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Carnosaur is a once in a lifetime experience.
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Oct 3, 2018 17:02
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9. The Mummy's Hand (1940) - DVD Way better than the original despite the forced comedy. But the comedy was good and the whole thing was a fun ride that didn't over stay its welcome. Unfortunately reminds me that I can't afford a proper canvas wall tent  Biggest complaint would have to be the foley. Those white gas lanterns were silent and we missed out on a constant hiss of fuel running through the nozzle from the generator and periodic pumping to maintain pressure. Could easily have used kerosene hurricane lanterns and avoided this whole problem.  Tally: N/A Psycho (1960), 1. Halloween (1978), 2. Halloween II (1981), 3. Carnival of Souls (1962), 4. The Blob (1988), 5. I Bury the Living (1958), 6. Dead Men Walk (1943), 7. Nosferatu (1922), 8. Les Revenants (2002), 9. The Mummy's Hand (1940) Years Spanned: 82 (1922-2004) Tally by Decade: '20s (I), '30s (0), '40s (II), '50s (I), '60s (II), '70s (I), '80s (II), '90s (0), 2000s (I)
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Oct 3, 2018 17:21
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1. Scream Wes Craven was so, so, so good at what he did, and Kevin Williamson nailed the script to a T. One of this movie's greatest strengths is that every role is essentially perfectly cast, and I've never been able to un-see Skeet Ulrich as a slimeball piece of poo poo. It also has a magnificent soundtrack. From the SoHo cover of "Whisper to a Scream" that wraps the end credits, to Moby's "First Cool Hive," to Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' "Red Right Hand," everything just ... works. 2. Aliens I'm cooler on this movie than most, but it's still excellent. Cameron has an impeccable sense of pacing.
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Oct 3, 2018 17:23
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1991 has some solid picks. I’ve got Silence of the Lambs, Begotten, People Under The Stairs, Scorcese’s Cape Fear, and the worst Freddy movie.
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Oct 3, 2018 17:28
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Thanks for the recs. Dark Waters seems like my poo poo
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Oct 3, 2018 17:35
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Spatulater bro! posted:I'm 1983 and it sucks I already did Mandy. I'm in that delightful spot of not much came out on my birth year but the years before and after are a boomtown of choices. I'll still manage to pick out something.
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Oct 3, 2018 17:47
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 #12. Anaconda (Hulu) -  /5I know this movie has a reputation for being terrible, but it's terrible in a pretty enjoyable way. Like, on paper this should work - it's basically Jaws by way of Creature from the Black Lagoon, and having a big old animal invade your adventure film should lead to some fun set pieces and scary attack scenes. And they have a pretty solid cast of B-list actors, some of them right at the cusp of becoming much bigger stars (J-Lo, Ice Cube, fuckin' Owen Wilson!), and they're all pretty game for this ridiculous nonsense. So why doesn't this thing work as well as it should? I think that the CGI snake effects are okay, if dated, but you can tell that the animatronic snakes didn't work as well as they wanted. That's mostly relegated to random head inserts or shots of actors getting squeezed. The real downfall is Jon Voight's character, with his inconsistent accent and nonsensical bad guy motivations. I get that he's supposed to be "Quint but evil," but he doesn't even fill that role well, so it feels like there's a lot of padding around him taking over the boat crew that detracts from potential snake-on-man action (which is what I signed up for here). It pulls the film's attention away from the simple setup (that introduction scene of Danny Trejo getting stalked by an unseen snake until he ends up offing himself to avoid being eaten is actually pretty effective), and muddies the waters for something that doesn't need this much complication. Still, that snake action kinda works, in its goofy, cheesy way. If you can wait out when the movie is getting in its own way, what you get almost makes it worth it. Watched so far: Cat People, Halloween 5, Mom and Dad, Hell House LLC, A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010), Beetlejuice, The Horror of Party Beach, Wes Craven's New Nightmare, The Return of the Living Dead, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2, Murder Party, Anaconda Lurdiak posted:Carnosaur is a once in a lifetime experience. The last time I watched Carnosaur it sent me into a depressive funk for the rest of the night. Like, knowing that our time on Earth is limited, and I had willingly spent two hours of that finite time on a piece of poo poo like that, kinda wrecked me for a while. I'd advise extreme caution with that one.
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Oct 3, 2018 17:52
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Friends Are Evil posted:1991 has some solid picks. I’ve got Silence of the Lambs, Begotten, People Under The Stairs, Scorcese’s Cape Fear, and the worst Freddy movie. The remake came out in 2010, though........ Freddy's Dead is bad but it an enjoyable bad.
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Oct 3, 2018 18:01
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Friends Are Evil posted:1991 has some solid picks. I’ve got Silence of the Lambs, Begotten, People Under The Stairs, Scorcese’s Cape Fear, and the worst Freddy movie. 'Sup '91 buddy. I'm looking at Cast A Deadly Spell or Popcorn. Have you seen The Resurrected? It's Dan O'Bannon's film from '91. If you're a fan of his, you could do worse.
