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28. Djinn: Meh. Predictable, inconsistently acted, genericized demon, and just another forgetable film. The set design, hints of family function, and centuries of lore around the djinn could have made for a very good and very pretty film but the script and monster design fell flat.
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Oct 17, 2017 13:39
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Made some chili last night and by the time it was all said and done I'd watched 3 NOES movies! Perfect example of why the death of physical media sucks, I was just walking around in a Walmart and saw this cheap DVD and all of the sudden I'm in the mood for Freddy. I don't hold this film up on a pedestal the same way some people do, but there's no arguing it's effectiveness. One thing I love about it is that it's perfectly paced, it throws you in the deep end pretty much right away. These kids are being stalked in their dreams and we see it from the opening scene. Then the film becomes more of a mystery as Nancy starts to unravel the story and figure out why her parents seem to have something to hide. Freddy himself spends a lot of time just as like a presence, not a full character, which I'd argue is a good thing. He's able to just stand there and glare or growl at Nancy, and it's scary on it's own, no one-liner needed. The deaths are pretty tame actually, but the cast of teenagers is solid and Craven makes it tough to predict who the next victim's gonna until it's too late. I also think that the ending of the original is perfect(well until the stinger), and really is at the root of some of the problems I have with the sequels. Nancy defeats Freddy by taking control of her own dreams, her own mind. She realizes that in order for Freddy to hurt her, he has to do it on her turf, and she's the boss of her own dreams. It's a cool way to handle a dream slasher like Freddy, but then the sequels often trip all over themselves trying to change things up or explain why Freddy is still a threat.  Jokes aside, I enjoy this movie a lot. There's some really excellent effects in here, the transformation scene in particular is one of the best of the entire series. The acting isn't top-notch, the two leads don't have great chemistry, but the story itself is pretty unsettling and Freddy is still Freddy for the most part. Take out the pool party scene, which goes too far imo, and I'd call this a solid 4/5 sequel. As it is it's still a respectable 3/5. Like I alluded to above though, the premise doesn't really fit with what we know from the original film, but that's ok in this case because it's really kinda disturbing. The idea that Jesse is literally morphing into Freddy and slicing up his friends is pretty scary. Combined with the visceral way that the transformations are handled, it's just a creepy idea executed really well and it brings a new aspect to the sequel so that we aren't just watching a predictable retread.  Widely accepted as the best NOES, it's pretty easy to see why. The cast is better than the average horror sequel, and the return of Heather Langenkamp is huge, the direct connection back to the original makes it feel like a true continuation of that story. This is the one where Freddy really starts to get into the wisecracks, but it works because the set pieces are so well done. Some of the best effects work in the series is in this film, definitely some of the most memorable kills(vein puppetry, welcome to prime time bitch!). Personally I'm not a fan of the ending, it feels like the scene where Freddy's body is exhumed belongs in a different movie, and the death of Nancy felt unnecessary and probably more of a practical matter than anything else(she probably wanted this to be her last NOES). Overall though it's close to a perfect balance of scares and Freddy one-liners, something that later sequels tried and failed to reproduce. The balance is key, you have to maintain Freddy as something to fear, not just laugh at. Completed:1.The Wicker Man, 2. Deadly Blessing, 3. Night Creatures, 4.Shock Waves, 5.Slugs, 6.Venom, 7.Maximum Overdrive, 8.Christine, 9.The Tingler, 10.The Masque of the Red Death, 11.The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, 12.The Funhouse, 13.Poltergeist, 14.Lifeforce, 15.Invaders From Mars, 16.The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, 17.The Seventh Curse, 18.The Mummy, 19.Curse of the Mummy's Tomb, 20.Hellraiser, 21.Hellbound: Hellraiser II, 22.Child's Play, 23.Cult of Chucky, 24.Leviathan, 25.Pumpkinhead, 26.Phantasm, 27.Murders in the Rue Morgue, 28.The Abominable Dr. Phibes, 29.The Devil's Candy, 30.The Visitor, 31.Prince of Darkness, 32.Critters, 33.Killer Klowns From Outer Space, 34.Horror of Dracula, 35.Brides of Dracula, 35.Dracula Has Risen From the Grave, 36.A Nightmare on Elm Street, 37.A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge, 38.A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors
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Oct 17, 2017 15:52
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13. Night of the Comet This one ruled. It was another one of my blind buys from Arrow Video and it was a delight. The story winds and weaves through so many different plot ideas and executes them surprisingly well given the budget. I love the red sky effect, and it's exactly the look I'd love to have for a movie I wrote (you know what I'm talking about Basebf555 and Fran). The 80's fashion and hair was a delight. The writing is clever and there's tons of great lines. This movie has it all. Even a good 80's soundtrack. I wish I could blind watch this one every few months.  4/5 Watched: Motel Hell, The Burning, Carnival of Souls, Microwave Massacre, Cult of Chucky, Tomb of Ligeia, The Mutilator, Friday Part 4, Friday Part 6, Frankenstein (31), Dead & Buried, The Babysitter, Night of the Comet MacheteZombie fucked around with this message at 19:01 on Oct 17, 2017 |
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Oct 17, 2017 18:58
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29. Frankenweenie: My favorite so far and this was pretty much my face IRL through the whole thing.
Butch Cassidy fucked around with this message at 17:30 on Oct 18, 2017 |
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Oct 17, 2017 19:07
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October 17 - Prom Night 2: Hello, Mary Lou So the original Prom Night was not very good, being a cheap Canadian cash in whose biggest draw was that they actually had Jamie Lee Curtis. On the other hand, I had heard that Prom Night 2 goes in a different, weirder direction so I thought, "Why not?" Holy poo poo I'm glad I did since this is the kind of off kilter horror film that is peak 80's. Thirty years ago a prank gone wrong caused prom queen Mary Lou to go up in flames as she was being crowned. Mary Lou was an all around "bad girl" who enjoyed things like talking back to her parents and having sex. Now it's 1987 and it's time for the prom again. Good girl Vicki has been denied a new prom dress by her strict mother and decides to go hunting in the school basement for something she can use. There she unlocks the trunk with Mary Lou's prom regalia and lets her ghost out to go get some revenge. In an odd kind of way, this is a low rent Nightmare on Elm Street. The adults in town have all buried the events of that prom night but now the ghost is back and taking it out on their children. Vicki keeps getting pulled into This is the kind of movie where a priest realizes Mary Lou's ghost is running around so he immediately breaks out a candle pentagram and performs an exorcism. Not exorcising anything in particular, mind you, just tossing one out there in general. Apparently the bible has rules for ghosts in it that theologians have been overlooking for centuries. There is absolutely no mistaking what decade this movie was made in. It pegs the 80's meter hard. One of the fun things in this movie is that the first half is weird stuff appearing. The second half is Mary Lou doing crazy poo poo. The whole result is something trashily entertaining. Funny enough, I thought Swordfish originated the blowjob while hacking scene...
