|
9. Amityville In the Hood (2021) Watched On: Tubi Stop! Stop! He's already dead! Amityville movies are kind of easy mode for this but you have so many bad sequels to pick from, it's amazing really. This though, this is the one jumped off the Tubi list at me. The most noticeable thing about this entry is they left the sound mixing equipment back in Long Island because all the dialogue sounds like poo poo with the ambient sounds over it. What has become of the Amityville house though? Local street gangs are using it for an indoor weed farm of course, what else would be happening? The weed though. evil weed and that evil weed is sent to Compton where it's sold and causes all sorts of trouble. I'll tell you, there is nothing more painful than middle aged white guys writing dialogue for allegedly hip street youth, lots of people saying, "drat!" "poo poo!" and "bitch!". Just about the only thing I'll hand to this awful production is the plot element that once the word of mouth about the demon weed gets out the demand skyrockets which is fairly realistic. But god it was a struggle to find at least something positive. Oh and I got a decent guffaw out of a very long shot of someone breaking up some nugs on a copy of Robowoman (2019) which people familiar with RLM's Best of the Worst series would know. Amityville In the Hood feels exploitative to me in a gross way, you've got these filmmakers so far divorced from the actual murders still using it for fodder on top of what feels like a Caucasian director/writer kind of gawking at a poor community like Compton (if that's where a lot of that b-roll was even shot). I didn't expect much but this was so bottom of the barrel. Would for sure try some of that Amityville kush tho.
|
#
?
May 8, 2024 09:50
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 29, 2024 15:23 |
|
|
 Tubin' 8) Isolation (2005)  A genetic experiment on cows in rural Ireland goes horribly wrong. I was at something of a loss for this challenge, Tubi not being available in my country. I picked this on the recommendation of CelticPredator. I'd never heard of it. The plot is simple with steadily mounting threat and comparisons to the Thing are merited. There's no Umbrella Corporation style megacorp behind this, it's an rinky-dink operation of dubious legality. The scientist pays a struggling farmer very little and is tardy with his payments to the vet. His reckless amateurism is why poo poo goes bad. The cast of characters are all interesting with their personal dramas and histories. They feel fleshed out and real, not horror movie stock characters. The farmer, Dan, and his changing relationship with the others stands out in particular. The acting is great - none are household names but they are all established actors with long credit lists on TV and film. I liked the authenticity of the setting, which was clearly filmed on a working farm. The affects are practical and nasty and effective. How isn't this a better known film? It's a real hidden gem and I highly recommend it. Thanks CelticP! Total/New to me: 9/7 Challenges: 8 The Fly (1958); The Fly (1986); Ghostwatch (1992); Venom (2018); Bloodbath at the House of Death (1984); Carrie (2013); The Bloodstained Shadow (1978); Event Horizon (1997); Isolation (2005)
|
|
#
?
May 8, 2024 10:37
|
|
|
10. The Devil's Messenger (1962) Watched On: YouTube Moonlighting (Lon Chaney jr.) Lon Chaney jr playing The Devil in the wraparound of a black and white made for tv anthology I've never heard of? Sounds perfect. Lon Chaney jr. is one of those guys I appreciate because he never seemed to phone it in (at least in his stuff I've seen). At the very least it seems like he wants to do his best. Satan enlists the aid of a deceased woman that's committed suicide in order to help her receive a lighter afterlife than the one reserved for people that take their lives. What a sweet guy that Satan. From reading, this was a trio of tv horror stories from a show called 13 Demon Street that were cut together for a TV movie later on. The first story is very meh and didn't hold my attention very well. A photographer sexually assaults and murders a stranger, starts to fall into madness about it. Meh! The second story is a little more interesting about a women found frozen in ice after thousands of years and the scientist that tends her falls madly in love with the frozen woman, heavy emphasis on mad, mad enough to kill. The third is also better than the first at least. a man decides to torment a fortune teller that predicts his impending death. You ain't missing much by missing this one. Could have used a lot more Lon Chaney as his scenes are the ones that kept me most engaged but oh well, it's not like anyone intended for this to be a masterpiece, right?
|
|
#
?
May 8, 2024 11:46
|
|
|
 19) Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead - 2023 - Netflix When it comes to zombie films, I've gotten to that point in life where I feel there's still a substantial amount of potential in the subgenre, yet it's rare for anyone to have the gumption to give any of that potential a try. For those who do give that bold heresy a try, it's a 50-50 crapshoot. People liked Fido, yet Warm Bodies caught flack. I freely admit I'm so tired of the everything goes down the crapper so fast at first zombie and someone can't get their Starbucks, I wonder if all the depictions of how fast everything goes to warlords and raiders has become a sort of self fulfilling prophecy. That said, as I was scrolling around the options on Netflix, I came across Zom 100 and the synopsis caught my eye. Someone takes advantage of the zombies happening to become their best self? What insanity is this? Turns out it's an absolutely wonderful sort of insanity that I want to see more of. Akira works at a crap job that's a total soul sucker. I was immediately in simpatico with him since it made me think of how it was for me back when I was working call centers being absolutely miserable and trying to keep going through depression. His first reaction to seeing a zombie being 'I can't be late for work' only to later shift to 'I don't have to go in to work' when he sees this is effecting much more, well, that elevated him to now he's my brother from another mother because I would've thought like that. He's a realist in expecting he'll eventually end up a zombie, but he makes a bucket list of things he wants to accomplish before that happens. It starts simple with sleeping in and getting wasted drunk, but it grows from there with apologizing to a friend to going to an onsen to becoming a superhero. On his journey, others join him and get caught up in the becoming their best selves. I genuinely can't remember the last time I was so totally pumped rooting for the protagonist in a film. I was even a bit tense when he goes up against what I think might be the only zombie shark we've seen since Fulci's Zombi. I really enjoyed this film. That Akira's positivity ends up inspiring others was just a delight to see. I highly recommend this one, and because it's been stuck in my head, I share it with you. Zombie..shark, doo-doo, doo-doo, doo-doo. Zombie shark, doo-doo, doo-doo, doo-doo...  20) Barbie - 2023 - Max Because I wanted some extra challenge for the Gates challenge, I asked my co-workers for suggestions since at a movie theater, you're going to be working with a veritable walking wiki of movie knowledge. After we got past the glittering eyed wide grins phase, the suggestions started rolling in. Anything animated, something Disney, Star Trek, Star Wars, The Notebook, Forrest Gump..etc.. As Barbie got three suggestions, Barbie it is. To start, when I was little, I never played with Barbies. I was very much a tomboy who'd tell you how much cooler boy's toys were, though I did love my Easy Bake Oven. My Mom had a brunette Barbie when she was little, but when my grandma felt my Mom was too old for dolls, she tossed all of her dolls on the burning leaf pile going from yardwork. My Mom never forgave her for that. So, with that said, all I could tell you about Barbie is she's had every career under the sun, dates Ken, has a sister named Skipper. When the movie came out, while I knew Barbie was going to be big for a particular demographic, I was not prepared for exactly how big it was going to be. When my fiance came in to see the 70mm Oppenheimer and texted me from the lobby 'It's like a pallet of pepto bismol exploded in here' from the sheer volume of Barbie cosplay going on, he wasn't joking. We had to set up barricades to organize a line for people wanting to take pictures in the Barbie box displays we had up to manage the crowd lines with concessions. We had every flavor of Barbie and Ken cosplay you could imagine and then some. People were renting out pink cadillacs for photo shoots out front. Even after the cosplay died down, we were still sweeping up bits of grass skirts and pink feathers that kept popping up. So, as I knew going in to watch, the movie wasn't going to be my sort of thing. I think this might've helped in seeing the underlying horror in the film. While others have pointed out the assorted horror undercurrents, no one's really touched on the