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 69 (92). Hellraiser (2022) Directed by David Bruckner; Screenplay by Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski; Story by David S. Goyer, Collins, and Piotrowski; Based on The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker Watched on Hulu There was a list of releases this month that at the start of October I absolutely planned to get to but ultimately I just didn’t have much time for much outside my challenges. So now that it feels like I see the light at the end of the tunnel I’m taking some chances to get the other movies in starting with “Huluraiser”. I enjoyed this a lot. To me it does what a reboot/remake should do and stays true to the original but does its own thing. No one needs to see the same story or someone trying to copy Clive Barker. This feels like a Hellraiser story. I guess people were disappointed it didn’t go quite as hard on the sexual stuff but it still feels very much Hellraiser including the pain/pleasure double speak of the Cenobites. Personally I never bought into their self important talk. To me they’ve always been demons and demons tell lies and lure people in. In Barker’s original movie its not like Kirsty asks for any of this. The Cenobites don’t much care as they’re not super big on consent. And that’s fine because they’re monsters, no matter what a depraved guy who conjures them thinks. The guy conjuring a demon NEVER thinks that’s a bad idea. And it always comes back on them. And that’s basically what Hellraiser is. A basic story of satanists conjuring a demon or something, but with a Clive Barker twist. I think people can probably be disappointed that this isn’t more Barker like, be that the sexual stuff or the kind of dreamy loose element of the original film that certainly helped make it what it is. This is a more straight forward monster story really. Its all laid out pretty linearly and save a couple of twists its all pretty easy to follow what we’re dealing with and what the “rules” are. I like that but I definitely can see some people finding that a bit dull. But I really dug it. Odessa A’zion is a very good lead and I really like her character and the way the group of survivors of this nightmare kind of come together not out of a pre packaged clique of friends or anything but just out fo a kind of mutual sense of responsibility for each other and basic human decency. And that makes some of the late decisions a bit more powerful because like they’re taking risks and willing to sacrifice for some powerful love connection or relationship. They’re all kind of acquaintances or friends but they’re doing the right thing because its the right thing. They’re just being human. And in a franchise whose monsters are basically demons tempting people with selfish desire and pleasures that feels like a very cool and subtle angle to play with the characters. They’re all being pretty unselfish just because they all seem like pretty unselfish people. And that makes me like them more… and makes what inevitably happens to them hit harder. Jamie Clayton is also a very good Pinhead and I dig the overall design and feel of the Cenobites and puzzle box. Its not terribly different from what we had. Just a bit of an update. It feels like maybe they were going for a more generally androgynous feel for the whole group? I’m not sure. But I liked it a lot. It feels like it fits the idea fo all of this well. Gender is probably as much of a limit as anything else to these guys. But maybe I’m reading into that and I certainly hope I’m not doing so in a problematic way. Point is I really liked what they did although certainly it does feel like they get a little less focus? I think they’re probably around longer than in the original but in the original they’re really focused in on for shock and awe. Here they lurk and stalk their victims. And I do think that runs the risk of minimizing them a bit but I still enjoyed it because I was invested in the victims. Its not as good as the original. And its a meaningless statement to say its the 3rd best Hellraiser. It wouldn’t have had to be very much to get that honor. But I think its genuinely good. I can’t say I feel any more need for another one than I did for this one, but it was a good horror movie I enjoyed watching. And a good reboot/sequel that found a way to tell its own story that fits into this world without being a repeat or anything.  70 (93). Phase IV (1974) Directed by Saul Bass; Written by Mayo Simon I’m gonna ruffle some feathers with this one, but this was such a silly movie to me. Just so dry and self serious and so silly and absurd. It seems loosely inspired by HG Wells’ Empire of the Ants and I watched the Bert Gordon adaption of that this week and much more enjoyed that. It goes the giant ant route and is much more campy but like its a silly idea so that fit. And it still took itself seriously enough to not feel like a joke to me. But this? I dunno. This is the kind of movie that’s so dry and so self serious that I questioned whether it was a joke a few times. Like at the point there’s an ant funeral? Or when one of scientists outright says how utterly impossible it is that the ants knew enough about engineering and science to know where to attack their equipment to cripple it… and the other scientist just dismisses it with a “they knew”. Or that ending. That ending. Wow. I spent the entire film wondering if this thing was gonna end in a global crisis ant invasion or just these two idiots dying alone in the dessert screaming about ants. I never imagined THAT ending. And I honestly couldn’t believe I watched it. Also which guy is worse for putting a traumatized young woman in danger? The scientist who doesn’t want to ruin his experiment or the guy who just kind of goes with it because he’s into her? Everything about this just seemed so silly to me. It didn’t feel like the film ever found the balance between “its just ants” and “OH MY GOD THE ANTS ARE HERE!” I get not wanting to make them giant and wanting to go with a more psychological/sci fi way with it. One MIGHT say “grounded” but that feels hard to say about this. But it just doesn’t work for me at all. Everything just seemed so silly. Its all so contrived and goofy and it all feels like it thinks its real smart. I dunno. A lot of people seem to love this. And I can see the sort of science fiction film that I don’t like that this probably reminded people of. But man, I dunno. The characters felt like idiots to me, the ant threat felt completely unbelievable to me, the endless ant footage was dull and ground an already slow and dry story to halt over and over, and it felt like the movie deliberately had these buzzing and ringing sounds the entire time that just gave me a headache for an hour. I have a headache now just thinking of them. Although that could be that I haven’t eaten all day. But I dunno. I kind of hated this movie. Maybe its just not my thing but man, it really wasn’t my thing.  71 (94). All Eyes (2022) Directed by Todd Greenlee; Written by Alex Greenlee Recommended by a friend it wasn’t exactly what I expected but was still pretty fun. The Greenlee brothers do a really good job hiding their limited budget because the moments that it really shows I was genuinely surprised. It didn’t FEEL like a cheap movie. Its very well shot and the use of outdoor filming is done excellently to give it a great natural but professional look. When the big effects/action stuff come in the last act to pay everything off that does feel a little lackluster. But I think that’s less because of them being bad as it is a testament to how good the rest fo the movie was that I genuinely forgot I was watching an indy film. I think maybe the balance of silly and serious was a little off. That might just come down to a sense of humor. It feels like the humor here was kind of intentionally in the idea of breaking a tense or serious moment with something very silly. And that might have been the best way to handle the limitations of the premise production wise but it felt a little off to me. Like the opening of this film is this very serious prologue about something horrific happening and our main characters life collapsing as a result. And its not played for laughs at all, its all dealt with straight. And then his producer comes to check on him and there’s a smash cut from him angrily lashing out to sobbing in her arms. This felt like it was meant to be an intentionally silly swerve but it just kind of felt surprising to me in a way where I wasn’t exactly sure what I was watching. Again, this might just be a sense of humor thing and humor is subjective but I felt like the whole movie just kind of had me getting lured in by serious setup and then having the carpet pulled out by something silly. I started to feel a bit like Charlie Brown trying to get that football or something. Nothing that severe. I guess I just never fully gelled with the vibe we were going for here. Still, I did mostly enjoy this. Ben Hall is really fun as this very wacky character who doesn’t feel wacky. That’s kind of the disconnect maybe? I feel like Hall does such a good job with the character, Jasper Hammer does a good job reacting, and the film does a good job handling it with tact and gravitas that when he suddenly jumps and yells “I have to take a poo poo!” it comes off sillier than he was up til then. Again, I don’t know if that was intentional or just a case of everyone doing such a good job elevating their material. Which isn’t to say the material is bad. I found the whole story very clever, cute, and sentimental. Light on the horror and the finale is all a little too madcap to have any real tension. They kind of use all that up on the huge shock to kicks off the poo poo hitting the fan. And again, the more I talk about it the more I’m pretty confident that that’s their sense of humor. The shock of the needle drop moment. So I can respect that. But again, it just kind left me feeling off kilter and I don’t like that feeling. I wanna just settle in with a movie, even a scary and shocking one. But especially a cozy light one like this. But it was cozy and light. And it did have some really good laughs and shocks. And it did have some great performances and overall directing and filming. I don’t want it to see like I didn’t like it or am being overly critical. I think what works isn’t something I want to talk about too much. Its good character stuff you kind of just want to vibe with and see where it goes. And I enjoyed my time. I wouldn’t say this is a movie I’m dying to rewatch or recommend to anyone but I am curious to see the other movie the Greenlee brothers did. There’s clear talent in here and stuff I enjoy. I’d like to see more. Franchescanado posted:
 72 (95). She Will (2021) Written and directed by Charlotte Colbert; co-written by Kitty Percy Watched on Shudder I really dug this. Its very unique and hard to categorize. Wikipedia calls its a “psychological horror” and I’d say that’s fair. I’d call it a folk witchy rape revenge feminist relationship movie? There’s a lot going on here and its all handed very deftly. There’s no big exposition scenes or monologues. We’re trusted to follow everything that’s going on from the background of our main character to the background of the environment they’re in and what’s causing all this. Maybe the one thing I didn’t fully get was Kota Eberhardt’s Desi. She’s good and I enjoy her character and I think she has a nice subtle little relationship story with Alice Krige’s hard edged Veronica as they warm up to each other and become friends. But there’s a bigger character arc for her that I’m not super sure I got. Maybe just the place they were in trying to seduce her into the powers and fate that Veronica is being but in a different way? I’m not really sure. This film really doesn’t offer much in the way of clear narrative sense and sometimes I can find that very frustrating. But sometimes it just makes me want to make all my friends watch it so they can tell me what they think. And this was definitely one of those cases. Its really gorgeous. Its really well acted. Its really reserved. It pulls off dreamy loose narrative better than most do. A lot of reviews say that they’ll just forget it and I do think its maybe a little too ephemeral and coy to make any deep lasting impressions. Since there weren’t as many clear themes or explanations or big moments its hard for me to really know what to talk about and its definitely possible that with some distance I’ll mostly just remember the look and mood of the film. But I really loved the look and the mood. And I really loved the characters and themes and story. And I just vibed with it. I fell into it and none of those questions or concerns ever occurred to me until now when I’m trying to write about it. I just enjoyed the film. And when a film can just suck me in entirely like that its doing something very well. Franchescanado posted:
 73 (96). The Queen of Black Magic (2019) Directed by Kimo Stamboel; Screenplay by Joko Anwar; Based on Ratu Ilmu Hitam by Subagio Samtani Watched on Shudder i don’t totally know how I feel about this one. By and large I enjoyed it but it felt a little messy. There’s a bunch of interesting things here. There’s a very culturally universal theme of the awkward family reunion and the interactions and relationships between people who didn’t so much choose to be together… and especially the ones who didn’t even grow up together. Its an interest setup actually that the “brothers” here aren’t actually blood, but orphans who grew up together. There’s something endearing about the fact that they’ve stuck together and their families know each other… there’s also something rough about the brother left behind who they don’t know. That part of the “family” is probably the most interesting and I can see why Ade Firman Hakim was the actor singled out because he really does a good job with this difficult role of the “brother” who doesn’t feel like a brother at all but rather a servant to the people who were once his equals. but I also really enjoyed the interaction of the wives. That kind of clumsy civility where they’re all perfectly polite to each other and they even seem to share a basic bonding element of being married to the same bunch of brothers. But they’re clearly not friends and its very awkward when they’re left alone together. There’s another element that is interesting that comes out of that that I’m not sure how i feel about. This movie is rough on women. Not overtly misogynistic or anything but all the women are victims in some form or another. Literally every woman except for the “mom.” And even she’s not really being let in on everything. Now the movie doesn’t like the guys. They’re mostly all asses. And while there’s some question of how much of that is them and how much of that is influences on them - be they supernatural or just authorial - the movie is pretty consistent in not putting the guys in the best light. They’re not in the worst light… but its not great. And combined with the women… its a weird vibe once you see it. That sort of goes somewhere? And ultimately the movie’s pretty equally mean to everyone. So I’m not sure there’s anything deliberate or overt here. But I dunno. It stood out to me and I’m not sure it paid off in a way that felt satisfying to me. Like its definitely not a feminist story. But I don’t know if its a misogynistic one. There was just something off. And then there’s the very fun finale. Once the supernatural stuff kicks in its a lot of fun. I joked that between awkward family stuff, jerky dudes to women, kids making VCRs seem like some kind of magic antique and making you feel super old, and finding centipedes crawling on you in bed this movie didn’t need anything supernatural. That’s more than enough horror for me. But when the movie does flip the switch into full on supernatural its actually a lot of fun and largely pays it off. I’d say there’s even a kind of Raimi-esque/Evil Dead quality to the violence and gore. It kind of goes for it. And then there’s a kind of hilariously simple Hammer level resolution. It made me laugh. So I mean, I did largely enjoy this. But I dunno, I was never fully settled and don’t totally know how I feel. In the end I think this might be a case of doing a bit of everything well but not doing enough of anything well enough. Does that make sense? There’s a bunch of things I like here and maybe you like one of them enough to check it out and I wouldn’t discourage you. But there’s not that one thing on this menu that I can say “you gotta try that.” There’s nothing that makes me compelled to recommend this. I enjoyed it. I wouldn’t discourage you if you’re interested. I’d bet curious to know what you think. But I wouldn’t tell you to go out of your way. Taking it to the line for Bingo but almost there. 
