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9. Malevolent (2018) A Netflix Original  Jackson shops his sister Angela’s clairvoyant “gift” to the grief stricken with promises to clear their homes for cash, but its all a con passed down from their parents. But Angela’s gift might not be so fake and when Jackson pushes for one more big payday to help settle some debts to the wrong people… well, you know how “last jobs” go. I enjoyed this. I really just was looking for something random and not too heavy to kind of cleanse the palette and when I opened up Netflix there was this new film and I decided to give it a try. Truthfully with the “fake ghost hunters” premise I was kind of hoping for a Grave Encounters kind of trip but its played much straighter and creepier than that. But that’s fine too, I like ghost stories. There’s nothing new or exciting about this. Its clearly kind of born from the whole James Wan thing (I mean "Malevolent"?) with some creepy moody atmosphere, some ghosts, and some jump scares. Actually Jackson and Angela’s parents could have been the Warrens and this probably would fit very neatly into the Conjuring universe as a kind of “Next Generation” story. So if that’s not your thing stay clear. For me its not anything that will set the world on fire or change anything, but it gets the job done. While there’s a larger cast Florence Pugh carries most of the movie in the main role and she does a very good job of it. I’ve never heard of her nor have I heard of anything she’s been in but apparently she’s been successful in the UK and won an award of some kind for a recent Lady MacBeth film that's not about that Lady MacBeth. She seems to have one of those Netflix deals appearing in a bunch of original stuff of theirs and her next couple of films include the starring role in a biopic about WWE star Paige and a(nother) Little Women adaptation as Amy alongside Meryl Streep, Laura Dern, and Emma Watson. So that’s quite a range. The film takes a bit of a twist late and goes into a pretty tough direction. I’m ok with it, it makes enough sense, it was just a tad unexpected. But also not. Like, even the twist is pretty by the numbers and kind of “Wanish” but the brutality of it kind of struck me. All in all I wanted a palette cleanser and it did the job. You don’t have to go out of your way to see this. It won’t blow you away. But if you’re looking for a simple little haunted house scare and don’t mind that Wan guy you could do worse. Its not directed by James Wan despite me mentioning him so much. Its directed by Olaf de Fleur Johannesson, an Icelandic director who has apparently had some success there. So for you Nordic natives maybe that means something? I dunno. Its late and the movie really didn’t give a lot to talk about. But still, it was satisfyingly competent and just about what I was looking for at the time. September Tally - New (Total) 1. A Cure For Wellness (2016) / - (2). Slither (2006) / 2 (3). Castle Rock (2018) / - (4). The Forsaken (2001) / 3 (5). The Night Eats the World (2018) / 4 (6). The Girl With All The Gifts (2016) / 5 (7). The Voices (2014) / 6 (8). Beyond the Black Rainbow (2010) / 7 (9). Jug Face (2013) / 8 (10). Coherence (2013) / 9 (11). A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night (2014) / - (12). Vampire in Brooklyn (1995) / 10 (13). Excision (2012) / 11 (14). Spring (2014) October Tally - New (Total) 1. Suspiria (1977) / 2. It (2017) / 3. The Beyond (1981) / 4. Trilogy of Terror (1979) / 5. House on Haunted Hill (1959) / 6. Demons (1985) / 7. The Green Inferno (2013) / 8. Martin (1978) / 9. Malevolent (2018) STAC Goat fucked around with this message at 11:40 on Oct 8, 2018 |
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Oct 8, 2018 11:24
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23. Near Dark 1987 | dir. Kathryn Bigelow | Rental Finger lickin' good.  The reason I love these challenges is because I'm almost always guaranteed to find a new favorite. I've already found around six I would consider a new-found loves, but this has skyrocketed into my top favorites very quickly. This was released just three months after The Lost Boys. They share a lot of the same DNA, especially in plot and set-up. TLB has it's west coast aesthetic, and plays with the punk culture that was in full force at the time, while Near Dark has a more western-punk vibe that I absolutely love. Still, it's a little unfair that I've seen TLB a dozen times and I don't know anyone offline that's even heard of Near Dark. It's easily the superior movie, in my eyes. The cast is wonderful. I'd have easily spent double the run-time to see this life-style. I like the details of how the vampires survive, I like this weird neo-western / punk world. I love the bloody mayhem. It's a drat exciting movie. I was loudly cheering during the hotel shoot-out. This movie shows the false promise of immortality of vampirism very well. The characters talk about being all-powerful and living forever, and yet they are completely victims to their situation. They've adapted, sure, but their lifestyle of constantly moving, hiding, and feeding is ruined accidentally by a young adult. It's fragile and limiting. Their selfish craving and hunger is their ultimate downfall; they're beyond reasonable with their bloody greed. Anytime I watch Bill Paxton, I want to watch more movies with Bill Paxton. Dude just goes for it every drat time and I love him for that. Highly Recommended! Movies Seen: Hell House, LLC | Dagon | The Bird With the Crystal Plumage | Critters 2 | Serial Mom | Monster Squad | The Neon Demon | Motel Hell | Vampyr | Possession | Under The Skin | Martyrs | The Curse of the Werewolf | The Old Dark House | Children of the Corn | Assassination Nation | The Leopard Man | Halloween 2 | Häxan | Friday the 13th Part 7: The New Blood | What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? | Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things | Near Dark Total: 23 Fran Challenges:
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Oct 8, 2018 12:43
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Dr.Caligari posted:I actually enjoyed this movie, it's just so unique and authentic. I'm not sure if you watched this as part of the JBB Drive-In series, but he added some trivia to the movie and his guest seemed to have a genuine interest in the movie. It was a completely random find at Fry's
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Oct 8, 2018 12:46
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19) I Am The Pretty Thing That Lives In The House A Scream Stream watch. It was... fine, for what it was. I completely expected to hate it going into it, because of how absurdly the first act dragged. But, it actually turned out to be pretty decent for a slow gothic horror. I wish it had a few more spooks or did a better job of coming up with a sense of uneasiness, though. 20) Nail Gun Massacre Hell yeah, another Scream Stream watch. This one was stupid and I had such a blast. If you can suspend your disbelief enough to believe that a guy getting a nail through his upper arm can kill him, well, this is the movie for you. Watched (20): Puppet Master 4, Puppet Master 5, Terrifier, Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires, Martyrs (2008), Mandy, Babadook, Ghost Stories, Behind the Mask: the Rise of Leslie Vernon, Curse of the Puppet Master, Devil's Candy, Curse of Frankenstein, Mummy, Shining, Horror of Dracula, Quatermass Xperiment, Plague of the Zombies, Revenge of Frankenstein, I Am The Pretty Thing..., Nail Gun Massacre