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Oct 17, 2017 21:36
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#46. The Midnight Hour (1985) A group of teens steal some stuff from a local witchcraft historical museum in their small town, and as this is a horror movie, decide to read a magic spell in the graveyard on halloween. All manner of beasties rise from the grave, including zombies, werewolves, and the witch who wrote the spell herself (and I guess is also a vampire?) to cause havoc on the town, and unless the spell can be reversed before midnight, the effects will be permanent! I remember seeing bits and pieces of this made-for-tv movie when I was a kid in re-runs. I have to say, it surprises me how violent it actually is for a family tv movie. Not as surprising is that it was made smack in the middle of the 80s' 50s nostalgia, so there's plenty of classic rock, and poodle skirts and all that. Also, there naturally has to be a random musical number part way through. Yup, this is the 80s alright. I give The Midnight Hour  out of Five#47. The Collection (2012) Following up on The Collector, (which I watched last year's challenge) we have further terror from the film's killer, where his MO is to invade homes, businesses, whatever, and set up extremely elaborate traps to kill most of the people there, kidnapping the survivor and putting them in a steamer trunk to bring along with him to his next outing. In this particular instance, an heiress at an underground club is the lucky girl as the rest of the patrons get eviscerated. Arkin, the unlucky thief from the first film is the man in the box for this heist, and in the chaos manages to escape. The heiress' father then enlists a task force to track down and rescue his daughter, and they pressgang Arkin to lead them to the killer's lair and attempt to get the girl back, despite it being filled with his trademark deadly traps and tricks. The Saw franchise certainly has had an effect on the horror industry. Pretty much all of the late 00s and early 10s had been copycats of elaborate psychos making traps and forcing their victims into hurting each other. This series is no exception, even being made by the same guy as the fourth Saw movie. It does feel like it tries to keep up to the bar that the franchise made at least, though it has none of the former's wry, ironic punishment angles, instead being similar methods for cruelty's sake. It still at least feels clever, so there is that still as a reason to watch it, unlike many of the other followers of that trend. I give The Collection out of Five#48. A Blade In The Dark aka La Casa Con La Scala Nel Buio (1983) Bruno, a film composer, is given the job of working on a horror movie by a good friend of his, and gets set up in a large house for the month out in the country. There he starts learning of a mystery with the previous tenant, and an unseen killer starts going after the women living nearby, killing them with a utility knife. I've got to say, as far as Gialli go, this one is pretty low on the totem pole for my opinion. You would think the involvement of Lumberto Bava and Michele Saovi would make it decent, and you would be wrong. The acting is terrible, most of the sets are barebones, and the plot is pretty predictable from early on, not to mention derivative. At least the music is pretty good, so I'll give it that. I give A Blade In The Dark out of Five#49. The Green Inferno (2013) Justine, a college freshman, gets herself involved with a campus activist group, leading to a trip to the Peruvian Amazon to protest and shut down a construction crew aiming to eliminate an indigenous tribe. After mixed success, their plane goes down shortly after takeoff to return home, leading to the survivors being captured and tortured by this same cannibalistic tribe. Oh Eli Roth. You want so bad to have the controversy of horror movies of yesterday. Instead you come across as a kid showing off the dead frog you used to scare little girls on the playground. Roth I will admit isn't terrible at creating scenarios, but he can't write a character I care about to save his own life, ever, and his attempts to recapture the grindhouse grit and grime are undermined by things like his use of such clean and modern equipment. In this case it's painfully obvious he was trying to rebottle the Italian Cannibal Movie cycle of the late 70s and early 80s (he even has a snippit from Cannibal Ferox's soundtrack play in the closing credits, I'm pretty sure) complete with the whole idea of juxtaposing the harsh jungles of the Amazon with the entitled and unbearable New York upper class kids. It all just comes across too on the nose and cheeky for me. I give The Green Inferno out of Five
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Oct 17, 2017 22:03
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24: High-Rise (2015) Watching High-Rise put me in mind of a friend of mine who used to watch Rollerball skipping all the bits between the matches, except in reverse: it's like fast forwarding past the sport because you're more interested in the jaded socialites. It picks up a little later on when it basically becomes a prequel to Hell House, but all that stuff was more interesting for being implied rather than watching it happen. After watching three movies and two episodes of Doctor Who, I've finally figured out what it is about Ben Wheatley that I dislike: he's not capable of being interesting. He certainly isn't incompetent behind the lens, but when you're able to make sex with Sienna Miller look boring it may be time to consider a career move into nature documentaries.
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Oct 17, 2017 22:50
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Movie #25: Raw Oh dammit you took a perfectly good movie and ruined it with all this french filmmaking sensibility. Nah it's actually not bad. Darkly funny. My wife found it disturbing but the gore wasn't super convincing or anything. Altogether it was a perfectly fine middle-of-the-road movie. Nothing spectacular like I'd been led to believe. I just didn't find it compelling. I give it an OK out of OK. Edit: Movie #26: Blair Witch After some serious consideration I believe that the Blair Witch itself is actually a Wendigo. Everything in the movie points to Wendigo so hard that I almost feel it was ghost written by Larry Fessenden. The movie was standard found footage stuff. Lost in woods, all on camera, bad decisions are made. I didn't mind it but I wouldn't add it to my permanent collection or anything. Untrustable fucked around with this message at 01:33 on Oct 18, 2017 |
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Oct 17, 2017 23:29
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11. Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers I still haven't watched Halloween 3 yet (my wife wants to watch it with me, and dammit, she can quit being so busy to come watch movies!), but that doesn't matter to this movie. Halloween 4, as evidenced by the title, features the return of the white-masked serial killer as he returns to Haddonfield to lay waste to all in his path. However, Laurie Strode no longer lives in Haddonfield; in fact, she died in a car wreck, so which member of his family is Michael here to slay? Why, Jamie Lloyd, Laurie's daughter! She lives with a foster family, which Michael is unaware of, until he's being transported one fateful night; he hears mention of her, rises to kill the ambulance crew, and sets off with slaughter in mind... I love this movie. More than I should, honestly. It's probably my favorite Halloween movie, and I think a lot of that has to do with when I first saw it. Back in the day, AMC had their Fear Friday programming, where they showed older horror movies. I liked to turn off all the lights, hunker down in the sheets, and have myself scared witless every Friday night. Looking back at this movie as an adult, it's not particularly scary or even that tense. Honestly, it's probably a bad movie, but I still love it. There are some great parts, such as Michael cutting power to the entire town by whipping a guy into the electrical station. He also uses a gun to kill someone, but not by shooting them; he picks up a shotgun and slams it through a girl, pinning her to the wall. It's ridiculous in the best way. The kills are some of the best parts of this movie, as some are just brutal, such as the kid he picks up by his face and crushes in his hands. 3.5/5 Shotgun Impalements 12. Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers Okay, this movie isn't as good as any before it (at least in the main Halloween series). Yet, it's still better than most of what followed, and this movie commits the cardinal sin of having some good ideas, an interesting premise, but ending up being friggin' boring. I still like it, though, but it's not a movie I would bust out super often to watch. In this installment, Michael, who had previously been pumped full of lead and dumped into a mineshaft, is still alive, hanging out in some crazy hermit's shack, who I think nursed him back to health. I'm not sure. It's been a year since the last movie, but it definitely seems like this crazy old dude kept him alive. And in the same outfit. Wearing his mask. So, Mikey gets up and murders this guy, because he's an ungrateful house guest. He then sets out to find Jamie, who has developed a psychic connection with her uncle, and is living in a mental institution. Rachel and her friend, Tina, come visit her frequently, but Rachel stops when Michael murders her, killing off the protag of the previous movie. He then proceeds to track down Jamie, killing the adults around her, trying to finally ice his niece for good... It's hard to talk about this movie. It's not great, it's not awful; it just is. Like I said, I like it, but I'm not going to go crazy for it. 2.5/5 Crazy Hermits 13. Halloween 666: The Curse of Michael Myers Oh, Jesus, what a messy pile of poo poo. Michael kills people and is unstoppable because of some Druid curse of the Thorn, so he murders his family to ensure a good harvest or something. I don't even really give a poo poo. Most of the people in this movie are incredibly unlikable, and those who aren't, are just idiots. However, a gigantic piece of poo poo father, who is emotionally, verbally, and physically abusive, gets ganked good and hard by Michael, so that's hella satisfying. Beyond that, I don't really care. This movie is one that I've revisited here and there, hoping to see something I'd like about it, something I missed, but it's just not happening. 1/5 Paul Rudd's First Role
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Oct 18, 2017 03:14
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I'd like to participate in this, but I was lazy and never made a post declaring so, and I don't think it would be necessarily fair to be included in the contest. However, I have watched all the Friday the 13th films, and I'm working my way through the Nightmare on Elm Street films currently. In the interest of this being a fun event, I plant to make some write ups of my opinions reactions to these films, since I had never seen any of them before, except for the first Nightmare on Elm street. So over the next few days, I'll have a lot to say about Freddy and Jason. I also rented Wish Upon from redbox, and it was okay. Nothing too special, had some neat bits, and effective suspense sequences, but was ultimately undermined by the main character being a moron.