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Oct 3, 2018 18:04
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Mandy (2018) [Theater] This was a lot of fun, particularly once the revenge plot really kicked off. Very atmospheric, lots of color, Nicolas Cage and Linus Roache competing to give the most over-the-top performance. Loved the look of the Black Skulls. So Far: #1 The Terror (2018), #2 The Cabin in the Woods (2011), #3 Gone Girl (2014), #4 Annihilation (2018), #5 Seven (1995), #6 Mandy (2018)
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Oct 3, 2018 18:09
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#2 - When A Stranger Calls 1979 (Plex) -- / 5 Honestly, I expected this to be a lot more like the reboot from 2006, which essentially lifted the first 25 minutes of the original and extended it to a feature length. And granted, the first 25 minutes and last 20 minutes of this was fantastic. It's a god drat shame that the massive center chunk of this film was such a dud. Going in I knew the first 25 minutes were more or less the famous bits, but I expected it to play out as a home invasion babysitter thing. It is not that, at all. I was bamboozled into watching a private detective crime story. After the first act it takes a hard 180 degree flip and becomes about the detective tracking the maniac who escaped from a mental hospital (sound familiar?). That being said, I did really enjoy the beginning and end of this. I desperately want a directors cut or something that includes the first 25 minutes, a tiny amount of exposition where the Dr Mandaukis hires the detective to find the killer, then cut to the end. It would play so much better without 60 minutes of walking slowly in alley ways and bars behind the detective, solving nothing, accomplishing nothing. Highly recommend you watch the first 25 minutes so you can check that off your "horror classics" list. The best part of this movie was finally seeing the source material for the influence of the intro to Scream.
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Oct 3, 2018 18:13
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Class3KillStorm posted:
Saw this in theaters as a kid in elementary school. It rocked my world. Oh to be so impressionable again.
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Oct 3, 2018 18:42
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enigmahfc posted:The remake came out in 2010, though........ As opposed to New Nightmare, which is outright boring.
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Oct 3, 2018 19:07
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20. The Exorcist: Director's Cut (1973) Fran Challenge #1: Love Something You Hate Hate is a strong word, but The Exorcist has never done much of anything for me. I'm not Catholic, so I don't have a history of belief in demons, and the first time I saw it I think I was mainly bored. This time I prepared. I read the book, which was good, and better written than I expected. I sought out the director's cut, which I hadn't seen before. I still don't really like it, but I have developed a respect for what it does. Everyone knows the story of The Exorcist. A young girl begins to act entirely out of character, and after exhausting the scientific possibilities her mother turns toward the spiritual, and begs a priest who has lost his faith to perform an exorcism. It is about the horrors of unexplained disease, and faith and doubt. I don't have kids, but I can imagine your child changing overnight would be entirely terrifying. And, some of the added scenes from the director's cut made this legitimately scary - loud medical devices and needles and confusion all work together to freak me out. Father Karras and his doubt are at the center of the film, and honestly, were handled better in the book. This isn't really a fault of the movie, the book just has more space to set up symptoms of possession and then knock them down. Detective Kinderman's investigation is better handled in the book, too. You really get a grasp of how nervous the mom is about the detective interviewing her daughter, particularly after the mom becomes convinced of her possession and criminal guilt. Some of that was lost in the movie. (The internet tells me that they were simultaneous creations but Kinderman is entirely Colombo in the book. It was great.) Still, I have to give the movie credit. I liked it quite a bit more this time than originally, in part, I think, because I read the book. It has some genuinely disturbing scenes, many of which would probably not be filmed today. It was pretty revolutionary for its time. I think the original cut is better than the director's cut, though. *spooky**spooky**spooky*/5 21. May (2002)  Fran Challenge #2: Queer Horror May is a weird movie about a weird girl. A sheltered girl with a lazy eye and a domineering mother, May grows up without any friends except for the doll her mother made for her. Now out on her own, she begins to try to open up, and eventually realizes that people aren't all that great. It was an enjoyable flick. It lost a bit for me towards the end, when she begins to act like a completely different (and normal) person. I think we are supposed to think that she is in her element, and, so, not anxious or shy, but it's such a complete switch that it feels wrong.  .5/521 in the pre-October build up! Nice. I'll start with 1 again with my actual October movies. 1. Contagion (2011)  Fran Challenge #3: Hometown Horror IMDB claimed this took place in Minnesota, but for what is probably a global disaster I didn't really believe it. But most of it totally does! Anyway a cast of famous people either spread a new contagious disease around the entire world, or fight said disease. It's terrifying in that it feels real. My only real complaints are that I think society would probably collapse faster and to a higher degree than it does in the film, and for a worldwide contagion this film is mostly entirely US-centered. /5
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Oct 3, 2018 19:45
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  #5. Troll 2, a.k.a, Trolls, a.k.a., Monster Valley, a.k.a., The Return of Troll (1990) Aww yeah, that's the stuff. Goofy but earnest, from the performances to the special effects, costuming, and that awesome score. Oddly effective in evoking dream logic, like 'I was talking to my dead grandpa, but then my family called to me, and when I looked back at him, he was someone else.' So many stand-out lines of dialogue, so much green food coloring, so many copyrighted set dressing items. Better than the first Troll, and the fact that someone decided to make a documentary about this ludicrous piece of VHS-era dreck is both bizarre and right. Always fun to share this with someone who's never seen it before. Creedence Leonore Gielgud should be more of an icon. / 10 #6. Rumpelstiltskin (1995) Well, this was a disappointment. That cover art would reliably scare me as a kid. Shame to find out the movie is pretty much just a retread of the original Leprechaun movie, just with a baby swapped for the gold. Some fun with the antagonist