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Oct 8, 2018 13:54
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 117- Blue Sunshine 1978 - DVD I've always felt this one had an interesting premise that not many really explored as well as this one does. It begins with a man at a party getting his hair pulled off like a wig, immediately snapping and going on a killing spree where Jerry is blamed. While Jerry is trying to gather evidence to clear his name, he finds out the real reason for the killings and has to stop more from happening. While having something you did way back when end up having repercussions years later isn't really new, the aspect of that something being a thing others were doing as well with any bad effects seen as something that happens to other people or only in a scare PSA was something I found interesting. I feel this one's definitely worth a watch.  118- Carrie 1976 - DVD For years I had a hard time sitting through this one because I empathized with Carrie so strongly. In grade school and junior high, I had more than my share of being the target from everyone else. Not helping either was one of my maternal grandmother's things to say if she felt I wasn't behaving was 'People will look at you'. I was practically cheering Carrie on when she got her payback. I wished I could manifest telekinesis too. We all know the plot so I'm not going to recap it, but for as many remakes, reboots, reimagines get done on this one, I feel the original packs the viciousness of the book. Funny story I have with this one is Bugsy Malone had come out around the same time and at the theater we'd gone to see it at would do a 'here's what's playing in the other theater' moment during the trailers. That other film was Carrie. So, yeah...here's the trailer for Carrie while you're sitting in a kid's film. Naturally I asked my parents if we could theater hop when our movie was over. Without question, this is a must watch. And I still wish I could manifest telekinesis, just so I don't have to get up to get a diet soda from the fridge.
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Oct 8, 2018 14:37
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9. Critters 2 1988 Little alien furballs wreak havoc in a small town during Easter. Critters 2 was another fun romp. I loved when the critters formed into a Katamari ball and rolled over a guy leaving nothing but bones behind. Highly recommend having some beers and watching Critters or Critters 2 with some friends. 4/5 10. Killer Klowns from Outer Space 1988 Aliens disguised as clowns menace a small town. I can remember watching a short part of a VHS recording of Killer Klowns that ended up giving me nightmares as a kid. There's a part where one of the klowns drinks blood from a cotton candied bodybag and the idea really stuck with me at a young age. This movie is so so goofy and I really enjoyed it. There's some really fun ideas thrown at the screen here and I like how willing they were to just go all out and put it all in the movie. It's a fun ride from start to finish and with the 2 Critters movies beforehand it ended up being an unexpected Chiodo Brothers triple feature. 4/5 11. Terrifier 2017 A killer clown (two in a row!) terrifies several unfortunate people in a spooky building. I knew from some of the reviews early in this thread that this might be more gruesome than what I'm after in a horror movie. It ended up being pretty extreme, but not to the point that I had to turn it off. There's something about the presentation here that makes this tolerable while a certain part of Revenge 2017 where someone hurts their foot was too much for me. Art the Clown is the highlight of this movie. He's flashy and playful when many horror villains are silent and imposing. I loved every bit of this movie where they really leaned into the humor. A favorite part is when Art kicks a head that rolls along and collides with something that makes a bell ringing sound. Then in the next scene he's riding a tiny little bicycle with a bell on it. Also I have a nitpick about a cellphone bit: I was really hoping that Art would reply to the text message with a series of emojis. Having him text the girl back with actual words felt weirdly out of character for him. Like I said, it's a nitpick. Overall I had a good time, but (while this'll sound blasphemous to some here) I would've preferred a little less gore and a little more fun. 3.5/5 12. Murder Party 2007 A guy attends a murder party and finds that he is there to be the murder victim. This movie was a lot of fun. I'd only seen Blue Ruin by Saulnier, and wasn't expecting this movie to be as funny as it is. Those two movies are worlds apart tonally. A majority of the humor in here lands and the best part is that for a long time it's hard to predict how the party is going to resolve by the end of the night. Fun stuff! 4/5
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Oct 8, 2018 14:39
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Franchescanado posted:
 C.H.U.D.(1984) This is one of those monster movies that is completely stupid, but it works because of a great cast that is probably too good for the material(see also: Galaxy of Terror, Lake Placid). John Heard is a really interesting lead, it was fun to see what he could do with a role like that after all these years of seeing him as a character actor. He, Daniel Stern, and Kim Greist make up the main trio of protagonists and because of them it was never boring. I had no idea Kim Greist was even in this movie, so she was a nice surprise, and there's also a funny little bit part for John Goodman. The C.H.U.D.s themselves are mostly forgettable, although there are a few memorable gore moments. This is also a great "grimy New York" movie, which over the years has become something of it's own subgenre as people started to develop an odd nostalgia for that old version of the city that I guess feels more genuine than what took it's place. So for someone who enjoys creature features, Kim Greist, and grimy old New York, there's a lot to like about C.H.U.D. 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) 29. A Nightmare on Elm Street(1984) 30. C.H.U.D.(1984)
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Oct 8, 2018 14:40
