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 Haunt (2019) Man, this movie is really trying. It's way slower than it needs to be, everything teased about the main character's backstory is needlessly overwrought and ultimately doesn't really service the main plot in any meaningful way, the other characters are very cookie-cutter and also immediately just redshirts from the moment they're introduced. It's prime 'idiots passing the idiot ball to each other' fodder if you're at all into that. One thing they had in their favour is that the face reveals of the killers are actually pretty interesting looking but that's kinda it. It also seemed as if they were going for The Descent rug-pull fake-out ending where she's still trapped in the circumstances of her own death and imagining her escape but they successfully dodged it in favour of her setting up a Home Alone-style haunted house trap in her parents' old house in order to catch the last remaining haunted house guy then gunshot fade to black because gently caress you that's why. Oh well. Could've been more fun if it had been a tad more inventive, but I'll give it a 2 out of some sense of charity I guess   2/5Movies 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, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Of Unknown Origin, The McPherson Tape, Haunt
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May 21, 2024 01:09
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Stop! Stop! He's Already Dead! 9. Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare  I wanted to see more Nightmare on Elm St movies after watching the first one last October, so hey, why not jump straight to the last one? It seems to have a negative reputation but I still enjoyed it for the most part. The tone is definitely sillier than the original and Freddy is basically a full blown cartoon character here, but it was still very entertaining. The power glove gag was so unexpected and stupid, it was perfect. And there's some other neat things too, like the whole sequence with Freddy hunting the guy with the hearing aid that plays around with the soundscape of the film, that was a cool experiment even if they didn't take it as far as they could have. And the flashback scene (well the first one at least) where we get to see pre-incident Freddy as a creepy family man, it was nice to see Robert Englund get a chance to shine without all the make-up on. But that does bring us to the worse parts of the movie, the unnecessary lore and poor plot. I'm not a Freddy purist or anything so I don't necessarily care if they retcon anything from the previous movies (not that I would know anyway), but even just within the context of this one and the first a lot of it doesn't make sense. Like ok he has a kid and finding out who it is is one of the mysteries of the movie, that's a fine idea, but his kid being present doesn't actually have any real significance. It's used as an excuse to get Freddy to travel to a new town, but nothing else really comes of it so it's wasted potential. And speaking of the town, the opening credits describe how Freddy has already killed most of the children and teenagers by this point. So why do the adults all still live there? Why haven't they all moved away and burnt the whole town to the ground yet? They know what Freddy's deal is by then. And we really didn't need the explanation for Freddy's powers either, especially when it's these goofy snake demons (This is going to be a problem with my next movie too!). The resolution, the ultimate tactic that can finally bring Freddy down, is an anticlimax too. They just enact a plan to pull him out of the dream world into the real world, where he can just be killed normally. Nancy tried that exact same plan in the first movie and it didn't work! Not sure why it works now, maybe Nancy didn't do it properly or maybe someone related to Freddy had to do it, it's not really explained. At least we get to see him get the poo poo beat out of him and blown up. Oh and and there were 3d glasses that did ??? But despite my complaining, I still enjoyed it more than not. If this is really the worst of the original series that's a pretty good record. 3/5 10. Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday  What better movie to pair with Freddy's Dead than the Friday the 13th equivalent? For the Nightmare on Elm St series I had only seen one entry prior to going straight to the final one, for the Friday the 13th series I haven't seen any of them before. Well except for Freddy vs Jason, but that's set after this anyway. So, jumping straight into the last one, I thought it was actually pretty good! Starting it off by completely obliterating Jason in a military trap is a bold choice, but it makes sense. By this point in time he's become an infamous figure across the whole country so somewhere it was decided that he has to go, unlike in Freddy's Dead where seemingly nobody paid any attention to the town where all the kids were killed. Anyway, Jason's body is dead but his evil is not, so he proceeds to infect and take over the mortician carrying out the autopsy and starts his rampage. And so this is why most people probably hated this movie, it doesn't actually have Kane Hodder's Jason for most of it, it's a rotating cast of random dudes that Jason infects instead. I think this concept is fine as a way to give a fresh twist to the slasher villain and most of the Jason vessels are pretty good, although they don't utilise this to it's fullest extent. It does give us a really great gory scene where one host's body just melts away after Jason leaves him, as if the evil energy is too much for a mortal body to handle. The part that's actually bad about this Jason body swapping concept is the way that Jason's evil spirit or whatever is portrayed – it's this silly slimy worm thing. Just like with the snake demons in Freddy's Dead, they're putting in this goofy looking, physical explanation for Jason's powers that's really unnecessary and cheapens the whole thing a bit. This probably could have been handled better with a more abstract presentation