repeated trading up his means of pursuit (felt a little like Terminator 2 in that regard), and the guy under the make-up put in a pretty good performance, considering the script with which he was saddled. Some good cackling, and I liked how the main character launched into serious self-defense without wasting any time. Allyce Beasley in severe '90s outfitting was fun, too. Less fun was the quick dropping of the wish fulfillment angle, which felt like the main draw from the movie's start. A little surprising that this hasn't been tapped for a remake (that I know of, at least) considering the abysmal reboot that Leprechaun: Origins inflicted on the world. Just doesn't have the same recognition cache, I guess. / 10   #7. Maniac Mansion, a.k.a., The Murder Mansion (1972) A Spanish giallo! Would that make it an amarillo? Very '70s, to the point where the phrase "conjugal rights" gets used. Also kind of a mess, structurally speaking, but not to an unwatchable degree. No tentacle monsters, no mad nurse, no meteor, but some convoluted scheming (as befits the genre) and decent atmosphere, with the foggy cemetery being the highlight. A heap of flashbacks and vague allusions are more frustrating than informative, and the numerous scenes with people going to bedrooms, going to sleep, getting in and out of bed, etc., meant that I had to take a second viewing to finish it after drowsing off the first time. Neat (personally speaking) for seeing a Spanish reflection of the Italian work at the time, but not much reason to recommend it beyond that, and I'm sure there's better instances of that to be found. Also, that first poster for it is wildly misrepresentative. / 10  #8. Cries in the Night, a.k.a., Funeral Home (1980) Probably best described as 'serviceable.' Pulls plot touches from more movies than I can name, but gets points for showing the situation affecting the surrounding community, and for not cramming all of the events into one small time-frame. Some weird performances aren't enough to break the glaze of dullness, and the copy I watched was murky and muddy in scenes set in dark rooms. I'm already forgetting details of this one, but the refitting of Psycho's ending was kind of amusing, with the explanatory dialogue just running over the credits. Cute recurring black cat that affected none of the events. Not much to say about this one, really. / 10
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Oct 3, 2018 19:50
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House on Haunted Hill (1958) Okay, the first minute of this movie rules. The screams, the chains, the moans….it was pure Halloween store delight, and pure William Castle. Then Vincent Price shows up and gently caress yeah. Vincent Price and Carol Ohmart playing a couple who outwardly are always trying to kill each other but seem totally cool with that hosed up game and their distain for each other is completely awesome. There’s an acid bath in the basement because why not. An old lady just snarls and glides around the room. Heads in boxes and handguns in tiny little coffins. A skeleton bobs around and gingerly pushes a woman into acid. The movie is moody and dark, and it’s really easy to see why this is such a horror classic. Price’s performance alone is worth it, but that goes without saying. The version on Amazon Prime is colorized, which sucks, but the movie is pretty loving fun. / 5Total: 1. Hereditary (2018) | 2. 1922 (2017) | 3. Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich (2018) | 4. Pumpkinhead 2: BloodWings (1993) | 5. House on Haunted Hill (1958)
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Oct 3, 2018 20:09
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graventy posted:1. Contagion (2011) Any movie that offs Gwenyth Paltrow automatically get a few more points from me.
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Oct 3, 2018 20:15
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enigmahfc posted:Any movie that offs Gwenyth Paltrow automatically get a few more points from me. Her death scene is super creepy. Tempted to rewatch it so I can better do a comparison with The Andromeda Strain.
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Oct 3, 2018 20:24
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17. Maximum Overdrive - This movie features a truck that has a giant sculpture of the Green Goblin's face on the grill, and the soundtrack is done entirely by AC/DC. It's basically a masterpiece. Also, it's a remake of Night of the Living Dead. 18. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) - Rewatch. I still prefer the original to this, but this has some great performances and really admire the filmmaking here. Philip Kaufman does a wonderful job of de-stabilizing the viewer from what would ordinarily be familiar environments. It re-positions the fear of conformity in the original to people chasing after conformity in the appearance of '70s era hippie culture and psychiatry. 19. Angel Heart - Okay, but I expected more from this. The twists and turns of the episodic story fit neatly alongside other film noir. I thought it'd be a little more horror, but it was good for what it was. I might find it more enjoyable on re-watches. I though the plot twists were a little too spelled out too early on. This is a very obvious influence on Nolan(s) though, and I don't think their attempts to recreate what this does are quite as good as the movie itself. 20. Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers - A weaker entry in the series, but I think I actually prefer this to the second one. I'm kind of bugged by the change in aspect ratio though. I'd assume that would be done for budgetary reasons, but this had a higher budget than any of the previous movies. This sort of feels like a later entry in the Friday the 13th series, due to a couple of goofier elements. The gas station getting wrecked at the beginning. A bar filled with good ol' boys wearing plaid and denim who decide to take out a mass-murderer. Michael Myers's super strength (He kills several people in this just by pushing his fingers into their heads!). I wish the more comedic elements had pushed slightly more, although I can understand why they wanted to differentiate it from Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th by backing away from that somewhat. The most interesting idea they added for this one is Laurie Strode's daughter. Danielle Harris does a pretty good job for a child actress and by making her character so young, it avoids comparisons to Jamie Lee Curtis (even if her character is named Jamie). I wish they'd done more with this (like play up the fears a child would have), but they do get some mileage out of it. It turns it into an almost metaphorical conflict. Jamie is life. Michael is death. But she's also Michael. She's Michael happening again. I'm not sure why Loomis is alive again. I thought he died in part 2, but it's been a bit since I last saw it. Maybe it was assumed that the burn/limp they gave him was explanation enough. I'm glad he's back though. It's nice to have at least one recurring actor in Donald Pleasance, and he kind of guides you through the movie as the only person who really knows what Michael is capable of. It reminds me of the old Hammer movies where Peter Cushing kept coming back as Dr. Frankenstein. His craziness feels a bit toned down, which I wasn't a huge fan of. This movie just feels tired and played out and it's only on the fourth movie. I do adore the opening credits though. 