A (Mini) Halloween Sampler for All Souls: 2024 Edition!

Happy Halloween, dear friends!

Given this year's reduced movie-watching goal, it perhaps follows that I have fewer scary movies to review for this year's spooky sampler.  Nevertheless, I'm excited to share a few films that might be fitting if you're in the mood to enhance this scary season with some cinematic creepiness.

As always, each of the movies below will be rated with the usual overall 1 - 5 rating scale, as well as a scary/intense rating of 1 - 5 exclamation points, to be interpreted as follows:

! = not at all scary

!!!!! = so scary!

Let's get to it!

"A Haunting in Venice" (2023)

Rating: 3.5  Scary Rating: !!!!

Having seen at least one of the campy previous generation of Detective Poirot movies, I didn't expect "A Haunting in Venice" to be as scary as it was.  The film uses its dark, foreboding setting in a decaying Venetian mansion with a hellish history to very strong effect, and is further enhanced by its willingness to toy with the line between the natural and supernatural world, especially because that seems to run counter to Poirot's typical refusal to believe that anything other than living human beings can be responsible for murder.  This detective-film-turned-ghost-story is definitely perfect for Halloween!

"Twisters" (2024)

Rating: 4  Scary Rating: !!!

Long-term readers of the blog know how much I love the original "Twister" (1996), so it should come as no surprise that I was PUMPED for this long, long-overdue sequel.  AND IT DID NOT DISAPPOINT.  It packs all the heart-pounding tornado-y action you know and love from the original with added themes of climate change, social media celebrity, grassroots mutual aid, and predatory capitalism to bring it into the future.  

Is it the most scientifically rigorous movie in the world?  No.  Are the characters super well-developed?  No.  Is it the universe's best script?  No.  We cannot demand the world from "Twisters", but we can sure as hell can demand a good time, and it absolutely delivers.  So if you're in the mood for something intense that is firmly rooted in the natural world, this is your movie.

I hope you enjoy a wonderful and optimally spooky Halloween!

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