2025, David F Sandberg (Lights Out) -- download
Starting in 2011 we (Marmy and I, as Kent is not much of a horror fan) began celebrating the Halloween season (all of October, of course) by watching too many horror / Halloween related movies, most of them bad. 2012 had a few flicks but not the full month. Un/Re-employment killed 2013. Apathy slayed 2014. But we returned in 2015 with a full run. 2016 had a good start, but stalled in the last few days, likely due to work life. 2017 almost started with a fizzle, but then I remembered, "It's October 1st !" It still fizzled. Life abounds. And in 2018, almost the entire year was Halloween *ahem* as in the year of posting was mostly October. 2019 did alright for itself, considering I went off to Las Vegas sometime in the month. 2020 was it's own horror fest, and I am not kidding or being pithy in the least; the horror movies we watched were almost a relief. 2021 was in full form, some good, most OK and some great/terrible. 2022 gave us a full run, counting in the TV we watched, which we did. Also, I absolutely love that Kent jumped in with some themed movies and even a We Agree(ish). Aaaand 2023 had a pretty good run, even if it was interrupted by Vegas Redux. I am not sure 2023 was a Good Year for horror, as we didn't have a whole lot lined up. I came into 2024 with at least half the movies already cued up, but somehow, some reason, left a lot of them sitting there, including some of the big hits of that year. It was a decent run with only a few inserted in after the fact (am I supposed to admit that?) which brings us to 2025, another year of real-life-horror both south of the border and at home. The hopper is filled to the brim both with leftovers and things I have been adding all year, and we haven't even researched anything.
Wait, this was a video game adaptation? Until the credits rolled and Sony was smacking me in the face with their PS logos, I had no idea. I have never been much into horror games, probably inspired by that night Marmy came home to find Mukey and I engrossed in Resident Evil being played on the PS1 she bought me for my birthday. The apartment lights were all on and our feet were tightly packed under us in case a Licker crawled out from under the sofa. But yes, the game is a horror game about a bunch of stupid kids surviving a night, but unlike the movie, the game is not a time loop.
Yes, a time loop. But not time loopy enough to become a Loopty Loop post. I think the movie screen writers & producer knew they writing something based on a game and wanted to recollect the idea of Loading from Save Games, i.e. coming back from Death and trying something different. The game itself didn't play that way, and strongly focused on you dealing with the consequences of your actions -- it was its entire gimmick, actually. But no matter, the movie is about a bunch of kids stuck in a house (mostly) where, after they all die, it all starts over again. The goal is to survive Until Dawn.
It starts off fun enough, really embracing the tropes -- the country road, the helicopter/drone shot, kids with trauma going on a trip, a creepy guy in a road side gasbar (i.e. The Harbinger as Cabin in the Woods named him) and the road ending at a rather quaint and picturesque visitor centre. The hint that the kids are (being) trapped is that the centre is in an "eye of the storm", a calm clear spot amid a raging storm. There is even a "wall of water" separating the calm spot from the storm. We know they are being caught, as we saw trailers, but...
The first night they are all stalked and killed by a masked slasher. Then the sand dial resets and it starts all over again. The movie hints at a "new type of horror trope each loop" but... seems to abandon it? There is too much stink of producer interference and likely Sony interference, as it tries to steer the plot back towards the video game's plot of a town of miners, cannibalism and typical over-thinker Japanese horror plot stuff. I think if it had just stuck with the "different kind of monster" for each loop, it could have had a lot of fun, but... then again, in doing such, how could the kids learn enough to survive a loop? Even so, I was instantly annoyed when the movie hinted very heavily at "next up, werewolf!" (full moon, one character's nails growing weird) only to abandon it entirely for ... let's skip past a BUNCH of loops and speed run to the weak explanations of what's going on and how they are going to survive... until dawn.
It was still kind of fun and a lot of budget was tossed at it for effects, practical and otherwise. I just wish it had stuck with one thing or another. Also kind of fun that Peter Stormare comes back to play the Evil Bad Guy he voiced in the game.
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