I miss going to the movies. Instead of the excitement of leaving my house, maskless and alone like it’s 2019; I have to watch horror movies on my ipad or computer with headphones on. Or worse, on my television at 4 in the morning, finger fully on the “back” button so I don’t traumatize my kids.
Ah, motherhood.
I know there were movies in 2020 that I would have appreciated a lot more if I saw them outside of my home. Every once in awhile, people will go to a swimming pool or a lake to see Jaws, and I’m sure that adds to the experience. My sons watched The Lego Movie before going to Legoland the next day. I think that there are some movies that do better when not viewed in the home. Like, seeing Get Out in the theater hits differently than watching it at home.
I can’t really be scared when I’m surrounded by my beloved Squishmallow collection and Hatsune Miku fan art.
Anyway, I’ve watched a few cool movies lately. Here are some of them.
Host

This is the only movie that the experience was improved by watching it on my computer. I felt like I was a part of the movie. The entirety of the film takes place on ~Zoom~. Now, I’m a loner, so I don’t fully understand how Zoom works, and I don’t see how Skype could have fumbled the bag like this.
Anyway, this movie is similar to Unfriended. Pero like, it’s much better. Which is saying something, because I enjoyed Unfriended. The Host has 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. How cool is that? This film is really intriguing to me because they filmed it while social distancing. So, the people in the movie had to learn how to create practical effects.Kind of jealous, I would love to learn how to do that. All I did this quarantine was complete a nutrition course and get painful ultrasounds because of my PCOS.
Another thing I liked about this movie was that it was not what I expected when I heard this movie was filed during the pandemic. I really thought that the would somehow make the virus the “scary monster”, but it was a pretty interesting commentary on how loneliness and isolation is also very terrifying.
Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland
I’ve seen a lot of people make lists about children’s movies that #scarred them. Little Nemo is often missing from most lists. Like…RIP to The Last Unicorn…But I’m different. And, so are y’all apparently because this movie has everything! An anime film, based off a comic strip, starring Mickey Rooney, with music by The Sherman Brothers. Oh, and Chris Columbus and Ray Freakin’ Bradbury wrote the screenplay.
The best way I can describe this film, is: What if Dorothy Gale was a boy? I don’t want to give to much away, because this film is easily accessible because it’s streaming on Youtube!
Crawl
I usually don’t like the idea of “realistic” animal movies. By realistic, I mean like Cujo, Jaws, and The Naked Jungle. Like, the animal actually exists. I don’t like movies like that because it leads to unnecessary fear of animals, and could even end up being detrimental to animals. For the most part, Great White Sharks are not thinking about you (unless you look like something it normally eats.) In fact, some marine biologists think that Great Whites think we are too bony for consumption.
However, two particular animals are the exception. Alligators and Crocodiles. They can and will f*ck you up. There is even a famous one named Gustave. To add to this, Florida has a lot of invasive populations because of hurricanes. To me,that seems like something like this could realistically happen. Not that alligators are invasive to Florida, I just mean the idea of an animal being in a Florida home because of a hurricane. And hey, sometimes you don’t even need inclement weather to have an alligator in your home! Fun!
So, there is a bit of realism to Crawl that makes it thrilling, even in the parts where it is predictable (in a fun way).