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 FRAN CHALLENGE #8: Once In A Lifetime  22. October 12 - Hour of the Wolf I've only seen a tiny slice of Bergman's filmography, but I knew this wouldn't be a by-the-numbers horror movie. It's a slow, meditative take on paranoia and shared psychosis. I had a terrible bout of insomnia (not as bad as Johan's, thankfully) a few years ago, and nothing has captured the anguish of sitting up in total darkness, waiting for the sunrise better than this movie. It's often compared to David Lynch's work, but it mostly reminded me of The Shining, as both films feature similar ideas and plot points. Like most Bergman films, it's a treat to look at. Max von Sydow and Liv Ullman are great, as always. Also: I stole this from FancyMike. Total: 22 1. Hell House LLC 2. Channel Zero: Candle Cove 3. Grave Encounters 4. Channel Zero: No-End House 5. Tucker & Dale vs. Evil* 6. Rope* 7. Der Nachtmahr 8. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre* 9. Survival of the Dead* 10. Lake Mungo 11. Jigsaw 12. Tenebrae* 13. Opera* 14. Halloween 15. Channel Zero: Butcher's Block 16. A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night 17. Tetsuo: The Iron Man 18. The Eye* 19. Dark, Deadly & Dreadful 20. As Above So Below 21. Chernobyl Diaries 22. Hour of the Wolf* *Fran Challenge (8/8 Completed)
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Oct 12, 2018 21:06
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Also Maximum Overdrive is the only movie that Stephen King directed. Just saying.
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Oct 12, 2018 21:09
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Franchescanado posted:
drat it, I JUST WATCHED CARNIVAL OF SOULS LAST NIGHT! Lhet posted:3. As Above, So Below - This kinda felt like a weird blend of Descent and The Borderlands (Final Prayer). I felt it was weaker than both though. The caving/exploration half was weaker than Descent, and the found footage investigating ancient lore and finding out that's a bad idea aspect was stronger in Borderlands. The ending is an escape ending, with bonus immortality I guess? Honestly really surprised me, Papillon's death made enough sense (they're in the land of the dead or something similar and if the dead have a grudge against you they can get you - makes enough sense), but the others who died didn't seem to have done anything particularly wrong. I assumed when the innocent side characters started dying off that the movie would kill everybody, but then 3 of them survive, including the one who still has blood on his hands (of a sort) and didn't particularly repent. . Not bad by any means, but I just think it doesn't really commit to being anything hard enough. I've love this movie and I've actually thought of this aspect a lot. Here's my personal interpretation. Hell is your regrets and guilt. They were all chased by their guilts and forced to deal with it or be destroyed by it. Its not that the dead want you dead and hold a grudge, its that you're own guilt - even for stuff that aren't necessarily your fault - is what destroys you. Its been a year or so since i've seen it so I'm a little sketchy on the exact "sins/guilt" but Pap's was that car fire and its what killed him and Soux's was leaving La Taupe behind in the catacombs and he killed her. Scarlett was consumed with guilt about her dad, the dude from Superstore was consumed with guilt about his brother drowning, and Zed about abandoning his kid. The one character we don't get any insight on is Benji but I think the trick there is that woman he keeps seeing. He's the only one who sees her and she doesn't factor in anywhere else in the story. So I choose to believe that he just had some guilt related to her that he never revealed, and sure enough she kills him. The three people who survived are the three people who all confessed to their guilt getting rid of that burden and afterwards the "ghosts" of them stopped chasing them. Anyway, that's my interpretation. I might have to watch the movie again. I really do love it. STAC Goat fucked around with this message at 21:39 on Oct 12, 2018 |
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Oct 12, 2018 21:30
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Find a director who only directed one film in their career and watch their film.
