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Franchescanado posted:
 #29. Train to Busan (South Korea) (Netflix) -  /5A workaholic dad takes his estranged daughter on a train trip from Seoul to Busan to see her mother, as a birthday present. As they're departing, however, a zombie outbreak begins, both on the train and in the world around them. Now they, and a group of ragtag survivors, need to stay alive long enough for the train to reach the supposed safety of a military blockade in Busan. Wow, I was not expecting to like this one as much as I did. I haven't liked many of the more recent zombie movies that I've seen, since probably the release of 28 Weeks Later, but this one managed to stand out as a well-produced, well-directed, well-acted suspense thriller. I was also surprised by how much I ended up rooting for the characters, and how affected I was when they got bumped off throughout; it even gives the stereotypical loathsome rich older businessman character a moment of grace as he's dying, which started to turn me around on him right as he's turning into a zombie. Not fully, mind you, since he definitely made tons of poo poo worse and directly got several people killed, but that moment caught me off guard still. I also really liked the way the zombies were depicted in this one, as basically super feral ants, totally attracted to whatever is right in front of them and utterly ignorant of pain or even things like broken bones or spines. I found it hilarious how they were basically treated like sentient ocean waves, and you could see them "break" apart and trip all over each other in massive piles if one of the front runners fell down. They still maintain a sense of danger throughout, but this depiction allows the zombies themselves to act as comedic relief when necessary. Highly recommend this one. 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, The Mummy's Ghost, Children of the Corn II, The Mummy's Curse, The Prophecy, Child's Play 2, Halloween II (1981), Hotel Transylvania, Psycho (1960), Halloween III, The Creature Walks Among Us, Train to Busan
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Oct 17, 2018 17:40
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Accidental Lon Chaney Jr Double Feature! Yaaay? The Wolf Man (1941)  Kind of shocking how much of this is pretty much a "wrong man" melodrama about a man unfairly suspected by his community of being a murderer. There's a shot in here of Chaney being driven from a church when everyone in the pews turns their heads to look at him that's probably my favorite thing in the movie. Plenty to like here, from the atmospheric foggy country sets, to a number of great supporting turns from other Universal actors including Bela Lugosi as the first werewolf and Claude Rains as the wolf man's father, in denial about his son's grappling with his darker impulses. Unfortunately, as most modern audiences seem to agree, the week link here is Chaney. He's fine enough as a tragically hapless American dork with jusssst enough of a sex pest side that the wolfman metaphor works, but he can't help but disappoint when compared to the leads of other Universal horror movies of the period like Lugosi and Karloff. 3/5  sSpider Baby (1967)  So this movie's loving nuts. Lon Chaney Jr. is the put-upon caretaker for a trio of inbred teenagers afflicted by a genetic disease that causes them to revert to savage cannibals. This movie came out one year before Romero's Night of the Living Dead changed the game forever, and it feels more than anything like a bridge between those two worlds. So many of the horror trends of the upcoming decades appear in some form here, from the Texas Chain Saw style creepy dinner scene, to the stringy black-haired girl as killer, to the winking comedy referencing other horror movies of something like Scream. At the same time, the presence of Chaney Jr., the campy tone, and the loving awesome theme song make it very much rooted in what came before. This movie co-stars the leads of The Wolf Man and The Devil's Rejects, something that doesn't feel like it should be possible. Strongly recommended for anyone who wants to see something weird and campy as hell. Seriously, listen to that theme song. 4/5  s
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Oct 17, 2018 18:19
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Since my last post... 30. Society-1989: 9/10 (rewatch, blu ray) Worth it for the final 10-15 minutes, some of the finest (and slimiest) special effects ever put on screen, it's pretty loving great. 31. Friday the 13th Part III-1982: 8/10 (rewatch, blu ray) Like Part 2, a lot better than I remember it being. No idea what changed since the last time I saw these but here we are, I dig the two entries I dug least before now. 32. Dementia 13-2017: 5/10 (DVR) Pretty blah remake of a movie that wasn't exactly great to begin with, did look surprisingly nice for a SyFy flick though. 33. Saw-2004: 8/10 (rewatch, blu ray) I don't love it like some but it's still...good. Cary Elwes' over-acting is a bit distracting though. 34. Saw II-2005: 8/10 (rewatch, blu ray) Like the first, I dig it but just not as much as others do. Did help with more characters introduced and some pretty nasty little set-pieces (gently caress the needle pit forever). 35. The Hitcher-2007: 8/10 (rewatch, DVD) Ridiculous remake of the classic '80s flick, it's just so loving dumb you can't help but enjoy it. Peak is the chase scene where, for whatever reason, the director decided to set it to Nine Inch Nail's Closer. Sophia Bush is a fine sub for Howell and Bean does his best but he ain't no Hauer. 36. The Happening-2008: 8/10 (rewatch, DVD) I really like this movie, it's a loving blast and a shame people dismiss it due to bad acting and poo poo like that. With all the goofy close-ups and actors saying the most ridiculous lines of dialogue, it was obviously intentional and I enjoy every bit of it. Also, for an M. Night flick, it's surprisingly violent. 37. Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter-1984: 9/10 (rewatch, DVD) One of the best of the series, everyone knows this and knows why. 38. The Blob-1988: 10/10 (rewatch, blu ray) And this is one of the best remakes ever and everyone knows why.
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Oct 17, 2018 18:27
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I went in to this one completely blind. I got a 4 DVD set because it had Lake Mungo on it, without even looking at the descriptions for the other films. And I grabbed a DVD out at random. So I went in with literally no expectations, and whoo boy does The Reeds suck. My first surprise was that it's a British movie. So everybody has British accents. And I don't mean Captain Picard fancy British accents that nobody IRL actually sounds like, I mean real "Oy mate!" British accents. So right off the bat the potential for horror is out the window. You can't be scared of a movie where everybody talks like Philomena Cunk. As for the story, it sucks! People do stupid stuff, then start having hallucinations for no reason which allow them to do even stupider stuff. There was a brief moment where I thought it was going to do something cool, that it was setting up some kind of magical three cornered contest between the Reeds Monster, the Reeds Youths, and the Reeds Hunter. But nope, nothing cool. It just turns out that this guy killed some youths in the magic Reeds. The reeds are magic without logic or purpose. The dead come back. Also, time has gone all screwy. Also, people hallucinate. Also, sometimes just random poo poo happens. Just whatever is spooky. Speaking of spooky, you know that sped up head shake from Jacob's Ladder? Some people think it was only scary in Jacob's Ladder, and every time it's been used since then is simply the hallmark of an uncreative hack director meaningless copying things he's seen in better movies. While it's in The Reeds! Also, black eyes are spooky, right? People's eyes go black in The Reeds, and it doesn't mean anything, there's no loving logic for it. Your eyes don't go black when you're dead, or have come back from the dead, or to signify that it's a hallucination, there's just a couple scenes where people's eyes go black because it's spooky. And there's an ending twist! You might have guessed it loving immediately because there's a line of dialogue, a single line of dialogue in a scene that exists solely to allow that dialogue to be said, where the main lady says she was adopted. Did you guess that it's going to turn out her parents are someone in the Reeds? Of course not, because it was a very shocking, clever twist, and nobody could outthink the director of The Reeds, a man I have never met but now loving hate so goddamn much. My final verdict is The Reeds sucks rear end!