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12. Deathwatch(2002) Set in World War I, a group of British soldiers gets lost during an attack and stumbles into an almost abandoned German trench. Ordered to hold the position and surrounded by corpses, mud and razor wire, their already fragile mental state is challenged by what or whoever else is with them in the trench. World War I is SUCH a good setting for a horror movie, and this one uses it to great effect. Many horror movies at best end with the shellshocked characters trying to survive in a nightmare hellscape, but here it's the start of the movie because the whole world has gone mad already. Maybe staying in a potentially haunted trench is better than facing the insane but perfectly mundane horror outside of it? This movie has a lot going for it. The story is interesting and nicely ambiguous. The cast of young British character actors (including a mid-LOTR Andy Serkis) is inspired, both the sense that they do a good job acting, but also that they are visually distinct - oftentimes in war movies, the young, short-haired soldiers end up looking and being interchangeable. The production design is amazing despite the low budget - this must be the most lovably crafted trench I've ever seen in a movie, littered with gruesome little details that make it almost a character of its own (heh). Despite (because?) the colour palette of mud and blood, the movie has some truly striking visuals. Now why is this not counted among the best horror movies of the century? Despite what I wrote earlier, it just doesn't click. A certain something, whatever it is, is missing. All the great things come together to make it an okay movie that's not particularly scary or intense. I don't know. Normally I'd just blame it on me, but if that's the case surely by now this movie still would have achieved cult status. I'm at a loss really. Highly recommended nonetheless, if only so someone more filmically literate can tell me what's wrong with it. Previously: Creepshow II, Monster Squad, Mandy, Shock, Devil Fetus, Black Cat, Suspiria, Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires, Vampire's Kiss, The Vampire Lovers, The Howling II
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Oct 8, 2018 15:05
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18. Trick r' Treat (2007) I can see why this is a perennial favorite of the Horror thread, what a loving blast. I really enjoyed the Pulp Fiction approach to an anthology horror movie that Michael Dougherty employs here, as well as the variety of spooky things at the center of each. Seeing all the threads interconnect as each vignette reveals more about the nature of Warren Valley is revealed made this a very fun group watch (there was a collective gasp when Kreeg was revealed to be the bus driver). Everyone's performances in this were solid, particularly Dylan Baker's frustrated homicidal principal. As has been said before in the thread, he's really acting his rear end off in this. This is definitely going to become a Halloween tradition.
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Oct 8, 2018 15:13
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18. Hold the Dark Great atmosphere, skillfully shot and with some fantastic scenes, that just do not come together to form a whole. I wanted to like this so much, but it just lacks structure or a cohesive approach. It left me disappointed, feeling like the sous-chef in Apocalypse Now complaining some prime cuts of steak were boiled by army cooks.
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Oct 8, 2018 15:28
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 Candyman(1992) As much as I love the 80s, the real truth is that the 90s were my formative horror years. I was a bit too young to for the height of the 80s slasher, and many of the movies that would be my nightmare fuel ended up being made in the 90s. Candyman is a primary example, as much as I can sit here today and enjoy Phillip Glass' score or the fantastic production design, this is a character who flat-out terrified me as a child and there's just no substitute for that. Of course, things like that amazing score were a huge part of what I was responding to back then, whether I recognized it or not. Glass was key to making Cabrini Green into a gothic, operatic setting, without his score the whole thing could've collapsed like a house of cards. But aesthetic is crucial too, because Candyman is a film where the setting is everything. It has to feel as if Helen is stepping into another world, and along with the score, the set design gives these scenes a detail and texture that sets the perfect mood.  It's an effective examination of class struggle, because Helen is a very privileged person. She, and the people she represents, simply don't see the suffering in Cabrini Green unless and until it becomes academically interesting to them(even then, it's arguable whether or not the interest is genuine or just a way to climb the academic ladder). Helen lives in a posh apartment overlooking some of the neighborhoods she's studying, and she's more than happy to return to it each night after excursions into that other world. In more ways than one, Helen is punished for her shallowness and inability to see what Candyman truly represents. Oh yea, and can't forget to mention that Candyman features what I believe is THE best jump scare in horror history. Better than Exorcist III, better than all of them.  Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh(1995) This is a sequel that very few people seem to like, but when it played alongside the original on cable in the 90s it scared the poo poo out of me every bit as much. For one, Candyman is a bit more hook-happy in this film, and I've always loved how he just appears behind someone as the lighting goes all spooky. I guess that, as a kid, the idea of Candyman methodically going though your life and knocking off your loved ones was a pretty scary. The score is again a strong point, although not quite as strong, and I think moving the story to New Orleans was a good move because it gives the film a southern gothic feel that makes it an appropriate companion piece to the original. Don't get me wrong, some of the production work here is cheaper looking than in the original, but it's definitely not all bad:  Is it in the same league as the original? No. But I think there are enough positives to recommend it as a not-terrible sequel, certainly better than some of the worst the other big horror franchises have to offer. 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) 29. A Nightmare on Elm Street(1984) 30. C.H.U.D.(1984) 31. Candyman(1992) 32. Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh(1995) Basebf555 fucked around with this message at 16:35 on Oct 8, 2018 |
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Oct 8, 2018 16:32
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A Quiet Place (2018) [Netflix Blu-ray] Rewatch. Polished and professional and Emily Blunt is very good, but never really rises above kinda tense or kinda exciting. https://i.imgur.com/03g0NMS.gifv 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), #7 Dead Alive (1992), #8 Would You Rather (2012), #9 1922 (2017), #10 Infinity Chamber (2017), #11 Venom (2018), #12 Dagon (2001), #13 Demonic Toys (1992), #14 Murder Party (2007), #15 A Quiet Place (2018)
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Oct 8, 2018 17:42
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Franchescanado posted:
