Movies I watched in 2025

1. Peter Pan's Neverland Nightmare (2025). We watched this one at the cinema. I love these dark adult spins on fairytales (that are technically dark to begin with, unless Disney-fied, but let's crank it up to a thousand). There were a few gory moments where I was sat hiding my face in my hands, but overall this was a good horror flick. 

2. Nosferatu (2024). I adore the original 1922 movie and I had high hopes for this remake. Let's be real - a 100 year old movie can stand to have a remake. It was amazing. Absolutely brilliant. I loved how it stuck to the theatricality of the original (acting has come a long way in 100 years) yet managed to modernise it at the same time. Lily Rose Depp was brilliant. The story was kept intact and surprisingly faithful. The only thing I didn't like about this movie was the moustache. They claim they gave Orlok a moustache because a person from his time period would absolutely have a moustache, and yeah I don't disagree with that, that's true. But as a vampire he had lost all other hair on his body, yet the moustache frickin sticks?!?! Come on. 

3. Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017). We decided it was time to give the reboot a proper watch. It was fun. I like that they referenced the original and even brought some inspo from the cartoon. I do enjoy the video game spin on things though.

4. Night at the Museum 2 (2009). Stumbled upon this while visiting my parents. Just something to watch on TV. It was alright. Pretty fun.

5. San Andreas (2015). Disaster movie about California experiencing The Eartquake that everyone's fearing and expecting. Pretty standard as far as disaster movies go. 

6. Day After Tomorrow (2004). We continued the disaster movie trend with this one. I watched this one way back in the day as a teenager when it was new. Already back then my mom and I commented on how ridiculous fake the wolves looked. The CGI had not improved with age.

7. Jumanji: The Next Level (2019). The second movie of the reboot. Not as good as the first one, but still decent. I can't decide whether I liked having Nick Jonas in it. I'm still surprised when I see him in any other context than music. 

8. Terrifier (2016). Bf really wanted to watch this one. I hate clowns. So we watched it. It was really good. There was too much going on for me to really focus on the clown aspect. A bunch of gore, but I can't remember having to hide my face, so it wasn't too bad. 

9. Midsommar (2019). Everyone talked about this movie for a while, so we decided to watch it. Neither of us understand why people talked about this movie. It was extremely slow to start, to the point where it felt like it never really kicked off, before it ended in a drug-infused orgy. I'm so confused. Ironically, this was shown on TV when I visited my parents for midsummer. I made them switch the channel. I didn't want to watch this one more time. 

10. Saw (2004). I remember when Saw was new. Can't believe it's a classic now. We decided it was time to rewatch this classic franchise. And oh damn, Jigsaw is so great. Both of us had seen this one before, but it had been at least a decade.

11. Saw II (2005). Same as above. 

12. What Happened to Monday (2017). Stumbled upon this when visiting my parents. A dystopian movie where only one child is allowed. A set of septuplets live their lives as one single person, each getting one day of the week each. Then Monday disappears, and the whole thing unravels as the sisters try to figure out what happened. Surprisingly good. 

13. Saw III (2006). Neither of us had seen this one before, but we wanted to continue with our Saw rewatching. This is probably the weakest of the three. Yet that twist at the end... *chef's kiss*

14. The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023). This was better than either of us expected. We had a lot of fun with it. It's exactly what you expect, but it's really well made.

15. Nimona (2023). Aside from Nosferatu, this was probably my favourite movie of the year. An animated adventure, clearly for kids, but with enough humour that adults can appreciate it. Classic story of embracing differences and good vs evil, but it was humoristic and light-hearted in all the right places, and handled the dark parts really well.

16. The Haunting of Margam Castle (2020). Probably the worst movie of the year. Don't watch this. I'm not even gonna say what it's about. It's shit. Fucking deadpan acting looking like they were all reading off a teleprompter.

17. Five Nights at Freddy's (2023). Neither of us have played the games, but hanging out with other gamers ofc we had the rough idea of what the games are about and what this movie would be about. Funny, gory, dark and scary in all the right places. Better than I expected.

18. Cunk on Life (2024). This got a bit too silly and dumb. It had its moments, but imo it leaned a bit too far into dumb territory, straying from fun and silly. Mockumentary about life on earth.

19. The Thursday Murder Club (2025). I really enjoyed this one. There's something cosy and wholesome about a bunch of pensioneers spending their time solving old crime, because they have nothing better to do. And then a real crime shows up. 

20. Soundproof (2006). Another movie I stumbled upon when visiting my parents. It was really unusual to see a movie where deaf people took centre stage. Generally it was a pretty standard criminal drama, but it played on prejudices and difficulties communicating across language barriers.

21. In Your Dreams (2025). Super wholesome animated adventure movie for kids that just hit all the right notes. This was great. A family on the verge of breaking apart and the children wishes for them to stick together. Then they find out the Sandman can grant wishes. 

Movies I watched in 2024

1. The Nun II (2023). This movie marked the point where we had completely caught up with the Conjuring universe. I actually liked this one better than the original Nun movie but they're both really good. Honestly the entire Conjuring universe is so good. 

2. Barbie (2023). Finally got to watch this movie! It was just as good as people said and just as corny as I expected. I really enjoyed it, although bf was less impressed. The whole speech about society's expectations on women was on point. 

3. Minority Report (2002). Movie I caught on TV while visiting my parents. I had never seen it before despite it being quite old by now. Not a fan of Tom Cruise but the premise of the movie was really cool. Not sure about that ending though.

4. The Tank (2023). Kiwi creature horror movie. Some couple buys an old house, which has an old water tank underneath it. Something lives in the tank, which they discover is the reason the house has been abandoned for decades. Something horrible happened there and the locals stay away. It was not great, but entertaining enough. The most annoying thing about it was that every time a flashlight was used the actors would shine it right into the camera so we'd get blinded every few minutes.

5. Zom 100: Bucketlist of the Dead (2023). Japanese post-apoc comedy based on an anime. The trailer looked fun so we decided to watch it and it was a wild ride from start to finish. Especially the zombie shark xD

6. The Shawshank Redemption (1994). This is a classic I've seen many times before, but I caught it on TV when visiting my parents and it's always a treat to watch. 

