Lou | Halloween 2022

I’m at this weird part in my review schedule where the spooky/scary/Halloween movies haven’t really started yet. There are a few movies that fit the bill but most are in this “thriller” category, like Lou. Hopefully, Shudder will come through for me later in the month. For now, we have Netflix’s offering,

Lou (Allison Janney) is a loner who lives on a remote island with her dog, Jax. Hannah (Jurnee Smollett) and her young daughter, Vee (Ridley Asha Bateman), rent the house next door. During a major storm, Hannah’s ex, Philip (Logan Marshall-Green), kidnaps Vee. Without power or telephones, the distraught mother turns to her neighbor for help in finding her child. It’s during their trek that Hannah learns the truth behind Lou’s mysterious past and their connection.

Before I get into what I thought of the movie, I want to note my biggest problem with this movie since it’s an issue with a lot of movies nowadays. There is a large portion of the movie that takes place at night, during a severe storm. Needless to say, that means a lot of it takes place in the dark. So there are entire scenes, important scenes, where you can’t actually see what is going on. It’s really annoying.

With that said, I really enjoyed Lou. Allison Janney is such a badass. I’m used to seeing her in comedic or supporting roles. She absolutely rocked kicking ass in an action thriller. There wasn’t any point where I thought she was unbelievable. Jurnee Smollett, on the other hand, was a little annoying. As a parent, I understand the terror you feel when your child is in danger and you want to do whatever you can to save them. However, she straight up ignores everything that Lou tells her do to, putting everyone involved in danger. Girl, listen to your weirdo neighbor/landlady.

Do I think you should watch Lou? Duh, yes. If you don’t watch it for any other reason, watch it for Allison Janney being a complete and total badass at 62 years old. I really and truly hope that there is a sequel. I would watch every single movie about Lou, whether it’s about her current life or her previous life. I don’t think any of us would regret seeing more Lou.

We're All Going To The World's Fair | Halloween 2022

We’re All Going To The World’s Fair is an indie horror film that I found on HBO Max. I never heard about it before (it looks like it was only released in a small handful of theaters back in April) so I decided to check it out.

Casey (Anna Cobb) is a fairly typical teenager. She spends a lot of time in her room watching YouTube videos. One day, she decides to record a video trying the “World’s Fair Challenge.” The challenge involves chanting “I want to go to the World’s Fair” three times then wiping a bloody finger across your computer screen. After watching a video with strobing lights, the participants are supposed to start noticing changes in themselves. A few days later, she gets a message from JLB (Michael J Rogers) stating that she is in trouble. The two talk over Skype, where JLB convinced Casey to continue posting videos to document her deteriorating mental state. However, it seems like JLB thinks this is all a game. But it’s not a game to Casey.

Sadly, I didn’t understand the point of The World’s Fair. There are a lot of long, boring, drawn-out scenes that seem to have nothing to do with the plot. Scenes of Casey walking through the woods to a clearing where she talks about nothing. Or a scene of Casey filming local traffic near an AutoZone? From what I can tell, these are absolutely pointless scenes that just take up time. And while we do get a few scenes of Casey acting strangely, we don’t get anything to really connect them to the World’s Fair Challenge, other than this all happens after she did it.

I would have liked to have seen more videos of Challenge participants with a little more consistency in their “symptoms.” Sure, some people have physical changes while others have mental changes but without having all of the participants having some sort of common theme in their changes, it’s difficult to connect all of this to the Challenge. Or, if we’re going to have all of the participants have different results, give us some sort of mystical being behind the changes. Otherwise, all we seem to have are some mentally ill people making videos. It’s more sad than scary.

Unfortunately, I can’t recommend watching We’re All Going To The World’s Fair. It had a great premise with no payoff. I would love to see someone with a bigger budget or more resources remake the movie to add more eerie elements to the film. But in it’s current state, it isn’t worth the 86 minutes it takes to watch it.

Pearl | Halloween 2022

On September 16, Pearl, the prequel to X, arrived in theaters. The two movies were able to be released in the same year because Pearl was filmed in the same location immediately after X.

