Thursday Movie Picks - Halloween Edition: School

-


We've made it to October which means we're on for another Halloween month at Wandering Through The Shelves! This week we're talking about horror films that take place in schools. Here's what I came up with. 


1) Jennifer's Body - This movie is having a bit of a resurgence. Once a flop, now rightly a cult classic. This movie is just fun.


2) Spontaneous - While not a conventional horror movie, there's enough blood in this to make me count it. This movie is about kids who start spontaneously combusting in school, and it's exactly as you imagine it. 


3) The Faculty - One of my favorites from my childhood. I need to re-watch this film about creepy teachers again.

Comments

  1. SaraOctober 7, 2021 at 9:27 AM

    Oh man I forgot about the Faculty! I worked at the movie theater when that was released. So good.

    ReplyDelete
  2. joel65913October 7, 2021 at 11:16 AM

    I've only seen The Faculty which I didn't love nor did I hate. It had a cast far better than the middling script deserved.

    Jennifer's Body doesn't look like my deal but I've heard so much about it that if I ran across it on TV I'd probably give it a shot. That's how I ended up seeing Killer Klowns from Outer Space, NOT that that is a big endorsement since it was terrible.

    Just the GIF of Spontaneous is enough to warn me off! Blood splatter is not on my go to list of movie watching.

    This month is going to take some creative doing on my part since I'm not much of a horror guy. My solution this week was to go a more psychologically scary route, though my second is a flat out horror!

    Child’s Play (1972)-Paul Reis (Beau Bridges) returns to St. Charles, the exclusive Catholic prep school he graduated from a decade before to teach. Almost immediately he finds himself caught in a dark power struggle between his former mentor, the popular English teacher Joseph Dobbs (Robert Preston) and the detested autocratic literature teacher Jerome Malley (James Mason). What starts as a cold war of barbed insults between the instructors gradually escalates into cruel mind games that pulls the students into a rash of malicious hazing and ritualistic violence.

    Cutting Class (1989)-Freshly sprung from the nuthouse troubled Brian Woods (Donovan Leitch) returns to school where the other kids give him a wide berth. Enamored of fellow student Paula Carson (Jill Schoelen) he attempts to win her away from bad boy Dwight Ingalls (Brad Pitt-looking impossibly young). Their rivalry takes a back seat though when students begin disappearing at an alarming rate with Brian the prime suspect, but is it him? Exploitation junk worth seeing only for baby Brad in one of his first credited roles.

    Toy Soldiers (1991)-Seeking to leverage a judge’s son life for the freedom of his drug kingpin father Colombian terrorist Luis Cali (Andrew Divoff) takes the entire campus of the Regis prep school hostage not knowing the boy has been relocated. Since the school is a haven for rebellious students, often expelled from other schools, the main troublemakers-Billy (Sean Astin), Joey (Wil Wheaton), Snuffy (Keith Coogan), Ricardo (George Perez) and Hank (T.E. Russell) find that they are better equipped to deal with the threat than the mostly ineffectual government agencies sent to rescue them. With resourceful Billy as their leader, the students struggle to defeat the terrorists and save the school!! As preposterous as it sounds but still actiony, a little scary at times and fun in a mindless way.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Brittani BurnhamOctober 8, 2021 at 9:56 AM

      For a second I thought you picked the Chucky version of Child's Play! lol. I haven't seen any of these, I'll have to look into them more.

      Delete
  3. Ronyell (a.k.a. Rabbitearsblog)October 7, 2021 at 1:21 PM

    Great list! The Faculty seems like a popular pick this week!

    ReplyDelete
  4. thevoid99October 7, 2021 at 2:59 PM

    We share a pick with The Faculty as I enjoyed the film though I'm still not a fan of the soundtrack as it just reminded me of what I didn't like in the 90s. I have seen Jennifer's Body as I am still not into the film and I don't understand the recent appeal towards Megan Fox as I never really thought she was attractive though I think she and that guy she's with deserve each other as they're just assholes.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Brittani BurnhamOctober 8, 2021 at 9:55 AM

      I think Megan is gorgeous but she's gotten a lot of work done and I think she looked better before. She's still hotter than I'll ever be lol

      Delete
  5. SJHoneywellOctober 8, 2021 at 7:54 AM

    Spontaneous is one I don't know at all.

    I would like to like Jennifer's Body more than I do. I like a lot of it, but Diablo Cody's writing never really works for me.