7. Deepwater Horizon (2016). Catastrophe movie based on true events that I also caught on TV at my parents'. As far as catastrophe movies go it was pretty alright. 

8. Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). I discovered that my bf had never watched Indiana Jones so of course I had to show them to him. The original is still the best one. 

9. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984). Same as above. This one is probably my least favourite, although I haven't seen the most recent one. We were both equally exasperated by the girl. 

10. Goonies (1985). When I discovered that bf had never seen Indiana Jones, he discovered I had never seen Goonies. So of course he had to show me it. This was great :D Kids adventure movies are always great if they can avoid being too camp and corny. 

11. The Meg (2018). A movie I had been curious about seeing for years, but never got around to. So now we finally did. A modern buffed up version of Jaws. 

12. Meg 2: The Trench (2023). After we had seen the first one we had to see the sequel. Even more buffed up Jaws. 

13. Evil Dead Rise (2023). Somehow I've never watched an Evil Dead movie before. I've seen clips, but never a full movie. Why do they have to be so gross? Like whyd o they have to vomit their guts out when they die? Other than that I had a really good time with this one. 

14. Karusell (2023). A Swedish horror movie which takes place on the amusement park Liseberg in Gothenburg. It was a classic slasher movie and pretty well made, with all the hints that a sequel could be possible. 

15. The Last Voyage of the Demeter (2023). This was on my radar throughout 2023 and then somehow I forgot about it, until a Discord server I'm in started talking about it and I remembered I wanted to watch it. In the Dracula novel this story is told via newspaper clippings. It's basically the story of how Dracula travelled to London via ship and how that ship came to be shipwrecked during a storm. When it was discovered the morning after the storm the ship's crew was all found to be long dead and the captain had tied himself to the wheel. A monstrous version of Dracula and it really tickled my fancy.

16. The Deliverance (2024). Random horror movie we found on Netflix. I was hoping for a good haunted house movie, but this wasn't it. 

17. Orion and the Dark (2024). An animated movie that was really very heartwarming and such a cosy watch. 

18. Damsel (2024). Dragons. Fantasy. Strong female lead. Action adventure movie with all of the mentioned qualities. It was a lot of fun to watch and I had a good time. 

19. Apostle (2018). Cult horror movie. Could have been good, but fell a bit short.

20. Office Invasion (2022). This movie was just crazy hilarious fun. 

21. The Bone Collector (1999). Another movie I caught on TV at my parents'. Retired detective who was rendered paraplegic at work is called in to help investigate a case. Really interesting thriller. 

22. How It Ends (2018). The name's gotta be ironic, because it doesn't. It's a catastrophe movie, but all of the cool things shown in the trailer happens in the last 15 minutes. The movie doesn't have a satisfying ending and just leaves a whole heap of loose threads. 

23. Dead Snow 2: Red vs. Dead (2014). Norwegian zombie movie. Several years ago we watched the first one and it was hilarious so when we discovered the sequel on one of our streaming services we had to watch it. This wasn't as good, but still it was so much fun. 

24. Konferensen (2023). Swedish horror movie based on a book I had previously read. So I knew who the killer was and what would happen. Yet it was still a very good movie and they kept a lot of the gory details intact (although some of it was changed). 

25. That Christmas (2024). Very heartwarming and cosy animated movie. All the feels.

26. The Christmas Chronicles (2018). This movie was so much fun. There was a lot of laughter to be had and just generally really good vibes. 

27. The Christmas Chronicles: Part Two (2020). The sequel wasn't as good as the original, but still there was a lot of good vibes and cosiness. 

28. The Holiday (2006). One of my favourite Christmas movies and one of few romantic movies I can stand. 

29. Home Alone (1990). Classic. A must-watch every Christmas season. 

30. Klaus (2019). An animated movie, but surprisingly serious. I really enjoyed this one. It's a tale about the origins of Santa Claus. 

31. Forrest Gump (1994). Another classic caught on TV at my parents' (I visited a lot last year). 

Movies I watched in 2023

1. White Noise (2022). From the trailer this looked like it would be a fun post-apoc movie with some good banter in it. Instead it was a snooze-fest of contemporary social commentary and no apocalypse in sight.

2. Life (2017). Accidentally watched this twice. The first time we chose it on Netflix and it was pretty alright as far as alien movies go. Calvin was a pretty cool "monster", but if you've seen the movie Alien you know how this one goes as well. The second time we stumbled upon it on TV at my parents' place. 

3. In the Tall Grass (2019). This is an adaptation of a Stephen King story and it shows. It's really weird. I was hoping for psychological horror, but it just ended up being weird. Not that good. 

4. Renfield (2023). I was looking forward to this movie! We watched it at the cinema and it was everything I hoped for. Dark comedy with some decent homage to various vampire interpretations. I really enjoyed it!

5. We Have A Ghost (2023). David Harbour was brilliant in this! The movie was hilarious and sad and it was such a good time to watch. Totally worth!

6. Murder Mystery 2 (2023). We watched the first one in 2022 and I wanted to watch this one as well. Not a fan of Adam Sandler overall, but in these two movies I've been alright with him. This sequel wasn't as good as the original (as per usual), but it was still a good time.

7. Population 436 (2006). This movie has been hanging around our Netflix watchlist for ages and we finally decided that it was time. It wasn't good. The entire thing felt stilted and extra theatrical like movies from the 60s or 70s sometimes seem today because acting has evolved. We both thought the movie was at least 20 years older than it was. 

8. America: The Motion Picture (2021). Extremely over the top and totally hilarious! This movie is a good time. It's about the founding of the US, but not in the way that you know it.

9. Slumberland (2022). Totally heart-warming movie about a little girl that is sent to live with her bachelor uncle after her father passes away. This movie personifies childhood hopes and dreams and adventure. 

10. Next Gen (2018). This was a really cool animated movie that gave us a bit of Big Hero 6 vibes, but very poignant and modern as well. 

11. Prey for the Devil (2022). We wanted a horror movie, and this one was really great. This was the movie that finally convinced us to dive into the Conjuring universe. See below.