The year is 1918. Pearl (Mia Goth) dreams of becoming a famous dancing girl in the movies. Unfortunately, with her husband, Howard (Alistair Sewell), overseas serving in World War I, she has been forced to live on her family farm with her domineering mother, Ruth (Tandi Wright), and her infirm father (Matthew Sunderland). While in town buying medicine for her father, Pearl meets the man responsible for showing the movies at the cinema. The two take a liking to each other and the projectionist (David Corenswet) promises to take her overseas to be a famous dancer. But Pearl has an audition with her sister-in-law, Mitsy (Emma Jenkins-Purro), to be a dancing girl in a traveling church show. If only life would go the way Pearl wants…

I found Pearl much more interesting than X. In X, I felt like we never got a reason why Pearl was the way she was. She was just an extremely horny old woman who murdered people when she didn’t get what she wanted. The closest thing we got to a reason for her behavior was that Howard kept refusing sex due to his weak heart. In Pearl, however, we get to see her mental deterioration and the abuse she endured from her mother. It actually made a bit of sense when she started her murder spree. I wonder if watching Pearl before X would make X a better movie.

If you are into slasher-type films, you will probably enjoy Pearl. Not only is Goth amazing as poor Pearl, Wright is absolutely terrifying as her abusive mother. I also tip my hat to Sunderland, who could only use his eyes to convey how he felt at any given moment. If the third film in the series, Maxxxine, is as good as Pearl, this series may go down as one of the best horror trilogies around.

Hocus Pocus 2

After 29 years, we finally have a sequel to Hocus Pocus. Please note, if Hocus Pocus isn’t one of your favorite Halloween movies, you might have something wrong with you.

Hocus Pocus 2 begins in 1653 Salem, when a young Winifred Sanderson (Taylor Henderson) has just turned 16. Reverend Trask (Tony Hale) insists that she should be married. When she refuses, the Reverend tries to take her sisters, Mary (Nina Kitchen) and Sarah (Juju Journey Brener), away from her. The sisters manage to escape to the forbidden forest behind the town. There the trio meets a mysterious witch (Hannah Waddingham) who recognizes them as sister witches and gives Winifred her beloved spellbook. Fast forward to 2022, where we meet Becca (Whitney Peak) on her 16th birthday. She has had a falling out with her friend Cassie (Lilia Buckingham) but plans on performing her annual birthday ritual with her other friend, Izzy (Belissa Escobedo). The girls are given a black flame candle by Gilbert (Sam Richardson), a magic shop owner and fan of the Sanderson sisters. They light the black flame candle at their ritual, bringing the Sandersons back to life once more.

The original Hocus Pocus is one of my husband’s favorite movies. In 2018, a book was released telling more of the story of the Sanderson sisters. After reading the book, my husband was really looking forward to the movie sequel. He was not disappointed.

I thought Hocus Pocus 2 was a pretty good sequel to the original. Where the original movie was all about normal kids trying to defeat a trio of witches, this one goes further by letting Becca dabble in the occult. Needless to say, that does make the ending a little predictable but I won’t give it away here. Let’s just say that I highly enjoyed the change from the mundane to the magical.

While the songs that Bette Midler, Kathy Najimy, and Sarah Jessica Parker perform this time around aren’t quite as iconic as the “I Put A Spell On You” performance from the original, all of the songs were still very entertaining. My favorite was the cover of Blondie’s “One Way Or Another.” Though “The Witches Are Back,” a parody of Elton John’s “The Bitch Is Back” is the theme song of the movie. There’s even a scene during the credits of the sisters recording the song. Speaking of credits scenes, make sure you stick around after the credits. There is a post-credit scene to watch.

If you liked the original Hocus Pocus, I think you will find enjoyment in the sequel. There are some inside jokes and references that make watching the sequel fun. Personally, I liked Mary flying on two Roombas instead of a broom, the way she rode a vacuum cleaner instead of a broom in the original. Only the Roombas are way more useful this time!

X | Movie Review

My husband and I watched X awhile ago. Originally, I wasn’t planning on writing a review for it, but then the sequel came out and I figured I might as well review them both.