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Oct 18, 2017 03:29
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Not really a wildcard request, but does anyone know where to find any good sources of Nollywood horror? I've only ever seen trailers, plus the short from ABCs of Death 2, and they all seem absolutely batshit bonkers, but it's a subject that pretty much gets untouched in the Western world.
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Oct 18, 2017 03:55
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39. Happy Death Day - Eh. If you've seen the trailer you've seen the movie. Everything about it is adequate, and it will leave no lasting impression.
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Oct 18, 2017 04:34
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It comes at Night (2017) Chalk it up to high expectations, or maybe just not being on the mood, but this movie didn't connect without me at all. And that's a drat shame, because it's a well made movie with a good premise. We are in a world where a virus has wiped out large chunks of the population, and two families end up sharing lodgings. They grow to distrust each other. It's a much more psychological movie than I expected. We get some great imagery, but the real story is the tension between the two families. It's a really well made movie - it's very atmospheric- but it's just wasn't for me. I went in knowing it was a slow burn, but I still felt it was a little too slow at times. Rewatches (8): Maniac Cop, Friday the 13th 3, Friday the 13th 4, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3 , The Lost Boys, Land of the Dead, A Nightmare on Elm Street 4, Friday the 13th 6 First time watches (22): Mortuary, Little Evil, Eloise, Mother!, The Roommate, The Chaos Experiment, Resident Evil 6, Vacancy, Rings, The Stepfather, Train to Busan, Dracula's Daughter, Son of Dracula, Cult of Chucky, The Return of Dracula, The Fog, Sssssss! Happy Death Day, the Babysitter, The Changeling, It Comes at Night
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Oct 18, 2017 04:54
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Movie #18: The Fly (1986) My third rewatch for the challenge. Still great. I love the relative willingness of the horror side of sci-fi to tell compact, efficient stories, like a good short story, rather than sprawling into some novel.
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Oct 18, 2017 05:17
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40. I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle - I feel like an idiot for laughing at so many of this movie's stupid gags, but holy poo poo. You might suspect, as I did, that this is about a motorcycle that runs on blood. Maybe you imagine it will drive its owner to kill in a little shop of horrors type scenario, or maybe it will roam and murder on its own but just houses the soul of a serial killer or something and will take a general anything-goes sort of approach to the bloodletting. The movie will even strengthen this suspicion, as it opens with an interrupted demon summoning and the first kill is clearly a very messy and wantonly destructive affair. Nonetheless, this movie is not called "I Bought a Killer Motorcycle That Runs On Blood". No, sir. We are promised in the title a Vampire Motorcycle, and a Vampire Motorcycle is delivered. It sleeps during the day. The shed doors fling themselves open at its approach. It will certainly suffer no fools to transport garlic upon its back. If you would like to watch a movie about a vampire motorcycle, this will satisfy. There's also a swordfight although sadly the motorcycle is not directly involved in that; at the time it is busy roughing up some other motorcycles outside. I think everyone did their own stunts.  
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Oct 18, 2017 06:57
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I am so behind right now, I hate working the afternoon shifts because I have no time/energy to pound through movies so I'll be marathoning this weekend when I have some time off. 15. Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989) Terrible. No atmosphere or campy kills to make it worthwhile.  / 5
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Oct 18, 2017 07:06
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Movie #19: Dead Ringers Fantastic. Jeremy Irons's performances would be remarkable if they were given by two different people.
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Oct 18, 2017 07:36
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1. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) 2. TCM: The Beginning 3. Halloween (2007) 4. Friday the 13th (2009) 5. Hollywood Ghost Stories (1986) 6. Halloween 2 (2009) 7. A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) 8. Scream 4 9. Texas Chainsaw 3D 10. Mother! 11. Never Sleep Again 12. Lurdiak's Scream Stream 10/06 13. Scream Stream 10/07 14. Scream Stream 10/08 15. Crystal Lake Memories 16. Dracula (1931) 17. The Limehouse Golem  A recent release, probably got a wider release in native Britain than it did in North America. Still, it's an enjoyable murder mystery film, occasionally punctuated with grisly violence. More horrific than horrifying, it does it's best to stray far from the typical PBS period mystery drama. The story is about Inspector Kildare, a relatively unimportant detective from the Scotland Yard, who is assigned to the high profile and infamously unsolvable Limehouse Golem murders. Set in Victorian London, the film takes more than a few cues from both the stories of Sherlock Holmes and the actual crimes of Jack the Ripper. However, with such an infamous series of violent crimes, Kildare is both hampered by the lack of faith from his superiors (after more capable inspectors tried and failed) and by interference from the public and the press (who keep getting in his way and disrupting the crime scenes). However, an incidental discovery leads to a cross over to the contemporaneous trial of Elizabeth Cree, who is accused of poisoning her husband. From here, the investigation takes a back seat to exploring the interpersonal drama between several players all the way to the point of the poisoning. This is the real the meat of the story, exploring how Elizabeth rose to be a minor star of London Music Halls, how she came to meet her unfortunately fated husband, and all the friends and enemies she made along the way. Notably this includes real life infamous comedian Dan Leno, the first of a number of suspects in the Limehouse Golem murders, including other factual persons such as novelist George Gissing and Karl Marx (yes, that Karl Marx). However, not much is made of these characters, with only Dan given any real screen time or consideration as the perpetrator. This is probably a side effect of the book-to-film translation made. Since the original novel was infamous for it's blend of fact and fiction, it is kept for the film even though there isn't much room for it. As a result, it becomes fairly apparent that the three lead suspects, outside of her husband, can't be the murderers due to their relative lack of impact or purpose in the stories. As well, considering the initial thesis (which is always wrong) was her husband, it can't be him as well. This leaves her, Dan, and her acting rival as the suspects. And the one with the most motive being her, it results in a mystery that's easily solved at about the halfway point. Eventually, you're just left waiting for the film to catch up. As is, the star of the movie is the visual flourish. As a period piece, it revels not in class and fashion but in the unseemly and dingy corners of London's yesteryear. The main setting is in the music hall Dan and Elizabeth perform in, giving life to the dead institution with warmth and good times. And when I mean warm, I mean it's lit with the yellowest glow and filled to the brim with drunk people. And outside the hall is the labyrinthine series of claustrophobic streets and alleys, filled with shadows and corners that anything could hide in. Even this darkness pervades people's homes, making them feel incredibly vulnerable. Which is important, considering the crime scene we're introduced to involves an entire family, including two children, being slaughtered violently. And to pad out this dangerous space is enough titillating sex, freely displaying as many bare breasts as appropriate, and buckets as blood as they can get away with. Like I said, this isn't going for a Downton Abbey glamour, this is going as far as it can to make the world of the common man as dangerous as it can. All in all, it's like I said, an enjoyable Murder Mystery. Perhaps it's biggest flaw is it's story, which suffered from having to make concessions turning a 250+ page novel into a sub 2 hour film with a limited budget. But I do think the world it inhabits is worth exploring, and with a couple interesting characters to meet (Be they real or not).
