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6. Sinister (2012) This is definitely a much more mainstream horror than the last couple of movies. A true crime writer moves with his family to a house where a whole family was murdered, without telling the wife of course. Then things get spooky. It's a bit heavily on cliches, jump scares and is rather predictable (I could see the kids getting possessed and doing the murdering like halfway through) but at least it's somewhat effective as at ramping up tension and escalating it to the end. I think they could've done something more interesting with the guy's slow mental breakdown. He's not actually going nuts if all the weird poo poo is actually happening and that's kind of disappointing. This can be recommended if you just want something kind of scary but not particularly deep or intellectually simulating. E: A small public service for anyone like me who isn't a huge horror nerd and can't instantly tell what were the interesting horror movies in 1994 or something. Based on IMDB scores so YMMV obviously. 
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Sep 30, 2017 15:24
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Hollismason posted:At first I thought House on Sorority Row wa gonna be garbage but this is a real film and honestly pretty great o far. It may be a top-10 slasher or all-time. Towards the bottom of the top-10, but still. It's really, really good.
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Sep 30, 2017 15:50
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13. Subspecies (1991) This is one I can't even remember the last time I saw it. Lots of disjointed memories of things that might have happened? I mainly remembered how gross Radu was. That is to say he's really really gross. The guy constantly has blood dripping out his face and it's oddly thick looking and every time he sucks on the Bloodstone its just, ugh. I really didn't give this much a chance but was pleasantly surprised by the end how much I enjoyed it. It makes it's own lore mixed with real world superstition and has some neat scenes and camera work. Also a little Angus Scrimm action. The little stop motion monster dudes were also pretty cool. Not at all bad for early 90s Full Moon.
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Sep 30, 2017 16:06
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mother! 2017, dir. Darren Aronofsky | In Theaters I saw this movie on Thursday and I wanted some time to think about it before I posted it.  It's a difficult movie to talk about without spoiling, and I don't really want to go into details anyway, since this film is best experienced with barely any knowledge of what it's about, other than it's a satire and an allegory. I think it's good to know that this is satire from the get-go; this movie is very funny when it wants to be. This film is amazing on every technical level: the cinematography is great, the sound design is the best I've heard in years (definitely a treat to hear in a theater or with surround sound), the editing and pacing, the music. Every actor is wonderful. I now respect Jennifer Lawrence as an actress, Javier Bardem puts in solid work. I saw this with five friends. Four of them loved it, the fifth appreciated it as a good movie, but hated it as a movie-going experience and will never watch it again. She couldn't look at the screen for the last 20 minutes. The allegories at work, all the layers of themes, all of the symbols, the dream logic, it all worked for me. The use of biblical allegories to show the hypocrisy and evil that comes from mankind following blind faith, and the destruction we place on the world, and the role of God (who is an rear end in a top hat) and Earth, all the evil that men do, pain and suffering...All of it works for me. This is a movie that will reward the viewer with every single viewing. It's not an easy movie to watch. It's not supposed to be. It's not scary, but it's tense and paranoid. It's fueled on anxieties. The story and imagery is horrific, and so I fully consider this film a horror film. Despite the horror that occurs, and however you feel after the end (it will be very heavy for a lot of people), it's not without it's humor. It has very funny moments, and moments of beauty, which really fills out the experience.  / 5Movies Watched NEW: I Walked With A Zombie, Dead & Buried, The Mummy ('59), The Resurrected, Critters, Cemetery Man. The Return of the Living Dead, Roadgames ('81), mother! REWATCH: SHORT FILMS (not counted in goal): Junk Head 1; TOTAL: 9 [/quote]
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Sep 30, 2017 16:10