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CHEAT MODE ENGAGED 19) An evening of supernatural stories An old friend was running a live storytelling evening with the theme of faeries, witches and deviltry, so I thought "Well, it's kind of like a play but without the stage, and a play is like a movie but without the cameras". Stories included retellings of the Sörla þáttr eða Heðins saga ok Högna, an old Welsh story called The Hiring Fair, and a regionalised adaptation of an issue of Hellblazer. And if you want a bizarre coincidence: the latter was told by my friend, who I haven't seen since 1996. She'd forgotten exactly where she got the core of the story and just as I walked in she was thinking it might have been a comic I'd lent her when we were at university. Jedit fucked around with this message at 21:50 on Oct 12, 2018 |
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Oct 12, 2018 21:40
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Franchescanado posted:
23. Cannibal Holocaust (1980, Ruggero Deodato) (rewatch) Source: Blu-ray (owned)  First thing's first, this is an incredibly innovative movie. In addition to being the film that set off the cannibal horror craze, it's also the very first found footage movie. Though really only the second half uses the FF approach. It's also top notch on a technical level. The gore is outstanding and the music is oddly memorable. That main theme is haunting. The feeling I get when I watch this is like nothing I've ever experienced from any other film. The real animal killings lend an undercurrent of realism to the entire thing. So even though I know the human gore is artificial, my mind has already been in "this poo poo is real" mode. The effect is a strange type of authenticity that no other horror movie provides. The result of this is that the movie fucks me up real good. It's among the most unpleasant things I've ever watched. To call this movie "problematic" is an enormous understatement. It's just confused as gently caress. It beats you over the head with its message of "who are the real savages?" It demonizes us "civilized" people who compromise our morality for the sake of sensationalism. But the irony is that that's exactly what this movie is doing. The filmmakers killed at least five animals on screen for the sake of creating this nasty movie. It commits the very crime that it's criticizing, so it ends up as a puzzling meta-analysis of itself. And now if you'll humor me I'm gonna soapbox it up for a second. I'm a vegetarian. This is how I see it: Cannibal Holocaust is very often lambasted for its animal cruelty. As it SHOULD be. But let me make a point. None of the kills are inhumane in the sense of the animal being tortured. They're all relatively quick. Even the turtle - the very first thing they do is cut off its head. Now, think about the meat people eat every day. Ever seen slaughter house footage? It's loving agonizing. If you're going to complain about Cannibal Holocaust, you should also be complaining about slaughterhouses. After all, we don't need meat to survive. We eat it because it tastes good. We enjoy it. Killing an animal for a chicken mcnugget (a thing we enjoy/consume) is no better than killing an animal for a horror movie (a thing we enjoy/consume).   (3 film canisters out of 5)
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Oct 12, 2018 22:06
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Franchescanado posted:
I was afraid of this one at first, but now I have an excuse to rewatch Near Dark... as if I needed one 
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Oct 12, 2018 22:11
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Against my better judgement I'll probably watch Hellraiser: Bloodlines for that challenge.
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Oct 12, 2018 22:21
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TheKingslayer posted:Against my better judgement I'll probably watch Hellraiser: Bloodlines for that challenge. Nah Bloodlines is pretty good.
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Oct 12, 2018 22:23
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Lumbermouth posted:Also Maximum Overdrive is the only movie that Stephen King directed. Just saying. I have this feeling that there's a lot more "only one film ever" directors in the horror genre than in other genres.
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Oct 12, 2018 23:01
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#50 (!) The Lure (2015) A pair of mermaids, Silver and Golden are found in the 1980s and taken to a small cabaret and booked as talent. One is looking for love in the human race, the other for lunch. This little picture from Poland is kinda bonkers in the best ways. It's a horror film, a love story, a fantasy, AND a musical all rolled up into one. The cinematography is drop dead gorgeous, and the songs are actually very catchy. I loved the film, and had a lot of fun with it.  out of 5#51. Eko Eko Azarak (1995) Just as Misa, a teenage witch, starts attending a new high school, it becomes the center of a dark ritual. As her and other students are taking a make-up quiz after class, the school becomes magically sealed, and one by one the students start getting picked off in sacrifice. This is another on my long list of "I'll get around to it some day" movies. Most sources I have put it as one of the trailblazers of the j-horror renaissance of the late 90s to mid 00s. It's a neat little movie, filled with lots of gore, and some pretty sleazy teachers too. If you're a fan of Japanese School horror movies (something there's a lot of) this is the granddaddy right here. out of 5#52. Beyond The Darkness (1979) Franchesco is a rich young man with a hobby for taxidermy. When his wife dies of illness, he goes mad, steals her body, and stuffs it so it's with him all the time, and starts going off killing other women, all with the help of his insanely obssessed housekeeper. Whenever I see the name "Joe D'Amato" as director of Italian sleaze, I always know I'm setting up a gamble for myself. Some of his films are the absolute dankest pits, while some are shocking yet interesting. Luckily this is the latter. The plot is sparse, but the gore is prolonged, and incredibly detailed. It's probably not for most audiences. It