Today is day 277 of my One Movie a Day for 2023. You can follow along with me on my letterboxd list. This means it's Day 4 of my 31 Days of Hallowe'en challenge and also Day 4 of the 31 Days of Horror Challenge that is being hosted by Nightmare on Film Street. And I would be frightfully remissed if I forgot to mention the 100HorrorMoviesIn92Days challenge that I have been part of since August.
Jumping right in, my 31 Days of Hallowe'en challenge theme for today is Kid's Hallowe'en. I decided to watch My Grandpa is a Vampire.
The plot follows a young boy who's grandfather has just died and while at the funeral, learns that their family are actually vampires. The boy and his best friend need to hide his grandfather from the neighbours as the grandfather tries to decide if he wants to stay a vampire or not.
On the surface, this feels like a typical comedy, but it's actually a really clever way to deal with the topic of grief. There is a scene at the beginning of the movie, where the boy and his friend actually see his grandfather in his coffin and refuse to believe he's dead. From there, it becomes a slap stick comedy, as the two young boys run around town with grandpa, leaving it up in the air as to if he's really a vampire or if the kids are imaging it. This reminds me of the film Weekend at Bernie's which I also thought towed the line between comedy and light horror.
Day 4 of 31DayHorrorChallenge mini theme is Set In Space. I picked Jason X.
The plot follows a woman, who in 2010 had just helped to capture Crystal Lake killer Jason. As she is preparing to put him into cryogenics, he attacks her and her team, killing everyone but her. She manages to turn on the cryo-pod but sacrificing herself in the process. Fast forward 400 years, and both Jason and our heroine find themselves thawed out on a space station. Jason, now revived, once again goes on a killing spree.
I was really surprised at how good this was given the absurdity of the idea. This movie was released at a time when almost all the horror franchises were taking their main villains to space. And this one works. At this point in the franchise, there wasn't really much else they could have done with Jason. So the idea of dropping an undead killer onto a space station and letting him run havoc was the right choice.
You have the typical tropes of trapped in a closed off environment and no one from the outside being able to get to your victims in time. There is a feeling of urgency because of this that you normally don't get from one of these films.
I am going to admit something, the Friday the 13th franchise is my least favourite of the horror icons. Even learning that it's connected to the Evil Dead franchise, it still lacks something for me.
Come back tomorrow and see what's gotten caught in my web and what other tricks and treats I've got for you.
Yorumlar