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MOVIE FIVE The Re-Animator (Stuart Gordon, 1985) Pauline Kael calls this "indigenous American junkiness", which is about as bang-on as you can get. It's a great mixture of 40s gothic horror and 80s underground comedy - there are talking heads, headless bodies, and stumbling zombies, there's a discomforting rape scene, a cat puppet, and glowing green serum, and right in the middle of this nonsensical thunderstorm is the cool, cold, calculating face of Jeffrey Combs, who plays Herbert West with so much nervy psychopathic panache that I wish the movie went on for another two hours just so we could enjoy his presence that much longer. It's absolutely silly but it's also impressively sure-footed, maintaining a weird tone from start to finish and running on a thread of manic energy. Even the aping of the Psycho theme makes a weird, subconscious sense - this was a great era, after all, for the mix-and-match apocalyptic collision between the atomic future and the atomic yesterday. It's even a little scary. For all its exuberant, pimply enthusiasm and dry college wit, the underlying concepts have a disturbing edge, and I really appreciate that. A good horror film, even the friendly ones, should have that discomforting bite. Herbert West's drive is unnerving, the effects of his serum are creepy, and the way these characters are all trapped in a quagmire poured by the previous generation borders on gutwrenching, and the reedy 80s humor keeps the movie prickly. It's great! I loved it! 5/5 lecherous heads
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Sep 30, 2017 17:11
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Finished up Hooper week with a double feature, first up: I really enjoyed this one, I'd probably slot it in right above The Funhouse and just below TCM 2. It's a great throw-back and Hooper really embraces that in all aspects of the film. The monster effects are a bit goofy, but that's obviously the point and the goofiness is combined with an unsettling quality that comes mostly from their movement. The aliens do this little shuffle as they move(or even just when they're standing around), which was really a bit of genius because it lends them a lifelike quality that would have probably been lacking otherwise. The cast isn't very notable, aside from Karen Black, and then of course there's a nice role for James Karen of Return of the Living Dead fame. Always a treat to see him. I started with Texas Chainsaw so I thought I should end with Texas Chainsaw:  It'd been about ten years since I'd seen this, so it was almost like new. I've really gained an appreciation for this kind of balls-out craziness in recent years, and some of the scenes in this movie are just insane. I can totally see why Moseley became a horror legend based on this performance. He's absolutely disgusting. Between this film, The Funhouse, and the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, I think we can really see where Rob Zombie became inspired to make horror movies. The lair in this movie reminds me a lot of the underground tunnels in House of 1000 Corpses, and of course Dennis Hooper's character was an obvious inspiration for The Devil's Rejects. The only criticism I'd have here is that in all the silliness Leatherface is a bit neutered. He's used more for comedy in this film then for horror(although there's that too), and the terrifying mystery that he was in the original is a bit ruined. I have a day left before October 1st, so I think I'm gonna use it to check out The Seventh Curse.
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Sep 30, 2017 17:11
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Magic Hate Ball posted:MOVIE FIVE Love reading people's reactions to Re-Animator. One of my absolute favorite movies ever. Have you seen Bride?
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Sep 30, 2017 17:53
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14. The Horror of Dracula (1958) Daaaaamn this was fun to watch. Dracula's presence on screen is just awesome in every scene, it feels like he's dripping with complete contempt for his prey. Peter Cushing is also doing great work and brings a lot of intensity that sells how dangerous Dracula really is. I have to say I was a bit disappointed my dvd set didn't have the sequel because I really wanted some more Gothic horror in my day.
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Sep 30, 2017 20:32
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Vacancy (2007) This really reminded me of Strangers, and I was surprised that it pre-dates it. I thought this was a rip-off, but it came out a year prior. both films involve a young couple with relationship problems being stalked for mysterious reasons. In this case, they are at a motel in the middle of nowhere. This isn't a particularly frightening film. We get too many shots of the villains and way too many telegraphed scares. The motive of the villains is really lame too. I also really don't care for Luke Wilson, so that's another negative. Still, the film manages to be pretty entertaining. The story doesn't take much time to get going and it really doesn't slow down much, and at 85 minutes it's probably worth watching at least once. Rewatches (4): Maniac Cop, Friday the 13th 3, Friday the 13th 4, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3 First time watches (8): Mortuary, Little Evil, Eloise, Mother!, The Roommate, The Chaos Experiment, Resident Evil 6,Vacancy
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Sep 30, 2017 22:47
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I'm pretty sure I have 30 movies sitting on my blu ray shelf that fit the criteria of this thread, but that feels like cheating. So I will try to see some new ones / watch the ones I haven't thrown into the player yet.