12. Nightbooks (2021). A very cute adventure movie. Probably technically for kids but it was still a lot of fun about a nerdy kid saving the world by telling stories. 

13. The Conjuring (2013). Even after having watched all the other movies in the Conjuring universe this is still probably the strongest one. It had me on the edge of my seat and I was actually terrified towards the end. Strongly recommend. 

14. The Babadook (2014). I had been wanting to watch this one for years because the trailer made it seem oh so good. In reality it was a bust. Such a disappointment. The monster wasn't scary, the ending was just "wut", the characters weren't engaging... Just so disappointing.

15. Annabelle (2014). I hate dolls. I hate dolls. I hate dolls. This movie seemed very classic horror, but it was good. Really good.

16. The Conjuring 2 (2016). Pretty much the same as the first Conjuring, but in England. I really enjoyed this one as well. This movie has the first mention of Valak. 

17. Annabelle: Creation (2017). This story is incredibly sad, but I felt this movie was better than the first Annabelle movie. Very well made. 

18. The Nun (2018). Heeeeeeere's Valak! This movie was really, really good. I love how the story was told from several perspectives and you never knew which one was true until the end. Also, nice way of connecting this movie to the beginning of the original Conjuring movie. 

19. The Curse of La Llorona (2019). Easily the weakest movie in the Conjuring universe and the only obvious connection to the rest of the universe is the priest who shows up in both this one and in Annabelle. 

20. Annabelle Comes Home (2019). This one was great. Really amazing. I loved how it's about Annabelle but they incorporated all the other stuff in the Warrens' basement.

21. Lamb (2021). This one was weird. Me and my mom stumbled upon it on TV when I was visiting and it was just really strange. Based on Icelandic folklore (I believe), a lamb that's half lamb and half human is born on a farm, and things just spiral out of control. 

22. The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (2021). While this one was cool, it was different from what they usually do. More witches and not so much demonic possession (although there was that too). 

23. Uncharted (2022). This movie got a ton of flak for its casting, but we both ended up liking it. Tom Holland did a good job as Nathan Drake. The fan movie still gets more things right, though. 

24. The Lost City (2022). I wanted to see this movie since I first saw the trailer, because it seemed like the kind of humoristic adventure movie that I enjoy, and I wasn't wrong. This movie was a riot! 

25. Love, Rosie (2014). Not the kind of movie I usually watch, but I caught this one on TV when I visited my parents and ended up actually enjoying it. Drama movie about how life happens and gets in the way of your plans, but somehow everything works out in the end anyway. 

Movies I watched in 2022

Just like I did for 2021, here's a compilation of the movies we watched in 2022 :)

1. Red Notice (2021). Ryan Reynolds and Dwayne Johnson in a heist movie. This was pretty cool actually, very fast-paced and fun and Dwayne Johnson didn't end up having the role I expected in the end. An all around fun action comedy.

2. The Trip (2021). This is a Norwegian dark comedy with a well-known Swedish actress as the female lead. We went in expecting over-the-top gruesome hilarity from it and we were not disappointed. This was messy and gorey and bloody and so so much fun. Definitely recommend.

3. Aftermath (2021). A pretty dark thriller that somewhat fails on suspense. A young struggling couple gets an amazing deal on a house, but when they move in they notice that not everything is as it should be. The woman thinks it's haunted but nobody listens to her. Then they find out it's something much worse than a simple haunting. The end was pretty chilling, but everything building up to it was kind of lackluster.

4. You Don't Mess With the Zohan (2008). I'm not a fan of Adam Sandler and I tend to stay away from his movies, so it's no surprise that I hadn't seen this movie before. Yet I was talked into watching this and it was pretty hilarious. A lot of the jokes wouldn't work today (yikes) but definitely a fun movie.

5. Mother/Android (2021). A post-apoc movie that ended up a bit of a disappointment. They could've done so much more with it, but instead it came up short and with an ending that just fell flat with seemingly no resolution. It was heart-breaking at times, but the story wasn't all that engaging.

6. Eli (2019). One of the coolest movies we watched this year. Eli is a boy living with no immune system so he spends his life in a bubble. He's offered a place at a home that specializes in these kinds of conditions, promising a treatment that could improve his quality of life. But when he gets there he soon discovers that the place isn't all it's cracked up to be and there's some really dark things going on there.

Summer Movies.

7. Crash Pad (2017). This was a fun movie about a young man just wanting to be left alone to wallow, and a middle-aged man just wanting to have fun and get over his ex. They end up helping each other in the most unexpected ways. 

8. There's Someone Inside Your House (2021). This whole movie feels like a homage to Scream or I Know What You Did Last Summer. There's a killer on campus that reveals your darkest secrets and then kills you while wearing a mask that looks like your face. Creepy stuff. The reveal at the end was unexpected, otherwise it played out pretty much as expected. 

9. Don't Breathe (2016). A trio decides to rob a rich blind veteran thinking it'd be an easy job. Only to discover that the man they're robbing is straight up insane and extremely deadly. This movie was suspenseful to the max and very chilling. Definitely recommend.

10. Day Shift (2022). A very fun vampire movie featuring Snoop and Jamie Foxx. As if a standard zombie-movie met vampires. It was a fun concept, the whole movie was fun. I enjoyed how they played with the vampire lore and how they created different breeds of vamps. Recommended as a fun watch with lots of crazy action!

11. Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993). Both of us had seen this movie before but it had been ages, so when it showed up on Netflix we had to see it again. It still holds up and it's such a hilarious movie. A lot of the jokes wouldn't fly today though. Like people would cancel it for the very first joke when an Arab says his name is Falafel ._.

12. The Sea Beast (2022). Really heart-warming and fun animated family movie. Gave me Tangled vibes (which is my favourite Disney movie). We chose this for something light and fun to watch and it was both of those, but also just so good. Really enjoyable. Strong recommend.

13. Enola Holmes 2 (2022). I really enjoyed the first one, while Toni wasn't convinced. But I chose this movie as my birthday movie so he would have to watch it with me. It was very fast-paced and fun, and we both came away from it feeling like this sequel was a lot better than the first movie. Keep them coming! 