living toy horror. We start with Barbieland, a place inhabited with life sized living dolls living in life sized dollhouses complete with open areas where you can see right inside. They live a compared to us uncomplicated life until Standard Barbie starts having thoughts about her mortality. It escalates to her developing regular foot positioning and bad breath. After talking with Weird Barbie, it's revealed that something has to be going on with the person who owns the Barbie connected to Standard Barbie and that's why Standard Barbie's having these issues so she has to go to the Real World to find out what's going on. And there's the horror. We have inanimate regular dolls connected to life sized sentient living dolls like voodoo dolls and they are effected by the emotional state of the person playing with the regular doll. The life sized Barbies are also capable of becoming flesh, almost like with Chucky when he was in the doll form too long. Barbieland at first seems like it's own reality/dimension, but one can drive between Barbieland and the Real World, so it has to be part of the Real World. On top of this we have the Mattel executives aware of Barbieland and monitoring it. So, I'm wondering who came first, the regular dolls or the life sized Barbies? Since Mattel tries to put Standard Barbie through remanufacturing, did Mattel attempt a companion type doll like M3gan only for something to go wrong so the life sized Barbies were confined to Barbieland with Mattel revising the design to regular dolls? How or why are they connected, and what's going on with people's emotional states affecting the Barbies? What happens to a Barbie when the doll it's connected to is destroyed like what happened with my Mom's? The dialog makes it seem like the Barbies in Barbieland are eternal and the 'discontinueds' considered outcasts, so are there damaged/destroyed Barbies lurking even deeper in Barbieland? What about the Kens? Do all the same rules apply to them? If it's possible for a Barbie to become flesh, does a person who goes to Barbieland have the possibility to become plastic? Is the process reversable such as a Barbie has had enough of the Real World, goes back to Barbieland and can become plastic again? There's also Mattel's presence since they're monitoring Barbieland and it's serious business if a Barbie leaves? It would make sense if it's a M3gan scenario and they want to avoid a repeat. With all that said, Barbie is a horror film beyond all the eyebursting pink. It's still not my sort of thing, but I did have fun finding the horror in the film. Crescent Wrench posted:
|
|
#
?
May 8, 2024 13:36
|
|
|
1. The Coffee Table Amazon Prime Video So I started my month (and challenge) a few days in with a bang. Literally. Having been in the middle of trying to recover stuff from (and fix) an old laptop and transition to a new laptop as a backup, in the meantime I thought I needed to take my mind off things with a film. It'd been a couple days, my usual go-to for new digital film rentals/purchases is Vudu (now called Fandango At Home; yes I'll still be calling it Vudu) but this time I figured I'd check Amazon, they sometimes have rad exclusives One of them wound up being The Coffee Table! A thing that...I really liked but find even harder to recommend I'd first heard about this a bit ago, including from a friend who'd gotten to see it at Fantastic Fest last year. The unanimous thing from everyone was "oh my god what the gently caress". Having seen it, I can't disagree. I kinda can't believe the audacity of Amazon not only listing Comedy as the first genre on the film's page, but also having horror as the third/last one  A Spanish couple have numerous arguments off and on, including after the opening scene (the woman giving birth to a baby it's later revealed the dad thought was a bad idea to have this soon before they got their poo poo sorted out). They each have their wants, and the wife wins in the end each time, including having the kid, what color his room will be, what decorations it'll have, etc etc etc. The 5 minute argument we see in a department store, the one time the husband wins, is him deciding he wants a coffee table. An ugly looking coffee table, but hey. Win's a win The sleazy salesman forgot a literal screw for the table, so it can't be set up properly; apologetic, he offers to come over with it. The neighbor's teen kid, who keeps insisting she has a crush on the husband, offers to come over with her dog later and tell the wife. Finally, and most importantly, the husband's brother (and his girlfriend) are coming over for dinner, and the wife needs to go get food. Not before one more argument though. And with that, the wife slams the door...waking the baby The non-spoilery version: it doesn't go well. The spoilery version: while trying to hush and rock and soothe the baby back to sleep, walking back and forth across a room the camera never leaves the middle hallway for, eventually we hear an ever-so-slight trip mid-sentence. And a booming crash from the fall. And glass, and a severed baby head, roll across and under a nearby armchair. And for a full hour after, we're left to sit in this, as everyone comes over, and as avoiding the subject gets harder It's absolutely the longest I've thought about if I should even rate something on Letterboxd, let alone what to rate it. I had an easier time with Salo, Come And See, and Inside. What The Coffee Table does, it does successfully and it lingers on every thought you have to unbearable lengths. If it has a fault that isn't the cruelty, it's that cutting down on the lingering and making it a quicker watch may have made the impact better. Caye Casas' second feature-length is something I'm almost ashamed I like Parents, watch something else maybe? **** 2. Tarot (2024)  Theaters What to do when a cheesy PG-horror hits theaters and you accidentally almost end up liking it despite itself? Thankfully I didn't have to worry about that with Tarot, as it hosed up the landing enough it brought me back to Earth Some friends kill time in a rented mansion by looking around and finding (and playing with) a deck of unique tarot cards. Only one of them knows that using someone else's deck is verboten, but the rest ignore her and she ends up more than okay with that. Unsurprisingly it all bites them in the rear end, as members get picked off one-by-one by the characters on their cards in ways fitting their horoscope-readings The actors are nothing special, in fact the only one I think I actually liked was the star (Harriet Slater from the show Pennyworth). Where it started to get me to perk up was in having monsters I actually thought looked kinda cool in the glimpses you got to see of them (The Hanged Man, The Hermit and High Priestess); the looks are explored further in this neat little writeup on Bloody Disgusting. And I'm always for more Final Destinations and knockoffs, even in PG format if you have something to hang onto there But then the directors hosed it up in the finish line and made the final ten minutes not just dumb, but barely visible shrouded in darkness difficult to see even in big-screen theater lighting. The "adjust your monitor/recalibrate your TV" bullshit the Game of Thrones people tried to pull was bullshit there, and that argument's bullshit here: let people see what you make. Considering the final standoff, and the final twist, and the final pre-credit scene, I don't think it'd have helped much, but it'd have at least been one less dumb thing on the pile that took away from the stuff I liked (or tried to) ** 3. Abigail (2024)  Theaters Radio Silence is extremely my poo poo at this point. I can't pretend otherwise. Give me fun kills, good music, cast members I love and have loved before, and lots of blood (including climactic bloodbaths basically showering them in it), and I'll be a happy camper. I'm with these people as long as they want to keep making things. I saw someone say something elsewhere recently along the lines of "yeah it's formulaic, but I love the formula"; me to a T here Group of strangers-to-each-other kidnap a rich guy's daughter for ransom, end up stuck in a house with her. Also she's a vampire. Fun! The trailers felt comfortable giving the synopsis away, even though it takes a surprising bit to get to the first "she's a vampire" part, so I don't consider it a twist. What is a twist that I was a little sad I spoiled myself on it, I remembered when Melissa Barrera was first cast in this that the film was originally called Dracula's Daughter, not Abigail. The rich dad coming by in the last few minutes and revealing that oh yeah he's loving literal Dracula was badass, wish I'd been fully blind to that part but I still appreciated it This ruled in general. Great kills, a lot of blood, Angus Cloud was fun (RIP, gone too soon) and I'm glad Giancarlo Esposito had more than a cameo here. And obviously Melissa Barrera is still great. She belongs in horror and she belongs in films, keep casting her and most importantly keep supporting her roles. Don't let an attempted blackballing succeed. Free Palestine ***** 3/13 (The Coffee Table, Tarot 2024, Abigail 2024)
|
|
#
?