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Sep 30, 2017 23:19
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Bruteman posted:One of my favorite all-time fourth wall gags comes from Gremlins 2 and it was mind-blowing to me that they made different versions of it appropriate for the theater, home video and even the loving novelization of the film.  I'm gonna need to hear what they do in the book.
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Sep 30, 2017 23:29
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Choco1980 posted:
Tony Randall's Brain/Glasses Gremlin ties up the novelist and types out a "proto-capitalist Democrat" screed Text: There. The novelizer, Mr. David Bischoff, Esq., has been successfully waylaid and is now tied up in the bathroom of his Los Angeles apartment. Do not attempt to adjust your book. We have control of the programming. Please excuse the rudeness. You have previously known me as the "Gremlin that drank the brain fluid" - or, as Bischoff quaintly called me, Mr. Glasses. Believe it or not, in the screenplay, I am referred to as BRAIN GREMLIN. I want to take this opportunity to talk to you about our philosophy toward life, so that we will not be misunderstood and branded as "monsters." Yes, but faithful novel readers, I do not intend to cheat you. In the movie presentation, Gremlins take over the movie theater (ah, what a delicious conceit - excellent, Joe - was that you?) and Hulk Hogan comes to the rescue. I do believe that Kenneth Tobey of THE THING is somewhere in there. However, let us deal with more intellectual matters. In the great paradigm of anti-intellectualism that is the vast American untermenchen, there needs to be a seismic quake of thought, a veritable avalanche of anarchy, to wake you somnambulent beings from your couch-potato torpor. May I offer you the services of we Gremlins. You may hereafter refer to us as the New Capitalist Democratic Nice Folks. Already our numbers are spreading out from the heart of America to aid you in this endeavor and although you may be viewing this physically for the first time now (except for those lucky citizens of Kingston Falls who received a foreshadow some years ago) our intellectual forces have been at work for some time, albeit embodied in human form. According to my contacts with our crypto-CD's the Church of SubGenius it is generally not know, for instance, that the entirety of network television is programmed by proto-Capitalist Democrats. However, the past is merely prologue, introduction, forward, with some long footnotes thrown in. Our time is now! So, my dear readers (oh, the few, the chosen literate who have been intelligent enough to purchase this volume) prepare for a New Age of the New Capitalist Demo - Oh dear. Mr. Bischoff seems to have successfully axed his way out of the bathroom. Methinks I need to fly and return this temporarily liberated keyboard to his suburb, urbane and witty prose - Back I fly to the Clamp Cent...
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Sep 30, 2017 23:40
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Bruteman posted:Tony Randall's Brain/Glasses Gremlin ties up the novelist and types out a "proto-capitalist Democrat" screed My God. It's beautiful.
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Oct 1, 2017 00:22
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12: Earth vs the Flying Saucers (1956) The 50s were full of these monster flicks that dance on the edge between SF and horror, but this one is kind of special because it's Ray Harryhausen's second credited movie (he did a couple before it that were not credited). Independence Day is very much informed by Harryhausen's famous destruction of Washington monuments, and Mars Attacks! basically is EvTFS. Once the effects take over in the final third it turns a bit limp, but before that it's got a pretty sharp screenplay from Curt Siodmak (Donovan's Brain, The Wolf Man) and a good fist in the lead from Hugh Marlowe, best known in these parts as "the guy in The Day The Earth Stood Still who isn't Michael Rennie". I watched the colourised version from 2008. Not a bad colour job, I have to say.
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Oct 1, 2017 00:25
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 5. Them!-1954: 8/10 (Turner Classic Movies) The best and classiest giant killer ant movie ever. It's still pretty cheesy but they sure do their best to make a very serious movie out of a ridiculous premise and it pretty much works.
