SCHLOCKTOBER FEST 2020, VOLUME VI: THE FINAL CHAPTER (FOR REAL, THIS TIME)

 

29.  We Summon the Darkness (2020) / Director:  Marc Meyers

This picture starts off the same way a lot of 80s pictures start off.   Some girl friends are on a road trip through rural America.  In this case, 1980s Indiana.  The radio reports news of a string of slayings perpetrated by a Satanic cult.  Also on the radio, we heard some preachings courtesy of Johnny Knoxville's Pastor Butler.  Not on these girls' radio.  These girls are too cool for that shit.  They're so cool they're on their way to a heavy metal concert at some bumfuck venue well outside of Indianapolis, I'm guessing.   At the venue they meet up with three (possibly) creeps in a van.  These dudes want to party, drink, smoke weed (but not smoke it the same way that those Dead chasing granolas would smoke it), and maybe get lucky.  These dudes are Metal snobs.  Their conversation regarding first bands seen live, etc ("KC and the Sunshine Band have some bangers") are pretty fun.  They hit it off with our three leads and eventually agree to go back to Alexis' father's house (he's away).  Alexis is played by Alexandra Daddario, burgeoning scream queen.  Anyway, shit gets real back at the house where true motives (whose true motives?) are revealed and actors get to dig in and have fun.  Where the movie is going is pretty predicable early on but it doesn't really detract from the enjoyment.  All the actors are great and even kinda likable.  Bloody without being overly gory (headshots, stabbings, no entrails that I remember).  

30.  Hosts (2020) / Director(s):  Adam Leader & Richard Oakes

Hosts was a pleasant surprise.  It had better be since I paid $6.99 to rent it.  A really great little British Indy about just as bad a Christmas dinner as one could ever imagine.  The movie opens with a train coming home to station.  Jack (a conductor or guard or whatever they call them over there) departs the train and heads home, across a pretty vast field.  Along the way, he encounters a hunter with some ducks.  They talk about dinner tonight (Jack and wife will be there).  Jack goes home, enjoys some cozy time with his wife, Lucy or was it Lauren?  They hear something out back, Jack investigates, returns, finds L....something's off.  Cut to the home of their neighbors, the place they're going to dinner as the mom prepares the feast, the dad watches TV with son, other son and daughter are upstairs talking.  Normal family shit.  Very mundane.  Eventually, knock on the door...and in comes Jack and L.  They say nary a word.  No one notices a thing...or thinks it odd.  It's not like they're family.  They're fucking neighbors.  This family is so involved in their own drama that they don't even notice their neighbors sit silently, staring straight ahead, eyeballs glowing, etc?  When it comes, the violence is disturbing, intense, shocking.  What happened to Jack & L?  What secrets does this family hold?  What's with the TV and the tunnel thing?  Also, wait a minute...I literally just saw a movie earlier this year (during the Pandemic) where people were becoming possessed after watching some kind of tunnel thing online.  What the hell was that movie called?  Shit, it was called Wounds.  Is this part of that cinematic universe?  

31.  The Mortuary Collection (2020) / Director:  Ryan Spindell

Here it is, last of the month!  And, possibly, the best??  It's up there anyway.  I love a good anthology film and the key to a good one (see Trick R Treat for a recent, like decade old, example) is the wrap-around story needs to be good.  See Danzig's whatever it was called for how not to do this.  The Mortuary Collection is all set in the same town, Raven's End.  There's a morgue, run by an old Tall Man like Mortician named Montgomery Dark (?), played by Clancy Brown.  When a beautiful young woman walks into the morgue looking for employment, she challenges Montgomery to tell her a story that might scare her.  The stories progress from simple morality tales (maybe don't check the medicine cabinet when you're not in your own home??) to...well...I'm not good enough with words, really fucked up stuff.  They're all morality tales.  Maybe "don't get married" is one such moral?  Or, maybe it's the "maybe don't poison your wife  after she falls into a vegetative state because you want to move on with your life" type of moral.  Look for another solution, perhaps?  Open marriage?   I don't know.  Here's another one:  Maybe try not to be such a hypocrite when it comes to preaching safe sex for others but not for oneself?  Each story has hilarious moments, usually followed by gross moments.  I'm intentionally staying away from discussing more about these stories.  It's possible this one is on the level of Creepshow I or maybe just Creepshow II or was it Tales from the Darkside the movie?  

Happy Halloween!