of Jason's evil essence transferring between hosts. Also like Freddy's Dead, the idea of blood relatives of the villain is used, but here it's more relevant and actually ties in to Jason's defeat a lot better. Given the backstory of Jason and his mother in the first few films, it makes some sense thematically to have a blood relative be the key to killing him for good. It also allows for a fairly effective little twist towards the end that gives Jason his old body back, and it's very satisfying to see him back to his full glory even if it's only for a little bit. His appearance is great too, I like how degraded and lovely his mask is by this point. Also, Creighton Duke rules. I don't know why he knows so much about Jason but it doesn't matter. Just wish he had more screen time. 3.5/5 Completed Challenges 5/14 Tubin': Gone (2006) & Terror Train 2 Slop: The Open House & Robert the Doll Bats: The Savage Bees & Spider in the Attic That Gal: The Birds & American Mary Already Dead: Freddy's Dead & Jason Goes to Hell
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May 21, 2024 02:28
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 25. Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973) Directed by Alan Gibson Dracula as a nihilistic Bond villain actually makes a lot of sense. It's too bad that Satanic Rites of Dracula pretty much wastes the premise. Sure there's a secretive cult full of the pillars of polite society, guarded by a couple of henchmen dressed like Sonny Bono. Of course there's blood and fangs. It's just all kind of boring. Not even Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing seem to be all that into it. 2/5 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); 16. Kingdom of the Spiders (1977); 17. Welcome to Hell (2021); 18. House (1986); 19. The Deadly Mantis (1957); 20. The Dunwich Horror (1970); 21. Madman (1981); 22. I Drink Your Blood (1971); 23. Island of Terror (1966); 24. The Sect (1991); 25. The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973)
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May 21, 2024 02:48
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32. Scalpel (1977) (first viewing) (watched on Tubi)  Blood Rage has been one of the most fun viewings I've had so far, so I figured I'd check out the director John Grissmer's only other film, 1977's Scalpel (also known as False Face). Dr. Phillip Reynolds (Robert Lansing) is a plastic surgeon and all-around sociopath. His daughter, Heather (Judith Chapman), has a breakdown and goes missing after witnessing her father drown her boyfriend. But when Heather's grandfather dies and leaves her his $5 million fortune, Reynolds suddenly needs her around again. He happens upon a woman who was disfigured in an accident, Jane Doe (also Chapman), and remakes her with his daughter's face to collect the inheritance. When Heather returns, the doctor, his daughter, and the doppelganger make an odd trio vying for control of the situation and the money. Grissmer's other movie, Blood Rage, is about a pair of twins, played by the same actor, so this seems like a big obsession of Grissmer's. The tone is much different here in the first film, though. Blood Rage was pure slasher, but this one's not about the gore, it's about the scheming. Everyone in this movie is totally self-serving and only interested in themselves. Grissmer again gets two good lead performances out of the actor pulling double duty, and Chapman, who's mostly known for soap opera roles, brings an appropriate flair to the part. There's lots of machinations and double crosses and it's fun to see who comes out on top. I still give the nod to Blood Rage for being such a pure slasher, but for a two-movie filmography it's a pretty interesting duo. 33. Terrified (2017) (first viewing) (watched on AMC+/Shudder)  I don't know how many times I've scrolled past this poster on Shudder and thought about it, but once I saw director Demián Rugna's follow-up When Evil Lurks, I knew I'd have to double back. Supernatural events start hitting a cluster of houses in the suburbs. A man is haunted every night by a mysterious figure. A woman floats in the air and slams back and forth against the walls until she's a bloody corpse. A recently dead child digs out of his grave and sits motionless at his kitchen table. This draws the attention of a cop and three paranormal investigators, who camp out in the three houses to investigate. It was hard for me not to compare this to When Evil Lurks. It definitely has the same serious, threatening tone, and it does a good job of introducing these sinister forces into an otherwise grounded modern-day setting. And I did like the trio of paranormal investigators, but there wasn't really much in the way of lore about the supernatural events or explanations of their methods to latch onto. The CGI here can be a little rough at times compared to the nasty visuals of his next film. This film also feels like it's on a much smaller scale, which isn't a bad thing, but I liked the sense of this creeping dread across the entire world in When Evil Lurks. I probably sound more down on this movie than I actually am, because I did enjoy it and I'm glad I was able to get caught up on it. But When Evil Lurks pretty much surpasses it across the board. SPOOKY SCREENINGS (33 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); The Weirdo (1989); Zipperface (1992); The Baby (1973); The Alchemist Cookbook (2016); The Fall of the House of Usher (1960); Sole Survivor (1984); Morgan (2016); Tau (2018); Occult (2009); Not of This Earth (1988); Silent House (2011); Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011); Tremors: Shrieker Island (2020); One Missed Call (2003); Scalpel (1977); Terrified (2017)
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May 21, 2024 04:16