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Oct 1, 2017 00:30
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Lurdiak's Scream Stream thread has risen from the grave! (obviously)
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Oct 1, 2017 00:36
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11. The Dead Next Door Ambitious epic low-budget zombie movie (that as pointed out earlier in the thread was funded by Sam Raimi, and Bruce Campbell worked on the sound and dubs the lines for two of the characters). This was not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. I mean, it's definitely amateur work, and yet going in with that knowledge there's some decent shots and makeup work here. If there's one thing I think that doesn't work well, it's that it almost feels like they were shooting for satire (well ok, the joke with the first appearances of the zombies in the video store at the beginning is definitely intended) and it doesn't quite work because the writing, voice work and line reads are all the worst parts of the film. Still, an interesting watch that tried to do something original - at the time, at least - with the genre.
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Oct 1, 2017 01:12
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CopywrightMMXI posted:My God. It's beautiful. It really, really is. Wow.
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Oct 1, 2017 01:24
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1)Ghostwatch 2)Willow Creek 3)Mother! 4:Q 5)Vampyros Lesbos 6)Saw the final chapter 7)Trilogy of Terror  8)train to busan absolute blast, best zombie flick Ive seen in ages.  /5
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Oct 1, 2017 02:38
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See a bunch of horror films, huh? Alright, lets do this! Horror is a real blind spot for me, I was a real coward as a child. My main memories of watching scary movies are 1) watching The Faculty at a friends sleepover birthday party, but being so scared that I pretended to need to go to the toilet every five minutes, 2) despite being crazy nuts about dinosaurs, being so scared of the first T-rex attack scene in Jurassic Park that I left the room and never came back (lol), and 3) crying so hard on the Gremlins ride at the Gold Coast, Australia Warner Bros Movie World that they had to stop the ride to let me off (I think? may have been at Universal Studios on a holiday to the US). So yeah. I've seen some recent horror films, this year I think just Raw and Get Out, but of the classics only a handful. So where to begin? There are some semi-obscure Australian flicks I've been keen to see for a while, now sadly out of print, which I was recently able to track down at a hipster DVD rental place. These are BeDevil and Bliss (I don't think that second one is actually a horror, but we'll see). For good measure I also rented another Aussie flick called Bloodmoon on a mates recommendation. So start with those three, then really sink my teeth into some horror. Q: The Winged Serpent sounded neat, maybe do that next? Also going to try and drink a fancy beer with each one. Letterboxd link here Ruptured Yakety Sax fucked around with this message at 06:22 on Oct 1, 2017 |
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Oct 1, 2017 05:56
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9. Gerald's Game Pretty good for something that small scale. They picked a good cast and made it all look nice. Also had a couple little Easter eggs to other King works in there which was fun Nothing ground breaking but definitely worth a look.
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Oct 1, 2017 07:12
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19. The Love Witch - I am certain this movie has an audience but I am not it. It feels like it's trying to ape the ugliest parts of a style that never really existed - the performances remind me of The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra more than anything, but it's only got enough humor to support half its run time. In fact, the longer this goes the more I think its closest cousin is Cadavra. It's just much slower and not nearly as funny. It's definitely going to be someone's favorite movie, though, so if you are the opposite of me you should give it a watch.
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Oct 1, 2017 07:20
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Irony.or.Death posted:19. The Love Witch - I am certain this movie has an audience but I am not it. It feels like it's trying to ape the ugliest parts of a style that never really existed - the performances remind me of The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra more than anything, but it's only got enough humor to support half its run time. In fact, the longer this goes the more I think its closest cousin is Cadavra. It's just much slower and not nearly as funny. It's definitely going to be someone's favorite movie, though, so if you are the opposite of me you should give it a watch. smh never not listen to my recommendations!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i am never wrong and we have never seen a bad movie!
