LOW BUDGET HORROR WEEKEND

I look back now to my late teenager years, back when I joined with my friends for all night sessions of sitting in a dark room to watch horror flicks, some good and most bad, laughing until the sun came up. If only then we had NETFLIX.. The amazing world we live in now is filled with the aroma of good films and funk. We can choose what we want.. on demand. Right now..

This weekend was just that type of weekend.. a low budget horror extravaganza. When my son Ayden went to sleep, of course..

In the past, I found some gems on Netflix worth watching again. Movies such as STITCHES, HAUNT, HAUNTER, and some others..

It was a ‘low budget horror weekend’ in my house..

I watched the movie PONTYPOOL last night for the first time in my life.. It was somewhat bizarre.. somewhat dull.. somewhat comical.. It’s a psychological horror about a disease infecting the town of Pontypool. The disease is the English language.. Most of the movie is from the basement of a church where a radio host Grant Mazzy narrates the end of his world.. Without giving away too much–as you may want to see it–the movie rated about a 3 out of 5 stars for me. It was slow, somewhat unnerving.. but for the most part it was finely made with the low budget that existed for it.. But there are some critical problems with it–as pointed out by the others who watched the movie with me and hated it. Maybe that’s why it ended up only making $1,500 during its opening night in Canada..

Maybe the movie HOUSE OF THE DEVIL is more your cup of tea.. it is also slow and unnerving, but the build up suspense scenes are much more intense and well done. The film is based on the theory that Satanic ritual abuse was real in the 1980s. In this movie, a college student takes a job to ‘babysit’ .. she finds out there’s no baby and there won’t be much sitting either. What I found most well done about this movie was that, despite being made in 2009, the movie had an 80s feel. It felt like we were watching something from that decade.. the filmmakers, despite a low budget, still were able to find vintage Coke cups and used lighting effectively to make your mind think you were watching something filmed 30 years ago.. Perhaps the most frightening character for several reasons in HOUSE OF THE DEAD was the very tall Tom Noonan.