LtKenFrankenstein posted:

By the way, anyone here who liked Candyman should check out Bernard Rose's previous movie, Paperhouse. It's only tangentially a horror movie - more like a dark drama with fantasy elements - but it's absolutely worth a watch.

Twee as gently caress posted:

I think we'll all agree this rocked

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIIzRXKoYDI

FigurativelyHitler posted:

I wish he'd finish that giant sequel to The Hellbound Heart he's supposed to be working on, but I doubt it'll ever materialize.

Volume posted:

Is that the one where a little girl who looks like a boy draws a house and visits it in her dreams? Cause if so, that movie was awesome.

penismightier posted:

Reminder that David Cronenberg directed an episode of this show.

penismightier posted:

Reminder that David Cronenberg directed an episode of this show.

LtKenFrankenstein posted:

Interesting. Any good?

Profondo Rosso posted:

The episode of Tftds called "Bigalow's last smoke" about some dude who signs up for a program to help him quit smoking, and ends up imprisoned in a replica of his apartment and psychologically tortured is pretty great! Also written by the great Michael McDowell.

The series is really hit or miss (and misses more often than not)

(It's also up on YouTube but I dunno if that's or not. Just google

Robot_Rumpus posted:

I think he has ended up using a lot of his ideas in the Hellraiser comics (which I can't imagine many people read).

Profondo Rosso posted:

The episode of Tftds called "Bigalow's last smoke" about some dude who signs up for a program to help him quit smoking, and ends up imprisoned in a replica of his apartment and psychologically tortured is pretty great! Also written by the great Michael McDowell.

The series is really hit or miss (and misses more often than not)

(It's also up on YouTube but I dunno if that's or not. Just google

penismightier posted:

Monsters was so much better.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Rk93nh3dz8

Dissapointed Owl posted:

Speaking of which, I watched Grave Encounters 2 last night and I always enjoy watching a movie completely poo poo itself 2/3 through.

'Plodding' and 'beginning to get interesting' quickly turned to simply 'dumb'.

When the thing that's scary in your movie is scary because you can't understand it, don't try to loving explain it or literally map it out in the sequel.

adamj1982 posted:

At the very moment I read this I had GE2 paused a little over the one hour mark, I feel like it should have ended 10 minutes ago and I'm dreading watching the rest.

MacheteZombie posted:

Remember the Nightmare on Elm Street t.v. series? The only reason I liked that show was the one episode with Brad Pitt.

Nathander posted:

The movie not so much. There was a straight adaptation of Rawhead Rex a few years ago that was fantastic in imagining the story, especially it's design of Rawhead.

Nathander posted:

There was also apparently a Nightbreed vs. Rawhead Rex comic book mini series which was some loving news to me. For some reason Rex has a character design far closer to his movie design, which is surprising since Barker apparently wrote the miniseries himself and has talked about how much he hated the movie's design of Rex.

LtKenFrankenstein posted:

You're getting mixed up. There was a Nightbreed vs. Hellraiser comic miniseries, not Nightbreed vs. Rawhead Rex.

Volume posted:

Man gently caress you haters. Rawhead Rex was a fantastic movie.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gsiwDveLtQ

Nathander posted:

Actually there was both apparently.

Soylent Green posted:

I think we're all just a bit worried for you pal, but that this thread really isn't the place for discussions about it. For what it's worth our medical histories are pretty similar, I tried to PM you but you don't have platinum so if you want to talk about any of this stuff you can reach me by email, my gmail is johnnyrsharker. Completely your call, but that's the last I'm going to speak of it here; I hope you don't mind me saying this much penismightier, sorry if I've overstepped the line.

Moving swiftly on:

In 1975, after over two decades of working almost exclusively for the BBC, Nigel Kneale (Quatermass,Year of the Sex Olympics, The Stone Tape, The Woman in Black, Halloween III: Season of the Witch) was hired as a staff writer at ATV; a subsidiary of ITV. His first commission was a standalone play titled Murrain for their Against the Crowd series. A grim kitchen-sink style drama about witchcraft and science in a small modern community; it spawned a further six films the following year under the heading of Beasts.



Each of these tales deals in some way with humanity’s interaction with nature and the unknown. Each approaches the themes in a different way so as to never retread old ground (with one exception which I’ll cover later so as not to spoil anything for you.

There’s no hard and fast order to view these in so I’m going to cover the more popular ones inititally. Today I’ll be writing about the story probably held in the highest regard by modern audiences (although During Barty’s Party probably edges it for my favourite); Baby


It’s up on youtube here, I’ll be linking anything I talk about if it’s available on youtube seeing as a lot is unavailable in the US. While it is available on the UK Amazon it tends to be out of stock and has never been released in America to the best of my knowledge. I’ll also note here that they had bugger all money for special effects so on the extremely rare occasion they use one it’ll look gash. I doubt that’ll be a big problem for most of you but fair warning.