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Oct 31, 2022 04:16
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Why did I decide to watch so many goddamned movies? #22 Creature  Dir. Willam Malone 1985 United States🇺🇸 Challenge: Spaced Invaders Hey! It’s an Alien rip off! Sometime in the future, competing companies are traveling to Saturn’s moon Titan to find resources and stuff like that. A West German ship (yeah, this is pre unification) lands and finds ancient alien ruins and hibernating creature. When the Americans land, they find a German survivor played by Klaus Kinski and the titular creature awake and ready to feed. Another one of those “who cares about the plot, here’s some monsters” type of B-movie. The creature itself looks pretty descent. Nice and wet and vaguely phallic, just like the xenomorph but bigger and dumber looking. It really should be a surprise that the people responsible went on to work on the actual Alien franchise with Aliens. One cool thing is the creature has little parasites that revive dead humans and uses them as pawns. How does it work? Who cares, it’s cool! The atmosphere is really neat. Despite it being an outer space sci-fi affair, they still have storms on the alien moon and spider-like cobwebs. I guess the creature or it’s parasites leave them behind. It’s an interesting mashup of an old horror movie with a futuristic one. Yeah, beyond that, there’s not much going on. I guess some cool gore and some nudity, but that not something you’d normally seek out with this. You could say it’s biggest sin is being competent. It’s not “so-bad-it’s-good” or good-good either. It’s just fine. It works and you can easily throw it on in the background and enjoy yourself. You just probably won’t remember much. Fun but forgettable. 2.5/5 #23 Child’s Play  Dir. Tom Holland 1988 United States🇺🇸 Bonafide classic that’s still great today. Little Andy Barclay wants a Good Guy doll for his birthday. It’s only the hottest toy right now. Poor mom hasn’t enough money to get one, but when a shady back alley dealer has one for cheap she leaps at it. But this Good Guy acts a little different. Andy says his real name isn’t Chucky, but Charles Lee Ray, the same name as the recently deceased Lake Shore Strangler. When people start dying around Andy, he gets blamed for them, but Andy says it’s Chucky doing it. A living killer doll is ridiculous though, or is it? The killer doll/toy subgenre is not new, even at the time of this release, but this is probably the most effective execution of it. Starting off with the special fx, it’s incredible. The lip flaps are a little shaky at times and the use of people in costume doesn’t look the best (there’s a reason they don’t do that effect anymore), but the rest really sell Chucky being alive. I guess it helps that he’s supposed to be made of plastic so you don’t have that uncanniness you get when trying to recreate a living thing with puppets. A lot of this depends on how good the kid actor is, and Alex Vincent is the cutest little kid ever. If he was annoying or not believable, the whole movie would have been painful to sit through. You’re immediately on his side. It helps when it’s pretty explicit that Chucky is alive before the big reveal so while you may have a few doubts, you’re not totally convinced he’s actually a killer. The structure and pacing is great too. Like I said, there’s a little mystery and uncertainty at first to make you second guess if it’s actually Chucky doing it or not. Then when you get the incredible reveal that he’s alive, the movie instantly switches to a kind of cop vs killer thriller. Also, awesome stunts at the end. Always awesome to see a fire stunt in a movie like this. 4/5 #24 Child’s Play 2  Dir. John Lafia 1990 United States🇺🇸 Can this sequel match the original? It’s now about 2 years since the Good Guy incident. The makers of Good Guy dolls have reclaimed the charred remains of Chucky to prove to investors that it’s totally safe. They rebuild him, and he’s deadlier than ever. Meanwhile, Andy is now in foster care after his mom is declared insane for backing up Andy’s claims that Chucky was alive. His new foster parents seem nice, but his new sister seems a little mean. They begin to bond just as a Good Guy doll shows up and new killings begin. So one aspect that always gets me in these kinds of movies is no one believing the hero. I understand why and it’s supposed to make you frustrated, but it still gets to me. At least in this situation, it’s believable people wouldn’t trust a kid blaming everything on a doll instead of not believing a teenager or adult when they say a killer is in pursuit. Effects look even better. With no more costume stunts, it makes the full body walking even more impressive. The addition of Kyle, Andy’s foster sister, is great. Seeing the two of them slowly bond is heartwarming. They really needed each other. Andy needed a mother-like figure still and Kyle needed a reason to care. The big final showdown in the toy factory is one of the best sequences in the franchise. It even includes on of the funniest kills with the toy machine mechanic. This movie also has one of the better scores for the franchise. Chucky really doesn’t have a solid theme, but the series uses the main theme from this one and it works great. It’s not quite as good as the first, but it has plenty of new twists for the franchise. 4/5 #25 Child’s Play 3  Dir. Jack Bender 1991 United States🇺🇸 Challenge: Origin of Evil It’s Chucky’s third adventure. How will this fare compared to the rest? Several Years have passed (though this movie released less than a year after 2) and Andy is now a teenager enrolled in a military academy. He has to deal with superior officers, bullies, and a barber who’s too eager to cut hair, but at least there’s no more Chucky. That is until the toy makers decide to revive the brand and accidentally spill some of Chucky’s blood into a fresh batch of plastic, reviving him in a new body. He tracks Andy down to the academy, but winds up in the hands of Tyler. New body means Tyler is the next unlucky target for Chucky to transfer his soul into. Now Andy must protect Tyler with the help of some new friends. The military academy setting is a pretty unique and novel one for a slasher film. There’s a couple good kills that revolve around it, but overall it’s kinda boring. There’s a bland sameness to all of it. It makes sense, but it’s not exciting. Thankfully there’s the inexplicable carnival during the climax which is a highlight. Honestly, a whole movie in a carnival or circus setting would have been a lot of fun. This is what I consider the start of the funny Chucky. He was a lot more serious and plain evil last two movies. Here, he’s got quite a few one liners and his iconic laugh is on full display. Having a funny, prankster villain can be tricky, but Dourif delivers. Special effects are still supremely good. I cannot overstate how amazing Chucky looks in all of these movies. Not my favorite in the franchise, but the usual series highlights make it worth watching. 3/5
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Oct 31, 2022 04:41
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Movie #26 Island of Lost Souls, 1932  A 1932 adaptation of H.G. Wells' The Island of Doctor Moreau. Charles Laughton gives us a fun, gentleman mad scientist take on Moreau and we've got Bela Lugosi as a wolfmam a year after Dracula. The plot more or less follows Wells's story of a scientist cheating evolution by combining men and animals, but at only 70 minutes it really skips through a lot of the subtlety and characterization. This is a film that simultaneously feels rushed and slow. Aside from Mureau himself, the rest of the cast isn't particularly interesting. There are some cool shots for sure though, and the final realization of the Animal People that God can be overthrown is great. The whole final act is fantastic, but it takes some plodding to get there.
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Oct 31, 2022 04:49
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 #103.) The Peanut Butter Solution (1985; Tubi) After a bad fright, a young boy named Michael loses all his hair. Luckily, an act of kindness he'd committed has him in good standing with a pair of ghosts, who provide him with a recipe for a hair growth potion. But too much peanut butter in the recipe has his hair growing wild, and there's a child abductor, and magic paintbrushes, and more. Predicated on Canadian children never having experienced a buzzcut, this is a truly odd movie. So much free-flowing whimsy and in-the-moment magical rules, this truly is the sort of film that wouldn't be made today, at least not in North America. In a way, it reminded me of the children's novel Chocolate Fever, by Robert Kimmel Smith, in which a boy who eats too much chocolate breaks out in a chocolate-bump skin condition. There's a similar loony-but-logical operating method in play here; anything could happen, but there's an explanation for everything that does happen. It's gently playful, and delightful. It also has one of the most real-feeling families I've seen in a film in a long time, and a best friend who'll go to any lengths to help his pal. Definitely one of the more memorable films I've seen this month. “Just think, people pay good money for a fright at the movies, and you got one for free.”  Rating: 7/10
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Oct 31, 2022 05:06
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37: Pan's Labyrinth High Brow This has been one of the bigger ones that I've been missing for a long time now, glad to check it off. I have a real love/hate relationship with GDT. I really want to love his stuff; he likes a lot of the same stuff I do, he has a real eye for fantasy, and he's clearly passionate about it, but for the most part I find his stuff to be gorgeous, heartfelt, and boring as hell. This was definitely nearer the top though, I'm always a fan of a dark fairy tale, and it's certainly in his wheelhouse. I didn't love it and doubt I'll ever watch it again, but it certainly isn't a bad movie by any metric.
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Oct 31, 2022 05:33
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Liar Lyre posted:Why did I decide to watch so many goddamned movies?  (1988) Hmm.
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Oct 31, 2022 05:38
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A bit behind on the posts, but have three more movies to watch. Ratings out of five. 21. Terrifier 2 (Damien Leone, 2022) [First Viewing] Well, everyone has heard about how gruesome this movie was going to be and I would say this is probably at my personal limits of what I can watch and remotely enjoy. [Side note: Personally, I'm not a fan of the August Underground series and similar movies that are just pseudo snuff films] With Terrifier 2, I'm passively aware I'm watching a movie so I can manage, but it has a few moments where I squirmed a little -- The effects overall are very well done. Didn't need a puke bag, but did need a little mental palette cleanser afterwards before going to bed. While I definitely enjoyed it, Damien Leone has a solid vision of Art the Clown at this point, I can't lie and say two hours and fifteen minutes is a little much for a slasher. I don't think there are major scenes which I'd say are unnecessary, the character development is decent, but it's essentially an epic in terms of the genre. Art the Clown is also such a great villain. Haven't rooted this hard against a horror villain... maybe ever. Worth the wait, but would probably want the series to be concluded now unless they went back to an anthology format. 4.0  22. Barbarian (Zach Cregger, 2022) [First viewing] Holy poo poo, thought this was fantastic. Didn't see any trailers or read anything about the plot, but was generally aware of the hype. Acting was really good and the movie has such a great, minimalist plot. There were some really great, tense and scary moments. Really don't want to analyze anything without spoiler tags, because I'd definitely recommend this one and going in with a blank slate. 4.5 The first sighting in the tunnel had me as hyped as I was watching The Descent for the first time, awesome moment. Ending with "Be My Baby" was so perfect.   23. Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (Dwight H. Little, 1988) & 24. Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (Dominique Othenin-Girard, 1989) [Bingo: Origin of Evil] Pairing these two movies up because I don't think I've ever watched just one of them. Before I had an extensive horror collection at home, I used to always watch the marathon of the Halloween franchise on AMC. To my memory, every movie of the series except the first was on a loop for days and I have fond memories of this so there's definitely a nostalgic bias. Donald Pleasence is the real anchor, the Michael Gross of the series, and really gives a sense of legitimacy to a pair of movies that are fairly average slasher movies. While they never satisfy as much as the original masterpiece, they are what you'd expect. One thing I always liked was they were pretty direct in terms of the chronological timeline. No jumping around, no in-depth origin stories, just right where the last one ended. I think there are a few themes from these two that the makers of the new trilogy liked. We see a bit of the mob mentality overtake the town and that's obviously expanded greatly in the new trilogy. I always feel cruel judging a child actor, but I have to say Danielle Harris as Jamie is rough at times. Not that there is Oscar bait on screen elsewhere, but I can't help having the thought that they went with the mute story line in the fifth movie because of a possible negative response to her performance. Again, I feel mean even thinking this and I'm most certainly wrong. But to go overly critical on these two is like harshly judging fast food, they're run of the mill slashers. If I had seen them for the first time when I was older, I'd probably be disappointed, but I enjoyed them so much when I was younger I still enjoy them. The fourth is slightly better than the fifth, but it always could be fatigue when I watch them back to back. 2.5, 2.5  25. Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers (Joe Chappelle, 1995) [Producer's cut -- First viewing, Bingo: Whispers in the Dark] Well, even a much younger me must have thought this was a disaster then, because I watched the trailer to give myself a memory refresh and I didn't recognize it at all. I knew I had seen it, but I must have enjoyed it so little I never watched it again. Which is weird because I definitely have seen H20 a few times. So, I decided to put the "producer's cut" of it thinking that maybe it was a movie where the quality suffered from a heavy-handed distributor. But I couldn't get into this one at all. Not even Paul Rudd with his constellation theory explained on a super advanced 1990s PC and Donald Pleasence's final role could save it. I was watching the run-time on this one and thinking I should have watched the shorter version. 1.5 