May 8, 2024 14:10
|
|
|
 Saw X I consider myself a supporter of the Saw series. I was in the theater opening weekend for at least the first two films, and I've seen every single one of them at some point. So I know what I like in a Saw movie, and Saw X was an interesting departure in a lot of ways, although I don't think all of it worked. I appreciate that they really gave Tobin Bell center stage and a lot of time and space to do his thing here. That does make this unique in the series, and I'm guessing it was their main concept going in, "lets let Tobin really cook for once". In doing that though, they made a fairly straightforward revenge story that is lacking a lot of the mystery and puzzle elements of the earlier sequels. There are some minor twists but for the most part everything is what it seems to be, and the overall context of the movie is established right from the start and never changes that much. Because of the more traditional narrative I think they then went overboard in designing very convoluted, overly complex death traps. I think ideally you want the games/traps to have the audience wondering what they might do in that situation, and these were so ridiculous that I have a hard time imagining anyone actually escaping them. Like serious, you can tell me I'm going to die all you want, I'm never going to be able to crack open my own skull and scoop my own brain out. The viciousness of the traps made sense for the story, this is a very personal episode for John Kramer after all, but it was harder to "connect" with them, if that makes any sense. Overall though I did enjoy the movie, this is a series that I'm going to pick apart because it's iconic and legitimately part of the fabric of American horror at this point. So I wouldn't want to see it be like this every time out, I'd like to see them get back to some of those elements that made Saw unique in the first place. 1. Arachnia(Eat Your loving Slop!) 2. Terror in the Crypt(Moonlighting) 3. Blood Monkey(Hematology) 4. Saw X(Stop! Stop! He's Already Dead!)
|
|
#
?
May 8, 2024 14:24
|
|
|
18. Tarot (2024) I was expecting middle-of-the-road PG 13 generic horror, and was pleasantly surprised, in as far as it's not completely dull. A group of teenagers find a cursed deck of tarot cards, the use of which summons monsters themed after the cards to hunt them down in accordance to each of their horoscope readings. It's like an exact 50/50 blend of Thirteen Ghosts and Final Destination, just less than the sum of its parts sadly. At least there's some real cool monster designs and some pretty fun kills. Just absolute junk food horror, good for 90 minutes and you'll never think about it again. As evidence of that, I normally like to insert a quote from the movie into these posts, and it left so little impact, in the time between the theatre and home where I'm writing this, I can't recall a single memorable line of dialogue. 2 out of 5! Watched so far: Mirror Mirror 2, Tremors 7, Infested, Death Machine, The Scary of Sixty-One, Little Evil, The Bye Bye Man, The Wrath of Becky, Safe, Cape Fear '62, Cape Fear '91, Love Lies Bleeding, Occult, Disturbing Behavior. Alien, Death Becomes Her, Phase IV, Tarot Gyro Zeppeli fucked around with this message at 17:17 on May 8, 2024 |
|
#
?
May 8, 2024 15:35
|
|
|
Crescent Wrench posted:7. "That Gal" Challenge (featuring Veronica Cartwright and Katharine Isabelle)  #8. Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed (Amazon Prime) Several years after the events of the first film, sister Bridget, now a werewolf herself, is put into a mental hospital to recover from her "addiction" to wolf's bane extract. While there, she meets a strange young girl... and believes she is being stalked by a random male werewolf looking to mate. I remember liking the original Ginger Snaps, it being possibly the best example of low budget Canadian horror out there, and I saw that Katherine Isabelle got like third billing here, despite being killed off in the original. So, while I didn't think that the world needed another Ginger Snaps movie, I was interested enough to throw this one on last night. And in the end... eh, it's fine, but I still don't think the world needed another Ginger Snaps movie, despite another (and another still, apparently!) already existing. I don't have firm recollections of the original, but while it kinda glossed over the existence of other werewolves outside of Ginger and Bridget's immediate orbit, I don't know why this film felt the need to have another werewolf prowling around the periphery of the story. Especially one where its whole motivation apparently gets boiled down to "he really wants to mate with [Bridget]" and we never get introduced to the human version of that (non-)character; it's essentially a movie version of that one giant NPC Alien from Alien: Isolation that wanders around and blocks off your potential movement avenues sometimes. It feels like an attempt to raise the stakes while not actually impacting the story all that much until the big (well, "big") third act finale. And that, in turn, makes the whole enterprise feel like a lot of wheel spinning throughout much of the runtime, as it feels like we're hashing and rehashing the same few character beats of Bridget's self-imposed isolationism conflicting with her growing feelings of protectiveness towards newcomer Ghost (played by newcomer Tatiana Maslany) and putting up with Rapey Tyler, Drug-Peddling Douchebag. Of course, the film contorting itself into odd shapes to prop up the character of Ghost is really the worst of its problems. She's a fairly annoying presence in a lot of ways, and as the not-so-secret secret villain of the piece, she eats up a lot of screentime. Screentime that probably wasn't getting used effectively by all of the repetitive motions elsewhere, but still, it's something of a drag on the whole thing. I kinda dug the ending where Ghost tricks Bridget into throwing Tyler to the literal (were-)wolves, before locking Bridget in the basement to serve as her secret pet/eventual familiar(?), but it is a downer that undercuts the character work that has been going into Bridget for two films now. I know that there's a third film, but according to IMDb it's some kinda time travel thing, so I can't see how that connects to this film, so it feels like we got The Bad Ending for Bridget here for no real reason. Maybe I'll check it out some day, but as someone who remains ambivalent about further Ginger Snaps movies even as I watch them, I'm hesitant to say that'll happen anytime soon.  /5(Feels like a bit of a cheat to call this one for the Katherine Isabelle challenge, but she is in this film, just not all that much. She gets like third billing for about 5 minutes of screentime total. I'd say that she's a benefit to the film when she shows up, but she doesn't seem to be playing the same character from the first film, even if she's supposed to be playing Ginger from the end of that film, when she's on her last dregs of humanity. Rather, it seems she's just there to play the id for Bridget, so she just kinda sulks around and intones all of the Depeche Mode depress-mode rock lyrics that substitute for depth in screenwriting endeavors like this. She almost makes it work, but it doesn't, really; that's kind of a metaphor for the film as a whole, now that I think about it.) Watched so far: The Gorgon, Cutting Class, Infested, Gamera 2, Slotherhouse, The Last Unicorn, Child's Play, Ginger Snaps 2
|
|
#
?
