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 33)Seedpeople - 1992 - DVD Pretty much a more goopier and monstery knock off of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. All in all, a nice bit of B-movie cheese and very welcome after the last few films I've sat through. Bit of a personal story with this was some years back meeting Charles Band, I had a chance to see some of the effects props and bullshit with the effects guys. The Seedpeople's leader's costume was one of those and it was pretty interesting to see the insides so the man inside had ample air and manipulate the suit to act.  34)TerrorVision - 1986 - AmazonPrime Oh God this film is so exquisitely 80s it's glorious. At the time this one came out, I remember there was a bit of a theme going on with the ups and downs of the DIY satellite dish in the backyard in movies especially with how big they were then. I remember my uncle out in the boonies was ready to throttle someone with first making sure he could get a dish for his yard, shelling out for it, then getting told he couldn't have it, couldn't easily return the satellite stuff, lots of dickering with the township before finally being allowed to put it up but then so much wrangling with where on his property he could put it up to the point of having to move his shed twice. Premise for this one is an alien pet gets zapped through space and picked up by a satellite dish. It's a shapeshifter and very hungry. Pretty much you can't go wrong with Mary Woronov and Gerrit Graham. Excellent example of B-movie cheese best watched with a few beers and friends.
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May 10, 2019 01:32
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 5) Big Man Japan Horror? Maybe not? It was on Shudder and has plenty of what I might consider body horror, so... gently caress it. It was weird and hell and I loved it.  / 5 6) The ABCs of Death I'd seen this before but it's still a fun ride. Unfortunately more misses than hits, but still fun. / 5
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May 10, 2019 01:33
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The Village(2004) It doesn't work. Ignoring the twist (which is fine, it's just overblown because 'big twist' became Shyamalan's thing), there's a muddled narrative thrust, and honestly this movie could be PG with the fewest of edits it's so toothless. Reveals happen in almost a random order, and the narrative thrust is defused or redirected over and over in a way that makes it not come together. There's still several breathtaking shots, Shyamalan never falters in his ability to direct the hell out of a movie. I just think it's time for Hollywood to take scripting duties away from him. 1. A Serbian Film 2. Beyond the Gates 3.DOOM 4. Zombieland 5. Friday the 13th (2009) 6. TAG 7. The Finishing Line 8. The Village Shrecknet fucked around with this message at 02:29 on May 10, 2019 |
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May 10, 2019 02:22
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Shrecknet posted:There's still several breathtaking shots, Shyamalan never falters in his ability to direct the hell out of a movie. I just think it's time for Hollywood to take scripting duties away from him. In fairness that was 15 years ago and I think general consensus is he's finally learned his lesson after a bunch of massive flops. If nothing else I mostly enjoyed The Visit and Split and they both managed to avoid most of the M. Night pitfalls.
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May 10, 2019 02:28
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STAC Goat posted:In fairness that was 15 years ago and I think general consensus is he's finally learned his lesson after the massive flop of The Happening. If nothing else I mostly enjoyed The Visit and Split and they both managed to avoid most of the M. Night pitfalls. The Happening did pretty well, it's The Last Airbender that was the flop. Lady In The Water is probably his worst performing movie.
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May 10, 2019 02:31
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I will forever stan for every part of Lady in the Water that didn't contain m. night
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May 10, 2019 02:42
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Lady in the Water is truly odd, I respect it too much to call it bad.
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May 10, 2019 02:43
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:The Happening did pretty well, it's The Last Airbender that was the flop. Lady In The Water is probably his worst performing movie. Yeah, I did some research after that and realized he did a couple of worse movies after the Happening but you beat my edit. Either way it seems like he either got shaken to his senses or people just stopped giving him the money and control to make messes.
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May 10, 2019 02:47
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 I knew nothing about Laserblast when I bought it from the Half Price Books clearance sale, but afterwards I found out it had a a reputation as bad. They even did a MST3K episode of it. So I was worried going into the movie. But Laserblast surprised me. It's certainly mockable, but I wouldn't say it's bad. The stop motion aliens look great. I love them. Pretty much any character that gets dialogue is surprisingly well fleshed out. Sometimes it's just that they're unnecessarily weird, but even Billy's girlfriend's friend who threw the party they go to at the beginning has a couple scenes that give her unneeded emotional depth. Which makes the community feel way more real. That works really well, because the whole movie is built around how much Billy hates his lovely life in this lovely town. So having the town feel like a real and weird and lovely place is great. The body horror aspect early on where Billy grows this gross hole in his chest that freaks out everybody but him is great. And a bunch of cars explode. Now there are certainly problems. The fantastic aliens are often composited into shots laughably poorly. The great body horror of the chest hole is replaced later on with boring vampire makeup. The movie stretches out several segments to make it's 80 minute runtime. And there's an attempted rape scene. It's not at all explicit, it's the most PG attempted rape scene ever, but it still is what it is. And afterwards the movie still tries to get some comedy out of the attempted rapers. So that's bad. But all this is just dancing around the elephant in the room. A weird thing happened to Laserblast some time between it's 1978 release and today. You could never do a Mst3k episode of Laserblast nowadays. Laserblast became relevant. Laserblast is the story of a young suburban white man without ambition or hope who gets a gun and goes on a murderous rampage that only ends when he is killed. It's 2019, and Laserblast is uncomfortably political.