feels like a precursor to fake snuff movies like the Guinea Pig flicks to me. out of 5#53. Zombie 4: After Death (1988) Scientists working on a cure for cancer on a tropical isle meet the ire of a local witchdoctor who opens a gate to hell, unleashing the living dead. Years later, one of the survivors finds herself stranded back on this same island tasked with closing the gate. It's really weird to me seeing an Italian Zombie flick on a more modern filmstock instead of the scratch 16mm the older ones are on. That said, this is a mess of a film that can barely keep track of its own plot, and has terrible acting. Probably the big draw is it's the one with gay porn superstar Rick Stryker in it, though without his own trademark deep voice, unfortunately. out of 5#54 Bone Sickness (2005) A young man has a nasty bone based disease, so his wife turns to a holistic cure she's found, and is aided in by her husband's best friend: Eating the meat and bones of corpses. But such a cure has some pretty nasty side effects of its own... This is one of the many, many no-budget digital camcorder films that arrived in the 00s. Unlike many of them however, they use their meager budget in some impressive ways: No, not in sets or acting or whatever, but in the gory special effects. There's just TONS of it in the film, and much of it looks VERY good. It also hits on a couple of my personal weakspots: Being chronically ill, and there's lots of worm action going on (I'm not scared of worms, they just gross me out), so there's that going on too. However, at the end of the day, it's still a cheesy no-budget zombie flick. out of 5
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Oct 12, 2018 23:01
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next week there will be the opposite challenge, watch a movie by a director who has made at least 100 movies. Your options are Roger Corman and Takashi Miike
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Oct 12, 2018 23:03
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  #35. Basket Case 3, a.k.a., Basket Case 3: The Progeny (1991) And the average for this series goes down again. Released the year after Basket Case 2, this one keeps the costumes for the commune's freaks, adds a handful of new ones, and moves the lot to a new location. Annie Ross as Granny Ruth is the stand-out performer. Hell, she practically takes over the movie, holding Duane prisoner, maneuvering the plot, and telling everyone what to do. The actual plot is a straight continuation from the last movie (even opening with a clip of the monster-puppet sex scene), and while the pregnancy of Eve, Belial's love interest, is the central thread, she's pretty much a non-character. A little gore and an odd dream scene with topless bikini girls stand in the way of this being a family movie, but for weird pre-teens, I'm sure this would have been very engaging at the time. Coming at it as an adult a quarter of a century after release, though, the mix of goofy and gross feels a bit too much like The Garbage Pail Kids Movie, minus the snot, farts, vomit, and musical numbers, but plus a police station getting murdered and a string of babies being pulled out of a uterus. If it had taken a broader divergence from the last movie, this would have scored more points, but it just retreaded too much. / 10  #36. Q, a.k.a., Bird over New York, a.k.a., American Monster, a.k.a., Q: The Winged Serpent (1981) Aw yeah, Larry Cohen delivers again. Crime drama meets fantasy, monster movie results. I loved all the little human moments the main characters got, from the negotiation doodling to Michael Moriarty's staunch petulance. The matting hasn't aged too well, but it does the job, and the stiller moments of the creature look good. The on-the-street reactions were great, but I would have liked for the balance between monster and Moriarty to be skewed just a little more towards the monster. The ending was a little stock, but it did enough right on the way there to be forgiven. Also put me in the mood to see more movies where the main characters put their knowledge of a monster to work in handling their enemies. / 10 #37. Subspecies (1991) I was zoned out for most of this one. Just had a hard time caring about what was happening, maybe due to lingering resentment of how bad Blood Dolls was. The vampire's long fingers were a good look for him, but I didn't catch (if it was explained) why they turned into tiny demons when cut off, outside of a Band mandate to match the poster they'd already made for it. It did seem to be telling a more focused story than most Full Moon fare, and the run-down Eastern European setting did a lot of work for the movie. Sad to see Angus Scrimm getting to do so little in his role. Not sure if I'll try more entries in this series this month, or hit the snooze on Full Moon for a while. / 10   #38. Fangs of the Living Dead, a.k.a., Malenka, a.k.a., The Vampire's Niece, a.k.a., Malenka, Niece of the Vampire, a.k.a., Bloody Girl (1969) Kind of a weak twist on the Carmilla story. Low on lesbian vampires, but good gothic visual atmosphere. The most notable point is probably that this was directed by Amando de Ossorio, three years before he did Tombs of the Blind Dead. Anita Ekberg does her thing, Paul Muller pops up in a minor role, and the whole thing feels kind of like faux-Hammer (insert your own bad Tolkien joke). There's not a lot to distinguish it (at least, not in the movie itself), but at least it kept the spooky vibes up. / 10
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Oct 12, 2018 23:06
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Guy Goodbody posted:next week there will be the opposite challenge, watch a movie by a director who has made at least 100 movies. Your options are Roger Corman and Takashi Miike "Everyone watch a Corman that no one else has already used for this challenge" could be fun imo
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Oct 12, 2018 23:07
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TheKingslayer posted:Against my better judgement I'll probably watch Hellraiser: Bloodlines for that challenge. If anything, Bloodlines is on the higher tier of Hellraiser movies. That's pretty much just because half of them are literally unrelated films with Pinhead showing up for a second, but hey.