May 8, 2024 15:35
|
|
|
Just to note that there's definitely no screen time requirement for the "That Gal" challenge. If either of them get a leading role, that's great, but we are, after all, supporting some genre/character actors, so if they enhance a film with a supporting or bit part that's also in the spirit and letter of the challenge.
|
|
#
?
May 8, 2024 15:44
|
|
|
Class3KillStorm posted:#8. Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed (Amazon Prime) Your post echoes a lot of my thoughts on this one. I watched it earlier as part of this challenge and while it was fine it wasn't a great follow up to the original. Ghost definitely dragged the movie down a bit as vaguely annoying presence that didn't quite fit. They could've definitely done more with the other werewolf as well. I still enjoyed it overall though I agree the ending is a downer.
|
|
#
?
May 8, 2024 17:06
|
|
|
Safety Factor posted:Your post echoes a lot of my thoughts on this one. I watched it earlier as part of this challenge and while it was fine it wasn't a great follow up to the original. Ghost definitely dragged the movie down a bit as vaguely annoying presence that didn't quite fit. They could've definitely done more with the other werewolf as well. I still enjoyed it overall though I agree the ending is a downer. Yeah, I don't know what a platonic ideal for a Ginger Snaps sequel should look like, but sidelining the heroine from (and one major connective thread to) the previous film doesn't seem like the right idea. And having another, non-Ginger/non-Bridget werewolf is fine, but like, establish that as a character, establish it as stakes; just saying "hey there's another werewolf chasing after me cuz he wants to have sex with me" doesn't really do that. I think the thing that irks me about the ending is the knowledge that this is the middle chapter of a trilogy, but that I can't see how that ending lines up with the plotline as stated on IMDb (unless the whole movie is a dream sequence for werewolf Bridget hanging out in Ghost's basement, which would be incredibly lame if that's the case). So, if parts 2 and 3 are really as disconnected as the plotlines would suggest, then this just feels like a narrative dead end and a major letdown as a storytelling choice.
|
|
#
?
May 8, 2024 18:45
|
|
|
Another double feature; each one completes a challenge (See the end) 8. Bloody Murder (2000) Stop me if you’ve heard this one: A bunch of teen counselors try to reopen a summer camp where a hockey-masked…… The Good: It takes guts to make a blatant Friday the 13th ripoff (not parody, not fan film) in the year 2000. I gotta respect that, if nothing else. The Bad: So much about this movie screams, “I can make a movie, too!” That’s not a bad thing, necessarily (see "The Good"), but viewers should know in advance what they are in for. The Ugly: I feel like I accidentally watched a RiffTrax without the commentary. 9. Bloody Murder 2: Closing Camp (2003) Okay. Seriously. Stop me if you’ve heard this one: Five years ago, a teen’s brother was killed by a hockey-masked maniac and now she works at the very same summer camp……. The Good: It’s rare to see a summer camp slasher that takes place at the end of summer and talks about autumn and snow. And this movie did it seventeen years before Never Hike in the Snow. At least the filmmakers can claim that. The Bad: They made a sequel. The Ugly: This sequel has a 4.4 IMDB rating instead of 3.1 for the first one. I’m chalking that up to the very little more effort at a monster design and kill effects. Challenges Complete 6. Stop! Stop! He's Already Dead! Hellraiser: Hellworld 3. What's in a Name? Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II 11. BATS AREN'T BUGS! I Like Bats 4. Face Your Fears Dolls 8. They Ruined It! The Blob (1958, 1988) 1. "Eat your loving slop!" Bloody Murder, 3.1 IMDB score 5. Hematology Bloody Murder 2: Closing Camp Naked Man Punch fucked around with this message at 02:38 on May 9, 2024 |
|
#
?
May 8, 2024 23:17
|
|
|
 Run (2020) Pretty good. I always like seeing Sarah Paulson as a lead in stuff so I of course enjoyed her performance. Same with Kiera Allan who I've never seen in anything before this; she put in a really convincing turn as Sarah's daughter. I won't give this movie a higher rating than 2 and a half because I felt that it could've done with more tension; I also feel like some of the plot threads went a bit forgotten as the movie went on. Pity, there's the makings of a great story here if more attention was paid to the more naunced aspects of Kiera's character in this. Also she has a GameCube in her bedroom even though she was born in like 2004 so jot that down. 2.5/5Movies Watched So Far: Candy Corn, Children of the Corn: Revelation, Ouija Shark, Bad Ronald, The Wizard of Gore (1970), The Wizard of Gore (2007), The Witches of Eastwick, Blood Shack, Saturday The 14th, Chairman of the Board, The Nest, Bloody Mary, Inferno, The Vanishing, The Lure, Run
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2024 00:02
|
|
|
 13. Cellar Dweller (1988) Directed by John Carl Buechler Cellar Dweller is a weirdly lighthearted horror comedy about a drawing of a beast the comes to life and eats people, because a cartoonist played by Jeffrey Combs messed around with a cursed book. The tone is weirdly lighthearted, like a sitcom. The subject matter definitely isn't. Maybe the strangest thing about it is that it stars the future president and CEO of Paramount Pictures. 2½/5 Spooky May 2024 Tally Movies: 1. Shark Side of the Moon (2022); 2. Stake Land (2010); 3. Bad Milo! (2013); 4. Voices from Beyond (1991); 5. Dracula and Son (1976); 6. The Grudge (2004); 7. Bloody Pit of Horror (1965); 8. Hobo with a Shotgun (2011); 9. Hellraiser: Hellseeker (2002); 10. 13 Eerie (2013); 11. We Are What We Are (2010); 12 We Are What We Are (2013); 13. Cellar Dweller (1988) Challenges:
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2024 00:15
|
|
|
Class3KillStorm posted:I know that there's a third film, but according to IMDb it's some kinda time travel thing, It’s not even time travel, it’s just set in the past with no connection to or continuity with the first two films beyond the two leads playing basically the same characters. It’s sort of an interesting way to do an installment in a franchise but it’s only an OK movie.
