What Movies Did You Watch in December 2022?

vamp2syd

Well-known member
As a horror movie junkie, I come across a lot of off beat Horror movies as well as the run in the mill straight to video. I will share my thoughts of the ones that I see this month. So, if you seen a movie new or old and want to share your thoughts go ahead, and if its horror, even better!!!!

I will edit in my horror views here with my rating scale on how I liked it.....

8 = Donnie Darko
7 = Excellent !!!!!
6 = Great
5 = pretty Good
4 = OK/Good
3 = not good
2 = Bad
1 = Unwatchable

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#4541 Nachts, wenn Dracula erwacht (Spain-1970) ... aka "Count Dracula" ... 5.0/8

#4542 Fade to Black (US-1980) ... 5.5/8

#4543 Barbarian (US-2022) ... 5.0/8

#4544 Wilkolak (Poland-2018) ... 4.0/8

#4545 Puppet Master 8: The Legacy (US-2003) ... 1.0/8

#4546 Polednice (Czech Republic-2016) ... 4.5/8

#4547 Christmas Bloody Christmas (US-2022) ... 5.0/8

#4548 Slash/Back (Canada-2022) ... 3.0/8

#4549 Deathcember (Germany-2019) ... 2.5/8
 
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Where the Crawdads Sing - Not a bad melodrama. The female lead was a strong performance. The rest were just ok. The ending was predictable. I usually do not watch these types of films but after my wife sat through The Banshees of Inisherin, I felt that I owed it to her.

4/8
 
From Dusk Till Dawn (1996) ... 5.0/8

Rewatch..... vampires die too easily..... still the problem with me on this one.
 
It Came From Outer Space (1953) - Better than average 1950's space alien movie. Ray Bradbury is my favorite SF author and this film was a pretty faithful rendering of his short story.

6/8
 
El Camino Christmas (2017) 2.5/8 An adult man head to a small town out west looking for his father he has never met. He ends up in a hostage situation at a liquor store on Christmas Eve. Meant to be a comedy but not very funny. A lot a familiar faces, just not a great movie. I won't be adding it to my favorite Christmas movies list.
 
Hell's Kitchen (1939) - When I started watching this, I could not figure out why it was so familiar to me, until I saw that it was a remake of Mayor of Hell (1933) that I had watched earlier this year. It was an early "Dead End Kids" movie. They eventually became the "Bowery Boys". Ronald Reagan turns in a decent performance.

5/8
 
The Last Emperor (1987) - Epic film about the child emperor who was the last Chinese emperor. It won 9 Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

7/8
 
Nachts, wenn Dracula erwacht (Spain-1970)

Horror: Not a hammer film though it does have Christopher Lee as Count Dracula, this one is directed by Jesus Franco. It is a bit different than the hammer film but lots of similarities as well... 5.0/8
 
Fade to Black (US-1980)

Horror: Eric Binford is a huge movie buff and often mimics his film heroes. Those around him though see him as weird, awkward, and he gets picked on and made fun off which could send Eric over the edge as not all of his film heroes are good guys!!!! This was a fun film to watch and Dennis Christopher does an excellent job in playing the role of Eric Binford.... 5.5/8
 
Barbarian (2022)

Horror: An Airbnb in a run down Detroit area town is not all that it seems to be as a woman and man soon find out. This one was pretty good going on great but the last 10 minutes about ruined it for me..... 5.0/8
 
Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio: 7.5/8

The best version of this tale (yes, better than the 40s Disney classic). It's funny, beautiful animated and absolutely devastating
 
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Die Hard (1988) 6/8 Classic action movie. After watching it this weekend I might have changed my mind about whether is a Christmas movie or not. Picked up on some things (like the music) that I had never picked up on before.

Top Gun: Maverick (2022) 7/8 Second time seeing it and it held up to the first time. Still don't love the last 10 minutes or so, but a great sequel especially considering the amount of time that passed between the two movies.

Pearl (2022) 3/8 Prequel to the horror movie X. Not nearly as good as X. Mia Goth is very good in the lead but the movie itself is just kind of silly.
 
Plan A - Good Jewish revenge movie based on an actual effort to track down German war criminals, and maybe a whole lot more, after WWII.

5/8
 
We don't go to the movie theater much, but the wife made me go to "I Heard the Bells" last weekend at the Regal Cinemas in Massillon. It's an independent film produced by Sight and Sound (Pennsylvania). I had low expectations, but it was good. Kinda the opposite end of horror. Lol.

