The last couple of months of the year are good times both for planning for the year ahead, as well as watching lots of movies which will be released around Christmas, the time of the year to spend money galore. So, I too have started looking into the next year's cinema and film programs and found quite a few great watches coming in December and early next year. I'm especially psyched to see recurring favorite names like Oz Perkins, Stephen King, but also two werewolf movies which both look good to me.
As always, the titles are linked to their respective imdb pages for info and trailers.
The idea is silly and so looks the execution, but the killings in this B-slasher look extremely over the top and I'm already very curious about the motivation of the killer (a broken heart?) that there's no way I won't watch this holiday horror gem. 😍
After having sucked the life out of the Zombie and Vampire Invasion tropes, Hollywood now turns to a lesser washed out trope to garner their apocalyptic nightmares - the werewolf.
Incidentally, the werewolf happens to be my favorite of monsters, they look like big, angry dogs, they're furry, they're French, and I'm a sucker for a good transformation scene, so this title, despite its apparent abhorrent cast and visuals, made it to my list for next year.
Do you see the three names on this movie poster, this must be a horror dream? =>
Mark February on your calendars because one of King's best short stories has been adapted to film (by Oz Perkins and James Wan!) and is being released in only three months!
The story is about a father and his family of wife and two sons returning to his childhood home after a layoff, and them finding in the attic a cursed windup monkey with cymbals - whenever the monkey plays his instrument, somebody dies. And once the monkey is out of the attic, the curse is unleashed and revived.
This story is one of my top ten Stephen King short stories and I remember that some ten years ago I gifted the collection comprising this short story, Skeleton Crew, to my then nine years old niece, in order to introduce her to the horror of King. And she was so scared that she made and glued a new cover with pink unicorns to the book to block the sight of the frightful monkey, lol. Funny thing, it's close to what happens in the story.
If you haven't read any Stephen King by now, I would highly recommend starting with Skeleton Crew or Night Shift, those short stories are master class.
Seriously I'm not very crazy about a movie which will allegedly redefine the haunted house genre, but the reviews for this movie are so sickeningly good that I can't pass this by and I don't think I ever watched a bad movie by Steven Soderbergh.
I highly recommend watching the original movie, and while you're at it, the fictionalized and hilarious account Murnau's shooting the movie, Shadow of the Vampire in which brilliant Willem Dafoe simply shines.
If you ever want to find out more about Dracula impersonations, especially in early cinema, well, Caro at the Otherland is sort of an expert on the subject. And she even does her own impersonations and sometimes it's even creepy.
The second werewolf movie on this list, Wolfman, doesn't sound like it has the most original of all premises - A family is attacked by some lupine entity on their way somewhere, the father escapes injured, but during the course of the movie transforms, and needs to choose between his loved ones and his new nature.
Again, I'm not looking to gain anything from this movie except a good time.
Everybody is talking about Heretic and how well Hugh Grant does in it, so there's no way to miss this movie about two young girls who want to talk about the bible, knocking on the wrong kind of person's door. I don't know more and don't want to, honestly, but I have to say that casting Grant for the villain might be a genius move, but might also be a total miss. I have faith in A24, so I'll go for the first option. The first showing in Berlin will be next week already, December 7th, at the Creepy Crypt.
I always had a soft spot for Popeye because my school bullies used to call me Olive Oyl, because I was tall and lanky, so I liked Popeye for liking her, does that make sense? I'm curious about this movie, at least as curious as I am if anyone has ever seen canned spinach, let alone a factory thereof.
OK, I have no idea what this trailer is about, and what that villain is supposed to be, but this looks like satirical cult material. Not wanting to further comment on this, the less I know the better, it seems. And it's already been released in 2023? Why didn't I hear of this before?
Nearing the end of the year, I'll be selecting the 'Best of's soon and I'm not even ready for that yet 😫. I feel like there weren't as many good books or written fiction as there were original and inventive movies which blew my mind. Also, I spent a lot of time at festivals this year, maybe that's why. So I may add the category best film this year. Looking at all these movies that will come, it looks like 2025 is no less a good movie year than the past year.
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