Category Archives: Halloween

31 Days of Horror: Sinners (2025; R; 137 mins.)

Posted on October 17, 2025 | Leave a comment

Wow and wow and wow again. Sometimes there is a movie that is so incredibly well done that you want to watch it again just to revel in its perfection. That’s how I felt about Sinners, the long but worth it 1930s-era story of twin brothers who leave trouble behind in Chicago, returning to their southern hometown to open an R&B hall for dancing and drinking and gambling.

Taking place over the course of two days, the first half follows the brothers as they buy and fix up the old building, round up their music players (guitar, harmonica, etc.), spread the word in town, and kick off their opening night. But some unusual events soon converge to change the course of the night and the lives of all those involved in a way I never saw coming. With strong atmospheric storytelling; deep and dark historical, racial, and spiritual themes; and, eventually, true horror, this movie deserves a top spot in your 31 Days of Horror.

Top Scare: Door

Heartbeats: 3 out of 5

Gore Factor: 3 out of 5

Scare Factor: 2 3/4 out of 5

Recommended for: 16 or 17 and up

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31 Days of Horror: Viral (2016; R; 85 mins.)

Posted on October 14, 2025 | Leave a comment

Watching a virus-themed movie that was made pre-Covid when it’s five years post-Covid, some of the wearing-masks-as-bras, quarantine-breaking-parties, and yay-no-school jokes land a bit differently. But, this is a teen flick, so I didn’t have super high hopes anyway.

When Emma and Stacey, along with their teacher/virus expert dad Michael, move to a new town (their mom is flying in soon), Emma is slowly making new friends. Annoying older sis Stacey, with an attitude the size of the surrounding cliffs, has already found a plus-one, CJ, and is trying to set Emma up with neighbor Evan. News reports suddenly surface of a mysterious China-based outbreak. Soon, Emma’s only friend is infected, and Michael heads to the airport to retrieve their mother, leaving the girls with two very important instructions: no fighting and no boys. Hmmm. I would have thought the virus expert teacher would have said something about staying inside and washing their hands.

When the town is quarantined almost immediately, the girls are on their own. But don’t fear: within hours, supplies are airlifted to each and every household, including masks, food, flares, and other essentials! However, the girls are bored, so of course they head out to a local party. Connections are made. Friendships (and more) blossom. Mask bras are worn. That is, until an infected teen begins ravaging everyone there and the girls, along with CJ and Evan, must escape. With nearly 1/2 the movie left, of course they do, but are we sure they’re all still, um, pure? No, not in that way. As in, uninfected?

As the neighbors are taken over by the worm-like “things” and the military seizes control of the area (even forcing the girls to strip down for a check at one point), the teens continue to make questionable decisions (that pesky un-developed frontal lobe!). Will they escape the virus? Will Emma and Evan ever kiss? Is Stacey destined to always be the worst big sister ever? Will their parents ever make it back from the airport? Tune in to find out…if you dare care.

Top Scare: Infected’s Sudden Appearance

Hearbeats: 1 1/2 out of 5

Gore Factor: 2 out of 5

Scare Factor: 1 1/2 out of 5

Recommended for: 15 and up

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Posted in 31 Days of Horror, Entertainment, Halloween, horror, Horror Movie, Movies, Reviews, scary movies, Streaming, Teenagers, Thriller, Virus

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31 Days of Horror: Presence (2024; R; 84 mins.)

Posted on October 12, 2025 | Leave a comment

I enjoy slow-building, psychologically-bent paranormal tales, especially if they pick up speed and end with a big bang. This movie was defitinely slow-building, but in the end was not only paranormal lite, but the big bang lasted mere seconds. Such a disappointment.

