Vampires (1998)

Nicole and I watched Vampires (1998). We had reasonably high hopes bc John Carpenter, but this vampire western was hot garbage. Misogynistic thug vampire-hunters James Woods and Daniel "Budget" Baldwin hunt "The Master" with lots of inane tough talk and gratuitous violence. (I've now filled my lifetime quota for hearing "you fucking bitch." 🙄) Also, there is a strange homophobic/repressed homoerotic thing going on with Woods' character... no idea what that's about. The vampires themselves were also pretty uninspiring, brain-dead cannon fodder. All the effects were super OTT too. There were a couple cool scenes, but honestly this one was kind of a slog. ~~ If you wanna watch dusty tough guys kicking vampire butt, watch From Dusk til Dawn (1996) instead. ~~ Thanks for hanging in there with me, Nicole!

Tusk (2014)

Terra and I watched Tusk (2014), which was a trip. Disgusting, but darkly humorous... although for me the "ick" factor was distracting haha. As Terra said, "I definitely don't regret watching it but I also can't think of anyone I would recommend it to off the top of my head." 🤣🤣 

There was also a lot of misogyny which didn't seem to drive the plot at all, it was just uncomfortable.

Featuring the Sixth Sense kid (Haley Joel Osmont), and randomly, Johnny Depp.

Definitely the weirdest Kevin Smith film (I've seen, anyway). 

Fright Night (2011)

Mark and I watched the 2011 remake of Fright Night, starring Colin Farrell as the vampire next door. I love the 1985 original (it's on my top 100 list!), so I was both excited and skeptical about watching the remake. This one was really a mixed bag. The pacing, action, dialogue, and atmosphere were great. But the CGI was frightful (not in a good way), and the portrayal of women was just maddening. As a human woman, I'm used to women being given the short end of the stick in cinema, and objectification of women is a real issue in horror as a genre, so I'm honestly pretty inured to it -- but this was just pathetic. Truly hard to watch 2 hours of damsels and bimbos. 🤮 Someone oughta remake the remake haha.

Drag Me to Hell (2009)

Some of the special effects were very cool, but the overt sexism was disappointing.  I also just found it impossible to care about the dishrag protagonist. Would not recommend.