Originally I was going to review Succubus: Hell-Bent, a dopey-looking movie that came in a three-pack with Vampires: Out For Blood and Blood Angels. I'll admit, the first movie was bad, but my having been a huge Vanessa Angel fan for years gave me an actual reason to want to watch it. It was bad, but it was enjoyably bad. I wasn't expecting masterful acting from any of the cast, but the movie actually managed to surprise me with a few clever ideas and gave some hints as to how it could be much better given a real budget, a few better actors, and some cleaner writing.
I realize that's like saying "Dirty Dancing 2 could have been The Artist with some better writing and an entirely different cast" but work with me here.
Blood Angels shook my faith in everything I'm doing. It reached deep into me and left me lying in my bed in the middle of the night staring at my ceiling going "...is this really worth the time and investment I put into it? Am I even really enjoying myself when I do movies like these?" There were no actors in it I was eager to see, miserably awful writing, terrible special effects, and a plot that was so transparent it had to be kept away from areas where lots of birds would fly around, lest they die immediately on impact.
So why would I expose myself to that again? I can't think of a single reason to, and now I find myself idly looking around for something to do so I can finish this month and move on.
Blood Angels, you made me start to hate Halloween. I'll never forgive you.
Maybe...maybe I need to look back at something nostalgic, something that I loved when I saw it when I was little. Maybe there's something out there that I can remember that helped me get more "into" Halloween, something that made me appreciate it more than just "that holiday where people get scared and then eat candy." For a long time growing up I was so convinced that all "fear" was bad that it took my slowly exposing myself to different kinds of fear to understand what I liked and what I didn't like, and I can really only think of one thing that threw so many references at me that I was able to explore each and realize "hey, some of this stuff is really good."
That. That is what I remember.