Orchestrated Mess fucked around with this message at 05:54 on Oct 31, 2022 |
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Oct 31, 2022 05:50
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30. Horror Noire (2021), Shudder I wanted to like this one, but it just felt a little... low rent, I guess? The stories either ended just when they were getting good, had really bad effects, or both, and they all felt kind of tame. The Tony Todd and Peter Stormare cameos were pretty great (and the vampire story was probably the best of the lot, even if it was a little by-the-numbers), and the stories certainly had a good variety of topics which was nice, there just wasn't a very satisfying follow-through for a lot of the stories. The cult story felt a little on-the-nose in a post-Trump and post-Covid world, where the cult members actively denied science and talked about diseases being hoaxes fabricated by scientists, and literally lost the ability to read. It also felt like it was splitting its time between two unrelated plots that didn't seem to come together in a satisfying way (the red-faced murders, and the cult brainwashing). It tried to link them at the end but there just wasn't enough of a setup to the red-faced murders as being cult-inspired to make it convincing in the end. 1. 'Tales from the Crypt' (1972) 2. 'Trilogy of Terror' (1975) 3. 'Southbound' (2015) 4. 'The Vault of Horror' (1973) BONUS: 'Smile' (2022) 5. 'Creepshow' (1982) 6. 'The House That Dripped Blood' (1971) 7. 'All Hallow's Eve' (2013) BONUS: 'Deadstream' (2022) 8. 'Cat's Eye' (1985) 9. ' The Monster Club' (1981) 10. 'Body Bags' (1993) 11. 'The Field Guide to Evil' (2018) BONUS: 'Hellraiser' (2022) 12. 'The Dark Tapes' (2017) 13. 'Trick 'r Treat' (2007) 14. 'Deadtime Stories' (1986) BONUS: 'Halloween Ends' (2022) 15. 'Black Sabbath' (1963) 16. 'ABCs of Death' (2012) 17. 'V/H/S/99' (2022) 18. 'Twice Told Tales' (1963) 19. 'Scare Package' (2020) 20. 'Twilight Zone: The Movie' (1983) 21. 'Asylum' (1972) 22. 'Chillerama' (2011) 23. 'Dr. Terror's House of Horrors' (1965) 24. 'XX' (2017) 25. 'ABCs of Death 2' (2014) 26. 'The Mortuary Collection' (2019) 27. 'Three Extremes' (2003) BONUS: 'Antrum' (2018) 28. 'Dead of Night' (1977) BONUS: 'Scream 4' (2011) BONUS: 'The Mummy' (1932) 29. 'Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark' (2019) 30. 'Horror Noire' (2021)
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Oct 31, 2022 06:24
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 It just wouldn't be the same with a hollow core door. The Shining (Stanley Kubrick ; 1980) Halloween is Special I was originally going to watch Evil Dead II because it's arguably my favorite horror movie, but I don't think that's really a "guilty pleasure" : I feel absolutely no guilt and will gladly proselytize for buckets of blood being poured onto Bruce Campbell. So instead I decided to take a more literal approach, and gave myself a pleasure I'm guilty of not enjoying more. I'm pretty sure I've seen The Shining, I must've. Growing up there was a video store down the mountain that I could get to pretty easy if I ignored trails, so I did the normal thing a goon would and spent a solid chunk of my youth working my way through everything I thought a smart person would have seen. I know for a fact I've seen parts of The Shining, and it's the kind of thing that if it's on I'll always pay attention to and finish. But at no point in my entire adult life do I remember actually sitting down and watching The Shining. I told you I was guilty, don't look at me like that. My opinion hasn't changed, although I still really like it of course. I had a good time watching it ; that Kubrick sure can make a fuckin' movie. I'm not gonna add much to the intellectual labor of critiquing a masterwork of cinema, so I'm gonna reverse that and pose a question : Why have I never been the least bit afraid of The Shining? I'm not saying it's not scary, I can see that it scares the poo poo out of lots of people and on an intellectual level I totally understand why. But I personally have never been afraid of it. I love horror, it's possibly my very favorite genre, there's a reason why I accidentally overshot my challenge goal. And the good ones won't actually scare me-scare me like real life loneliness or cold or pain or the future, but they can get a sort of pleasant anxiety or dread out of me. So why does specifically The Shining not scare me even the slightest. Well, I don't know when I first watched The Shining, but what I do know is what I had definitely watched at some point before. KU / BRICK, HE GETS HIS OWN SCALE YOU EARNED IT STAN FROM THE BRONX  And I'm gonna call that "done". I'll probably watch more tomorrow, I'm in the mood to check out Doctor Sleep finally. But I think 50 is a good round number and you folks have had enough of my terrible posts. No reason to inflict any more pain on you, you've been through enough. Ana asef. Thanks for putting up with me and thanks to Fran for organizing this, it's a hell of a lot of fun! Edit on Nov 1 to make this more of a proper wrap up post : Up above is the full bingo card for all 14 possible spookies because I saw a challenge and overdid it. Really good gimmick. Made me really branch out and try some new movies. I watched Really great month. Thanks again to everyone and especially Fran putting in the work and running it. List of movies watched, with some non-famous little gems bolded as my recommendation : 1) The VVitch (2015) 2) Savageland (2015) 3) Last Shift (2014) 4) Antlers (2021) 5) Lair of the White Worm (1988) 6) Castle Freak (1995) 7) Spell (2020) 8) Return of the Living Dead (1993) 9) Horror in the High Desert (2021) 10) Vampyr (1932) 11) Apostle (2018) Jesus these feel like they were years ago 12) The Babysitter (2017) 13) Gretel and Hansel (2020) 14) Cast a Deadly Spell (1991) 15) Black Mountain Side (2014) 16) The Devil Below (2021) 17) The Descent (2006) 18) Feast (2005) 19) Ooga Booga (I didn't write down the year and I'm not checking) 20) The Howling (2017) 21) Texas Chainsaw : The New Generation (1995) 22) Howling VI : The Freaks (1991) 23) Tales from the Darkside : The Movie (1990) 24) The Night House (2021) 25) Dead & Buried (1981) 26) Black Sheep (2006) 27) Husk (2011) 28) Umma (2022) 29) HellHouse LLC. (2015) 30) Mimic Director's Cut (1997) 31) Nocturne (2020) 32) The Devil's Backbone (2001) This is where I realized I watched more movies than I thought 33) The Hand That Rocks The Cradle (1992) 34) When Michael Calls (1972) 35) Dagon (2001) 36) Hypochondriac (2022) 37) Eat Locals (2017) 38) Incantation (2022) 39) Hocus Pocus 2 (2022) 40) 47 Meters Down : Uncaged (2019) 41) Countdown (2019) 42) Practical Magic (1998) 43) Barbarian 44) Vast Is The Night (2019) 45) Absentia (2011) 46) Hillwalkers (2022) 47) Malignant (2021) 48) Run Sweetheart Run (2022) 49) Night of the Demons (2009) 50) Wrong Turn 2 : Dead End (2007) 51) The Shining ??) Various shorts that aren't counted in this number, and let's throw in del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities and all the other horror stuff I interacted with this month but wasn't for the challenge. Xiahou Dun fucked around with this message at 16:45 on Nov 1, 2022 |
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Oct 31, 2022 06:42
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19. X (2022) A troupe of adult filmmakers rent out a guest house on a farm to shoot their next film. After a long day loaded with hard work, they start getting killed by the decrepit couple who own the farm. It's decent; the kills are nicely gory and the final confrontation is pretty wild, if brief. There's a message here about toxic attitudes towards sexuality, but I find it a bit muddled. Still worth a watch, though. 3/5 I don't think this fits anything left on my Bingo card. It's technically a period piece, but I have something else in mind which better fits the bill, and while one of the killers is bisexual, the movie doesn't do enough with that to qualify it for the Scream, Queen spot. 20. Manhunter (1986) A retired FBI profiler returns to work to catch a serial killer who takes out entire families. Getting himself back into the right frame of mind for the job involves consulting with the killer whose capture led to his retirement in the first place: one Dr. Hannibal Lecktor (yes, that's how it's spelled in the movie). Brain Cox's take on the character is more subtle and subdued than Anthony Hopkins', but no less dangerous or manipulative. His role in this story is relatively minor, however. The story focuses on how William Petersen's rather high-strung main character tracks down the killer by figuring out his driving motive and from there, how he chooses his victims. There's not too many kills here; most of them have already happened by the opening of the movie. The movie ends with one hell of a cool shootout, though, and has one other kill that's just wonderful. 3.5/5 I've got to do a little extra here to justify my bingo space here. Will Graham, the protagonist, was forced to retire after a traumatic experience and despite what he says he clearly isn't entirely over it yet. However, he's got quite the cushy set-up going on to help him recuperate. He's young, handsome, tanned, has a beautiful, caring wife and a loving son, and shares his life with them in a spacious beachfront house in Florida, as only 1980's Michael Mann could put on screen. Presumably he has a government pension going for him as well. He has to give up this comfortable life, and return to a job the psychological stresses of which nearly destroyed him, and could again if he's not careful. I'd say that definitely counts as a Yuppie Nightmare.  21. Pi (1998) A nervous, irritable mathematician who suffers from severe cluster headaches spends his days obsessively trying to track down the patterns that underlie the rises and falls of the stock market. One day his computer setup fails catastrophically, but not before spitting out a long string of numbers which may hold the answers he's looking for, and even more. Cutthroat capitalists and religous zealots start coming after him, and his whole life gets turned upside down, causing his headaches and general levels of stress and irritablitly to go through the loving roof. Definitely a psychological horror movie, even though nobody dies of non-natural causes. The soundtrack is a goddamn killer, though. 3.14159265.../5 Max's computer, practically a character in its own right (he names it "Euclid") is plagued with literal bugs, which cause the Glitches around which the movie revolves.  22. Videodrome (1983) I think I may be the last person in the world who has seen this movie. And all I can think of to say about it is: Holy poo poo. Long live the new flesh. 5/5 TerrorVision? Yes.  23. The Toxic Avenger (1984) A nerdy, weak, weasel-y janitor at a health club gets constantly bullied by club regulars Slug and Bozo and their girlfriends. One day they go too far and he ends up face down in a barrel of toxic waste wearing a pink leotard and tutu. He spontaneously combusts, but somehow manages to survive long enough to get home where he transforms into a hideous monster. But this monster is in fact a hero! Watch out, criminals of Tromaville, you're about to get Melvined! Horribly. So, so horribly. I couldn't look away for a second. The humor here is deliberately crude, offensive and tasteless, and like much 80's humor some of it hasn't aged well. But the movie has enough going for it that still works, somehow. 3/5 There aren't really any punks here per se, but it's one of Troma Entertainment's signature productions and has all the subversion and perversion one should expect from them, making it Punk Vacation AF. This also gives my my first SPOOKY!  24. Get Out (2017) I hadn't seen this when it was initially released and somehow managed to keep from having the plot developments spoiled for me, so it still had a fair bit of punch. The bingo scene was absolutely chilling, and the focus on the characters' unnerving, unnatural behaviors kept me invested the whole way through. Seriously, who the hell eats cereal like that? Jesus Christ. Anyways, I thought it was pretty solid. 3.5/5 Directed by a black man and focusing on themes related to the African-American experience, this is an obvious pick for Horror Noire.  25. Lake Mungo (2009) I've been reading the thread and wondering just what the hell After Dark Horrorfest is, where I can find out more about what movies qualify, why I should care about it beyond the purview of this challenge, etc; but Lake Mungo came up repeatedly as one of the better ones, and my local library happened to have a copy. It's not bad, but there's really not a lot to say about it. An Australian family is haunted by the ghost of the oldest daughter in the wake of her drowning, leading them to investigate further into what is going on. Presented as a documentary, it's more about the family's grieving process than anything else and nothing much really happens. Competently made, but I found it a bit dull. 2.5/5 It's from After Dark, so it gets the After Dark square tailor-made for it. 