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Psycho IV: The Beginning (1990) Norman Bates origin story as told through a now on-parole Norman calling in to a radio talkshow about matricide. As with most origin stories we didn't really need any of this, everything involved is already laid out for us at the end of the 1960 original. But now we get to ~see~ mama Bates dress young Norman in a dress and lock him in a dresser as punishment for getting a boner after rolling around on the bedroom floor in their underwear:   Althrough if your mom is being playde by Olivia Hussey I guess we also can't blame the guy  Best thing I can say is it's cool to see Anthony Perkins again, he acts the hell out of the scenes he's in and further proves he deserved a lot more work after Psycho 1.01. 🩸🛁 Blood Bath (1966) Moonlighting 🎑 02. 🚪🚪 Double Door (1934) 03. 🚼 ⤵ 🪟 Bad (1977) 04. 🏠🔥 Psycho IV: The Beginning (1990)
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May 21, 2024 06:08
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16) Night of the Bloody Apes (1972)  A doctor in Mexico is desperate to save his son from leukaemia so gives him a heart transplant from a gorilla. Sure, why not. The son of course becomes an ape monster and terrorises the neighbourhood. Dad tries to save him. Our protagonists are a lady luchador, Lucy, and her detective boyfriend. There's a plotline of Lucy losing her wrestling nerve after injuring an opponent in the opening scene and having to get it back. It gives them something to do at least. We spend a lot more time with the doctor and his Igor-like assistant. The apeman and lucha libre plotlines overlap as the doctor is the one who attends Lucy's opponent at the scene and later steals her human heart to give to his son. That's all fine and good, but part of me wanted them to go full schlock and have a luchador vs apeman fight for the finale The son in non-apeman form is barely a character. He has few lines and no agency and when in human form is not told that any gorilla related shenanigans went down. That's a wasted opportunity I think. The ape monster makeup is very bad. I picked this from the list of Video Nasties. It's not super gory, the most graphic thing was probably the stock footage of a real heart transplant awkwardly edited into the surgery scene. There are pseudo-rape scenes where the apeman tears off a woman's clothes but keeps his pants firmly on. There's also scenes of the female lead in the shower/lockerroom for extra boob and butt shots. All in all, definitely on the tamer side of the list of banned films, but as I've noted before that list was always random and arbitrary. It's not bad overall. It has a cheesy low budget charm. Total/New to me: 16/14 Challenges: 14 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); The Witches of Eastwick (1987); The Mist (2007); The Terror (1963); The Bells (1926); The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1968); Night of the Bloody Apes (1972)
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May 21, 2024 11:03
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Add another hundred, as we're up to 408 unique films watched for the thread, and closing in on 500 overall! So far, every challenge has got at least 16 entries, including the mid-month addition of the Roger Corman "Cheap Thrills" challenge. We've also covered a lot of ground for various eras of horror. You've got to go all the way back to 1952 before you hit a year where we haven't logged a movie yet. I won't reveal the most-matched movies yet, but we're still at > 85% unique films watched. There's one movie in the lead with 5 reviews, and two more movies with 4 reviews apiece, but we've definitely been spreading the love. Finally, in the "That Girl" challenge tracker, Katharine Isabelle has padded her lead and is ahead of Veronica Cartwright 13-9. Time is running out for the comeback. Who will prevail?
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May 21, 2024 14:39
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13th Challenge completed - 1 to go. #9 - Bite the Bullet - This one's was in the family Shudder queue for so long it left the service and so we watched it on Peacock. I liked it; my spouse loved it. 15. The Love Witch (2016) A love-obsessed witch seeks her Prince Charming and won’t accept anyone less. The Good: It's really hard to go for a retro [early/mid 1970s] visual style without coming off as cheesy and/or artificial. This nails it, though; I felt like I was watching an HD Russ Meyer movie. The Bad: Viewers may push back against this movie’s lack of bloodshed, kills, and scares. The Ugly: The Love Witch is not a bad movie by any metric except as a straight-up horror movie. In that regard it just wasn’t - deliberate phasing here - my cup of tea. 13 of 14 Challenges Complete 1. "Eat your loving slop!" Bloody Murder [3.1 IMDB score] 2. Moonlighting Maniac Cop [Bruce Campbell] 3. What's in a Name? Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II 4. Face Your Fears Dolls 5. Hematology Bloody Murder 2: Closing Camp 6. Stop! Stop! He's Already Dead! Hellraiser: Hellworld 7. "That Gal" Challenge The Town That Dreaded Sundown (2014) [Veronica Cartwright] 8. They Ruined It! The Blob (1958, 1988) 9. Bite the Bullet The Love Witch 10. I Know What You Did Last Summer The Devil's Rain [John Travolta's first film] 11. BATS AREN'T BUGS! I Like Bats 12. Tubin' Death Smiles on a Murderer 14. Cheap Thrills It Conquered the World
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May 21, 2024 14:44