So the movie I chose is an interesting pick. I live in Kansas, and there's a tiny town about an hour from me called Stull. It's a rather infamous town because it's home to Stull Cemetery, which, as legend has it, apparently contains - wait for it - a gateway to Hell. That's right, it's not just haunted, it's an actual doorway to the underworld itself. And the story goes that on every Halloween night the gateway opens up and Satan makes an appearance. I'm not kidding, you can look this poo poo up. Apparently the pope even refuses to pass over Stull when he flies over the country. I learned about Stull Cemetery a decade or so ago and it's always kinda interested me. So when I went searching for films shot in Kansas, this one seems like a no brainer. Funny thing though, the entire time I watched it I was under the impression it was shot in Stull. But at the end of the credits it states "Filmed in Louisiana". My heart sank because for a moment I thought it wouldn't count for the Fran Challenge. Re-reading the challenge I see that the film can be located in the state, not necessarily shot there. Phew. 19. Nothing Left to Fear (2013, Anthony Leonardi III) Source; DVD (Netflix)  Oh cool it's a movie produced by Slash!. Yep, that Slash. He co-wrote the music too. This is gonna be great!... Oh poo poo it's not great. In fact there's almost nothing good about it. Here's the story: a pastor moves his family to Stull, KS to take over as pastor of the local church. They meet lots of weirdo yokels who hold a deep, dark spooky secret it's devil poo poo, and the family is in big trouble. There's lots of terrible acting, especially by Anne Heche who acts like she huffed laughing gas before each take. The script is on the level of a Lifetime movie. The directing/editing is lazy and clunky. It's an abysmally ugly looking movie. The story had a lot of potential but it's executed so amateurishly that any interest is stripped from it. The horror elements of the third act are composed purely of all the cliches of the past two decades: lots of shots of elongated CGI mouths (see the poster and screenshot. This movie LOVES this poo poo); a possessed girl with dark eyes who slinks and crawls around ala every Japanese horror movie since 1998; lots of skipped frames 'cause that poo poo is FREAKY!; and black CGI tar looking crap spreading over surfaces. Scary, scary stuff. Watching this right after Hereditary is an interesting experience. It's like eating a meal at a five star Italian restaurant and then following it up the next night with the Olive Garden. So the movie is hot garbage. But you know what disappoints me more than anything? There's no Stull Cemetery! Seriously, a movie about Stull, KS fails to write Stull Cemetery into the script. Lame.   (1 Slash out of 5)
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Oct 8, 2018 17:58
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27. Insidious: The Last Key - 2/5 (MaxGO)quote:I'll ride or die for the first two movies, and I enjoyed the third, but it's time to stop. The Last Key barely feels like an Insidious movie, let alone a horror movie. Every franchise inevitably gets mired down by its own lore, and Insidious is no exception I guess. What a boring film. Lin Shaye is lovely and I still enjoy her sidekicks, but the deep dive into her backstory completely kills the pacing. It's frustrating, because what horror exists is generally done well. The demon is creepy and the jump scares are about as good as jump scares get, but it's spread so thin. I'm disappointed by the weak score as well, Bishara's work was always a highlight for me and it's far more generic this time around.
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Oct 8, 2018 17:58
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Lost Highway (1997) Challenge: Hometown Horror  "Man that wife killer looks pretty hosed up." "Which one?" Living near LA I was kind of spoiled for choice for this challenge, so I wanted to make sure I picked something that really made use of its setting, instead of just making it a backdrop. Besides, this was the last major Lynch I was unfamiliar with so this seemed like as good a time as any. Watching Lost Highway today it's let down just a little by the fact that most of what works about it is done again and often better by Lynch's other work (the violent gangster elements of Blue Velvet or the bifurcated dream/reality structure of Mullholland Dr.). That said, this is the closest thing Lynch has made to a pure horror movie, and that aspect of the film works as well as anyone familiar with his work would expect. "Dream logic" often gets thrown around as an excuse for visually exciting movies with weak plotting, but this seems to genuinely be operating under the rules of a dream, not that nothing makes sense but that everything is constantly changing and that primal, buried urges are always in danger of bubbling up to the surface. Particularly effective here is Robert Blake (yikes!) as the "Mystery Man", the uncanny, omnipresent man with a movie camera who suggests that for all the violence of the film's dream worlds the most disturbing thing to confront is the cold gaze of reality. 4/5  sThe Mummy (1999) Challenge: Best of the Worst/Worst of the Best  Hard to remember now, but the before the staggeringly successful and universally beloved "Dark Universe", Stephen Sommers was the go-to guy for incorporating Universal's iconic monsters into horror/action movies. This is pretty much the only time it stuck, but it's pretty fun, probably because the Mummy lends itself pretty easily to an action/pulp adventure. It's a little less well-structured than an adventure movie probably should be and the 90s CGI has predictably aged poorly, but the cast is enormously charismatic, the locations are fun, and there's a nice amount of grossness and squishiness that gives it a unique identity apart from the Indiana Jones series. I was worried this wouldn't end up counting towards the challenge after all but then a mummy ate a guy's eyeballs so we should be okay. 3/5  sRaw (2016)  "Do you think I'm weird?" Not really sure the central metaphor holds up (this isn't the first time cannibalism has been used as a stand in for sexual awakening and the thing about that is uh, traditionally no one dies during sex if you do it right), but what it lacks in coherence it makes up for with ninety minutes of every possible college anxiety dream pulling you in every direction at once. There's a plot twist about halfway through that made me cackle from its pure audacity, and Garance Marillier's wide-eyed, intensely physical performance is a hoot to watch. Personal story: One time in high school we had an assembly on STDs and the speaker said that STDs were most often found in "the person you'd least expect" and every single person in the row in front turned around and looked directly at me and this movie feels like that did. Anyway the administration at this French veterinary school should probably consider being more involved here idk seems kinda dangerous 3.5/5  s
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Oct 8, 2018 18:17
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I have never, ever revisited The Mummy because I was supposed to meet a classmate, for whom I'd had a crush since like the second grade, to see it at the dollar theater ... and she showed up with another guy. I was 15 at the time, and devastated. That movie will always have a foul taste in my mouth. She eventually married the guy, and has three beautiful kids, so I suppose it all worked out for her in the end, though. 
