Year in Review: 2016

Misery Mill Year in Review: 2016

This has been such a garbage year. I know everyone’s saying that to the point that it’s tired, and I’m not talking about the election or all the celebrity deaths, although the former was miserable and ran far too long whatever your politics and the latter just seemed unrelenting. This was a bad year for me, even despite things that went well and me being in a better spot, emotionally and financially, than I was at the start.

For me, the year started with me surrendering my dog to the animal shelter after five years because she had separation anxiety that only grew consistently worse. She was adopted within the week by a family in the suburbs, which is what she needs—space and people—and I’m a lot happier and healthier without the stress of worrying about if I can safely leave my apartment without the dog destroying it in my absence or, worse, hurting herself, but I loved my dog and her absence is still palpable 11 months later.

And that’s been the leitmotif of the year: all the good things stained such that it’s impossible to ignore them and all the bad things overshadowing any possible silver lining. Everything bad this year has laid the foundation for the good to come, but I can’t help think that could have been laid just as well without the misery.

There has been, though, misery I’ve delighted in, and that’s here in the Misery Mill. I know that's a forced segue, but if you ignore it we can all be done with this garbage year that much faster. Before I get into the past year’s rundown, I will note one change starting next week. Instead of posting a double-feature every Friday, I’ll post one review on Friday and one on Saturday. It is a cheap plot to double my site traffic. In truth it’s to make the posts more readable since I do tend to ramble on. It'll also make it easier to find and link to specific movies. Think of them as the Friday Feature and Saturday Matinée. I hope you enjoy them and continue checking out the posts over the next year.

So far I've watched 133 of the 400 movies, but, because some of the movies are on multiple sets, I've actually knocked 172 movies off the list (because my list includes the movies from the Sci-Fi and Horror packs that I watched before, the number is actually 272 out of 501). This year featured more campy delight than I’d thought. I kept thinking this would be an unrelenting slog, but I was surprised by the silliness of movies like Hunk and The Firing Line; I was able to watch Abraxas, one of my favorite bad movies, again; and I was able to post up several themed sets including the Black Cobra Trilogy, the Starman Tetralogy, and, just yesterday, the Ninja Death Trilogy. Plus I was able to do both an Election night double-feature and a solstice double-feature. I don’t think I’ll have the chance to do those again because I don’t think there are other series like that left in these collections. I was happy to finally see some Paul Naschy films and to really enjoy some old black & white flicks as well. I could complain—this is the year where I learned about the misery of Marimark—but why dwell on them at this point. I said when I started this project that it would take me until August 2019. Right now, considering what’s still to watch, the final date will be March 15, 2019. It’s nice to think I’ve knocked 6 months off my self-imposed sentence.

Fun movies of note from this year:
Abraxas My go-to recommendation for a good bad movie.
The Alien Factor
Attack From Outer Space

Bad Taste
Beast From Haunted Cave
Black Cobra 3

The Cold
The Creeper

Death Machines
The Devil's Hand
Disappearance of Flight 412

The Firing Line

Green Eyes I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this.

Hands of a Stranger
Hunk Campy Satan for days, please.

I Bury the Living
I Eat Your Skin
I Wonder Who's Killing Her Now
Invaders From Space

Mistress of Atlantis This struck me as an actually good forgotten film.

Night Fright
Ninja Death

Prime Evil

R.O.T.O.R.

Spare Parts

Here, as of 31 December, 2016, are the movies currently available through the Internet Archive. Links lead to the Misery Mill posts which have links to streaming copies:
Anatomy of a Psycho
Atomic Rulers of the World

The Bat
Battle Beyond the Sun
Beast From Haunted Cave
The Big Fight
Black Cobra
The Bloody Brood
Blood Mania

Carnival of Crime
Counterblast
Curse of Bigfoot

The Day the Sky Exploded
Death Machines
Death Rage
Deep Red
The Demon
The Devil’s Hand
The Disappearance of Flight 412
Don't Look in the Basement
The Driller Killer

End of the World
Evil Brain From Outer Space

The Giant of Metropolis
Grave of the Vampire
Green Eyes
Guru, the Mad Monk

Hands of a Stranger
Horror Express

I Bury the Living
I Eat Your Skin
The Image of Bruce Lee
Invaders From Space

Keep My Grave Open

The Legend of Bigfoot

Mesa of Lost Women
The Mistress of Atlantis
Monstroid

Night Fright
Ninja Death

Prisoners of the Lost Universe

Shaolin Temple
Shock
Silent Night, Bloody Night
Snowbeast

The Werewolf of Washington