Horror is the pizza of movie genres. Even when it’s bad, it’s still pretty good.
Nobody likes to watch a bad drama. Boooring. And it’s painful to sit through a bad comedy and cringe through all the moments you’re supposed to laugh.
But a bad horror movie almost always delivers a few scares, some impressive practical effects, or performances so weak they give the film a campy charm. Horror is the realm of “2 1/2 stars and a heart” on Letterboxd.
Another reason I really dig horror movies is that they often result in entertaining, ambitious sequels.
I’m not talking about the dozens of Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street, and Friday the 13th installments — though some of those are better than others. I mean fresh takes on familiar properties that allow filmmakers to stretch their wings within an established — and they hope profitable — space.
I’ve seen a half dozen of these already this year, and they’ve all been worthwhile.
One of my favorite projects last year was my two-week deep dive into the horror genre. I enjoyed not only catching up on dozens of horror films from a variety of sub-genres, but writing about them as well.
I’ve watched another 58 horror movies since then (based on the Letterboxd classification) and I still have so many more on my watchlist.
Horror has quickly gone from a genre I avoided to one of my favorites. This week I’ll go into some of the reasons why.
We nearly had a Stevie Wonder two-fer this weekend, as the #1 song the week of October 27, 1984, was his ‘I Just Called to Say I Love You.’
But I featured that insipid track a week ago, so it’s just one Stevie Wonder song (a much better one) this weekend. Still, it’s impressive that Wonder was able to hold the #1 spot on the same week a decade apart.
Throwing back to the week of October 26, 1974, we find Dionne Warwick atop the Billboard Hot 100 with ‘Then Came You,’ covered here a couple of weeks ago.
At #2 was Stevie Wonder’s political screed ‘You Haven’t Done Nothin’.’ which would reach the top spot the following week before dropping out of the top ten. Wonder was backed up on this track by the Jackson 5, whom he calls out by name after the second and third choruses.
Meet Me In Montauk 