When the Payne family moves to a new home for a fresh start after teenager Chloe’s friend dies, we slowly see the family’s life play out (the entire movie takes place inside the home from the ghost’s POV): mother Rebekah is a shady business woman and pushy mom; dad Chris is heartfelt and trying to be a good parent; older brother Tyler is a cocky athlete; and Chloe is distant, until she starts secretly hooking up with Tyler’s friend Ryan when no one else is at home. The presence residing in Chloe’s room soon reaches out to her before making itself known to the whole family. While the Paynes grapple with how to handle the “ghost” situation, we learn more about all these people, plus their motivations, intentions, things done in their pasts, and more, leading to a final thirty-second showdown and a ho-hum ending. This story had promise, but didn’t follow through with scares enough to be called a horror movie.

Top Scare: None

Heartbeats: 1/2 out of 5

Gore Factor: 1/2 out of 5

Scare Factor: 1/2 out of 5

Recommended for: 15 and up

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Posted in 31 Days of Horror, Entertainment, Ghosts, Halloween, horror, Horror Movie, Movies, Paranormal, Reviews, scary movies, Streaming, Thriller

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31 Days of Horror: Until Dawn (2025; R; 103 mins)

Posted on October 8, 2025 | 2 comments

I’m a sucker for time-loop movies (hello Groundhog Day!), so I wanted to give one a try in the horror genre. And coming from the director of Lights Out, I expected some good things. And while I didn’t LOVE the movie, I also didn’t hate it. It had some decent scares, but a bit too much gore for my taste.

After her sister Melanie disappears a year earlier, Clover and four of her friends take a road trip to the remote area where she was last seen. When they happen upon a visitor’s center that seems to not have been, well, visited, in a long time but still has electricity and the such, using teen logic, they start exploring. One of them discovers an unusual hourglass, one a notice board full of missing posters, and another a sign-in log with Melanie’s name written numerous times. Hmm. Might be time to get out while they can. But, very quickly they are gruesomely slaughtered one by one. Don’t worry…that was not a spoiler. Because they also quickly come alive again and remember what had happened.

As time moves forward, the group realizes they must avoid each progressively more violent slaughter long enough to not only learn more about how to find Melanie but also how to ultimately escape. They also realize this time loop has a “dead”-line in sight, that previous visitors who signed in never signed in more than 13 times.

Will they find Melanie? Will each friend survive each night to make it to dawn? Will they figure out the time loop? Will they escape this creepy visitor’s center and gruesome deaths? Time, and time again, will tell.

Top Scare: Underground

Heartbeats: 3 out of 5

Gore Factor: 4 1/2 out of 5

Scare Factor: 3 out of 5

Recommended for: 17 and up due to excessive gore

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Posted in 31 Days of Horror, Entertainment, Halloween, horror, Horror Movie, Movies, Netflix, Reviews, scary movies, Streaming

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31 Days of Horror: Junji Ito Maniac: Japanese Tales of the Macabre (2023; TV-MA; 12 Episodes)

Posted on October 6, 2025 | Leave a comment

Sometimes I’m looking for something completely different in my 31 Days of Horror, and boy, did I find it! My grown daughter introduced me to this adult animated series from the “horror manga maestro” Junji Ito, featuring some of his most bizarre tales. Bizarre, creepy, odd, disturbing…the list goes on.

For example, in “Hanging Balloon,” a beloved young idol is found hanging outside a building. Suicide? Murder? The fans and world are grieving, especially her boyfriend. When a local school girl hears rumors of the idol’s head floating in the sky as an apparition, she doesn’t believe it. But when the boyfriend, whom she knows, calls her and says yes, it’s true, come see, she does. There she witnesses the boyfriend climb a tree to be closer to the apparition, only to have a dangling rope with a noose on the end capture/kill him. Soon, the entire town is full of balloons floating with dangling nooses, each with the face of a townsperson it is meant to capture. The school girl hides, along with her friends and family, but how long can they hold out? Will they make it? Will she?

Besides creepy death balloons, other tales involve ice cream trucks, ancient burial sites, mold, tombstones, and many more topics, each turned into the twisted and macabre. In some, animated gore abounds. So if you are looking for something to watch in short bursts, while expanding your horror horizons, consider this unusual–but beautifully illlustrated–series from a master.