14. Another Round (2020). The Danish movie that won an Oscar. It was on TV when I was visiting my parents for my birthday and we just ended up watching it. It's a fun premise that goes just as wrong as you'd expect it to, but essentially it boils down to a group of middle-aged men being disillusioned with the way life has turned out for them and want to make it a bit more fun. They end up having a bit too much fun.

15. Krampus (2015). We watched this on Christmas Eve. It seemed fitting. It's a horror movie about the dark side of Christmas, when Krampus comes for the bad kids. It was entirely predictable until the very end. That twist at the end though was perfect. We had a good time with this one!

16. Murder Mystery (2019). Two Adam Sandler movies in one year? :0 Wow! And I chose this one! It had a pretty fun plot, and aside from me wanting to smack Adam Sandler so he'd shut up every time he opened his mouth, it was a fun movie. I loved that Jennifer Aniston's character basically solved the murder just from having read so many murder mystery novels xD

17. The Forest (2016). This is a movie that mainly takes place in Japan and mainly in the Aokigahara Forest, or the Suicide Forest as it's known as. It started off with suspense and stayed with suspense pretty much all the way until the part in the cave... And then it all went downhill. The last scene had us both going "that's so ridiculous". Could've been better.

17 movies + the 12 summer movies. We watched 29 movies together last year :) Pretty good haul.

Summer Movies

We watched a bunch of movies this summer just like last year and most of them were horror related.

1. Choose or Die (2022). This is a horror movie about a computer game from the 80s, that's basically coded into being an AI. It was fun to watch it get increasingly more horrifying. That scene where a character is literally throwing up video tape was terrifying. It wasn't a bad movie, but also not one of the best we've seen. I did enjoy it, though.

2. ARQ (2016). This is a sci-fi post-apoc movie about a couple who gets stuck in a time-loop and have to figure their way out of it. I was kind of disappointed at the ending, because it was so open-ended. I just spent 1½ hours watching a story that doesn't have an end. Not a proper one at least. I guess I enjoyed the suspension of the ambivalent ending, and the action was good. But all in all a pretty meh experience. I was hoping for something more. 

3. The Cabin in the Woods (2011). Toni had seen this movie before and he wanted me to see it because he remembered that there was a twist he really didn't see coming and he thought it was so good. Imagine his disappointment when I had figured out the twist less than halfway through the movie? xD They kept dropping hints and my brain put them together. Anyway it was a very enjoyable film and I could easily watch it again. It's a horror movie, but it definitely has a twist. 

4. The Adam Project (2022). We had both heard a lot of good about this Ryan Reynolds movie and from the trailer it looked fun so we decided to watch it. It was a pretty classic time-travelling sci-fi flick and Ryan Reynolds was Ryan Reynolds. It was alright. Nothing new. 

5. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022). This is marketed as a sequel to the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre from the 70s and they actually work on that story. The survivor from the original is back (not the same actress though). The town where everything happened is all but abandoned and a ghost town. A group of idealistic young people buy the town to create a green community. Leatherface is not impressed. The rest of the movie is classic slasher and we enjoyed it. I really liked Lila. 

6. Malevolent (2018). Classis ghost story horror movie, but THAT twist! I really didn't see the twist coming until just before it happened, so well done writers. A group of young people pretend to be ghosthunters with a psychic that can cleanse houses of spirits. Except the psychic figures out along the way that oopsie they're the real deal. And this house they're contracted to do is really, really haunted. But not in the way they think. I had a good time with this one. 

7. The Cleanse (2016). This was marketed as a horror comedy on Netflix and we usually enjoy that so we decided to watch it. Not a Netflix movie so didn't have a trailer. Turned out be something completely different and it was the most awkward movie we've watched all year. It wasn't scary. It wasn't funny. There was nothing horror about it. The whole thing was just unbelievably awkward. No. Just no.

8. Das schaurige Haus/The Scary House (2020). I wanted to see something with a classic haunted house so we ended up with this Austrian teen horror movie. It was pretty amusing and better than I expected. The whole family mystery thing added to the suspense. Definitely recommend. 

9. Metal Lords (2022). As metalheads we had a lot of fun with this movie. It's a teen movie, but so good and funny and heart-warming and the soundtrack is amazing. It's a coming of age story and the characters do a lot of growing up. The trailer says it all. Just watch it. 

10. Come Play (2020). A monster called Larry wants a friend. And he has decided that friend will be the autistic boy Oliver. Oliver's parents don't like the idea. This is a horror movie and it was pretty chilling at times. I had a good time with it. What bothered me most about this whole movie was the parents trying to force Oliver to learn to talk rather than having the entire family learn sign-language. But other than that this was a solid horror movie. 

11. The Whole Truth (2021). This is the first movie either of us have ever watched in Thai, and probably the first movie we've watched that neither of us could understand a word of, but slap some subtitles on and it's no big deal. This is a solid ghost story with lots of family drama and secrets and mystery and even at the end when you think every secret has come out it's evident that the whole story still hasn't been told. I enjoyed every single thing about this movie and how chilling it was. The only thing we both deemed ridiculous was how grey and animatronic the ghost looked. 

12. The Visit (2015). M. Night Shyamalan movie without a trailer, but we decided to give it a go. Shyamalan is either really good or just falls flat on its face. There's no in-between. This movie however was thoroughly chilling and unpleasant and absolutely perfect. There isn't a lot of action, but the suspense just keeps building up until the very end. Where it starts out slow, it ends up super intense.

Movies I watched in 2021

This is aside from the horror movies we watched during the summer.

Death to 2020 (2020)
This movie pokes fun at the mess that was 2020. It was the first movie we watched in 2021 and I've since been recommending it to everyone I know. It's a mockumentary and its self-depricating humour is exactly what I needed after the shitshow that was 2020.

Downton Abbey (2019)
I wanted to watch this at the cinema, but had nobody to watch it with and it never made it outside of the independent cinemas and so it wasn't running for very long. Long story short: I missed it. Then I found it on Prime and ofc I had to watch it. All the nostalgia came flooding back and I realised how much I had loved this show, to the point where I started to watch the show again.