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Oct 18, 2017 08:07
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Irony.or.Death posted:40. I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle You forgot the talking turd. And yes, that is Neil Morrissey from Men Behaving Badly.
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Oct 18, 2017 08:21
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Well copyright law hosed me last night. Apparently Playstation Vue doesn't have permission to stream The Devil Rides Out, so that was a nasty surprise when I tried to watch one of my most anticipated movies of the season. Major bummer dude. Anyway, to make myself feel better I decided to watch Horror Express, which I'm not seeing anyone else watch this year. Lets change that! Horror Express is one of the best forgotten gems of the entire genre. Let me explain why you need a little bit of this in your life:   Horror Express is a monster movie set on the Trans-Siberian Railway. It was good before, but a recent HD restoration really makes the setting pop and elevates the film back to legit classic status. If you have Shudder, this version is available there, although I think most horror thread regulars have seen in by now. I'm not going to get into much plot detail, because this is one of those films where figuring things out along with the characters is a great experience. The story itself is b-movie stuff(with a sprinkling of Nigel Kneale), but in the hands of these suave motherfuckers,   Everything just works. It's full of ridiculous lines that only these guys could possibly deliver with any seriousness. The scenario is ridiculous, and yet Cushing and Lee are ultra-serious at all times. Lee especially is excellent in this film, he's a smarmy bastard but you still root for him. Then just when you think you've seen everything the movie can throw at you, bam Telly Savalas shows up. It's really well paced, never boring, and doesn't wear out its welcome. Just as an unrelated aside, I found some cool looking illustrations of the movie while I was looking around for screenshots, I like that someone is out there drawing Telly Savalas from Horror Express in 2017.   So lets get this train rollin, I need someone else to watch this movie before the 31st! It holds up really well to a rewatch too, I know on first watch it didn't occur to me that the monster is able to get out of the crate using the lockpicking skills it absorbed from it's very first victim(there's an easy to miss line about the guy being an master thief) So if you've seen it before, watch it again! Completed:1.The Wicker Man, 2. Deadly Blessing, 3. Night Creatures, 4.Shock Waves, 5.Slugs, 6.Venom, 7.Maximum Overdrive, 8.Christine, 9.The Tingler, 10.The Masque of the Red Death, 11.The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, 12.The Funhouse, 13.Poltergeist, 14.Lifeforce, 15.Invaders From Mars, 16.The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, 17.The Seventh Curse, 18.The Mummy, 19.Curse of the Mummy's Tomb, 20.Hellraiser, 21.Hellbound: Hellraiser II, 22.Child's Play, 23.Cult of Chucky, 24.Leviathan, 25.Pumpkinhead, 26.Phantasm, 27.Murders in the Rue Morgue, 28.The Abominable Dr. Phibes, 29.The Devil's Candy, 30.The Visitor, 31.Prince of Darkness, 32.Critters, 33.Killer Klowns From Outer Space, 34.Horror of Dracula, 35.Brides of Dracula, 35.Dracula Has Risen From the Grave, 36.A Nightmare on Elm Street, 37.A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge, 38.A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, 39.Horror Express
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Oct 18, 2017 15:21
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Moral of the last few days of movies? gently caress the police. 24. Tales from the Hood (1995) Not at all what I expected, Tales is a black horror anthology, with four segments that are basically the horrors of reality, chased with some supernatural revenge. We have cops behaving badly, domestic violence, racism, and black-on-black crime all addressed. I thought it was all handled well, though not all that scary, except in a 'man the world sucks' kind of way. /525. Maniac Cop (1988) Well, jeez. I think this hits too close to reality to me, so that I don't particularly enjoy watching a cop kill people for no real reason. It seems like cops already kill people for no good reason all the time. Watching people express the same basic 'I distrust the police' opinions in 1988 that they do now was unsurprising and yet disheartening. (As well as some people who are seemingly on the killer's side.) I have the whole series but I'm not all that sure I want to watch a cop kill more people. At least this had Bruce Campbell. /5
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Oct 18, 2017 15:38
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I only discovered the marathon on this forum last year, but have been doing it on a Norwegian forum for many years now. And like when I posted last year, I just put off posting for days and days because of laziness, so I got quite a lot of movies to post about. I've seen one movie every night in October, but I'll see more each night as we get closer to Halloween. 1. Get Out, 2017 Some in this thread have seen this one, so I guess I don't have that much to add that's not been said before. I thought it was pretty good and had a different feel to it that most horror. I could type more stuff, but just watch the Half in the Bag review instead. Or better, just take my word and the other guy who posted about Get Out that this movie is good and just watch it your self. 2. The VVitch: A New-England Folktale, 2015 Another modern movie that I liked a lot. I have no idea why the title is spelled like that and I'm not going to bother to look it up. It's about a puritan family leaving the rest of the colony because the dad don't get along with the others. They build a small farm out in the wilderness next to the forest and poo poo hits the fan. The newborn son disappears and the crops fail. It is established right away from the start of the movie that witches are real and it's obviously dark forces that's causing the family's miseries. I'm glad they did it like that instead loving around the whole movie making it some dumb mystery with some dumb plot twist at the end, trying to make some dumb point about superstition and puritan paranoia. The family don't know about the witch, but we as the audience do, so the tension is when are they going to find out about it. And like I said, this works better than making it into a mystery for us, the viewers. Alfred Hitchcock had a real good quote about this. About the difference between surprise and suspense. Surprise is if there's a bomb under the table we don't see until it goes off, suspense is if we see the bomb, but the characters don't. My point is that The VVitch is a pretty horror good movie. 