The year is 1979. A group of filmmakers travels to a farmhouse in Texas to film a new pornographic movie. Their movie, The Farmer’s Daughter, is directed by Wayne Gilroy (Martin Henderson) and stars Bobby-Lynne (Brittany Snow) and Jackson Hole (Scott Mescudi). Wayne’s girlfriend, Maxine Minx (Mia Goth), will also appear in the film. However, Lorraine (Jenna Ortega) is only there to help her director boyfriend, RJ (Owen Campbell). That is, until she gets drawn in by the allure of the sex scenes. Then she wants to take part as well. Meanwhile, Howard (Stephen Ure), the owner of the farmhouse, is rather mean to the group. But it’s his wife, Pearl (Mia Goth), that they really need to avoid.

Like most A24 films, X is an unusual type of movie. Even though there are movies about making porn movies, they don’t quite follow the same format as X. We do see sex scenes (there is only one scene of full frontal nudity and it’s not related to The Farmer’s Daughter) but, for the most part, they don’t come across as sexy. They come across as almost robotic, which is probably pretty accurate for the porn industry. Something that needs to be done in order to become a rich and famous star.

In addition, the villain in this slasher film isn’t someone who can chase young adults across a farm in order to murder them. And still, most of the cast still ends up dead. It’s an interesting twist on the slasher genre of horror movie that definitely keeps you on your toes. Just when you think that the killer can’t possibly do something, that something happens anyway.

While I want to recommend X, it’s a difficult movie to actually recommend. It’s one of those movies that people will either love or hate. It is A24, after all. With that said, this is the middle film of a trilogy. The prequel, Pearl, came out on September 16 and the sequel, Maxxxine, will be coming out next year. You might want to wait until all three movies are out before watching this one.

Disney Dreamlight Valley | Video Game Review

I have recently become rather addicted to Disney Dreamlight Valley, a new video game from everyone’s favorite mouse. It is currently in early access, which means there are some bugs to work out. Here, let me tell you about it.

Disney Dreamlight Valley is a simulation game, somewhat akin to The Sims or Stardew Valley. Your character is having a difficult time in life so they return to a play area they frequented as a child. Suddenly, your character is thrust into a world of magic with Mickey Mouse and Merlin. Their world has been overtaken by The Forgotten. It is your job to help them rid the world of evil Night Thorns and bring their Disney friends back to Dreamlight Valley.

While I’m not a huge Disney fan, I was intrigued by Dreamlight Valley when it was first announced. I am a big fan of Stardew Valley so I was happy to hear about another game in a similar format. Though I will admit that I was afraid that the game would be too ‘kiddified’ to be any good. Boy, was I wrong.

One thing that I really love about the game is that you get guidance on how to proceed but you don’t necessarily have to follow that guidance. My husband, my daughter, and I are all playing the game and we have very different play styles. There are two types of quests in the game - Realm Quests (where you are bringing characters back to the valley from their realm) and Character Quests (where you are strengthening your friendships with characters in order to get new things for the valley). The two quests do overlap a little. For example, in order to proceed in Goofy’s quests, you need to bring Remy to the valley. I made it my goal to proceed as far as possible in the Character Quests without doing the Realm Quests. I actually got pretty far before I had to go to any of the other Realms.

My husband, meanwhile, has played the game a little more straightforward. He rescued Remy at the “correct” time and, I believe, has rescued all of the currently available characters from their Realms. I have rescued Remy, Moana, and Maui but, as of this writing, I have not rescued Wall-E. These differences don’t change the game play a lot but rescuing the Realm characters does make some of the other quests a little easier. I just chose a more difficult path.

Now for the bugs. My husband and my daughter have played the game on the Nintendo Switch, while I have stuck to only playing on my PC via Steam. None of us have played on the Xbox or the Playstation. If you are playing on the Switch, the game does crash fairly frequently. Since the game auto-saves every five minutes, you can lose up to five minutes of progress when the game crashes. I haven’t experienced that issue on the PC but sometimes the Disney characters will get stuck in a wall when they are helping you with a task. Sometimes you can fix the issue by transporting your character to another place on the map but sometimes the only fix is to restart the game. Other than those two issues, I don’t think I’ve found any other bugs. Sure, the characters sometimes get in the way when you are trying to do something but that is the life of an NPC.