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Oct 1, 2017 10:20
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Bliss deffo wasn't a horror, so my first challenge film is 1. BeDevil (1993) Directed by Tracey Moffatt https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jI-X0jcN2_w This was a really delightful anthology film, three stories rooted in both genre cinema and Australian Aboriginal story-telling traditions. It's more horror adjacent than horror, I'd describe it as comedy-horror-arthouse. Not particularly scary, although the first part was a little spooky maybe? Its basically three silly ghost stories, although each takes on the vibe of a different type of movie. Moffet is mainly a visual artist and did Australias exhibit at the Venice Biennale this year. As far as I know she's only done this one feature film, plus a handful of shorts. What really made this film for me was the sets. Most of it was shot on these really beautiful, not-100% realistic looking sound stages. Theres a great bit at the start where the camera pans in over a beach, then you realise the sand is concrete with metal bolts sticking out of it, then the bolts become mangrove roots and you're in this great sinister swamp. Tracey Moffet is herself Aboriginal (and acts in the second story). The first story, and probably the best, is Mr Chuck: "The sandy shores and the breezy bungalows of Bribie Island play host to a strange and eerie story. Years back an American GI drove his truck into the quicksand after a party. The pervasive malevolence of the GI's presence is still felt by many who live on the island. However, there is another underlying evil that remains unspoken. Rick experienced it and lived to tell the tale." This one had a real monster movie vibe to it, with this mud-ghost rising out of this bubbling swamp menace kids (mostly by licking kids toes? gross). Its also had the most focus on the disadvantage of aboriginals communities. I liked the detail of one of the kids as an adult having ended up in jail, and the movie never bothering to give an explanation like its this natural lovely thing to happen to a poor black kid.  Next was Choo Choo Choo Choo, which was the space-alien story. "In the desolate plains of outback Queensland, Ruby and her family are haunted by invisible trains which run on a track beside their house. The ghost of a young girl killed by a train drives Ruby and her family away. After many years Ruby returns to experience the ghostly presence yet again." The set this one was filmed on was seriously amazing, this purple foam desert covered in carved termite mounds and these great painted sunset backdrops. It also had the best characters in it, this team of old netball-playing women who roar around the outback in this ute, blasting out banjo music and cooking incredible looking lunches for themselves.  Last was the witchcraft story Lovin' The Spin I'm In, which was the witchcraft story. "Imelda's people are Torres Strait Islanders. When her son Bebe and his love, Minnie, leave their community to escape opposition to their marriage, Imelda follows them to a small town in north Queensland. Tragedy strikes - Bebe and Minnie die, but the doomed couple never find peace. The spirits of Minnie and Bebe dance on in a condemned warehouse and refuse to leave." Probably the weakest of the three, though I did love this kid in it who was a great "90's aussie kid" clown, dressed head to toe in mambo gear and sleeping with his rollerblades on.  Dedevil is goofy, but I found it really charming. I ate kangaroo meatballs and had a porter beer that was pretty good.  Next up: Bloodmoon Ruptured Yakety Sax fucked around with this message at 13:49 on Oct 1, 2017 |
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Oct 1, 2017 12:39
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I'm gonna try and watch 31 horror movies I haven't this month but it's not gonna be one a day or anything. Hopefully through random spurts I can manage.
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Oct 1, 2017 15:16
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Ramadu posted:smh never not listen to my recommendations!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i am never wrong and we have never seen a bad movie! It was one of the staff picks I had no choice
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Oct 1, 2017 15:38