3. Körkarlen, 1921 Or The Phantom Carriage as it is called on the way to expensive The Criterion Collection DVD. One of those early horror movies from before horror movies really was a thing. A drunk hobo is telling a couple of other drunk hobos on new years eve about how the last one to die before the new year have to drive death's carriage and collect the souls of the dead for the whole new year. Each day feels like a hundred years and there's no escape until the next person takes over at the upcoming new years eve. He later gets beaten down and his hearts stops just as the year end. The carriage comes for him and it turns out the driver is his friend that died last new years eve. The hobo is forced to look back at his life and see what a horrible rear end in a top hat he was and how he really hurt people with his lovely behavior. The movie builds up to really loving dark ending when he sees who the first to die that new year is, but it pulls off a much brighter ending about hope, forgiveness and salvation at the very last second. A bit disappointing as it could easily been one of the darkest endings ever, but still a nice movie over all. Not that much horror by modern standards, but a really amazing movie. One of the best movies from the 1920s. 4. Cloverfield, 2008 I'm not a big found footage fan, but this one was nice. Basically a found footage version of kaiju monster movie and those sc-fi horrors from the 50s. But instead of a bunch of scientists in white coats talking about the monster and that kind of stuff, we get to see the action in a street level by someone having a camera with them. There's really nothing to hint what kind of movie it is when you put it on as the first 17 minutes are just people talking at a party, but I guess it is to let us know the characters so we got a reason to care when they die. I liked this one. If you like both found footage and big monster movies, then you got nothing to lose watching it. 5. Tucker and Dale vs Evil, 2010 Another one I think I saw someone else see in this thread, so I'll let lazy mode kick in and say this was a pretty great horror comedy. Dumb college kids killing them selves off in hilarious ways because they think some hicks are serial killers. That's all you need to know about this. Grab a few beers and have a great time watching it. 6. The Incredible Shrinking Man, 1957 The 50s was a time when horror and science fiction was one and the same. Most of the movies was about alien invasions or some radioactive monster. This one is a surprisingly well done story about a guy that shrinks after getting exposed to a radioactive mist at a boat trip. There's nothing he can do to stop it and he has become freak in the media. So he becomes trapped in his own house both physically and socially. poo poo gets real bad when his wife accidentally lets the cat in one day and he is presumed dead when they can't find him. It is a pretty drat well made movie for its kind. The effects looks good enough even if they are dated and you get invested watching him trying to survive. This one is obligatory for any old sci-fi horror fan. 7. Orphan, 2009 This one is best when you know as little as possible about it before you watch it. Some mom's third baby is stillborn and the family adopts a nine year old orphan to fill the void. Turns out she is evil as poo poo and things goes real bad for the family. It's one of the best takes on the evil child trope in my opinion. 8. Cat People, 1982 As far as horror movies goes, I'd say the original from from 1942 is better. This is more erotic fantasy thriller. I mean the horror is there. Monsters, blood, tense atmosphere and so on. It got it all. It just didn't feel like horror most of the time. Some humans in prehistoric times would mate with panthers in magical and religious rituals. The descendants turn into panthers if they have sex with regular humans and can only turn back after they have killed someone. They can only have regular sex and mate with each other. I guess the supernatural stops inbreeding from being a problem. Some woman moves in with her brother and discovers this about her self. It was an interesting movie and I liked it. Just didn't put me in the right horror mood. 9. The Blob, 1958 This was my first viewing despite being a fan of old b-movies. It was just as fun as I hoped for. Yeah, it didn't show much in terms of kills because of the limitations of time it was made, but it's fun watching a guy that looks 35 play an 17 year old. It's red goo from space eating people. What else do you want from a 50s sci-fi horror? 10. The Blob, 1988 This was the version I looked the most forwards to seeing. The story is basically the same, but changes in the second half. It's a much better movie than the original and of course it got better kills. It's already been talked about this year, so just watch it already if you haven't. 11. Hellbound: Hellraiser II, 1988 I've watched the first one many times. I really like how they went for something different and cool. Again, someone else reviewed this one already. 12. Deep Red, 1975 It's Italian horror from the 70s, made by Dario Argento and music done by Goblin. Of course this movie was loving great. A psychic at a parapsychology convention points out yo the audience and say one of them have killed and will kill again. No surprise, she ends up dead. The neighbor sees the murder and does his own investigation because Italian police are a bunch of idiots. A lot more people get killed in brutal ways and things get more messed up. This is not a murder mystery where you are suppose to use reason to figure out who the killer is. It is more a movie where you are along for the ride. Just about everything visual in this movie rules. I was invested in everything I saw. 13. Sleepy Hollow, 1999 The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is one of America's most well know ghost stories and there's plenty of film version of it. The most well known is the animated Disney short from 1949 and this one by Tim Burton. Burton rewrites the whole story to the extreme to make it his. This version got a lot of focus on comedy without going all the way to become one. It draws a lot of inspiration from the classic Universal Picture and Hammer Film Productions movies. You can see it in the way blood look and just how gorgeous everything looks. Everything looks great (well, not the dated CGI, but besides that) and the story almost doesn't matter. It's a movie that's not afraid to be cheesy and probably the last good movie Tim Burton ever made. 14. The Neon Demon, 2016 Not your typical horror movie. It doesn't look like horror most the time, but it is pretty obviously straight up horror when you get to the right scenes, specially the ending. It's about a girl going to L.A. to become a model and we get to see what a rotten world the fashion industry is. A big reason to watch this movie is the visual and the way the music is in the foreground of the whole experience. It got an amazing synthwave score and everything looks amazing. Just going to say this one is perfect for when you want something different. 15. Green Room, 2015 Some punk band plays at an isolated club run by neo-Nazis. They play and just want to get the gently caress out of there. One forgets the phone in the green room and sees that someone has been stabbed to death in there. The Nazis don't want them to leave and things get really ugly. I loved this movie and again I'll just point to the Half in the Bag review. It got Patrick Stewart, punk rock and plenty of blood, so it's a great movie. 16. Scream, 1996 Saw it on TV back in the 90s. Kind of fun seeing it again. I liked its take on slasher movies. Got nothing more to say. 17. Scream 2, 1997 Since I bought the DVD-set, I watched this one next. A good sequel. If you liked the first one, you'll like this one. I'm getting tired typing about all these movies. 18. Scream 3, 2000 loving finally! I'm all caught up writing about these movies. Anyway, Same as 2, if you liked the previous, you'll like this one. I thought the Scream movies was neat, but what I don't like is that they inspired all those lame lovely softcore slashers that we got through the 90s and 2000s aimed at dumb teens. Not that 80s slashers wasn't aimed at teens, but at least they felt violent, had plenty of blood and had something cool going on for them. Movies like I Know What You Did Last Summer can gently caress off.