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Oct 17, 2018 18:42
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  30. A Cure for Wellness (2016) - Blu-ray  Go in blind. Love it or hate it. Possibly hate me. 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), 16 Sssssss (1973), 17. Maniac (1934), 18. Thirst (2009), 19. Horror Hotel (1960), 20. Event Horizon (1997)*, 21. In the Mouth of Madness (1994), 22. Frankenstein (1931)*, 23. Monster from a Prehistoric Planet (1967), 24. The Bride of Frankenstein (1935), 25. The Funhouse (1981), 26. Beetlejuice (1988), 27. Fright Night (1985), 28. Son of Frankenstein (1939), 29. The Terror, 30. A Cure for Wellness (2016) Years Spanned: 95 (1922-2017) Tally by Decade: '20s (I), '30s (V), '40s (II), '50s (II), '60s (VI), '70s (II), '80s (VI), '90s (II), 2000s (III), 2010s (II) B&W/Color: 14/17 Rewatch/Total Counted: 3/30 Fran Challenges Complete: 1 * Rewatch
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Oct 17, 2018 18:50
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 148- The Monster Club 1981 - PRIME Compared to the other anthologies people have been posting about, this one's pretty mild. It's not particularly bad. Wraparound story works with the stories though I think it could've shaved off some of the dancing bits in bad masks. Ending is pretty much as expected and I do kinda wish they marketed that monster bloodlines poster that gets shown. I would've loved a framed one on my walls.
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Oct 17, 2018 19:11
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28. ChainedFranchescanado posted:
I have a Russian colleague who watches some odd stuff and we recommend each other stuff from time to time. Usually I add it to the list and forget about it, but this challenge made me dig up Chained. A serial killer kidnaps and murders a wife, keeping her son as his personal servant. Imprisoned for years the boy learns about women, murder and his own future all solely through his kidnapper. So, I really dug the majority of this movie. It felt like a mix between Henry and Room. Bob, the serial killer, was a genuine character, you never sympathize with him but you grow to understand him. His casual way of killing, the detachment mixed with shots of his naked rear end next to a bloody corpse is genuinely frightening. D'Onofrio does a great job of playing someone who is human, but lacking something. However, it isn't all praise. This movie has a terrible ending. Really, really, really terrible. There is a twist that comes (almost) out of nowhere, feel tacked on and ruins a lot of what was going on. If you can see past things like that I recommend this, but if I ever rewatch this I'll probably turn it off before this happens. .
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Oct 17, 2018 21:38
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 Cast a Deadly Spell - (1991) This nostalgia-drenched pastiche of film noir tropes, voodoo magic, and elder gods could not be more up my alley. It fits perfectly up there alongside The Rocketeer, Dick Tracy, and Who Framed Roger Rabbit as a highly-stylized, pulpy throwback that strikes a perfect balance of camp and compelling storytelling. This HBO movie is solidly helmed by GoldenEye and Casino Royale director Martin Campbell, who plays everything right up to the edge of parody and crosses the line only when necessary. Every frame is drenched with incredible production design and cinematography in what is easily the most gorgeous made-for-TV movie I have ever seen. Effects-wise, the whole thing strains against its budget, with some matte paintings and puppets looking notably cheaper than the rest of the film–but not as cheap as many of the theatrical films reviewed here. The cartoonish design of the gargoyle made for some visual dissonance, and the design of the cthulhu-style elder god was a bit of a letdown. There’s not much gore, but what is there is great with the film not shying away from some gruesome kills. But the cast on this thing 😍. Fred Ward does a pitch-perfect homage to Golden Age detectives with his Harry Philip Lovecraft, a private dick who refuses to use magic unlike, as the title card states, everybody else in 1948 Los Angeles. Clancy Brown plays a mob boss with a pencil-thin mustache who wants to rule the world, and does a solid job with what he’s given, which is mostly yelling and smirking—paling in comparison to Timothy Dalton’s much meatier role in The Rocketeer earlier that year. MVP Julianne Moore plays a stunning femme fatale singer who is dripping with tragic past in a role that makes Jennifer Connelly in The Rocketeer look like a little girl. David Warner brings his typical A-game to a sinister father looking to bring about the end times by hiring Lovecraft to recover the Necronomicon for him, and Alexandra Powers impresses as his Lolita-esque daughter. Also of note is Lee Tergesen playing a trans-woman who is just trying to get away from this world of senseless violence with her boyfriend in what is arguably a progressive role for the time—however it’s a little hard to say, as I’m no totally sure which elements might be unblinking homages to the genre or which might be early 90s casual homophobia (“fag party” and “fairy”, brutally killing the helpless queer character, etc.). The story is great. The screenplay is solid. The ending is a lot of fun if predictable. The commentary on the value of virginity is welcome, even if I’m left feeling a bit icky about how it was handled—but then again, it may just be genre homage rather than bad sexual politics. Outside of that I’m not really sure how much the film had to say, but it’s a film that doesn’t need any sort of deep thematic context. If this sounds like it might be up your alley, I couldn’t recommend it enough. Truly a hidden gem that should have a much bigger cult following than it does. Final grade: A+ Taking a look around, it's got a quasi-sequel called Witch Hunt. Directed by Paul Schrader (!) and starring Dennis Hopper (!) in the Lovecraft role, the whole thing is up on YouTube in pretty poor quality, but not available in any other format. Might have to check that out at some point. Anyone know if it's worthwhile if I dug this one? Cast a Deadly Spell (A+) Return of the Living Dead (A+) Pumpkinhead (A-) Invasion of the Saucer Men (B-) Pieces (C+) The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (C+) feedmyleg fucked around with this message at 23:22 on Oct 17, 2018 |
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Oct 17, 2018 21:41
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   #51. Dog Soldiers (2002) This one put me in mind of 28 Days Later, between the British protagonists, military characters finding themselves in the midst of a twist on a horror staple creature, surprise betrayals, and willingness to kill main characters right off. No one on the level of Cillian Murphy, sadly, and while it was interesting seeing a werewolf movie that focused on them ripping things up instead of their conflict over the curse, it didn't end up doing much for me. The characters felt too thinly-drawn, the American special forces guy was practically a caricature, and the ending felt like a weak end to an otherwise alright story. I recognize that it was partially a comedy (the dog tugging on the guts did get a laugh out of me), but it just didn't have any of the stuff that interests me when I'm in the mood for werewolves, and the costumes weren't great enough to make up for that or the bland 'come on, boys!' dialogue. I was going to say I'm surprised there's no sequel, but it looks like there's one in development.  / 10  #52. Hangman's Curse, a.k.a., The Veritas Project: Hangman's Curse (2003) Quite possibly the strangest film I've seen this month. On the face of it, the story is about bullies at a high school being cursed to die by the hand of a ghost of a boy who was bullied to the point of hanging himself. But then the main characters are introduced: A nuclear family of investigators, with the son and daughter high-school age, who go undercover to solve crimes and mysteries. And it's presented in that light Lifetime glossy style. And the third act reveals that the deaths are actually due to brown recluse hybrids bred by the school's star pupil, who is revealed to be the nephew of the hanged boy. But there's still witchcraft, with pentagrams, black robes, and curse shrines, only it's not doing poo poo beyond making the goths feel better. And there's a scientist/government contact by the name of Algernon, played wildly over-the-top by the film's writer.  