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2. Bloodmoon (1990) Directed by Alec Mills  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zssfvCiFGs Well that wasn't great. Kinda schlocky fun. Lots of titties and teens being garotted with barbed wire. Another Aussie film. Sort of had a weird plot shift, with the first half being about the posh kids vs the poors who are both being completely oblivious to the killings taking place, then half the kids are forgotten about or never interact again (or are, you know, killed) and the focus is on the killer and the policeman. I liked the start, with the opening shot being of your standard spooky horror movie woods owl, then the camera pans down and theres drat a kangaroo just standing there. Really enjoyed a nun throwing acid in a dudes face, and the shot of a screaming victim smash cutting to a choir mid-song. Weird that the conclusion was the killer escaping then killing his wife and himself off-screen THE END. Also I swear I don't remember any mention of any moons in the actual movie. Leon Lissek has a weirdly concave face  Saw the Bloodmoon with a Moonshine. Beer wasn't great. Watched the DVD at just the last minute. glam rock hamhock posted:I'm gonna try and watch 31 horror movies I haven't this month but it's not gonna be one a day or anything. Hopefully through random spurts I can manage. Yeah that's my plan too, although then I'll fall behind and plan to watch more films in a day only to fall further behind and plan to jam even more into a sitting. If I watch 10 I'll consider this a success. Watched: BeDevil, Bloodmoon Ruptured Yakety Sax fucked around with this message at 15:53 on Oct 1, 2017 |
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Oct 1, 2017 15:47
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7. Sleep Tight / Mientras duermes (2011) This one owns. It's on the thriller side of the spectrum but if you try hard enough, you could also look at as a horror deconstruction too. The depressed concierge César only enjoys making other people miserable and stirs a lot of poo poo up in his building. One particularly joyful woman named Clara really pisses him of with her happiness so she becomes the main focus for him. There's also his mother in the hospital that gets to hear about his adventures. He uses the knowledge of the residents and his access to set people against each other and gently caress with them in various ways. Having the keys to her apartment, he can go in to mess something up, only then to offer her his help in getting it fixed. There's a great "you brought piss to as hit fight" moment with a neighbor's little daughter and while there's no cannibalism in this movie, his scheme is basically Scott Tenorman Must Die level of hosed up. The film is from his point of view, but if it was from Clara's, it would be a serious psychological horror where she loses. As it is, we get to see how it's done from the other side and there is quite a bit of dark humor here that there wouldn't be otherwise. Irony.or.Death posted:19. The Love Witch - I am certain this movie has an audience but I am not it. It feels like it's trying to ape the ugliest parts of a style that never really existed - the performances remind me of The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra more than anything, but it's only got enough humor to support half its run time. In fact, the longer this goes the more I think its closest cousin is Cadavra. It's just much slower and not nearly as funny. It's definitely going to be someone's favorite movie, though, so if you are the opposite of me you should give it a watch.  I think what also helped me a bit was recently watching a schlocky, similarly themed Rifftrax B-movie but I have absolutely no idea what it was called. Ambitious Spider posted:...
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Oct 1, 2017 15:57
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2. The Burning This was an above average slasher. Featuring a young Jason Alexander as the cool kid and written/produced by the Weinsteins before they were the Weinsteins. The raft stuff and the finale were easily my favorite parts. The movie dabbled in toxic male attitudes but I can't say there was a whole lot to it other than existing in the plot. It's definitely worth a first watch, but I doubt too many people are eagerly revisiting this one. 2.5/5 3. Carnival of Souls This is a bonafide classic I had yet to watch. Glad I fixed that, it was amazing. The imagery is astounding at times. Just gorgeous. The setting of the decaying building over a dried out water bed was genius, especially in companion to the murky river crash scene in the opening and how the ending plays out. Candace Hilligoss was superb, and the roommate played up the skeevy alcoholic role wonderfully with a blend of terror and humor. The specter haunting Candace's character was excellently executed throughout the picture and gave me chills several times. This is one I could watch every year. 5/5 Watched: Motel Hell, The Burning, Carnival of Souls
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Oct 1, 2017 16:15
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Ruptured Yakety Sax posted:Bliss deffo wasn't a horror, so my first challenge film is It's a rare horror flick I've never even heard of. I'll see if this can be tracked down in the US cause it sounds cool.