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Weekend catchup: G. There It Is (1928, short) - Horror comedy in which Charley Bowers, a contemporary of Buster Keaton, is sent from Scotland Yard (literally, a yard in Scotland) to investigate a haunted house in America. Funny throughout. 4/5 H. The Double Incarnation of William Sheep (1913, short) - Basically the Student of Prague, but with a lot of time spent watching people play chess. 2/5 I. Au Secours! (1924, short) - Max Linder bet Abel Gance that he couldn't make a movie in three days, so Gance made a horror comedy about Max making a bet that he could stay in a haunted house until midnight. Max loses both bets. 3/5 25. Critters 2 (1988) - Tubi background noise. Decent, but not remarkable. 3/5 26. Haxan (1922) - I'm kind of surprised by the people praising this movie for the "modern" take of dismissing witch-related superstitions, when it wraps up by blaming the witch burnings on women being hysterical rather than the witch burners. 3.5/5 J. After Death (1915, short) - A dude walks around and mopes a lot. 2.5/5 K. The Night Before Christmas (1913, short) - Based on the Gogol story about a blacksmith. Weirdly paced between frenetic action and a lot of talking. 2.5/5 27. Night of the Demons (2009) - Tubi background noise again, and I've seen it a million times because I'm such a big fan of the original. Decent film, with just the right amount of references to the original. 4/5 28. The Convent (2000) - Thanks, Tubi. I've always hated it, but this time I realized how much of a Night of the Demons ripoff it is. However, Adrienne Barbeau. 2/5 29. Dark Windows (2023) - Also tricked by Tubi into watching an incredibly dull slasher because the poster is really cool, with a dark house and a few lit windows. (Which would make it Lit Windows, yes?) 1.5/5 30. Seven Footprints to Satan (1929) - Insane, frenetic, surrealist film about two characters being kidnapped and taken to the house of "Satan" (I don't think it's intended to be THE Satan, just a cult.), where everyone is batshit insane and very little context is given to anything. Lags slightly near the end, before wrapping up nicely. 4.5/5 L. A Blind Bargain (1922, reconstruction is ~30 minutes) - The film itself looks like a decent Lon Chaney flick, and the reconstruction is mostly well done, with decent pacing between the (scant) remaining original footage and production stills. It does fail somewhat at the climax - the fight is shown with fragments of fragments, and it's impossible to tell what's going on. 3.5/5
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May 21, 2024 14:59
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Crescent Wrench posted:9. Bite the Bullet This has been on my watchlist for years, but the bigger reason I chose it for this challenge is that before 2024 I had never seen a single Robert Altman film (other than MASH like two decades ago) and I've made it my goal to make a significant dent in his filmography this year. As this is the only horror film he directed, now seemed like the time to finally watch it.  7. Images (1972) (dir. Robert Altman) watched on Amazon Cathryn (Susannah York) is a children’s author who begins receiving harassing phone calls from an unknown woman claiming her husband is having an affair. When her husband Hugh (René Auberjonois) eventually comes home late, he finds Cathryn curled up on the bed with all of the phones off their hooks (when he asks why, she says “isn’t that what you do when you don’t want to be disturbed?” which in hindsight is a great line). Hugh tries to console her, but Cathryn briefly hallucinates that her husband is a completely different man and freaks out. He blames her nervous condition on stress and her pregnancy, and they decide to take a vacation to a remote cottage. There her hallucinations worsen, repeatedly seeing her husband at first as her dead lover René (Marcel Bozzuffi), and later as their friend (and another former lover) Marcel (Hugh Millais) who visits along with his daughter Susannah (Cathryn Harrison). As it becomes increasingly unclear to her what is real and what is in her head, she resorts to violence as a solution. Check those credits - it’s just a preview of how confusing things get for both Cathryn and the audience. I’d put this in the same category of female-led psychological thriller as Repulsion or Persona, although on this first viewing at least I don’t think it’s quite as good as either or those films. On a technical level, it’s brilliant - it’s shot incredibly well, the John Williams score is really excellent, and Susannah York’s performance is stellar. I found it a little too obtuse though - I don’t mind that it leaves things very ambiguous, but by the end I wasn’t even quite sure what the theme was supposed to be. I can think of a couple different interpretations of the events of the film that sort of fit, but none seem quite right to me and I have to assume there is a deeper layer of meaning than just “she’s disturbed”. I think this would really benefit from a repeat viewing, as there is a ton going on and it’s all intentionally very disorienting. On this first watch though it left me just a little cold. Still a pretty strong recommend though if you like psychological thrillers, especially the two I mentioned above. 4 doppelgangers out of 5 Challenges 7/13: 1. "Eat your loving slop!" - Gingerdead Man vs Evil Bong 3. What's in a Name? - Carrie (2013) 5. Hematology - Baron Blood 7. That Gal - It's a Wonderful Knife 8. They Ruined It! - Carrie (1976) vs Carrie (2013) 9. Bite the Bullet - Images 13. The Gates are Open - The Abyss
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May 21, 2024 15:29
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 #18. The Wind (2018) (Shudder) A plainswoman on the frontier faces the harshness of both nature and isolation, and may be drifting closer to madness and violence. Started a bit late last night, so I wanted to put on something that was both a) shorter than 90 minutes but also b) not total garbage. The trailer for this one on Shudder looked handsomely presented enough, so I went ahead and took a chance on it. It wasn't a terrible movie, and I don't regret my choice last night, but I will say I wasn't expecting it to have such a strange presentation. A lot of the movie is told in flashback - sometimes a flashback within a flashback - and so it becomes harder to pin down in what order events are supposed to be taking place. The film also won't tell you all of the information up front, so it can sometimes seem less like things are being revealed and more like things are changing - a point was made that new neighbor Emma was both born in Germany and also pregnant at one point, so when a story point loops around that main character Lizzy is/was both pregnant and speaking German I had to wonder if the movie was doing some sort of weird personality transposition thing. But no, I guess Lizzy was always