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Oct 18, 2017 16:18
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 #29 The Entity - I'm not sure how this made it on my horror watchlist but I ended up going in pretty blind and wow, that was tough. Really effective though, and the actors were all great. But yeah, it's barely even metaphorical with its point and straight up confronts you with rape and assault right from the start. So don't watch I guess if you're not prepared to see a woman repeatedly assaulted by a ghost and nobody believing her. 4/5 Total: 29 Re-watches(4): The 'Burbs [5/5], Hellraiser [5/5], Hellbound: Hellraiser [5/5], Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth [3/5] First time(25): Butterly Murders [4/5], Candyman: Day of the Dead [1/5], The Fog [4/5], Demons [5/5], Demons 2 [4/5], Prom Night [2/5], The Texas Chainsaw Massacre [5/5], In the Mouth of Madness [4/5], Inland Empire [3/5], Vampyr [4/5], Scanners [4/5], The Manitou [4/5], Crimson Peak [4/5], Planet of the Vampires [3/5], Raw [5/5], Friday the 13th Part 3 [2/5], Entity (2012) [1/5], Nosferatu [3/5], Poltergeist [4/5], Re-Animator [4/5], Cemetery Man [4/5], Halloween II [3/5], Creepshow [3/5], Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter [3/5], The Entity [4/5] Letterboxd list
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Oct 18, 2017 16:51
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30. The Gorgon: Not a good movie and a dumb plot but made by Hammer so plenty of sex appeal, quality acting, great sets, thoughtful lighting, and vivid colors to make excellent background viewing.
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Oct 18, 2017 17:32
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Butch Cassidy posted:30. The Gorgon: Not a good movie and a dumb plot but made by Hammer so plenty of sex appeal, quality acting, great sets, thoughtful lighting, and vivid colors to make excellent background viewing. I appreciate it for going with a really underutilized monster. It's definitely a refreshing change from all more traditional monsters Hammer typically worked with.
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Oct 18, 2017 17:33
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I have to check out that motorcycle movie, I'm on a roll with good-bad movies. I'm also way behind on reviews Night Tide Not sure why IMDb lists this as a horror. It's a thriller romance at best. This is a black and white Roger Corman movie featuring a young Dennis Hopper falling for a woman who may or may not be a mermaid. Not a bad movie, for being a bad movie, but it seems to fall apart at the end. /5 Seventh Curse This and the rest were on recommendation from OP. Fun and insane, not sure how much sense it made but that isn't required in the type of horror I like. /5Don't Deliver Us From Evil Half way threw, after witnessing [spoiler] attempted rapes of a young looking girl and animal torture[/b] I was saying 'wtf, Hollis'. By the end I could understand why he recommended this. Shocking and effective /5The Reflecting Skin Once again I went in blind and this is a horror of a different kind. I see a lot of people panning this in reviews, but I liked it...as much as you could a movie like this. Not as abstract or strange as Lynch (who it's frequently compared to) but it gave me something to think on the rest of the afternoon. Gritty and raw with some beautiful shots. Not overly graphic but a dense black cloud that hangs over the whole movie. Not a goofy Halloween movie for sure and not for everyone. and a half pumpkin / 5Basebf555 posted:Well copyright law hosed me last night. Apparently Playstation Vue doesn't have permission to stream The Devil Rides Out, so that was a nasty surprise when I tried to watch one of my most anticipated movies of the season. You need to find a way to watch that Dr.Caligari fucked around with this message at 18:43 on Oct 18, 2017 |
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Oct 18, 2017 18:34
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#26: Ghostwatch Spooky as poo poo. This is a really well-executed found-footage movie, and it feels completely fresh because it doesn't feel, like literally every other found footage movie I've watched for this challenge (even the ones I liked), like it's following or subverting the ideas of The Blair Witch Project, probably because it came first. The frame is great, and allows the filmmakers to jump around to something else when one story thread could start to bore. The framing also sets up something very clever early on: something the audience (including you) can see, yet the hosts can't see. Early on, this throws you for a loop, and keeps you on the edge of your seat, looking around every frame and anticipating something, even when nothing's there. The build to the final act is tense as hell, and the payoff is so worth it. If you've heard of this but haven't seen it yet, definitely watch it ASAP. Completed: Beyond the Black Rainbow, Rabid, The Driller Killer, Phantasm*, Phantasm II, Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead, Phantasm IV: Oblivion, Phantasm V: Ravager, The Prowler, The House of the Devil, From Beyond, Gremlins 2: The New Batch, Apt Pupil, Wait Until Dark, Gerald's Game, Hell House LLC, Black Swan*, Happy Birthday To Me, Pieces, Trollhunter, As Above So Below, The Devil's Candy, Antibirth, Chopping Mall, The Terminator*, Death Note, Ghostwatch *denotes rewatches
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Oct 18, 2017 18:59
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My watching slowed down the last couple of days. Been busy, watching a lot of sports, and I had a false start. I turned on a random movie on Netflix the other night, Boys in The Trees that was listed as horror but after an hour I determined it wasn't at all. Its a coming of age story about two kids who were friends when they were younger but ended up on opposite ends of the social/bullying split of high school who reconnect on Halloween and work through some of their unresolved poo poo with ghost stories as allegory. It seemed like it had a little potential there and some of the effect stuff merging the fantasy of the stories with the reality of the subtext was neat but it never really goes anywhere and it drops the horrorish stuff pretty early on. When I realized an hour in there was another hour I just decided it wasn't for me and wasn't horror and bailed. Last night I went for something on Shudder to be sure and it wa shorror but wasn't that much better... 25 (35). The Devil’s Chair (2007)  Four years after a man insists a torture chair "took" his girlfriend when he's found with her blood on his hands he's brought back to the chair by a doctor who believes that its a gateway to another dimension. That always goes well. This had some interesting elements and potential. A touch of Hellraiser, a touch of Prince of Darkness, a touch of.. Insidious? I don't know. I like demonic and "other dimension" stuff, or at least am intrigued by it (going back to the Lovercraftian complicated feelings). The main character is kind of interestingly ambiguous in he's kind of a dirtbag but doesn't really seem like a bad guy and sets up as an unexpected hero. The monster design was... ok. Small budget and all, they tried to make things creepy and had some success. The supporting characters are all a little cliche but its a b horror film so what do you want? Then comes the dreaded twist. And without getting into what it is it just kind of had the bad effect on me. A good twist makes me think back to elements I noticed or didn't early on and realize how it all makes sense or was foreshadowed, or how it gives earlier stuff more meaning. A bad twist just kind of invalidates everything you just watched and this does that. I was expecting a twist but this one just ends up wiping the board clean and making me feel like i wasted my time. In fact, the more i thought about it as I went to bed last night I started to get a little offended. The movie actually spends a fair amount of time outright breaking the 4th wall and criticizing horror fans. Its an interesting element early on but when the twist comes it just turns into a rant about how lovely horror and its fans are. And that sort of makes the twist feel like its just mocking and throwing a finger at the fans. "You guys want to just see blood and tits and the B horror plot is an excuse, so now you'll just watch 30 minutes of a mad man slashing up women because that's all you really want anyway." That's very much NOT what I want in a horror film and I actually feel a little insulted by this film and what I think its judgments were. But at least it finished off another year. 17 of 31 years down. Gonna have to try and get back ahead tonight.