The opening screen. As much of a mess as the story was, it was put together competently on the technical side, and the camera-work got creative more than a few times. The acting is passable, with David Keith (not Keith David) as the dad, Mel Harris as the mom, and a bunch of TV bit players filling out the rest of the roles. Some Christian flavoring comes up but doesn't overwhelm things, and it could easily have been much worse. You'll most likely find this the same place I did, at the back of a Dollar Tree DVD bin. / 10    #53. Bloody Pit of Horror, a.k.a., The Red Hangman, a.k.a., A Tale of Torture, a.k.a., Crimson Executioner, a.k.a., Some Virgins for the Hangman, a.k.a., The Castle of Artena, a.k.a., The Scarlet Hangman, a.k.a., The Scarlet Executioner (1965) Oh dear, the cheese. Hammy overacting all around, and some of the worst scoring I've heard in any film (in one scene, you can hear the record the score is being played off of hitting a bump and looping; in a better film, this would have been a neat way of showing the characters' derangement, but going by everything else in this film, I can't believe it was anything but incompetence). The actor handling the role of the main villain (Mickey Hargitay, husband to Jayne Mansfield) is clearly exuberant about being the reincarnation of the Crimson Executioner and punishing sinners. Said sinners are are group who came across his castle while looking for a place to photograph models for horror pulp covers, since you can't do that in a studio or anything. Pretty dull for the most part, and Hargitay's gleeful capering once he takes on the Executioner persona is the only thing brightening it. A little amusing how, despite having the women lashed to torture devices, there's very little gore or nudity; the extremes for both are a line of fake blood from a single blade, and being topless while lying face-down. It hit something of a sweet nostalgia spot for me with the washed-out colors, clearly fake dungeon sets, and bare-chested Phantom outfit of the villain, but it's not something I would actually recommend or rewatch anytime soon. / 10   #54. Billy the Kid vs. Dracula (1966) And the cheese continues. I'd seen the sister film, Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter, a few years ago, and while that one had mad scientist set dressing to liven things up, I kind of liked this one more. John Carradine as Dracula goes for the gusto, communicating that he's exerting his hypnotic influence on people by bugging out his eyes. He also plays the character straight when he's attempting to persuade people that vampires are nothing more than superstition, and in those scenes, he does bring a chilly charisma suitable to Dracula to the portrayal. A lot of time is spent going back and forth on the 'he's a vampire! No, vampires are a superstition!' disbelief, without affecting much of anything, and the showdown in an abandoned silver mine is nowhere near tense. Big flapping rubber bats are the biggest special effect I can recall, and most of the story is transplanted whole-sale from any given pre-Hammer/post-1931 vampire movie, but the ease with which that's dropped into the Western setting does earn it some points. At only 73 minutes, it's a quick enough entry if you're looking for weird curios. / 10
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Oct 17, 2018 22:59
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The Hangman's Curse is 100% a Christian film. Frank Peretti is "the Christian R.L. Stine"
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Oct 17, 2018 23:03
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Day 17 - The Monster of Frankenstein https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZQEp_CrHIU Let me take you back to the early 70's. Comic books had been hamstrung by the Comics Code Authority who dictated what was and was not allowed to be in books but creators had begun to push at the boundaries of it. In respect the Code loosened up its deathgrip on monsters being depicted in comics and the response was a flood of new horror comics. At Marvel comics, their big push was Tomb of Dracula, Werewolf by Night (whose titular werewolf was named Jack Russell), and The Monster of Frankenstein. Dracula found a narrative arc as the comic became all about a globetrotting Dracula being a gigantic rear end in a top hat to everyone, Werewolf by Night wound up being a kind of dull Hulk pastiche, and Frankenstein was just lost. Despite some fantastic artwork by Mike Ploog, Monster of Frankenstein stunk. The series lasted 18 issues and was retooled four times during that (at the time Marvel comics was undergoing complete chaos editorially, there were just as many editor-in-chiefs of the line in that same period). But somehow when a Japanese animation studio came calling around 1980 for a few horror themed properties they could turn into movies, they picked Dracula and Frankenstein. The Dracula movie, Dracula: Sovereign of the Damned, is a completely bonkers adaptation of a very late story arc from the comic at the point when the series had gone off the rails. As for Monster of Frankenstein, there wasn't even that much effort put into it. Dr. Victor has made a monster! And his assistant blackmails him for it as the monster shuffles around the countryside. But his father who also made a monster and his daughter come across the creature and befriend it. With all that comic book intro, I guess I should talk about how well the movie adapts that comics. The answer is it doesn't. This is a knock off of better Frankenstein movies that shares almost nothing with the comic itself. The closest it gets is in making the monster grey, though the rest of the appearance is just the Universal make up. The characters not from the novel aren't in the comic at all. If it wasn't for the fact that I knew that the film licensed the Marvel comics the connection would have never occurred to me. The Dracula anime has a lot of things that only make sense if you're aware of the original comics, this is just a lovely Frankenstein cartoon. The most interesting thing about this movie is how stupid it gets from time to time. Someone hangs a horse's head above Dr. Victor's bath (people keep calling him Dr. Victor and very occasionally mention Frankenstein) and he doesn't notice it for about five minutes as he's soaking in the tub. The monster finds Jesus and I don't mean finds him wandering out in the woods. At the very end Dr. Victor just decides to shoot himself in front of his daughter. But in between the weirdness, it's just turgid and boring. People wander the woods and the monster hangs out and it's exactly as predictable and boring as you think it would be. There was also this scene:  "Try and throw me in the lake you son-of-a-bitch." I watched the Harmony Gold dub of the movie which means I got the lowest rent of the low rent cartoon voice acting. I suppose I should just be grateful that they didn't edit a completely unrelated giant robot anime into it. The real question I have after all this is how this Marvel movie ties into Infinity War. I didn't see Thanos anywhere in it. Random Stranger fucked around with this message at 23:17 on Oct 17, 2018 |
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Oct 17, 2018 23:12
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Franchescanado posted:The Hangman's Curse is 100% a Christian film. Frank Peretti is "the Christian R.L. Stine"
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Oct 17, 2018 23:26
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Darthemed posted:Yeah, looking up more on him to try and understand Hangman's Curse, I found out he was Mr. Henry in Mr. Henry's Wild & Wacky World, the most manic piece of Christian edutainment I've seen. But it didn't really come up in the film, outside of the family making a point to say grace before meals, the son warning goths that they didn't know what they were getting into with summoning spirits, and the daughter praying when she fell down a hole and broke her leg. And the vicious delivery of "I hope they burn in HELL!" by a character who ends up not being a villain threw me off that assumption even more, as did the absence of a heavy-handed 'Maybe if you turned to God, all these problems would be solved,' attempt at evangelizing. I remember reading the books as a kid and the Christian stuff is laid on THICK in the book, complete with straw man debates about evolution and other hot button topics in the middle of the story.
