Halloween Team 2016 Debrief

Just like last year the gang assembled to do Halloween right.  We each took a turn picking a Halloween movie to show the rest of the team.  The results were fun and eclectic.

Eric, dubbed the King of Halloween, ended us right last year with his pick, What We Do in the Shadows.  He had the honor of starting this year.  His pick, The Frighteners (1996) featuring Michael J. Fox in his last live action starring role to date.  I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't this.  It was much more slapstick and goofy than I expected and yet it was scary at times.  Some of the humor flopped and Jeffrey Combs' character was completely unnecessary, but overall it's weird tone and unexpected turns won us over.  We all agreed we were never bored and it did capture that elusive Halloween feel.  Solid Pick.

Next was Sally's turn.  Last year, she showed us Psycho which I don't think anyone had seen.  It was great.  This year, she stuck with the Hitchock vibe and showed us Shia LaBoef's take on Rear Window, Disturbia (2007).  This was a weird, 90's-esque teen thriller and we all got in to it.  (Sometimes for it's badness and sometimes for it's nail-biting sequences.)  I'm sure if Sally had her way she would have shown us a truly terrifying movie, but some of us (#me) can't handle that.  I remember wanting to see this movie back when it came out, so it was nice to finally do it.  It wins points for it's truly spooky climax.

It was my turn next.  Last year I went classic with The Wolf-Man.  I went slightly more contemporary with Nicole Kidman & Daniel Craig in the most recent update of Jack Finney's Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Just dubbed Invasion (2007), this plays as a moody, low-key Zombie movie.  I like it because it does a good job of updating the story while staying true to the original.  It's slow march to destruction is tense and well-paced.  It was more Halloweeny than I expected, even having scenes set on Halloween.  It loses points for Daniel Craig's unfortunate and beguiling hairdo.

Kendra's pick was a movie I've long wanted to see, Murder By Death (1976).  This has been on my list of to-watch, mostly because of my love for Peter Falk & Neil Simon.  Unfortunately they didn't deliver. It had funny moments, but it mostly came across as dated and trying to hard.  This movie falls into that category of "things you loved as a kid, but should never revisit in adulthood."  We've all felt the sting of that.  (I'm looking at your Helen Slater's Supergirl.)  Regardless, I'm glad we watched it because now I can strike it off my list.  Plus, it was nice to experience every cringe-worthy thing Peter Sellers did surround by squirming friends.

We ended on one of my favorite spooky movies.  Hilary's pick was the Harrison Ford/Michelle Pfeiffer supernatural thriller, What Lies Beneath (2000).  Hilary and I first watched this together when we were dating and neither of us had seen it in over a decade so we'd forgotten most of the twists and turns. To me this is the perfect Halloween movie.  It is just exactly the right amount of scary. Eric was reluctant to watch this because the trailer spooked him back when he was watching the first X-men movie, but he came around.

All in all, it was a pretty successful run.  I have no idea what to pick next year.  Maybe Primal Fear...

(As a bonus you can tune in to All the Books Show to hear Eric, Sally and me discussing all things Halloween.)