Ravenns24

In year 2000 horror cinema got nice surprise with the little movie called "Final Destination" that was about high school student Alex having premonition of plane exploding and killing everyone. He tries to warn people but no one believes him so he and couple of his fellow students get kicked out of flight. Then the plane actually explodes and Alex premonition turns out to be true. However, Death doesn't like when you mess with it's "grand design" and it comes back to haunt survivors one by one killing them in gruesome series of "freak accidents".

The movie was so successful that it spawned countless other sequels and "Bloodlines" while labelled as soft reboot is pretty much straight up sequel as it references movies that came before it, including having Tony Todd playing the exact same character he's been playing in all these movies.

How does "Bloodlines" hold up? While I am not big fan of the series, and in fact as the time of writing this review, I have only seen three or four of them, first first two only being that I can actually remember, I can only see this movie as "yet another sequel". It holds up fine, the opening is pretty good for final destination movie, it features to my knowledge biggest "disaster" scene we ever had in series. The main difference here is that Death doesn't haunt random people in this one, it haunts three generations of a single family of the girl who originally prevented disaster after having premonition in 60s, much like Alex prevents disaster in original movie.

Good FX, CGI goes from great to "hello 2000" for some reason, death scenes are usual over the top Final Destination style, however if you've seen one of these, you've seen all of them and "Bloodlines" is no different, right to cliche "hur hur" ending.

Standout scene is short but impactful scene with Tony Todd, who tells characters to enjoy the little life they have and cherish it, which hits hard for longtime fans of horror legend Tony Todd, who at the time of filming this was fighting nasty stomach cancer and died before movie was released, making this his final role, final words spoken on screen in final scene he filmed.

R. I. P. Legendary Tony Todd, you will be missed.

"The Howling" is often referred to as being one of the best werewolf movies ever made, if not one of the best horror movies ever. It's based on the novel of the same name by Gary Brandner.

When news reporter and anchor Karen White (Dee Wallace) is attacked by serial killer Eddie Quist (Robert Picardo) she is sent to remote island village called Colony as part of her psychiatric therapy. However the Colony has one issue, it's locals happen to be werewolves.

"The Howling" is atmospheric horror movie that takes a bit to get things going, but once it takes it's time establishing characters and settings, things go wild. Movie has great shots, great FX, terrifically painful werewolf transformation sequence, and the great atmospheric mood if you think about the idea that you are stuck on a island who's inhabitants are locals.

It is often regarded as one of the essentials of the genre alongside "American Werewolf in London" for a good reason.

Downside? It's legacy is somewhat dragged down by string of rushed and bad sequels, starting with Howling 2: Your Sister is a Werewolf and failed reboot in mid 2000s.

"Village of the Damned" made in 60s is often considered one of the best horror movies of it's decade and it has aged rather well.

John Carpenter "updates" this story based on John Wyndham's novel "The Midwich Cuckoos" published in 1957. But he takes some liberties. One of such additions is obviously more excessive violence compared to '60s counterpart, however like with many Carpenter movies, violence is rather tamed even by 90s standards. John has never been "gore" director, his movies have always been about creating suspense and atmosphere, slow burn creepy feeling, with The Thing and In the Mouth of Madness being his only really gory movie.

What is this movie about? Well it's some kind of alien invasion told in very different way. UFO flies over remote, somewhat isolated small town and causes everyone to be knocked out for six hours, after which everyone wakes up without seemingly any issues. However shortly after, ten women found out they are pregnant on a same day, and couple of months later they give birth to 9 (10th being stillborn) children who all display same physical characteristics, hivemind and they have strange psychic powers.

While not John's strongest movie, Village of the Damned is fairly solid entry into overall solid period of old classic remakes (such as Body Snatchers by Abel Ferrara) and it excused with atmosphere and feeling of looming doom as children grow more in power each day and hostile takeover is inevitable.

Christopher Lee gives fairly good performance but sadly shortly after release of this movie he would end up in infamous horse accident that left him completely paralyzed from neck down and this would naturally limit his acting roles. Kristie Alley gives descent performance and so do other supporting cast members such as Michael Pare as Frank, Mark Hamill as Reverend George and everyone's favorite bum, George "Buck" Flower in short but memorable role as school drunken janitor that gets killed viciously by Mara and the Spooky Kids.

Solid recommendation if you love John Carpenter, but I would also recommend checking out original movie from 60s that has aged beautifully, and it's sequel Children of the Damned.