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Oct 17, 2018 23:49
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I should probably start reviewing the movies I've watched instead of leaving it all until the last minute like last year. I'm not going to give any of them number ratings because numbers suck. 1 - Dagon Stuart Gordon's obsession with Lovecraft's work finally resulted in a proper adaptation of one of his most famous stories.... although it's not Dagon, this is an adaptation of Shadow Over Innsmouth. So close! This movie is really frustratingly shot, especially in the opening when you're getting to know your characters. It looks for all the world like those youtube videos where someone takes a 4:3 image and zooms in so it fills up a 16:9 frame. It's all shot too close up, the top of heads are cut off in several shots, and you generally feel like you have no breathing room to look at anything. Thankfully, once the plot starts going, things become more breathable. While the film has the usual Stuart Gordon weird comedy and creepy sex additions, the plot really is like a straightforward modern adaptation of Shadow Over Innsmouth, and it delivers on the atmosphere in spades. The entire movie is soaking wet, with seemingly endless rain pouring down. The townfolks are appropriately gross and fishlike, with some pretty great makeup effects and some even better acting on everyone's part to convey the wrongness of their fishy bodies trying to get around on land. The unrated cut, which I watched, has a truly revolting scene where a man is filleted alive(because fish) that has to rank on the top grossest gore scenes of all time. Macarena Gómez is stunning as the woman who haunts the lead's dreams, and while Ezra Godden is no Jeffrey Combs, his physical comedy chops and awkward nerd vibe are still up to the task of playing the downright goofy Paul Marsh. Not Stuart Gordon's best, but still worth seeking out. 2 - Demonic Toys It's a Full Moon film about toys that come alive and kill people, and for the most part it's exactly what you'd imagine when you hear that premise. The film has some interesting gore gags, idiotic one-liners, fun props, and truly gross parts. My favorite scene in the film involves children being given a dead demon baby as a treat on Halloween. There's an extended and confusing plotline involving a demon wanting to possess the lead's unborn child so he can be reborn as the antichrist which is the impetus behind the whole affair, and at times the demonic toys running around killing people feel pretty secondary to that conflict, which is kind of a negative for me. I will say that I was shocked and amazed that a young teen runaway from an abusive home is unceremoniously killed off a few scenes after being introduced. You'd think a character like that would have immunity on account of good taste, but you'd be wrong about Full Moon. The way the demon is finally defeated is stupid as hell, but the entire premise is stupid so whatever. This is definitely one of Full Moon's better productions, for whatever that's worth. 3 - Murder Party Not much of a horror movie until the third act, but definitely a Halloween movie all the way, this dark comedy has a very simple premise and executes on it perfectly. A dweeby parking attendant gets a street invite to a Murder Party, and it turns out he's the murderee for a bunch of pretentious and untalented art students. The entire film feels like the director angrily flipping off art school, and while that could be obnoxious, this is Jeremy Saulnier, so he manages to make that entertaining. The movie's characters are very well fleshed out, and while you don't really like most of them, you do understand where they're coming from. The humor is pretty understated but also very effective, and when things get a bit darker, that's very visceral and satisfying too, although anyone who's seen Green Room wouldn't be surprised by that. This is how you should do horror comedies. Also, I wish Scarewolf was a real film. 4 - The Video Dead This film is about a haunted TV and also about zombies, but the way they connect and the rules that govern them change from scene to scene. This film has completely wretched acting from the leads, who are midwest ugly to the extreme, which is unfortunate since the film has a lot of unnecessary closeups and shirtless scenes. The zombie makeup is about the only thing that's done well in this disaster of a film, but luckily, this is one of those movies where it's so dumb and poorly made that it's fun. There's a lot of great/hilarious kill scenes in the film, even though they do nothing to advance the plot, and the visuals of the spooky haunted TV are neat, even if it makes no sense. The sheer incompetence of our "heroes" is something to behold as well, and you gotta love a movie with a David Bowie zombie. This is a great example of a fun bad horror movie. 5 - I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House So I loving love this movie. I already reviewed it for the May Challenge, so I'll just quote myself here: quote:This is an interesting one. The structure of it is very similar to the glut of incredibly dull by the numbers horror films that have come out in the past 15 years - Someone is in a house, and they go about their normal business, and basically nothing happens for most of the running time, but there are strategically placed jump scares and bits of spooky exposition to keep you from turning it off, and then actual spooky events occur in the last 10-15 minutes. This could've been the script to a paranormal activity movie, if you just tweak a couple things. 6 - The Nail Gun Massacre Oh boy. This is some seriously shoddy film-making. This film obviously used whoever was around as extras, did no ADR even though about half the film was shot next to a busy highway, and has nearly no creativity in its kills. The movie cold opens on a rape, and then turns into a slasher film where the rapists get killed off one by one. Except sometimes the killer just murders random people who did nothing wrong, possibly to pad out the running time. There is a very gross sex scene in this movie, and long, interminable stretches where nothing happens. Despite all this, it was somehow a very fun experience. The sheer stupidity of the film is amusing, and the killer has an endless supply of bad one-liners, all of which are delivered in a goofy vocoded Darth Vader voice that no human being could ever have. The score is also basically nonexistent, so instead of music we often have the killer making random non-diegetic groans and yelps as our background noise. This would probably be a frustrating experience if watched alone, but watched with a group and possibly some alcohol, it's a very fun dumb experience. 7 - Splinter A mid-2000s horror movie that I enjoy? And that uses practical effects? Talk about a rare find! This movie's plot is very stripped down. Couple is on vacation, runs into The Bad People, all 4 of them end up holed up at a gas station while the spookies are outside. Well, 3 and a half of them. It's a very simple structure, but the film makes it work. Strong characters, great visual effects for the low budget, and truly creepy creature design. This movie has some seriously memorable body horror and gross-out kills, and though you rarely get a glimpse of the main creature hunting them (and when you do it's not 100% convincing), its design is so gruesome that you really don't want to see more of it. I highly recommend this hidden gem if you've never seen it before. 8 - Creeptales An 80s horror anthology from 2004. Yes, you read that right. So this movie's wraparound segment is both incredibly obnoxious and very fun, featuring a bunch of dumb monsters having a horror night together and watching their favorite film, Creeptales. Meta. The segments are wildly uneven in quality and production value and were apparently filmed from 1986 to 2003, and it kinda shows. The upside is that no one segment wears out its welcome, as the movie just whizzes by, with some of the shorts being barely 5 minutes long. The chaotic and low-budget nature of this film is very charming, and there are some funny moments and convincingly creepy monster effects to be had, as well as some laughably bad costumes and endearingly stupid props. You could do a lot worse when it comes to horror anthologies, especially ones released in the early 2000s. Creepshow 3 anyone? 9 - Castle Freak Hope you like your sexual violence. Stuart Gordon brings us a film starring Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Crampton as a married couple who hates each other due to the father drunkenly crashing the car, killing their young son and blinding their daughter. And for some reason the wife just won't get over that. They unexpectedly inherit a castle when Jeffrey Combs' aunt passes away, but unfortunately, unbeknownst to all, the aunt had a freak chained down in the basement. Starving and mad from decades of abuse and imprisonment, the freak breaks loose and soon develops an obsession with the blind daughter, played by Jessica Dollarhide in her last acting role. Incapable of separating his hunger from his lust, the freak begins doing some really hosed up creepy poo poo to women, as the evidence piles up implicating the husband instead. This movie is really gross, but it probably has the strongest characters of any Stuart Gordon film I've ever seen. The Freak is at all times a pitiable and revolting creature. He doesn't understand enough about anything to know what he's doing is even wrong, but what he's doing is abominable. An uncomfortable and appropriately horrifying experience, with great locations, amazing makeup, and stomach turning effects. 10 - Project Metalbeast Ok so gently caress this movie basically. It's 5% werewolf action and 95% people in labs talking about synthetic skin. The titular metalbeast is an interesting design when it's revealed, but it's not the action-figure-y cyborg werewolf that the title suggests. Everyone in this movie is not very good at the whole acting thing, except Barry Bostwick, who does his best to steal every scene he's in as the evil military business villain who they forgot to give a motivation to beyond "bad guy". Only watch if you're some kind of werewolf or Barry Bostwick completionist. 11 - Pumpkinhead II: Blood Wings I still don't know why this demon is called Pumpkinhead. So like all movies in the series, this is a waste of potential. There are some good kills, some neat setpieces, some fun creature effects, some truly unlikable victims, and an attempt at pathos, but the sum of the film is weaker than its parts. This movie is about a giant supernatural vengeance demon that looks like a cross between the xenomorph and a hairless dog, but it's structured exactly like a Friday the 13th knockoff. Other than cutting people up with its claws, the demon never does anything that a normal quite strong person couldn't do. In fact at one point it kills someone with a wrestling move. Nobody in the cast wanted to take their top off for this movie, so at one point Linnea Quigley suddenly appears in the movie to supply the required boobage in a totally pointless scene. I really wanted to like this movie more than I did, and Andrew Robinson really gives it his all as the kind-hearted sheriff trying to stop the demon from eating his daughter, but this movie is ultimately too generic for its own good. Even the completely psychotic teen who gets the vengeance curse started dies while trying to save someone else, which kinda makes it not as fun as if he'd died being a huge rear end in a top hat. At least the film had the decency to have a rock song over the credits that is about the film, which every good horror movie should have. 12 - Winterbeast  It is impossible to interpret or explain Winterbeast. 13 - The VVitch Everything's already been said about this movie. Atmospheric, wonderful period piece, oppressive, beautiful, shocking, incredibly well-directed and acted, amazing score, haunting, etc etc. I will say though, I don't love the ending. Yes, obviously Thomasin has nothing else to live for and nowhere else to go, and she's been shown that God has nothing to offer her, and it's freedom from the oppressive lifestyle her father placed us in, I get all that. But I still think she should be a little more pissed off at the forces of darkness for killing everyone and making her family turn on her. It's a very minor gripe, obviously. This movie is almost more of a tragedy than a horror film, and I do love that the most horrendous things that happen aren't even shown, but just knowing they occurred is so upsetting. A truly great film, and I can't wait to see more from Robert Eggers.