21. Halloween 5 - Maybe I'm crazy, but I enjoyed this one the most out of the Halloween sequels so far. (At least the ones that aren't called Season of the Witch). It's a totally straight-forward slasher, without that many interesting elements, but I think it comes together better than the previous ones. Stylistically it isn't much, but it's competent enough. The characters in this stuck with me more than the previous sequels. I really enjoyed Tina especially. She has some great chemistry with Jamie. She actually probably should've been Jamie's sister instead of Rachel, but it was too late for that. There's a pretty bizarre sequence with her where cops save her from being killed by Michael Myers, but then no one thinks to tell her that Michael Myers is on the loose. Weird. It literalizes the metaphorical link between Michael and Jamie so now there's a psychic connection between them. It's an interesting direction to take things in, but I don't think enough is done with it. At least they semi-followed up on previous film's ending. Nobody remembers that Jamie killed her mom, which is odd given that footage is replayed in this movie. Dr. Loomis is completely nuts now. He's just screaming at a little girl to tell her where Myers is. He uses her as bait to lure Myers out and yells at the sheriff about his dead daughter. He's totally off-the-deep-end but barely anyone acknowledges it or even seems to notice at all. I also love the presence of a 50s style greaser. I feel like they often seems to pop up in 80s movies, and I can only assume it happens because teen culture stopped for the people who made the films as soon as they stopped being teenagers. The man in the shadows feels like a precursor to the type of nonsense in recent blockbusters. Something vaguely mysterious is inserted into the film and then used to setup a direct sequel at the last possible moment. In fact, he was lifted wholesale for The Amazing Spider-Man. 22. Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers - Producer's cut. There's a moment in this where a character screams "Enough of this Michael Myers bullshit!" and that's the way I feel too. This isn't exactly awful, but it is boring. Paul Rudd would've made for a good Norman Bates. 23. Halloween H20: 20 Years Later - Man, this was just a slog. It's nice to see Jamie Lee Curtis again, and she does add a certain je ne sais quoi to things, and I appreciate that they tried to make this more like the original film (the only one that was good), but this is about on the same level as the previous sequels. There's no tension, no drama, no thrilling elements, and no horror. Things just happen. The closest thing to scares in this is a stupid repeated gag where people sneak up on Laurie Strode and accidentally surprise her as a scare chord plays. It's awful. This feels like an attempt to marry some of the aesthetics of Scream with the Halloween series, but it's so half-done that it just feels awkward. The characters don't list all their horror knowledge – thank god – but there's constant non-diagetic callbacks to Halloween and other horror movies. Janet Leigh even pops up in the car from Psycho as music from Psycho plays. The strangest one of these is someone watching Scream 2. In Scream, they watch and discuss the Halloween movies. Which means that Halloween is also a movie in the world of H20. LL Cool J being mistaken for Michael Myers and getting shot does not play well today, but I'm also pretty sure it must've played badly at the time this came out. I might return to the Halloween series later in the month, but those last four really put me through the wringer. Almost Blue fucked around with this message at 23:26 on Oct 3, 2018 |
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Oct 3, 2018 20:33
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 Prince of Darkness(1987) Typically this movie is regarded as mid-tier Carpenter. I've never agreed with that personally, but maybe it's because I'm a sucker for this kind of meta-physical stuff, especially when combined with ancient aliens. Throw in Donald Pleasence and Victor Wong, and it's like this movie was made just for me. The screenplay for the film was written by "Martin Quatermass", which turns out to be Mr. Carpenter himself, an homage to the Quatermass films that obviously were such a heavy influence on Prince of Darkness. Another Quatermass reference shows up when the main character says that he recently transferred from "Kneale" University, and I was a little surprised to learn that Nigel Kneale was not happy about that(according to Wikipedia at least). He somehow got it in his head that the Kneale name being mentioned would confuse audiences about whether or not he was involved with the movie, and I guess he wasn't a fan so didn't want to be associated with it. I'm sure Carpenter dealt with that kind of poo poo his whole career, as very few of his films were as celebrated on release as they are today. The movie is a blender of all sorts of different flavors of horror. There's a little bit of traditional slashing, some creepy sci-fi horror moments, some spooky gothic aesthetics in the basement itself, and Pleasense is there to dial the whole thing up a notch and make it feel more operatic than dumb(which it easily could've been in lesser hands). Don't disregard this one if you've seen some of Carpenter's more iconic films. Total: 1. Frankenstein(1931) 2. The Old Dark House(1932) 3. The Bride of Frankenstein(1935) 4. The Mummy(1932) 5. The Invisible Man(1933) 6. The Wolfman(1941) 7. House of Frankenstein(1944) 8. House of Dracula(1945) 9. Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein(1948) 10. The Boogeyman Will Get You(1942) 11. The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms(1953) 12.Gojira(1954) 13. Creature From the Black Lagoon(1954) 14. The Night of the Hunter(1955) 15. The Curse of Frankenstein(1957) 16. Brides of Dracula(1960) 17. The Tomb of Ligeia(1964) 18. Blood and Black Lace(1964) 19. Frankenstein Created Woman(1967) 20. Quatermass and the Pit(1967) 21. Don't Look Now(1973)22. Dracula A.D. 1972 23. Phantom of the Paradise(1974) 24. The Wicker Man(1973) 25. Nosferatu The Vampyre(1979) 26. The Fog(1980) 27. An American Werewolf in London(1981) 28. Prince of Darkness(1987)
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Oct 3, 2018 20:51
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Franchescanado posted:
I could potentially even do this one better. In preparation for the inevitable birth year challenge (I considered month, but figured you wouldn't give such an obvious advantage to September/October kids), I managed to find something that came out on my birthday right to the day. And what do you know, it's been mentioned a couple of times within the last few pages.  It's Carnosaur.