His House (2020)
The first horror movie of the year and it was weird. Not bad weird, just weird. I loved that it was the woman who saved the day even after being repeatedly told by her husband that he'd handle things and she shouldn't worry about it. On top of being a horror movie it was also a heart-wrenching account of war and refugees and trying to find your footing in a foreign country. I enjoyed it despite its weirdness, and there were some really creepy moments. 

Hot Fuzz (2007)
I have a hard time with comedy, usually, because all it tends to be is me hiding behind a pillow in shame and embarrassment, which is why I had never seen this one. Toni talked me into watching this with him after it showed up on Netflix and I had a great time. This is a classic and it's so much fun. Absolutely loved it.

Little Evil (2017)
Horror comedy is usually my cup of tea and this was no exception. It was funny. It had jumpscares. And it was heart-warming in all the right places. It's a parody of Omen and it showed, but it was definitely better than I thought it would be. 

No One Gets Out Alive (2021)
Our horror movie for Halloween week. It was great up until the monster reveal as these things usually are. Same as with The Ritual last year. But from what I could tell online they did a pretty decent job with the mythology. I did spend the entire time feeling exasperated that this girl who's an illegal immigrant is so damned trusting, especially of people who are in the same desperate situation she is. But other than that, this movie was solid. The internet doesn't agree with me that it was solid, though.

The Mitchells vs. the Machines (2021)
One of the first movies we watched this year and probably my favourite movie of the whole year. It's funny and chaotic and heart-warming. It shows the value of family without getting high and mighty over what's normal, all the while providing a stiff middle-finger to the idea of conformity. I love it! The humour is tongue-in-cheek and extremely punny. Both of us were laughing our asses off watching this. I laughed until I cried. It was great.

The World's End (2013)
The next movie in the Cornetto trilogy that I had amazingly never seen before, due to me being skepitcal of comedy. It was hilarious. Not as good as Hot Fuzz, but still so funny. 

Watchmen (2009)
This one was on everybody's lips back when it was new and I overheard many discussions concerning whether it was good or not and how it had dealt with the source material. Somehow I never watched it back then, but it showed up on Netflix this year and so we decided to watch it. Having never read the source material I can't say how it did there, but I really enjoyed the movie. Especially Rorschach (should come as no surprise to anybody).

Zombieland: Double Tap (2019)
The original Zombieland was one of the first movies Toni and I watched together as a couple. So when this one showed up on Netflix it was a given that we would watch it. It was fun. It was good. There were a lot of laughs. Especially during the scenes where they meet different versions of themselves. Not as good as the original, but a solid movie. 

Tulip Fever (2017)
I watched this movie on TV during Christmas, because it was on. I had no idea what it was, but I became weirdly invested in it as I first lazily threw an eye in the direction of the TV and then couldn't stop watching. There wasn't a lot of action or humour, but the storytelling was great and I do enjoy a good story. 

Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga (2020)
I watched this movie on my own last year and I really liked it. I nagged on Toni to watch it, simply because he tends to enjoy movies starring Will Ferrell even if he doesn't enjoy Eurovision. He wasn't convinced. But then I got to choose a movie for us to watch for my birthday so I decided that we should watch this. I enjoyed it the second time around too. Toni wasn't convinced. But we spent weeks afterwards singing Ja Ja Ding Dong. 

Death to 2021 (2021).
We started the year by watching Death to 2020, and we finished the year by watching Death to 2021. This one wasn't as great as the first one, but it made us chuckle from time to time. 2021 has been a hell of a ride.

Summer of Horror

It wasn't scary. We just watched a lot of horror movies. 

A little over three weeks ago my boyfriend broke his ankle. At this point I still had 1½ weeks left of my summer break. Ironically it happened on the one day I wasn't home because I was out getting my first covid vaccination shot. As luck would have it.

Anyway, during that last week we watched seven horror movies pretty much back to back. It all started with Fear Street of Netflix. All of the movies were on Netflix.

1. Fear Street: Part 1 - 1994. We both really, really liked this movie. It was really neat as a horror movie in that it didn't feel like it fed into all the tropes and yet it had the slasher like in Scream, and the unkillable killer like in Halloween, and the witch/ghost paranormal experience. The fact that it takes place in the mid-90s somehow made it even better as we just sat there and commented on the fashion and the technology and had a great time. The setup of the rivalry between Shadyside and Sunnydale was great, the buildup of the legend around Sarah Fier was amazing, and the reveal that this happens with a set amount of years ebtween each time felt very IT. All the little pieces fit together beautifully. It wasn't too gory (except that one part in the end where one person gets their head chopped to pieces in a fish-chopper), and the suspense was great without actually getting boring. 

2. Fear Street: Part 2 - 1978. This one was very much like a homage to Halloween. It felt like a classic despite being brand-new. There was a nice twist at the end that neither of us expected. Apart from the bits and pieces that continued to build the legend around Sarah Fier, this was a pure slasher movie. But there were several hints in this movie that something else was behind what was going on, and it was an awesome use of foreshadowing for the third movie. Just perfect storytelling.

3. The Bye Bye Man. While waiting for the third part of Fear Street to come out we turned to other horror movies. We had had our eyes on this one for a while and so finally decided to watch it. Loved the buildup of suspense throughout, but boyfriend pointed out that he missed having a background story for the villain (spoiled from Fear Street?) and I very much agreed. There wasn't enough legend surrounding the evil, it was just there doing its thing and people got caught up in it. Still it was a solid horror movie with an ending completely open for more. The internet doesn't agree with us that it was solid, but we both enjoyed watching it. Our only gripe was the lack of detail. 

4. The Ritual. I mean, this takes place in the wilderness of northern Sweden so of course it was a given that we would watch it at some point. Robert James-Collier is in it and I just keep thinking of him as Thomas. He will forever be Thomas. So we have four ridiculously British guys attempting to hike through the Swedish wilderness in Sarek National Park (according to their map), but one of them hurts his knee and can't stop bitching about it so they decide to take a shortcut through the woods instead of continuing along the hiking trail. Bad idea. In the woods they come across runes and wooden idols and a deer strung up on the trees. They spend the night in an abandoned cabin and all wake up from really weird nightmares. After that they all become increasingly aware that something is very, very wrong in the woods and that something is hunting them. Like most horror movies the setup is great, the suspense is amazing, and then comes the reveal and the conclusion and it all falls flat on its face. I really, really enjoyed this movie up until the last twenty minutes or so. But kudos to the film makers for doing a good job with the rendition of the folklore/legend/mythology. 

