31 Days of Horror 2021 Day 01 Fantasy Island (2020)

 

TITLE-Fantasy Island

SOURCE-Starz Channel Airing off the DVR

Back on Valentine's Day 2020 Blumhouse released their Fantasy Island film. Taking the old tv show and making it into a horror film was an idea I liked. We planned on going. We are both huge horror fans and have spent a few Valentines Days at the theater enjoying a new horror film. But something happened and we just never went to see it.

Skip ahead to 2021. I had been building up a nice selection of horror films I had never seen on the DVR. Remembering how much we wanted to see Fantasy Island when it was in theaters I popped some popcorn. Turned off the cell phones and sat down to watch it.

The cast ain't bad. Michael Pena I knew from stuff like The Shield and Eastbound and Down. He is good as Mr Roarke. Maggie Q,took me a few minutes to realize it was her,does well in her part as the older businesswoman. Then the only other member of the cast I knew was Lucy Hale. And that was just because she was the lead on CW's short lived Katy Keene series.

Like the old show,which I tried to watch each week as a kid,a handful of people arrive at the island by plane and are told their wildest fantasies will come true. For most of the main cast this is simple nice stuff. But Lucy Hale wants to torture the woman that bullied her back in school. And the film starts to take a very dark twist.

The FX work ain't bad. I wish more of it was practical work. But the CGI that is used looks decent. While none of the cast are big names they all did great. With Jimmy O. Yang being a stand out. Before this I had just seen him in bit parts in film and tv and he was decent. In this film he is the stand out.

I see that the film got bad reviews but made almost 7 times it's budget at the box office. Now I wouldn't saw Fantasy Island was an amazing film. But for mainstream horror it was pretty decent. Worth catching on say Netflix or Hulu.

Fantasy Island gets a C+

31 Days of Horror 2020 Day 09 Pilgrim

TITLE-Pilgrim
SOURCE-Hulu

Last year in October I covered the film School Spirit. After getting Hulu right at 2 years ago I saw that Blumhouse was doing 1 horror film a month that was exclusive to Hulu. They were usually themed after a holiday in the month their premiered.

Since at least 85 I have wanted a good Thanksgiving themed horror. But the only ones I know of are that bad slasher with the Body By Jake guy,and the Thankskillings series. The latter isn't horrible.

Wanting more Thanksgiving set/themed horror I remembered Into the Dark. That is the title of the monthly series of films from Blumhouse.

One thing I have noticed is since Hulu considers this a TV series you will get like 3 or 4 ad breaks during the film.

Now yea the Into the Dark films usually get horrible reviews. The only one I had started before Pilgrim and finished was School Spirit,which was a fun but kinda by the numbers slasher set at a modern high school.

So Pilgrim.... Yea.....this was well it was a gory and in parts fun Thanksgiving themed horror. A stepmom,father,daughter and sickingly sweet young brother live in a nice neighbor hood. The stepmom invites some Pilgrim re-enactors to her big Thanksgiving party.

But these Pilgrims are strict strict puritans. And anything they find sinful or evil is killed in a bloody way.

Now sure the gore is well done and appears to be mostly practical effects. It is the acting and kinda dumb as fuck script.

Let me explain the dumb as fuck script a bit more. After the party where the Pilgrims come off as creepy, the mom invites one to stay with them.

This guy looks that insane from the moment he appears on the screen until his death near the end. Plus he loves to chew the scenery and just comes off as maybe he is small town theater guy getting his first shot at a legit movie.So ya the stepmom invites this nutty looking dude to stay with them until Thanksgiving.

Speaking of the dumb as dirt stepmom,there she is on the right in the stocks. Took me a bit to realize it is the actress that plays Daniel Larusso's wife on Cobra Kai. She is the only person in the movie I had seen before. And besides her just being totally obvilous to the creepy Pilgrim dude being uber creepy she isn't bad in the film.

The dad is the normal can't put work away when he is home dad you have seen in hundreds of things. Nothing he does stands out.

This lady is the other main pilgrim. She was staying with the daughter's boyfriend's family. Then kills them and then comes to live with creepy Pilgrim dude.

She was not bad really. Even if I still wonder how if these people appear to be human she survived a huge turkey needle to her brain.... There is a great scene where she is stalking the annoying little brother. And yea I was wanting her to kill him.

The stand out actor/actress in the film was the lady that played the daughter. She managed to play a fairly believable teen. And you could buy that she was smart enough to finally pull a fast one on the Pilgrims and manage to use tradition to kill them.

Yea the twist near the end,well the first of two,isn;t bad. Even if it was so obvious from about 35 minutes into the film. THe lead pilgrim is forcing the daughter and stepmom to help prepare the Thanksgiving feast. "No do not touch the ones with the green stems those and Jerusalam berries they are deadly."

Now he might have said cherries instead of berries,I didnt have the subtitles on. But Cherries makes less sense to me. Cause I always thought a traditional Thanksgiving feast item,one I dont eat,is cranberry sauce.

I hear him say this I knew it would be how the family,wasn't sure who all would survive,would defeat these evil ass Pilgrims.

The daughter manages to palm some of the deadly berries/cherries. Then places them in the bowl that she is mashing the non poison berries. But why did the Pilgrims bring the poison ones?

Now that final twist. When I saw what it was I laughed cause I wouldnt have seen it coming. Early on in the film the daughter wishes on a wishbone,for the THanksgiving day to be a disaster. All because her mother doesn;t like the guy she is dating.

The sometimes dumb as fuck script plus some of the acting being just janky hurt this movie. But the gore helped make up for those flaws.

Pilgrim gets a C+

31 Days of Horror Day 21 School Spirit

TITLE-School Spirit
SOURCE-Hulu

Back in early October 2018 Blumhouse signed a deal with Hulu. Each month a new horror film would premiere on Hulu as part of the Into the Dark tv show. I had been adding them each month to my watchlist...then never watching them. Plus rarely see anyone talking about them. So when I saw the above poster for the August release School Spirit I gave it a shot.

5 teens are in weekend detention the first weekend of their senior year of high school. It is your basic Breakfast Club stereotypes. With the big mystery being why Erika,the uber smart Harvard bound young lady,is in detention.

Fairly early on the teacher in charge of the bunch of kids leaves,seems he is a drunk and spends most of the film in his office stalking his ex-wife on Facebook.Once he leaves the kids get a bit rowdy. We find out that a supposed ghost is killing and kidnapping 2 students each year.

Then the kids stupidly split up and one by one get taken out by the School Spirit. Some OK kills. But nothing ground breaking. Just like the lead actors/actresses. Erika is the best of the group and she is a bit above average. The nerdy guy ,who SPOILERS is the killer,is the second best. Even if he over acts about half the time and by the 15 minute mark it is pretty obvious he is the killer.

What brought this above you average modern slasher is the few twists at the ending. We find out Erika is in detention and almost got expelled cause she tried to  bribe a teacher to change some A-s to As. But the big shocker is when after killing the killer is that she cheats all the time and isn't the innocent young lady everyone thinks she is.

Now this isn't a film I would buy. But it is worth seeing if you have Hulu. The kills are decent. OK acting and there is enough twists and changes to the standard slasher tropes that this is an interesting view to even some one that has seen piles of slashers.


School Spirit gets a C+