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Oct 3, 2018 21:33
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FRAN CHALLENGE #5: Birth of Horror 
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I wanted to keep with first time watches but I've made a terrible mistake..  Swamp Thing (1982) Born in 1982 and 'Swamp Thing' was always a character I heard about, but never watched. Researching this movie after watching, I realize it's likely that the cartoon show and TV series were more responsible for the talk I heard at school, rather than this piece of poo poo I'm not going to bother summarizing it. It's an 80s action flick that stars a superhero (?) and features some of the most groan worthy dialog , stupid love story and typical 80s army-guys-shooting-things action. With little, cartoon-ish violence and no cursing, the extended boob scenes seem out of place. I'm guessing this movie was still banking on the 'PG or R' system to get adolescence boys into the theater. Without even the lens of nostalgia to view this through, this thing is a huge stinker. I'm kind of angry this is even tagged as 'horror' at IMDb and criticker, this story with any other superhero would just be action. But I’m counting it anyway. Because IMDb says so.... and dems the rules. / 5
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Oct 3, 2018 21:35
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Holy poo poo, the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre was my birth year! I had no idea it was that old! Oh man, I'm old. I'm gunna dig up a copy of that and Halloween. And maybe watch the second TCM also because I remember liking that as a kid, also, but not sure if it'll hold up today.
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Oct 3, 2018 22:09
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Almost Blue posted:
I think you meant to label this bit Halloween H20. I'm bummed you didn't like it but I also wonder if I remember it fondly because I watched it after the extremely messy Curse of Michael Myers. The next and final (until the new movie in theaters this month) is as bad or worse than Curse of Michael Myers.
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Oct 3, 2018 22:13
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Jumping in with my films of the past 3 days. Going to try to hit at least 15 this month, hopefully I'll end up doing more. I've got a friend who wants to watch a good number of horror movies with me before she moves away, so hopefully that'll put the fire under me. Pumpkinhead - 1988 What a blast. The entire film was so well-executed that I’m shocked Stan Winston didn’t go on to have a major feature film directing career. It had the perfect balance of, grime, polish, and stylization that makes this era of horror my favorite from a visual and storytelling standpoint. Henriksen is incredible as the grief-stricken father going through hell and back and I loved the cartoonishly impoverished family, but the teenagers disappoint a bit in their paper-thin characterization—I wish we’d spent more time with the couple who we end up following and less time on the expendable brothers. This meant the whole thing sagged in the middle whenever Henriksen or the titular creature weren’t on screen, but there was more than enough going on visually to make up for that. The witch’s swamp, the grocery story in the middle of nowhere, the hillbilly farm, the burnt-out church, the pumpkin patch... all just top-notch stuff from a fantastic visual artist. I must say, however, I was a bit disappointed by the creature itself. I was expecting something a lot less human and a lot more unique—more animatronic puppet than man-in-suit. The actual effects themselves are perfectly executed, but the design was a huge letdown of a slightly more expressive xenomorph. Definitely one I’ll be returning to again. A- Pieces - 1982 (via The Last Drive-In With Joe Bob Briggs - 2018) There’s a ton to like here. The kills were terrific, it was weird and fun in inventive ways, I love a movie that wears its theme on its sleeve, and the pacing was perfect. The mystery, however, didn’t really work for me. I have a problem with this earlier era of slasher in particular (Tourist Trap, Slumber Party Massacre, etc.) where I always assume they’re trying to be much more clever and twisty than they end up being. The identity of the killer was fine but completely predictable, though there were enough intriguing red herrings laid along the way that how they got there was still passable. The actual psychosexual killer stuff I enjoyed, though. Sure the metaphor is overused, and the film is extremely blunt in its treatment of the subject, but it works. The whole intro is terrific, I love the returning to the puzzle visual, I love the end goal of the killer, and I love how out-in-the-open and crazy the chainsaw kills are. It’s just a shame it goes absolutely nowhere. A wildly fun final (if nonsensical from a plot perspective) shot doesn’t make up for the fact that the reveal of the corpse was so lame. The treatment of its female characters across the board is poor, though. It’s not as misogynistic as its reputation suggests, but you can’t just perpetuate and indulge in negative gender stereotypes your whole film only to turn around at the end and say “See wasn’t that bad?” The detective (/ tennis star? hell yeah  ) was absolutely betrayed by the filmmakers in the final act when all her set-up agency was stripped away by some roofies just so the little weedy boy could save her. The random Bruce Le cameo of him assaulting her in the dark at night being played for a laugh was a twist of the knife. Albeit a hilariously out-of-nowhere one. That or I’m giving the film way too much credit and the final message was meant to be “Aren’t chicks the worst?”Which brings me to Joe Bob Briggs. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge fan of the guy and am extremely grateful for his to his contributions to horror and cult cinema. And I know there’s a difference between the character and the man. But when they share the same name and the guy wrote the thing, it’s hard to separate the two and not believe that the misogyny is coming from a real place. The guy is in his 60s so it may just be a product of his era, but it’s really disappointing that he didn’t drop all that sexist nonsense after the 90s. The constant dismissive off-hand comments and the buxom mail girl didn’t really work back in the day, and it definitely doesn’t work now, regardless of how competent you try to make her. It’s just like in the film—subverting those harmful ideas doesn’t matter if you spend more time perpetuating them. Outside of that, though, this was my third episode of Last Drive-In and the format remains great. I’d love if in the next couple of specials/series they figured out how to break away from the Monstervision format a bit more and make it feel a bit more unique. It’s got a ton of potential but it felt a bit cheap (probably because it was) and I’d love if it had a bit more energy. Pieces C+ Last-Drive In Segments: B Return of the Living Dead - 1985 Do you ever get really sad after watching a perfect movie because you know that you’ll never be able to watch it again for the first time? The script, the visuals, the characters, the effects, the pacing, the concept, the weirdness, the social commentary. Just firing on all cylinders the entire time without a wasted or bad moment. I love the big cartoonish 80s punks, I love the bloody over-the-top kills, I love pitch-perfect special effects and animatronic zombies, I love love love love the ending. Just... man. There’s nothing about this that I don’t love. That being said, I can still nitpick—even perfection can be a little more perfect. I feel like Suicide was so great that he was short-changed by his early death. Especially when I feel like they set-up something really interesting with him being a “real” punk who believed in the ideas, not just the appearance. It rounded him immediately and I wish I’d gotten to see a lot more of him. Same goes for Trash and her insecurities. But it’s telling if my only nitpicks are that I want more of the stuff that I loved. Much like Pumpkinhead, I’m shocked that O’Bannon fizzled out as a director after making a movie this good. For years I’d been saving this as a rainy-day movie that I knew I’d love. I started out my 32nd year on this planet with it and this was a very, very good decision. This movie has immediately shot into my upper echelon of favorite films. A+ I also watched part of the Monstervision episode that went along with RotLD, but found it too tiresome to switch back and forth between the different versions, as I didn’t want to watch the cropped TV edit on my first viewing. Maybe at some point I’ll do a fan-edit of it to combine the two for future viewings and release to one of the private horror trackers. Either way, I’ll definitely be tracking down the workprint version at some point. feedmyleg fucked around with this message at 16:47 on Oct 5, 2018 |
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Oct 3, 2018 22:18
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Hmm, 1990 has a few interesting options (Jacob's Ladder, Begotten, Gremlins 2) but I've already seen those and I want to check out something I've never seen. Somehow I've never seen Tremors or Nightbreed, so someone tell me which one I should watch.
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Oct 3, 2018 22:24
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Grizzled Patriarch posted:Hmm, 1990 has a few interesting options (Jacob's Ladder, Begotten, Gremlins 2) but I've already seen those and I want to check out something I've never seen. Somehow I've never seen Tremors or Nightbreed, so someone tell me which one I should watch. Tremors
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Oct 3, 2018 22:27
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Same exact thing happened to me with Return of the Living Dead. I somehow missed out on seeing it until I was like 30, and I immediately fell in love with it and it shot straight up into my Halloween-week viewing list which really doesn't change a lot from year to year. It went directly from a movie I'd never seen before to one of my top-10 favorite horror movies after seeing it just once.
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Oct 3, 2018 22:28
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Grizzled Patriarch posted:Hmm, 1990 has a few interesting options (Jacob's Ladder, Begotten, Gremlins 2) but I've already seen those and I want to check out something I've never seen. Somehow I've never seen Tremors or Nightbreed, so someone tell me which one I should watch. Tremors is a legit good monster movie. Nightbreed is weird and you can tell it wants to be a huge import Star Wars of Horror but instead is...not.
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Oct 3, 2018 22:38
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Tremors would be my go-to Staff Pick every single year, but I assume everyone's seen it. If you haven't seen Tremors, put it at the top of your watch list.