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2024 01:38
|
|
|
 Circle (2015) Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck this. This is Fart-Huffing: The Movie. It's unrealistic that the cop, the chuddy bank manager guy and all the other racists and general shitheads would've lasted as long as they did. Also how does an army officer go to Afghanistan for 2 years and have a 7 month old child? Every so often, I watch a movie and think to myself "this is probably someone's favourite movie. Someone, somewhere, thinks this is the greatest movie ever made." I thought about that when I got to the end of this and it made me very depressed. 0/5Movies Watched So Far: Candy Corn, Children of the Corn: Revelation, Ouija Shark, Bad Ronald, The Wizard of Gore (1970), The Wizard of Gore (2007), The Witches of Eastwick, Blood Shack, Saturday The 14th, Chairman of the Board, The Nest, Bloody Mary, Inferno, The Vanishing, The Lure, Run, Circle
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2024 01:44
|
|
|
Poo In An Alleyway posted:Also how does an army officer go to Afghanistan for 2 years and have a 7 month old child? I know the answer to this one.
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2024 01:52
|
|
|
Edit: Double-post
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2024 02:36
|
|
|
 14. Mother Joan of the Angels (1961) ]Matka Joanna od Aniolów Directed by Jerzy Kawalerowicz Challenge Bite the Bullet This one has been on so many different planned lists over the years -- horror challenges, scavenger hunts, etc. Mother Joan of the Angels looks fantastic and is surprisingly restrained for a movie about demonic possession and the conflict between faith, duty, and love. Lucyna Winnicka is great as Mother Joan. Mieczysław Voit is almost as good as Father Suryn and the Rabbi. Everyone else is basically a background character, but the movie isn't about any of them. It definitely drags in parts but it's a small complaint. 4/5 Spooky May 2024 Tally Movies: 1. Shark Side of the Moon (2022); 2. Stake Land (2010); 3. Bad Milo! (2013); 4. Voices from Beyond (1991); 5. Dracula and Son (1976); 6. The Grudge (2004); 7. Bloody Pit of Horror (1965); 8. Hobo with a Shotgun (2011); 9. Hellraiser: Hellseeker (2002); 10. 13 Eerie (2013); 11. We Are What We Are (2010); 12 We Are What We Are (2013); 13. Cellar Dweller (1988); 14. Mother Joan of the Angels (1961) Challenges:
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2024 03:53
|
|
|
Gripweed posted:I know the answer to this one. It's Jody.
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2024 05:14
|
|
|
Stop! Stop! He's Already Dead! 10) Hellraiser Judgement (2018)  It's the 10th film in the Hellraiser series. It was made so the studio could retain the rights to the franchise. Doug Bradley refused to be in it when they said he'd have to sign an NDA before he could read the screenplay. Sounds promising! I haven't seen movies 4-9, but I don't think that matters. The opening act's kind of ok. A new faction of demons judge people for their sins and punish accordingly. The leader of this group is played by writer-director Gary J. Tunnicliffe and he's the most interesting thing about the film. The relationship between demon factions isn't explored, which I think is a wasted opportunity. They seem to get on just fine. The film centres around two detectives trying to catch a serial killer. The human drama is uninteresting, the plot is Se7en but lame and the twist is stupid. I did laugh at the end when Pinhead capitulates to the angel and sends the killer back to do heaven's dirty work only for him to be immediately shot to death by lady cop. The furious angel says "you knew that would happen", Pinhead says "yeah duh" then kills her. Should have ended it there. It's more watchable than I expected but it is not good. Total/New to me: 10/8 Challenges: 9 The Fly (1958); The Fly (1986); Ghostwatch (1992); Venom (2018); Bloodbath at the House of Death (1984); Carrie (2013); The Bloodstained Shadow (1978); Event Horizon (1997); Isolation (2005); Hellraiser Judgement (2018)
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2024 10:43
|
|
|
19. The Baby (1973) I have to stop watching bad-taste movies just because the horror thread brings them up. At least it's better than Scary of Sixty-One because, in fairness, The Baby is made by people who are clearly trying, it's well-made technically, and the movie is definitely trying to say something, just not quite sure what that something is. People calling it "a John Waters movie played straight" are dead-on, I was reminded so much of Pink Flamingos while watching it. A strange and deeply unpleasant movie, and not one I can ever recommend, but at least it's interesting in a "what was this trying to do" way. "He gets the best care in the world. We all see to that." 2 out of 5! Watched so far: Mirror Mirror 2, Tremors 7, Infested, Death Machine, The Scary of Sixty-One, Little Evil, The Bye Bye Man, The Wrath of Becky, Safe, Cape Fear '62, Cape Fear '91, Love Lies Bleeding, Occult, Disturbing Behavior. Alien, Death Becomes Her, Phase IV, Tarot, The Baby
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2024 13:32
|
|
|
15. The Masque of the Red Death (1964) (first viewing) (watched on Blu Ray)  Prince Prospero (Vincent Price) is a cruel tyrant who collects the local rich and royalty and hides in his castle while the surrounding villages are ravaged by a plague known as the Red Death. Not that you're much safer in the castle--Prospero is a Satan-worshiper obsessed with torture and pitting people against each other in fatal games for his own amusement. He becomes obsessed with Francesca (Jane Asher), a devout Christian from a local village, whom he wishes to educate with--some right say corrupt--with what he sees as the world's true nature, namely suffering. This is the first I've seen in Roger Corman's series of Edgar Allen Poe adaptations with Price, and I loved it. Price is the obvious draw, but I thought the supporting case was also quite good, and I particularly thought Asher was excellent and sells what could have been a one-note role of the naive villager. And this film looks gorgeous, the Technicolor processing is so vibrant, it just pops off the screen, which you might think would reduce the horror but really gives it a creepy storybook feel. In particular I liked a corridor of interconnected rooms all decked out in a single color--yellow to purple to white and finally the black room where the rituals go down. Nicolas Roeg is also excellent as the cinematographer, and I easily liked this more than any of his directorial works I've seen. And it's pretty amazing what the thrifty Corman can do with a few legs up like having some pre-made castle sets to re-arrange and a stable of British actors to class it up. Challenge: Bite the Bullet, as I finally cracked open Shout! Factory's six-movie Vincent Prince Collection set I've had for awhile. It's also got The Pit & The Pendulum, The Abominable Dr. Phibes, The Haunted Palace, The Fall of the House of Usher, and Witchfinder General, if anyone has any suggestions on which ones to prioritize. SPOOKY SCREENINGS (15 and counting): Bats (1999); Vampyr (1932); Eating Raoul (1982); Blood Rage (1987); The Return of the Living Dead (1985); American Psycho 2 (2002); Rabid Grannies (1988); I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle (1990); The Pit (1981); 13 Eerie (2013); The Hitcher (1986); The Last House on Dead End Street (1973); Clearcut (1991); Magic (1978); The Masque of the Red Death (1964)
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2024 14:39
|
|
|
 21) Sea Fever - 2019 - Shudder It's kinda refreshing to have a classic sea horror that involves just how much we still don't know about what's over 70% of our planet. Here we have a PhD student booking a spot on a fishing trawler to study sea life behavioral patterns only to have the trip go awry when the ship goes into an exclusion zone in the hopes of getting a big catch. Overall, the film's pretty decent. Effects are nicely goopy. The Irish accents might be an issue for those unfamiliar with the range of how Irish accents can be.  22) Killer Book Club - 2023 - Netflix Premise here is after a prank goes wrong, a horror book club gets targeted by a killer. I guess this was okay. It's very much a 90s slasher crib. It does have it's moments but for the most part's kinda meh. I found the protagonist Angela to be pretty unlikable to where I was on the slasher side when the motivation's revealed. I've heard some word that there's a possible sequel in the works, but who knows. Overall, this is worth having on for background noise.