supposed to be German and we just were never made privy to this information, prior to this point? And her being pregnant and losing the baby wasn't terribly surprising, as the intro kind of spells out that this was always on the cards, but the information shifting around makes the whole experience feel slightly disorienting at times. Which I suppose is the point, since the whole film is supposed to be building up to a reveal that Lizzy is going mad sitting by herself in the harsh frontier with no one around and no faith to help support her in her lowest moments. But at the same time, the odd temporal presentation kind of limits the effectiveness of this as a character study piece, as it becomes too slippery to keep a good grasp on character motivation from scene to scene. That, and it feels like none of the actors are really rising to the material, or they've been directed to go so insular that they almost feel inert, at times. (This is me being generous to all of the main players involved, though I don't remember seeing them in anything else where I can claim they're capable of better. Whoever plays neighbor husband Gideon is a plank of wood no matter what, though; no point in me trying to pull my punches there.) It ultimately just feels weightless and inconsequential. Like the wind itself. Hey, I guess that makes it fitting after all.  /5Watched so far: The Gorgon, Cutting Class, Infested, Gamera 2, Slotherhouse, The Last Unicorn, Child's Play, Ginger Snaps 2, Odd Thomas, Ghostwatch, Blood, The Curse of Frankenstein, The Premature Burial, Man Vs, Cat People 1942, Cat People 1982, The Hidden, The Wind
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May 21, 2024 16:03
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Crescent Wrench posted:
Thanks for sharing these stats along the way, it is really interesting! gey muckle mowser posted:This has been on my watchlist for years, but the bigger reason I chose it for this challenge is that before 2024 I had never seen a single Robert Altman film (other than MASH like two decades ago) and I've made it my goal to make a significant dent in his filmography this year. You are in for several treats imho! I watched the 1958 The Fly over the weekend as half of the remake challenge but I'll post my write-up after I watch the '86 one so I can review them properly.
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May 21, 2024 16:23
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gey muckle mowser posted:This has been on my watchlist for years, but the bigger reason I chose it for this challenge is that before 2024 I had never seen a single Robert Altman film (other than MASH like two decades ago) and I've made it my goal to make a significant dent in his filmography this year. As this is the only horror film he directed, now seemed like the time to finally watch it. 3 Women should be number one with a bullet. And I'm not just talking about Altman movies.
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May 21, 2024 16:34
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The Berzerker posted:Thanks for sharing these stats along the way, it is really interesting! Thank you! I'm planning on sharing some stats/tidbits/outliers at the end of the month, so it's helpful to keep track as we go along, and it's neat to see the sheer number we're putting up. And I can only imagine how crazy it gets in October compared to this warm-up round.
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May 21, 2024 16:36
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Crescent Wrench posted:We've also covered a lot of ground for various eras of horror. You've got to go all the way back to 1952 before you hit a year where we haven't logged a movie yet. Time to fix that!
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May 21, 2024 16:57
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 9. Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994) I can't be fair about this flavor of kids in horror, man. The little whine-mumble trancers who stare and do sing-song chants and poo poo, it is just the most obnoxious thing in the world to see on screen for me. New Nightmare has so much of that in the mix that I was never gonna be a fan. On top of that, Wes Craven's screenplay is trying to do some twisty meta shenanigans (Heather Langenkamp, star of the first Nightmare on Elm Street, plays herself being approached for a franchise revival) but it never goes deeper than Craven feeling very clever and congratulating himself for the conceit. What New Nightmare's writing instead does superbly is throw some intense poo poo happening into nearly every scene. A 2020s film going for these "is she delusional, is the barrier between reality and fiction breaking down" kinda beats would try to slow-roast you and marinate scenes in mood. But New Nightmare is purestrain '90s, baby! So we get high-volume hair and a comically intrusive soundtrack and high octane spooks and slashings POPPING OFF! Right from the very opening of a special effects Freddy claw coming to life and going nuts on a film set! Everything has an overheated quality that prevents it from being taken seriously for a moment but keeps delivering entertainment. By the time the finale goes fully bonkers in a Greek columned Labyrinth-esque reimagining of Freddy's boiler room murder aesthetic, you've had a good time. Or at least the kid is too freaked out to be doing those annoying tics!!  / 3Challenges: This is the seventh film in the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, crossing off Stop! Stop! He's Already Dead! Vanilla Bison fucked around with this message at 17:16 on May 21, 2024 |
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May 21, 2024 17:13
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Crescent Wrench posted:3 Women should be number one with a bullet. And I'm not just talking about Altman movies. Yeah that and Nashville are next on the list. I haven't had a ton of time for movies this year so at this point I've just watched Images, The Long Goodbye, and The Player. All really good though.