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Oct 12, 2018 23:30
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gah i've been working too much, haven't been keeping up my early pace. hopefully i can finish. 37. Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II (1993) Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II (not actually sequel to the other MG film) was a whole lot of fun but I really don't have a ton to say about it. The characters were all solid, I especially liked the main character with his interest in spaceships and dinosaurs. Bringing back baby Godzilla was a weird choice but oddly worked pretty well. The baby wasn't sandpaper on the brain like Minilla from Son of Godzilla. Mechagodzilla's design is as awesome as ever, and it stars in some incredible action scenes. Rodan shows up and is great, but wasn't used nearly as much as I had hoped. Definitely a strong film, especially if you like the action and mech/ship designs of the Godzilla films.
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Oct 12, 2018 23:32
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King Vidiot posted:I was afraid of this one at first, but now I have an excuse to rewatch Near Dark... as if I needed one Strange Days is pretty close to horror.
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Oct 12, 2018 23:38
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Choco1980 posted:#50 (!) The Lure (2015) A pair of mermaids, Silver and Golden are found in the 1980s and taken to a small cabaret and booked as talent. One is looking for love in the human race, the other for lunch. So excited that you loved this! I can't wait to revisit it for the challenge.
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Oct 12, 2018 23:42
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For the Once in a Lifetime challenge, does it count if they did one feature length film and a bunch of shorts?
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Oct 12, 2018 23:56
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M_Sinistrari posted:For the Once in a Lifetime challenge, does it count if they did one feature length film and a bunch of shorts? Yes
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Oct 13, 2018 00:01
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Franchescanado posted:So excited that you loved this! I can't wait to revisit it for the challenge. Honestly one of your challenges should just be “watch The Lure”. It’s so great and weird and fun.
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Oct 13, 2018 00:08
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graventy posted:Honestly one of your challenges should just be “watch The Lure”. It’s so great and weird and fun. I know, I love it. I wanted to do a "Watch a horror musical" challenge, but there's, like, seven, including The Lure. I made it a staff pick, at least!
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Oct 13, 2018 00:13
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Lumbermouth posted:Also Maximum Overdrive is the only movie that Stephen King directed. Just saying.  I've also seen Carnival of Souls outside of the October challenge and don't want to re-watch it either. Anyway, I dung out my IMDB database from last year and made myself a list of top horrors by one-shot directors. Not going to share it just yet to keep it more interesting for everyone (unless Fran you think otherwise) but here's a hint for one: infamous movie with a goon involved in its restoration. If you're not looking to watch an actually good (or even decent) movie, there are plenty of other candidates. Some that are very (in)famous as well.
