When a Stranger Calls (1976)

IMDb plot summary: A psychopathic killer terrorizes a babysitter, then returns seven years later to menace her again.

Directed by Fred Walton. Starring Carol Kane, Charles Durning, Tony Beckley, and Ron O'Neal.

Most synopses indicate this is the babysitter's story, but it really isn't -- while her pieces of the story are by far the most compelling, she's actually only in the first 30 and last 15 minutes or so of the movie. The middle hour is a tedious play-by-play of the murderer's trek through the city and the private detective trying to find him and abruptly announcing at one point that he's going to kill him because, as he says, "The closer I get to this guy, the more he gets to me. I don't know." Gotta love a protagonist who's like, "I dunno, this person bugs me, guess I have no choice but to murder him." Nothing in the movie ever measures up to that first half hour, which is well-executed and feels like an Internet creepypasta in the simplicity of its horror. After that, it's a steep drop downhill, with a sloppy attempt at recapturing those early scares at the end.

How it entered my Flickchart:

When a Stranger Calls < Broken Embraces

When a Stranger Calls > An Ideal Husband

When a Stranger Calls > The Rescuers Down Under

When a Stranger Calls > Dr. Seuss on the Loose

When a Stranger Calls < Steamboat Bill, Jr.

When a Stranger Calls < Happy Gilmore

When a Stranger Calls > Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm

When a Stranger Calls > An American in Paris

When a Stranger Calls < The Subject Was Roses

When a Stranger Calls > The Ramen Girl

When a Stranger Calls < Where the Red Fern Grows

Final spot: #1786 out of 3250, or 45%.

When the Lights Went Out (2012)

IMDb plot summary: Poltergeists attack a family in Yorkshire during the 1974 nationwide blackouts.

Directed by Pat Holden. Starring Kate Ashfield, Steven Waddington, Craig Parkinson, and Tasha Connor.

This is not at all a new premise, it's not even the first movie with this plot that I've watched this month, so the question is does it do anything different with it? Well, almost. Early on the family reveals to the media that they have a ghost and start getting tourists who want to see the ghost house, and that seems like a really interesting route for the movie to go... and then that entire plotline just gets droppped. And in fact, a scene or two later, the family is suddenly having to re-convince each other that their home is haunted. This happens a LOT in this movie -- it sets up an intriguing conceit for the next part of the story which then vanishes like it never happened at all. It's one of the most frustrating movies I've seen recently because it keeps turning the corner toward something new and original and then it not only chickens out but continually retcons itself, like the scriptwriter decided to delete that scene from the final script and wrote on without it, but the director filmed it anyway. As a result, it ends up being a strange, tangled mess that mostly just goes back to the same bland tropes over and over again without any kind of narrative consistency.

How it entered my Flickchart:

When the Lights Went Out < Broken Embraces

When the Lights Went Out < As Good As It Gets

When the Lights Went Out < Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

When the Lights Went Out > Sweet Home Alabama

When the Lights Went Out < Herbie: Fully Loaded

When the Lights Went Out > All the King's Men (2006)

When the Lights Went Out > Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines

When the Lights Went Out > The Incredible Hulk

When the Lights Went Out < Vera Drake

When the Lights Went Out > Live a Little, Love a Little

When the Lights Went Out < Tab Hunter Confidential

Final spot: #2953 out of 3249, or 9%.

Onibaba (1964)

IMDb plot summary: Two women kill samurais and sell their belongings for a living. While one of them is having an affair with their neighbor, the other woman meets a mysterious samurai wearing a bizarre mask.

Directed by Kaneto Shindô. Starring Nobuko Otowa, Jitsuko Yoshimura, Kei Satô, and Jûkichi Uno.

This is a very slow build up to a nicely creepy ending twenty minutes or so, and I'm not sure the payoff was quite worth it for me. I didn't particularly care about any of the characters, and conceptually it doesn't really kick off until at least halfway through, if not more. It does have a very atmospheric score, which I very much appreciated, creating a very uneasy tone even when nothing much is actually happening. It does look like there's a fair amount of social and political commentary happening throughout this that I just don't have the context to fully appreciate, aside from general anti-war sentiments. I wish the whole thing was condensed down to a 20- or 30-minute short, but as is I found my attention wandering frequently during most of the movie.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Onibaba < Pitch Perfect 2

Onibaba > As Good As It Gets

Onibaba > Spinning Into Butter

Onibaba < The Deer Hunter

Onibaba > Iron Eagle

Onibaba > My Sassy Girl

Onibaba < The Browning Version (1994)

Onibaba > Wedding Crashers

Onibaba < Frosty the Snowman

Onibaba < Deep Red

Onibaba > Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery

Final spot: #1862 out of 3248, or 43%.

Velvet Buzzsaw (2019)

IMDb plot summary: A satire set in the contemporary art world scene of Los Angeles, where big money artists and mega-collectors pay a high price when art collides with commerce.

Directed by Dan Gilroy. Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Rene Russo, Zawe Ashton, and Tom Sturridge.

This is a strange, sterile movie where every character has three layers of cool detachment, and that makes these paintings that murder people feel like the *most* alive things in the movie. The horror itself spirals a little too quickly for my taste, but there are some really great pieces, including a very dramatically satisfying death in the movie's final moments. And more than that, I very much enjoyed observing this world and the ins and outs and the drama between competing galleries trying to lure artists to them and the art critic constantly being solicited to write favorable or unfavorable reviews... It's a great setting for the story. It's not perfect by far, but you can see the seeds of something great hiding in here, and it's definitely one of the more unique movies I've seen this month.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Velvet Buzzsaw > Broken Embraces

Velvet Buzzsaw < My Name Is Joe

Velvet Buzzsaw < Kill Bill Vol. 1

Velvet Buzzsaw > My Favorite Year

Velvet Buzzsaw > Junebug

Velvet Buzzsaw > Isle of Dogs

Velvet Buzzsaw > 12 Years of Slave

Velvet Buzzsaw > The Parent Trap (1961)

Velvet Buzzsaw < The Terminal

Velvet Buzzsaw > Death to Smoochy

Velvet Buzzsaw > Hugo

Velvet Buzzsaw > Spanglish

Final spot: #1225 out of 3247, or 62%.