It will sound incredibly boring - it did to me. Its the story of the carol "I head the bells", originally written as a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in the 1860's. It's a story of wild success and acclaim, tragedies of huge proportion, lost faith, and redemption. The acting and production quality was surprisingly very high.

If you want to get to know the Longfellow family story and have a feel-good moment during the Christmas season, I highly recommend it.

6.5
 
Where the Crawdads Sing - Not a bad melodrama. The female lead was a strong performance. The rest were just ok. The ending was predictable. I usually do not watch these types of films but after my wife sat through The Banshees of Inisherin, I felt that I owed it to her.

4/8
My wife loved the book and movie. She would hit you with a pan for that "4". Lol.

I wouldn't go see it with her. She took my DIL, who also loved it. Perhaps this is a film that falls pretty strongly along gender lines.
 
Fr. Stu - Great real life story, told in a less than effective manner. There is a great movie in there somewhere. I hope someone makes it someday.

4/8
 
I watched a movie I recorded off a movie channel a couple weeks ago called "Escape Plan" with Syl Stalone and Arnold Swartz. I missed this one when it came out. I enjoyed it. It was a little unrealistic but the basic story line was fun - a guy who gets paid to go into federal institutions as an inmate and find a way to break out of max security facilities. He gets double-crossed and put in a place he wasn't supposed to come out of. Several twists in the story. I liked it.

5.5/8
 
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I watched a movie I recorded off a movie channel a couple weeks ago called "Escape" with Syl Stalone and Arnold Swartz. I missed this one when it came out. I enjoyed it. It was a little unrealistic but the basic story line was fun - a guy who gets paid to go into federal institutions as an inmate and find a way to break out of max security facilities. He gets double-crossed and put in a place he wasn't supposed to come out of. Several twists in the story. I liked it.

5.5/8


Escape Plan, yea that was a pleasant surprise.
 
Wilkolak (Poland-2018)

Drama/Horror: Translates to "Werewolf" but there is none of those in this film. Traumatized orphans from a liberated Nazi concentration camp are left to defend for themselves at an abandoned sanctuary. Facing starvation they have other issues such as ruthless soldiers in the woods and a pack of German Shepherds looking for an easy meal.... 5.0/8
 
Joyeux Noël (2005) - A decent film about the "Christmas Truce" of 1914 in the trenches of WWI. I could have done without one of the subplots involving a German opera star's wife, but otherwise a good Christmas film.

For a much shorter version of the story we have Paul McCartney:


Or Snoopy:


5/8
 
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"No Highway In The Sky" (1951) - 5/8

Starring James Stewart, Marlene Dietrich, and Glynis Johns. Interesting "airplane disaster" flick. Was high-tech for its day. Jimmy plays a metallurgy and mathematical genius who predicts a British passenger plane will lose its tail from metal fatigue much quicker than the designers thought.

Glynis Johns is still with us, just turned 99 a few months ago. She is oldest surviving performer to have received an Academy Award for acting. And, she is last surviving villain from the Batman TV series (Lady Penelope Peasoup)

Trivia: I didn't know that back then, stewardesses had to be certified nurses before they could be part of the cabin crew.
 
"No Highway In The Sky" (1951) - 5/8

Starring James Stewart, Marlene Dietrich, and Glynis Johns. Interesting "airplane disaster" flick. Was high-tech for its day. Jimmy plays a metallurgy and mathematical genius who predicts a British passenger plane will lose its tail from metal fatigue much quicker than the designers thought.

Glynis Johns is still with us, just turned 99 a few months ago. She is oldest surviving performer to have received an Academy Award for acting. And, she is last surviving villain from the Batman TV series (Lady Penelope Peasoup)

Trivia: I didn't know that back then, stewardesses had to be certified nurses before they could be part of the cabin crew.
BG Stewart knew aircraft by virtue of his USAF career.
 
Speed (1994) 6/8 I'm not a big fan of Keanu Reeves but this is one of his movies that I like. Sandra Bullock being in it doesn't hurt. Overall, a great 90's action flick. Who doesn't love a movie where a city bus makes a 50 foot jump over a section on incomplete highway?

Ticket to Paradise (2022) 5.5/8 Rom-com starring George Clooney and Julia Roberts as divorced parents of a recent college grad who meets a guy in Bali she decides to marry after just a few days. Clooney and Roberts, though they hate each other, decide to team up to doom the wedding before it happens. The rest is pretty predictable, but it was actually really good for what it was.
 
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