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Oct 13, 2018 00:30
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I knew there were two different cuts of Zombie's Halloween movies, and I remember there being some discussion about which versions were better. I ended up going with the versions available to watch on Amazon, which seems to be the Director's Cut of the first and the Theatrical Cut of the second. 9. Halloween (2007) I haven't seen this one in many years. I remember not really caring for it at the time, but I liked it a lot more on a rewatch. Tyler Mane gives Michael a very physical presence. I also liked just how brutal and unrelenting Michael is. The main issue is just not a lot of new stuff was brought to the table. The primary new element was Michaels childhood, but I didn't particularly like those parts. They weren't bad, just not really interesting. We already know Michael is super evil by the time he's 10, so not much is added by expanding on it. Also, the rape scene in the prison was gross and completely unnecessary. We already see the guards being assholes to Michael and touching his masks, there just isn't any point to adding the rape part. All that said, I like Zombie's grungy aesthetic, although sometimes his dialogue is grating. I definitely wouldn't rank this as high as the original, but I do think it's a pretty good slasher. 3/5 10. Halloween 2 (2009) First time watch for this one. This one is pretty drat good! Michael's brutal violence is in full swing. The visions with his mom and the horse were gorgeous, and I loved the contrast with the grunginess of the rest of the film. I also liked how much the trauma of the events of the first film affected Laurie. I genuinely felt heartbroken when Annie is killed. She survived so much, and Laurie finds her body... Everything seemed to have more emotional weight behind it. Malcolm McDowell was good in the first one, but here he just makes such a fantastic scumbag. I can't believe how low this movie is rated seemingly everywhere except the horror thread. 4/5 11. The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016) Creepy, slow burn mystery. Great casting and makeup for the titular corpse, there was just something so intriguing about her. I wish they had gone more into all the witch stuff. I felt like they could have gotten super crazy with it, but I would guess they were trying to keep it more understated. Brian Cox was great as always. 3/5 12. Hold the Dark (2018) Man... this was a disappointment. I was super excited for this, but it didn't really deliver. I liked the first half or so, it was slow, but I was really intrigued by the whole mystery of the wolf stuff. Unfortunately, there is no payoff. Just some creepy shots with wolf mask. Then it just kind of stops without much explanation. Not in a cool mysterious way, just in the frustrating way. 2.25/5
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Oct 13, 2018 01:04
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 129- Grave of the Vampire 1972 - DVD This was practically a staple for the saturday midnight horror movie on cable. It opens with a vampire executed for being a rapist/murderer wakes and promptly assaults a couple parking in the cemetery. She's raped and her boyfriend killed. The police write off her crazy story as trauma from her rape. She eventually finds out she's pregnant and convinces herself that her boyfriend is the father even though the infant doesn't nurse like normal but needs blood. The film cuts to the grown child who knows his father wasn't human and is planning revenge against him for what his mother suffered through. I'm a softy for this one just for how many times I've sat through it. Ending was a bit of a surprise for me first time I saw it. Overall, definitely worth a watch for it's take on dhampir.  130- The Comeback 1978 - PRIME Nick's a singer who's attempting a comeback after a six year hiatus from a divorce and goes to an estate for the peace and quiet needed for his songwriting. Of course, we know he's not going to get that peace and quiet soon as the strange sobbing and screams at night begin. This one, while the premise is good, the execution feels a bit lacking. Probably due to how attitudes towards divorce goes now, it feels a bit jarring for someone to take a six years' break from work because of it. Now we'd have a headline when the ink's not even dry on the paperwork saying 'Look who's single again!' It definitely would've helped as well if they used someone different for the role of Nick the singer because it's just not quite working with the guy who sang The Love Boat theme. The background story is very plausible to the point of being timeless. I wouldn't mind seeing this one get remade.
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Oct 13, 2018 01:12
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FRAN CHALLENGE #7: The World Is A Scary Place Gamera Guardian of the Universe!  I was surprised that they kept in the thing where Gamera can fly by retracting his limbs and shooting fire out the holes and spinning off into the air, in this Heisei reboot of the Gamera franchise. That always seemed kind of silly to me. But once they explained that Gamera is actually a bio-mechanical robot created by Atlantis, I was on board. His abilities don't have to make biological sense, because he is an organic machine built by Atlanteans 12,000 years ago I really liked that the government guy siding with Gyaos over Gamera at first made complete sense. Gyaos is just a big bird that has eaten some people. It's dangerous, but in the way a dangerous animal is dangerous. And they've proven they can lead it and trap it like any other big predator. Meanwhile, Gamera is a giant rocket turtle motivated solely by hatred of giant birds that crushes city with every step. It makes