First Time Watches: October 2020

When you watch a movie for the first time, you likely have some expectations about it. You’ve seen trailers or heard something from friends about the quality of the movie. Rarely do you get to a theater or look at something on a streaming service and go “Hey, I’ll check out this movie I know absolutely nothing about.” Everyone goes in with some sort of knowledge.

The thing is, first time watches never match those expectations. They are always a little bit off. That’s part of why I like to single out my first time watches. I like to share what I thought about movies when I first saw them. It helps give myself some context about what went into feeling that way, though, in many cases, I don’t explain the context at all. It makes me feel better, though. That’s what matters.

October 2020 was filled with first time watches. Not as many as there could have been, but enough that I can make a post without it being a single page Word document. I saw fourteen movies for the first time. There was a trilogy of slasher flicks directed by women. There were a few international horror movies. There was some spooky sports action. There was even a movie that has become a recent Halloween classic for horror fans. I went through all that and more. You’ll read about the movies, starting right now.

The Slumber Party Massacre

In September, I finally subscribed to Shudder, a streaming service that primarily featured horror movies. It was something I had put for a while, thinking that I didn’t need to subscribe to another service. But I’m a horror fan, so it was only a matter of time before I gave in. When I logged on, I saw that they had a list of horror movies directed by women. All three Slumber Party Massacre were on there and I’d never seen them. I decided to give them a shot. The first was a fairly standard slasher where a maniac killer was on the loose and the slumber partying girls just happened to fall victim to him. There were a few fun moments and good camerawork, but nothing to really make it stand out from the pack.

Slumber Party Massacre II

I wouldn’t venture so far as to say that this was a better movie than the first. It wasn’t. It was messier. It didn’t feel as refined in the slasher genre as the first one. The story wasn’t nearly as solid. But it was more memorable, which made for a better experience and a movie I’m more likely to revisit. One of the survivors from the first film experienced PTSD as she went on a trip with her friends. At their getaway vacation house, they practiced their music. See, they were a band. One problem was that a rock and roller killer that haunted the main character’s dreams broke free of the dream world and started killing them with a guitar drill. Mayhem ensued. This one was just ridiculous fun.

Hubie Halloween

Adam Sandler made a Halloween movie for Netflix. What could go wrong? Not much, really. If you’re into Adam Sandler comedies, you should be into this. It was a hoot. Many of the Sandler regulars popped up. Hubie had a thermos that was like the Inspector Gadget of thermoses, and it made for some interesting action. The best part, though, was a pointed commentary about Halloween costumes. Specifically, it was a joke about the abundance of women who dressed up as Harley Quinn for Halloween. That made me laugh. Anyway, this one is a recommendation.

The Platform

I had heard a couple things about this Netflix movie and how it was thematically similar to Snowpiercer. And, yeah, that was a valid point. There were some thematically similar things. However, there were some major differences as well. The Platform set out to show that people would be happy to screw over other people for their own benefit. If they could feel some form of superiority to others, they would. Only a few people wouldn’t take the opportunity to cause others harm. And it was all done in the form of a platform of food moving through a tower. Some good performances helped it become an easily digestible movie. But I probably won’t revisit it.

Puppet Master

It makes sense that this became a long-lasting franchise. It started with a group of psychics being brought together at a hotel after the death of one of their own. They were then harassed by the puppets of an old puppeteer, brought to life through some form of necromancy. Those puppets were killers and took down the psychics one by one. One puppet could punch hard, another had a drill head. One had knives, and another spit out leeches. They were interesting puppets that made for interesting slashers. Obviously, there was going to be a sequel. Or two. Or ten.

Slumber Party Massacre III

The third Slumber Party Massacre movie toned things down. It brought back some form of reality. A group of girls were being killed by an unknown murderer who turned out to be a crazed maniac with a drill. There was no guitar. There were no rock tune interludes. It was a simple slasher flick that felt like most slasher flicks. It was even less memorable than the first because it didn’t share the same interesting cinematography.

Lake of Death

I checked this one out to get some foreign horror in, since I was still doing my travel the world through movies thing in 2020. It was a Norwegian cabin in the woods type of movie. A group of friends went to a cabin by a lake where the brother of one of the friends died a year before. Strange things started happening and the friends turned on each other. There wasn’t much that really stuck out about the movie. One of the characters was a podcaster, but the rest of them were the basic blueprint characters of any horror movie. It could have been much better.

