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Debaser Film

Do the Right Thing

Still feeling a lot of emotions from watching this. Thirty years on, and this film still feels just as vital as it did back then. I loved the energy of Spike Lee’s early films, and it’s something I don’t really feel anymore from his recent output — I loved BlacKkKlansman, it’s a very well made film, but it just doesn’t share the power of film like this. Also, that opening credit sequence with Rosie Perez dancing to Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power” is still one of the best opening sequences in films ever.

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Debaser Film

Back to the Future Part II

After taking a bit of a break — in part to do my October horror marathon — I’m back for a second round of films from 1989, starting with Back to the Future Part II. I always quite liked this one, much more than the third. Sure, I’ve come to appreciate the third one a bit more now, but at the time it felt a bit lame to be stuck in just one time period, while this sequel goes all over the place, and is so much fun because of it. It’s of course also a bit funny to see that far future of 2015 depicted in that way, but hey, we’ve passed the setting of the original Blade Runner too, so that’s just how things are now.

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Film TV

Thrillin’ and Chillin’ in October 2019

As I did last year, I decided to do another horror marathon during the month of October, to put me in a proper Halloween mood. This year’s list of what I watched (see below) is a bit shorter than last year (20 vs. 27), but I think this year I ended up watching more TV series, which took up more time — and I ended up watching the second half (all made up of movies) during the final week of October. (I’m also watching more pro wrestling these days, so I imagine that affected things too.) So here then is the list of TV shows and movies I watched for this year’s marathon, and I can’t wait to do the next one — you’ll also find all my write-ups under the “October 2019” category.

  1. American Horror Story: 1984
  2. Annabelle
  3. Annabelle Comes Home
  4. Annabelle: Creation
  5. Ash vs Evil Dead (Season 3)
  6. Assassination Nation
  7. Costume Quest
  8. Creepshow (2019)
  9. In the Tall Grass
  10. Les affamés (Ravenous)
  11. Marianne
  12. Midsommar
  13. One Cut of the Dead
  14. Overlord
  15. Swallowed Souls: The Making of Evil Dead 2
  16. The Conjuring
  17. The Conjuring 2
  18. The Dead Zone
  19. The Purge (Season 2)
  20. Twilight Zone (2019)
Categories
Debaser Film

The Conjuring 2

And so the final thing I watched during this year’s horror marathon (20th on the list) is The Conjuring 2. I watched it on Halloween night, in a double bill with The Dead Zone. As I’ve written in previous posts, I’ve been enjoying watching all of the Conjuring franchise films, and this made for another fun watching experience. I prefer the first Conjuring film, but this was pretty good too, and the London setting made for a nice change of pace. Even though this marks the end of my horror marathon for this year, I do plan on watching the other two Conjuring spinoff films, The Nun and The Curse of La Llorona, soon.

Categories
Debaser Film

The Dead Zone

On Halloween night I decided that I would go with classics for my final movies of this entire month of horror, and first up on the agenda was The Dead Zone (I next was planning on watching the original Carrie, but ended up watching The Conjuring 2 instead). This is still quite a good movie, with great direction by Cronenberg (one of his very early films), and a nicely odd (but not too odd) performance by Christopher Walken. The best part of the movie is the final sequence, and having not seen this movie in decades, I’d forgotten the details of it so I got to enjoy it yet again. It has even made me want to check out the Dead Zone TV series that was produced in the 2000s, starring Anthony Michael Hall.

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Debaser Film

The Conjuring

So after watching all three of the Annabelle movies, I decided that I would next go and watch the two proper Conjuring movies. The Conjuring is the only movie of this entire franchise that I had already seen, but that was when it initially came out (2013), and so I found myself not remembering much as I was watching it. Also, after watching all those Annabelle movies, it made me appreciate a lot of things I was seeing even more, like the mentions of Annabelle (which I know actually came first, but still, it was fun to see). And the film itself is quite spooky and creepy, and I like that it takes itself fairly seriously — as I’ve mentioned in my posts for the Annabelle movies, it reminds me of those classics from the 70s like Omen and The Exorcist.

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Debaser Film

Annabelle Comes Home

So after watching Annabelle and Annabelle: Creation earlier in the day, I capped it off with the third film (that had come out earlier this year). I really did have a lot of fun watching this one as well, maybe even more than the other ones. I like the fact that it takes place almost entirely in the home of the Warrens (from the Conjuring movies), as well as the connection to those characters — much more than we get in the two other Annabelle films. Overall, I’ve had a blast watching this series, and wouldn’t mind seeing another one (that centres around Annabelle), although at this point I don’t really see where they could go with it, but I’d love for them to try.

Categories
Debaser Film

Annabelle

So after watching Annabelle: Creation (the prequel), I watched the first Annabelle proper. I quite liked this, maybe more than Creation, and thought it made for a nice take on the “creepy doll” genre — especially the idea that it acts as a conduit for evil, and isn’t just possessed. The other thing I quite like from these movies is that they’re all period movies, which makes for a nice change from a lot of the horror movies I watch — and I think it reminds me a bit of the classic thrillers and horror films of the 70s (Omen, The Exorcist, etc.) After watching this, I was quite looking forward to watching the third film.

Categories
Debaser Film

Annabelle: Creation

I’d been meaning to check out what is now The Conjuring franchise for quite a while now — I’d seen Conjuring when it originally came out, and liked it fine, but for some reason hadn’t gotten around to watching the sequel or all the spinoffs. Although Creation is the second Annabelle film, it’s a prequel, and so since it was the only Annabelle film on Netflix, I decided to start with this one. Overall, I liked it — it didn’t blow me away, but it’s creepy enough and I had fun watching it, enough to want to watch the other movies (which I ended up doing on the same day). I was a bit confused by what I saw at the end, but found it pretty interesting when I later found out that it was presenting what we see in the first movie of the series, but from a slightly different angle (I looked it up on Wikipedia, before watching the first movie proper).