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Oct 8, 2018 18:21
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FRAN CHALLENGE #3: Hometown Horror Closet Space was filmed in the greater Houston Area. You can tell because there's a scene early on where they're driving around on some backroads. The dialogue in the scene was redone in ADR, but they forgot to put in car sounds. So they're just driving around some Texas backroads in a perfectly silent car. But after that the rest of the movie is filmed in a house or in somebody's pitch-black garage. They're supposed to be exploring an extra-dimensional cave system, but they clearly didn't have the resources to film sets so everybody is just standing in the middle of a dark garage. At least a third of the shots are out of focus. I swear to god I'm not exaggerating, if anything I'm understating it because my brain just got use to everything being at least slightly blurry. Some of the shots are extremely out of focus. All of the dialogue is bad. All of it, every line. There's a quite long scene establishing that each of them characters going in the cave are wrapping a string of christmas lights around themselves to provide lighting, and they don't have enough batteries so it's two characters plugged into each battery, they really take time out to explain this jury-rigged setup. It never matters. And also, they had multiple times established that the team had come equipped for everything, but I guess everything doesn't include darkness? They brought everything they needed except any kind of illumination? There's a tentacle rape scene. And a vagina mouth scene. I could keep going. Every scene has something bad about it. You could spend hours trying to list everything about this movie that makes it bad. Closet Space made me hate the October Horror Challenge. And October, and Horror, and Franchescanado. I'm sorry Fran, but I hate you now. Because of Closet Space.
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Oct 8, 2018 18:26
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Guy Goodbody posted:Every scene has something bad about it. You could spend hours trying to list everything about this movie that makes it bad. 
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Oct 8, 2018 18:33
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It'll pass, I got some Gamera movies. That'll fix me up, I love that giant turtle.
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Oct 8, 2018 18:42
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15. Doghouse (2009) - DVD Quality effects and that's about it. May have been a bit better if I'd been drinking with friends or just not seen it alone. Will have to choose something better to watch after work to make up for this one. 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), 10. House on Haunted Hill (1959)*, 11. Lifeforce (1985), 12. The Gorilla (1939), 13. The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll (1960), 14. November (2017), 15. Doghouse (2009) Years Spanned: 95 (1922-2017) Tally by Decade: '20s (I), '30s (I), '40s (II), '50s (II), '60s (III), '70s (I), '80s (III), '90s (0), 2000s (II), 2010s (I) B&W/Color: 9/7 * Rewatch
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Oct 8, 2018 18:43
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I absolutely hated you (and myself) a little after Green Inferno but I refocused that hate on Eli Roth (and the Braves).
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Oct 8, 2018 19:25
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 25. Mandy (2018, dir. Panos Cosmatos) [amazon rental] I'll have to watch this again a little more sober sometime. Can confirm though that it is a very good high movie and I had zero issues with the pacing. A beautiful stoner metal dream, I have a lot of records that sound just like this movie. 4/5  26. Shivers (1975, dir. David Cronenberg) [blu-ray] "He tells me that even old flesh is erotic flesh. That disease is the love of two alien kinds of creatures for each other. That even dying is an act of eroticism." Very early Cronenberg, it still has all the weird sex stuff, body transformations, and the odd sense of humor you'd expect. A parasite is spreading through a fancy suburban apartment building turning everyone into sex zombies. It's odd and uncomfortable and I think holds up very well compared with his other work. I really like the specific low budget look and feel of his early movies. 4/5  Total: 26. The Untold Story (3/5), *The Sleep Curse (4/5), The Faculty (3/5), Demon Knight (4/5), Return of the Living Dead (4/5), The Evil of Frankenstein (3/5), Hellraiser: Judgment (1/5), Vampyres (3/5), We're Going to Eat You (3/5), The Slumber Party Massacre (4/5), The Eternal Evil of Asia (3/5), ~*28 Weeks Later (3/5), Phantasm II (4/5), Ravenous (4/5), Carrie (4/5), The Beyond (4/5), ~The Ward (1/5), Village of the Damned['95] (2/5), Amer (4/5), Halloween 4 (2/5), Halloween 5 (2/5), Manhunter (4/5), Revenge (5/5), ~Nightbreed (3/5), Mandy (4/5), Shivers (4/5) *-rewatch (2) ~-fran challenge (3/6 completed)
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Oct 8, 2018 19:25
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FancyMike posted:Mandy
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Oct 8, 2018 19:48
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Franchescanado posted:
7) Carnival of Souls (1962) - I felt so nitpicky watching this. Lemme just blow past all the good things about this movie (the tone, the atmosphere, the fact that you're not sure if anything's changed about the lead since you spend no time with her before the accident) and talk about why I had a really hard time concentrating: I've lived in Kansas and I currently live in Utah. Every time they swapped between the two or got something wrong about the geography of the settings it threw me off. I was totally, absolutely, 100% incapable of taking the story's version of geography at face value. There's no reason to make you all read my nerding out over this but basically the old Saltair is too distinct a building for me to pretend it's anywhere other than where it really is, and there's weird little things like the lead going to have her car checked out at a garage called Lawrence Tire and Oil that has an ad for a still-active Topeka-area radio station. I still like the movie. I'd easily recommend it. It was just full of locales and settings I'm familiar with and I couldn't shake how they were being used. 8) I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House (2016) - I spent most of the day watching traditional slashers so this was a nice comedown. Someone (possibly Lurd) in chat linked a synopsis of a review that I'll paraphrase: This is a very atmospheric movie that I greatly enjoyed and I don't know who I could recommend it to. I like the nested ghost story and I enjoyed the sense of mystery and, yes, I can be satisfied with two drops of water to drink so long as I know going in that that's all I'm getting. I'm not claiming Nail Gun Massacre. I don't want it on my permanent record.
