween 4” give us a movie that is in essence a Halloween movie. And it’s a Halloween movie with a pale faced villain. But it’s not a movie with a certain pale faced villain because, you know, copyright and all that. What could have been a great Halloween flavored horror movie is essentially just a chore to sit through.
Barbarian (2022)
Director Zach Cregger’s horror dark comedy is one of the most unpredictable horror movies I’ve seen in years. After missing it in 2022 due to… circumstances, I’m glad I finally went in to it as blind as humanly possible. It’s a good thing to go in to “Barbarian” blind, because it takes the audience in to twists, turns, and spirals that they simply will not see coming. It begins as one kind of movie, turns in to another kind of movie, and then doesn’t stop shedding its skin to become a completely different kind of beast.
The Michoacan File (2023)
In this documentary, Mexican cuisine is front and center, from its history to its influence on other culture’s cuisine, the fight to get it recognized internationally, and how beloved it is.