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Oct 1, 2017 17:06
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Woo! October 1st! Time for the challenge to begin! I've got a real uphill battle this year with severe time crunches and I'm currently pretty sick. But I'm sticking to my rules of one movie per day and only new movies to me (which is the rule that's going to hurt the most since I'm running really short on classics to watch). Part of the fun this year is that I'm going to have to watch some of these in the student lounge at my school (7am to 9pm days three times a week suck) so I may get some responses to what I'm watching on my laptop. October 1 The Ruins  A bunch of really lovely college students on vacation in Mexico meet someone who tells them about some obscure, off the map ruins that are now in the middle of the jungle. Naturally, they think this is an awesome place for a party. And pretty much entirely on their stupidity, they find themselves isolated and trapped by the flesh eating plants that have overrun the ruins along with the locals who are trying to keep the plant confined to structure. And because they are incredibly stupid, they keep making things worse for themselves. I wasn't expecting a lot from this film, but I was kind of hoping for a fun romp and I didn't get even that. It's over twenty minutes into the film before they get to the evil ruins and forty five minutes before the actual threat (as opposed to just "evil foreigners") shows up. Since that time is filled with boring "drama" that makes you hate the characters and want to see them get eaten by monster plants, the fact that it goes on for so long without progress on that storyline is a real problem. It's like they were trying to mix the "students get mixed up with foreigners in a country where they don't speak the language and then get murdered" genre which was popular at that time with a "survive in an isolated place with a monster" genre and the result is less peanut butter and chocolate and more peanut butter and cauliflower. And that's a problem since the concept really works. You've got killer, infectious vines. They go after blood. There's some kind of spore infection that accompanies it. There's an inherent structure to that which can really work; every nick and scrape is a threat. Get some botanist out there who was doing field work to tell them, "We can't leave without a full quarantine containment!" to try to keep the dumb students there to get rid of the angry locals keeping them trapped aspects. Visually, this movie shows its low budget with it's incredibly limited locations that are all shot from the exact same angles with the exact same camera movements. A creative director could still have done something with this, but we're not dealing with a good director here. This was his first movie and his last one until 2014... I think what it mainly comes down to for me is that everything in the film is half baked. There's no issues with food or water as they're trapped on the pyramid for days. The evil plants demonstrate abilities which the characters keep forgetting about. The concept that the students leaving would be a bad thing is barely touched upon (there's one of those "unrated endings" out there so presumably it features evil plants getting loose and performing a musical number). There's a lot that could have been done but the focus was all on lovely characters that I hated. Just as an aside, if a rope is too short by a lot to reach the bottom of a shaft, maybe don't have it go to the bottom in the next scene. Random Stranger fucked around with this message at 18:21 on Oct 1, 2017 |
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Oct 1, 2017 18:17
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I rewatched Donnie Darko last night. That movie doesn't really hold up. I loved it at 17, not so much now. It still has a decent enough spooky vibe, and some of the imagery is memorable, but it's pretty dull to me these days. It didn't help that I was watching the Director's Cut, which literally spells things out for you on-screen.
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Oct 1, 2017 18:19
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FancyMike posted:
I'm torn between this and Phantasm for tonight. Maybe just mix a couple cocktails and go for both. Anyway, I canceled my plan to watch a few in September opting instead to bump up my October goal. Our little Indian Summer that just broke had me swimming rather than getting in any autumnal mood. Started this morning properly with a tribute to Romero. 1. Dawn of the Dead (1978): Definitely a re-watch but never gets old.
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Oct 1, 2017 18:32
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9 Miles Down Adrian Paul slumming (can he even slum at this point?) In a Hungarian dtv joint bafflingly shot in 4:3 in TYOOL 2015. it's full of bad ideas and boring imagery along with truly amateur direction and pacing. It tries for a "oops we drilled into hell" spook show before just admitting it was swamp gas that made everyone go insane. Very bad, don't waste your time. Movies Watched:Midnight Meat Train, IT, Nightmare on Elm Street (2010), Saw 7, Phantasm, Demons, Rockula, House of the Devil, 31, Deathrow Gameshow, Nine Miles Down Shrecknet fucked around with this message at 22:57 on Oct 1, 2017 |
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Oct 1, 2017 20:10
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12. Patchwork A mad scientist murders and stitches together three different young women into one body - and it's a comedy! This one feels like it's inspired by Frank Henelotter's sleazy body horror flicks like Frakenhooker and Basket Case but is not as mean-spirited and is better than it had any right to be mainly on the strength of the cast and the way it's presented (not sure why I'm spoilering but the minds of all three women are conscious in the body, and in several scenes they move back and forth between showing the Frankensteined body interacting with the world and having the three actresses, looking as they did in normal life, conversing together as if it was your typical chick flick, except there's way more gore than you'd find in one of those. I thought the mad scientist guy was pretty good as well. Not really scary but pretty cleverly done nonetheless.