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Oct 8, 2018 20:09
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Time to play weekend catch-up. #15. Blade II (Netflix) -  /5I feel like I should like this one more than I do - del Toro certainly knows his way around monster designs, but I think that he left all of the action beats to multiple other people, and the weird mix of Donnie Yen fight choreography in one section doesn't gel well with the shootout-heavy choreography of another. Plus, there's a whole lot of bad late 90s/early 2000s CGI imagery abundant in this one, and that ends up being more distracting than anything. I feel like, too, any attempt to reference or replicate moments from the superior original end up falling flat, like the scene where Blade gets his blood rage power up and getting his sunglasses back. This one isn't bad, but if you're gonna watch a "Blade" movie, there's also no real reason that I can see here to pick this over the original. Franchescanado posted:
 #16. The Beyond (Shudder) - /5I'd never seen this one, and quite frankly, I don't see what all the fuss was about. I have a love-hate relationship with Italian horror, it comes in cycles, and recently I've found myself not as enamored of it as I was in the past. I also don't know if I'd seen any other Fulci movies besides Zombi 2, but that was years ago and I have no memory of it. This one, I didn't find the plot line interesting, and I found the focus on the gore and violence unnecessary and pointless. Like, I'm normally not squeamish, but just having the camera stare at things like eyeless corpses vomiting blood or faces getting dissolved by acid seemed to just be grotesqueness for its own sake, not anything in particular. I dunno - I hear that this is Fulci's best, or at least most famous, but it also is the second chapter in a loose thematic trilogy. Are the other two chapters any better than this, or am I fine with skipping them? Franchescanado posted:
 #17. Sleepaway Camp (Shudder) - /5If it weren't for that shot at the end, no one would bother remembering this one. It's got some of the same unnecessary lingering on gore shots, like the would be rapist being burned with corn water, or the one rear end in a top hat who gets his face eaten by bees for no good reason, and basically everyone who gets real speaking parts is some version of unlikable. At least that ending theme tune is pretty good, right?  #18. Clive Barker's Lord of Illusions (Amazon Prime) - /5This one has a similar issue to the other Clive Barker-directed films, especially Nightbreed but even Hellraiser, in that I think Barker's imagination is limited by the realities of film making technologies of the time, and also by his own ability to execute them. Barker is a great scenarist as an author, but he has a very flat directorial eye, and one that never seems to accommodate practical effects or inserts well. He's also not great working with individuals, since the cast here (mainly b-list TV actors and one Bond girl) is also pretty flat. The ending, where bad guy Nix comes back from the dead as some kind of magic supervillain, and then gets defeated by the slowest moving X-Men "Fastball Special" knocking him into Hell, I guess? is fairly nonsensical, to boot. This one was the weakest Barker film I think, which isn't saying much because I don't think much of his other two films either. 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, Dracula (1931), The Ritual, Blade II, The Beyond, Sleepaway Camp, Lord of Illusions
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Oct 8, 2018 20:40
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 14. October 8 - Halloween Everybody loves Halloween. It made Jamie Lee Curtis a star and spawned more sequels and imitators than I can count. It's probably the highest rated movie collectively among all my letterboxd friends. It's been on my watchlist forever, and I've never seen any of the sequels. I wanted to like this movie, but I just didn't. The first half hour was promising. The opening sequence, the atmosphere, and the music were all captivating, but nothing after that grabbed me. Michael Myers isn't scary, but more importantly, I don't think he's an interesting character. Horror movies have to walk a fine line between explaining too little and too much; nobody likes a scene where a professorial old man explains that X is happening because Y demon is reincarnated every 20 years on the first full moon in October or whatever. But this movie goes too far in the opposite direction. He's an indestructible mental patient who stands around with a knife, which is pretty boring to begin with, so you'd expect some interesting backstory to compensate, but he's just a blank slate. Curtis' performance was fine, but there was nothing particularly noteworthy about it. I'm at a loss. I just don't think there's a lot to chew on here. 
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Oct 8, 2018 20:41
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Sleepaway Camp should be called Wait for It: The Movie
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Oct 8, 2018 20:42
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Spatulater bro! posted:Sleepaway Camp should be called Wait for It: The Movie Yea I think The Burning is the superior movie, and it's not close.
