Step 12: Watch Some Bad Children's Halloween Movies

 

Quick Points

Scary Music
I'm much more a fan of the music from The Wolfman.

Scariest Moment
It's Alvin and the Chipmunks! There are no "scary" moments! The Wolfman might be a teeny bit scarier than Frankenstein, though.

Scariest Character
Theodore actually becomes pretty scary in The Wolfman.

Scare Rating
It's just scary that I used to think these movies were good when I was younger.


If you couldn't tell from the Quick Points, Alvin and the Chipmunks Meet the Wolfman is a better movie than Alvin and the Chipmunks Meet Frankenstein. It makes sense. Frankenstein came out in 1999, a year before The Wolfman. Logic would say Universal Studios would continue to improve their singing chipmunks stories with experience. But man, can you tell these movies are only designed for children.

Both introduce kid's favorite talking woodland critters to Hollywood's favorite monsters, both have one of the Chipmunks turning into monsters themselves, and both have at least one catchy song. Neither one of them goes very deep or offers anything for adults, though. Yes, there's the classic theme of just because you look bad doesn't mean you are bad or you mean to be bad--a great lesson for kids--but Frankenstien's antagonist has no backstory or reasoning behind his madness. The Wolfman's antagonist is a bit more believable, but cheap jokes throughout the movie makes it hard for older viewers to watch the story unfold without groaning.

These are children's movies, though, and for children they're fine. There's jut enough "boo!" to get kids into the spirit, and it's also a cute way to introduce little ones to the classics. While I recommend waiting until you have your own little monsters before taking a trip down memory lane and re-watching these movies, I would go ahead and say they won't rot your kids' brains too much.

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What did you think of these movies? Comment below!

Step 11: Get into the Holiday Spirit

Quick Points

Scary Music
The little boy raps! It's terrifying, but also somewhat adorable.

Scariest Moment
When Nana finds the hidden camera. You know it's coming, but jeez that woman is creepy!

Scariest Character
See above.

Scare Rating
Not going to lie, I'm a little bit afraid to visit my grandma and grandpa now.




Start off the spookiest month of the year with M. Night Shyamalan's scariest film since Signs--The Visit. Though this movie won't give you nightmares, you will think twice about visiting grandma and grandpa, especially after sundown.

Shot like a documentary, the film follows aspiring director Becca (Olivia DeJonge) and her little brother Tyler (Ed Oxenbould) as they visit their maternal grandparents for the first time. Everything seems normal at first--there's even a bit of comedy thrown in--but this wouldn't be a horror film without a little bit of crazy suspense. Emphasis on the crazy. Nana (Deanna Dunagan) starts running around the house naked after 9:30 pm, and Pop Pop (Peter McRobbie) imagines that people are following him.  Of course, they've each got perfectly good explanations for their weird behavior--the side effects of old age--but after Becca's hidden camera catches Nana storming to the kids' room with a knife in her hands, the joke's over.

After Shyamalan's long string of duds, it's completely understandable to go into this movie with reservations. While it's by no means the best horror film out there, the movie does keep you guessing throughout the film. Are they really just old? Is there something demonic or supernatural about them? Are they aliens? Is this a sequel to Signs?!  The traditional Shyamalan twist is a good one, though you'll smack yourself for not realizing it sooner. All of the actors played their roles very convincingly, and the documentary-style filming wasn't nearly as bad as The Blair Witch Project.

There were some plot holes throughout the story, and there were a few cliche's (don't go in the basement you dumb kid!), but as I've mentioned several times already, this isn't the greatest horror movie in the world. It is, however, a fun scary movie to watch with friends. I would recommend waiting to watch it until next Halloween, though, when you can rent it from the library. We don't want to pay too much for the movie and give Shyamalan reasons to think he's good again, do we?

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What did you think of the movie? Comment below!

Step 10: Support Your Locals... I guess...

Quick Points

Movie vs. Book
BOOK! The book touches on topics that are much deeper than "am I going to make it to Prom in time?"

Soundtrack/Score
Not memorable. Sorry Nat.