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Oct 18, 2018 00:17
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Franchescanado posted:
40. Carnival of Souls - 3.5/5 (Amazon) quote:Not the most riveting of movies in and of itself, but it's fascinating to see its influence on so many films I love. The mysterious man seems almost shamelessly stolen by Lynch for Lost Highway, and there's at least one scare remade in Insidious. The fact that this was a low budget, independent venture in 1962 is impressive, because the cinematography feels decades ahead of its time.
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Oct 18, 2018 00:51
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Lurdiak posted:11 - Pumpkinhead II: Blood Wings It's called Pumpkinhead because it's basically got a pumpkin head. Does Pumpkinhead actually interact with actors this time, or pull them off frame, caress them lovingly, and later they are just dead? This is kind of important, because one of the major problems with Pumpkinhead I is that Pumpkinhead doesn't really do anything. Alien gets similar criticism, the difference being that a lot more is being strongly implied in Alien. quote:12 - Winterbeast Don't be such a tease.
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Oct 18, 2018 01:50
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Sodomy Hussein posted:It's called Pumpkinhead because it's basically got a pumpkin head. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBkc_Zf0wc0&t=57s quote:Don't be such a tease. I'm being dead serious. I would either ruin the experience or be disbelieved if I said anything about the film.
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Oct 18, 2018 01:55
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Basebf555 posted:As sad and terrifying as it is, and as much as I wouldn't have felt this way 2 years ago, the idea of white supremacists perpetrating a government sanctioned pogrom in a majority black neighborhood seems like something that could realistically happen if we don't take serious and immediate steps to change the path this country is on. We have this already it's just American policing. And it goes back way further than two years. It's weird to me seeing this movie read as a cautionary tale of where we could be headed when so many of the themes apply to where we are right now today. The first two movies dealt with a lot of the same stuff (though definitely not as cleanly or as well as The First Purge) and were both pre-Trump. I guess for me it just feels more effective to read the purge (the event) as an exaggeration of current racist and classist policy rather than a vision of some potential hell future. Things are already hosed and have been for a long time, the purge isn't what we're becoming it's what America was founded on and has been forever.
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Oct 18, 2018 02:21
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^I think the Purge, like Handmaid's Tale, is best when viewed as commentary using exaggerated, institutionalized versions of poo poo that already happens to various degrees and not as a warning of dystopia we can steer away from. #32 Goosebumps 2 2/5 Sony Brand Answering Machines I saw someone call this a high budget Disney Channel Original Movie and that might be kind. The kids in this are decent actors and the adults have all been great in other projects but it's so much less than the first movie. There are dozens of better movies about monsters taking over a small town. Also I did not get my free Goosebumps 2 slap bracelet at the theater. <  > #33 Creeptales 3/5 Hungry Snakeskin Purses This is a strange anthology with some really fun stories. Tom Kenny is the standout in a musical about a purse snatcher. The Sucker is a fun Tales From The Crypt-style short about an evil vacuum cleaner. More anthologies should throw in ~5 minute shorts between the longer stuff. #34 Castle Freak 3/5 Creepy Uncles My least favorite Gordon movie but it's fine. More Gothic horror than the effects heavy comedy of his 80s work. The titular freak is gross and there are some creepy scenes. I'm not a fan of blind horror protags but the daughter is pretty good in this. #35 Nightmare on Elm Street 2 4/5 Suggestive Pop Guns Challenge #2: Queer Horror “Did you actually go to a freshman English course in high school? This is not subtext.” This is a great campy movie and it's a shame the actor caught so much poo poo for it. Freddy as a demon of possession is an interesting take. The boiling pool and fence of flames are not amazing but I like a nice suburban slasher. Freddy breaking free of Jesse's body is disturbing and memorable. #36 Winterbeast 4/5 Plaid Sportcoats This is a fever dream. Absolute weirdo characters and goofy stop motion monsters that don't have any real theme. The editing is delightfully inept. Easily the best of the microbudget horror I've seen this month. #37 Nightmare on Elm Street 3 4/5 Young Staffers Accidentally Locked In Over The Holidays Probably the best kills of the series and some fun characters. Nancy adds a lot as an adult who actually believes the kid instead of dragging out the inevitable. Freddy's backstory is dumb and I don't even like the burial storyline. Stop-motion Skeleton Freddy is a wonderful choice and I am always here for an aggressively dated theme song. #38 Nightmare on Elm Street 4 2/5 Teenage Meatballs There are some nice kills (the cockroach is wonderful) and sets but Freddy's a cartoon and nobody wants to see the final girl taking him on in a street fight. I like some of the effects but the mirror was an incredibly lame plot device. No progress on They Shoot Zombies top 50. 3 movies watched from 4/7 decades. Challenges: 1,2,5,7
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Oct 18, 2018 02:29
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FancyMike posted:We have this already it's just American policing. And it goes back way further than two years. Well when I use the word pogrom, I'm referring not as much to the roving killers(which American police already are), and more to the scenes where the kill squad shows up and goes door to door through the high rise executing everyone they find. But I don't disagree with any of your points.
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Oct 18, 2018 02:31
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Basebf555 posted:Well when I use the word pogrom, I'm referring not as much to the roving killers(which American police already are), and more to the scenes where the kill squad shows up and goes door to door through the high rise executing everyone they find. But I don't disagree with any of your points. Yeah those are the ones I'm comparing to the cops. The movie identifies them as mercenaries but they're employed by the government and the usual tool of state violence is the police so that's where I draw the connection. Same with the trucks in Anarchy, which came out in 2014 the same year police were rolling out a bunch of military kit in Ferguson. Glad people in this thread are liking The First Purge I was surprised with how great it was after the first three.