Top Scare: Different for each Episode

Heartbeats: Varies

Gore Factor: 3/5+

Scare Factor: Varies

Recommended for 16 and up

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Posted in 31 Days of Horror, Entertainment, Ghosts, Halloween, haunting, horror, Netflix, Paranormal, Reviews, Streaming, Television

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31 Days of Horror: Heretic (2024; R; 111 mins.)

Posted on October 3, 2025 | 2 comments

Kickoff to 31 Days of Horror Note: If you are not a usual subscriber to this part of my blog, know that it is in its 16th year and runs through October. Never fear: your regularly scheduled content will return after 31 Days of Horror.

What a great premise for a horror movie: two young, impressionable, and somewhat naive girls serving as missionaries are at their last home for the day, sharing their Good News with someone who has even requested it. He’s affable, genuine, and welcoming, ushering them into his home with the promise of fresh-baked blueberry pie and his wife hoping to join them soon.

Things start slow, letting us get to know the girls–Sister Paxton and Sister Barnes–and Mr. Reed (played in a standout performance by Hugh Grant). What are we learning? We’re learning about their beliefs, doubts, and hopes, and much more. Time ticks on. Slowly, gently. As the conversation takes unusual turns, the tension begins to increase. Mr. Reed’s promised pie and wife are still in the wings, and the Sisters are ready to cut their losses. But not so fast. The girls soon learn all is not as it seems and the true nature of their visit begins to unravel before them. As a devious game begins, unease begins to rise exponentially. As do the religious lessons and metaphors and creepiness.

Now, you thought you were in a quiet horror movie, didn’t you? But, you see, Heretic soon switches gears, becoming something different altogether. Weird, yes. Dark, definitely. Probing, of course. All the while, still asking the big question: “What is the one true religion?”

Top Scare: In Basement

Heartbeats: 2 3/4 out of 5

Gore Factor: 2 3/4 out of 5

Scare Factor: 2 1/2 out of 5

Recommended for: 15 and up due to gore

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31 Days of Horror: The Rental (2020; R; 88 mins.)

Posted on October 31, 2024 | 1 comment

In what was billed as a horror movie, this low-key yawn-fest had me actually using the vacuum while streaming it, I was so disinterested in its outcome.

When brothers perfect-Charlie and lazy-Josh, Charlie’s wife Michelle, and Charlie’s co-worker Mina (who is also dating Josh), decide to rent an extravagant oceanside house for a weekend, they arrive to find an unfriendly and odd host there to give them their key. As their weekend gets underway, they have to work first to hide Josh’s dog, which he wasn’t supposed to bring because pets are not allowed, then calm Mina down through various huffy fits she has because of the host’s seemingly racist attitudes. Deciding to liven things up with some drugs, Michelle offers them around before deciding she’s too tired after all and goes to bed. Okaay.

As the weeekend progresses and Mina discovers spying devices hidden in the rental–too late to hide some things that have already occurred–plans are formed and reformed among the four as to how to handle the host, secrets that are both kept and revealed, new threats, and more. In the end, viewers will learn who wins in this match of ho-hum and who-cares.

  • Top Scare: Car
  • Heartbeats: 1 3/4 out of 5
  • Gore Factor: 2 out of 5
  • Scare Factor: 1 1/2 out of 5
  • Recommended for: 16 and up

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31 Days of Horror: Blood Red Sky (2021; TV-MA; 121 mins.)

Posted on October 28, 2024 | Leave a comment

If you’re willing to invest over two hours on a paranormal-ish movie set 90% on an airplane, this might be one to give a try. I’m not saying it’s a fantastic horror movie, but it’s also not the worst you could choose, either.

Nadja and her son Elias are traveling on a transatlantic flight to New York so Nadja can receive medical treatment for an unspecified blood disorder. In the airport, Elias meets Farid, a kind fellow passenger who also likes science, and they strike up a bit of a friendship. As the flight gets underway, though, it is soon hijacked by terrorists, including a psychopath who is only too willing to kill anyone in their way, and the copilot, who redirects their flight to crash land in Europe (the hijackers have plans to escape by skydiving).

