Day twenty-one was a big day and I had a lot of catching up to do, so I started with The Rage: Carrie 2 (1999). I had absolutely no hope for this one. How or why anyone would attempt to make a sequel (or for that matter, a remake) to Brian DePalma's masterpiece is beyond me. Maybe it's because I had such low expectations that I actually ended up genuinely enjoying it. Just for the record, there is no character named Carrie in this film. The plot follows a young outcast girl named Rachel, who lives with a foster family and whose schizophrenic mother is in an institution. When her best friend commits suicide, she begins to unravel and her long-repressed telekinetic powers begin to rise to the surface. Amy Irving, from the original Carrie, returns as guidance counselor Sue Snell who suspects that Rachel might have more in common with Carrie White than anyone else realizes. If you've seen Carrie you can pretty much guess how the story plays out, but thanks to some decent performances this modernized take on the tale actually works well. Also, although it came late in the era, the film is very much a product of the '90's. The '90's permeates every inch of this film in an undeniably charming (or depending on how you feel about the '90's, revolting) way. Unless you grew up in the '90's, I can only guess at how baffling the conversation about the band Garbage must be. The Rage comes nowhere close to the artfulness or tragedy of 1976's Carrie, but is a surprisingly decent follow-up. 7 1/2 out of 12 beers.
The Sacrament (2013) is another entry into the increasingly tiresome sub-genre of found-footage films. This one concerns a guerilla news crew that visits a religious commune at an undisclosed location in hopes of bringing back one of the crew member's sister. Slowly, they begin to discover that some of the members of the community are not as happy to be there as they let on. If you're at all familiar with Jim Jones and the Jonestown massacre, you'll be able to second-guess this pretty much all the way through. The Sacrament wasn't bad, but it also wasn't anything new or especially innovative. 6 out of 12 beers.
Next on the agenda was Insecticidal (2005). When a group of insects that a student is experimenting on are sprayed with ordinary insect killer by her annoyed roommate, they begin to grow to enormous proportions and kill off the housemates one by one. There's nothing special about Insecticidal. The effects are terrible, the acting is terrible, and the plot is not particularly interesting. 3 out of 12 beers.
The fourth and probably not the last Bigfoot movie of the month was up next. Bigfoot! (1970) features John Carradine as a local huckster who catches wind of an incident where a biker's girlfriend is kidnapped by a bigfoot. Hoping to make a fortune by caturing a real live bigfoot, he joins forces with the biker and his gang to rescue a harem of women from bigfoot. While Bigfoot! is no masterpiece, it is a lot of fun. Definitely the best bigfoot movie I've seen so far this month. 8 out of 12 beers.
After realizing that I hadn't seen a blaxploitation horror movie yet this month, I finished off the night with Blackenstein (1973) a.k.a. Black Frankenstein. An obvious attempt to cash in on Blacula, Blackenstein follows an amputee Vietnam veteran who agrees to be part of an experimental procedure to regrow his missing limbs. When his girlfriend who is helping with the experiment rejects the advances of another doctor involved, he sabotages the experiment which results in the patient reverting to a neanderthal state. Unbeknownst to the doctors involved in the experiment, the patient sneaks out at night to kill and consume victims as Blackenstein, the Black Frankenstein. I had high hopes for Blackenstein, but unfortunately it just didn't deliver on the fun premise that was promised. The movie just sort of shambles along and ends on a rather un-spectacular note. 4 1/2 out of 12 beers.
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