2024 Halloween Horror Marathon Reviews (Week 5)

Here we are in the final week of the Halloween Horror Marathon! For an introduction to this article series check here. For the rest of the previous weeks check here, here, and here.

October 27: Zombeavers (2014) dir. Jordan Rubin

This movie was far funnier than it had any right to be. They took a stupid premise but injected it with enough crass, well-timed humor that it’s actually kinda worth seeing. You can tell the actors are having a good time with the script. The practical effects are kinda fun. The characters are all douchebags that you kinda root against but at the same time are just dumb college kids that you can’t help but hope learn something from this experience they can take forward in life. (They won’t but y’know.) There is a good amount of nudity and that kind of stuff in here but it’s mostly merited due to the type of thing it’s going for. It’s not that interesting on the horror front but as a goofy, trashy comedy with blood and gore, it’s totally fun, especially with a group of folks to laugh with.

October 28: The Others (2001) dir. Alejandro Amenábar

This movie had pretty terrible sound mixing. It’s far too long, slower than it needs to be, and not as interesting as it could be. It’s an unnerving drama rather than a full horror movie but that can be okay. Like there is a pretty good idea in here but it’s just buried in poor execution. Some parts build tension pretty alright. Its twist is pretty interesting but it comes in the last few minutes and everything leading up to that isn’t the best watch. A shorter film with like audible dialog that doesn’t just drag forever would have probably been good. However, we didn’t get that. It was just freaking out in a house and being an overprotective (and also not that good) mom. Not really that worth giving a watch.

October 29: Barbarian (2022) dir. Zach Cregger

Ow. Uh. I don’t know if there is anything I can say about this movie without saying too much. Just watch it. Know as little as you possibly can about it. Don’t read the Wikipedia page I linked. If you’re into horror movies that ow, just watch it. Wow.

October 30: Hocus Pocus (1993) dir. Kenny Ortega

This movie is truly one of the movies of all time. I mean, it’s got the Halloween vibe down pretty nicely in terms of its visuals. Most of its visual effects are passable enough (well, besides the CGI cat anyway). The practical effects are done well enough. Zombie Man works pretty well as does the wiggly spellbook eye. The movie is kinda nonsense otherwise. It’s got some jokes here and there. Some of the laughing we did was probably at those and most of it was at things I don’t know if we were intended to laugh at. It’s really one of those turn-on and kinda zone-out types of things. The narrative isn’t very good. Stuff just happens with little-to-no explanation. At a few points, it’s almost Christmas-movie in structure. Sometimes the actors are just making gibberish noises. It’s like… jingly keys for babies with a spooky coat of paint. Unless you already have nostalgia for it, it’s probably not that worth watching.

October 31: HAPPY HALLOWEEN

We don’t watch a particular movie for the 31st. We get together and just watch various Halloween specials throughout the day so rather than trying to review any of those, I’m just gonna write a conclusion to this article series. This was a fun little writing exercise throughout October to keep my writing muscles in use since I’ve been drawing a bit more this month. Also great practice for having opinions on things since I’m a little prone to just not having many feelings about my experiences. I don’t usually get to be around for every movie when we do this for Halloween, so that was a nice thing too. It gave me a reason to be there, hang out every evening, and socialize some. I probably won’t do this again next year but I enjoyed doing it this year. HAPPY HALLOWEEN!