more sense than siding with Gamera based solely off the word of a broken Atlantean tablet. And when Gyaos shows up full size in Tokyo and starts eating people literally by the train load, he admits he was wrong and sides with Gamera The miniature work is fantastic. There were several shots where I genuinely couldn't tell if they'd added monsters to a shot of real Tokyo or if it was all miniatures. There's only on real throwdown monster battle, at the end, but it's long and good. I think my biggest complaint is that there some scenes just don't have enough energy to them. Like when they attack Gamera with missiles and almost take him down, it's not as exciting as it should be. I don't know exactly what the problem was, but the lack of background music through most of that scene didn't help. A lot of the human scenes in the second half are way too relaxed. It doesn't have to be Shin Godzilla, but once they know that Japan is the stage for a battle between ancient monsters some tension would be good. But instead they're just grilling meat and chatting like it's a Sunday afternoon. It's a minor complaint but a persistent one, and makes the movie feel longer than it should. The girl who becomes Gamera's priestess looked familiar to me. I don't watch much live action Japanese stuff other than Kamen Rider, so I assumed she must've been in a Kamen Rider. Nope, The Last Ship. She was in a bunch of episodes of The Last Ship on TNT. Gamera Guardian of the Universe is a flawed but fun little monster flick with great city stomping
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Oct 13, 2018 01:16
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Couple rewatches: Doom (2005) [Extended Cut Blu-ray] I've got no attachment to the games, so its deviance from them isn't a problem, and this is a fun take on soldiers fighting crazy monsters with Karl Urban and The Rock better action stars than some of these get. I also like a lot of the practical creatures, with Doug Jones doing his usual good work behind a bunch of latex. Predator (1987) [4K Blu-ray] Glad I watched them in this order, because, yeah, this is obviously a way better movie. The 4K disc looks great too. Watched: #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), #16 Godzilla (1954), #17 The Vault (2017), #18 Cargo (2017), #19 Berlin Syndrome (2017), #20 Doom (2005), #21 Predator (1987) Fran Challenges: #7 (The World Is A Scary Place) Godzilla (1954)
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Oct 13, 2018 01:17
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# 19 In the Mouth of Madness (1994) - so yeah like I said "Jacob's Ladder Meets Halloween III". It was hard for me to tell where this was going, and even after watching it is hard for me to be 100% sure I understand correctly, but I believe sinister entities emerged out of an alternate dimension & puppeteered a popular horror novelist into churning out propaganda that was intended to drive his readers insane, as part of their preparation to take over the Earthly realm. So you know, a typical movie. Actually I must say if I saw Cabin in the Woods AFTER In the Mountains of Madness, I would have found Joss Whedon's concept trite! Charlton Heston's character wasn't special enough to be played by him. Sam Neill was a great as a relentless (well, almost) skeptic, and I was with him that this was an elaborate publicity stunt, until it turned out to be a different kind of scheme. All in all a solid movie. Stupid question: did John Carpenter score the rock music in the opening (i.e. during the opening credits)? I almost mistook it for Megadeth of Metallica. 7/10 # 20 Spawn of the Slithis (1977) - to celebrate the 20th entry in this contest, Mokelumne Trekka fucked around with this message at 01:54 on Oct 13, 2018 |
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Oct 13, 2018 01:39
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Franchescanado posted:
 18) Seven in Heaven (2018) - It's like a feature-length half-baked episode of Sliders Qualifying paragraph: The director, Chris Eigeman, is a film and TV actor whose most recognizable role in this household is Lorelai Gilmore's failed beau Jason Stiles in season 4 of Gilmore Girls. This is his second film; his first is some domestic drama about running off with a kid and he has an upcoming feature about WW2 something something I don't care. Some geek and a mean girl get tabbed to play seven minutes in heaven in a rich kid's house. They shuffle into the closet-within-a-closet in the master bedroom to sulk awkwardly but when they emerge they're in the same apparent house but a different party altogether. There are unnerving differences between their home neighborhood and the lookalike they stumble into. They don't really understand why they arrived; how will they get home? Part of me thinks I can't recommend this but I want to maintain that I was interested for the length of the film. The movie is filled with things that aren't really dug into or explained in any proper way but not all examples are negative. Some of the little (and big) mysteries suit me just fine being unexplained especially for a movie of this type. On the other hand there are some character motivations that should really have been fleshed out to make some of the actions taken make sense. The beginning is slow, the middle kept me intrigued even though it's a little paint by numbers (with some notable moments), and then the third act is weird enough that I was fully engaged. The ending toggles between petering out in part due to those soft characterizations but the final scene works for me. Again, I don't know if I can recommend it because I know it's the kind of goofy story that's right in my wheelhouse. But if you're a-hankerin' for a long and somewhat pudding-headed episode of Sliders then give it a shot.