    The Faculty is fun. It's not anything more than fun and it has tons of plot holes, but while I'm watching it, I don't care because I'm having fun.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Brittani BurnhamOctober 8, 2021 at 9:54 AM

      I don't think Diablo's writing is the greatest either, but it's a fun movie. It's been years since I've rewatched The Faculty I imagine it makes zero sense. lol

      Delete
  6. BirgitOctober 8, 2021 at 3:28 PM

    I haven’t seen any of these but so many love Jennifer’s Body so I now want to see it. The last one looks good to be honest so another to see.

    ReplyDelete
  7. WandererOctober 8, 2021 at 5:08 PM

    I love The Faculty so much and I want a rewatch too.
    I didn’t know much about Spontaneous, looked it up, and saw a lot of positive critics reviews…also spontaneous combustion reminds me of Ready or Not.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Sonia CercaOctober 9, 2021 at 3:14 AM

    I've only seen Jennifer's Body and I kind of felt guilt at the time but enjoying it because of the low score on IMDb. I feel so much better now that everyone loves it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Brittani BurnhamOctober 11, 2021 at 8:47 AM

      Yes! I don't think it's a great movie, but I also don't think it deserved to bomb the way it did.

      Delete
  9. KatyOctober 12, 2021 at 9:20 AM

    We share Jennifer's Body. I agree, it's fun! Megan and Diablo didn't deserve as much hate as they got when this was released.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Brittani BurnhamOctober 13, 2021 at 7:01 AM

      Not at all. I still remember Amanda Seyfried winning I think an MTV Movie Award for it and thanked everyone because "no one saw it" lol

      Delete
  10. Cinematic DelightsOctober 13, 2021 at 1:31 PM

    Ha, Spontaneous sounds very daft! Is it worth a watch or not so much?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Brittani BurnhamOctober 13, 2021 at 7:04 PM

      I think it is! It's on Hulu I believe now. I watched it on a free trial for some random streaming service on Prime.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Thanks for stopping by, let's talk movies!
(comments are moderated to reduce spam)

Popular posts from this blog

Random Ramblings: The Radio Flyer Conundrum

-
Image
Recently, I was talking to someone about who I thought were the best child actors when I was also a child.  Two that really stood out to me were Elijah Wood and Joseph Mazello, and one film those two were in together was called Radio Flyer.  Then I was reminded about the uniqueness of this film. Instead of reviewing the film, I wanted to have an open discussion about the ending. It deals with a tough issue; child abuse. What I’ve noticed is the way that the film ends is interpreted many different ways, and the filmmakers never came forward to say what was right and wrong. I’m interested in hearing everyone’s opinions on it. How did you interpret the ending? Obviously spoiler alerts will follow.. For those of you who haven’t seen the film, the basic premise is this: Two young boys, Mikey (Wood) and Bobby (Mazello) move in with their single mother and her boyfriend, who refers to himself as ‘The King’. It doesn’t take long for The King to start physically abusing ...
Read more

Indie Gems: Behind The Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon

-
Image
Passionate about your profession? I had never heard of this film until it ended up on one of Jason's favorite horror movie lists around Halloween. It immediately sounded interesting to me, so of course I threw it in my Netflix queue. (and if I'm just now watching it after adding it around Halloween, you know how ridiculous my queue is) Taylor (Angela Goethals) is a journalist who, along with a film crew decides to follow around a serial killer named Leslie Vernon. (Nathan Baesel) He plans on doing the typical slasher thing - getting a bunch of drunk teens in an abandoned house and knocking them off one by one. He gets advice from a retired serial killer, Eugene (Scott Wilson) and is threatened by a man who's on to him, Doc Holloran (Robert Englund) Taylor and crew are there capturing it all. Leslie Vernon is fucking hilarious to start with, and clearly very passionate about what he does. He tells Taylor all of his secrets and can barely contain his excitemen...
Read more

My Favorite Movie Youtube Channels

-
Image
Starting around 2018, I started watching Youtube for more than just movie trailers or music videos whenever a new one dropped. Now I'm in full blown subscription mode and don't bat an eyelash at watching a Youtube video that's over an hour long. I watch Youtube for a few different categories of content, but one of them that I love most is movie/TV essays and commentary, and that's what I'm going to talk about today. Below is a list of my favorite movie related Youtube channels. Let me know if you're familiar with them too, or if you have any you'd like to recommend to me.  Double Toasted - I'm honestly surprised this channel isn't bigger. I first came across Korey and Martin when they reviewed War for the Planet of the Apes a few months before it hit theaters and I thought they were hysterical. While their full length videos stream on Twitch, they often upload their movie reviews and commentary on youtube and they're always hilarious. They've...
Read more