It's October 3rd, which means it's Day 3 of my 31 Days of Hallowe'en challenge, as well as being Day 3 of the 31 Days of Horror Challenge being hosted by Nightmare on Film Street. It's also day 276 of my One Movie A Day Challenge of 2023. And I can not forget to mention that I am also taking part in the 100HorrorMoviesIn92Days challenge as well. Yeah, that's a ton of horror movies this October season. I have to be honest with you, I hadn't really thought this all through when I joined them, and it really hasn't left me much time for anything else since.
First up, is my 31 Days of Hallowe'en. Now, I've mentioned before on here that in the past decade I've done a 13 Days of Hallowe'en that ran from the 19th to the 31st of October; that consisted of movie reviews, recipes and comedy skits. Those used to be posted elsewhere on my social media. But this year, I wanted to keep things a bit simpler. Hence, all the movie challenges. I'm doing these challenges this year, on this site and my Letterboxd.
Today's mini theme is Evil Clowns. I'm going to be brutally honest here, I had planned on a different evil clown movie for today's theme, but sadly when I went to watch it, it was no longer available on any streaming platforms. So I had to find another last minute. And I picked The Funhouse Massacre.
The plot is basically what you would expect. It's Hallowe'en night and a group of friends decide to go to the horror theme park. The funhouse has a true crime theme, and is designed to look like actual crime scenes of serial killers. No one is aware the criminals each attraction is based on have escaped their captivity and have made their way to the horror theme park.
This is a slasher film with a few killer clowns. I was drawn in by the poster sporting Robert Englund thinking he was going to be a main character; but sadly, his character only has about five minutes of screen time. That did not however take anything away from this movie. It's a typical Hallowe'en night slasher film just as you would expect. It's campy at times with intention, and very gory with even more intention.
It definitely hits all the major slasher movie killer tropes; with a couple of killer clowns, a cannibal chef, a taxidermist who uses live bait, a sadistic dentist and even a cult leader. I really want to say that they based the cult leader more on the character of the Joker from Batman than anything else, simply because of his dialogue. I might be way off on that, but the actor really just gives off that vibe.
Day 3 of the 31DayHorrorChallenge mini theme is Jamie Lee Curtis. I picked Halloween 2
This picks up right where the original Halloween left off. It's a few hours later and the character of Laurie has been taken to the hospital, but so has Michael. We are then treated to a game of cat and mouse, as Michael spends the rest of Hallowe'en night slashing his way through the hospital staff and patients.
I happen to like this one a lot. It has a few unique kills for the time of it's release. Again, we find ourselves watching a horror movie that has moments of humour tossed into the horror. Some of it on purpose, some of it not. But it works. The balance between pure terror and mild chuckles is perfect. I feel this film came out when horror movies were in their prime. When audiences liked having a little left to the imagination and not have to have everything spoon fed to them like so many horror movies as of late.
So, we have a bit of overlap with The Funhouse Massacre. As this one meats...er um I mean it meets the requirements for my 31 Days of Hallowe'en challenge and since this was the first time I've seen this one, it meets the requirements for the 100 horror movies in 92 days challenge. And my general One movie a Day for the year challenge, of course.
I'll be doing another progress update on the 100 horror movies in 92 days challenge later this week. That's where I let you know what I was disappointed with the most during the week.
Don't forget to come back tomorrow and see what new tricks and treats I have for you.
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