Last Halloween I took it upon myself to watch a bunch of shitty Halloween themed movies and write about them and somehow I came across something about the legend of this guy called Halloween Jack or something I hated and it was a real chore and I called it an E.A.T.S.H.I.T. movie but I moved on with my life and then, looking back at the blog here, in April of this year I watched something on purpose called The Haunting of Borley Rectory and I immediately hated myself for getting into it, much less finishing it because it REALLY sucked and also called it E.A.T.S.H.I.T. which, if you don’t want to decode that acronym it stands for Englishmen Attempting To Single Handedly Irritate Thoroughly. Well, these days I don’t have time to do as much movie watchin’ as I used to, but thought I’d do something for Halloween and the movie with the title in the subject line here showed up as something I might like because I watched The Black Phone on Peacock and —

as I grumbled my way through it I learned it was made by THE SAME FUCKING GUY who did the other Borley Rectory and it WAS JUST AS FUCKING BAD as the other one and I couldn’t even believe it might have been worse but this one had The 6th Doctor in it AND Julian Sands and I wonder if those two feel as bad for being in it as I did for watching it? I know it’s my fault and my eyes for getting into it and all of that shit but SHEEZ this was a bad one. Crikey. Shite. Bollocks. Arse. Bollocks in the arse or whatever they say these days. I mean, this is totally me after watching this:

If you must know – wait – let’s say this, looking at this guy’s credentials on IMDB, I really do honestly hope he enjoys what he does for a living because he’s got a ton of movies under his belt and I really hope he and his crews get up in the morning and look forward to work – I just wish the output was better for me because I’m a selfish dick I guess.

But, if you must know, this one is set prior to the events of the other sucky movie – before the other house burned for some reason I don’t remember or really care about. Some bald, English guys in tweed move into the place looking for psychic shit to record in tiny notebooks. “This time I’ll really do it, chaps!” he whistles over tea to his audience of Colin Baker, Julian Sands and some other frumpy 60 year olds. “We’ve got tools this time!” Note: these tools I believe, are notebooks and pencils.

“You’ve seen the ghost of Peri??” Blathers Baker, looking stern but bewildered. “Mel!! Where is Mel??” Over the next hour and a half nothing really happens except for the same drone shot showcasing the house. I mean sure, some people get cold and some people do some sort of séance and someone strings up some twine with a bell and some people write notes in their notebooks with pencils but that’s really about it until the thing catches on fire. I think someone said (in voiceover) that someone else’s soul couldn’t handle it any more (sic) so she caught her own soul on fire and burned it down.

Oh – as for Sands, he plays some sort of crippled priest who saw the ghost of a burned up nun in the garden. One of those super-CGI nuns with the burning face that likes to put a finger to her mouth and make the ‘shush” symbol.

Here’s Sands seeing the nun, for posterity:

I believe the event somehow crippled him too but I never quite caught on to that.

I reckon, because it’s the age we live in, we should talk about the director’s intentions on his movie’s depiction and methods to explore class-ism, social-ism, woke-ism, struggle-ism, poverty-ism and how people aren’t getting what they deserve. Is Baker’s overweight-ism a direct result of white-privilege-ism? Was the intent of using so many lead filled pencils to write down notes a stance against British colonial-ism in underdeveloped countries and the lead mining industry? Were the terrible CGI flames some sort of effort to stymie the burning of property and promote proper environmental-ism? Flat Earth-ism? Dome Technology-ism? Anti-arson-ism? Up-your-anus-ism?

Or was it an attempt to irritate people? I do, really do, hope everyone got paid and were able to eat and walked away with big bags of money with currency symbols on them and they all had a good time and the director got to go home and throw his money all over his bed in his cottage and roll around naked on some bacteria covered wads of *pounds* and then some sort of prostitutes came over and they all rubbed each other up and down with oils and fragrances and they didn’t catch fire because of course and scratchy rubbing on each other and the next day they got up and had eggs and bacon and some sort of british pastries and it was a really good couple of days; the movie was made and complete and the dailies had been sent and someone in something like The BEEB said something like “Jumping Christ, old Worcestershire! That fellow’s really done it again!” and he put serious emphasis on that second A in agAin and someone else went to a secret safe hidden behind a bunch of neckties and socks with some type of hunting dogs printed on them and probably a couple of racks of soaps and pulled out some of those sacks of currency and sent them by steed to the filming location and see how I worked that back in and the whole fucking circle of life and all of that shit and they finally finished The Ghosts of Borley Rectory and wrapped everything up and someone said “CUT! You Flemish! Cut!”

FILED UNDER: E.A.T.S.H.I.T.