Baby tells the story of a young couple, Jo and Peter Gilkes, moving out of the city to an old cottage in the countryside. Jo is heavily pregnant and Peter has just secured a position as a vet alongside local Dick Pummery. Two handymen are working on renovating the cottage, Stan and Arthur. We’re introduced to them first, with the elder Arthur discovering an abandoned bird’s nest in the guttering. It’s full of eggs, which Stan breaks in disgust for being “filthy, stinking addled”.


A quick note on Arthur’s character; he’s an archetype commonly seen in older British horror: the elderly uneducated man who is nonetheless wise to the ways of nature. Commonly seen dispensing advice about things there’s no reasonable way they’d know about and would realistically be dismissed out of hand by most in the modern day.

Shortly thereafter Jo arrives with the family cat, affectionately named “Mudslinger”. Mud is clearly in extreme distress upon arriving at the house and the moment he’s let out of the carrier basket he dashes off to the countryside. Jo is upset, but her husband arrives shortly thereafter and refuses to go looking for him. Within about 30 seconds of his introduction we realise that Peter is an absolute oval office of the highest order. Jo tries to tell him that it was the house that Mud didn’t like and he immediately berates her in a rather aggressive manner. While it’s never explicitly stated I’ve always read a very strong suggestion of domestic abuse within the lead couple. We certainly see him emotionally abusing her, if not physically, leading me to think that Jo is suffering somewhat from battered wife syndrome. The reasons for their strained relationship perhaps become clearer later on.

In a further excess of manliness, upon discovering that the workmen have not finished knocking down a wall to make room for a fridge freezer, Peter decides to do it himself. It’s important to note here that Jo grew up in the country and understands the way of life, it’s Stan and Arthur’s job and they shouldn’t interfere; Peter is of the opinion that he’s paying them and they haven’t done it, so he will. Peter is the physical embodiment of modern day society, a city boy with a short temper and no time or respect for the old ways.
While knocking down the wall (in an extended sequence that would never be allowed to stand if made today) they discover that it’s hollow, concealing a very old jar, sealed with wax.



Naturally Peter decides to open it. I’m going to stop mentioning Jo’s reservations about things, it’s safe to assume she’s uncomfortable with pretty much every action everyone takes from this point. The jar contains some sort of petrified animal; Peter, despite being a vet, is unable to identify it and questions whether in fact it was the result of a pregnancy that came to term or not. His best guess is that it’s “a cross between two animals that ought to know better”. Jo asks him to bury it, but he wants to show it to his colleague and figure out what it is; so he keeps it.

The next morning, thinking she hears the cat downstairs, discovers Peter has stashed the jar with the creature in the kitchen cabinet. Stan and Arthur look at it, Arthur strongly advises her to get rid of it. She’s more than happy to oblige and throws it on the fire outside, but too late to stop Peter arriving and rescuing it, intending to show it to his boss.

That covers just over the first act, rather than writing down the rest of the plot synopsis I’m going to do a bit of analysis, which will be a bit spoilery for here on out as it covers the whole film.

Firstly, let’s note that the ending leaves on a pretty ambiguous note as to whether anything supernatural actually happened or it was just Jo being delusional. There’s evidence on both sides:

For the supernatural:
The land has a history of miscarriage: the birds, cattle and dogs. This has happened to such a regular degree that the locals refuse to use the land.
The cat’s fear of the house and it’s demise.
The animal itself, which remains unexplained beyond Arthur’s reasoning that it’s a witches familiar. This appears to be what we see at the end.

On the other hand;

“It’s all in her head”:
This is not her first miscarriage, the previous one was also precipitated by hallucinations.
Nobody else seems to notice any of the strange goings on, in particular the noises.

The genius of Kneale's writing here is that it provides the viewer with enough evidence that there could be a supernatural element to the proceedings based on what could circumstantially occur quite easily in real life. The story provides a window into a viewpoint we have closed ourselves well off of.

For my money, while Rosemary's Baby still holds the crown for the best cinematic portrayal of pregnancy related fears, Baby is a strong contender for the silver medal (in spite of it's somewhat ropey special effects and a couple of below par performances)

And with that I'll throw it open to the floor! I have more to say about Baby, but there's not much point going on at length until people have seen it. I'm going to try and do another one (probably During Barty's Party) in the next few days. I hope you folks give it a shot.

Nathander posted:

Nathander posted:

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:

That style looks so familiar, who's the artist?

