Halloween Horror Nights pt. 2
we won't be at NYCC, we'll be haunting your local hayride and abandoned VHS shop
It’s true - we won’t be at New York Comic Con this year with all the rest of your favorites.
, however, will be, if you haven’t get picked up a copy of our HARLEY QUINN: GIRL IN A CRISIS VOL 1 or gotten yours signed yet! I think we’re still a bit out from any of my announcements, but I’m going crazy not being able to talk about what I’ve been working on, so let’s talk about something else!
That’s enough about comics. Everyone else is gonna talk about comics this week. This can be your respite, your safe space.
Let’s talk about horror movies.
HARLEY QUINN Vol 2: EYE DON’T LIKE ME TPB - 11.19.24
CREEPSHOW 2024 HOLIDAY SPECIAL - 12.18.24
THOUGHT BUBBLE - 11.12.24-11.17.24
CATWOMAN: NINE LIVES TPB - 12.03.24
HARLEY QUINN Vol 3: CLOWN ABOUT TOWN - 03.25.25
Last week, you all seemed to enjoy my horror movie reviews, so here are some more from me and a very special guest - my frequent co-writer, immortal beloved, and movie-watching partner
.
TINI: Hello Blake, my darling! Welcome to the Scorpio Room. Stretch out, stay as long as you like.
BLAKE: It's much roomier than it looks from the outside.
TINI: Much like the heart of a Scorpio herself. Glad you’re here to help me give the people some takes on what we’ve watched lately.
NOROI: THE CURSE
TINI: After sitting on this one for a few days, it’s my second favorite found footage horror ever? Nothing is really gonna beat the original [REC] for me, honestly, but this came pretty close.
BLAKE: Part of me wants to go into a digression about how a “found footage” movie is different from the way that phrase is typically used -- which... I guess I just sort of did. Regardless, this was an excellent horror movie, with genuinely creepy and unsettling moments!
TINI: You mean like, how ‘found footage’ means ‘footage that isn’t found and made to look that way?’ Like how ‘flammable’ and ‘inflammable’ are two seemingly opposite words that mean the same thing?
BLAKE: I didn't want to do this... Originally, “found footage” had more to do with the French philosophy of “found art” or objet trouvé. Basically, a filmmaker finds a box full of old home movies, splices them together to make a collage/compilation, or for use in a documentary. It isn't necessarily trying to tell a story. Nowadays, found footage means more of a diegetic use of video footage to create a “mock documentary” (as opposed to a mockumentary) that tells a story, typically of how that “found footage” was lost, to begin with.
TINI: That’s actually a fascinating distinction, thank you Film School.
VAMPS
TINI: Amy Heckerling writes a movie about vampires starring Alicia Silverstone and Krysten Ritter as roommates. It is not a good movie. And yet…? It’s so cute.
BLAKE: It has a lot of heart. Unfortunately, a lot of the jokes in this were done better in What We Do In The Shadows (both the series and the original film,) however, the ultra-femme perspective is quite different from other Vampire-themed movies, let alone comedies.
TINI: I think this movie might have changed my DNA had I seen it when it originally came out in -- wait, 2012? YIKES this movie looks cheap. I would have guessed ten years earlier. Oh, and I forgot about Justin Kirk in Eyeliner. That was good too.
BLAKE: Yeah, this is a low budget comedy with just embarrassingly bad visual effects. Compared to a low budget horror with cheap, yet effective CGI (see below.)
TINI: But I also don’t wanna pinch the adorable little cheeks of anyone in Hellboy (2024), so there’s that.
HELLBOY: THE CROOKED MAN
TINI: I think you appreciated this one more than I did. I’m a Hellboy fan and a practical effects fan and an indie horror fan, and this movie did a good job of scratching all of those itches, but something about it didn’t engage me like I wanted.
BLAKE: I root for an underdog, and this film is definitely one. In an environment where comic book movies are an arms race of “more effects, bigger budget, bigger stars, more epic storyline,” this was a welcome breath of fresh air. It's a great adaptation of a great story, and if you aren't put off by budget (I won't say “bad”) CGI, it's a great way to spend 105 minutes.
KING KONG (2005)
TINI: Three hours and twenty one minutes. I want to chide (King Kong director) Peter Jackson for that, but most of us have spent literal weeks of our lives watching the Lord of the Rings extended editions, so he had every reason to think we wanted a movie this long.
BLAKE: To be fair, this was the extended edition of King Kong. I think the theatrical release was just under three hours. However, I don't think audiences at large love King Kong as much as Peter Jackson does-- and maybe this movie was his attempt to change that. I love most of it, but there gets to be points where the slow motion shots and lengthy sequences of Naomi Watts gazing lovingly at a CGI Serkis-Ape just get exhausting.
TINI: Yeah - my biggest criticism is that for all this version fixes (giving the female lead a vaudeville background so she charms Kong with her humor instead of…whatever the original is doing), there’s plenty that it avoids fixing in the name of what feels like reverence. For example - there’s no thrust to Kong climbing Empire State, he isn’t forced up there out of need, he just…goes there and climbs it because it’s what King Kong does.
BLAKE: Well, he's climbing the building cause it's the tallest one around, and he's trying to get away from the army guys shooting at him from their technicals and ruining their ice-skating date. That makes sense to me.
TINI: Ugh. The ice skating.
BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE
TINI: This was technically pre-October, but as elder goths we ought to give our opinions, I think. I didn’t hate this at all? I’ve been literally dreading the release of it since it was announced and…I had a great time?
BLAKE: I love who Tim Burton used to be, and loathe what he has become (in an artistic sense, anyway.) I was fully prepared to hate this movie, and I was actually quite pleasantly surprised.
TINI: Remarkably restrained, honestly. The original really only gives you enough of the titular Juice to make you like the creep, despite it all, and this one does the same. I’m not sure why Monica Belluci intermittently appears to drift around in a beautiful gown, but I’m not mad at it.
BLAKE: This isn't a new take by any means, but it's one I agree with: the Beetlejuice sequel has been in development hell for decades, with multiple scripts and treatments. My guess is they took a little of this and a little of that from each script they liked. Unfortunately the result makes it a little disorganized.
WE LIVE IN TIME
TINI: Not a Halloween flick in the slightest, but we got invited to the premiere and when A24 says 'come over' you come the fuck over. It was a lovely event, I’m so glad I did! ‘Cancer movie' and 'romance' are low on my personal pick lists, typically, but Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh had so much chemistry, I was locked in.
BLAKE: Not too much for me to say about this one. It was fine. Perfectly serviceable as a film. I laughed. I cried. Etc. Not the type of movie I'd watch again and again, but I certainly don't feel as though my time were wasted. The popcorn was good.
TINI: The popcorn was excellent, as were the performances. I just prefer my horrors of the less realistic variety.
Coming up on the Scorpio Room: more horror movie chats, Part 0 of my writing process series (for paid subscribers!) and more, as I prepare for Thought Bubble.
What are you freaks (affectionate) watching this year?
Stay weird, talk soon 🎃
-TH 10.16.24 19:49
I saw an early showing of a pretty weird movie yesterday- "Your Monster". It was an (anti?) romantic horror-comedy. Not something I would've picked normally but was a fun indie film with Melissa Barrera.
Not me wanting to watch VAMPS now!!!