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Oct 13, 2018 01:42
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17. The Apostle Netflix, Directed by Gareth Evans , starring Dan Stevens and Martin Sheen What to say. Okay first off this sits firmly in its own specific genre really. Witch or Cult Horror. The comparisons to Wicker Man are appropriate but really it doesn't match Wicker Mans tone at all. I think personally its more inline with Amicus and Hammer horror productions. It has that very very British feel but updated for modern times. The reason I say this is that he film has multiple subplots that are given ample time to play out and you have a very explosive last 30 minutes of really some amazing gore and that's really what Hammer was about it hdd two or three really amazing lead actors that just were and it had these build ups to gory finales. That's what this has it has Martin Sheen and Dan Stevens just driving the gently caress out of the film. I think the way I would describe this as "What if Hammer kept producing into the 80s, and 90s with the added benefit of the revolution of gore we had in the 80s." Its easily the best Horror film I have seen since Mandy this year. It'll be on my list of top ten recent horror for a while. /5
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Oct 13, 2018 02:00
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Day 12 - Belladonna of Sadness  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WkcLMapo_YI was seriously considering not doing this write up. Not because this isn't a horror movie (though it is right on the borderline) or because I didn't want to talk about the movie. Instead I was thinking that I should just post about a dozen stills from the film because that says way more about Belladonna of Sadness than I can. There is a book that is essentially all of the images of the movie and the text to link them. It costs $150 and I am seriously considering buying a copy. Belladonna of Sadness is goddamned gorgeous. I can't think of the last time I've seen a movie this beautiful. Jean and Jeanne are happy peasants in the French countryside who were just married. Unfortunately the king decides that he has to get his prima nocta on with Jeanne. Jeanne makes a deal with the most phallic satan in movie history and their arrangement grows with each tragedy that occurs. I have to point out that the devil is the good guy in this movie. He understands consent better than any other man in the film and he works with Jeanne to help her overcome her trauma. He's anti-patriarchy and anti-authoritarian. I was expecting a turn where Satan and Jeanne start using evil magic to go on a gorgeously illustrated revenge rampage right up to the point that the rites of spring started, and Satan essentially went, "You're goddamned right to pissed off at those monsters and don't let anybody say otherwise." Time to address the elephant in the room: this is an animated movie from Japan. Yes, anime was a mistake, but Belladonna of Sadness is pretty much the opposite of the assembly line trash that overflows the dumpster of anime. It's closer to an illustrated storybook than than traditional animation with beautiful ink and watercolor drawings. Other styles of illustration as well, though the ink and watercolors dominate. There are splashes of animation that dabble the movie but these are occasional. The imagery is often metaphorical, though not particularly subtle in its metaphors. What it means is that any given frame of this movie looks amazing and to prove it I picked a number between 300 and 5220 at random and took capture of the movie at that second (the range skips the credits):  This is an extremely sexual movie, though its pretty far from pornographic. This feels a lot more like an outgrowth of free love than a desire to titillate. For one thing, the orgies would be a lot less crazy if the filmmakers were just trying to turn people on. It also has the most brutal rape scene I've ever watched in the first ten minutes of the film. It would have been yet another seventies movie rape scene if it was shot normally, but with the metaphorical images it's extremely disturbing to watch. So that's something to be aware of going in. The odd, static structure to the visuals will probably put some people off Belladonna of Sadness. But give it a try. Watch the redband trailer I posted before this write up and if you think it looks nice then watch this movie because the whole movie really does look that great. Edit: have another random number generator selected still from the movie. This one is :https://i.imgur.com/asC8y0L.png Guy Goodbody posted:FRAN CHALLENGE #7: The World Is A Scary Place https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXkMfyjo7PU Random Stranger fucked around with this message at 02:33 on Oct 13, 2018 |
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Oct 13, 2018 02:25
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anime is good
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Oct 13, 2018 02:32
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Guy Goodbody posted:anime is good No.
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Oct 13, 2018 02:34
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Guy Goodbody posted:anime is good Here's an anime horror movie that's on youtube that illustrates how good anime is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1x_9Tv9QZ8 (My next recommended video was the Frankenstein one which I haven't seen yet and now I'm definitely watching this month.)
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Oct 13, 2018 02:37
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOV1T3kvwmU
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Oct 13, 2018 02:40
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FRAN CHALLENGE #8: Once In A Lifetime 28- Curse of the Were-Rabbit This might be cheating, but it had 2 directiors listed; Nick Park who does all the Aardman stuff, and Steve Box who has done a lot of the back end stuff, but hasnt directed anything except this one. If that's not good enough I'll hunt something else out. In any case, if you've seen any Aardman stuff you know what what you're in for (and if you haven't, go see this right now it's on Netflix). Wallace and Gromit are a man and his dog; amateur inventors and, in this one, exterminators. An invention goes awry and turns Wallace into a were-rabbit, hijinks ensure. It's funny, charming, and good hearted as with all the Aardman stuff. Strong recommend, especially if you have kids (as much as I love sharing the more pg13 stuff with my son, it definitely feels like good parenting when I can go with something like this).
