Back At it!

Happy October, the best month of the year!

The reason I view October as the best month of the year is because a) the weather cools off and it becomes tolerable to be outside again, b) autumn/harvest foods are delicious, and c) it includes Halloween. Because of that, I decided to spend the weekend watching scary movies.

Today I was in a mood to tackle spooky British isles movies. I considered rewatching favorites such as 1973's The Wicker Man, The Dark, The Others, or even though it's less rural, Thora Birch in The Hole. Also considered The Descent, because it feels like a British film even though it's set in America's Appalachian Mountains.

Since I wanted to find something new, I started browsing through Netflix's offerings and found Blood Lands (a.k.a. White Settlers).

It's a story of a London couple (Pollyanna McIntosh & Lee Williams) trying to escape from the busy life into a low-pressure fixer-upper Scottish home, and discovering how unwelcome they are. The start was a slow build, getting to know the characters, which turned into a home invasion film, akin to You're Next, but ended more satisfyingly than any of the other films in that genre that I've seen. I'm giving it a score of 6.

After that, I tackled Eden Lake.

This is another urban couple (Kelly Reilly & Michael Fassbender) going to a rural setting. First off, I thought it had a cabin in the woods feel, then it began to feel more like a road trip/adventure movie.  Michael Fassbender is always amazingly engaging, so even though the situation was disagreeable, I hung in there to see where the story would take the characters. So unpleasant, and at 40 minutes in, there is some gratuitous torture porn. I give it a 4.

Next up, for a change of pace, we're off to the theater to see Matt Damon in The Martian.