5. Army of the Dead. This was (for the most part) a pretty standard zombie movie tbh. What makes it stand out is how the infection got loose (an escaped military experiment), the fact that the alpha zombies are sentient and intelligent and basically leaders of a new civilization/race/nation, and that the entire movie takes place after the zombie threat has been contained. The opening credits show the beginning of the zombie threat and how the people fought against them etc etc. But when the movie starts that part is over. The zombies are contained in a sealed off Las Vegas which is set to be nuked. But before that a rich guy tasks one of the fighters from the opening credits to assemble a team to break into a vault inside Vegas and steal a bunch of money. He does and off they go. Inside the cordon the mostly usual stuff in zombie flicks happen; people start dying, there's a traitor, someone has wandered off chasing their own goals, the traitor keeps screwing people over and they don't realise it, and then there's the leader trying to keep the operation smooth despite it all slipping through his fingers. It was fun, fast-paced, neither scary nor especially gory, and a completely standard zombie movie. 

6. Wounds. This whole movie felt like a prelude to something that didn't happen. There was barely any suspense just a slight tickling feeling that something was wrong, but it didn't get to suspense level. I spent the whole movie waiting for something to happen, but the entire thing felt like a buildup until the thing that makes everything happen and then nothing did and the movie ended. Super disappointing. This is like one of those artsy movies that's strange just for the sake of being strange that doesn't really do anything. There was a part in the middle that seemed like the strating point for things to happen, but it just died instead.

7. Fear Street: Part Three - 1666. The end of the story! I loved seeing the pieces come together. The legend of Sarah Fier explored and explained. Everything we learned in the first two movies came to use in this final movie as the ultimate showdown happened in the mall of Shadyside. It was a perfect ending to a great trilogy. Can't really say more than that or I'll spoil the whole thing. Action from start to finish and it was so good. 

Movies I watched in 2020

Let's clarify this title by saying that I mean modern movies. Because I watched a fair few of black-and-white old-timey horror movies as well.

Sonic the Hedgehog (2020)
I watched this movie on my laptop during a pretty dead night shift and it was way better than I thought it would be. I'm not a fan of Jim Carrey; he tends to be too exaggerated imo, but he was pretty good as Dr Robotnik. I grew up watching the animated Sonic series and ofc I have played the Sonic games, so this was also a pretty neat nostalgia trip.

Birds of Prey (2020)
This is also a movie I watched on my laptop during a dead night shift. As always I really enjoyed the girl power in it. After everything bad I had heard about Suicide Squad I didn't have any expectations for this movie, which may be why I ended up liking it so much. But Harley has always been one of my favourite DC characters. 

Aquaman (2018)
We watched this for a date night and it was really good. Better than I thought it would be tbh. 

Detective Pikachu (2019)
Another date night movie. Both of us grew up with Pokémon and so we had a lot of fun with this movie. Best part was that Mewtwo didn't have to be the bad guy in this one.

Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga (2020)
Another one I watched on my phone during a pretty dead evening shift (there were lots of dead shifts in spring 2020). As a Eurovision geek this movie hit all the right targets. I especially loved that Edinburgh was the host city for the competition (as if the UK would win lol). I was a little bit wary of watching a movie with Will Ferrell in it since he's usually in movies I cringe at, but this movie was just the right level of funny. I loved the song along and all the known Eurovision faces/songs that showed up in that scene. It got all the glittery, gay, tacky, over-the-top bs about Eurovision right. I only recently learned that Graham Norton is the Eurovision host in the UK, but after watching this movie I wish I could tune in to watch Eurovision in the UK every year. I could definitely watch this again. PLAY  JA JA DING DONG!!

It: Chapter Two (2019)
We watched the first part at the cinema, but then life happened and we somehow missed that part two got released. So we watched this one on Netflix one night. The adaptation is really, really close to the book. And I'm still disappointed about It's actual appearance. 

Joker (2019)
This movie was amazing. I'm going to assume everybody has felt like they're going to go insane by society's expectations at some point, which is what makes this scarily relatable but also so so good. Probably movie of the year for me. 

Venom (2018)
We like superhero movies so it was a given that we would watch this at some point. We talked about seeing it at the cinema in 2018, and then talked about watching it all of 2019, and then we finally did in 2020. Good things come to those who wait? Meeeh. This movie was pretty meh. Entertaining but probably in the bottom tier of the movies we watched in 2020. 

Enola Holmes (2020)
I made us watch this. I was excited for this movie. I really liked this movie. It was upbeat and fun and just the right amount of girly. Toni felt it was very very meh. I want to watch it again. Sometimes we commit to the stereotypes. (Very rarely).

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019)
For Halloween week we decided it was time to watch a scary movie for date night. I looked up a bunch of trailers on Netflix, pitched the ones I liked the most to Toni and then we decided on this one. Both of us are kind of wary when it comes to horror movies, because they usually follow the same pattern and end up being just thoroughly disappointing. This one was actually good. We both liked this one. First scary movie we've watched in years and we both enjoyed it. Thanks, Netflix.

Annihilation (2018)
With the previous success we decided to watch another horror movie. But this time we didn't do the research. The trailer for this looked good when we were scrolling through Netflix. It started with so much potential and ended up being really... dumb. And that's what we both dislike about horror movies. They start out so so promising and then they just fall flat on their face. Like this one did. Even with Natalie Portman in it.

Before I Wake (2016)
The last movie of the year continued the horror theme, but this time we did the research. Or rather I did. Same procedure as for Scary Stories. And this one was also really good. Not as good as Scary Stories, but it didn't fall flat and we both enjoyed it. The premise has been done before, but not to death, so that was a nice change. I loved the ending. Which was also a nice change for a horror movie. 

Watching old, old movies part 13

I'm going through this list, and here are my previous entries.