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Oct 3, 2018 22:41
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feedmyleg posted:The constant dismissive off-hand comments and the buxom mail girl didn’t really work back in the day, and it definitely doesn’t work now, regardless of how competent you try to make her. Fun trivia. I figured that girl was just someone looking to cash in some air time in hopes of catching a modeling contract or something. Nope, she's a full-on porn star and has been one for a while. This raises more questions to why she was chosen as the mail girl when, as you said, they didn't really need one. I don't know if you saw the other movies he hosted, but he really gets going on some rants that last forever, aren't funny and really don't add anything. JBB is great and I will watch everything he does, but someone does need to reel him in on some of his own ideas
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Oct 3, 2018 23:14
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Franchescanado posted:
1985 has a drat good selection of horror. Day of the Dead, Friday the 13th Part 5, Nightmare on Elm Street 2, Fright Night, Howling II, Lifeforce, Re-Animator and Return of the Living Dead. If I didn't mention your favorite I'm sorry but when it comes to the 80s you will forget something. But, I decided to go for one that I heard a little about (plus I saw most of those and my rule was no re-watches just freshness) and decided to pick something off the beaten path. All I knew going in from what I read back then was that it was a fun black comedy-horror romp and I'm up for that. 22. The Stuff (1985)  Yeah, the movie is very 80s not just in horror but in politics. It’s about a new product called “The Stuff” which is a yogurt-like product taking the nation by storm by being low calorie and the effort by the ice cream industry to stop it by hiring an industrial spy to figure out the secret recipe. It’s very Ronald Reagan in how it goes about this and the film is pretty much part political satire of its times in addition to low-budget 80s camp horror. It has Wall Street types hiring the industrial spy (played by Michael Moriarty) who speaks their language about takeovers and market share who really brings this movie together by being silver-tongued in how he interacts with everyone. From the PR people behind The Stuff to disgraced executives bought out by The Stuff he is able to bring together a campy kind of mystery where you know something weird (and probably messed up) will be revealed. Well, it does and it gets a total Invasion of the Body Snatchers vibe very fast. But, like I said it has that ever present self-aware 80s commentary about consumerism and adherence. The conspiracy and mystery get more and more intense then the Where’s The Beef old lady cameo happens with Abe Vigoda in the same bit. Like I said, this movie is self-aware and campy and that’s why I was having a blast with it though the political satire fades as the film goes on. It has some pretty terrible (in a good way) practical effects that also adds to the film's tone. Like I said before, the lead is an industrial spy who also is true to his word and needs to investigate further. The ending scene then becomes action where the industrial spy reveals he is really reporting to the military and they move in and exterminate The Stuff. This is where the final bit of 80s cheese kicks in and a bunch of Nam veterans (“We lost that war at home, sonny”) enter. It really clashes with the conspiracy present in the film before but then loops around and becomes 80s cheese again where America wins always. This is a difficult film to review because it alternates between serious and absurd so often. That makes it the perfect satire in a way. /5Total: 1. The Conjuring 2 (2016), 2. Terrifier (2016), 3. Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948), 4. Split (2017), 5. The First Purge (2018), 6. Trick 'R Treat (2009), 7. Wolf Creek (2005), 8. King Kong (1976), 9. Halloween II (2009), 10. Pumpkinhead (1988), 11. House on Haunted Hill (1959), 12. House on Haunted Hill (1999), 13. What We Do in the Shadows (2014), 14. Ghostbusters (2016), 15. Bride of Chucky (1998), 16. Seed of Chucky (2004), 17. Nightbreed (1990), 18. The Axe Murders of Villisca (2016), 19. Ghosts of Mars (2001), 20. Haunters: The Art of the Scare (2017), 21 Annabelle (2014), 22. The Stuff (1985) Justin Godscock fucked around with this message at 06:07 on Oct 5, 2018 |
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Oct 3, 2018 23:19
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Day 3 - Zombie https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9JuX__CPYQ I don't like Italian horror. However, every October for the challenge I take a stab at it because it is such a huge part of the genre. I may dislike the movies of Bava, Argento, and Fulci, but I want to at least give them a shot. So here's this year's attempt, Zombie aka Zombi 2. And it's fine. A boat pulls into New York harbor with just a zombie on board. A reporter and the daughter of the boat's owner go to look for her missing parents in the Caribbean with the help of a pair of tourists. Turns out, her parents were on an isolated island with zombies. (Wait, so if her dad was killed after he became a zombie by the doctor, then how'd the boat get back to New York?). For the most part, I felt like I had seen everything here before. Now in total fairness, we are living in the post-zombie saturation apocalypse world, but I feel like I've seen all the major beats of this movie in better films that pre-date it. So the movie felt stale to me with only a few notable exceptions. The biggest exception is the famous zombie versus shark fight. I was rooting for the shark since it was just hanging out and minding its own business when some rear end in a top hat tourist decided to start shooting at it. And the underwater fight was shot pretty well and it was something genuinely creative. I am looking forward to Zombiphoon versus Sharknado now. I can get why people might point out Zombie in the days before we had too many zombie movies. There's nothing really wrong with it and the gore effects were extreme for the time (though that's something I have no interest in). But there's so many better options now that I can't say it's worth watching. There's something special about that final shot of zombies shambling across the Brooklyn Bridge... as regular New York City traffic is just driving past them. New Yorkers really are jaded, aren't they? Dr.Caligari posted:
So Swamp Thing as a character is kind of funky. He originated in the mid-70's from a horror anthology comic and then got spun off to his own series (pedants: I know. I'm keeping it simple.). And these were kind of okay but not really too interesting stories about a moss monster living in a swamp. Though initially it did fine, it slumped pretty quickly. Then someone said, "Hey let's give this weird kid from England a chance," and Alan Moore broke comic books through the series. No, I didn't mean "break in", I mean he broke the entire medium. For example, his second issue is one of the all time greats. Moore wrapped up all the ongoing stories in his first issue by having it end with someone blowing Swamp Thing's head off and then the next issue is about a researcher dissecting his corpse. So the movie got produced at this weird moment right when Moore was taking over the book, so it leans into the older stories with it mad scientist arch-nemesis and super hero trappings. If it had been made two years later, it might have turned out completely different. Basically what I'm saying is read Alan Moore's Swamp Thing. Basebf555 posted:
Prince of Darkness is the film that gets mentioned by people who are really into Carpenter as his secretly great film. I like it a lot myself, though I do think it's lacking a bit compared to the other 80's Carpenter films. It just doesn't have the same energy as some of his other movies.
