On the fifth day of this glorious challenge I started with Two Thousand Maniacs! The theme of the day was to get in exploitation flicks and, interestingly, I've seen a fair bit of those already. It was sort of a brief interest of mine to watch them back as a teenager. Either way, this was one of the films that was left off my watching lists at the time. Perhaps it didn't seem extreme enough, or somehow seemed to old, but yeah, just never watched it.
So how was it? I thought hte film was pretty nice. I mean, sure it isn't exactly the deepest story in the world... Some outsiders travel through a small Southern town and get paraded around as "guests of honor" for some mysterious celebration. Of course, as the film name implies, this small town of (apparently) 2,000 locals are murdering freaks who want nothing more than to kill all the Northerners they can get their hands on.
With a premise like that you can't exactly expect the movie to be serious, and it's not. The kills are ridiculous and often humorous. I thought it was a very watchable film and doesn't feel as old as it is. One thing that I really enjoyed about the film is that even with such a name it didn't delve right into the insanity of the townsfolk. Instead, you get a very long buildup (about half the film) before the purpose of the celebration is revealed Good stuff. Sometime I'll have to watch that sequel.
Next up was Sweet Sixteen. This was just selected on a whim and didn't turn out to be that great, but it wasn't a completely awful thing either. The story revolves around a girl named Melissa who acts too old for her age of near-sixteen. As she takes interest in boys, they end up dying, and no one knows who is to blame. There's some interesting themes focusing around racism as well, which weren't expected. I'm glad that they were there though as it builds another layer into the world that most horror films don't explore.
Beyond that though it wasn't the best thing. The characters were fine and it moved along well but it felt more like a television movie. I also didn't really care for the twist ending. There was very little attention drawn to it beforehand so it really did feel like the rug was pulled out from under you, and not particularly in a good way. At least that's how I felt at the end. One plus was that the title image is totally great. It's extremely simple but effective.
Curtains is a movie I've been hungry to watch, and because of that perhaps I ended up barely enjoying it. My copy was very dark and quiet and it may have been related to my lack of watching pleasure as well. But basically, it didn't seem like it had much of a point. There were hallmark creepy things like a sad doll and old, old lady mask, but beyond that there was little heart here. The characters were nice at least, but still weren't able to save it.
Honestly there's very little I have to say about this movie and I'm sad that I wasn't able to enjoy it. Perhaps watching it again sometime (with a better copy) will make for a more pleasant experience.
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