Movies I Watched - Halloween 2026
All of these were part of the Super Saturday Movie Club, whose monthly theme this time was Halloween, comprising movies #42 to #46.
Oct 3 - Suspiria (1977)
Watched it for the first time on Wednesday, April 8, 2020, and was blown away. This time around I was a bit less wowed by the colours and oneirism, but it's still a hell of a movie. Now that I have seen quite a few more movies I can see just how scrappy and sorta shoddy the production is; this could have been a shitty made-for-TV style boring schlockfest, but there's genuine creativity and heart here. The kind of movie that has me going "man remember when movies were allowed to have colours?" repeatedly. And of course the soundtrack is great, etc, everyone knows that. 8/10.
Oct 10 - The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
Watched it for the first time on Wednesday, June 23, 2021, and unlike Suspiria it is exactly as great as I remember it. I think a lot of people have a hard time with the tone here, because it's not quite funny enough to laugh at consistently - it's not that kind of movie - but if you go in with that mindset it can also not be as scary.
Personally, while I recognise that there is humour in the movie, I think it's a cynical, cruel, violent humour that increases how harrowing the experience is. The dinner scene really will make or break the movie; I can see why someone would laugh along at that scene, but personally I find the cuts back to Sally and her reactions so heartfelt that I can't find it just humorous. The whole movie is like that to me. Really the only flaw would be that the chase scene is far too long, but it brings such a visceral physicality to the movie that I can't even fault it. 10/10.
Oct 17 - Sleepaway Camp (1983)
An odd, surprisingly cute and heartfelt little movie. It's shot like a TV show, primarily being made of close-ups, reaction shots, and wide shots centred on the action, and the soundtrack is not very memorable at all (I cannot remember it as I type). But the heart of the movie really is in the writing, there's funny characters surprisingly realised for a slasher. I don't really understand why people are still attached to it nowadays to be honest, I would have understood if someone was raised in the 80's and saw it for the first time and had a flash of queerness straight down their mind, but in the new 20's? I don't get it. It sounds like the kind of movie people like discussing a bit more than watching, but it is nevertheless a good movie. 7/10.
Oct 24 - Under the Skin (2013)
Going in I had a few different opinions from this movie. Jo Doctor said it was a war crime and one of the lamest movies ever made, while Louis the Garamondian said it whipped and was actually really good, as said one of my buddies. Personally, I'm really not that invested in this movie one way or the other. I do find it beautifully shot, with a lot of digital shots of streets and such that are nice; the acting is also a standout, it goes for a very naturalistic style that I had a hard time figuring out who was a professional actor and who wasn't, as the movie incorporates bystanders. It also reminded me that Scarlett Johansson is actually gorgeous, she was done extremely dirty in those Avengers movies which made me forget this.
No, the acting and the cinematography and the soundtrack (which I found ok and nothing to write home about, but people apparently go insane for it as it is incorporated in such a way that it spells out plot points through music, an interesting choice) weren't my issue, but rather just the writing and concept. It's way too obtuse for its own good and it features one extremely corny element involving the Adam Pearson character teaching our protagonist empathy through his disability which is like... come on man. It also goes way too broad, it's not actually interested in being about gender or womanhood or anything of that, but rather about a broader human experience, and that works to its detriment imo. In My Skin just does most of what this does except better, even if shot in a worse way. 7/10.
All Hallows' Eve - Spider Baby (1967)
This is a movie-ass movie. If it has any themes or subtext I'm sure I missed it, because what else do you really need for a movie? There's really good actors chewing the set with endearingly hammy acting (I miss when you could understand what actors were saying), it's shot very well and looks CRISP because it's from the exact time period when B&W cameras were at their absolute peak (see also The Battle of Algiers) mixing in some techniques that were emerging and would be more codified in the 70's with the more static frame from the 60's, and it's funny.
Weird Writer was alternating over thirsting over the characters or saying how heartwarming and endearing the relationship of the Addams Family is the whole movie, but that doesn't move the needle on my enjoyment; my favourite character by far was the extremely normal man who doubles as the narrator, the most archetypical upbeat 60's American man ever who remains unfazed and cheerful through it all, and as far as I'm concerned it's a funny movie about a house with crazy people that kill guys in it. 9/10.