Favorite Scenes
The gas station and Pokemon.

Audience Reactions while Watching the Movie
I'm not kidding--the gas station scene and the moment the kids break out into the Pokemon theme song were the only times the movie solicited laughs and cheers.


If you remember my very first movie review, I was a decently sized fan of The Fault in Our Stars (both book and movie), so when I heard that another book by John Green was hitting the big screen, I hit the books. Once again, Green did not disappoint. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the movie adaptation.

Looking at the film version of Paper Towns as a completely different entity from the book (as I've had to do with so many books-to-movies), it was cliche. Typical social outcast Quentin (played by Nat Wolff, who made a better secondary character in Fault in our Stars), is secretly in love with the hot and popular girl next door, Margo (played--though just barely because she's missing for half of the movie--by Cara Delevingne), but she hasn't given him the time of day since they found that dead body when they were little kids (the only non-cliche scene). The night before Margo disappears, she teams up one last time with Q, and the two get revenge on all of their shallow friends and bullies while almost (but of course, not quite) admitting their true feelings for each other. Then she's gone, and Q guilt trips the only two friends that are dorky enough to hang out with him into helping him find her. You even get the classic argument that always leads to the friends abandoning the main character--"The woman I love but have never expressed my feelings towards are more important than your long-term girl friend and your honey-bunny who's desperate for a Prom Date!"

All that being said, the ending's not a complete cliche. Though, it's not a complete non-cliche, either. You get just the tiniest bit of "You're really going to do that?" before going back to "Ahh, familiar grounds." Which is really sad because try as hard as you might to separate the book from the movie, if you read the novel, you knew what these characters were capable of. Maybe if new director Jake Schreier had been able to give more time for the characters to show their true bonds with one another (I don't know how many times I have to stress that the gas station and Pokemon theme song scenes were amazing!), the plot would have made more sense and seemed more real.

As is, I waited until Paper Towns was almost gone from theaters before posting this review for a reason. While I do always believe in supporting local authors, I also believe that this movie is not worth $10. Maybe you could catch a cheap matinee? Or even just wait until it comes out to Redbox.

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What did you think of the movie? Comment below!

Step 9: Go Into the Woods

Quick Points

Best Song
Chris Pine and Billy Magnussen's "Agony"-- And not because of their singing. ;)

Worst Song
Lilla Crawford's "I Know Things Now" -- It's a song filled with sexual innuendos, and it's not the only one in this musical! 

Favorite Character
All of them.

Least Favorite Character
All of them.




Every character in Rob Marshall's big-screen adaptation of Into the Woods does something that you like and something that you don't. One moment their motives and their actions make sense, and you want them to get their happily ever after. The next, they say or do something so selfish or contradictory that you just want to slap them. Every. Single. Character. Except, perhaps, Cinderella's wicked step-family. They stick to their traditional rottenness.

Luckily, most of the enchanted folks of this musical make up for their bi-polar disorder with their singing. While it's difficult to distinguish one song from the next in the never-ending barrage of sung dialogue, most of the performers themselves have beautifully distinct voices that intertwine with the other cast members' seamlessly. James Corden and Emily Blunt's Baker and Wife have several nice duets throughout the film, but what's even more spectacular is Corden's quartet that he does with three of the younger cast members towards the end of the film. And of course, Meryl Streep's Witch mixes well (in a wicked way) with all of the royals and peasants. It's sad that the same could not be said of the Wolf played by Johnny Depp. After seeing him get his bad on in Sweeny Todd, I looked forward to hearing that angry voice again in more than one pedophilic song.

As a huge fan of both Disney-fied and classic fairy tales, there were a lot of things I was looking forward to in this musical adaption. Sadly, the songs were the only good things that freshened up these old tales, and as I mentioned before, all the songs blended together. It was an interesting touch to have all the stories combined into one, but others have combined these classics in much more unique ways. While I wouldn't tell you to completely skip this movie, I might suggest doing a matinee or even just Redboxing it.

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What did you think of the movie? Comment below!