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Oct 8, 2018 20:47
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Class3KillStorm posted:Time to play weekend catch-up. You're going to loving hate City of the Living Dead, but House by the Cemetery might possibly be your bag. Overall, it sounds kinda like you just won't end up being a Fulci fan, and that's fine.
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Oct 8, 2018 20:51
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LORD OF BOOTY posted:You're going to loving hate City of the Living Dead, but House by the Cemetery might possibly be your bag. Overall, it sounds kinda like you just won't end up being a Fulci fan, and that's fine. I dunno, City of the Living Dead is also a bit more straightforward than The Beyond. I'd say watch one of the two remaining in the trilogy, doesn't particularly matter which one, but The Beyond is probably not the best place to start imo.
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Oct 8, 2018 20:53
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Lester Shy posted:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBg99mH8pyA
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Oct 8, 2018 21:01
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Basebf555 posted:I dunno, City of the Living Dead is also a bit more straightforward than The Beyond. I'd say watch one of the two remaining in the trilogy, doesn't particularly matter which one, but The Beyond is probably not the best place to start imo. I'm more going off their beef with the gore. The Beyond is frankly mild where that stuff is concerned compared to City.
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Oct 8, 2018 21:08
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       #18. A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) The second rewatch of the month. Some guy with long fingernails is bugging kids while they try to sleep. Classic for many reasons, fun to watch again, fun to see someone watching for the first time. The booby-traps are still goofy, but neat in execution, though they do feel like they're gumming up the movie's flow a bit. More than anything, though, this time I was appreciating the sets and the details of their dressing (Nancy's untouched bed-side glass of milk, for instance). Whoever was in charge of those deserves more recognition. Watching the later ones, it becomes even more appreciable how much Craven's scholastic background contributed to the script, with reams of subtext and themes to be explored, while also running straight as a surface-level viewing. I also wish Freddy's maggoty insides and neon-green blood had stuck around for the sequels.  / 10  #19. A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988) What the hell was going on with the dog? Did I miss the set-up for a dog to get vaguely possessed and end up resurrecting someone by pissing fire on their grave? Outside of that, this was better than I've been expecting from the way people talk about this one. More set-up for the dream master rhyme would have been nice, to pit the boogeyman and his rhyme against another piece of childhood ritual, but it came off OK as it was. Nice creativity with the dream scenes, and their direction surpassed my expectations of Renny Harlin. Silly resolution, silly 'soul food' segment, but the visual handling gets a thumbs-up (concentric floor pattern in the top-down classroom shot, what up). On the down-side, things felt pretty thrown-together, with big (non-dream) plot points just going unexplained, when searching out explanations was key to intensifying the situation in the original. A drop from ANoES 3, but not a hard decline in quality. / 10  #20. A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (1989) Here's where the descent becomes evident, though the dream scenes are still neat and show creativity (comic kid having all his color drain out when he dies being the personal favorite, with the motorcycle transformation being a strong contender). But man, Freddy had hardly any dialogue that wasn't one-liners. I didn't really care about his conception before seeing this, and I didn't care about it afterwards. I would have liked to have seen him as a human man (which there were a couple flashes of, lasting about five seconds), to contrast the increasingly cartoonish nature of his dream presence with a grounded and non-joking Fred Kreuger, child-killer. Jacob the unborn kid was an odd fit, but I guess as popular as these movies were getting with younger audiences at the time, it made total sense to the studio. Again, the visuals were the saving grace, with the need to at least try to be creative with the dream scenes rescuing what would have otherwise been a pretty dull slog. I mean, there were stretches where nothing interesting was happening, and the characters were sketched even thinner than in previous entries (nice of them to get those personalities all established in one scene right off the bat). But splitting up the big special effects scenes into different teams seems to have paid off, as they all came out distinctive, even when the concept was absurd (e.g., the womb battle). Turning to teen pregnancy as the focus might have yielded something more interesting if they'd done it a few years earlier, but here, despite giving another excuse for Freddy to do his thing, the waking life side felt unaddressed. / 10
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Oct 8, 2018 21:12
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12.Christmas Evil (1980) Fran Challenge: Birth of Horror Plex A young child witnesses Santa Claus giving his mother a kiss under the mistletoe, below the belt. Traumatized, (upon learning that Santa isn't real, I guess?) he grows up to be a quiet pushover with a markedly unhealthy obsession with Santa. Indignities increase and slowly push him into madness, and he builds his own Santa suit and heads out to give Christmas cheer to the good and Christmas fear to the bad. It is comic horror with a very slow start, but once it gets going it really goes to some crazy places. If you've never seen Santa being chased by a literal torch-bearing mob, you're missing out. Plus he does enough terrible things as Santa in front of kids to spawn villains for tens of other films. He's a villain you really grow to like and cheer for, because gently caress those naughty kids. gently caress those corporate assholes. Santa's right you guys. The movie also features the worst version of Santa Claus is Coming to Town that I've ever heard, so, keep an ear out for that. /513. Murder Party (2007)  Scream Stream A quiet, boring, foolish man picks up a street invitation to a murder party and decides to go. He bakes some pumpkin bread because that's the kind of thing you bring when you're crashing a party, I guess. Once there he finds out that murder party is a literal name, and they are all art school students planning to kill him for art. Art? Art. What follows is horror-tinged comedy as much of the cast pontificates about art and thankfully dies around him, before descending to a blood-filled finale. You get the feeling that the director Saulnier went to art school, and loving hated it. /514. The Video Dead (1987)  Scream Stream A bungling delivery crew mis-deliver a haunted television, and the whole neighborhood suffers the consequences. The consequences are zombies. There's a lot of potentially interesting lore here that is probably explored to death in The Video Dead 2, but I wish it did a little better job of establishing a story. I have so many questions! Why is Jeff the main character, when literally anyone else could have handled it better? Is the talking "hot" woman a zombie or something else? Who is the garbage man? Why do zombies come out of a haunted television? Terrible acting, terrible camera work, and mediocre effects, but still slightly charming. .5/5