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Oct 31, 2022 07:17
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 50. Barbarian (2022) Without spoilers, the content of Barbarian is not nearly so wild as people are making it out to be, though it definitely finds a freaky nerve to twist. Instead it's the structure of the piece that is most definitely wild; I know no other film that builds such a meticulous mood of suspicion and anxiety and then jettisons it in the space of one transition that hits like a train derailment, all for the sake of contrast, disorientation, and comedy. It makes for a nutty first viewing experience, which in turn makes Barbarian an easy recommend for a night's entertainment. You get both awful simmering unease and belly laughs (one character's antics with a tape measure are some of the funniest poo poo you can possibly do in a horror movie). Yet my enjoyment of Barbarian really shriveled up in the third act. It gets less creative with its surprises, a character's bad behavior becomes overt and trite social commentary, and the ending left me cold. Maybe a month of horror movies has burned me out on the stupid loving screenwriter games juggling the positions of keys and cell phones and weapons to keep characters in artificial peril. Barbarian is ultimately a very good trick that I don't need to see repeated.  / 5
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Oct 31, 2022 07:32
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7. Frankenstein (1931) a horrible font The Universal Frankenstein trilogy was something I only previously have experienced through Mel Brooks and cultural osmosis. While I enjoyed all three films, the first is the weakness, and is hold together by great performances from Clive and Karloff. That being said it had some moments that are still striking to a modern viewer, Maria's father carrying her body through the village, the short shots of Frankenstein and Frankenstein starring at each other through that spinny thing in the mill.  i have one of these 8. Bride of Frankenstein (1935)  love this opening, can't get over the gall of it A vivid delight. I am now an Una O'Connor fan, she is so funny here. And Pretorius!! What a character, so terrific, the scene with him and the jars is deranged. And he is a friend of dorothy, what is there not to love. Clive and Karloff both shine more here in this film as well, as their characters get to show more range.  eating food in a crypt, having the time of his life 9. Son of Frankenstein (1939)  if i lived here i would set up a rope so i can swing from one side to the other like a pirate Frankenstein's son sucks. The movie doesn't even put in an ounce of effort in making him sympathetic, but Basil Rathbone increasingly manic performance will invoke feelings of affection as he throws darts like a lunatic and engages in the most one sided cat and mouse game with the Inspector. Meanwhile Bela Lugosi is basically that guy from the I Think You Should Leave sketch in the banana suit, but actually getting away with it. Karloff has to wear a fur coat and it looks rather silly. Good set design. This one is longer than the other two and you can feel it. Funniest of the three but Bride has it beat for best.  he enjoys being annoying Scream Queen for Frankenstein and Zombie Honeymoon for Bride 
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Oct 31, 2022 07:53
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Place your bets if I can get caught up in less than 2 days. #26 Werewolf by Night  Dir. Michael Giacchino 2022 United States🇺🇸 Challenge: Halloween is Special Marvel’s first special, shorter than a movie but not a series. Great within the MCU, but lacking on the horror side. On a dark spooky night, several monster hunters gather to compete for the Bloodstone, the name sake of the family who’s been in charge for years. Who ever holds it will be the new leader after the passing of Ulysses Bloodstone. They must navigate a labyrinth and pull the stone from the flesh of a swamp monster, the Man-Thing. However, one of them is actually there to free the gentle monster and gets help from the estranged daughter Ulysses, Elsa. Will they survive the night, or will the hunters turn their sights on them? In comparison to what Marvel has been churning out for over a decade, there’s a lot to like here. There’s quite a lot of practical effects on display. The action is pretty standard Marvel, but I’m guessing since it’s in black and white, they aren’t as afraid of showing some blood. Speaking of black and white, I felt the photography left a lot to be desired. I don’t know for certain, but it felt like this was shot in color and then turned into black and white later. There’s a lot of murky gray and not enough contrast to make sure important details pop. There’s a couple times where better attention was paid, but overall it’s just fine. Music of course is phenomenal. Not only is Giacchino directing, but he provides a perfectly spooky and moody score. It’s just a nice, short, no frills adventure that blends heroes and monsters in a fun way. You’ll find better in each category, but this blend feels just right. 4/5 #26.5 since WbN is just under 60 minutes Treehouse of Horror XXXIII  Dir. Rob Oliver 2022 United States🇺🇸 Challenge: Halloween is Special Another entry into the long running Simpsons staple. The show is back on the rise, but is the Treehouse of Horror just as good? The Pookadook Parody of Babadook. Really blazes through the story. Marge reads a story to Maggie, gets possessed by Pookadook, tries to kill her, love saves the day. Like the gag of Marge saying Homer and the kids will “sleep with the fishes” and it’s them going to a sleep over at the aquarium so she can kill Maggie. The spookiest of the three, but just okay. Death Tome Death Note parody. Lisa finds a Death Tome, the shinigami named Steve Johnson goads her into using it, hijinks ensue. Extremely good animation, couple of great jokes too with L being found out to be El Barto aka Bart. Wouldn’t mind a whole episode done in an anime style. Anime Homer is a delight. Simpsonsworld Westworld parody. Simpsonsworld is a park where you can relive Simpsons moments with robots. A Homer from the monorail episode gains sentience and breaks free. Episode is mostly a self critique of how Simpsons has become and the undying nature of animated shows like itself, Family Guy, Bobs Burgers, South Park, Sponge Bob and others. Packed with references which made me giddy. Great collection this year. Highly recommended to pretty much everyone. 4/5 #27 Onibaba  Dir. Kaneto Shindo 1964 Japan🇯🇵 Challenge: Highbrow Horror I was worried at first this wouldn’t qualify for the spooky season but it wound up being a uniquely scary story. It’s a long time ago in Japan, during a civil war. The old emperor has fled to the mountains while someone new has taken the throne in the capitol. Meanwhile, the regular citizens of Japan are struggling to make do. One pair of people, a mother and her daughter-in-law, survive by living in the tall grass and killing wandering samurai to sell their equipment. Things get complicated as a neighbor, Ushi, who was drafted along with Hachi, who was the son and husband of the pair of ladies, comes home. He says that Hachi was killed in combat and the mother blames him for his death. The younger woman ignores her mother-in-laws wishes and begins sleeping with Ushi. Angered, the older woman uses the mask from a recently killed samurai, but things don’t go as she planned. So how well does this qualify as a movie appropriate for the spooky Halloween season? For the first hour or so, it’s much more of a historical period drama. There’s a lot of talking, and steamy eroticism, and intrigue into the politics and philosophy of a civil war and being a soldier. It does have a great look about it though. With the struggling citizens and sparse cast, the movie has a strangely apocalyptic feel to it. There’s also the fantastic and harsh black and white photography. When you see the demon mask later on, the sharp shadows make it look horrifying. And that mask is what makes this tip over from a drama into a kind of folk horror. There’s nothing explicitly supernatural on display, but how the mask is portrayed gives it a sinister edge. The story completely works without having to believe there’s some kind of magic at play, but with it being a mask that looks like an oni, I mean it’s pretty easy to believe it’s possessed. I really don’t have much to say. I’m sure if I was more familiar with the era of Japanese history, I’d be more engaged, but it still works great. A little slow at the beginning, takes its time getting to the spooky part, but still good. Im sure I’ll grow to enjoy this one more as time goes on. 4/5 #28 One Hour Photo  Dir. Mark Romanek 2002 United States🇺🇸 Challenge: Yuppie Nightmare A very rare villainous role for Robin Williams and one of his best ever. Williams plays Sy, a photo technician at a generic big box store. Think of a Walmart or Target. He does everything in his power to give his customers the best experience, and offer beyond that at his bosses dismay. However, his own life is quite sad and lonely. He fills that void in his life by living vicariously through his customers photos. He’s particularly obsessed with the Yorkin family. After eventually being fired and find out Mr Yorkin is having an affair, he begins to enact a strange plan for revenge feeling as though Mr. Yorkin doesn’t deserve his happiness. Like I said, Williams is brilliant in this. The character of Sy requires him to be equal parts scary and sympathetic. If he portrayed him too much one way or another, it wouldn’t work as well as it does. There’s a bit of unpredictability to him and that’s what makes him scary. The color choice in here is brilliant. Much of Sy’s world is heavily desaturated, almost monochrome. His life lacks, well, life. The most color that surrounds him is the photographs of everyone else’s happiest moments. It’s a great way to visually reinforce the themes. This movie is painfully 2002. There’s so much early 00s technology and style in full display. Even the plot relies on something that hasn’t existed in years, the department store photo studio. It’s a very fun time capsule. An excellent and greatly underrated gem. 5/5 #29 Lake Mungo  Dir. Joel Anderson 2008 Australia🇦🇺 Challenge: After Dark An amazingly unique and horrifying experience. The movie is portrayed in a documentary style chronicling the weeks and months after the tragic disappearance of a young girl named Alice. After her body is found in the lake the family was vacationing at, strange things start to happen. Ghostly images appear in family photos, but maybe there’s more to them as more mysteries on who Alice was start to surface. So the documentary format is really fascinating. Most found footage films try to get you into the headspace of the main character, while this one is much more distanced while maintains that objective feel. Only the very end blurs the line of what feels like a real doc and a piece of fiction, but everything else feels 100% authentic. The performances don’t feel like performances. Even the archival news footage looks like it was recorded off a tv broadcast. It can absolutely fool someone who didn’t know better. The story itself is a special kind of frightening. It’s the kind of horror that lingers on your soul. A persistent dread that elevated by a particularly potent jumpscare. The documentary format allows them to double back on previous events and elaborate or present new information. It twists and turns into itself and often reveals that it isn’t always the supernatural element that’s the scariest part. I can see why this has gotten such a cult following and it deserves it. 5/5 #30 Nosferatu  Dir. F. W. Murnau 1922 Germany🇩🇪 100 years old, but still amazing. Nosferatu is like half of Dracula. Real estate agent rolls into Transylvania, sells the count a house, he starts biting necks, and then he dies. I could elaborate, but this is a very streamlined version of an already well known and lean story. So the question becomes, what makes this version valid over other adaptations? First, this is a great looking film. A real castle was used for some scenes and it adds so much production value, especially compared to the more flat, stage like sets in the film. Some great, dramatic camera placements too and lighting. When you’re limited to just visuals and a simple soundtrack, you really gotta make those visuals pop and this excels. This version of the count (named Orlok) is and instantly iconic design. Most other Drac’s draw heavily from Legosi’s version, which I think was drawn heavily from stage productions from the time, so seeing something older that’s so different is a real treat. It’s very interesting that this only adapted about the first half of Dracula. After Orlok gets to his new home, he creeps for a bit, tries to bite the Mina analogue and does to sunlight. It does make the pacing a bit awkward, but they do take time to highlight the boat ride more. Most other adaptations I’ve seen ignore that scene. It’s just a minute or two. Here, it’s like a mini movie in of itself. A touch uneven, but a really iconic adaptation that’s worth watching. 4/5
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Oct 31, 2022 08:08
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#37 - The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 I don't care for the original (I know, I know) and I didn't care for this sequel either. The near-constant screaming got on my nerves, being so ever-present it loses all impact and becomes this tedious, distracting background noise. Aside from an amazing underground lair this is creatively bankrupt, even copying the dinner scene from the original at length trying to find something to work with. How the hell do you have chainsaw duels and still suck? Counted for "To Serve Man" #38 - Godzilla  I've seen a ton of Godzilla movies, but never the original. It definitely holds up and I particularly liked how it is one of the rare times Godzilla is an actual force of nature with the focus on wanton destruction and the suffering caused, not just a wrestling match with another monster. I enjoy the goofy fights, but am usually more interested in the rest, which is probably why I enjoyed Shin Godzilla so much as well. Happy to have finally seen this. Counted for "Golden Years" All Bingo challenges done! 
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Oct 31, 2022 09:28
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 33. Rim of the World 2019, McG, Netflix A reasonably well-done movie with a tired concept is better than a poor movie with a good one. You have four child actors elevating really low-effort plotting and dialogue with their performances. Stop me if you've heard this before: four children with melodramatic backgrounds allow you to vicariously re-live 80's cinema through their hijinks during an alien invasion. This was reviewed poorly at the time, but I feel like in post-COVID critics would overlook its shortcomings. There's nothing really outright bad about it besides a couple of weak CG sequences. For what it's worth, I wish the movie had stayed in the summer camp. It was bizarre that they just dumped that entire plotline twenty minutes in. 1. The Amityville Horror (1979) 2/5 2. Alligator (1980) 4/5 3. The Entity (1982) 3/5 4. Near Dark (1987) 4/5 5. Prince of Darkness (1987) 2/5 6. Tremors (1990) 4/5 7. Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995) 2/5 8. Tremors 2: Aftershocks (1996) 3/5 9. Halloween H20 (1998) 3/5 10. Frailty (2001) 4/5 11. Tremors 3: Back to Perfection (2001) 2/5 12. Halloween: Resurrection (2002) 0/5 13. Tremors 4: The Legend Begins (2004) 3/5 14. Halloween (2007) 2/5 15. 30 Days of Night (2007) 5/5 16. Let the Right One In (2008) 5/5 17. Fright Night (2011) 4/5 18. Tremors 5: Bloodlines (2015) 3/5 19. Halloween (2018) 4/5 20. Tremors 6: A Cold Day in Hell (2018) 1/5 21. The Wind (2018) 3/5 22. Rim of the World (2019) 3/5 23. The New Mutants (2020) 1/5 24. Tremors 7: Shrieker Island (2020) 3/5 25. Candyman (2021) 3/5 26. Mad God (2021) 4/5 27. Halloween Ends (2022) 3/5 28. Hocus Pocus 2 (2022) 3/5 29. Morbius (2022) 1/5 30. Mr. Harrigan's Phone (2022) 3/5 31. The Munsters (2022) 3/5 32. Old People (2022) 5/5 33. Slash/Back (2022) 3/5
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Oct 31, 2022 09:37
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38. PhenomenaSpooky Bingo: Whispers in the Dark So I'd seen this film before, but only the shortened US "Creepers" cut. I bought the Blu-Ray and this is my first time watching the fully restored version which adds about half an hour of new footage. Jennifer (Jennifer Connelly), the daughter of a famous actor, is sent to an exclusive girl's school in Switzerland. She's an odd girl, very fond of insects, and bugs seem to like her as well. Unfortunately for her the area is beset by a mad killer who mostly targets young girls and hides the bodies. The first night, Jennifer sleepwalks, witnesses one of the murders, and stumbles into the home of Dr. John McGregor (Donald Pleasence), an entomologist who's helping the police with the investigation by using the presence of flies on putrefying remains to determine how old they are. McGregor (who has a chimpanzee helpmate) notes Jennifer's affinity for bugs, and an increasing ability she has to communicate with and be helped by them. They decide to work together to help catch the killer. It wasn't often clear to me what was new footage and what wasn't (apart from a few minutes where the language switches to Italian in the middle of a scene), but the major change I noticed from seeing this film some three years ago is the pace. It's a lot more deliberate and stately, everything has a bit more room to breathe, and there's even some more room for characterization which is rare in this kind of movie. The film just feels very expansive, from the location work to stylish cutaways to a soundtrack featuring not just Goblin, but Iron Maiden and Motorhead and Andi Sex Gang (who I am not as familiar with.) As with all of Dario Argento's films this is an exercise in style and atmosphere, and from the first frame this has a mad, epic intensity to it, bolstered by its score. As I've said before, God bless Jennifer Connelly for going through what had to be a difficult shoot even before the chimpanzee bit her fingertip off, and not immediately retiring from the acting profession. There's a very memorable scene near the end where she's trapped in a pool of putrefying human remains and even knowing it's all fake that cannot have been a pleasant time. She actually plays the role as naturally as you could expect her to manage (especially given she was at most 15 during all this), and she and Pleasence have some nice scenes. Of course it's a good thing she does a nice job since she's in almost 90% of the movie, and has to anchor a lot of weird business. And the legendary Daria Nicolodi also pops up here, it takes her a while but she's worth the wait. There is a point where the film's epic scope begins to contract a little and things threaten to become mundane, but then Argento throws what's left of subtlety out a nearby window and we get one of the most bugfuck crazy climaxes in the entire history of the genre. It is goofy, but still intense and thrilling, and the last 10 minutes or so really elevate this from "better than average giallo" to "unsung classic of the genre." One of the filmmaker's best really. 39. Lake Mungo Spooky Bingo: After DarkThe "After Dark Horrorfest" thing is weird, the branding was everywhere for a while but most of the films that got the label have since been scattered to the four winds. This is a faux-documentary following an Australian family after their teenage daughter drowns in a dam reservoir. The family can't help but see young Alice/Allie (portrayed in video footage by Talia Zucker) everywhere they look, and after turning to a medium (Steve Jodrell) for answers, they start making a number of startling discoveries, and that's literally all I can say. This is a bracing, grim film centered on a family's trauma, and I appreciated from the start how straightforwardly it handles this material. It never feels lurid or sensationalized even as it digs up uncomfortable secrets, and the family members are all realistically subdued, still clearly handling their grief but trying their best to press on. There are a couple of what might be called jumpscares, but it never feels cheap. What's notable is the film does try and get us to have a sense of Alice when she was alive, to see her as more than a victim of unfortunate events, even while the family struggles with not being really sure how well they can know her, or anyone. This could easily have gone the other way, dripping into sentimentality, but it never quite tips that far either. To a certain extent all horror movies are about death, and this feels like a conscious reckoning with the reality we'll all have to face, but can never be fully prepared for. It's a sad experience but not a miserable one. 40. Ravenous Spooky Bingo: To Serve ManCaptain John Boyd (Guy Pearce) is a celebrated hero of the Mexican American War, who's also fighting severe PTSD, and so is reassigned to Fort Spencer way out in the California wilds. One night a desperate man calling himself Colqhoun (Robert Carlyle) stumbles into camp, claiming to be from a party of settlers who were trapped in a cave by winter snows and resorted to cannibalism to survive. George (Joseph Runningfox), one of two natives at the fort, warns the soldiers about the legend of the wendigo; according to this legend, anyone who eats the flesh of a human being gains power but is struck with an insatiable desire to continue feeding on their fellows. Despite this the soldiers set out to the cave to rescue any survivors, Colqhoun in tow, but he's starting to feel the urge again, and when they discover the cave, things take a turn. This is a movie I'd been wanting to watch a long time, that has just not been on any subscription service ever (I finally rented the VOD from Prime.) A flop at the time, which more or less ended director Antonia Bird's film career (though she continued to work in TV), it's become something of a cult item since and I can see why. From the start this is an odd little movie with a macabre sense of humor; it's got a gritty, savage feel, but also a lot of genuine wit. It is also another film where you can't talk too much about the plot, because it keeps going in unexpected and surprising directions. Ted Griffin's screenplay never settles into one obvious story model, when it would have been easy to make it a kind of period slasher or bizarre murder mystery. There's some excellent location work, filmed in Slovakia but looking more or less like the American frontier, and the music by Damon Albarn and Michael Nyman is some zippy, avant-garde stuff. The acting's very strong all around, though I think Carlyle dominates; he's got a remarkable presence, and Guy Pearce plays Boyd quite well as someone always holding something back. Neal McDonough is convincingly gung-ho, and I regrettably must announce that Jeffrey Jones is in this movie and is a standout. I know, I know. This is a unique film; even though it was reasonably low/mid budget I'm kinda shocked it got made at all, and it's no wonder that Fox had no idea what to do with it. (I remember ads, but nothing that made me think it was going to be like this.) Like, "period piece about cannibalism in the American west before the Civil War" is a hard enough sell, but a film that's part thriller and part black comedy that keeps jumping from intense action to discussions of cannibal philosophy and just plain folks getting on each other's nerves? This is a movie that swings for the fences and even in its cruder moments provides something worth watching, if you've got the stomach for it. (I'm sorry I had to do one look I'll get my coat.) 