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:

I just wanna highlight this post again, because I thought it was in the general chat thread, and BEASTS is absolutely fantastic. We talked about this a bit in the new general chat!

LtKenFrankenstein posted:

I kinda love the Tales from the Darkside movie, but the show's... pretty janky.

achillesforever6 posted:

Isn't that the movie that Tom Savini said was the real Creepshow III?

Soylent Green posted:

I'm glad you like it! I haven't really ventured into the general chat thread. I probably should but it can be a daunting prospect. I've been meaning to get back to doing write-ups, I just haven't gotten around to it. This'll give me the drive to start again tomorrow though, probably During Barty's Party unless everyone has already watched Beasts. Was the Beasts conversation recent in the chat thread? I'll try and find it.
Edit; I just found it and out reactions to During Barty's Party are so different that I'm going to have to do it next.

Also this is totally unrelated but since you're in here, Dissapointed Owl, I'm the guy who recorded my friends vocals a couple of weeks ago for you. I figured you should know

quote:

BEASTS update and power ranking:

The Dummy
I don't know why I was so floored by this one but it just owns, all of the characters are really fun and they do so much characterization with the limited time they have. The reporter, for example, could come off as totally superflous but her presence subtly instigates what happens in the second half. The old hand actor they have playing the priest is comic relief but it's good comic relief, it's actually funny and doesn't derail the story. The main guy's performance at first almost seems way too big for what the story they're telling is, it's so sweaty and chilly, but it's great. He's kind of got the DT's but he's fuckin' possessed. I also the back and forth about him being washed up but his friends want to try to resurrect his career because they believe the hype about this monster character he's created that's intertwined with the Wayne Newton-ish wannabe Errol Flynn guy stealing his wife. Another thing I love is the transition to part two with the BEASTS title card, because it comes out of nowhere in this one after he goes apeshit and strangles the guy on set. Perfect intersection of a ridiculous looking character and sheer terror. It's not deathly serious as to be humorless, but when the good stuff comes it's greater than the sum of it's parts. I like this one almost as much as The Stone Tape.

Special Offer
I love the two lead performances in this, the lead guy is a swaggering dickhead manager who is moderately ambitious, but likes his job because he gets to gently caress teenage checkout clerks and the lead girl is a pimply, overweight, shy girl who has a wall up around her. I really like that she plays it so close that she actually has a crush on him, which is paid off with that terrifying scene where she wears makeup to work for him. What's also great is that the exposition about the phenomena is ambiguous like any good poltergeist story ought to be. This is the reason in general why I don't mind Kneale's exposition, because even when the characters try to figure out what exactly is going on, he leaves the door open for the idea that they've just talked themselves into it. Also notable for a couple of foxy 70's babes.

During Barty's Party
It's cool how the one episode featuring the radio so prominently is so much like a radio play. It's an effective radio play, but a radio play nonetheless, there is a shitload of exposition and when there isn't, it's a lot of speculation about something happening offscreen. I could see how someone would find that particularly egregious, after all, The Happening has a protagonist who correctly guesses what's going on and even if you think it's clever, it's still more funny than scary. I also like how the husband just freaks out in the second half and the wife has to take charge of the situation. It's the most "flawed" I've finished watching so far but the ending is awesome.

What Big Eyes
By far the talkiest and most subtle of all of these episodes; it's only hurt by the fact I was barely paying attention. I recall the pushy inspector character being very reminiscent of Edward Woodward in The Wicker Man and that the performance of the old guy was excellent. Again, the last ten minutes are fantastic but I have a feeling I should watch this one again to have it shoot up in my estimation.

I'm watching Buddy Boy right now and while I am game for the completely ludicrous premise (which is half the fun of Kneale's writing), I don't like that it has non-diegetic music, as opposed to every other. I'm suddenly transported back to a few years back when I fell in love with No Country For Old Men because it had no non-diegetic music. I kind of feel like the soundtrack was added because nobody trusted the idea of a goddamn ghost of a dolphin to be even remotely scary. I can't blame them but it's also a huge mistake on their part, Day of the Dolphin is a couple of years prior to this and that movie kicks a fair amount of rear end. They even throw in some bare breasts to keep your attention! This so far seems like the most messed with, it loses a lot of the stagebound nature of the other four episodes, pretty much all of them take place on one continuous set and a few rooms.

TOOT BOOT posted:

I wonder where there aren't more Lovecraftian horror movies being produced given how popular that subgenre is in other media.

TOOT BOOT posted:

I wonder where there aren't more Lovecraftian horror movies being produced given how popular that subgenre is in other media.

LtKenFrankenstein posted:

I mean, Lovecraftian stories are kinda inherently hard to film since most of them revolve around an indescribable, impossible to depict horror.