Hi, it is Bill and Teddy the Chihuahua again and time for our review of October in Barking Mad About Films Newsletter.
So, without any further ado, welcome to our October review….
BARKING MAD ABOUT OCTOBER
We as ever continued our quest to watch at least one film a day, so included many classics as well as new titles.
This month was a real mixed bag for us, even more so with ourselves again doing the Shocktober Challenge with all sorts of horror watches, from new films, repeated viewings and discovering old films…
Away from the horror, we did get to see Roofman at the cinema, although we were left really disappointed when our cinema did not show Good Fortune, which had been on our top 10 anticipated film watches this year =(
TV we also swayed away from horror and loved two BBC comedies, Film Club starring Aimee Lou Wood and the superb adaptation of one of our favourite books, Leonard and Hungry Paul.
We also enjoyed Task with Mark Ruffalo and BBC police drama Blue Lights.
We also found time to watch the wonderful I Like Me documentary about the legend and all-round nice guy, John Candy.
We also read quite a few books, although we did try to fit some horror reads in to those as well.
As ever you can find every film, we watch by following us on Letterboxd.
BARKING MAD ABOUT CINEMA
Our October cinema visits.
We did like Dwayne Johnson as UFC champion, Mark Kerr, but if truly honest, we far preferred Mark’s actually documentary, also called The Smashing Machine.
We loved seeing Indy the dog put in a fantastic performance as a dog in a haunted house, in the really enjoyable Good Boy.
After a slow start, we did finally love The Black Phone 2 which has a rousing finish.
We also enjoyed the Jeffrey Manchester biopic Roofman, as Channing Tatum played the criminal who lived in a Toys R Us, it was a great watch but hindered in our opinion by its two hour run time sadly.
Finally, we saw the British crowdplease I Swear, afantastic biopic of Tourettes Campaigner, John Davidson
BARKING MAD SHOCKTOBER.
We watched quite a few horrors, but the standouts for us were a rewatch of Killer Klowns From Outer Space, inspired by watching Welcome to Derry and more clown scares and our favourite horror film of all time, Fright Night.
We highly recommend The Coffee Table, especially if you see without knowing anything about it.
We had rewatches of the hugely enjoyable; Tim Curry’s outstanding performance in the iconic Rocky Horror Picture Show, we loved a rewatch of Event Horizon and the film adaption of the play, Ghost Stories.
Our highlights in the first-time watches were The Substance, which was worthy of all its Academy Award Attention.
We also really enjoyed Kim Basinger film, Bless The Child, it was surprising we had never seen it before as came from director Chuck Russell.
We watched our first ever Dario Argento film in Suspiria, we also watched, in our opinion, its inferior remake.
We loved the true story drama The Boston Strangler with a great performance from Keira Knightley.
We also enjoyed RomZomCom, Warm Bodies and dating horror film, Fresh.
Also we also loved the daft as a brush, Terror at London Bridge, which sees Jack the Ripper transported from the actual London Bridge to the replica in Lake Havasu via a brick.
Finally we also watched both the original (and still the best version) and new version of The Hand That Rocks the Cradle.
BARKING MAD ABOUT THE CREATURE.
The Creature from the Black Lagoon has always been our favourite of the classic universal monsters, so we gave it another watch.
You can really see the inspiration it has on many horror films even now, and of course on our beloved Jaws.
Sadly, we didn’t really enjoy the two sequels as much.
Revenge of the Creature had its moments and is a fun watch just for the early Clint Eastwood performance as a lab technician.
The Creature Walks Among US again had its moments, but via experiments, the creature loses its iconic gill design and just looks like Frankenstein’s monster.
BARKING MAD ABOUT WITCHES AND WEREWOLVES
We seem to also go wild for witches, having a triple bill of The Witches remake, classic Witchcraft, we didn’t do any of the staggering 15 sequels and Hammer classic Witchfinder General
We also did a triple bill of Werewolves films, from classic The Howling II to the more recent Werewolves starring Frank Grillo.
We rounded the triple bill off with the Jack Nicholson starring Wolf, which also starred briefly Prunella Scales, who recently passed away so was good to revisit one of her performances.
BARKING MAD ABOUT PENNYWISE
Not only did we start watching the IT prequel to the movies and book series, Welcome to Derry, we also revisited the original two part drama series which saw the iconic Tim Curry play Pennywise the clown.
BARKING MAD ABOUT BOOKS
We, as always read a few books in our read list that have been inspired by forthcoming films or films recently announced, with horror novels also playing a big part.
Fright Night is our favourite horror film of all time, so we loved Fright Night: Hellbound which saw the film writer/director, Tom Holland, give us a tale of Jerry and Billy Cole in the 70s.
It was a bit weird as we have to route for Jerry against a bigger bad, but was great to return to those characters again.
I can not recommend The Third Parent by Elias Witherow which introduces us to quite possible the scariest character I have ever come across in Tommy Taffy.
We really hope Crispin Glover can do him justice when the film adaption comes next year.
Josh Malerman’s Incidents Around the House, which gave us vibes of the original Poltergeist film was also a great scary book and soon to be a film with Jessica Chastain.
We loved Uketsu’s Strange Pictures which tells a story via some strange pictures =)
Serial Killer drama All The Sinners Bleed by S A Cosby was a gritty read that felt like watching True Detective and is soon to get a TV adaptation.
Let’s Split Up by Bill Wood was a lot of fun even if plays like a cross between Scream and Scooby Doo.
Soon to be a film starring Maika Monroe, we loved period horror Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito.
Listen for the Lie by Amy Tintera was also a great read as a girl accused of killing her best friend, but has no memory of it, goes on a true crime podcast to get to the truth.
As we do with the films, we do log every book we read, and you can follow us on Good Reads.
BARKING MAD ABOUT TV.
We watched some great shows in October.
The highlight was the perfect adaption of Ronan Hession book, Leonard and Hungry Paul.
Film Club with Aimee Lou Wood was also a joy.
We also absolutely loved Sports comedy, Chad Powers.
Mark Ruffalo action-drama Task was also a worthy watch.
We had read the book Murder before Evensong and enjoyed it but felt it got bogged down with the history of the church, without this, it has made an enjoyable Channel 5 drama.
Irish police drama, Blue Lights is a great replacement for Line of Duty.
Sally Wainwright’s Riot Women is proving to be a great BBC drama as well.
Other than that, the real highlight has been the joy that is reality game show, The Celebrity Traitors.
BARKING MAD ABOUT NOVEMBER.
Cinema we are looking forward to The Predator’s return in Predator: Badlands
We are also looking forward to Edgar Wright’s adaptation of Stephen King’s book, The Running Man, which we imagine will be more faithful than the Schwarzenegger version.
TV and we are looking forward to the adaptation of a great read that was All Her Fault starring Sarah Snook and the final season of Stranger Things.
With horror off the agenda, we have no real plans for what other movies we will watch, other than a rewatch of Prey before the new Predator film.
We also want to watch a Diane Keaton film or two, after her sad passing.
What about you? What are you looking forward to in November?
We would love to hear from you.
You can always keep up with what we are watching by following us on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/barkingmadaboutfilms/
Or you can follow us on Letterboxd to see all the movies we watch: https://letterboxd.com/Bill626/
You can also discover what we read, by following us on GoodReads at https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/28908876-bill-boswell
We hope you enjoyed our monthly reviews and if this has given you inspiration for films to watch or you want more ideas for what to watch then why not check out our digital calendar full of ideas and dates in movies https://barkingmadaboutfilms-com.stackstaging.com/introducing-the-bmaf-film-club-calendar/
Leave a Reply