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2024 14:44
|
|
|
M_Sinistrari posted:
When I realize everyone in a movie is going to have an Irish accent my fingers almost automatically go to the subtitles menu.
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2024 14:51
|
|
|
Crescent Wrench posted:
Dr Phibes is great, probably my second favourite of his films after Theatre of Blood Witchfinder General is very good, but not a typical Price outing. It's grim, with none of the normal campy humour.
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2024 15:09
|
|
|
Do we count Becky as a horror movie? I understand it's quite slasherish so I would imagine so, but if not, I can count it as my The Gates Are Open movie instead. Just starting my watch so all I know so far is "it has an angry teenager and also Joel McHale and two dogs and a car". E: Uhh yeah, this is bloodier than many slashers I've seen. Shaman Tank Spec fucked around with this message at 17:13 on May 9, 2024 |
|
#
?
May 9, 2024 16:32
|
|
|
4. Founders Day Vudu Election day is near for a small-town mayor, and killings start shaking up the populace and both candidates. This has more twists and turns than a Twilight Zone episode, and honestly if this had stopped at the natural endpoint Founders Day seemed to have had at the 58-minute mark, I'd have called it one of the alright recent slashers. Some decent red herrings (including an unhinged latter-half one from the mayor herself), some good kills and a fun reveal at that point It didn't stop there. It kept going. And nowhere it goes was more intelligent or coherent than where it'd been By the actual end I was laughing at the real, big, reveal of the sheer volume of how many people were either killers or conspirators in the same way others laughed at the sheer volume of production company logos in the beginning of Late Night with the Devil. It just kept going Shout out to the director making sure onscreen he's the only conspirator who lives and gets away with it without even a witness directly knowing about him, that was at least a fun M Night-appreciated twist ** 4/13 (The Coffee Table, Tarot 2024, Abigail 2024, Founders Day)
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2024 16:46
|
|
|
Movie 10: Becky (3. What's in a Name?) When she was good, she was very, very good. And when she was bad, she was horrid. I don't know how you'd describe Becky. Reverse slasher? Violent revenge fantasy? A bloodier version of Home Alone? Any of those would do, I think. Becky is an angry teenager, but she's got a good reason. Her mum has died following a long illness, and when her dad takes her to a weekend at their summer cottage, things get even worse when it turns out Dad has a new girlfriend, and they're getting married. But then White Power Bill (that's not his name, but I don't know what is -- and he might as well be White Power Bill from Arrested Development) played by Kevin James along with his nazi buddies turns up to find something they stashed at the cottage years ago. The movie is basically Becky picking off the nazis one by one with her home mad traps and weapons. Nothing too elaborate: a fishing line rigged between two trees and a plan with some nails sticking out of it placed at the landing spot. The movie isn't listed as a horror movie on IMDB but jesus loving christ, this is more brutal and bloodier than many slasher movies I've seen. In one scene Becky slowly reverses a boat into a criminal and loving BLENDS his head with the outboard motor. It's great if you enjoy seeing poo poo-rear end nazis get murdered to pieces. The movie features surprisingly good performances from actors you wouldn't expect them from. Lulu Wilson is great as Becky, even though she's mostly just angry or crying for most of the movie. You wouldn't expect loving KEVIN JAMES to put in a menacing performance, but he manages is at White Power Bill (again, I don't think I ever caught his actual name) and poo poo, even former professional wrestler Kurrgan is good as Apex, the guy with the decent heart who's been pulled along for the ride. And he gets to bust out a chokeslam as well! I might not remember the movie a year from now, but I'll definitely remember parts of it (see below). It's a simple movie, but also very focused on the simple story it wants to tell, and that's to its credit. A bunch of nazis turn up, do bad things to innocent people, get murdered in inventive ways. It's not the best movie I've seen even in this marathon, but poo poo: a teenage girl dunks on a bunch of nazis and kills/maims them in insanely brutal and violent ways. If you can't enjoy that, what the hell are we even doing? / 5 The Best Part: The scene where White Power Bill gets his eye put out by Becky. He then instructs his fellow Nazi to cut the optical nerve and take the pulped eye out. Which he tries to do. With children's safety scissors. It's one of the most horrifying scenes I've ever seen in a movie, and it's played for laughs. Challenges completed: 9/13 My May 2024 Movies: 1. Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich, 2. The Town that Dreaded Sundown, 3. Poltergeist, 4. Sleepaway Camp IV: The Survivor, 5. The Thing From Another World, 6. The Thing (rewatch), 7. The Thing (2011), 8. Night of the Animated Dead, 9. Phase IV, 10. Becky
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2024 17:33
|
|
|
9- Don't Look Up Gates are Open I wanted to avoid the usual thrillers and such, so I went for something totally off the beaten track. This definitely isn't a horror, but it's utterly horrifying in how depressingly accurate it is. I watched it during a particularly bad patch of anxiety which I'm sure didn't help, but it stuck with me way more than a lot of the pure horrors I've seen over the years. The movie itself is great as well, very funny even when the comedy is dark as hell, and the cast is all around great. For anyone who hasn't seen it, it's basically a more cynically realistic version of Deep Impact/Armageddon. Some scientists discover that an Asteroid is heading for earth and attempt to stop it, but they run into all the problems you might expect. Don't watch it if you're already stressed out.