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Oct 18, 2017 19:16
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18. The Sinner Just wrapped this up. It's an 8 hour miniseries but I'm counting it as one thing, hope that's kosher. Anyways, very interesting premise and a good first episode, but it drags a bit and has numerous unnecessary twists, leading up to a pretty disappointing (although thankfully unambiguous) ending. The cast was quite good, Pullman and Biel as the leads were particularly strong, but I feel like they could have cut this down to 4-6 episodes and trimmed some fat.
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Oct 18, 2017 21:10
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Fuuuuuuck , I gotta catch up over the weekend I got 20 movies to go
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Oct 18, 2017 22:47
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Hollismason posted:Fuuuuuuck , I gotta catch up over the weekend I got 20 movies to go Lazy.
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Oct 18, 2017 23:11
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Hot Dog Day #89 posted:2. The VVitch: A New-England Folktale, 2015 The letter W is a fairly modern invention and it was commonly placed in printing presses as literally two V's stuck together. It's used in the marketing and credits for this movie to try to invoke the feeling of the 17th century. And before you ask, it's "double u" because the letter V also is a fairly recent invention and what was U was written as V until someone decided to break things up and move the vowel to U. October 18 - Cabin Fever  So I don't like the movies of Eli Roth. His choices in horror are generally the opposite of what I enjoy. I don't find them scary or horrifying, just unpleasant. But the October Horror Challenge is all about pushing things, or at least it is for me, so I decided to watch Cabin Fever. At the very least, I was kind of hopeful that his full Rothiness hadn't developed yet when he made this movie and I could appreciate it more. A pack of young adults have rented a cabin in the woods for a week of what people in these movies usually do at cabins in the woods. Then a sick man covered in bleeding sores pounds on their door looking for help and it isn't long before they kill him but wreck their truck in the process. They're trapped in the cabin, unable to find help, and panicked that the infection is spreading. I think it was an interesting choice to have pretty much all the characters be incredibly terrible shitheads. That's not sarcasm, either. The initial scene sets up a disturbed yokels situation which everyone is familiar with, but it doesn't take very long for the movie to turn that on its head and prove how terrible the main cast is. The local people are creepy weirdos, but they're also the victims of these these people who are killing their family members, robbing their homes, and generally being asses. And then their own behavior gets turned back on them. OTOH, it does cause problems for the movie. This is the movie for you if you like scary musical stings over shots of glasses of water. I honestly thought until the last twenty or twenty-five minutes that there was no disease and people were just panicking and making things worse. Unfortunately that last third where it shifts to being a more straightforward film kind of undermines the scenario for me by throwing it back to "evil hillbillies after the young people". I would have liked the movie more if the locals were just unpleasant people but not actively trying to kill the outsiders. So, I'm kind of mixed here. The first part was okay but not fantastic. It was at least interesting enough to keep me engaged. The second part, though, was just eyerolling. So I guess that averages out of mildly negative? Random Stranger fucked around with this message at 00:53 on Oct 19, 2017 |
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Oct 18, 2017 23:19
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Random Stranger posted:October 18 - Cabin Fever
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Oct 19, 2017 02:41
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Random Stranger posted:The letter W is a fairly modern invention and it was commonly placed in printing presses as literally two V's stuck together. It's used in the marketing and credits for this movie to try to invoke the feeling of the 17th century. That's pretty interesting, Random Stranger. I had no idea that's the reason it is called double u. 19. Carnival of Souls, 1962 I needed something that felt like proper horror after those Scream movies. The Scream movies are good enough on their own, but they just don't have the feel I associate with horror. This one just feels right. Some teenagers or young adults or whatever they are suppose to be drive off a bridge and drown. One girl somehow survives and can't remember how. She leaves town to become church organist somewhere else and she keep seeing this creepy man stalking her. Other weird stuff happens and the movie have this dream like feeling at times. I can picture someone find this movie to be too slow, but I think it is perfect as it is.
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Oct 19, 2017 03:22
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16/31, The Burrowers: This is a rewatch for me, and I've had a long-running fondness for this film, since they make the horror western genre mashup actually work well. Very solid cast, as well, and oof that ending. 4/5 racist american military officers 17/31, Ghostwatch: Another rewatch, and people have sung the praises of this film more elaborately than I can here. 4/5 missed Pipes scenes
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Oct 19, 2017 04:43
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26 (36). Shallow Ground (2004) A bloody boy shows up in a police station and sends the cops on a strange journey of the unsatisfied dead seeking revenge. I’m on a run of bad luck that I’m going to chalk up to trying to fill the 31 years thing. Finding available movies for the ‘90s and early aughts that I haven’t seen and are any good is proving tough. To make matters worse even though JustWatchUs filtered this as a 2005 movie everywhere else says 2004, so that was a waste. Because it wasn’t a good movie in any real capacity. Its starts of vaguely promising and fairly reminiscent to one of my first watches of the month Let Us Prey. But as it moves on it unravels incredibly slowly in an overly complicated plot that just didn’t need to be half as deceptive and complicated as it was. There’s like half a dozen red herrings and side rambles that just don’t matter and make this 90 minute film feel way longer. It doesn’t help that its just not very well made. Bad acting, production, etc. I don’t necessarily mind that but when things drag it just makes it worse. The whole premise of unsolved dead rising in many places to get revenge on their killers could have been interesting but the movie doesn’t do much with it, they don’t have the means to really show it, and the main focus is just poorly done. Then just to really settle that I hated this movie there’s a final twist that honestly, doesn’t make any loving sense and kind of pisses all over the attempted premise of the movie. Ostensibly its all about the innocent dead rising to get revenge… so why the gently caress did the composition of all the innocents get killed by another eviler undead thing? That served no purpose except to add a jump scare at the end. gently caress you, movie. This is the second one in a row that kind of made me angry and like I wasted my time. Third if you count the one i abandoned. I’m in danger of losing my passion for this and I need to find something good. 27 (37). Ouija: Origin of Evil (2016)  Rising star director Mike Flanagan (Absentia, Oculus, Hush, Gerald’s Game) manages to common premise of an evil spirit latching itself to a family and a truly terrible movie and make a pretty solid sequel/prequel. I was iffy on this going in. On one hand it seems to have strong reviews and I enjoyed Absentia and Oculus. On the other hand there was something slightly off about both IMO and the original Ouija movie is genuinely one of the biggest pieces of crap I’ve watched in a long, long time. I’ve been sort of dancing around it all month but I decided to go with it when I was in the need for a good one and it a pretty crummy mood and it came through. Its not anything terribly original or inspired. Pretty much every element of the film could be listed amongst horror cliches and drawn back to recent movies like Insidious or Conjuring or classics like the Exorcist or the Changeling. But you don’t have to break the mold to make good horror and there’s generally a reason old ghost stories get told time after time. They work when told right, and Flanagan is a good storyteller. Everyone does a good job and Lena really stands out in it. The scares never really reach any heights, although the first demon reveal is well done and was an uncomfortable scene. The rest gaping mouths and wall scaling stuff is all stuff we’ve seen before but it works because I had bought into the characters and the family drama. I’m less scared as I am concerned. And the dark way it all goes and the terrible fate for Lena was kind of unexpected and while a total bummer a positive in that way horror movies with bummer endings can be. Its weird. Its probably the only genre where the bad guy winning so often feels more satisfying for some reason. There’s probably some psychology study on that or something. Side note. I was trying to figure out where the hell I knew the lead actress Elizabeth Reaser from and I couldn’t for the life of me figure it out. I looked across her filmography and there was nothing I could identify as something I would know her from, but I was convinced I did. Then mid film it kind of hit me. She kind of looks like Carla Gugino, star of Gerald’s Game. Then on a whim I looked up the actress from Hush, saw she was his wife, and well... am I crazy? Am I the creepy one who is just saying all beautiful women look alike? 