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May 21, 2024 17:20
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Nashville is the one that just completely got in my head and wouldn't leave. I have the itch to watch Nashville like twice a year, I try to have some willpower and keep it to once a year though.
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May 21, 2024 17:32
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 One of the rare times where the poster gets better looking the more sepia-toned it is. Children of the Corn 666 : Isaac's Return (1999) ; Kari Skogland Stop! Stop! He's Already Dead Full disclosure : prior to this I have seen exactly 1 Children of the Corn movie in its entirety at a stretch, as you would watch a movie. I've seen bits of the others, but only as clips or people putting them on at parties. I didn't even like it at the time. My biggest positive is that it taught me what "gasohol" was, and even then I thought it was some kind of joke. I kind of liked it? It's not a great movie, but it was surprisingly okay. The camerawork was way more interesting than it had any right to be, sort of like a dollar store David Lynch but absolutely in love with handhelds. The whole thing is kind of like an episode of Twin Peaks was edited in that late-90's "music video" style. Fascinating. Hannah is a girl who was adopted and is now going to grain-haunted Gatlin to find out stuff about her mother. Spoilers, she's a child of the corn. Who'ddathunk, I know. There's a prophecy about the Return of He Who Walks Behind the Rows and John Franklin pops in to be Isaac again and is pretty good. The plot is the absolute blandest poo poo, but the whole thing is just significantly more stylish than I expected Children of the Corn 666 to be. Also, pretty sure that Stacy Keach isn't acting. That's just Stacy Keach on a normal day.
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May 21, 2024 17:55
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Movie 20: Ghost Ship (1952) Twenty years, I've been to sea, and I'm a God-fearing man. You don't get me on any haunted ship! This viewing was prompted by a very simple thing: Crescent Wrench said we didn't have any 1952 movies on the list yet, and this was on a list of "the 10 best horror movies from 1952". It doesn't hurt that it's about a ghost ship, which is one of my favourite concepts in horror. Nothing like the idea of a ship haunted by the trapped souls of its former crew or passengers! The ghost ship in question here is a fairly small steam yacht lying at a berch at a junkyard. A young couple -- a former Navy man and his wife -- turn up to buy her, because "they are tired of living in apartments" and want to buy a ship and turn it into their house. You know, as you do. The reason the ship is just rusting in port is that she has a Reputation. The ship was owned by an eccentric fellow, who did all kinds of custom modifications to it and then disappeared without a trace some years ago. After the ship was recovered without a living soul aboard, tragedy and strange occurrences seemed to follow her. But hey, it's a great deal, right?  I'm gonna be honest. I have some preconceived notions about old black & white horror movies, largely because I've watched a lot of Mystery Science Theater 3000. They are in my experience often extremely hokey, with questionable acting, directing and writing, and they also look like poo poo. Neither of those things are true here. I watched a fairly recent 1080P restoration, which makes the movie look absolutely lovely. The image is crips and has just enough noise to make the picture seem really lively. As is the often the case with genuine black and white movies, the film also makes good use of light and shadow, which of course again works in the favour of a horror movie.  Another thing that works in the movie's favour is that there are no hokey special effects, and nobody is acting like a ghost while in comical makeup. Instead all the spooky stuff is either implied, or done with subtle special effects: things moving on their own, the ship's weel turning on its own as people look on in horror etc. It's worth mentioning that the movie is English, which in this case is a good thing, as the overall style and tone are a lot more restrained and low-key than in those stereotypical 50s B horror movies I've seen. The main husband and wife team are also both quite well acted, even though some of the supporting cast go a bit broad with their performances. I also really enjoyed how they're both depicted as rational, stable people who are in a loving relationship. The wife isn't some hysterical swooning damsel, but instead an active part of the movie, and both clearly respect each other and their opinions. It's nice to see, especially in an old movie!  