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Oct 3, 2018 23:25
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Dr.Caligari posted:I don't know if you saw the other movies he hosted, but he really gets going on some rants that last forever, aren't funny and really don't add anything. JBB is great and I will watch everything he does, but someone does need to reel him in on some of his own ideas I've seen a few, and yeah, his weird and cringey Sleepaway Camp hot take on gender was well-intentioned but misguided. Also, ooof on that porn star thing. That's... really, really unfortunate. Basebf555 posted:Same exact thing happened to me with Return of the Living Dead. I somehow missed out on seeing it until I was like 30, and I immediately fell in love with it and it shot straight up into my Halloween-week viewing list which really doesn't change a lot from year to year. It went directly from a movie I'd never seen before to one of my top-10 favorite horror movies after seeing it just once. I'm just glad I finally understand where pop culture's obsession with depicting zombies as moaning for brains comes from. Franchescanado posted:Tremors would be my go-to Staff Pick every single year, but I assume everyone's seen it. Tremors is such a great movie that works so well and I love it, but it's weirdly just 2 degrees off from feeling like a cliche-ridden snooze to me. Every character is so stock and archetypal, every story beat is well-trod and predictable, and every line is somewhere in a textbook with "Don't write dialogue like this" written underneath. But none of that matters at all. I have no idea how it works, but it really, really does on all levels.
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Oct 3, 2018 23:27
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Random Stranger posted:I don't like Italian horror.   Random Stranger posted:the gore effects were extreme for the time (though that's something I have no interest in).
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Oct 3, 2018 23:35
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Jolo posted:I think you meant to label this bit Halloween H20. I'm bummed you didn't like it but I also wonder if I remember it fondly because I watched it after the extremely messy Curse of Michael Myers. The next and final (until the new movie in theaters this month) is as bad or worse than Curse of Michael Myers. Whoops! Yeah, you're right. I'd forgotten to change the title/number of movie I was on. Reading up on fan reaction to H20, opinions seem to be split. If you enjoyed it before, I'd say maybe re-watch it to see how you feel about it now. You might really like it! None of the sequels have done much for me (besides Halloween III) but if you liked the second one, you might found some cool stuff in this too. And what you said about the next one jives with the dire things I've heard about Resurrection, so if I do get around to it I'll have to get in the mood for a trashy slasher sequel again. One thing I forgot to mention for H20 is that it begins with narration by Dr. Loomis. But they hired some other actor to imitate Donald Pleasence instead of using old audio. Which is already weird, because the guy they got sounds nothing like Donald Pleasence, but what makes it even stranger is that what he says is just dialog from the first movie. I'd guess that they couldn't get the rights to using stock elements from it, but they splice in a few flashbacks from the original. So who knows.
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Oct 3, 2018 23:36
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All I remember about Halloween Resurrection is Busta Rhymes fights Michael Myers. My definition of a "bad movie" has always been you will forget all of it except for the part that is just plain stupid. The movie sucks.
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Oct 3, 2018 23:59
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quote:Tremors Speak of the graboid... watched it yesterday. #10 Tremors (1990) - hadn't seen this for about 20 years. I never remember being scared of the graboids as a kid, and for obvious reasons - this movie is just too funny and entertaining to scare anyone. Some horror-comedies mix in the scares, this, to me, I dunno, never is scary and I would argue is too lighthearted and slapstick to be, DESPITE how convincing the graboid special effects (minatures, animatronics, puppetry, etc.) are. A huge +1 for me is how realistically designed the monsters are - if a scientist were to envision large worm-like beasts that tunnel through the ground at high speeds, maybe they would come up with a graboid. Unlike other horror movies, I did not want to see any of the townsfolk meet their demise, they were too well-cast, distinct and likeable. I suppose this is evidence that humor = audience engagement and sympathy. Something to ponder: the Tremors franchise has more entries than Jaws! I think this speaks to the popularity and cult classic status of the first film. I haven't looked into who wrote Tremors but I hope they had a fruitful career in Hollywood. 9/10 #11 Ghostbusters II (1989) - unlike what Roger Ebert thought, I felt this sequel took the franchise in a refreshing direction. C'mon, in what other movie have you seen the Statue of Liberty walk around New York? Personally I do not find Bill Murray's character too appealing, while funny he is a slob kind of half-assing through life and half-asses his way back into the arms of Sigorney Weaver. I suspect this movie has a high score among the audience as opposed to a low critic's score. Forgive the brief review, this a fun comedy and I finally got around to seeing this for the first time. 7/10
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Oct 4, 2018 00:05
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Today I watched Kitaro! This was a random find at Half Price Books. I know that there is a manga called GeGeGe no Kitaro, with monsters and such, but I've never read it or watched the anime adaptations. So I was going in pretty much blind. Kitaro turned out to be way more a children's movie than I expected. The plot is about this little kid who gets bullied, and has to learn to let go of his dead parent, and also tell the truth, and so on. Standard kid's movie stuff, not very engrossing for adults. But Kitaro is worth it just for the Yokai. All manner of weird, ugly Japanese folk tale monsters are brought to life in all their glory. A few are CGI but the bulk of them are just people in giant masks. It's impossible to fund good screenshots online for some reason, but trust me, great monsters. My final verdict; if you want a harmless children's movie you can show to your son, daughter, niece, whoever, that will give them nightmares about monsters so weird that as an adult they will assume it must've been a product of their imagination, show them Kitaro
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Oct 4, 2018 00:09
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With Doom and Kitaro I've really been tiptoeing around the edge of what you can call "horror". I promise tomorrow I'll get back to some unambiguous horror.
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Oct 4, 2018 00:12
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