31 Days of Horror Reviews MASTER POST!

The sweet summer children are now gloomy autumn adolescents. Our sandals are packed away, our sweaters are dug out of the closets. Nobody wants to think about that upcoming election. So let us focus instead on the more important things: we have SPOOKY SEASON once again!

This is now the third year of doing horror histories in these 31 Days of Horror Reviews. We started with vampires, we then did demons last year, now the only logical choice would be zombies, of course. Or maybe werewolves? Frankensteins? Ghosts? No, we're not doing any of that in 2024. I'm part of the Simpsons generation, so to me, Halloween always connects to one horror theme in particular: ALIENS. Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos.

This past August, when the election looked even worse than it does now, Alien: Romulus released in theaters. That was a very successful reboot of an old franchise, a celebration of nearly forty years of xenomorphs and intergalactic labor exploitation. Chest-busting was back, baby. 

Well, unless you were me. I hated that movie. Sure, it was competent and slick. But it was less its own idea and more... a sort of Universal Studios backlot dark ride where you fasten your seat belts in the little cars and drive around to all your favorite Ridley Scott or James Cameron scenes. Here's a whole tableau made to look like the end of Aliens, for example. "Stay away from her, you bitch!" yells a character and the crowd dutifully cheers - they said the thing. They go through all the motions. There's even a propped-up digital corpse of Ian Holm here to let everybody know that we're all safe, 1979 will never die. If we freeze time forever, Ronald Reagan will never take office.

Anyway, let us not be too dark during Spooky Season. After all, there are a ton of really great alien movies. A lot of really great capital-A 20th Century Fox Alien movies too. The adventures of Ellen Ripley make for one of the all-time great horror franchises, perhaps the single greatest of them all. Even the movies that people say are bad are usually tons of fun. Romulus is the rare exception of a movie without much to bring to the table.

But we're not starting in 1979. To really covers the history of things from another world coming to bother us Earthlings, there is one movie in particular you need to start with. We need to go back before the color, with cheesy effects, with theremin soundtracks. You can't get to the Nostromo without first some little green men climbing out of flying saucers.

The List:

1. The Thing from Another World (1951)

2. It Came from Outer Space (1953)