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Oct 13, 2018 03:09
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yes
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Oct 13, 2018 03:21
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 Sleepaway Camp, 1983 Considering how Friday the 13th is an Halloween ripoff taking place at an summer camp, you'd think a slasher where the whole selling point is that it takes place at a summer camp is an Friday the 13th ripoff. This isn't the case at all here. It is its own messed up tale of lovely people going to summer camp. Kids are assholes and adults are creeps, and the whole movie could easily been a coming of age drama about that if you took out the killings. The head chef of the camp is a pedo and don't even try to hide it. He even tries to rape one of the main characters almost at the very start of the movie. The camp counselors suck and all the kids are horrible to each other. As for the classic 80s slasher stuff, there are far between the kills until the very end, but that don't make the movie boring. I liked is an relic of the 80s and the whole feel it had. I predicted the plot twist pretty fast as soon the first hints of it showed up, but that didn't bring any of it down. It's definitely a movie worth watching if you got a soft spot for 80s slashers, but I got a feeling most sane people will think it's trash. I liked it and I'm curious to maybe see the sequels for next year's marathon.
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Oct 13, 2018 03:30
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 "It's a big conspiracy." "What's a conspiracy?" "Everything." #24 Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) This is one of my favorite horror movies, and it's one of the best of all time. It is also frequently cited as the best remake of all time, given how well it inhabits the 1970's atmosphere of institutional corruption and distrust. The way it sets up disconcerting and inventive camera angles, memorable facial expressions, stark lighting, and little bizarre details to every scene, it's a masterclass in implying everything and thus layering on paranoia with every frame. Even Spock is your enemy. It crescendos very naturally and is just an incredibly well-crafted and purposeful movie--one of Pauline Kael's favorites. '78 Brooke Adams looks just like '78 Margot Kidder and it's bothering me.
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Oct 13, 2018 03:58
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 23. October 12 - Apostle I love slow-burn horror movies that subtly hint at all the evil that exists just below the surface. I also love bugfuck crazy horror movies that Go There and show you everything. Somehow, this movie accomplishes both. The first hour feels like a big budget A24 movie, but the second half is just as nuts as Evans' Safe Haven. My only complaints are that the guy who plays the main character is pretty bland, and it could stand to lose 10-15 minutes of runtime. Definitely one of my favorite movies I've watched for this challenge. Total: 23 1. Hell House LLC 2. Channel Zero: Candle Cove 3. Grave Encounters 4. Channel Zero: No-End House 5. Tucker & Dale vs. Evil* 6. Rope* 7. Der Nachtmahr 8. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre* 9. Survival of the Dead* 10. Lake Mungo 11. Jigsaw 12. Tenebrae* 13. Opera* 14. Halloween 15. Channel Zero: Butcher's Block 16. A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night 17. Tetsuo: The Iron Man 18. The Eye* 19. Dark, Deadly & Dreadful 20. As Above So Below 21. Chernobyl Diaries 22. Hour of the Wolf* 23. Apostle *Fran Challenge (8/8 Completed)
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Oct 13, 2018 04:51
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 26. The Vault of Horror-1973: 8/10 (rewatch) Good, entertaining Horror anthology from Amicus. Best segment is Midnight Mess with some vampire stuff and a pretty great ending. All the segments are entertaining and none last too long which helps. Wrap-around stuff does what it has to do so yeah, it's good.  27. You're Next-2011: 10/10 (rewatch) Most everyone here as seen this and I'm pretty sure the majority dig it. Not much else to really say other than if you haven't, see it already.  28. Unfriended: Dark Web-2018: 8/10 Much like the first one, I went in with 0 expectations and was pleasantly surprised. Happy they ditched the supernatural bullshit although there is still quite a bit of bending reality but in a movie like this you just go with it.  29. The Outing-1987: 7/10 '80s Horror that is all over the goddamn place. you've got thieves robbing an old lady then a loving genie shows up and a lamp then people get killed then you're in a museum where more people get killed. The DVD I have of this (A All Night Horror Marathon 4 pack from Scream Factory) is not the best transfer but it has a suitable VHS feel to it and the kills are kinda gory. A little surprised this isn't more well known considering.
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Oct 13, 2018 07:36
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