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2024 17:51
|
|
|
Opopanax posted:9- Don't Look Up I read that as "Don't Look Now" at first and was extremely confused for the rest of your post
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2024 22:09
|
|
|
Crescent Wrench posted:5. Hematology  1. Baron Blood (1972) (dir. Mario Bava) watched on Shudder A young American named Peter travels to Austria to get in touch with his roots, and from the moment he lands he just can’t shut the gently caress up about his ancestor Baron Otto Von Kleist, a Vlad the Impaler-type who was infamous for his cruelty and penchant for torture. Peter is especially obsessed with a legend about a curse put on the Baron by a witch, and against the advice of everyone around him reads an old spell that will supposedly return the Baron to life, basically just to see if it would work. After some loving around, he finds out. The plot of this is very messy and the pacing is kind of bizarre - the plot is paper thin for a long time, but then the film starts adding in stuff about ESP and psychic mediums and all kinds of nonsense, and by the end it was a bit of a jumble of disparate ideas, some of which directly conflicted with each other. I know film production generally does not work this way, but it does kind of feel like they were making it up as they went along. Despite all that, this is still a Mario Bava film, and the shortcomings are largely made up for by the stellar spooky atmosphere and stylish cinematography. The version I watched on Shudder wasn’t the best quality, but even so it’s a very good looking movie and there are moments when Bava makes really effective use of color (mostly red). I groaned a bit when the bit with the psychic stuff started, just because it seems like every ‘70s film had to shoehorn in ESP somehow, but the scenes with the medium are some of the most visually interesting in the whole film and it ended up being a highlight for me. Everything with the castle oozes gothic atmosphere, from the cobwebbed secret passages to the grimy torture chambers to the fog-shrouded exteriors. Overall not one of Bava’s best films, but the strong visuals and atmosphere go a long way and I enjoyed it well enough. Also it features an old Joseph Cotten absolutely hamming it up as the villain. It’s worth checking out if you like Mario Bava or ‘70s Italian horror in general. 3.5 torture chambers out of 5
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2024 22:15
|
|
|
4. Face Your Fears Caveat 2020 (Shudder)  Caveat is a low budget indie horror flick that offers a truly creepy vibe. It follows the misadventure of an amnesiac who takes a lovely job, despite its obvious shittiness, babysitting the catatonic sister of his acquaintance. An acquaintance he does not particularly remember. Generally I hate the amnesiac trope, but it worked as a device to place this character in such a strange place without much protest. The budget constraints are apparent in some of the makeup effects but it didn't really detract from the elements that really make this a scary movie. Damian Mc Carthy does some really great work with light to hide some of the less refined details, and it kept me locked into the film during some of the slower parts. The first time I watched this with my wife, we were particularly shaken by a scene during which we see ‘Mummy’ peek around the corner. I remember checking my corners as I walked through the house in the dark in the proceeding days. On our second watch, I was much less scared, and more so frustrated by some of the protag's actions during the film. I feel that just comes as a byproduct of knowing what’s to come. I did not remember some of the scares, and what exactly was behind the drywall. How? No idea, I must have blocked it out. It’s weird though because even though I don’t remember some key details, I remembered the overall shape and atmosphere of the movie enough to get a little bored at parts. Before, I was very much invested in untangling the mystery, and I felt fully in the movie. The bunny thing is cool too, though I feel it never really pays off. 3 drummin' bunnies / 5
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2024 23:53
|
|
|
Crescent Wrench posted:Challenge: Bite the Bullet, as I finally cracked open Shout! Factory's six-movie Vincent Prince Collection set I've had for awhile. It's also got The Pit & The Pendulum, The Abominable Dr. Phibes, The Haunted Palace, The Fall of the House of Usher, and Witchfinder General, if anyone has any suggestions on which ones to prioritize.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2024 02:02
|
|
|
Challenge 1. "Eat your loving slop!" Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey (2023) And what slop it is! With a 1.1/5 on Letterboxd, 2.9/10 on IMDB and 9/100 on Criticker, I was assured to be watching a new genre-defining masterpiece. What I got instead was this movie. The only positive things I have to say about Blood and Honey is that it is relatively short (84 minutes) and that I've certainly sat through less competent productions. That being said, there isn't much to like here. The premise (beloved children's book characters, but now they're evil) is yawn-inducing enough, but almost all other elements (the barely-coherent script, the repetitive sound design, the low-effort Pooh and Piglet "costumes") add up to less than a whole. I could entertain the idea that the concept could be done in a more interesting way, but probably not while Disney holds the copyright on the other Pooh characters. I'll admit I watched this out of a morbid curiosity and others must have as well, since it reportedly made $5.2 million on a $50K budget, but I'm not sure I'm on board for any more of the "Twisted Childhood Universe." 1.5/5 Challenge 9. Bite the Bullet  YellowBrickRoad (2010) I remember this movie getting some praise around the time it came out so it has low-key been on my watchlist for quite some time. It seemed like a good time to watch since it popped up on Shudder this month. The premise of the movie is decent: a film crew is investigating the death/disappearance of an entire small town that occurred in 1940 after a viewing of The Wizard of Oz. Unfortunately the intriguing premise didn't lead to a satisfying film. I did like the sound design in some of the scenes (the sequence with the "scarecrow" was my favorite, and most unnerving part of the movie) but although things seemed to be heading in an interesting direction there are ultimately no answers. The movie appeared to be setting up a sort of Pontypool-esque scenario with all the repeated references to The Wizard of Oz sprinkled in but that seemed to go nowhere and could have been anything else when all was said and done. Overall a frustrating experience. 2/5
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2024 02:18
|
|
|
 #14: The Tunnel This was a rewatch because The Tunnel just got a fancy new bluray release(with slipcover) and in a moment of weakness I splurged on a found footage movie I remember as being pretty OK. I think I actually liked it better this time around. It's nice that it's just a monster. There's some people in a tunnel and there's a monster in there too. So many found footage movies do demons or ghosts or something that fucks with reality, that absolute dreck The Outwaters being the worst example, it's nice to have just a story about a killer monster. And now wandering around! How many found footage movies can say that? The events of the story are shown in drat near real time. It does go too hard on the fake camera glitches. And it does strain credulity that there would be absolute undeniable proof of a monster and that wouldn't generate public outcry. The cops just go drop the case and that's that? There would be protests! People would not stand for having a killer monster around. Eventually the mayor would be forced to appoint a new police chief who pledged to find and kill the monster. But still, overall, a good little found footage flick #1 The Alpha Incident 1, #2 Altered, #3 The Outwaters, #4 Creepypasta, #5 The Arrival, #6 Cube 8, #7 Cube, #8 Enter The Devil 12, #9 Blood Sisters of Lesbian Sin 5 #10 It! The Terror From Beyond Space, #11 Ice Cream Man, #12 Cinderella, #13 Spidarling 11, #14 The Tunnel
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2024 02:29
|
|
|