In a panic, Elias tries to take off and hide in a cargo hold, and when Nadja runs after him, she is shot and left bleeding on the floor. Farid and other passengers try to help both Elias and others who have been hurt already, while most of the terrorists are in the cargo hold trying to put the bomb together. This is where we flash back to an event in Nadja’s past, when Elias was just a baby, which caused her blood disorder, and also where we discover how her husband died. As the story moves back to the present, we see Nadja in a new light, and realize she is stronger than she seems, and might be able to save Elias and the plane full of people from crashing after all. But time is working against her, and she will need help from both Elias and Farid in order to be able to finally put an end to this terror once and for all.

  • Top Scare: Psychopath
  • Heartbeats: 2 1/4 out of 5
  • Gore Factor: 4 out of 5
  • Scare Factor: 3 out of 5
  • Recommended for: 16 and up

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Posted in 31 Days of Horror, Entertainment, Halloween, horror, Horror Movie, Movies, Paranormal, Reviews, scary movies, Streaming, Vampires

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31 Days of Horror: Don’t Move (2024; R; 92 mins.)

Posted on October 26, 2024 | 1 comment

Another day, another smart/clever/strong woman trying to escape a psycho man; this horror movie trope seems to be going as strong as ever with the new Don’t Move.

When Iris–who is still grieving the accidental fall death of her young son in the Big Sur mountains–heads back there to tend his makeshift memorial and “join him,” a man named Richard talks her down from the cliff (literally and figuratively) while sharing his own grief story. But Richard is not who he seems, and has soon injected Iris with a paralytic that will take twenty minutes to fully render her unable to move or talk, as he drives her back to his cabin in the woods for a little one-on-one weekend.

During this window of time however, Iris is able to use a hidden Swiss Army knife to free her hands and cause Richard to wreck, eventually escaping into the woods. As she counts down the twenty minutes, growing slower and less able to function, Richard stalks her. He’s already told her all about “the others,” so she knows what awaits her if she isn’t smart and fast and resourceful. Using every bit of serendipity, luck, and strategic planning that either comes her way or she creates over the next hour or two as she waits for the paralytic to both fully kick in and then fully wear off, Iris fights to not only escape Richard, but to also reclaim the life she’s decided she wants to live after all.

  • Top Scare: In Cabin
  • Heartbeats: 2 1/2 out of 5
  • Gore Factor: 2 out of 5
  • Scare Factor: 1 3/4 out of 5
  • Recommended for: 15 or 16 and up

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31 Days of Horror: Till Death (2021; R; 88 mins.)

Posted on October 25, 2024 | 5 comments

What’s more romantic than a surprise getaway to your lakeside house filled with lit candles and rose petals for your 11th anniversary? Well, definitely not awakening in bed the next morning, handcuffed to your controlling husband, as he lifts a gun and kills himself, then discovering he has thought of everything: landline is out, cell phone destroyed, all the drawers in the house are empty. Oh, and it’s the dead of winter far away from others, only your wedding dress is in the closet, and he’s left notes and other fun discoveries for you throughout the house.

Of course, being the badass survivor you already were after being attacked years ago (that’s how you met your lawyer husband after all, during that mess), you’re determined to survive this too. But wait, did that horrible husband of yours also include others in this revenge plot of his? Yes, yes he did. And did you say “revenge”? Yes, yes I did. See, he knows about him. And he’s maybe not the best person to begin with, either. When you put those together with some other stuff going on in his life, it all adds up. And, though he may have thought of most everything to get his revenge, you decide you also deserve your own bit of it as well. And you’re smart and strong and gutsy. So if you play your cards right, you just might show him who’s really in charge in the end.

  • Top Scare: Chase Scene
  • Heartbeats: 2 1/4 out of 5
  • Gore Factor: 3 out of 5
  • Scare Factor: 2 out of 5
  • Recommended for: 16 and up

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