37. Pit and the Pendulum (1961)
Based on the story by Edgar Allan Poe starring Vincent Price. I don't even know what to say about this movie except that I really liked it. It's the classic Poe story of love, despair and madness and how one can lead to the other. My modern ass immediately starts to pick through the mental aspects of the characters. How Nicholas probably suffered from PTSD from experiencing what he did as a child and how that affects him as an adult. And how his experiences with his wife and her death makes his mind split on itself and create a dual personality. It's all really interesting stuff and the storytelling is superb. On a silly note; I really don't mind seeing Vincent Price run around in tights. In hindsight I would've loved a haunted house that was actually haunted or if it turned out there were vampires, but the way this story unfolded was so intimitely Poe that I can't be anything but pleased with it. One of the better movies on the list.

38. The Plague of the Zombies (1966)
This movie was a b**** to find online and it was so not worth it. It makes no sense storywise and it even made me laugh out loud several times because of pure ridiculousness. The continuity is a mess and the characters make no sense and the acting is stale and stiff. I'm hoping that this movie only has the rating it has on IMDB because it helped shape the zombie genre and not because people think there's anything good about it. Because if there is I thoroughly missed it. So an old doctor and his daughter receives a letter from a previous pupil and they go down to Cornwall to visit him and his wife. The pupil writes the doctor because a lot of people have died lately from an unknown illness and he'd like his previous teacher's insight. As soon as the doctor and his daughter gets to the town the whole story is a mess. There's a pack of fox hunters who for some reason rides right through a funeral procession because the daughter told them she saw the fox run that way, without any regard for the funeral. Wut? They arrive at the house and it's immediately frickin obvious that something's wrong with the wife, but nobody notices. Wut? The wife then decides to go wandering in the night and is killed by a zombie, who turns out to be the guy that got buried in the beginning. So the doctor and his pupil decides to do a little gravedigging only to find the grave is empty. Surprise! Suspicion somehow falls on the rich guy and his pack of fox hunters who abduct and attack the doctor's daughter and then lets her go for no reason, only to have the rich guy visit her later and get hold of her blood. And she lets him in just like that. Wut? The doctor somehow draws the conclusion that it's due to black magic and conveniently finds that the vicar has a book about voodoo. Wut? He reads that one book and decides that it's all due to voodoo and that the rich guy is to blame because he has *gasp* travelled. Wut? The wife awakens and threatens to kill the pupil and the doctor, but the doctor swiftly cuts off her head with a spade. Wut? The zombies awake en masse and the doctor breaks into the rich guy's home to find evidence, which he does and then sets the whole place on fire. Wut, why? They then find out that the rich guy uses the zombies as workers in his mine, because apparantly they aren't dangerous to him. Wut? The fire then somehow spreads into the mine and the zombies start to attack the rich guy once their coffins catch fire. Wut, weren't the coffins still in the earth on the graveyard? As the mine collapses in the fire all is well and the movie ends. Wut? I was in disbelief for most of this movie. 

39. The Masque of the Red Death (1964)
Another Poe story adaptation starring Vincent Price. While I have really enjoyed the other Poe story adaptations on the list so far; this one kept disappointing me until the last 30 minutes. It was unusual to see Vincent Price playing the obviously and outright bad guy, since in every other film I've seen him he's played a gentle but twisted person who the world takes for a very bad ride resulting in destroying his morality. But in this one he was just a depraved person from the start. The heroine is so very pretty but awfully dumb. The original Poe story tells of a prince who is really into extravaganza and likes to flaunt his wealth, but for some reason the movie makers involved a Satanist plot that adds absolutely nothing and that there's literally no point of having. Both the story and the movie are morality plays, but it's a version that's been done to death in everything from fairytales and Disney to modern thrillers. The Poe story is good, but the movie doesn't own it. The Red Death comes to the nearby village and kills everyone within days, The remaining villagers go to the castle to beg prince Prospero for aid, who naturally tells the guards to shoot the remaining villages but the Red Death has already spread to the castle. As the illness spreads Prospero gets a visit from literal Death and has a conversation with him about gods and faith, which ends in Prospero trying to outrun his fate and yet he, too, falls victim to the Red Death. 

It's Price. It's Poe. And I was hoping for greatness. Instead I got disappointment. Or this movie just hits a bit too close to home this year.

Watching old, old movies part 12

I'm going through this list, and here are my previous entries.

34. The City of the Dead (1960)
I really enjoyed this movie. It was more of a thriller than a horror movie, featuring a very young Christopher Lee (young to the point where it took me half the movie before I recognised him). The movie opens on a village in New England in 1692 where a witch is about to be burned at the stake, as that happens she curses the village and everyone in it. Fast-forward to modern day and we're at college where history professor Alan Driscoll is giving a lecture on historic witchcraft in New England. One of the students wishes to make her final paper something special and tells her professor that she'd like to go stay in an old, rural New England village and dig through the history of the place. The professor sends her to Whitewood, where he says he knows some people, and from there the young woman gets entangled in real-life witchcraft. The movie was chilling and thrilling, and really holds up to today. Except of course the weird close-ups of staring faces that happened several times in the movie. I think they were supposed to be chilling, but they came off as ridiculous. All in all, one of my favourites on the list so far.

35. Mill of the Stone Women (1960)
Original title: Il mulino delle donne di pietra. To someone who finds dubbing to be jarring, Italian movies from this period are very hard to watch. This is because they used international actors, allowing them to speak the lines in their own languages while filming, and then recorded the sound elsewhere and just put it over the film. The Italian movies I've watched so far have had two versions: one with English sound and one with Italian sound. La maschera del demonio (Black Sunday) was good enough that it almost didn't matter, but this movie was jarring from end to finish. The plot was weak and the voice acting was absolutely terrible. I dislike the whole notion of "I met you two seconds ago but I love you and I want to marry you and spend my whole life with you" and the first half of this movie centers around that idea. In the second half it abruptly turns into a game of resurrection and murder and conquering death. It's like it made a complete turnaround from a silly romantic drama to a paranormal murder-mystery. The storytelling was janky and disjointed and I feel like they could've gone two different directions with the story, but chose the one that made the least sense. Turning it into a straight-up haunted house movie probably would've been better than the mess this is.