Everyone in my family has found Dreamlight Valley to be tons of fun. And while it might help to be a Disney fan, interacting with your favorite characters, I don’t think that not being a fan would detract from the gameplay. If you are into sim games, especially Stardew Valley, this is the game for you. There are a lot of similarities to Stardew, except the NPC characters are a lot more interactive. Currently, you do have to pay for the early access to the game. Depending on the edition you choose, it can cost anywhere from $30 to $70. However, the game is supposed to be free-to-play when it goes live in 2023. Either way, I think a lot of people would really love the game. It is a ton of fun.

Do Revenge | Movie Review

As I was scrolling through Netflix, trying to find a movie or series to talk about, I came across Do Revenge. Led by Maya Hawke from Stranger Things and Camila Mendes from Riverdale, I just knew I had to check it out.

Drea (Camila Mendes) is one of the popular girls at Rosehill Country Day High School. When her boyfriend shares an intimate video she made for him, her life is all but ruined. At tennis camp that summer, Drea meets Eleanor (Maya Hawke), who is transferring to Rosehill next year. The two soon find out that they have both been terribly wronged by people they thought were friends. So they team up to take down each other’s bullies.

Do Revenge is based on the Alfred Hitchcock movie, Strangers on a Train. While I’ve never seen the movie myself, I am familiar with the plot. Familiar enough that I actually thought it was the plot to a completely different movie. My bad.

Where Strangers on a Train dealt with adults and actual murder, Do Revenge takes the plot to high school and goes with social murder instead of physical harm. And I actually think this movie handles the change quite well. There is an additional twist toward the end that Hitchcock did not have in his movie, which I think raises the stakes a bit. There definitely were some parts that kept me on the edge of my seat. I thought I knew what was going to happen but it was worse than I thought.

The acting in Netflix original movies can be hit or miss. Thankfully, this one is a hit. Hawke’s Eleanor starts off as an awkward newcomer but Hawke is able to pull over the amazing transformation into one of the “cool kids” and make us believe that she would get accepted into their group. Meanwhile, Mendes is perfect as Hawke’s conniving counterpart. Adding to the talent is Sarah Michelle Gellar as the school’s headmistress, Austin Abrams as Drea’s ex-boyfriend Max, and Alisha Boe as Drea’s ex-best friend Tara. All of them are their own special brand of terribleness.

Yes, Do Revenge should be on your “must see” list. Even if you can’t get into the high school drama, which you know you will, you will absolutely fall in love with the soundtrack. I found myself singing along more than once. For me, that is always a sign of a good show. Take the plunge and add it to your Netflix queue.

Pinocchio | Movie Review

Disney is really into their live action remakes nowadays. The latest one, Pinocchio, was released on Disney+ on September 8. After watching it, I understand why they chose not to release it in theaters.

Geppetto (Tom Hanks) is an old woodcarver in a small Italian village. One night, a cricket named Jiminy (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) wanders into Geppetto’s house. The insect finds the old man putting the finishing touches on a wooden marionette named Pinocchio (Benjamin Evan Ainsworth). Before going to sleep that night, Geppetto makes a wish on the evening star. As he slumbers, the Blue Fairy (Cynthia Erivo) visits to bring Pinocchio to life. She assigns Jiminy as Pinocchio’s conscience as she leaves. Pinocchio, wanting to be a real boy, tries his best to learn the right way to live his life.

There are a lot of people that didn’t like this movie. This is, after all, almost a beat by beat remake of the 1940 animated version. There are a few new characters. Most notably, Fabiana (Kyanne Lamaya) and her puppet Sabina (Jaquita Ta’le), who work at Stromboli’s (Giuseppe Battiston) puppet show, and Sofia (Lorraine Bracco), a seagull who befriends Geppetto. But I’m not sure they were enough to really differentiate the live action from the original.

