Haunt is the greatest movie of all time

Do you still want to see my face? It's a work in progress, but I think you'll like it. Sort of a standard slasher elivated a little bit with intriguing killers and a cool location. I'm sort of a sucker for these horror movies set at a haunt. Basic gist is that folks think they are going to a haunted house to get scared by dudes in masks, but people really start to die. The Funhouse back in the day was sort of like this, then you got two pretty interesting ones that were ultimately unsuccessful in The House October Built and The House October Built 2. 

As someone who goes to these more extreme haunted houses, I get it. Twice I've gone with chicks who freaked out, thinking it got real like it does in these movies. The first time I was in eighth grade and the girls started to cry. The next time I was in college with a pair of friends and my sister. My friends were from Germany and France and had never experienced anything like a haunted house. The French girl locked on to me and screamed at anyone who came near us. The German girl went ahead with my sister. When we got out of the corn maze, we saw the German girl absolutely sprinting away from a guy wielding a chainsaw. "Ze chain-saw wus real, Ay-run." That was a fun night. I thought what a good idea this type of movie would be that night. Now, 10 movies later, it's starting to get a little overplayed. However, a Shudder original, this was the most popular movie on the streaming service this year. So don't expect these to go away. Also, this is better than most of the ones I've seen. 

Rotten Tomato Consensus: Haunt is spooked by the spirits of its obvious influences, but still packs enough thrills and chills to satisfy horror fans up for a haunted house excursion.

Gist of the movie is that a group of college kids go to a secluded haunted house. The kind where you have to sign a waver and shit. Eventually they discover that the actors are real killers after several of them indeed die. 

Written and directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods. These guys wrote A Quiet Place. The kids include Katie Stevens, Will Brittain, and Lauryn McClain. Haven't seen or heard of any of them. One of the killers, Damian Maffei, the Devil, was one of the killers in The Strangers movies. He's masked in that as well though. 

There is some dumb shit about this movie. First, there is this whole abuse victim/chilhood drama subplot that the writers throw in for the survivor chick. Gets them a car at the end though and pads the bodycount a little bit. Then at the very end, the Clown goes to the survivor girl's house, she had to put her address down when she went into the haunt, to finish the job. However, chick has Home Aloned her house and she ends up killing the dude, which is deserved, but come the fuck on. 

Overall, the movie is some pretty creepy shit. The people that work at the murder house all wear these masks. Shit like a ghost, a devil, a witch, a clown, so forth. Underneath those masks their faces are tattooed and mutilated to look like a much more horrifying version of the mask. These are guininely pretty scary. No thank you. We get told that one of them is a tattoo artist and all the workers are into death metal and they earn their faces by killing people. Producer Eli Roth, the "Bear Jew" in Inglorious Bastards and director of Hostel, told the writers to write out backstories for all these killers even though it wouldn't be used in the film. I feel that definitely gave the characters some richness that shined through. For that, I'm giving him the MVP. Hell of a talent, that Eli Roth. 

Piranha 3D is the greatest movie of all time

Piranha 3D. Trash. But fun AF. My female companion was pretty sure we'd watched this but no. That was either the original 1978 Joe Dante Piranha movie, which I loved as a child, or 1979's Killer Fish which was part of MST3K "The Return" on Netflix last year. Try to keep up. But I'll definitely watch this movie again.

Rotten Tomato Consensus: Playing exactly to expectations for a movie about killer fish run amok, Piranha 3-D dishes out gore, guffaws and gratuitous nudity with equal glee.

Lots to like here. Ridiculously over-the-top. Shitty CGI that they roll with. Solid B-list cast. Gore. Gratuitous nudity, the best kind. This movie does indeed have it all. Sort of weird watch all the shots that were done for 3D in standard 2D but other than that, I can't complain as the movie is what I've known it would be since it came out back in the day. Didn't see it in the theater which is surprising.

Most of the kills are meh because the CGI looks so bad. Lot of faces and eyes getting eaten off. There is a chick parasailing on the back of a boat with her giant breasts out. Thought she was going to pop up with piranhas hanging off her nips but the movie isn't that silly though one of the "Wild Wild Girls" does get eaten and her implants float up to the surface. One of the victims that popped out was a redhead that gets pulled under on her inner tube. I recognized this chick as a contortionist I follow on Instagram, one Bendy Bonnie, aka Bonnie Morgan. I've long been fascinated by stretchy people, probably because I'm so not even though I work on it every day (yoga every fucking day and I can't just reach down and touch my toes [though I can after a minute or two]). First on my radar from this show I fucking loved that got cancelled called Hap and Leonard. She was a bendy former lover. In this movie she bends herself in half. She is pretty and seems cool and it was weird seeing a minor celebrity you follow online just pop up in a movie like this.

Moving on. Basically the same setup as The Meg. There is a cavern under the body of water where another body of water lies, one filled with prehistoric creatures that have a taste for humans, apparently. First casualty is Richard Dreyfuss who is supposed to be his character in Jaws, Matt Hooper. Self-referential and what not. Also get some meta commentary from Jerry O'Connell who plays Derrick who is the man behind the camera of a Girls Gone Wild type of thing. The real guy that the character is based on, one Joe Francis, great guy I'm sure, was hella pissed as O'Connell was super upfront about basing the character on this douchebag. In his official statement after Francis threatened to get lawyers and shit involved, O'Connell said "I get to play Joe Francis! Oh, wait. For legal reasons I'm supposed to say, 'I play someone loosely based on Joe Francis.'" For this alone he pretty much wins the movie. Obviously have little respect for this guy as they portray him as being fucking terrible and his character gets it rough with the piranhas biting his dick off and his last words being "wet t-shirt contest."

Have one of my all time beauties here in Elizabeth Shue, still looking fine. Have a bunch of naked ladies but they all look meh compared to Shue though she seems to sort of phone it in. Adventures in Babysitting Shue this is not. But the movie is extremely entertaining and a fun watch. Also get some cameos from Christopher Lloyd and Eli Roth who were each on set for probably 15-20 minutes. Ving Rhames, Paul Scheer from like every podcast I listen to who was just in Hell Baby, and Adam Scott from Parks and Rec and Party Down are in the movie as well and are all serviceable. Again, a really fun ride for what it is.