30 Days of Fright - Epilogue

And so to the end, but first things first: here are this year’s movies and their scores, plus this handy little guide to how to interpret the scores.

TTFD = Two Thumbs Firmly Down
TTD = Two Thumbs Down
OTU/OTD = One Thumb Up, One Thumb Down
TTU = Two Thumbs Up
TTFU = Two Thumbs Firmly Up

Year 3:
01 - Let The Right One In - OTU/OTD
02 - Final Destination - TTU
03 - Sleepy Hollow - TTU
04 - A Nightmare on Elm St. Pt. 3: Dream Warriors - OTU/OTD
05 - Hostel - TTU
06 - Omen 3: The Final Conflict - TTD
07 - I Spit on Your Grave - TTFD
08 - [REC] - TTU
09 - Slither - OTU/OTD
10 - The Lost Boys - TTFU
11 - Exorcist 2 - TTFD
12 - Doghouse - TTU
13 - The Descent - OTU/OTD
14 - Witchfinder General - TTU
15 - Friday the 13th (1980) - TTD
16 - Scream 2 - OTU/OTD
17 - Zombieland - TTFU
18 - Wolf - TTU
19 - The Howling - TTD
20 - An American Werewolf in Paris - OTU/OTD
21 - Brotherhood of the Wolf - TTU
22 - The Company of Wolves - TTU
23 - Ginger Snaps - TTU
24 - The Wolfman - TTD
25 - The Last House on the Left (2009) - OTU/OTD
26 - Lesbian Vampire Killers - TTFD
27 - The Evil Dead - TTD
28 - Twilight - OTU/OTD
29 - Friday the 13th (2009) - OTU/OTD
30 - 30 Days of Night: Dark Days - OTU/OTD

The Best:
The Lost Boys
The Lost Boys is an absolute gem of an 80’s movie. It hasn’t aged well and if you were of a cruel disposition you could probably have a good laugh at its expense, but if The Lost Boys was ever a part of your horror movie watching past then I strongly recommend a viewing if the chance comes up so that you can enjoy it all over again. It was easy to give this film the highest score available as it’s so much fun and nicely loyal to the vampire story.

Zombieland
I’d been told about how good Zombieland but I was stunned when I got the chance to view it as it lived up to the hype and then some. Zombieland is hilariously funny, well acted, with a good story and great action at the expense of the undead; giving it the highest score was easy peasy.

The Worst:
I Spit on Your Grave
Another God awful rape revenge movie. It’s weird how popular these movies were in the late seventies and despite how decent the remake of The Last House on the Left is I just plain don’t like the motivations used to justify the revenge component of these films.

Exorcist 2
Piece of shit made to try to deal with the controversy kicked up by the first film. The Exorcist is so good that it should have just been left alone, let stand as a single original piece of art.

Lesbian Vampire Killers
British horror-comedy had been doing so well in recent years that it was inevitable that something would go wrong eventually, and when it did go wrong, it did it spectacularly. Poor execution and a lousy script doomed this rotten pile of dirt to the lowest score available, and no amount of lesbians could save it from that shameful fate. Lesbians!

Special Mentions:
Two movies stood as out for me as worthy of a special mention despite the little failings that keep them from getting the top score. Ginger Snaps is a great modern werewolf tale that deals well with the obvious metaphor in the story. The acting was great, the story well developed, and it was utterly original. The second worthy movie is The Company of Wolves, a brilliant gothic retelling of the Red Riding Hood fable, and really arty in a good way! If you get a chance to see these movies you really should, but be ready to be challenged by them as well as entertained.

Final Thoughts:
I set out to do these little reviews in order to waste some time in the run up to Halloween and they’ve grown from that into an ideal annual opportunity for me to bleat on in a preachy, smart-arse way about films most people have never heard of. I hope that you at least cracked a smile once or twice while reading them, and that you maybe spared a thought for horror that you might not have only for them. Whether you did or not, I had my fun, and that’s all that matters!

The End.