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Oct 18, 2018 02:41
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Went over my original goal, and while I doubt I'll make it to 31, I'm going to keep going and at least try to finish all of the challenges. Everything so far has been a first-time watch for me, so I'm going to keep that up, too.  10. Al Final del Espectro (2006) Watched on Colombian Netflix  FRAN CHALLENGE #3: Hometown Horror Fairly by-the-numbers agoraphobic psychological horror. The acting is alright, and the cinematography is interesting once in a while, but it pretty much feels like a Latin American spin on Japanese horror in the vein of Ringu / Ju-On, which is even stranger considering this is apparently based on an earlier Mexican film? The central premise has enough meat that there was some talk about an American remake with Nicole Kidman, but despite having a reasonably lean run time, the biggest knock against this movie is that the pacing drags way more than it should. Sound design is probably the strongest part of the film, but unfortunately it's mostly employed for lame jump scares. Can't really recommend this one unless you're just dying to check Colombia off of your horror movie list. / 5---  The Boxer's Omen (1983) Watched on Youtube FRAN CHALLENGE #7: The World Is A Scary Place Loved the hallucinatory imagery here, and the focus on religious / folklore elements that usually don't see much representation in film (especially in horror) is always cool. The sorcerer's den is particularly great, and it maintains a pretty creepy atmosphere even in spite of some extremely obvious practical effects work. The structure of this film is pretty strange - there's like a typical and honestly pretty unimpressive 80s boxing movie storyline interwoven with karmic twins, a magical duel, a levitating demon head, and people eating raw chicken rear end and then spitting it out for someone else to eat (seriously though, that scene was fuckin' gross as hell). It's just a crazy jumble of ideas, giallo-esque lighting, cool set design, and grime. Definitely one of the weirder movies to come out of Hong Kong. / 5---  Phase IV (1974) Watched on Youtube FRAN CHALLENGE #8: Once In A Lifetime This was better than I was expecting, though it still falls short of greatness. The macro photography is really cool, it feels like a menacing NatGeo documentary and does a pretty good job of playing with the sense of scale, and the stop-motion shots were about as seamless as you could hope for, with a few rare exceptions. The human drama isn't really fleshed out enough to make it effective, which is ultimately the biggest issue, but this is still an interesting inversion of the more common "giant insects as an expression of post-nuclear anxiety" films of the era. It's kinda crazy to me that they went all the way to Kenya to film this, but between the setting and the weird geometric shapes everywhere, it really does give the movie a very sparse, almost mystical feeling. The "lost ending" is really cool and makes the homage to 2001 even more obvious, but for some reason I also got some major Beyond the Black Rainbow vibes from this. .5 / 5So Far: Tremors | Blood and Black Lace | Cube | Killer Klowns from Outer Space | Kuso | The Fog | Borgman | The Tenant | Braindead | Al Final del Espectro | The Boxer's Omen | Phase IV Total: 12/10 Challenges: Years Spanned: 1964 - 2017 Decades Represented: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s Countries Represented: 6 Grizzled Patriarch fucked around with this message at 02:51 on Oct 18, 2018 |
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Oct 18, 2018 02:42
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#31 "Death has come to your little town, sheriff."  Halloween (1978) This is a very impressive piece of work for a movie that was shot in twenty days. It's such a blueprint for 80's horror that it feels like it could have been shot 10 or 12 years after it was. In addition to the obvious influences it had on any number of trashy 80's slasher flicks, Terminator has Halloween in its DNA. Halloween was noticeably slow-paced even for its time; Pauline Kael tears into the pacing: "With the seductive tracking shots and the repetitive music, the film stops and starts so many times before anything happens that the bogeyman's turning up just gets to be a nuisance---it means more of the same. Carpenter keeps you tense in an undifferentiated way---nervous and irritated rather than pleasurably excited---and you reach the point of wanting somebody to be killed so the film's rhythms will change." It's nearly an hour before the simplistically evil Michael acts on his urges. Jamie Lee Curtis' girlfriend, who so noticeably looks just like her that I would bet she was a runner up for the part, works as a character, but she's written almost as if her welcome is being intentionally overstayed. That is, until Michael, clearly a sexually-repressed figure, gets his rocks off. At least the puritanical misogyny is coming from the almost-pitiable villain. That completes my 31, but I'll probably keep going. Name Change fucked around with this message at 02:58 on Oct 18, 2018 |
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Oct 18, 2018 02:56
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#76. Monster Dog (1984) Vincent Raven (Alice Cooper, basically playing himself) is a rock star, and he and his friends return to his childhood manor to film a music video. However, the area is currently beplagued by vicious wild dogs, and the town has a history of angry mobs assuming his family to be part werewolf... For years the video box promising Alice Cooper having a super rad werewolf transformation taunted me from the video store shelves, because I knew the movie could never live up to it. I was right. It's not awful or anything, but it's extremely low budget, and the premise basically makes a perfect excuse to pad for time by just having Cooper do music videos. eh. out of 5#77. The Other Hell (1981) At a convent, there have been suspicious deaths, and a strong case for possible demonic involvement. The higher ups in the church send a skeptical investigator to get to the bottom of all this, and he may be most at risk of anyone once he is there. This surprised me. I've watched quite a bit of horror from Bruno Mattei and Claudio Fragrasso who regularly teamed up in the 80s and 90s (most famously on Troll 2) and I usually expect a low quality effort. I didn't get that here. It's genuinely a decent movie, feeling kinda like a giallo with a paranormal slant to everything. The script is halfway clever, with pieces adding up in the viewers head by the time the bonkers third act rolls in, the acting is pretty good, with several creepy performances, and there's actually a lot of eerie set design and camera work too. I'm shocked, nothing these guys have done matches this caliber. out of 5#78. Scorpion with Two Tails (1982) After an archaeologist studying Etruscan ruins in Italy (John Saxon!) is killed suddenly and violently, his rich wife flies in from New York to investigate her husband's death. There she finds a tangled web of treasure hunters, drug runners, and ancient magic tied together, all while the killer slowly stalks those around her... This is a weird movie. Like, it can't decide what it wants to be; is it a giallo? is it an adventure romp? Is it some sort of paranormal horror? Who knows? Not the movie, that's for sure. On the bright side, the acting is decent, without the typical "italian sound" to the ADR, and there's a lot of twists and turns that keep you guessing who might actually be on the main character's side. out of 5 And with that review, I've officially matched my record from last year for new-to-me horror movies watched in October, and in only half the time! I'm definitely going to keep going, but I wanted to point out that I've reached the benchmark!
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Oct 18, 2018 03:23
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FRAN CHALLENGE #3: Hometown Horror 15. Splinter (2008): This was filmed outside Oklahoma City and one of the characters has an OU student ID which is cool. Not many movies get made here. A woman and her beta cuck soy boy bf are going camping and gently caress up their tent and decide to go to a hotel when a scumbag (played by Shea Wigham) and his drug addict gf carjack them. They get trapped at a gas station when the drug addict gf gets infected by a parasite that makes her grow a bunch of spikes and relentlessly attack anything that moves. This is a decent little thriller that lets its characters be smart and resourceful, which is always appreciated. It makes good use of the rural highway gas station setting and has some solid gore moments. Shea Wigham is good. I do not regret watching this. 16. Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988): This is about as good a follow up to Hellraiser as I could have hoped for. I always enjoy seeing the Cenobites, esp the fat one. The design of the hell dimension was cool, as was the doctor’s Cenobite form. Pinhead’s death bummed me out a bit but was a good scene. My only real complaint is that the sound was mixed in a way that made it difficult to hear the Cenobite dialogue.
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Oct 18, 2018 03:24
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 Hereditary, 2018 The only movie from this year in my marathon. I love atmospheric horror and I love occult stuff, so of course i liked this one. It had very 70s vibe apart from the current setting. It had all the things that the truly great horror movies from that time period going for it. There's not much point in me writing a review as the Half in the Bag episode about Hereditary says everything I'd want to say about it. Go watch that episode if you want a thorough review. Or better, just watch the movie.
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Oct 18, 2018 03:31
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Oh I forgot, I submit Nail Gun Massacre for the Once In A Lifetime challenge and Dagon for The World is a Scary Place challenge.