14. Fall (2022) - Two influencers climb to the top of a 2000' radio tower, only for the ladder to collapse behind them and leave them desperately trying to signal for help from the top of the tower. This is potentially very good or very bad, but it would take a rewatch to suss out which. There's a dream sequence that is completely disjarring stuck in the middle of the film, but it potentially sets up that one of two has been dead and the remaining has been hallucinating for the second half of the film. Whether this is effective foreshadowing or just disjointed garbage, I can't determine from one watch. 3/5 15. Isolation (2005) - Fun Irish monster movie, but I may have been overhyped for it. My only wish is that they went with "Aliens did it" at some point so I could refer to it as Killer Kows from Outer Space. 3.5/5. 16. Eerie Tales (1919) - The first horror anthology, which brings 5 tales of wildly differing quality to the table, with Conrad Veidt, Reinhold Shunzel, and Anita Berber starring in the wraparound segment and in each tale. They're all effectively creepy in the wraparound segment, where Veidt's Death, Shunzel's Devil, and Berber's, uhh, Prostitute come out of paintings in a bookstore to read the titular Eerie Tales. Any of them would be convincing as the host of an EC or Warren comic, half a century later, with Death bearing a close resemblance to the Vault Keeper. The first one, The Apparition, is a variation on the then-relatively-new "Vanishing Hotel Room" urban legend where a guest dies and the hotel covers up that they were ever there. In this case, it's Berber who disappears, her paramour Veidt distraught, and her abusive ex Shunzel as a red herring. Unfortunately, it's too disjointed, and this is too light on title cards. I wasn't able to piece it together until I got to the end and realized that I'd seen this storyline before. Second, we have The Hand, where Shunzel murders Veidt and Veidt's ghostly hand returns for revenge. Also dull. Poe's Black Cat is the standout here, driven largely from Shunzel's performance. For one, he starts out as a jolly drunk after malevolent performances in the first two stories. Then he rapidly makes the shift from jolly drunk to befuddled drunk to murderous rage drunk to melancholy drunk as the story progresses. A very liberal adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's Suicide Club (more of an "Inspired by...") is also done well, with Shunzel finally getting a chance to play the protagonist, some great design and great interactions with the one-room set, and Veidt's strongest performance in his only turn as an antagonist. The final, original tale is kind of weak but has a fun ending. Shunzel as an injured knight is recuperating at Veidt's castle and begins flirting with Veidt's wife (Berber, obviously). Veidt scares him off with some very obvious ghostly theatrics (raising and lowering the chandelier), thereby scaring off Shunzel and his false bravado and proving his love for his wife. This one's ending is very much played for comedy. 3.5/5 overall, but the Black Cat segment is definitely worth watching.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2024 02:58
|
|
|
gey muckle mowser posted:I read that as "Don't Look Now" at first and was extremely confused for the rest of your post I did the same thing.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2024 03:32
|
|
|
 15. Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation (1995) Directed by Kim Henkel Challenge I Know What You Did Last Summer Very early appearances for both Renée Zellweger and Matthew McConaughey. Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation is just the strangest homage to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974). It's in the same universe, pretty much, probably. Kim Henkel, the writer and directory, also wrote and produced the original. The underlying conspiracy theory stuff is interesting in theory, but it's not clear it even matters. It's a movie that's packed with crazy energy and it just doesn't know what to do with it, lurching around like a drunken toddler. Watch all the way to the end for a very special cameo appearance. 3/5 Spooky May 2024 Tally Movies: 1. Shark Side of the Moon (2022); 2. Stake Land (2010); 3. Bad Milo! (2013); 4. Voices from Beyond (1991); 5. Dracula and Son (1976); 6. The Grudge (2004); 7. Bloody Pit of Horror (1965); 8. Hobo with a Shotgun (2011); 9. Hellraiser: Hellseeker (2002); 10. 13 Eerie (2013); 11. We Are What We Are (2010); 12 We Are What We Are (2013); 13. Cellar Dweller (1988); 14. Mother Joan of the Angels (1961); 15. Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation (1995) Challenges:
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2024 04:17
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 29, 2024 15:23 |
|
|
16. The Queen of Black Magic (1981) (first viewing) (watched on YouTube)  17. The Queen of Black Magic (2019) (first viewing) (watched on AMC+/Shudder)  I took a trip to Indonesia for the "Perfect Getaway" category in the first challenge I did, and it's become a bit of a personal tradition to watch an Indonesian film during the challenges. I had a few Joko Anwar films lined up, but I can't just do that every time. Fortunately, I noticed that The Queen of Black Magic gives me a chance to do an original/remake comparison. (And Anwar wrote the script for the 2019 version, so I'm only being a little lazy.) The 1981 version follows Murni (played by Suzzanna, the "horror queen of Indonesian cinema), a naive young woman who is seduced by the sleazy Kohar, who tosses her aside and marries someone else. When sinister hallucinations strike the wedding, Kohar accuses Murni of using black magic and leads a mob of angry villagers to throw her off a cliff. In a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy, the innocent Murni is saved by an ACTUAL practitioner of black magic, and even the tools to get even. This is basically a supernatural revenge movie and, because Murni really was completely innocent, I found it easier to root for her. The uses black magic are creative and have a lot of fun practical effects. There's some fun goop, sure, but there's also Murni blowing the palm of her hand and manifesting an entire swarm of bees to blanket a guy's face. (There's so many bugs in this movie and the remake, actually, that they'd practically qualify for the BATS AREN'T BUGS!! challenge.) The movie walks a nice line with Murni's character arc. There's a moment about halfway through where she starts crossing a line but is reeled back in, and starts pondering how long she actually wants to keep making the village pay. The body count's no joke here, but the kills are fun and this movie even has a black magic training montage. The 2019 version, despite literally featuring a montage of shots from the original under the end credits, is a very loose remake that only keeps the name Murni and the general supernatural revenge framework. The remake follows a group of families in which the husbands grew up together in the same orphanage. They're reunited when they get word the owner of the orphanage is on his death bed. It's an orphanage in a horror movie, so you can be sure some dark secrets are revealed along the way. In addition to the reworked plot, the big differences here and the tone and perspective. In 1981, the queen of black magic was the protagonist, but this time the audience follows the victims. The actual person seeking revenge isn't confirmed until close to the end. The tone is also a lot harsher here, maybe even a little too mean. It's largely effective at building suspense, with a largely scoreless first portion of the movie making the orphanage seem lonely and hollow. The characters and their interactions are appropriately stiff and awkward for the hospice reunion scenario. Once the supernatural elements come in, the kills and gore are just as creative as the original, albeit in a gnarlier, nastier way. (Do not watch if you're afraid of centipedes.) There are a few more modern markers here--occasional rough CGI, and way too much time establishing why no one has cell service--but it's an interesting companion watch. It was also an interesting comparison because I've seen another Indonesian pairing across a very similar time frame, when Satan's Slave (1980) was loosely remade (by Joko Anwar!) in 2017. The general style/tone of the movies was comparable between both sets of movies in each era. Another interesting element was the treatment of religion. The original Queen wasn't as QUITE overtly religious as the original Satan's Slave--which literally ended with a "pray away the demon" segment--but the black magic is ultimately countered in large part by an Islamic scholar bringing prayer back to the village. These elements were moderately hinted at in the Satan's Slaves remake, and off the top of my head I don't think there's nods to religion in the Queen remake. I enjoyed both films--I had more fun watching the original, and I was more tense watching the remake. The remake was harder to get invested in because the audience is on the side of the revenge victims, and the queen is casting a pretty wide net against unrelated people. I think I have to give it to the original this time around though. Challenge: They Ruined It! SPOOKY SCREENINGS (17 and counting): Bats (1999); Vampyr (1932); Eating Raoul (1982); Blood Rage (1987); The Return of the Living Dead (1985); American Psycho 2 (2002); Rabid Grannies (1988); I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle (1990); The Pit (1981); 13 Eerie (2013); The Hitcher (1986); The Last House on Dead End Street (1973); Clearcut (1991); Magic (1978); The Masque of the Red Death (1964); The Queen of Black Magic (1981); The Queen of Black Magic (2019)
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2024 05:29
|
|