Event Horizon (1997)

IMDb plot summary: A rescue crew investigates a spaceship that disappeared into a black hole and has now returned...with someone or something new on-board.

Directed by Paul W.S. Anderson. Starring Laurence Fishburne, Sam Neill, Kathleen Quinlan, and Joely Richardson.

This is such a strange movie because, on one hand, there's a sense it wants to be Solaris, prompting big philosophical questions about guilt and the past and alternate dimensions, or Alien, a dark edge-of-your-seat survival thriller, but it also has SO MANY moments that are shot and edited and sound designed so comedically that it undercuts both the attempted thoughtfulness and the attempted dramatic tension and keeps landing in the campy B-movie circle, particularly in the final third. It's hard to tell what anyone was actually going for in the end with this, but I ultimately kind of enjoyed the goofiness of it, particularly Sam Neill's performance toward the movie's ending. It's a mess but kind of an entertaining one, you just can't take it quite as seriously as the filmmakers (maybe?) hope you will.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Event Horizon < Broken Embraces

Event Horizon > Persona

Event Horizon > Innocence Unprotected

Event Horizon < Plan 9 from Outer Space

Event Horizon > I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore

Event Horizon > Blow Out

Event Horizon < Camp Rock

Event Horizon < My Blueberry Nights

Event Horizon < The Sasquatch Gang

Event Horizon < Harry and the Hendersons

Event Horizon > Manhattan

Event Horizon > My Sassy Girl

Final spot: #1873 out of 3246, or 42%.

Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994)

IMDb plot summary: A demonic force has chosen Freddy Krueger as its portal to the real world. Can Heather Langenkamp play the part of Nancy one last time and trap the evil trying to enter our world?

Directed by Wes Craven. Starring Heather Langenkamp, Miko Hughes, David Newsom, and Wes Craven.

This is a fun departure from the series in that it's a meta movie *about* Heather Langenkamp, the actress who played the first movie's sole survivor. Wes Craven, Robert Englund, and other real-life movie people involved in the series also appear as themselves. In this version, Freddy is a real-life evil that can be contained in movies for a short time, so now they have to make another movie to contain him again. Unfortunately it's more fun as a concept than it is as an actual movie. The film is less than two hours but it drags, and it's much less clear than the first movie (the only other one I've seen in the franchise) exactly what our central character is supposed to do to defeat Freddy. Mostly the movie seems to be relying on the various sequences of creepy dream deaths to carry the movie, and one or two of those are pretty effective, but they frequently feel isolated or unconnected from the larger narrative -- like we're just waiting to fulfill our quota of creepy interactions before we can have the final showdown. It's a great idea for a sequel/reboot, but it didn't sell me on the series.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Wes Craven's New Nightmare < Broken Embraces

Wes Craven's New Nightmare > Persona

Wes Craven's New Nightmare > And Then There Were None

Wes Craven's New Nightmare < Plan 9 from Outer Space

Wes Craven's New Nightmare < How to Rob a Bank

Wes Craven's New Nightmare < Run Lola Run

Wes Craven's New Nightmare > The Hurt Locker

Wes Craven's New Nightmare > Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer

Wes Craven's New Nightmare > On a Clear Day You Can See Forever

Wes Craven's New Nightmare > Real Genius

Wes Craven's New Nightmare > Nowhere Boy

Wes Craven's New Nightmare > The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009)

Final spot: #1978 out of 3245, or 39%.

Train to Busan (2016)

IMDb plot summary: While a zombie virus breaks out in South Korea, passengers struggle to survive on the train from Seoul to Busan.

Directed by Sang-ho Yeon. Starring Yoo Gong, Yu-mi Jung, Dong-seok Ma, and Su-an Kim.

Zombie movies are everywhere, but I find these zombies absolutely terrifying, coming to life with a viscerally unpleasant bone-cracking sound as their joints twist into unnatural-looking positions, and the speed and fury with which they charge at their victims only adds to that terror. It's hardly the first film to do fast zombies, but I think it does do them particularly well. The characters are also frequently intelligent, coming up with smart ways to survive long enough to get from point A to point B. The movie has a pretty powerful emotional center over all, though when it falls, it falls HARD, with a couple of almost cringeworthy sentimental moments -- for example, at one point the small child lectures her father with, "You never think of anyone but yourself. That's why Mommy left!" But these are short-lived missteps, and the film definitely regains its footing and ends on a strong note. This and other disease-themed movies certainly hit differently in 2020 than they would have 2016, and I find myself reacting more strongly to the message of camaraderie being both risky and necessary for survival. Overall, I liked this quite a lot and am glad I finally got the push to watch it.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Train to Busan > Broken Embraces

Train to Busan > Chronicle

Train to Busan > Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation

Train to Busan < Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

Train to Busan > Ernest & Celestine

Train to Busan < Babe

Train to Busan > Bicycle Thieves

Train to Busan < A Ghost Story

Train to Busan < Across the Universe

Train to Busan > Chaplin

Train to Busan > Guardians of the Galaxy

Train to Busan < Pygmalion

Final spot: #272 out of 3244, or 92%.