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Oct 18, 2018 04:55
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FRAN CHALLENGE #3: Birth of Horror A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) I'm wishing I chose something different for this as 1984 seems to have been a solid year for horror and while I went into it as blind as a person can be 34 years after a movie is released, I think it was mostly a let down. The central idea that when you Freddy kills you in a dream you actually die is cool, but then they only use it off and on, with two of the deaths coming just while they were sleeping with no insight into what crazy nightmares they were having. The effects were also...not great, with the fire protection suit they use when Freddy is lit on fire looking especially bad. Also not a fan of Gotcha! endings and this one had a pretty bad one. I could see the sequels being better, but I don't think this one holds up well. 2.5/5 FRAN CHALLENGE #7: The World is a Scary Place Suspiria (1977) - Free on Tubi but had ads https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pins1y0XAa0 Holy poo poo this movie is crazy in all the best ways, if maybe a bit silly for some. Great music, very colorful, and shot in some very cool ways. I think I'll need to watch it again and soak it in more. 5/5 Movies so far: 4 Challenges completed: 3, 5, 7
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Oct 18, 2018 05:15
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Happy Death Day (2017) [Netflix Blu-ray] Really enjoyed this. Not actually that horrifying, but Groundhog Day stuff is fun even if it never gets that original with it. The lead actress carries it well across the range of things asked of her. https://i.imgur.com/nKLlG0w.gifv New (18): #1 The Terror (2018), #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), #16 Godzilla (1954), #17 The Vault (2017), #18 Cargo (2017), #19 Berlin Syndrome (2017), #22 Dawn of the Dead (1978), #25 Split (2016), #26 Seven in Heaven (2018), #27 Happy Death Day (2017) Rewatch (9): #2 The Cabin in the Woods (2011), #3 Gone Girl (2014), #4 Annihilation (2018), #5 Seven (1995), #15 A Quiet Place (2018), #20 Doom (2005), #21 Predator (1987), #23 Gremlins (1984), #24 The Andromeda Strain (1971) Fran Challenges (2): #7 [The World Is A Scary Place] Godzilla (1954), #3 [Hometown Horror] Dawn of the Dead (1978)
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Oct 18, 2018 05:38
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 #55. Misery (1990) Misery is kind of a frustrating movie for me. Bates and Caan give excellent performances, the tension and pacing are managed skillfully, the impact points of the story are delivered with great direction, and the score is pretty good, too. But there's just so much hinging on coincidence for the story to unfold with maximum drama, that it ends up kind of annoying me. Wilkes' control of the situation, despite being the guiding note of tension, feels too pat to me, with the strained lunacy injected only where it wouldn't threaten the direction of the narrative. I feel like I'm explaining my objections clumsily, and maybe a better way to put it is that, despite being a story about a writer being forced to write for the sake of his life, the writing of the script doesn't rise to the occasion outside of a handful of scenes. It's probably been argued that by being so pedestrian with the handling of the narrative, the movie is matching the airport fiction style of Sheldon's own writing, in which the explanation of a rare bee sting reaction to justify a character's false death is considered, by a big fan of his, as some of his greatest work. And there may be much better treatment of this in the book, which I haven't read. But in the movie, we don't really get to spend any time with Sheldon's writing, outside of a few sentence-length excerpts. It could be an inherent problem with translating the subject to movie form; compare it to Videodrome, which is (on a basic level) a movie about the way watching movies affects movie-watchers. Very reflexive and self-examining. On rough lines, a book about a book-writer being forced to write a book could, debatably, strike a lot of the same notes on points of process examination and a transformative consumptive experience of its own medium. Misery the movie doesn't give me any of that, and I recognize that it never makes any claims that it intended to do so. But I can't shake that longing for it to do something to address the elephantine potential in the situation, and do more than just the limited (though well-done) hostage situation and power struggle to which it sticks. / 10        #56. The Mummy (1932) I'd really like to rate this one higher. Outside of a couple glaring contributions, the acting is great. The sets are on-point, even when starkly decorated. The physical bearing Zita Johann and Karloff bring to their roles is great, and they really earn an extra pumpkin for the rating on their strength alone. The flashback is handled beautifully, and the idea of framing it as a regression to silent film language, as I saw pointed out in another review, is kind of astounding for the time. But the film is kept so tight and speedy that it denies itself chances to expand its story and breathe some extra life into the mythos it's hurling at viewers, and it's hard to shake the impression that they just plugged in beats from Dracula whenever they got a little stuck. Story components like Ardeth Bey's social integration following his reanimation are implicit to an extreme, and while the film-makers have the talent to make it work, it still feels like a bit of a cheat. / 10   #57. Critters 2, a.k.a., Critters 2: The Main Course (1988) And here's where the Gremlins comparisons for Critters actually get some traction. Sillier, a little cheesier, and Eddie Deezen shows up. Setting it at Easter, while the Critters' eggs are shown on the verge of hatching, was a really inspired script idea. And if you're set at Easter, well, why not have the Easter Bunny crash through the church window and knock over the altar after being attacked? Critters 2 takes that opportunity, and quite a few others. There's plenty of ideas in here that I wouldn't have expected the sequel to pull in, but it plows right ahead and takes them in stride, like the shape-shifting alien accidentally including a scaled-up staple in its torso (from the center-fold it was using as a source sample), and the Critters bonding together into a massive rolling super-Critter. I couldn't believe this was from the same director that gave us the dreadfully dull TV version of The Shining. I was disappointed that they decided to sweep away the town believing/remembering the Critters from the last incident. Having them take the reappearance in stride seems like it would have been more in line with the film's tone, and would have cleared out some time-killing arguments over what was happening. It would have made the plotting trickier and disrupted the usual 'rural town reacts to an alien invasion' formula, but the film seemed to have such fun bucking so many other defaults that the regularity of it sticks out as one of the bigger flaws. While I respect that they continued to take chances while holding to the necessary reiterations, the points against it (particularly the stuttered momentum) combine to bring it in lower than the original. / 10
Darthemed fucked around with this message at 05:45 on Oct 18, 2018 |
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Oct 18, 2018 05:42
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#17- Fran Challenge #5: Birth of Horror- Ghostkeeper A Canadian effort from 1981- I'd seen the trailer for this on one of those grindhouse streaming channels and so sought it out on Prime. It's got a great setup, three people snowmobiling through the Rockies take shelter from a snowstorm in a big abandoned hotel, where it turns out an old woman is looking after... something in the basement. Opening text specifically calls out the legend of the "Windigo", and I always liked the concept, but the film never quite meets its potential. After a slow buildup, the story seems to start to get going, and then- it just kinda collapses, with a number of scenes that don't really go anywhere, and a final twist that, while it's foreshadowed, doesn't have much impact. At times atmospheric (it was shot in Alberta in December, which makes me think this was a beneficiary of the same tax shelter law Cronenberg used to make Scanners and Videodrome), but never really scary, and it also seems like at the last minute they decided to cut some gore, so it feels restrained less in a spooky way and more in a "this editing is awkward" way. (There is no rating information- Canadian or otherwise- on IMDb.) Coulda been more than it was. Maxwell Lord fucked around with this message at 07:50 on Oct 18, 2018 |
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Oct 18, 2018 06:38
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31. Blood Diner (1987) - DVD One character is a flagrantly dubbed mannequin. Jackie Kong is now my hero.  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), 16 Sssssss (1973), 17. Maniac (1934), 18. Thirst (2009), 19. Horror Hotel (1960), 20. Event Horizon (1997)*, 21. In the Mouth of Madness (1994), 22. Frankenstein (1931)*, 23. Monster from a Prehistoric Planet (1967), 24. The Bride of Frankenstein (1935), 25. The Funhouse (1981), 26. Beetlejuice (1988), 27. Fright Night (1985), 28. Son of Frankenstein (1939), 29. The Terror, 30. A Cure for Wellness (2016), 31. Blood Diner (1987) Years Spanned: 95 (1922-2017) Tally by Decade: '20s (I), '30s (V), '40s (II), '50s (II), '60s (VI), '70s (II), '80s (VII), '90s (II), 2000s (III), 2010s (II) B&W/Color: 14/18 Rewatch/Total Counted: 3/31 Fran Challenges Complete: 1 * Rewatch
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Oct 18, 2018 06:56
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 37. The Devils (1971). Directed by Ken Russell. [Watched via FilmStruck Finally making it through a cinematic rite of passage. This film is like watching a Hieronymous Bosch painting or one of those hosed up illuminated manuscripts of sinners being stuffed into a hellmouth. It feels like there's always a taste of vitriol and rot lingering over the whole film, righteously exposing the hypocrisy of theocratic patriarchy. Probably Ken Russell's masterpiece. Despite it's age, it's incredible how blasphemous and relevant The Devils feels. How has this film not been sampled to death by a black metal band yet? The transfer of this up on FilmStruck is not great, but it gets the job done. I would love to see the X-rated cut or a decent transfer one of these days. Shame on Warner Bros for effectively trying to erase this film from existence. Even heavily truncated as it is in it's current form, The Devils is going to stick with me for a long time.
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Oct 18, 2018 06:59
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#32 "Eat poo poo and live, Bill!" Sleepaway Camp (1983) Alternate title: No Means No. Maybe the most disgusting, prurient, and randomly gratuitous summer camp slasher film of all time. So relentlessly trashy that it defies parody. Something like 10% slasher film and 90% hyperbolic teen sex farce. Sprinklings of homophobia, pedophilia as comedy, and Mike Kellin going for the Oscar in his last role. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9-xXbd9mfs&t=208s This loving movie:  Those hot pants are illegal in 33 states. That ending visual is something, and is a combination of hilarious and almost legitimately frightening in the way it's shot when not in closeup.
