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Film

Like it’s 1978

There goes another year-based movie marathon done and dusted (following: 1967, 1968197719851986, 1987). I was pretty excited to jump into 1978, as a lot of the movies I watched were pretty nostalgic for me. I ended up watching nine films (listed below), which I think acted as a good round-up of the type of popular films we saw that year — on the cusp of the blockbuster era, following 1977’s Star Wars).

You can take a look at all my short write-ups for each film by clicking below, or simply find them through the “1978” category. Next up: 1988.

  1. Animal House
  2. Damien: Omen II
  3. Death on the Nile
  4. Game of Death
  5. Grease
  6. Halloween (1978)
  7. Jaws 2
  8. Superman: The Movie
  9. The Lord of the Rings
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Debaser

The Lord of the Rings

The biggest memory I have around this film is when I was younger and we were planning on watching it, a friend was tasked with renting it, but accidentally got a wrestling tape called The Lords of the Ring instead (maybe he had just called to reserve it, without seeing the box). I’ve always had mixed feelings for this film. I do find it to be quite interesting and fascinating, and it is a well done retelling (albeit unfortunately cut short) of the Lord of the Rings saga — and I was quite surprised to see how Jackson’s film does in fact follow so many of the same beats as this earlier film. Where I have mixed feelings is with the aesthetics. The character designs are great, but I’m not a huge fan of rotoscoping when it comes to animation — it gives everything too much of a jerky motion, since it maps too closely to realistic movement — and so would have much preferred a more traditional animation style. But what I dislike the most is that they in fact eschew animation a lot of times (maybe for budget reasons) and so you occasionally get real actors with a slight color overlay — often suddenly and with no transition — and that’s something I don’t like. Where it does slightly work is with the orcs, since it makes them look so creepy (but I would still have preferred to have them properly animated). Still an interesting film to revisit though.

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Debaser

Grease

Grease is Grease. It’s still fun, it still has a fantastic soundtrack, it’s still cheesy and corny, and it still has its charm and a great cast. Grease is the word. Grease lightning! 

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Debaser

Animal House

To be honest, this was much funnier than I was expecting — although it probably didn’t hurt that I was drinking wine while watching it. Sure, it’s considered a classic (mostly because of Belushi’s presence), but I wasn’t expecting it to have aged well, and in a lot of ways it hasn’t (rampant sexism, etc.) But if you look at it as a product of the time, there are a lot of laughs to be had, and it’s fun seeing so many recognizable actors in one of their earliest roles. And yes, Belushi is fantastic, as crass and disgusting and weird as you remember him being.

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Debaser

Jaws 2

In one of my previous marathons I watched Jaws: The Revenge, the fourth entry in the series, and that was quite awful. This second one is definitely better, and at least also see Roy Scheider still there, but that said, as expected, it takes a bit too long to get to the fun stuff (i.e. the shark attacking people). When it does though, it’s fun, and even the way they defeat Jaws is pretty funny. Can’t say I particularly liked it, but it was still interesting to watch as a snapshot of that era’s blockbuster film/sequel.

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Film TV

Thrillin’ and Chillin’ in October

Over the past month I did something a bit different from the recent movie marathons I’ve been doing. Instead of focusing on a year or a particular creator, I did an all-out horror fest, mixing movies with TV series (I didn’t necessarily watch all of the episodes yet, but I did for most of them). With 27 titles, it made for the most intense October viewing experience I’ve probably ever had, and it was fun too — I can definitely see myself doing this again next year.

Below, a list of all the horror content I took in throughout the month — you can also find all the posts under the “October 2018” category.

  1. 1922
  2. Apostle
  3. Ash vs Evil Dead (Season 2)
  4. Bone Tomahawk
  5. Castlevania (Season 2)
  6. Channel Zero (Season 3)
  7. Down a Dark Hall
  8. Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter
  9. Ghoul
  10. Halloween III: Season of the Witch
  11. Hereditary
  12. Hold the Dark
  13. Into the Dark: The Body
  14. It Comes at Night
  15. Malevolent
  16. Oculus
  17. Pride & Prejudice & Zombies
  18. Summer of ’84
  19. Terrifier
  20. The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina
  21. The Endless
  22. The First Purge
  23. The Haunting of Hill House
  24. The Purge (TV series)
  25. The Purge: Election Year
  26. The Ritual
  27. Winchester
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Debaser

Terrifier

I liked watching this, even though I found it to be trash at the same time. It’s fully in the b-movie camp, with low-budget effects, but it manages to have fun with that, all the while being really gory — more than I was expecting — and with a premise that sounds pretty dumb and simple at first, but ends up being more creepy than it should be (I think in part because of the odd and frantic performance by the actor playing the clown/killer). Not for everyone, and not for every moods, but can be fun to watch if you’re in the right frame of mind.

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Debaser

Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter

I watched this in the context of the regular “Movie Nights” I organize at work — I pick a theme (this time was of course “Halloween”) and then create a survey for the team to pick the movie they’d most like to watch (choices were between this, Halloween III: Season of the Witch, Scream, Creepshow, and Trick ‘R Treat). I had an absolute blast watching it, but it was in a fantastic setting: a large room with a bunch of people, drinking beers and eating popcorn, and having a fun time commenting at things and joking while we were watching it. This is a ridiculously over-the-top film — with an oh-so-young Cory Feldman — and it’s quite simply one of the best examples of what 80s slasher films were all about.

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Debaser

Oculus

I really didn’t know much about this movie, but came across it on Netflix, and it seemed to be rated highly. It was a very pleasant surprise, as it ended up being quite good — certainly one of the better movies I watched in October. Great spooky premise — a haunted mirror — with an interesting buildup (trying to stop it from happening again through a series of contraptions) and then payoff. Really enjoyed this.

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Debaser

The Purge (TV Series)

As I mentioned when I wrote about watching The Purge: Election Year and The First Purge, I quite like this movie series, and the TV series has been quite good as well. I’ve only watched the first 4 episodes so far (it’s still airing weekly on Prime Video), so I can’t say if the payoff will be good, but I like how it manages to examine the purge from even more different types of angles (a death cult, to get revenge within a corporate setting, the relationship with the ruling party, etc.) I think it’s worth watching if you’re a fan of the movies.