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Oct 8, 2018 21:28
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Lester Shy posted:
You have to get to part 6 where it is revealed that Michael has a druid curse on his body that both makes him immortal and driven to kill his next of kin It's actually worse than that sounds when you see how this is depicted. I think that the reason you're not interested in Michael as a character is actually why many people like the original movie so much. In the first movie, Michael embodies the idea that at any point someone, even a child, could just shift into a being a pure evil without hope of redemption. In the first movie the only reason for Michael to stalk and torment Laurie is because she's near his home. It's another aspect of the first movie that doesn't have any concrete explanation, but I also think that adds to it. In the very next movie they give Michael a really clear reason to pursue Laurie, but I always liked that in the context of the first movie she's just extremely unlucky. It's scary because Michael chose her but it could've been anyone. It's really really straightforward, but I think that's part of its charm. I still think the extended sequence with Annie that ends in her car is one of my favorite horror movie sequences. It lingers for just the right amount of time. A great detail in that scene is how Annie starts to get inside the car but it is locked then when she returns with the keys the car is unlocked but she doesn't notice. Then she notices something else... It's a great sequence. edit: Even though I really like the first Halloween. I still mostly agree with you that Michael is pretty bland. I think the mask and the soundtrack go a looooong way towards keeping Halloween in people's minds decades later. Jolo fucked around with this message at 21:39 on Oct 8, 2018 |
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Oct 8, 2018 21:34
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15. Night of the Virgin What to say about this film. Well it is certainly gross , but in a way that's not like "Yuck" but like " I am physically ill". If you are a fan of comedic horror total gross outs then you'll love this. Gross out films work when the gore is bright, but this this is all dark red blood and it is loving dirty. It is a dirty film. It's hilarious in a way that is hard to describe but you will laugh and you will squint your eyes and there is a huge pay off. I am just going to spoil a huge portion of the movie now because you need to know what you are in for. Huge Spoilers A young ( the virgin) man give birth rectally in graphic detail to like some sort of demon baby It's on Shudder it is hilarious.  / 5
Hollismason fucked around with this message at 21:43 on Oct 8, 2018 |
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Oct 8, 2018 21:37
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graventy posted:There's a lot of potentially interesting lore here that is probably explored to death in The Video Dead 2, but I wish it did a little better job of establishing a story. I have so many questions! Why is Jeff the main character, when literally anyone else could have handled it better? Is the talking "hot" woman a zombie or something else? Who is the garbage man? Why do zombies come out of a haunted television? I don't think anyone can answer these questions, but eventually someone should IRON it out :dodges thrown fruit:
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Oct 8, 2018 21:55
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LORD OF BOOTY posted:You're going to loving hate City of the Living Dead, but House by the Cemetery might possibly be your bag. Overall, it sounds kinda like you just won't end up being a Fulci fan, and that's fine. I remember liking Zombi 2 just fine, and I actually did end up waffling between watching The Beyond and House by the Cemetery, and picked Beyond because it had a better put together trailer on YouTube. I'll probably wait a while, but I may check out HbtC just to see if I'm not a Fulci guy or if I'm just not down on this one in particular. It took like 6 or 7 films before I was like, "y'know, I think Dario Argento just has a really spotty filmography, so I'll stick with the 2 or 3 films I like and leave the rest be." I think Fulci would end up going down a similar path, so I may cut it early.
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Oct 8, 2018 22:29
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Yeah, if you think Argento is spotty, you're gonna be pretty down on Fulci. Fulci is somehow spottier.
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Oct 8, 2018 22:46
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| # ? Jun 7, 2024 05:40 |
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 19. Child's Play 2 (1990) (blu-ray) After Chucky is destroyed at the end of the first film, Karen is committed to an insane asylum and Andy is sent into foster care. Meanwhile, the company that makes the Good Guy dolls gets ahold of Chucky's remains in order to... uh, prove he wasn't defective I guess? For some reason this involves completely restoring him, down to painting the freckles back onto his face. Of course, this goes terribly wrong, and he escapes and sets out after Andy. This is a pretty fun sequel. The first two acts contain a lot of "Chucky does something and Andy gets blamed for it", which gets a little tiresome, but there are still some pretty good moments in there. Once Andy's foster sister Kyle finally realizes that Chucky is real, things start getting really good, and the whole climax (set in a Good Guy toy factory) is pretty nuts and a lot of fun. One great thing about Chucky being a doll is that he can get absolutely wrecked in horrible ways that would feel excessively cruel and gruesome if he were a human. Well... some of the stuff is still pretty gruesome, but it feels cartoony instead of sadistic. Overall, a worthy follow up to the first. The puppetry and special effects are still great, and Brad Dourif still rules as Chucky. Recommended if you liked the first and want more. Movies Seen: The Witching Season | Lifeforce | Terrifier | Unsane | I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House | From Beyond | 13 Ghosts | The Ritual | Child's Play | Twice-Told Tales | Beyond the Gates | Cat People (1982) | Fright Night | The Vampire Lovers | The Vampire Doll | Frightmare | Honeybee | Murder Party | Child's Play 2 Total: 19 Fran challenges:
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Oct 8, 2018 23:06
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