Overall I quite liked the movie. It's got the feel and pacing of an old school English ghost story. It takes its time being low key with some small, strange things happening. People report weird smells, the chief engineers keep quitting, because they report seeing a ghost in the engine room, the intercom keeps going off by itself... but of course that's not the end of it. I also really liked how the movie tries to put a scientific face on things by having researchers from an institute for psychic research roll up to study the haunting, and present their thesis on how and why hauntings happen, and why inexplicable events tend to happen in hot climates and countries. I'm not going to say the movie is the greatest horror movie ever made or anything, but it was a drat pleasant surprise. If you're in the market for a low key horror movie with some neat ideas and a really cool look, you could do a lot worse than watching Ghost Ship. / 5 The Best Part: It's obvious that a lot, if not all of the movie was shot on location aboard a real life steam yacht, often out on the water. A great choice, because the natural light just looks awesome in black and white. The contrast is great, especially on the crisp 1080P restauration. The insides of the boat also have that cool slightly cramped and claustrophobic feel of a real ship. Both would've been hard to replicate on a set on a sound stage. Challenges completed: 14/14 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, 11. The Exorcist III, 12. My Bloody Valentine (1981), 13. Death Race 2000 (1975), 14. Leprechaun, 15. Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, 16. Ghostbusters, 17. Ghostbusters II, 18. The Cars That Ate Paris, 19. Late Night with the Devil, 20. Ghost Ship (1952) Shaman Tank Spec fucked around with this message at 18:53 on May 21, 2024 |
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May 21, 2024 18:45
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Crescent Wrench posted:And I can only imagine how crazy it gets in October compared to this warm-up round. For how many of us treat the May challenge as the pre-event warm up stretching, imagine the most crazy things'll get and notch that up by a few. Shaman Tank Spec posted:largely because I've watched a lot of Mystery Science Theater 3000. They are in my experience often extremely hokey, with questionable acting, directing and writing, and they also look like poo poo. As much as I watched the hell out of the original run of MST3K and enjoyed it, I do wonder if it helped cement the misconception of black & white films are all schlock.
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May 21, 2024 20:00
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M_Sinistrari posted:As much as I watched the hell out of the original run of MST3K and enjoyed it, I do wonder if it helped cement the misconception of black & white films are all schlock. For me definitely. That, plus the old black and white westerns and romance movies we had to endure every time we went to my grandma's place. But then I also realize it's an unfair conclusion. A lot of movies today are also poo poo, and I'm sure if some future guy watching the 2062 reboot of MST3K thinks all movies from these days are like the Asylum releases or "we had an AI make this movie" crapfests that show would undoubtedly use, they'd also have an unfair take.
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May 21, 2024 20:06
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It’s funny it feels like it goes both ways. I know people who have only watched TCM and Criterion black and white films who think every old film is good. And I know people who grew up on Saturday matinee films and “old is bad” teen thought who think everything was cheap and subpar. Equal parts people just not processing that every era of film gets filtered by time. I kind of feel the same way when people praise horror of the 70s or 80s and trash modern stuff. Like we’re just watching all the good and bad come out in real time and self selecting for the preferred stuff from the past. There’s always artists making great films and hacks making crap.
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May 21, 2024 20:54
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Yeah, the people loudly declaring "all modern horror is awful" annoy the hell out of me, because it's just inverse recency bias. Of course the 70s and 80s seem like everything was a stone-cold classic, because all the forgettable junk got tossed in the intervening years. Give it until 2040 when everyone will be proudly announcing "The 2020s were obviously the golden age!"
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May 21, 2024 21:00
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M_Sinistrari posted:As much as I watched the hell out of the original run of MST3K and enjoyed it, I do wonder if it helped cement the misconception of black & white films are all schlock. I legit liked a lot of movies MST covered and got a lot of poo poo for that from my early BBS movie nerds
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May 21, 2024 21:12
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That may be the case for you guys but i shop at Vinegar Syndrome. I watch tons of really bad stuff from the 70s and 80s.
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May 21, 2024 21:14
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I'm genuinely fascinated by sci fi schlock from the 50s and 60s. The ones where aliens are just other humans in dumb clothes with fantastical technology. This Island Earth is a good example. Are there any good deep dive documentaries/podcasts/books on this era?
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May 21, 2024 21:19
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Gripweed posted:That may be the case for you guys but i shop at Vinegar Syndrome. I watch tons of really bad stuff from the 70s and 80s. It's awesome
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May 21, 2024 22:30
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Gripweed posted:That may be the case for you guys but i shop at Vinegar Syndrome. I watch tons of really bad stuff from the 70s and 80s. 
