The Company of Wolves (1984) 4/10
This is an anthology film, framed as a Little Red Ridding Hood adaptation, all dreamt by a modern day girl, and my question is: Why? The modern day bookends serve absolutely no purpose, and the red riding hood story is cool on its own, but is destroyed by the constant interruptions. The interspersed stories are a mixed bag, but all of them fare worse because of the framing devices that draw attention away from the content. There's no real payoff for this construction, and while the content is ok it's nowhere near special enough to overcome it. The special effects are cool if weird bits of gore are your thing, but I find them really gross and I imagine those who like that sort of thing would feel there's not nearly enough of it. A supremely unsatisfying film that wastes good performances.
Intruder (1989) 6/10
A stripped down slasher with gory kills punctuating the tension, or tedium depending on your perspective. It has its moments, and I love that ending, but mostly its not very memorable. Still, at least it has a much more effective mood and momentum than the other two films I watched today.
Parents (1989) 3/10
What a tonally ineffective film. It's an 80 minute horror comedy that has neither horror nor comedy for the first hour. It's not even that it fails at being funny or scary, it's just that those involved seemed to think that bright colours and 50s americana are in themselves enough to be amusingly unsettling. It's all very tiresome to watch and the climax is more blunt, but still not very effective.