Full Moon High

Sports horror is tough to find, but I managed to speed through three of them in a row. The first was Full Moon High, a movie about a star football player who took a trip to Europe and was attacked by a werewolf. His turning led to his father’s death, so he skipped town for twenty years. Then he decided to return to town and try to win the football game he never got to play in, while also dealing with the werewolf stuff. It was a b-movie comedy and was kind of perfect in that sense. There were some funny bits, though it was very much of the era it was made. This could probably get remade and do pretty well. It’s not like Teen Wolf. Don’t worry.

Linnea Quigley’s Horror Workout

The second sports horror in a row, this was a workout video. It was a chore to get through. You might think that was because it was a workout video, but let me tell you, the workouts were barely workouts. It was mostly just Linnea Quigley doing “sexy” workouts where she thrust her hips or stuck out her tits and ass. It was all titillation and no substance. I don’t know what I expected from a movie that involved working out with zombies, but I thought it might be taken a little more seriously. A little. Not much. Just a little. There was also a twenty-minute chunk where Linnea Quigley just danced on the side of a pool with zombies, so that was a thing. And it did turn into a slasher for about two minutes near the end. So that was there too. But it wasn’t good.

Ahockalypse

Sports horror didn’t end there. I had one more sports movie infused with horror to watch. This time it was hockey and zombies thrown together. It wasn’t a good mix. There is sure to be a good zombie hockey movie somewhere in someone’s mind. This was not it. This one involved a hockey team fleeing from a horde of zombies. They were separated into two groups. The first was most of the team and some relatives and romantic interests. This was the large group that got whittled down as the plot drove forward. They weren’t fun to watch and any attempt they made at comedy fell flat. The other group was the team mascot and a couple women. They weren’t in too much of the movie, basically just being used as a cutaway while the main group needed time to pass in their story. This group was the more entertaining one, having the fighting skills to make some decent action scenes with the zombies. Overall, this one should have been swept out of the sports horror series.

Nosferatu

I don’t know what it is, but I can’t seem to ever get into Dracula adaptations. I want to like them more than I do. I really do. But something about every film adaptation I’ve seen (okay, it’s only the classic Universal one and this one) doesn’t quite land for me. I get disinterested fairly quickly. I’ll end up trying this one again at some point, like I keep retrying Dracula. I want to love them. I will make myself love them, eventually.

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night

Vampires are a big part of horror and a big part of American culture in general. Something they’re not a big part of is Iranian culture. This movie was set in Iran. The dialogue was Persian. And it was directed by Ana Lily Amirpour, an Iranian-American director. It gave the vampire tale a new, refreshing voice. So many vampire movies are romances where a woman falls in love with a vampire, or movies where vampires are monsters that must be stopped by the white man. This was different. It was a sort of crime drama that just happened to involve a vampire woman. It wasn’t sexual. It wasn’t violent for violence’s sake. It was just a drama with a vampire involved, which was nice to see.

WNUF Halloween Special

One of the more recent Halloween classics has been WNUF Halloween special. I don’t know how much longer it will be a classic, though. The movie was based on the concept of a local news special broadcast. I don’t think many of the kids growing up now, or coming of adult age, are watching much local news. That means that when they see this movie, if they see it, they might not understand what the movie was going for. As someone who watched some local news, I got it. But if I didn’t watch local news, I don’t think I’d be as interested. It’s good. But it’s very niche.

The Nun

I finished off the month with a triple feature at the drive-in. It kicked off with I Know What You Did Last Summer and finished with Halloween. Sandwiched in between was The Nun. I’ve come to the conclusion that I shouldn’t watch movies from the Conjuring universe at the drive-in. They’re so dark, visually, that it’s tough to make out what is happening on screen. This was a little easier to make out than The Curse of La Llorona, but it was still tough to see a lot of what was going on. Though, that could also be because I need a new prescription for my glasses. I’ll figure that out soon.

 

That brought October to a close. It was a scary month that began with a first time watch about a serial killer going after slumber partiers and ended with a first time watch about an evil nun going after a bunch of religious people. It was a month filled with horror movies because it was spooky season. What else would I watch during spooky season?

November brought more first time watches, though with fewer scares. I saw Jexi for the first time. I went back to Disney+ for the Disney Channel original movie Alley Cats Strike. I also saw Whip It and The Velocipastor. But those are movies for the next month’s post. They’re movies that will get their own time to shine in a first time watches post. You can come back soon to see what I have to say about those.

Before you go, however, I’ve got a few plugs. I write about bad movies here and Power Rangers here. I’m on Twitter here and here. I’m on Instagram here, here, here, and here. Yes, there are four accounts now. If you’re tired of my babbling on, you could always check out my pal, Jaime. Great guy. There’s also Talk Film Society, who do great things. Writing and podcasts. Back in January, Marcelo Pico did an article all about his top movies of 2020. Check that out and check out anything else they do on that site. I’ll see you soon for another post.