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May 21, 2024 23:38
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 10. Ginger Snaps (2000) You know, for the longest time when I heard about this movie in horror threads on here, I wondered what ginger cookies had to do with werewolves. This is because I am dumb. "No one ever thinks chicks do poo poo like this." Oh man, anyone who grew up in the pre-cellphone '90s pissed off at all the "popular kids" will have some fun with Ginger Snaps. Two goth sisters have a run-in with a werewolf, Katharine Isabelle gets bitten, and the combo of menstruation and lycanthrophy makes for a teenaged shitshow! "I get this ache. And I thought it was for sex, but it's to tear everything into loving pieces." Ginger Snaps is an obvious inspiration for Jennifer's Body, both stories about girls who were once close split apart by a monstrous transformation and the ensuing violence. Where Jennifer's Body flies off into voracious camp, Ginger Snaps instead stays grounded in recognizable relationships and pubescent beats: sibling bickering, body revulsion, concerned parents who don't know whether to involve themselves more or less, useless school staff. Gory escalations and some great makeup effects are striking even on a low budget, but the vibe is never pushed too far beyond The Shittiest Month You Ever Had in High School. "I can't have a hairy chest, B! That's hosed!" It's full of sharp dialogue but it doesn't strain itself to be quippy. Ginger Snaps is confident in its fun moments, like when Katharine Isabelle strides into school with the same energy as Wesley Snipes striding into a vampire nightclub. It goes to vivid hosed-up places as comfortably as it depicts two teen sisters bitching each other out. Great youth acting by Isabelle and Emily Perkins, anchoring a drat fine movie. "I'm up to some whack poo poo right now. I'm way out on the corner of hosed up and evil!"  .5 / 5Challenges: Starring Katharine Isabelle, satisfying That Gal.
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May 22, 2024 03:51
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19: Pearl I still haven't seen X but I'm not really sure I want to bother, but this had enough buzz on its own and the wife really wanted TK watch it. It was good! Mia Goth absolutely carries it, and there are some really gorgeous shots in here. I like how they really show the desperation that leads Pearl to where she ends up, but doesn't quite make her sympathetic.
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May 22, 2024 05:02
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Gyro Zeppeli posted:Yeah, the people loudly declaring "all modern horror is awful" annoy the hell out of me, because it's just inverse recency bias. Of course the 70s and 80s seem like everything was a stone-cold classic, because all the forgettable junk got tossed in the intervening years. Give it until 2040 when everyone will be proudly announcing "The 2020s were obviously the golden age!" Or asking why no horror movies were released in the 2020s.
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May 22, 2024 09:36
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17) The Funhouse (1981)  Some teens spend the night at a carnival funhouse with spooky results. Tobe Hooper directs, so I had reasonably high hopes for this and happily they were met. It makes good use of the setting, there's a lot of visual interest and creativity. The score is surprisingly good. There's a lot more style to this film than typical for a slasher of the period. This is the second Video Nasty in a row I've watched and it's the weirdest ban decision I've yet seen. According to wikipedia, the sensors may have banned it by mistake instead of another film that sometimes went by the same name. Nowadays this is only rated 15. If you like 80's slashers, definitely check this out. Total/New to me: 17/15 Challenges: 14 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); The Witches of Eastwick (1987); The Mist (2007); The Terror (1963); The Bells (1926); The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1968); Night of the Bloody Apes (1972); The Funhouse (1981)
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May 22, 2024 09:57
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34. Blue Sunshine (1977) (first viewing) (watched on AMC+/Shudder)  It's 1977, and a a rash of bizarre murders is taking place. Seemingly normal people are suddenly going bald, turning feral, and going on killing sprees. And--in a plot twist that somehow predates the start of the D.A.R.E. program by half a decade--the culprit is "Blue Sunshine," or a batch of acid these people dropped 10 years earlier. This is fun, and certainly has some wild moments, although it's not as wall-to-wall bonkers as a movie with this premise might have been. It's certainly entertaining to see people going bald and freaking out, and the first sequence, in particular, is great. There are definitely slow stretches, as it's not just a psychedelic slasher, but also has a '70s mystery/conspiracy element that moves the plot along. Our protagonist is working on tracking down the original dealer of the acid. It turns out to be an up-and-coming politician running for Congress who's concerned about his wilder college days derailing his campaign. Oddly, this doesn't actually amount to anything, although that's not really apparently until the minute final minutes. The movie ends with an old-fashioned couple of text slides detailing the aftermath of the murders, but neglects to state if anything happened to the man responsible, or even what went wrong with this batch of acid. It even ends with a warning that 250 batches of "Blue Sunshine" are unaccounted for. I'm pretty sure tabs of LSD go bad way before 10 years, but you never know... SPOOKY SCREENINGS (34 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); The Weirdo (1989); Zipperface (1992); The Baby (1973); The Alchemist Cookbook (2016); The Fall of the House of Usher (1960); Sole Survivor (1984); Morgan (2016); Tau (2018); Occult (2009); Not of This Earth (1988); Silent House (2011); Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011); Tremors: Shrieker Island (2020); One Missed Call (2003); Scalpel (1977); Terrified (2017); Blue Sunshine (1977)
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May 22, 2024 12:02
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