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Oct 1, 2017 20:31
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5/31, Ghoulies: I'd forgotten how silly this movie is, what with the long tongue evil zombie warlock and the tiny not-menacing demons. The terror of a thousand childhood video rental shops, reduced to nothing. 2/5 toilet bowl demon kids
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Oct 1, 2017 21:45
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a foolish pianist posted:5/31, Ghoulies: Hands up everyone who spotted the word "Ghoulies", immediately got ready to reply, "They'll get you in the end,' and then were disappointed that a foolish pianist included the poster making that redundant?
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Oct 1, 2017 22:44
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Dr. Angela Ziegler posted:9 Miles Down He spends a fair amount of his time as a touring swordfighting instructor these days. Nobody who did Highlander: The Source could ever be considered to be slumming in any project in the future, though. That's the only DVD I ever threw away because I couldn't bear the thought of anyone buying it in a charity shop and watching it.
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Oct 1, 2017 23:09
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Alright, let's do this. Every year I tap out after a week but I'm going to see how long I go this time. My plan is a horror movie a day until Halloween, the usual. 1. V/H/S Viral (2014) The V/H/S movies are a guilty pleasure of mine. The first had a little bit of hype coming up to its release among horror fans and when it hit it was a mixed reaction. Some people thought it was fine horror while others thought it was just another mediocre entry in the found footage genre which was a fad at the time. Like I said, I liked them because they were a mix of the right kinds of cheese and some good gore and ideas. Like in the second one where a guy gets zombified while wearing a GoPro camera during a bike in the park. Some parts were so drat goofy but I liked the idea and the effort. Anyways, the third one isn't very good. The biggest one is they ditched the "found footage" idea in the first segment and it comes across as a really bad TV movie that's too brightly lit and overall the wraparound that made these films is kinda bleh. Though I will say the second segment is worth checking out for the pure "WTF?!". /5
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Oct 1, 2017 23:17
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| # ? Jun 10, 2024 00:58 |
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Pumpkinhead 1988, dir. Stan Winston | Prime  A southern gothic tale of revenge that's also a creature feature. Stan Winston is one of the top names of movie special effects, and his work on Alien is heavily prevalent here. He knows how to film the creature scenes, and Pumpkinhead looks great. This movie doesn't hold back on its dark subject matter, and the morals work. My friend said it's the scariest movie I've shown at my horror movie night! An absolute cult classic that's thankfully becoming a Halloween standard. I need to check out the sequels.  / 5Night of the Creeps 1986, dir. Fred Dekker | Shudder  Another polarizing horror comedy that I absolutely love and consider a favorite. I mentally pair this film with Fright Night quite a bit. Fright Night is much more focused that this film. I love this movie because it doesn't slow down, it's all over the place, embracing every horror idea it can: aliens, urban legends, slasher, creature feature, zombie, police officer investigating a supernatural phenomenon... It's fun, goofy, and funny (there's a lot of fun sight-gags on rewatches). I'd also say to check it out if you're a fan of Dekker's The Monster Squad.  / 5Christine 1983, dir. John Carpenter | DVD  One of my favorite horror director adapting a lesser-read King novel. And I had never seen it! I always assumed the killer car movie couldn't be good, and I was wrong. The music is fantastic, the acting is great (Harry Dean Stanton! why don't you have more screen time?!), the special effects are mind-blowing, it's one of Carpenter's best-looking films, and the pacing keeps everything moving right along. This movie boils with testosterone, with everyone projecting masculinity, grabbing dicks, pulling out knives, revving their cars. For a movie about a killer car named after a woman, it's fascinating.  / 5Movies Watched NEW: I Walked With A Zombie, Dead & Buried, The Mummy ('59), The Resurrected, Critters, Cemetery Man, Roadgames ('81), mother!, Christine REWATCH: The Return of the Living Dead, Pumpkinhead, Night of the Creeps, SHORT FILMS (not counted in goal): Junk Head 1; TOTAL: 12
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Oct 2, 2017 00:54
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