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Oct 18, 2018 08:07
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Currently in the middle of a trip to Disneyland, which put me in the mood for something Disney, and barring Nightmare Before Christmas (which I already included in last year's challenge) and the latter half of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, Monsters, Inc. seemed like one of the more obvious choices for something applicable to the challenge. Visually, some of the lighting admittedly feels more dated than the other Pixar films surrounding it (particularly when it has to interact with Sully's fur, which to be fair is to be expected to some degree given how new and strenuous the tech was at the time), but beyond that, this is still an utterly fun and charming film, totally in line with the bulk of Pixar's films, especially of the classic era.Franchescanado posted:
Also ended up watching the Gorgo episode of MST3K on the flight in, so as to not pick something too atmosphere dependant, and as luck would have it, it's applicable to this challenge (unless of course MST3K being American-made negates that, in which case, feel free to let me know Fran). In any case, as far as MST3K fodder goes, I found this one to lean closer to the more dull and middling end of the quality spectrum, as opposed to the utterly incompetent and/or bewildering ones that make for prime riffing material. That being said, it still has its moments, like when the ship crew inexplicably manages to instantly capture the titular monster from the bottom of the ocean just by throwing a net out, and as a whole, I found things generally pick up a little bit in the latter half once the circus comes into play. Movies Watched (15): Mandy, Hobgoblins (MST3K), American Psycho, Mimic, Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, The World's End, Carnosaur, Lake Mungo, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, Dracula, Gorgo (MST3K), Monsters, Inc. Challenges Completed: #2 (Frankenstein), #3 (American Psycho), #4 (Mimic), #5 (Carnosaur), #7 (Gorgo (MST3K)) Trash Boat fucked around with this message at 10:20 on Oct 18, 2018 |
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Oct 18, 2018 10:11
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The main thread was discussing this yesterday and it sounded interesting and it fills a year I haven’t done yet. So why not? It fits a needed year. I guess I wasn’t the only person with this inspiration. 23 (25). Sleepaway Camp (1983) Available on Shudder and Prime.  Angela’s family is killed by some rear end in a top hat careless teenagers at a summer camp so naturally a few years later her crazy aunt sends her and her cousin to that same summer camp to be molested and tortured just in time for a rash of killings. Little did she know that her aunt is really a time traveling Katy Perry and this is all a #MeToo plot to take out sexual predators before they can take power. Ok, not really but I threw you off from the actual ending. That one was odd. I get why it has made such an impact and has a following. I mean… duh. And in hindsight I feel like I should have been paying a little more attention and seen that coming… or something like that… or just asked more questions. I don’t know. I think the fact that 90% of the movie is just your usual “killer at summer camp” plot sort lulls you into that. Or maybe its that it has you looking for a twist one way so you don’t think to look the right way. Or maybe its just that the first 20 minutes or so are filled with so many creepy characters and overacting people that you just don’t know what to think. Did And yet another movie that had an oddly inappropriate theme song. Weirdest trend I’ve discovered from the era. Also, plot wise I get the sense that they really, really wanted us to suspect Ricky which is why everyone was so surprised when they saw Angela, but like.., why would we ever not suspect Angela? She’s the weird, mute, traumatized kid being bullied with a horribly bloody past. The only thing that ever had me remotely thinking it wasn’t Angela is that it seemed so obvious. But I got the sense we really were supposed to be with Mel in thinking it was Ricky, or at least be convinced it was a man so that the big reveal is “How a girl? Oh!” I don’t know, maybe I read into that but its how I felt and it seemed pretty lame, a failure, and maybe a little offensive. Ultimately super gross the way so many people behave, probably offensively out of date on certain issues, but I’ve seen a lot worse slashers and summer camp slashers in particular. I mean, sure this has a silent killer but at least its victims are people doing stuff. And they like set up the heroes and villains of the B plot enough to stay engaged. I’ve seen a lot worse. 24 (26). The House That Dripped Blood (1971) Available on Shudder  A detective looks into the disappearance of an actor and uncovers a series of strange stories (taken from the pages of pulp magazines) about the fate of its past residents - Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Jon Pertwee, and Denholm Elliott. Vampires! Voodoo! Vixens! Victims! Various Vivid Vexing Versions of Vicissitude! This was alright, but not great. Its carried very much by the leading men who are of course all great. Pertwee’s story is the standout, if a bit silly. But it worked in a very dry comedic way better than the more serious pieces worked. Elliott and Lee’s pieces were both solid if unspectacular. Cushing’s was probably the weakest, but still not necessarily bad. Just a little empty. I wish I had more to say about this. I feel like I’m mailing these last couple of reviews in, but it just wasn’t super good or super bad. It was fun seeing all those actors in there but knowing they were and knowing the name of the movie and good ratings online I got my hopes up for something more than what was just an ok little anthology with nothing hugely standout. And there’s nothing near as cool as the poster image. Uhhh… Ingrid Pitt is very pretty? I don’t know. I got nothing. I take it she’s a bigger deal than I realize as I’ve never really dug into the Hammer stuff. There’s still time. I’d probably prefer a little bit of that to the giallo stuff that kind of burned me out early in the month. That gets me to 15 years so I’m still a bit behind. I’ve got at least 5 countdown movies slotted to go. My goal is to be ahead of the curve by the end of the weekend and catch up on Fran’s challenges. I still have a lot of random movies I’d like to get to that don’t meet the challenges so I want to be able to finish up early and give myself the last week or so to watch whatever I want. I might start trying to work some of my list into Fran’s challenges but I like the idea of treating them as true “challenges” and going off list for them. We’ll see. Still got a fair bit of October left and I’m not that far behind.  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) / Fran’s Challenge #1: 7. The Green Inferno (2013) / 8. Martin (1978) / 9. Malevolent (2018) / - (10). Dead and Breakfast (2004) / 10 (11). Night of the Comet (1984) / 11 (12). Jaws (1975) / 12 (13). Black Swan (2010) / Fran’s Challenge #2: 13 (14). Happy Death Day (2017) / - (15). Hell House, LLC (2015) / Fran’s Challenge #3: 14 (16). Hell House, LLC 2: The Abaddon Hotel (2018) / 15 (17). Carnival of Souls (1962) / 16 (18). The Last House on the Left (1972) / 17 (19). The Haunting of Hill House (2018) / Fran’s Challenge #4: 18 (20). My Soul To Take (2010) / Fran’s Challenge #5: 19 (21). Motel Hell (1980) / 20 (22). The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) / Fran’s Challenge #6: 21 (23). Don’t Look In The Basement (1973) / 22 (24). All Cheerleaders Die (2013) / 23 (25). Sleepaway Camp (1983) / 24 (26). The House That Dripped Blood (1971)
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Oct 18, 2018 10:49
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Sodomy Hussein posted:Jamie Lee Curtis' girlfriend, who so noticeably looks just like her that I would bet she was a runner up for the part, This may come as some surprise to you, but Jamie Lee Curtis was the runner up for the part. So your theory isn't likely.
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Oct 18, 2018 11:18
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Is there a lot of gay stuff in Sleepaway Camp? It was on my shortlist list for the Fran challenge though I ended up watching Neon Demon instead.
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Oct 18, 2018 13:30
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mobby_6kl posted:Is there a lot of gay stuff in Sleepaway Camp? It was on my shortlist list for the Fran challenge though I ended up watching Neon Demon instead. I wouldn't say "a lot" but there's a flashback scene with a gay couple, and there are some gender identity issues as you'd expect given the twist that everybody probably knows by now. It could definitely fit an LGBTQ+ horror challenge.
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Oct 18, 2018 13:56
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Sodomy Hussein posted:Sleepaway Camp (1983) I think a big part of what makes the final shot off-putting is that they were able to do it totally in camera without any after the fact visual effects because Angela's face is actually a real, practical mask. That's why her expression is so disturbingly frozen like that. But it's gotta be one of the most effective masks in movie history, it's totally convincing.
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Oct 18, 2018 14:23
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