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Oct 31, 2022 10:04
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 34. Day Shift 2022, J.J. Perry, Netflix Jamie Foxx, Dave Franco, Snoop Dogg, and Scott Adkins join forces to fight vampires trying to take over the 'hood in Los Angeles, while struggling against the cartoonish bureaucracy of their secret vampire hunter society. This shows a lot of promise in the first ten minutes with a knock-down, drag-out vampire fight and takes a while to get that good again. Sitting through some so-so comic relief/cliched family drama felt like the price to pay to get to the meat and potatoes--Jamie Foxx and Cirque du Soleil performers as vampires doing wrestling moves on each other (and the choreography is as fun as it sounds). I would hope any sequel would rely even more on Scott Adkins putting a lot of the fight choreography on his back. 1. The Amityville Horror (1979) 2/5 2. Alligator (1980) 4/5 3. The Entity (1982) 3/5 4. Near Dark (1987) 4/5 5. Prince of Darkness (1987) 2/5 6. Tremors (1990) 4/5 7. Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995) 2/5 8. Tremors 2: Aftershocks (1996) 3/5 9. Halloween H20 (1998) 3/5 10. Frailty (2001) 4/5 11. Tremors 3: Back to Perfection (2001) 2/5 12. Halloween: Resurrection (2002) 0/5 13. Tremors 4: The Legend Begins (2004) 3/5 14. Halloween (2007) 2/5 15. 30 Days of Night (2007) 5/5 16. Let the Right One In (2008) 5/5 17. Fright Night (2011) 4/5 18. Tremors 5: Bloodlines (2015) 3/5 19. Halloween (2018) 4/5 20. Tremors 6: A Cold Day in Hell (2018) 1/5 21. The Wind (2018) 3/5 22. Rim of the World (2019) 3/5 23. The New Mutants (2020) 1/5 24. Tremors 7: Shrieker Island (2020) 3/5 25. Candyman (2021) 3/5 26. Mad God (2021) 4/5 27. Day Shift (2022) 3/5 28. Halloween Ends (2022) 3/5 29. Hocus Pocus 2 (2022) 3/5 30. Morbius (2022) 1/5 31. Mr. Harrigan's Phone (2022) 3/5 32. The Munsters (2022) 3/5 33. Old People (2022) 5/5 34. Slash/Back (2022) 3/5 Name Change fucked around with this message at 11:13 on Oct 31, 2022 |
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Oct 31, 2022 11:10
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25.) Who Invited Them (2022) One of those horror movies where you wait the entire time for it to really begin and it never does. We’ve also seen this kind of “sociopaths start manipulating couple while pretending to be friendly” schtick a million times before. This does not justify its own existence in any way, but it’s still better than the next one I watched, somehow. 1/5 26.) Infrared (2022)  You know you’re in trouble if the big selling point of a movie is that it has Mark from “The Room” in it. We begin by watching a random woman with barely any relevance to the plot set up cameras around the building for 15 minutes. It starts as it means to go on, as it follows the lead of a book report someone didn’t study for that has to meet a 10 page minimum. Nothing happens in this movie until it ends with the obligatory found footage ghost rushing the camera scene. Nobody should ever watch this, and the creators should not have made it. 0/5 27.) Christine (1983)  Probably the most notable Carpenter I hadn’t seen. Far from his best, but a drat good-looking film. Seems simultaneously slow and rushed, which might be the result of being a Stephen King adaptation. For instance, Arnie gets his girlfriend offscreen, and that ends up being the main relationship. About 2/3rds in, it properly starts and the mayhem is all wonderfully shot with great effects. It earns its soft-classic status. 3.5/5 28.) Society (1989)  “You were right, Billy! I am a butthead!” I assume anyone watching this movie is watching it because they’ve been spoiled on what happens in the climax so I’m not even going to bother explaining the poo poo that goes down. I know I did. What a fantastically pure and direct satire of the upper class. It isn’t as good of a film as “They Live” but it’s just as based. The thesis: The rich consider you a different, lower species, and they get up to some sick poo poo when no one’s looking. I love Billy Warlock as the proto-90s cool-kid-underdog-hero who’s playing a game rigged against him. I don’t really buy the happy ending, and it might undersell the reality that no one can win against the elite, but I’ll allow it since it’s satisfying to see one of those bastards get turned inside-out. 3.5/5
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Oct 31, 2022 13:19
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51. Return of the Living Dead Halloween rewatch tradition, and it's still perfect, top-to-bottom. The absolute ideal of all zombie movies. 5 out of 5! 51/31, watched: Scary Movie, Final Destination 4, Happy Death Day, Final Destination, No One Gets Out Alive, Smile, Freaky, Body Bags, Alien Psychosis, The Invisible Man, The Last Exorcism, Final Destination 2, Werewolves of the Third Reich, Unfriended, Final Destination 3, Hellraiser (2022), Deadstream, Final Destination 5, Village of the Damned, Piranha 3D, The Awakening, The Ruins, Sissy, Happy Death Day 2 U, Crush The Skull, Hell Fest, Diary of the Dead, Trick 'r Treat, Swimfan, Slumber Party Massacre (1982), The Ranger, Evil Dead (2013), Halloween Ends, Ouija: Origin of Evil, Parents, Duel, Tiny Cinema, Shutter, Evil Dead (2013 Extended Version), Dark Circles, The Woman in Black (2012), 78/52, Dead & Buried, Underwater, Tales from the Hood, Eyes Without A Face, Wrong Turn (2021), His House, Barbarian, Return of the Living Dead
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Oct 31, 2022 13:28
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Snooze Cruise posted:The Universal Frankenstein trilogy https://letterboxd.com/film/the-ghost-of-frankenstein/details/
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Oct 31, 2022 13:38
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 The Rocky Horror Picture Show, 1975 I got to include this in every marathon. The queer glam rock musical over all musicals. Paying tribute to 30s horror by referencing early sci-fi horror like Frankenstein and the like, 50s sci-fi with alien invasions and 60s to 70s Hammer films in terms of the mansion setting. Not to mention 50s rock 'n' roll and pop. There's songs from start to finish with very little pause from the musical numbers. Everything is queer as gently caress and super fun. And crawling on the planet's face, some insects called the human race. Lost in time, lost in space... and meaning.
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Oct 31, 2022 14:07
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31. Resurrection (2022) - 3.5/5 After act one, this became incredibly tense and hard to watch. I was worried it would just become a string of “kindnesses”, because watching the protagonist give in to the first one was incredibly demoralizing. I was surprised that the ending was so downbeat. I was expecting a catharsis more along the lines of Watcher instead of a complete psychotic break. Although arguably the whole thing is one psychotic episode, just a continuous process of being consumed by trauma until the end there’s nothing left.
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Oct 31, 2022 15:28
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Happy Halloween, you old Challenge Thread! Time for one last Weekend Roundup #38. Blade (iTunes) Blade, a super-powered vampire hunter known as The Daywalker, hunts for Deacon Frost, an evil vampire intent on resurrecting an ancient vampire god. Blade still kicks rear end. Yes, some of the 1990s era style hasn't dated well, and yeah, the CGI effects weren't particularly great even then. Who cares, though, when the movie is still this fuckin' awesome? I'm a simple man, so just having Wesley Snipes show up in black leather and sunglasses to kung fu kick some people and maybe also shoot and stab them is all I really need to say "yeah, man, this movie is pretty great." And yeah, man, Blade is pretty great.  /5 #39. The Final Destination (IFC via YouTube TV) A new group of young adults believe that they are being stalked by Death after narrowly escaping from a massive car crash at a NASCAR event... but this time, it's in 3D! I had this running in the morning while puttering around with other chores; I'd watch while it was on and then get up and do stuff while commercials were on and then maybe make my way back over to the TV when stuff started up again. It's not the best way to watch a movie, but then again, this was hardly the best movie to watch, period. The 3D gimmickry ends up getting in the way of everything more often than it helps, and between the extra cheese factor of working those into constant premonitions (all the better to have stuff COMIN' ATCHA in the theater) and the way this works against the gore effects makes this the weakest Final Destination movie by a good deal. I'm giving this better than a bottom-basement score because some of the kill scenes, while ridiculous, are still fun, and the idea of the one character constantly trying to commit suicide but Death keeps getting in his way is mildly, but darkly, funny. Especially because said character gets pasted by an ambulance out of nowhere IMMEDIATELY after a different death, so it feels like Death had gotten lazy in the meantime. Or he was so irritated at having to save this guy multiple times that he just gave up and refused to put in the effort. Salty Death is a funny idea in the context of these movies, and should come up more often. /5 #40. Deadstream (Shudder) A recently #cancelled YouTuber tries to win back notoriety and fame by livestreaming his night in a haunted house. Unfortunately for him, it turns out the house really IS haunted. To my shame, I watch enough YouTubers like this "Wrath of Shawn" character that I immediately twigged onto what the movie was doing, and was able to suspend my dislike of the character for far longer than a lot of people have self-reported when watching this film. In fact, my dislike of the character was tied more to the slow-coming revelations of what had gotten him #cancelled in the first place. I bought into his performance as that sort of obviously fake performative personality-type pretty much immediately, but I think that there wasn't enough differentiation between his phony scared reactions in the first half and what is supposed to be his actual, real life reactions when the facade gets dropped; I just don't necessarily believe that the "character" of Wrath of Shawn was supposed to be that close to who the "real" Shawn Ruddy was supposed to be, so there should have been more distinction between the two. Had there been a better actor in the role, I think that would have helped out the second half stand out a little bit more, but what we got was still a lot of fun. Since last night, I've been going back and forth on the effects work. It's obviously the product of dedicated and loving effects people, but it's also all not very realistic or effective and a lot of it sort of reminds me of the monster design in The Evil of Frankenstein, where the colors are weird and have bizarre textures worked in. Like someone slapped painted oatmeal on their face more than greasepaint. But then I think that the artifice also works for the movie, as it works back around to being a bizarre funhouse mirror of Wrath of Shawn's artifice too. It also further underscores that this is phony, but that also kinda further highlights that this, like all cinema, is an act of creation, and then I kinda work back around to thinking that it's all fitting again. Like I said, back and forth; I don't know you the effects work and their obvious DIY charm will work for you the same way it did for me, so be prepared for that. In the end, though, Deadstream was still plenty clever and a lot of fun. This is probably the best surprise to come out of the Challenge this late in the game. /5Watched so far: The Empty Man, Hocus Pocus 2, Smile (2022), It Came From Outer Space, Watcher, The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb, Bats, Choose or Die, The Curse of the Werewolf, "Werewolf By Night"/various Halloween episodes, The Thing From Another World, Hellraiser (2022), Knife + Heart, A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 5, The Innocents (1961), The Bone Snatcher, The Blob (1958), Friday the 13th (2009), We're Going to Eat You, various shorts, Waxwork, Halloween Ends, The Revenge of Frankenstein, Tales from the Darkside: The Movie, The Thing (1982), Hotel Transylvania: Transformania, Bait (2012), Elvira's Haunted Hills, God Told Me To, Birth of the Living Dead, Alligator (1980), Halloween: H20, Them!, My Best Friend's Exorcism, The Ranger, Night of the Creeps, Sissy, Blade, The Final Destination, Deadstream
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Oct 31, 2022 15:29
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i am using trilogy to specifically refer films in which karloff played frankenstein's monster, so >:I !!!
