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The Final Destination (2009)

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  HALLOWEEN REVIEWS 2026 Director: David R. Ellis Writers: Eric Bress, characters by Jeffrey Riddick Stars: Bobby Campo, Shantel VanSanten, Nick Zano, Haley Webb, Mykelti Williamson, Krista Allen, Andrew Friscella, Justin Welborn, Stephanie Honore  As in all the previous Final Destination films, a group of characters escape death after one of them experiences a premonition of a terrible disaster.  They spend the rest of the movie in a futile attempt to escape their fate.  I thought the first three movies were okay if you have a hankering for gory mayhem, but this one was so bad that I found myself thinking up my own horror franchise: a group of characters find themselves trapped in a film written by a lazy screenwriter and spend the rest of the movie in a futile attempt to escape their fate.  Fortunately, your attempts need not be futile: push STOP.
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Bird Box (Bird Box #1) (2014)

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  HALLOWEEN REVIEWS 2026 by Josh Malerman The world is suddenly infested with creatures whose appearance drives people to madness and violence, forcing what’s left of humanity indoors and into a life where you literally keep your eyes closed to survive.  Author Josh Malerman uses that sensory constraint to build dread and show who people become under pressure.  Josh Malerman The story unfolds on three tracks: Malorie in the present, blindfolded in a boat with two children heading downriver toward a possible refuge; four years earlier, as part of a fragile household trying to build a life under the new rules; and earlier still, as the world first falls apart and she discovers she’s pregnant while barricaded with her sister.  The intercutting between the tense river journey and the slow collapse of the house ratchets up the suspense.  The monsters are there, but we never truly see them.  We hear them, we see the way birds react, and we watch what happens to p...
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Jurassic Park (1993)

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  HALLOWEEN REVIEWS 2026 Director: Steven Spielberg Writers: Michael Crichton & David Koepp, based on the novel by Michael Crichton Stars: Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Richard Attenborough, Bob Peck, Martin Ferrero, B.D. Wong, Joseph Mazzello, Ariana Richards Scientists learn how to recreate living dinosaurs via recovered DNA fragments, and a rich entrepreneur uses this knowledge to construct a prehistoric amusement park on a remote island.  He brings in a team to evaluate his living attractions, and from that point forward everything that can go wrong does.  The lean, economical screenplay, by Michael Crichton and David Koepp, does just what it needs to--it moves us efficiently from thrill to thrill.  Only at the very end do the writers get sloppy with an eye roller of an ending reminiscent of the one at the end of Jaws.  In this movie, however, it's really the special effects that matter.  These dinosaurs live and breathe.  I rememb...
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