Halloween Weekend One Watches:
Vampires vs the Bronx: A Bronx based Monster Squad style PG horror with a Boricua Protagonist is basically a movie made for the kid in me. It's got a clear "made for kids" aspect to how it approaches all of the subject matter but it also had a nice mix of NY easter eggs and a ton of heart. I laughed out loud a few times (the dominos table as a weapon sent me fam). It's light hearted, with a good sense of humor and fun performances.
Monsterland Eps 1-4: So far this has been a bit too heavy handed on the messaging, laying it on thick with the allegories not even hidden. It's got the type of flaws that I think can really hurt a viewing experience, but also has a lot of good foundations to build on if the writers figured out how to be subtle. That said there's some good to be gleaned from it and I'm thinking I'll take it on episode by episode to point out what worked and didn't for me. I was especially hype to see my nephew's best friend take on a pretty cool role in the New York, New York episode. I've known him since he's a kid and have seen him putting in work to be an actor, so I was hype to watch the young man get a monologue on a show like this.
Antebellum: In that same "on the nose" kinda messaging way, Antebellum felt like it tried to be more clever than it had to be. The opening scene that juxtaposes the realities of how slaves were treated with a horror score is effective but it starts to get to be much and the plot twist really didn't make up for what started to feel like slavery torture porn to me.
Scare Me: You'd think with a moniker of storyteller that I would appreciate a movie about two writers trying to scare each other with a horror story...I think horror writers forever romanticize this sorta thing ever since Lord Byron's get away spawned the stories of Dracula and Frankenstein. That said, I wish the actual stories were better...