With Stephen King’s “The Boogeyman” now in theaters and wreaking havoc, I thought it’d be fun to take a look at five great horror movies for nyctophobes. If you’re terrified and absolutely petrified of the dark, these five movies use the darkness not just as a plot device, but as their primary setting. Things that go bump in the dark are what these movies thrive on offer some pure terror, and I highly recommend them as chasers for “The Boogeyman.”
Tag Archives: Aliens
Destroy All Monsters (1968)
The Japan Society will host the “Destroy All Monsters” 55th Anniversary Screening at 7 pm on Friday, June 16th. Tickets will be available at japansociety.org/film. This screening will take place at New York City, inside Japan Society’s landmarked headquarters at 333 East 47th Street, one block from the United Nations.
I admit to being one of those people that used to kind of zone out during the human parts of the “Godzilla” movies and then really pay attention during the big fights. I’ve always liked “Godzilla” but “Destroy All Monsters” has always evaded me for some reason. When I used to watch it on network TV it never aired, and I always had a hard time finding it on VHS. “Destroy All Monsters” is basically the “Avengers: Endgame” of its time. It’s the all out assault of giant kaiju duking it out and wreaking havoc on Earth, and director Ishiro Honda throws in everything but the kitchen sink.
Extra Terrestrial Visitors (1983) [Blu-Ray/CD]
Full Disclosure: This title was purchased at our own discretion from Severin Films.
Wackiness ensues as an alien meteor housing crash lands in to a forest. Then there’s a weird little boy named Tommy who collects bugs all day. Then there’s a pop band that goes on vacation in the woods. And there’s an old couple in the woods living in a cabin. The aliens are now on the loose in the forest. And there are these armed poachers hungry to kill some animals. And then Tommy (Óscar Martín) finds an egg that he realizes is an unborn alien. Said alien, nicknamed “Trumpy,” is desperate to get back home. How will these hilarious storylines converge? Will Trumpy consume mankind?
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023)
Director James Gunn commits to a very interesting fear in avoiding the third film curse by shifting a lot of the focus for his odyssey of the Guardians of the Galaxy. Rather than continue on the journey of Peter Quill, Gunn focuses on the more problematic characters that have entered in to the Marvel Universe. Throughout the trilogy we’ve only know a bit about Nebula and Rocket Raccoon. We know that they’re in essence hard heroes to understand and cope with and Gunn gets down to the nitty gritty and give us compelling back stories. Along the way their back stories allow us to garner a further understanding as to why they relate to the other characters as they do.
BAD MOVIE MONDAY: COMMUNION (1989)
Today’s review is for one of my favorite movies of all time. (I know, I know… I’ve said this before, but in my defense I’m old and I love a LOT of movies.) COMMUNION stars Christopher Walken as Whitley Strieber, Lindsay Crouse as Anne Strieber, Frances Sternhagen as Dr. Janet Duffy, Andreas Katsulas as Alex, and Joel Carlson as Andrew Strieber. It was directed by Phillipe Mora based on Whitley Strieber’s best-selling nonfiction book of the same name. Now, perhaps I’m completely in the wrong here, but I am legitimately baffled as to why this movie isn’t more popular. It is FAR superior and FAR scarier than the similar FIRE IN THE SKY, which is usually what people bring up when they’re talking about terrifying alien abduction films. Now, I know what you’re thinking. If I like it so much then why am I reviewing it on BAD MOVIE MONDAY? Well, because for some insane reason it’s considered a bad movie. Most critics at the time dismissed it and audiences have been ignoring it for over thirty years. So I suppose this review is my attempt to remedy that.
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Legion of Super-Heroes (2023) [Blu-ray/Digital]
It’s weird that after “Battle of the Super Sons” that DC and Warner would choose to adapt “Legion of Super Heroes” as their new feature. It feels like one of their least consequential animated movies in years. It doesn’t take place during the timeline of the Super Sons, and it rushes through the entire introduction of Supergirl. Plus, there seems to be a whole chunk of story missing as Superman seems to have a boom tube device that can warp in to the future to visit the Legion of Super Heroes. When did he get that? How exactly did he get that? Why did he assume Supergirl would have an easier time in the far future than she would in present Earth?
Kids vs. Aliens (2023)
I’m a big fan of the “V/H/S/” movie series and one of my all time favorite segments is Jason Eisener’s “Slumber Party Alien Abduction” from “V/H/S/ 2.” It’s a chaotic, and creepy segment about aliens literally crashing a slumber party. So I was elated to see that director Jason Eisener of “Hobo with a Shotgun” was adapting that segment in to a virtual loose remake called “Kids vs. Aliens.” Suffice to say he and co-writer John Davies not only does justice to the previous short form segment, but might have just built an epic series.