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Oct 31, 2022 15:47
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Happy Halloween thread. Home everyone has a safe and spooky time tonight. #31 Grave Encounters  Dir. The Vicious Brothers 2011 Canada🇨🇦 Chanllenge: V/H/S A parody of ghost hunting shows that tries to show some real scares. It’s shooting day for episode six of Grave Encounters, a hot new ghost hunting show. This episode is on the Collingwood Psychiatric Hospital. There’s plenty of spooky tales about it, but the crew of Grave Encounters aren’t above paying people to make things up or have an actor pretend to be a psychic to make things seem more horrifying. The night shoot seems to be going good, until some real supernatural events begin to happen. Everyone gets freaked out, but the hospital seems to go on forever. And shouldn’t it be dawn by now…? I really do love the setup. It provides a very direct reason for why they encounter ghosts and why they are filming and want to keep filming. After a certain point it no longer feels like they would be filming. Or how the batteries are still working. Acting is a little hit or miss. Everyone feels believable enough. It’s always tricky to get such a natural performance for a movie like this. You don’t want to seem like your acting but you gotta get all the info out and be entertaining. The scares were pretty predictable to me. Lots of big “booga booga” scares with little subtlety. The hands in the wall trick was good. I’m sure that creepy YouTube video happened first though. The time and space manipulation is a cool idea, but I didn’t jive with it. Movie has a lot of cool ideas, but the execution is pretty mid 2.5/5 #32 The Mummy  Dir. Karl Freund 1932 United States🇺🇸 Challenge: Goodnight, Mommy Another Universal Monster with a reimagining more famous than the original. Should this one be remembered more fondly? It’s 1922 and a couple of archaeologists are digging up some artifacts in Egypt. They find a very curious mummy named Imhotep and his box. It appears as though he was buried alive. After one of the archaeologists reads from the book within the box, Imhotep comes back to life and walk right out of his sarcophagus. Ten years later, an Egyptian man that looks a lot like the mummy, Ardeth Bey, calls upon the help of one of the archeologists sons, Frank, to help him locate the tomb of Ankh-esen-amun. It’s no secret that Bey is the mummy and Amun was his long lost lover. Bey comes across Helen, a woman who looks a lot like Amun. He’s convinced that Helen is the reincarnation of his love and is now dedicated to killing and resurrecting her to be his immortal bride. The story is kinda weak in this one. It’s a good idea, but it doesn’t get fleshed out enough. It falls in nicely with other Universal Monster films, it’s a bit of a doomed romance. The character of Imhotep/Bey is great, and Karloff kills it of course. Honestly, a lot of it feels like Dracula in the desert. I guess it’s just not as compelling as the others. We only see the mummy for the first 5 minutes or so and Bey just isn’t as scary. Maybe that’s the issue, it’s not really a horror film but it has a lot of those elements attached. I can see why it was reimagined into an adventure film. It’s just works better with the concepts laid out here. The make up is stellar. Everyone of these classic films I’ve watched so far has had just the best make up not only for the time but stuff that still holds up nearly 100 years later. So far, this is the bottom of the ranking for the Universal Monsters. Not a bad movie, but pretty average. 3/5 #33 The Babadook  Dir. Jennifer Kent 2014 Australia🇦🇺 Challenge: Femme Fatale Some Australian frights that take on the hardships of being a single parent. Amelia is a mom to six year old Samuel. Her husband Oskar died on the way to the birth of their son. Samuel is a weird kid. He has fits, he always talks about monsters, he makes crude monster hunting weapons, he has no filter for the weird things he thinks up. So he’s just a normal weird 6 year old. Poor mom is at her wit’s end as Samuel becomes obsessed with a book character named The Babadook, a top hatted monster that feeds on fears. But after a few sleepless nights, maybe it’s not as fictional as she would like. This was a weird one. By the end it felt like Evil Dead for moms. I spent a lot of time questioning exactly what was happening. At least I can tell that was intentional and not poor filmmaking. I was flipping back and forth between not knowing if the Babadook was real or just a manifestation of repressed feelings. It’s real, but it’s still what it represents. The little kid they got to play Samuel was the absolute most lovely kid. God bless all the single mom’s out there. I’m sure your kids aren’t as trouble some as Samuel, but they are some days. But then that kid managed to turn it all around at the end and had all my sympathy. Kid deserves some kind of award for managing to pull off that redemption. I love the use of color in this. It’s almost monochrome for most of the run time. The only spots of color that I remember is the red Babadook book, some red blood, and at the end when things are mostly normal and things seem brighter and more vibrant. I just love when a movie makes a real conscious decision like that. I will admit that this didn’t land perfectly for me. I assume it’s because I’m not a single mom and I don’t quite get the complex feelings associated with it, but all the performances helped me gleam that gives this movie its impact. 4.5/5 #34 The Bees  Dir. Alfredo Zacarías 1978 Mexico🇲🇽 Challenge: Wild Beasts Just a good old fashioned killer bug movie. African bees have come to South America and have mated with Honeybees and become ultra aggressive KILLER BEES!!! A scientist was trying to solve the issue but when the locals in the village get upset and torch the lab, he dies by BEES!!! The bees are slowly coming north into Mexico and eventually the United States. A new scientist along with the wife of the old dead scientist and her eccentric Uncle Ziggy are trying crazy new methods to stop the BEES!!! They try radiation, pharamones, new anti-killer bee-bees, but nothing works. Is this the dawn of the age of the BEE!!!!!!???????? This is a very silly movie and it’s not very good, but it has a lot of worthwhile merits. First of all, it looks great. It’s no Citizen Kane, but everything is bright and well framed. The soundtrack is completely inappropriate but really fun and catchy. The biggest highlight though is all the bee chaos. This could have easily been 90 minutes of just people being attacked by bees and it would have been perfect. People flailing about, fuckin planes blowing up, flamethrowers, it’s awesome. The story is pretty nonsense. It ends with a new race of ultra intelligent super bees. Like what the gently caress. It’s bonkers and pretty hard to follow. Thankfully all the expected “people talking in a science lab” scenes don’t take up the entire run time. There’s also John Saxon and John Carradine trying to class up the film. They are always lovely and elevate every movie they’re in. This is one of those movies where you either ready for fun nonsense or frustrated that nothing really happens besides BEES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I give it a B+ 4/5 #35 The Invisible Man  Dir. James Whale 1933 United States🇺🇸 Last year I watched the modern reimagining, so this year I go back to the original. On a cold snowy night, a man walks into a pub and asks for a room. He’s covered head to toe, not an inch of flesh showing. Everyone is suspicious of him and the science experiments he’s beginning to conduct. It’s when the innkeeper barges in that it’s revealed his true nature. He’s invisible! The man, Griffin, strips nude to completely disappear and run out, laughing maniacally! Griffin returns home to retrieve his notes and enlist the help of his friend, Dr. Kemp, to rule the world! His fiancé and colleagues urge him to stop, it’s the monocane in the formula driving him mad, or maybe it’s just the power he now wields. This was such a delight and doesn’t get discussed enough in the canon of the Universal Monsters. Claude Rains is so goddamned amazing in this film. A majority of his performance is from his voice, and the rest is body language, sometimes only partial body language. He’s such a larger than life character that conveys menace and power and mad glee and sympathy. He carries the whole movie despite only seeing his face at the very end. That’s talent. The effects are incredible, doubly so for the age. Many of them still hold up nearly 90 years later. Yes, you can see the wires sometimes and the matting can get a little roping at times, but for the fact that there’s no computers to help them they did an incredible job. Hands down the best effect is when Griffin first unwraps his head. People must have been going wild in the theaters when that happened in 1933. I also didn’t expect this to be so funny too. Now that I’m starting to understand this era of film and James Whale specifically, the idea of a horror comedy is not as new as I thought it was. This definitely leans more on the thrilling side of things than pure horror, but it’s so good non the less. The invisible man has quickly rose to the top of my list of coolest monsters from this movie alone. I cannot recommend this enough. 5/5 #36 Shutter  Dir. Banjong Pisanthanakun & Parpoom Wongpoom 2004 Thailand🇹🇭 Challenge: Thrilla in Manila A Thai horror classic. 18 years later, does it still hold up? Coming home from a party on a dark lonesome road, Tun, a photographer, and Jane, his girlfriend and assistant, get in a hit and run accident. Tun decides to run despite Jane’s wishes. A day later, Tun is taking photos of a graduation. When he develops the photos, he finds ghostly white streaks and the face of the girl they hit. When the check back at the scene of the accident, there’s no sign or report of a body. Jane investigates the building that had the ghostly photo marks and encounters the girls spirit. But it’s not some random girl, but the ghost of Natre, Tun’s high school love who tragically took her own life. This is not about a hit and run, but some other dark secret tied to Tun’s past. Time hasn’t been the kindest to this. In 2004, this was catching the peak of Asian Horror and it’s explosion in America with the likes of The Ring, The Grudge and others. But in 2022, it feels kind of run-of-the-mill. I also know very little of horror in Thailand so I’m not sure if this is indicative of other Thai films and horror in general or if this borrows a lot from J-horror. Now for the merits of the movie itself. It’s a lot of jump scares, but they are pretty unique and effective. The head turn in the photo is one that sticks out. And near the end when Natre gets very vengeful and chases Tun is very effective. Best part though is the ending. One of the best horror twist endings. It’s a good movie that has lost its luster to time. Still worth watching. 3.5/5 Liar Lyre fucked around with this message at 15:52 on Oct 31, 2022 |
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Oct 31, 2022 15:50
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30. Nightbreed (Director's Cut) (1990) It's been long enough I couldn't say for certain what the Director's Cut changes, but its apparently quite a bit. I *did* find the narrative much easier to follow, and character's motivations made a bit more sense - I seem to remember it being a bit hazy. Still a classic - Elfman's score over the graveyard top floor of Midian evokes such a good feeling. I never saw the Director's Cut, so this marks the Whispers In The Dark square resulting in another bingo! 31. To The Devil A Daughter (1976) Christopher Lee, occult shenanigans, nuns, friends who may be swinging, painful looking perverted crosses, this has it all. This is a great satanic panic British horror. It hits my 31 movie goal. I, too, was birthed in 1976 giving me the Origin Of Evil! 32. Deep Rising (1998) Pirates attempt to rob a cruise for the super rich but find a monster from the deep has beaten them to the punch! This was super fun, an aliens-like romp through the closed spaces of the cruise ship with all the mercenary stereotypes you'd care to check off. It opens with the super rich getting completely hosed by the monster making it a feel-good movie too! Treat Williams always seems like he just wandered into the movie from somewhere else, never seeming to fit in entirely but he charms everyone into letting him stay in this movie anyway. That's my H20 box checked off! 33. Lyle (2014) "A lesbian Rosemary's baby" That's an accurate review I read, but the performance of the lead is fantastic making this a very compelling watch. It breezes by, barely making it count for this challenge at 65 minutes, but I could have watched more. Michael Che is in it playing a rapper who, unfortunately, doesn't rap the end credit song. Directed by Stewart Thorndike this checks off the Scream, Queen box! 34. Dark Night Of The Scarecrow (1981) Some local folk murder a mentally challenged person and start getting killed off after they are acquitted of the crime. This was a good supernatural revenge story, with a higher quality than I would have expected from a made-for-tv movie. Good performances and some gnarly kills that the camera looks away from since it was on television. It has a great autumnal atmosphere. Terrorvision box turned on! Spooky Bingo  1. Dark Glasses, 2. Monster-A-Go-Go, 3. Mr. Jones (Behind The Screams), 4. Phase IV (Wild Beasts), 5. Calvaire (Zombie Honeymoon), 6. The Mangler (Glitches), 7. Lokis, 8. The Monster (Golden Years), 9. Lily CAT (Spaced Invaders), 10. The Greasy Strangler, 11. Howling New Moon Rising (Full Moon), 12. Orphan: First Kill (They Always Come Back), 13. Der Golem (Paperbacks From Hell), 14. Juan Of The Dead (A Perfect Getaway), 15. Saint Maud (The Devil Made Me Do It), 16. The House That Dripped Blood (Tales Of Terror), 17. Straight Edge Kegger (Punk Vacation), 18. Elvira’s Haunted Hill (Picnic At Hanging Rock), 19. May The Devil Take You (Thrilla In Manilla), 20. The Uninvited 2003 (Femme Fatale), 21. Deadstream (Hausu), 22. Raising Cain (Yuppie Nightmare), 23. The Skull (Osteology), 24. Witchhammer (Something Wicked), 25. Shocker (Masters Of Horror), 26. Halloween Ends, 27. Nope (Horror Noire), 28. Barbarian (Goodnight Mommy), 29. Die Sister Die (Dead&Buried), 30. Nightbreed Director’s Cut (Whispers In The Dark), 31. To The Devil A Daughter (Origin Of Evil), 32. Deep Rising (H20), 33. Lyle (Scream, Queen), 34. Dark Night Of The Scarecrow (Terrorvision)
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Oct 31, 2022 16:11
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32. WNUF Halloween Special (2013) No Bingo I’ve already got like five SPOOKY bingos and Halloween itself was on the horizon last night, so I checked out something with “Halloween” in the title. I was born in 1990, meaning most of my Halloween night TV watching was done in the late 90s and early 2000s. As such I’m just a few years out of the target audience for this movie, which deftly replicates mid- to late 80s local commercials and TV broadcasts for the majority of its runtime. It’s funny! And you can tell it was made by trash connoisseurs, because there are characters with the surnames Bookwalter, Decoteau, and Polonia, but so much time and effort is spent on absolutely nailing the vibes of what for us in New York would be WPIX (and what for director Chris LaMartina in Baltimore was WNUV) that there’s very little actual spooky stuff. With all that said, I was impressed by the verisimilitude—which is always one of my absolutely favorite parts of a feature like this—and I’ll probably watch the (apparently even less scary) sequel, which slides the timeline up to the 90s. Halloween 4ever!!!