Personally, I didn’t hate the movie. But I didn’t love it either. There were a lot of scenes where I had trouble hearing what Geppetto was saying because Hanks kept mumbling all of the lines. It was the main reason I ended up watching the movie with subtitles on. In addition, the big scene where the kids are getting scooped up to go to Pleasure Island is so dark that I couldn’t tell who was who. It made it a little difficult to tell the kids apart from each other, except for Lampwick (Lewin Lloyd) because Pinocchio says his name every five seconds.

With that said, there were some very good parts. Fabiana and Sabina were perfect. I loved them so much. Casting Keegan-Michael Key as Honest John was brilliant. He is so good in evil roles. Finally, while I was originally confused about Monstro (thanks original Pinocchio), I loved his design. Instead of just being a giant whale, they actually made him a giant sea monster with tentacles and rows of sharp teeth. It definitely made him a bit more fearsome than the original designs.

Would I recommend watching the live action version over the animated version? Probably not. However, you aren’t going to hate yourself if you decide to watch this one instead. I don’t understand why it seems to get as much hate as it does. There are absolutely worse live action remakes out there. I’m looking at you, Beauty and the Beast.

Hersheypark Halloween | Things To Do

This year, my husband and I decided to get season passes for Hersheypark. The amusement park is in Hershey, PA, home of Hershey’s Chocolate, which is about an hour from our house. While we love roller coasters and rides, we love Halloween even more. With Hersheypark Halloween opening on September 17 this year, there are two additional weekends to the Halloween celebration at the park. My husband and I visited on Sunday to check out the scares.

As usual, Hersheypark Halloween has 13 coasters open, as well as many of the less scary family rides. Not all rides are open so be sure to check the website to see if your favorite rides are open before heading to the park. Before hitting up any of the rides, we walked through ZooAmerica, which is included in your Hersheypark admission. It is one of our favorite things to do in Hershey. Then we rode on our favorite coaster - Great Bear - and one of our least favorite coasters - Storm Runner. Great Bear was amazing, as always. Storm Runner was surprisingly a much better ride for us than it has been in the past. I’m not sure if it’s because we were in a different section of the train but we actually enjoyed the ride this time.

For dinner, we elected to eat at the Spring Creek Smokehouse. During the Halloween event, many of the food vendors have Halloween-themed food available. The Smokhouse has a Coal Dusted Half Chicken (which has some charcoal covering to turn the chicken black), a black brioche bun (made with cuttlefish ink so it is not good for anyone with shellfish allergies) for their pulled pork and brisket sandwiches, and two desserts: Sinful Cinnamon Bread Instestines (cinnamon bread with a red coating on top) and Evil Eye Cherry Pie (a cherry pie with an evil eye on top). We had the Coal Miners Platter, which lets you pick two meats and two sides plus a cornbread muffin. The meats were not the sandwiches so we didn’t get to try the black brioche bun but we did try to cinnamon bread and it was absolutely delicious. It may have been my favorite part of the meal.

Afterwards, we hit up two of the tamer rides (Dry Gulch Railroad and The Kissing Tower) before heading into the Dark Nights haunted houses. There are four haunted houses, which are not included with your park ticket. You do need to purchase an add-on in order to go into the houses. If you don’t want to spend the extra dough, there are three scare zones around the park with roaming actors. My husband and I didn’t find the actors particularly scary but we did enjoy watching them.

As for the haunted houses, we managed to get through three of the four houses before the night ended. Haunted Coal Mine, The Descent, and Twisted Darkness were the three we walked through. (We’re planning on visiting Creature Chaos on our next visit.) These are much like any other haunted house Halloween attraction - costumed actors try to jump scare you as you walk through decorated rooms with various special effects. Again, my husband and I don’t get scared by actors. However, we found the decorations and the special effects awesome. This was the first weekend of the houses so maybe the scares will get bigger as Halloween looms closer. But for now, we didn’t find any of these houses particularly scary. Enjoyable, yes. Scary, no. With that said, our favorite house was Twisted Darkness. The interaction with the actors and the effects made it a wonderfully spooky haunted house.

