Last month, I lamented that I had only seen ten movies in the span of an entire month.

I went on a September TEAR to make up for that!

So let’s get straight into the first half of September’s recommendations.

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MOVIES

Seventeen days, twelve movies. That’s more like it. I kind of blew up in the last few days of August, man. And those ratings are all over the map: I had no consistency for the last two-plus weeks! It all ended up and a respectable average of 3.2 overall.

At the low end of things, we had new big studio horror releases in Malignant and Candyman. I scored Candyman 0.5 higher, but I 100% ENJOYED Malignant’s lunacy more. Neither were great. I went into depth on Malignant here. For transparency’s sake on Candyman, I never saw the 90’s original, so a lot of the new one left me bewildered. I left the theater with a LOT of questions. Narratively, it was an unfocused mess. The acting was fine, but not enough to save it.

Next up looks to be the 2009 reboot of My Bloody Valentine. This was a surprisingly decent movie that hurt itself with its obsession with being in 3D. Its FULL of those gratuitous “IT’S COMING RIGHT AT YOU” type shots that made 3D so damn unwatchable for ages. It does a surprising number of things right, but those 3D moments were taking me all the way out of the experience.

A bunch of flicks in the 3-star range, mostly horror. The Night House I actually saw IN THEATERS and have already forgotten all about. It was a decent enough horror movie–great mood, very creepy, good acting–that just fell apart when it had to get to its resolution. It not only DIDN’T stick the landing; it broke both femurs on the attempt.

Here Comes Hell and Dawn Of The Beast were both Shudder watches if I recall correctly. HCH is a weird cross-section of a 1930’s Universal horror flick and Evil Dead… with a sprinkling of Ready Or Not. It starts very slow, but after I powered through the first 25 minutes or so, it got crazy enough to be fun and worth its runtime. There are some impressive extended crane shots, too. Speaking of Evil Dead, DotB rips off its 2013 remake almost wholesale… but then it has such a bonkers hard right turn in the third act, that it slayed me. It’s honestly comparable to Malignant, but made for much less money.

John Cena followed up THE Suicide Squad with another R-rated effort in Vacation Friends, and while I am loving his embrace of this vulgar Anti-Cena, I am curious to see if he will get a chance to spread his wings at all. Maybe he did in the last F&F movie, but I haven’t seen it yet (and heard it was awful). The movie had some good laughs, but nothing amazing. Cena was the star.

Jason X was a recent rewatch as I keep trying to make my friends watch Jason Movies. I’ve gotten them through Parts 2, 3, and X with them so far. That’s a weird trilogy, man, but X was free, and I couldn’t convince them to order $3 for a Jason, even when I offered to pay for it. If you want to hear me gush about Jason X, click here. I mean… he just wanted his machete back.

Jason X is better than Part 4 anyway. I SAID IT.

I’d never seen Black Christmas before now, and I continue my COVID-era endeavor to watch all the Horror classics I missed out on somehow. Reportedly the first ever Slasher picture, I was pleasantly surprised by how well this held up. Some really creative scene cuts, and a lot of good drama.

How awesome is Arnold Schwarzenegger, guys? Both Kindergarten Cop and True Lies are as great now as they were when they came out. I kind of want to go on an Arnold spree now. I have several other of his movies on my playlist still, so… maybe I will!

Oh, and Shang-Chi.

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VIDEO GAMES

I’ve moved on from Fallout New Vegas to Fallout 4, which is… NOT taking advantage of that damn PSNow subscription I bought. Fallout 4 was the first physical game I bought when I got my PS4. I somehow never got far into it, finding it somewhat tedious compared to the PS3 entries (Fallout 3 and New Vegas). I didn’t WANT to build water pumps for people! I WANT to get murdered by Cazadors over and over!

Mods are fun, though. I installed a bunch of mods so that I can cheat. I know that’s lame, but you know what else is laming? Building a bunch of water pumps. Plus, I’m not making myself immortal. Just making so I’m not scrounging in every locker to survive.

I mentioned my New Vegas character was Jubilee. I took the Power Armor thing in this game more seriously and went with Tony Stark. Plus, it really fits with all the “Sarcastic” responses you can give.

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READING

I mean… not much. Did you see all of the movies I’ve watched lately?

I have continued getting through my Wizard Top 100 list, as you can see here. I’ve gotten the next chunk (75-71) read, too, but you’ll have to wait until that article publishes!

I picked up the first two issues of Symbiote Spider-Man: Crossroads, even though I never read the first few series in the SSM run. I didn’t realize that it was one continuous story, but it also doesn’t seem like I’ll have needed those to get what is going on here.

Mostly it’s Black Cat drawn by Greg Land, so… I’m in. Felicia is written like a putz in this series, but to be fair… it takes place in the era where she WAS a putz, so I guess it makes sense.

I’ll at least finish this Crossroads mini and see what I want to do from there.

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And that’s it for September’s opening salvo! Let’s see if I can keep this movie pace up. I’m at 137 on the year. If my math is right, I’m on pace for 195 by the end of the year! I still have to pick it up just a little bit, whoof!

Until next time… take care!