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Oct 31, 2022 16:40
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Jolo posted:5. V/H/S 94 (2021) 3/5 9. Pieces (1982) Peacock Rewatch of this one with some friends. A lot of slashers have a formula of "and then this person is killed" and Pieces fits this description perfectly. Most of the victims show up for the first time moments before they are killed. This is a fun one to watch with some friends because there are moments that comes completely out of left field in a really funny way. The setup is that a killer is murdering people on a college campus. There's not a lot of plot past that. By the end you'll know who the killer is. Then you're in for one of the greatest final moments in horror films. It's truly special. 3/5 10. Halloween Ends (2022) Peacock After how much I disliked Halloween Kills, my expectations for this one were incredibly low. I liked it! It makes some bold choices just like Kills but I think these choices end up being way more interesting to watch. I didn't want to look at my phone at any point in this movie. I was eager to see where the story was going next. Spoilery thoughts on this one and Kills: I'm still kind of confused by the end of Kills. The best explanation I can think of for Laurie's daugher dying at the end in such a bizarre way is that the actress playing her didn't want to return for the next movie. That scene felt stitched together from other footage and tacked on at the end. It's so strange. I think the story with Corey could have been more interesting if it had started in Kills and continued into Ends. Here it feels like the studio was reluctant to have a passing of the torch to a new "Shape" so we get the start and finish of his story all contained in a movie that also wraps up the Michael Myers/Laurie Strode conflict. I enjoyed the fight and the body crushing even though it feels tacked on to the Corey Cunningham story. They should probably leave it there but I wouldn't be surprised to see Myers again in a reboot in 10 years or so. I really enjoyed this one though, messy as it was. 4/5 11. Barbarian (2022) HBO Excellent. A lady shows up to her airbnb and there's already a guy staying there. Is he dangerous or untrustworthy? Is she? Why is this movie called Barbarian? Is he the Barbarian? Is she? Is someone else? This one is a fantastic ride and I was engrossed the entire time. This goes for pretty much any movie but go in with as little knowledge as possible and enjoy yourself. It's such a fun movie. Highly recommended. 5/5 12. Waxwork (1988) Tubi Zach Galligan in another movie that feels like a Live Action Cartoon (the other being Gremlins 2). Zach and friends go to a midnight showing at a wax museum with ill intent. This movie is fun and silly but for whatever reason it just didn't fully click with me. I like the way it jumps to all of these different scenarios and monsters. Costuming and creature/gore effects were all really well done. It's a fun time and I wish I liked it more. It was also neat to see the actor who plays Bobby Briggs from Twin Peaks in here. 3/5 13. Dark Angel aka I Come In Peace (1990) Youtube Dolph Lundgren is a cop who plays by his own rules. He's teamed up with an FBI guy who does things by the book. They're teaming up to take down a drug ring. Oh also there are two aliens from the future in the city shooting tendrils into people's brains and shooting CDs through people. There's a scene about an hour in where the drug plot is resolved and everyone is relieved and it feels like it would've been the end of this film if there also weren't two aliens still out in the city making bodies pile up. I wouldn't be surprised if the aliens were added later in shooting to spice up a bland street smart cop movie. It's alright. Dolph has some really silly one liners and there are lots of explosions. 3/5
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Oct 31, 2022 16:53
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 Little Shop of Horrors, 1986 Since the previous one I watched was all about 50s rock 'n' roll and pop, I figured I'd watch another with the same themes. I watched this one as well as the 1960 Roger Corman original in my 2019 marathon, but for obvious reasons, I watched the 1986 version this year over the original as it is the most fun one. The original wasn't a musical and of course lacked the great special effects making the carnivorous plant come alive. I don't want to just copy paste my 2019 review, so I'll just say I loving love this movie and Steve Martin as the sadistic dentist made one of the greatest musical numbers ever https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoWom0CCRKM
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Oct 31, 2022 17:27
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20. The Fog Ghosts wreak havoc on a sleepy coastal town. This opens with a campfire ghost story and that sets the appropriate tone for the whole film; it's wonderfully spooky. Carpenter's direction and Dean Cundey's cinematography are just as good here as in Halloween. Everything looks incredible and there's some real tension in the moments where the fog has rolled in and you are waiting for the ghosts to appear. Speaking of, the ghosts look super cool combined with the fog and heavy backlighting. They're a striking visual and I like how much weird poltergeist activity precedes their full arrival. I feel like I don't see this talked about as much when people are discussing Carpenter's movies but there's a lot of good stuff here.
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Oct 31, 2022 17:45
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I owe this thread my last batch of write ups
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Oct 31, 2022 17:59
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MacheteZombie posted:I owe this thread my last batch of write ups  mfw I gotta write 20 reviews on Halloween
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Oct 31, 2022 18:48
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I owe this thread like 60 more write ups. I think I'm gonna speed run them here soon ,but here's the copy/pastes from my letterboxd for now. #37 Hannibal  Dir. Ridley Scott 2001 United States🇺🇸 Challenge: To Serve Man The hotly anticipated follow up to Academy Award winner Silence of the Lambs. Can it reach the same heights? It’s been a decade since the “Buffalo Bill” case and Clarice Starling, now played by Julianne Moore, has reassigned to the Hannibal Lector case after a botched FBI raid. This is all thanks to a Mason Verger, a wealthy pedo with connections and the only survivor of Lector. Verger wants to catch Lector and assign him to an ironic fate, fed to a pack of feral boars. He’s hoping that Starlings involvement draws him out. Sure enough, word of Starling’s botched raid reaches Lector in Italy. He’s been hiding there as a library curator. When the FBI suspects Lector is in Italy, the local police chief gets tangled in it as he wants to turn in Lector to Verger for an award. Now, multiple parties are in pursuit of Lector as he continues his cannibalistic rampage. Compared to Silence, this feels much more Hollywood. It’s bigger in scale and scope and story. I don’t like it as much, but with Ridley Scott directing it does look fantastic. The scale feels like too much for the type of story. There’s too much going on. It definitely feels like a book adaptation, and I’m sure this works much better in print. It’s also a lot more focused on Lector. The first was definitely Clarice’s story and she was the bridge between Lector and Buffalo Bill, showing how the two psychopaths compare and contrast. I don’t think the more Lector focused story is as compelling. I know it can work because the TV show is beloved and it’s not Anthony Hopkins fault. He’s always great. It’s really the script that falls flat. I don’t want to keep ragging on this. There’s lots of good nasty make up and effects. The disfigured face of Verger is really haunting and the dinner scene is instantly memorable. Special shout out to the late Ray Liotta for making that scene darkly hilarious. I wouldn’t be able to stomach it if he wasn’t so good. Silence is still the best of the Lector series (at least from what I’ve seen) but this still has a lot to like, even if it feels a bit over stuffed. 3.5/5 #38 Flesh for Frankenstein  Dir. Paul Morrissey 1973 Italy🇮🇹/France🇫🇷 This movie HORNY!! Dr Frankenstein is obsessed with creating a Serbian master race (yep) by creating the perfect man and woman. The female subject is complete, but the men can’t get it up. While walking the countryside with his assistant, he sees topless ladies running out of a house with the perfect Serbian man behind them. What actually happened was it was his very randy friend with the ladies while he sulked in the corner. Frankenstein obviously doesn’t know this, so he decapitates the sad Serbian to use it for his creation. Meanwhile, the friend is hired by Frankenstein’s sister/wife (yep), to be a nanny and also fuckboy. Frankenstein finishes his creations, after getting all up in the female creations guts (literally). The horny friend recognizes the head of his old friend on a much taller body is now determined to try and rescue his friend. I’m not the smartest or most philosophical man, but I think it’s obvious this movie is trying to explore the themes of sex and a little violence too. Everyone here is sexually frustrated. High libido, no libido, tired of partners, illegal fetishes, it’s all very horny. Lots of blood and guts too. I guess with all the sex going on they weren’t really shy about spilling a lot of vibrant red blood. Udo Kier is going bananas in this one. I don’t know if it was the intention, but he effectively sells a Dr Frankenstein that has completely lost it. Unfortunately, I’m not feeling that energy from the rest of the cast. I think most of them speak English as a second language and it shows. It’s all pretty stiff and flat. Set design is pretty good. I can tell Rocky Horror took a ton of inspiration from this. In fact, I’d say this is Rocky Horror played serious. Not really a positive or negative, just the vibe I got. Probably cooler in 3D, but as is it’s pretty neat but not the most compelling thing. 3/5 #39 Blood for Dracula  Dir. Paul Morrissey 1974 Italy🇮🇹/France🇫🇷 This one is also very horny, but not as much. Dracula is dying. He needs the blood of virgins to live, but everyone is too horny! He leaves Transylvania to try and find virgins in Italy. He befriends a landowner who’s estate is in shambles. He’s hoping by giving one of his daughters hand in marriage to Dracula that he can reclaim his former wealth. Unfortunately for both, two of his most desirable daughters aren’t virgins like they’ve thought. They’ve been getting really familiar with the handyman who’s very Marxist. There are two more daughters who are virgins and Dracula needs to feed!!! So I can tell this movie is saying something about Socialism, but I’m not the person to make statements on what exactly it’s trying got say. I don’t think it’s the kindest things though. Beyond that, the rest of the plot is alright. Udo Kier is a lot more subdued this time around but he still makes a great Dracula. In comparison to Flesh, this feels like a more lavish film. The Italian estate isn’t the most decadent place, I mean it is supposed to be an estate in collapse, but it feels bigger than the Frankenstein estate. This is another really gory one too. It’s got one of my favorite Dracula kills, or just any kill in a horror movie. I think I like this a little more than Flesh for Frankenstein, but not by much. 3/5 #40 The Pit and the Pendulum  Dir. Roger Corman 1961 United States🇺🇸 One of the Price/Poe/Corman classics. It’s 1547 in Spain, and an Englishman named Francis is traveling to the estate of his brother-in-law, Nicholas. His sister, Elizabeth, had died recently supposedly of a blood disease but Francis isn’t buying it. Dr Leon informs him the truth, she died of fright after witnessing the torture dungeon in the basement. It was in this torture dungeon that Nicholas witnessed his father torture his uncle and mother after catching them eloping. His mother specifically was buried alive and after opening Elizabeth’s tomb, she may have suffered the same fate. It seems now the ghost of Elizabeth’s ghost is haunting the manor and Nicholas is about to loose it. Vincent Price in anything is great and this is one of his better roles I’ve seen him in. It offers an opportunity for him to play a quiet, cowardly man and a raving lunatic villain. The rest of the cast is able to keep pace too, which isn’t easy. It feels like cheating to comment on the story when you’re adapting a piece of classic literature. The plot is very involved, but it’s not that hard to follow thankfully. Absolutely love the set design and look of this movie. Corman knew how to spend a budget and made sure even his cheapest films looked a multi million blockbuster. I really need to watch more of Corman’s Poe Cycle because everything so far has bee wonderful. #41 The Comedy of Terrors  Dir. Jacques Tourneur 1963 United States🇺🇸 More Vincent Price, this time in a black comedy. Price in this one is Trumbull, the owner of a funeral business, inherited by his father in law who he’s constantly trying to poison. His wife is lovely, but a terrible singer and he just despises her. His assistant, Mr Gillie, is a cowardly former thief played by Peter Lorre. Business is down because Trumbull spends all his money on booze and is just the most unpleasant man to be around. He’s resorted to recycling the same casket over and over. It’s gotten so bad that they have to make some business or the landlord is going to kick them out. After one failed funeral when the wife took the money and run, they decides to kill two bird and just off the landlord. After he seemingly dies of a heart attack at the sight of Trumbull and Gillie, he’s buried and it looks like things are going their way now. But it only gets weirder for them. The landlord had only went unconscious and not died and now they need to finish him for good. If that wasn’t bad enough, Gillie is tired of Trumbull and confesses his true feeling to his lovely wife. The comedy is pretty hit or miss in this one. Thankfully there really isn’t anything that’s uncomfortable in 2022. Most of the comedy is a dark madcap kind of flavor. Think something closer to a Stooges or Abbott and Costello with a morose tone. The name is very apt because most of the conflict is a comedy of errors style with tons of misunderstandings abound. Price kills it again. He’s played many villains but this one is a total bastard and i love it. There is absolutely nothing redeeming about him and seeing what happens to him at the end is hilarious and satisfying. Unfortunately, I don’t feel as strong about the rest. Don’t get me wrong, Lorre and Karloff and Jameson are wonderful, but they kinda feel like they’re just here for the check at times. Lorre does make for a very likable character and you wind up rooting for him. Not the best movie, but worth it for an uncommon Vincent Price comedic role. 4/5 #42 Class of 1984  Dir. Mark Lester 1982 Canada🇨🇦/United States🇺🇸 Challenge: Punk Vacation A republican nightmare that felt more frustrating than entertaining. It the not too distant future of 1984 and crime is at an all time high! Mr Norris is the new music teacher of an inner city school. The school looks like hell with graffiti and trash everywhere. Even knives get easily smuggled in despite the police and metal detectors at the door. Mr Norris just wants to be the best drat music teacher, but there’s a few bad students. A group of Neo Nazi punks, led by Peter, keep interrupting so he kicks them out. The rest of the kids are actually pretty good. Mr Norris eventually believes enough in these kids that he wants to start a school orchestra for a big concert. As the days get closer to the big show, Peter grows increasingly antagonistic towards Mr Norris. Every time Norris tries to retaliate, he finds that Peter hides behinds the law, abusing systems that should arrest him to protect him. Things come to a head on the day of the big concert with his wife kidnapped and Mr Norris having to take matters into his own hands. Straight up, the concept likes something you’d here your far right uncle rant about during Thanksgiving. Thankfully the writer or director or casting director had the wherewithal to not cast the gang as being black or Latino or some other disenfranchised group. It’s pretty obvious they are decently well off and also loving NAZIS! I have zero sympathy for them. Another frustrating aspect was how futile it was to get proper consequences for the punks. I know it’s the point, but it always gets under my skin. Thankfully the final sequence totally makes up for it. Sure, vigilante justice is rarely the answer, but these fuckers earned it. There’s not much else going on, but special mention for Timothy Van Patten for being such a punchable little poo poo head. And also supporting roles from Roddy McDowall and Michael J Fox. They were great. Definitely closer to the exploitation side than horror, like a Death Wish in the classroom. I just couldn’t get into this, but maybe another watch will change things. 2/5 Liar Lyre fucked around with this message at 19:01 on Oct 31, 2022 |
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Oct 31, 2022 18:59
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MacheteZombie posted:I owe this thread my last batch of write ups I'm in the same boat, but I got my covid booster and flu vaccine yesterday so it's probably not going to happen. I know I hit 31, and that's good enough. Fun thread this time, I'm gonna watch at least one Camp Blood movie next year.