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Oct 19, 2017 08:20
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1. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) 2. TCM: The Beginning 3. Halloween (2007) 4. Friday the 13th (2009) 5. Hollywood Ghost Stories (1986) 6. Halloween 2 (2009) 7. A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) 8. Scream 4 9. Texas Chainsaw 3D 10. Mother! 11. Never Sleep Again 12. Lurdiak's Scream Stream 10/06 13. Scream Stream 10/07 14. Scream Stream 10/08 15. Crystal Lake Memories 16. Dracula (1931) 17. The Limehouse Golem 18. Frankenstein (1931)  This film is oft the companion to Dracula. Both were released in the same year, and both act as the icons of the Universal Monsters (be they in official Universal productions or not). A cultural companionship shared by the likes of say Superman and Batman, or Freddy and Jason, or Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny. And say that even if one of them is more popular, it's the other that's more interesting. And here, Dracula may be more popular, given a variety of depictions ranging from terrifying to comedic to even sexually charged, but it's Frankenstein that is the better and far more interesting film. Maybe it comes from the familiarity with the tale of Dracula, maybe it comes from this film's wildly different approach to the novel, but the result is the most iconic depiction of any Monster, practically reinventing the Novel's morose and intelligent creature into the Being we commonly know him as. As is, the star and first billed actor is Boris Karloff, playing (what culture has unknowingly and accidentally decreed) The Titular Monster. And much in same way that any given slasher is differentiated by it's killer, this era of monster movies is defined by it's monster. And the portrayal of the creature within the film is absolutely fascinating. He ostensibly has to be the villain, but the creature we are presented is both incredibly simple and impossibly complex. He's unable to comprehend both the context he lives in and effect he has on the world, and is quite possible to argue that he is incapable of being guilty of the crimes he commits. Hell, his first victim was sadistically provoking and torturing him, whose death could be ruled as an act of self defense. And the infamous scene where the little girl is thrown into the river is a result to a childlike misunderstanding. He is a creature forced into the world, tries his best to understand it, does his best to survive his adversity, and is punished for reasons he will never understand. This film may follow the Hay's Code to the letter, but it betrays the spirit of it's regulation to anarchic glee. As for the film's thesis, it comes to the conclusion that man should not play in the realm of gods. But it falls in the same muddy argument that Jurassic Park makes, arguing that because of the fatal results that the experiment should have never been performed. But it is arguable that the result was because of the flawed execution of the experiment, rather than in the experiment itself. In the same way that Jurassic Park was felled by incompetent penetration security and underfunded IT, it is in this film that an accidental swap of a normal brain and a flawed brain resulted in massacre. So it should be posited that, if there was not the mix up, the creature that would have resulted would not have been as destructive, as unintentional as it may have been. However, to play advocate, it is also arguable that man should not play in god's realm because a flawed man will always make mistakes. And unlike god, man is always flawed. And there's more arguments to be made, both taking the text of the film at face value all the way up to murdering the author's intent, but that's besides my point. Aside from the iconic monster, the real legacy of this film is the look. The stylized architecture, blending both impressionism and Gothic stylings, mixed in with some old world culture. This is evident the most in the iconic windmill that acts as Frankenstein's laboratory. Featuring heightened architecture, equally defined by it's off kilter geometric shapes and it's use of ancient materials, namely stone and mortar lit by torch and by high and unwelcoming windows. And at the opposite spectrum is the European Village, coded somewhat as Swiss, giving an aged yet inviting venue for the film's festivities. In as much as Dracula may have used these elements, it is this film that has codified it's use in the genre by it's extensive and wholly formed use. Dracula may have officially started Universal's Horror Factory, but it was this film that defined the studio's products. 19. The Mummy (1932)  And now for a film that I'm much less hot on. From the studio that brought audiences Dracula, comes kinda the same movie all over again except with Egyptian Mysticism. Except where Dracula had a clear throughline, this film is kinda all over the place. Where Dracula was a relatively simple story of, a creature with dangerous powers comes to our land to steal
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Oct 19, 2017 08:25
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Movie #27: Gerald's Game This movie is pretty hosed up but also has some real black humor that kind of balances it out. I enjoyed the book over a decade ago. I did think that the moonlight man in broad daylight at his arraignment was pretty funny. Also in my line of work I'm in court every day. If someone just walked into a closed arraignment and started talking to a defendant they'd be removed immediately. I also thought it was funny that the guy broke his restraints and the courtroom deputies just kinda let them talk for a second. It's funnier if you work in that environment I guess.
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Oct 19, 2017 08:30
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5. Messiah of Evil (1973, dir. Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz, d.p. Stephen Katz) The premise is decent, but there is nearly nothing in the substance of the film that I found even slightly engaging. There are clear Lovecraft influences in both the plot and the overbearing narration, but it suffers from the same characterization problems without the benefit of being able to relegate them behind a descriptive atmosphere. The cinematography in particular is just absolutely dire, and is directly responsible for detracting from somewhat interesting set designs. The theater scene was the only thing that stood out from the film as being particularly effective. There's clearly an appeal to this that I'm not getting, I just wish I understood what it was. 2/9
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Oct 19, 2017 08:58
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| # ? Jun 9, 2024 23:49 |
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#27: Baskin Really cool directorial debut out of Turkey, that manages to have a lot of obvious influences (Barker, Fulci, Hooper, etc.) yet manages to create a unique voice. The cops are kinda assholes, with one in particular you're rooting to bite it, but you can tell they're buddies, they all have great chemistry. The cinematography is great, especially the usage of oranges and blues, and how the exploration of the police station in the second half is lit with flashlights and lanterns. The eye for texture and minimal set design recall some of the best parts of Hellraiser and Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and adds a lot of fear to the movie. The third act is where the movie kind of loses it, though. For a slow burn, the film has good pacing throughout, but in the last part of the film, things take so long that the terror is replaced by a feeling of wanting the film to move on to the next thing. It's a solid movie, let down by a disappointing third act, but it's still recommended. Completed: Beyond the Black Rainbow, Rabid, The Driller Killer, Phantasm*, Phantasm II, Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead, Phantasm IV: Oblivion, Phantasm V: Ravager, The Prowler, The House of the Devil, From Beyond, Gremlins 2: The New Batch, Apt Pupil, Wait Until Dark, Gerald's Game, Hell House LLC, Black Swan*, Happy Birthday To Me, Pieces, Trollhunter, As Above So Below, The Devil's Candy, Antibirth, Chopping Mall, The Terminator*, Death Note, Ghostwatch, Baskin *denotes rewatches
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Oct 19, 2017 13:18
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