If you aren’t into the scares, you can easily skip the haunted houses and most of the scare zones. Unfortunately, if you want to ride the rides at the back of the park (in particular, Lightning Racer, and the Ferris Wheel ), you will need to go through the Midway to Misery, which is listed as “spine-tingling” on the scare meter. All of the other scare zones can be avoided with a slightly longer walk around it.

Considering how close we live to Hersheypark, the Halloween event is a no-brainer for us. But if you are looking for a super scary, thrilling Halloween experience, this isn’t for you. This is an event for people who love riding rides and maybe get a thrill out of some jump scares. Or if you want to check some of the Halloween-themed food vendors. I’m hoping to get a bite of Dark Moon Orange Sorbet at Milton’s Ice Cream Parlor or Brain Freeze Sundae at the Turkey Hill Ice SCREAM Parlor. Yeah, the ice cream at Hersheypark is good. You can never go wrong with a good ice cream sundae.

Hersheypark Halloween runs from September 17 through October 30. They are only open on Saturdays and Sundays from about 2PM until 10PM. Check the website for the hours before you visit the park. I hope to see you there!

Elvis | Movie Review

A lot of people know the story of Elvis Presley, right? A small town white boy learns how to sing like the black people around him then he makes it big. With Baz Luhrmann’s new movie, Elvis, we hear the tale from Elvis’s manager, Colonel Tom Parker.

As Colonel Tom Parker (Tom Hanks) lies dying in a hospital room in 1997, he thinks back on how he met the King of Rock n’ Roll, Elvis Presley (Austin Butler), and how they effected each other’s lives.

I know that seems like a very short description of the movie but anything beyond that would just be a biography on Elvis’s life. The movie takes us from the time Parker meets Elvis in Louisiana in 1954 (with some flashbacks to Elvis as a child) through to the death of Elvis in 1977 and the death of Parker himself in 1997. Through that time we see the ups and the downs. The highs of Elvis loving performing in front of people to the downs of Elvis buckling under the pressure of everyone depending on him to continue making tons of money. They even include Parker filling Elvis with all sorts of drugs to make sure he could perform every single night. It was a sad, lonely life.

it’s no surprise that most people who have watched Elvis loved it. The movie was both written and directed by Baz Luhrmann, the man who famously brought us such brilliant movies as William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet (you know, the one with Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes), Moulin Rouge!, and The Great Gatsby. Luhrmann is a master of flashy, stylish movies with amazing musical scores. If you have seen any of his previous works, you will see the same themes and styles here. Thankfully, Elvis Presley’s life, once he starts to get famous, is nothing but flashy and stylish. The glitter and gold of Las Vegas, chunky jewelry as far as the eye can see, and so many bedazzled outfits, you won’t be sure where a rhinestone doesn’t belong!

What I appreciate the most in this version of Elvis’s life story is that we get to see the parallels between the songs that Elvis has heard from various black people in his life and the songs that he himself released. A lot of the Elvis songs that we are all familiar with are songs that black people had recorded but weren’t able to get onto the radio due to the color of their skin. Now I’m not sure that Elvis was as accepted by the black community as he was in the movie - it would have been nice to have seen at least a few people be upset that a white boy made millions of dollars off of their songs - but it was nice to see that credit was given in some way. The movie will absolutely show Arthur Crudup (played by Gary Clark Jr. in the movie) singing “That’s All Right” then overlay it with Elvis recording that same exact song and becoming famous with it. And this happens multiple times in the movie with multiple different people.

With that said, I do think everyone should watch Elvis. It is a good movie. Butler and Hanks to a superb job as Elvis and Parker. The soundtrack is phenomenal, both the Elvis songs (which is part Butler’s voice and part actual Elvis) and the original songs that were thrown into various scenes. it may not be a completely truthful movie as it is intended to be from the point of view of the person that took the most advantage of the man but, from what I have read, the Presley family all approved of this movie and the way everyone was portrayed. That is good enough for me.