36. Dead of Night (1945)

When I started watching this movie I really wasn't sure at first, but it turned into one of the best films on this list. It starts with a man arriving at an old farm house where a bunch of people are having tea. The man is an architect who's been called down to a friend of a friend to do a reconstruction job over the weekend. The other people are old friends. The architect arrives and is immediately frazzled and when he explains that he's having a major case of déjà vu despite never having been there or seen these people before, but everything that's happening is part of a recurring nightmare that he's been having, the whole group starts to offer up their own tales of the supernatural. The first story "The Hearse Driver" didn't do anything for me. The second one "Christmas Story" was a classic tale of a girl who stumbles upon a ghost of a boy in an old house. Creepy, but predictable. The third story was "The Haunted Mirror", which was also a classic tale of a haunted object affecting the person using it. It was a classic, but this story is when my interest was piqued. Unfortunately, the fourth one "Golfing Story" was pretty dumb and my interest was lost and I started scrolling through my phone and only listening to the movie. Then came the last story called "The Ventriloquist's Dummy". Anyone who knows me knows that dolls creep me out, especially those kinds of dummies. So to me this story was creepy from the get-go. It turned into a classic tale of a possessed doll compelling a person to do its bidding. I know how these stories usually go, but this one had a very simple but also very elegant twist at the end that I really enjoyed. That last story was absolutely the highlight of the movie. After all of the stories are told, the scenario unfolds exactly like the architect's dream predicted, and although the sudden change of pace in the movie's storytelling at first seems kind of jarring, the end of the movie offers a completely unexpected twist (for my part) and I really enjoyed seeing the whole thing unfold. Definitely one of the most enjoyable movies on the list. 

Watching old, old movies part 11

Going through this list and here are my previous entries :)

31. The Uninvited (1944)
Another haunted house! With special effects that are still pretty good for being 70+ years old! This movie was a classical haunted house tale, which unfortunately meant that it was very, very predictable. Even the twist at the end didn't come as a surprise to me. But that's really on me for having watched too many haunted house tales and not on the movie. It has aged pretty well and I did enjoy watching it. This movie is apparently based on a book so I'll be looking into that. I still really dislike the whole notion of "We met two minutes ago but now I love you and want to spend my entire life with you" that's so prevalent in old movies, and this isn't an exception. But unusually enough they do make the effort to get to know each other on screen rather than just falling into each other's arms and proclaiming marriage. Overall I liked this movie. It gave me that whole creepy-cosy feeling that I like.

32. The Body Snatcher (1945)
Every movie where Boris Karloff has a major role is a joy to watch! This movie, based on the novel by Stevenson, stars Karloff as the titular body snatcher. The movie takes place in Edinburgh some years after the whole graverobbing mess of Burke & Hare was finished. I actually squealed when the camera panned of the Castle in the beginning. Karloff is just as imposing and creepy as always and his voice is so chillingly smooth. I love watching him play his part. This movie also has some skillful foreshadowing in a way that you don't realise it's foreshadowing until it happens. Every movie I've seen starring Karloff has had me glued to the screen and this is no different. The Black Cat remains my favourite Karloff movie, but this one isn't far behind.
Oh, and Bela Lugosi (a.k.a Dracula) is also in it.

33. Isle of the Dead (1945)
This movie was strange. We're in Greece and it's during the 1912 war and there's also a plague going around. The General of the troops go to an island to visit his wife's grave and an American correspondent go with him. On the island the General discovers that his wife's grave has been vandalised and the body stolen. They walk over to the only house on the island (I assume the home of the keeper?) and meet a bunch of people who are also visiting his home. The old woman is ofc superstitious and tells the General that the young woman in the house is a sort of mythical vampire creature because the woman in her care keeps getting sicker and weaker. The plague arrives at the house and they self-isolate (that's hitting pretty close to home atm) and try different approaches to stave off the plague that kills two of them before the climax of the movie. Which then reveals that yes there was probably (possibly, potentially?) a vampire-like spirit among them, but not the one they suspected. I didn't like this movie, because it was totally uneventful and extremely slow. I enjoyed seeing Karloff ofc, but it seems like the script for this didn't give him much to work with.

Watching old, old movies part 10

This has been on hiatus for almost 2½ years! I'm going through this list and here are my previous entries.

28. The Phantom of the Opera (1925)
I've wanted to see this one since I watched the 25th anniversary of the musical back in 2011. I read the novel before I watched this and this is a lot more truthful to the original novel than the musicals are. I enjoyed seeing the parallells between the musical and this movie (as well as the novel) but I especially liked seeing the references to the novel, like the Phantom's underground mansion and how he snorkled his way through the underground lake. Ofc being used to the musical the movie had a lot less oomph because there's no epic music, but the story is still the same and just like every time I watch the musical I just feel so sorry for the Phantom. He is what the cruel world made him. In 1925 when this movie was released the legend is that the women were warned to keep smelling salts with them because they were expected to faint at the face reveal. It's also said that Lon Chaney did the make-up for the Phantom by himself. This is a masterpiece.

29. The Innocents (1961)
Finally a haunted house that is haunted! I had never heard of this movie before, but it was a really good one. First thing it does is making me laugh because the uncle's attitude towards the children is so relatable. I loved the whole Victorian setting and I marvelled at the clothes of the governess and Flora. The story has two layers; the first one could be interpreted as an ordinary haunted house tale and the governess is trying to save the children from the ghosts possessing them; the other is a tale of a governess slowly losing her mind as it becomes obvious right at the end that she's the only one who can see the ghosts. I love the ambiguity! The first three quarters of the movie go by pretty slowly as the suspension builds up (I was pretty bored with it in the first half) but then it becomes oh so good. The final scene was a wtf moment for me.

30. The Curse of Frankenstein (1957)
First old-timey movie I see starring both legends Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee :3 And more will come. This is basically a remake of the Frankenstein movie from 1931, but with a little more refined storytelling. As with every Frankenstein movie I've seen it bothers me how different the monster is compared to how he is in the novel. In the novel the monster is sentient and quite intelligent, the only screen adaptations of the monster that I've so far found to mimic this have been in Penny Dreadful and Van Helsing. The conclusion of this movie is very final as both the monster and his creator are killed and disposed of.