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Oct 31, 2022 19:02
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32. Paganini Horror If only Paganini looked as cool in the actual movie. An Italian pop-rock band is looking for a new hit, so when their drummer discovers Paganini's lost masterpiece "Paganini Horror" they decide to turn it into a hit single and music video, with horrific results. Charmingly incompetent, the kind of movie that would make for a good MST3K or Rifftax episode. Some of my favorite elements were the room with "e=mc2" written all over the walls, the scene where Daria Nicolodi climbs three flights of stairs to look for a missing girl, sees something outside through the window, then walks down all the stairs again, and the gnarly "fungus" kill. 33. The Snake Girl and the Silver Haired Witch  Sayuri is reunited with her birth parents, but their house is full of bizarre secrets. This was done by the director of many classic Gamera movies, and from what I saw on Letterboxd there's a general sense of disappointment that this movie isn't more like those. While I'm not surprised that a bunch nerds find it easier to identify with a giant turtle monster than an eight year old girl, I have to say I was quite taken with this movie. Coming into the movie blind, the plot constantly keeps you on your toes, shifting between an apparent supernatural fairy tale to something much more psychological. Sayuri and her rival Tamami are played by very good child actors that are able to give that subtext substance, and the dream sequences make good use out of some admittedly cheap effects to make the bridge between the supernatural and psychological much more plausible. It's interesting to look at this movie as a precursor to Obayashi's House in how it uses genre trappings to explore childhood anxieties in a serious way. Although House is much more nuanced and sophisticated in that effort, I would consider The Snake Girl and the Silver Haired Witch an important influence on that movie. 34. Ozone  There's a "better" poster for this, but it doesn't have this guy on it. On a sting operation, Detective Eddie Boone is injected with the street drug "Ozone" and loses his partner. Boone must solve the mystery of this drug and his partner's disappearance before he mutates into a super zombie. Ozone has a truly incredible pre-titles sequence, but it's a sharp drop downhill from there. Shot on video, Ozone has a very juvenile sense of humor and drama. The effects are pretty good, with tons of exploding heads and crazy mutations, but you still have to sit through the mind-numbing story. You can only laugh at a failed attempt to copy Nightbreed or Videodrome so many times before it becomes tedious. If you're interested in this movie, I recommend just watching until the title card shows up, because it really does not get better from there. 35. FleshEater: Revenge of the Living Dead  A zombie attacks a group of teens on a campout, and then those zombies attack other people, and so on. This is truly the default zombie movie, the zombie movie people who haven't seen a zombie movie imagine all zombie movies to be like. People get ambushed by zombies, they run away, then they get bit. The only distinguishing features of this movie are a lot of full frontal nudity, the passably interesting pack tactics the zombies use, and a solid autumnal vibe. Most of the film is either shot outside in some woods with the leaves falling and changing or in hay barns that mess up the movie's audio quality. Individual sequences are a lot of fun, with the highlight being an entire family getting caught by zombies one by one in a hilarious comedy of errors. It sounds like I'm down on this movie, but it's basically fine. You can call me a hypocrite for slamming Ozone for being juvenile while giving FleshEater a pass, but it's my post. 36. Day of the Dead (Halloween is Special)  Amid the zombie apocalypse, a bunker of scientists and soldiers attempts to hold their makeshift society together even as the pressures of survival drive them apart. You have to watch Day of the Dead on the Day of the Dead (or at least somewhat close to the Day of the Dead). This is my favorite of the original Romero zombie trilogy and my second favorite horror movie of all time. The structure of it is so interesting, with the inciting incident happening just before the movie begins. When you're introduced the bunker, Rhodes, the new commander, has just taken control and has already begun the process of indulging his followers' worst impulses, hastening the bunker's collapse. The energy of the movie begins at a 10 and only goes higher as the situation gets more and more desperate. Whereas Night and Dawn are tenuously connected to conventional experience, Day is so far removed from our world that even the briefest return to simple, ordinary pleasures becomes profound. 37. The Invisible Man (The Golden Years)  A scientist turns himself invisible, goes crazy, commits many crimes, inspires a nation-wide manhunt, catches a cold, and dies. Just imagine if the Invisible Man started his crime spree in the summer, he would have been unstoppable. The Invisible Man is just as ahead of its time as James Whale's other movies, in this case, by centering the film around an unhinged villain protagonist. It's just so much fun to "see" the Invisible Man wreaking havoc, especially when the effects are so good. The ending where he recants his evil is pretty lame, but otherwise it's just plain old fun. 
pospysyl fucked around with this message at 19:35 on Oct 31, 2022 |
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Oct 31, 2022 19:32
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 #53: Salem's Lot (1979) Spooky Bingo: Origin of Evil A writer returns to his hometown to discover it is being taken over by vampires. This aired as a miniseries in the US, but considering it was released theatrically elsewhere and the version I watched on Shudder was edited into a single movie, I have to think this counts. What We Do in the Shadows obliterated my ability to find the vampires in this scary, and I had not realized the length of this going in. That said, if it were shorter you'd likely lose the extended setup as you get to know the townsfolk, and the creeping dread as the vampires pick people off, which was my favorite material. It shows its age and TV origins in not being particularly scary anymore, but I really enjoyed the atmosphere of this. The house at the end is also creepy and there's some very nice shots there of multiple people moving through it. Not the best horror movie of 1979, but considering that's the greatest horror film of all time, that's no big crime.  #54: The Babadook (2014) A woman struggling to raise a difficult child grapples with the possibility that the storybook monster he fears might be real. This, on the other hand, was terrifying and harrowing. Deftly interleaves the anxiety induced by an obnoxious kid, the horror of seeing an abusive parent, and the terror of a sound in the night or something glimpsed out of the corner of your eye. These come together beautifully in the climax. And I love the troublingly happy ending, considering what the Babadook represents. I understand why this got so much praise when it comes out, as it absolutely rips.  Vertical-S champ: An American Werewolf in Paris, the best of the werewolf movies I watched Horizontal-Y champ: Salem's Lot, narrowly edging out Deadstream which would have won if I were using an entertainment-per-minute scale Upward Diagonal champ: Day of the Dead, my favorite so far of the Romero movies.
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Oct 31, 2022 20:21
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 48. Children of the Corn (1984) (Rewatch) Best subtitle: "[CORN FIELD MOANING]" - Been at least 15 years since I watched this, and it was better than I remembered. The deserted town sets have a lot of cool flavor and background with the corn shoved into everything and Biblical-sounding graffiti all over the school and town hall and so on. Job and Sarah are cute kids you want to root for, and John Franklin is sinister and creepy as Isaac. I wish Linda Hamilton got to be more of a badass, but I guess we weren't there yet. The ending is loving hilarious, it's so abrupt. 3/5 49. Deadstream (2022) Lots of hype for this one, but put off watching it because I didn't really like much in VHS 99. Thankfully this is better than their VHS 99 segment. A disgraced "stunt video" streamer tries to win back sponsors and followers by spending a night in a haunted house while livestreaming with multiple cameras set up. This was a good time - pretty much perfect pacing, lots of little bits set up in the first act that are used effectively later for callbacks or pushing things forward. The live chat we see from time to time is pretty accurate from what I've seen on Twitch, and the video messages sent in by viewers do a good job of building the backstory without us having to hear Shawn read things off an iPad. There were moments when I murmured something out loud and then Shawn addressed it within ten seconds, clearly the Winters knew what they were doing here. Very good jump scares and some genuinely funny jokes. 4/5 -- Bingo Square: GlitchesTotal Watched: 49 // First Time: 37  One square left, and I'm watching it right now!
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Oct 31, 2022 20:41
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11. Serial Mom This movie rules! Really funny and inventive, just that perfect blend of campy humor and zany story, with enough craft and quality to immerse you in its world. The score by Basil of RoboCop and Conan fame is beyond epic. Kathleen is way too good in this. Wow this is good.
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Oct 31, 2022 21:03
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 50. Class of Nuke Em High (1986) A nuclear power plant covers up an accident to avoid being shut down, but they have leaked nuclear waste into the drinking water - which is a real shame for Tromaville High School, since it's located next door. This was about what I expected for an early Troma movie - simple plot, cartoony characters, lots of boobs and creative practical effects. The Cretins (a gang of punks who run roughshod over the school) sell weed laced with nuclear waste, and stuff gets goopy - especially when a nuclear waste monster starts attacking people. A stupid, fun, low budget horror. In terms of the challenge, the movie heavily features punks (the Cretins), and Troma in and of itself is generally considered pretty 'punk' as well. 3/5 -- Bingo Square: Punk VacationTotal Watched: 50 // First Time: 38  And that's a total bingo, plus my personal challenge beat (31 new to me movies). I'm going to double post and add my recap momentarily.
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Oct 31, 2022 21:09
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Here's my recap since I won't be writing up reviews for whatever I watch tonight. In total: 50 movies watched, 38 of them new-to-me. 9 of the movies are from this year (and 1 from 2021), 5 from the 2010s, 3 from the 00s, 9 from the 90s, 16 from the 80s, 4 from the 70s, 2 from the 60s and 1 from the 40s. My favorites (of the non-rewatch variety) were Pearl, Ghidorah, the Three Headed Monster, and Breakdown. I also really liked Ghoulies II, Dark Night of the Scarecrow, and Fresh. On the other hand, Ghoulies (both 1 and 3) would be down near the bottom of my rankings, along with Halloween Ends and Alligator II. Below is a list of the bingo squares and how I crossed them off. Halloween is Special: A rewatch of Beetlejuice // Golden Years: The Seventh Victim // Hausu: Hell House, LLC // Paperbacks from Hell: The Black Phone // Highbrow Horror: Ghidorah, the Three Headed Monster // Masters of Horror: Pearl A Perfect Getaway: 122 // Scream, Queen!: Puppet Master III // Femme Fatale: Fresh // Thrilla in Manila: Impetigore // Horror Noire: Sweetheart // Behind the Screams: Document of the Dead The Devil Made Me Do It: The Convent // Yuppie Nightmare: Breakdown // Glitches: Deadstream // Punk Vacation: Class of Nuke Em High // Something Wicked This Way Comes: Ghoulies II // They Always Come Back: Hellraiser (2022) Picnic at Hanging Rock: Yokai 100 Monsters // Zombie Honeymoon: Fear // Osteology: Bones // Goodnight Mommy: It's Alive // Whispers in the Dark: Dawn of the Dead (extended) // Dead & Buried: Cast A Deadly Spell Children of the Damned: Hocus Pocus 2 // Short Cuts: See here // Wild Beasts: Mosquito // H2O: Alligator II // Spaced Invaders: Slash/Back // Tales of Terror: Night Terror Origin of Evil: Ghoulies // VHS: Ghoulies 3 // To Serve Man: Death Line (aka Raw Meat) // After Dark: Dark Ride // TerrorVision: Dark Night of the Scarecrow // Full Moon: Puppet Master II I really liked this year's bingo card, and although I fell behind this week on reading the thread I love reading the reviews and various takes from all of you fine folks. Happy Halloween!
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Oct 31, 2022 21:14
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