It's finally here, the October Shock Block, we all got here in one piece - but... how many of us will survive? Mwah hah hah... I really could not have asked for a better lead in than a couple of films about a mythical Spider Woman and a few giant snakes, none of those were on my horror radar. Let me explain...
I keep the horror films on a separate list, there WERE about 186 films that covered the whole gamut of horror, from simple classic monster movies to body horror to the zombie movies and some of the future dystopia stuff, alien invasions too - there's now about 184 films because I watched "Opus" and "Prey", they didn't really link to other horror movies, but I saw a way to work them into the September line-up. That's still WAY more horror movies than I can watch in a month, it's more than about six years worth. But that's how many I need to have in order to assemble a workable chain that will cover 25 to 30 days. And I keep them in a very rough possible chain order, which of course has to be flexible, so it's color-coded, any actor that appears in multiple movies is highlighted in green, so if I need to move things around, that will give me a quick glance at what I'm able to do, what connects with what. This also gives me an even rougher idea about what films might start or end chains, so I have a target to aim for in late September.
The longest horror chain I had was 29 movies, that was a bit too much for this year, I'm going to be out of town for a week - so I took the second longest chain of 14 movies, and kind of Frankensteined on 10 movies out of that 29, creating a chain of 24, which fits perfectly. And IT'S ALIVE! ALIVE, I TELL YOU! THEY SAID IT COULD NOT BE DONE, BUT IT LIVES! Umm, yeah, sorry about that. I've carefully chosen these 24 movies, which will leave me with 160 not watched, and I took that remainder chain of 19 movies, tacked on 2, and maybe that chain of 21 films will come in handy next year, who knows, it's too soon to say, new horror films are being added to the chain all the time and I don't want to think about next October's films until at least summer. But many horror films don't link up with the others, so they need your help, won't you donate now and help link horror chains for 2027 and beyond? Anyway, here are the links that should get me to Halloween, and I'm going to knock off TWO high-profile horror franchises this month:
Steve Zahn carries over from "Anaconda" (2025) and then Timothy Olyphant, E. Roger Mitchell, Mason Thames, Ethan Hawke, Kevin Bacon, Sophie Thatcher, Harvey Guillen, Rob Riggle, Mark Steger, Devon Sawa, Tony Todd, Anthony Michael Frederick, Stephanie Honore, and Tony Todd again. Tony Todd's going to be around a lot, which might clue you in about those two big franchises. I've probably said too much.
THE PLOT: Two pairs of lovers on a Hawaiian vacation discover that psychopaths are stalking and murdering tourists on the islands.
AFTER: My first thought while watching this was, damn, this isn't a horror movie. Not in the sense of ghosts and monsters and such, and my fear was that I put it on a DVD with "The Ruins" (if memory serves) which IS a proper horror movie, I think, and this one kind of fell backwards on to the horror list, and it doesn't really belong there. But then I remember that I have made allowances for serial killer films in the past, that kind of counts as a form of horror movie, so sure, why not, it's a way to kind of ease in to the horror genre, not that there IS any easy way in, or out, for that matter, but you know, it's just where we find ourselves. I've never felt any strong urge to watch the "Resident Evil" films, but most are available on streaming now, so I should probably add them in time for next October, and this would have made a decent lead-in. But I can't save films for possible links, I have to link movies NOW and work with what I have, and live for today because we're here for a scary time, and maybe not for a long time.
Anyway, serial killers, they walk among us, and they could be anybody - I bet you have that friend who's too lazy to get a costume for Halloween, or too cool or too affected, whichever - so he just dresses in normal clothes and tells everyone he's dressed as a serial killer. Ha ha, that would be very funny if you didn't pull the same stunt last year and the year before that. But the point is that they COULD be anybody, especially if they're the kind who gain their prey's trust before killing them, and then assume their identities. Most killers just kill, not all of them devote the time to really KNOW their victims, connect with them on a deeper level, find out their hopes and dreams before they leave them in a hotel room after cutting off their fingers and removing their teeth. Well, you want to give the coroners a real challenge, yeah, I get it.
So we have three couples here enjoying the BEAUTIFUL scenery of Hawaii, we have the honeymooning newlyweds, Cliff and Cydney, we have the talkative Cleo and the muscular dirtbag Kale, and we have special ops agent (maybe) Nick and his girlfriend Gina. Once the news breaks that a pair of dead bodies has been found in Honolulu, and the killers are believed to be a man and a woman, well, sure, these three couples who never knew each other before this vacation have every right to suspect each other of being serial killers. It's not like there are hundreds or even thousands of couples visiting Hawaii at any given moment, right? I mean, when all you know about the pair of murderers is that they are human, they breathe oxygen and eat food, sure, it's probably the shady couple that you just met and copped an attitude for no reason when you offered them a ride. Or maybe the killer is the guy who claims to be ex-military, says he has a metal plate in his head whose girlfriend seems a little TOO good at butchering a wild goat that he hunted.
Well, whichever one it is, you'll probably never guess it, unless you guess the most unlikely of the bunch, but I suppose that's a matter of opinion. Maybe if you've seen a ton of movies then you'll guess it right away because you can out-think the screenwriter like the Sicilian in "The Princess Bride". Now, if I'm a writer do I make the killers the ones that you would never suspect, or would you suspect me to make the killers the ones you would never suspect, therefore they are the most obvious ones? Anyway, go nuts, try and guess who the killers are, I just felt very tricked by this movie because it seemed to be one thing and then suddenly it was another. So I guess when you least suspect it, suspect it. If that's possible.
I don't quite understand the bit with the wedding video, why certain people had to dub voices over and mess with the video, what was the point of all that? I guess I missed something somewhere along the way. Anyway, the film is kind of at odds with itself because as one character says, "Nothing bad ever happens in Hawaii", and then of course it goes on to show something very bad happening in Hawaii. But the place where everyone has a criminal record and nobody is who they're pretending to be, sorry, but that's Alaska. Some screenwriter must have gotten them confused.
Directed by David Twohy (director of "Riddick" and "The Chronicles of Riddick")
Also starring Timothy Olyphant (last seen in "The Girl Next Door"), Milla Jovovich (last seen in "Sigourney Weaver, the Most Iconic Action Heroine"), Kiele Sanchez (last seen in "The Purge: Anarchy"), Marley Shelton (last seen in "Scream" (2022)), Chris Hemsworth (last seen in "Spiderhead"), Anthony Ruivivar (last seen in "The Adjustment Bureau"), Dale Dickey (last seen in "Flag Day"), Wendy Braun (last seen in "The Clapper"), Peter Navy Tuiasosopo (last seen in "Speed Racer"), Jim Cruz (last seen in "Runner Runner"), Angela Sun (last seen in "Street Kings"), Leandra Gillis, Carlos Alberto Lopez (last seen in "The Rum Diary"), Katie Chonacas (last seen in "Standing in the Shadows of Motown"), Natalie Garza, Lindsay Halladay, Mercedes Leggett (last seen in "Mother!"), Tory Kittles (last seen in "Stop-Loss"), Brandon Ray Olive (last seen in "Logan Lucky"), Holt McCallany (last seen in "Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning"), Ryan Gesell, Evelyn Lopez, John T. Cogan, Katelin Chesna (last seen in "The Electric State"), Andy Hoff (last seen in "King Richard"), Travis Willingham (last heard in "Lego Batman: The Movie - DC Super Heroes Unite"), Webster Williams, Cristina Soler, D. Grigsby Poland, Grace Connelly, and the voice of Gugun Deep Singh (last seen in "Knox Goes Away"),
RATING: 3 out of 10 cliffside hiking trails
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