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May 10, 2019 02:51
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2. Gremlins (1984): This movie is a lot of fun. Much more so than the last Joe Dante movie I watched (Small Soldiers, which has a very similar premise). Gizmo is very cute and the evil gremlins are funny. The effects on the gremlins were cool too. The stair lift scene is a standout.
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May 10, 2019 04:00
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Lady in the Water manages to edge out The Ring for "most blue movie ever" which is an admirable feat.
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May 10, 2019 04:49
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I adore Lady in the Water. One of my favorite modern fantasy movies. @ me if you want, idgaf
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May 10, 2019 04:52
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weekly font posted:Lady in the Water manages to edge out The Ring for "most blue movie ever" which is an admirable feat. Surely neither of them holds a candle to Blue?
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May 10, 2019 05:16
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Samuel Clemens posted:Surely neither of them holds a candle to Blue? I've seen Lady in the Water twice but I've never seen a second of the three colors trilogy.
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May 10, 2019 05:27
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7.) Dora  2017, rewatch, Amazon Prime (this version), Tamil Pavalakkodi (Nayanthara), an independent young woman, acquires a vintage car, only to discover that it is possessed by a vengeful spirit in pursuit of a band of vicious criminals. Dora has many of the traits we'd consider stereotypical of Indian cinema - such as a long exposition flashback and several longform comic interludes, including one sequence which seems to defy translation. There's even a musical montage sequence (though not dance choreography.) Pavalakkodi's aggressive character and care for her father will prove to be important to her role in the story, but much of this isn't quite for that. Here, screen time is meant to be entertaining the audience or allowing the actors to shine - even if the contents of a given scene aren't really furthering the movie. With all this, it takes an hour of the ~130min runtime for our possessed car to really get around to doing any spooky possessed car stuff. The first such sequence ends when the intermission card(!) shows up. (It's also a bit worrisome for a film set in Tamil Nadu to opt for its thuggish villains - a trio of murderous, thieving rapists, who victimize young girls and throw dogs and old men around - to be day laborers from northeast India. It's not a good look!) Having said all that, let me qualify it - when this movie gets going, it has legs as a colorful ghost revenge story. There's some clever sequences, nice shots, and the music is wonderful and adds a lot. We get a fierce heroine who, upon learning of the ghost's mission of revenge, decides to pitch in. We get a good dog who lights fires to foil the cops. There's a solid 90 minute film inside Dora, and it's a shame it takes over two hours to finish it. You could probably find the intermission card, back up five minutes, and have a perfectly understandable and enjoyable movie. Can I recommend it? With some reservations - maybe have something else to keep you occupied during the first bit, or be willing to skip forward. If you're on the fence, there's this YT video for the Telugu version BGMs, which serves as a highlight reel and has the hilarious cellphone catch.  Run baby run Watched: 1.) Jason X 2.) Tumbbad* 3.) Child's Play 4.) Suspiria (2018) 5.) 3 A.M.* 6.) 465* 7.) Dora* [4 first watches, 4 foreign] [Goal: 13+ movies, 7+ firsts, 4+ foreign.]
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May 10, 2019 09:13
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weekly font posted:I've seen Lady in the Water twice but I've never seen a second of the three colors trilogy. I was making a dumb joke about Derek Jarman's Blue, which is literally just him and a few others narrating over a blue screen for 70 minutes.
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May 10, 2019 10:59
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9. The Hitcher A young man on a trip from Chicago to California picks up a hitchhiker in the middle of the desert, but the man is up to no good (he's a stabby hobo). No Country For Old Men, but really, extraordinarily implausible. I really try to avoid complaining about the "realism" of movies, because if X then there wouldnt be a movie. Unfortunately for this one, X means every single action taken by everyone at every point, it's just too much and completely overpowered my ability to suspend disbelief. Every story beat absolutely requires the protagonist to do one very specific dumb action, every other action would result in the movie being over, everything the Hitcher does only works if exactly that action is taken, no other way around it, it's just bizarre. Now, the movie has some notable good points, namely Rutger Hauer as the menacing hobo with sometimes a shotgun, a creepy beginning and an exciting final sequence. In fact single segments of the movie taken out of context all sort of work, but strung together it's just utterly ridiculous. I'm giving it a slight recommendation still since it might just be my fault for not being able to suspend disbelief. Alright, back to giallos.
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May 10, 2019 14:39
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 Elvira: Mistress of the Dark I threw this one because I wanted to kill some time before an NBA playoff game started, so really I was not expecting much. After Full Moon High, I guess I was just still in the mood for a goofy horror comedy. But this turned out to actually be a LOT better than I expected! Elvira is the centerpiece of everything and in my opinion she really knocks it out of the park. Certainly not every joke lands, but the script has jokes packed into almost every line of dialogue so you never have to wait long for the next one. I guess what I realize now is that you can't really "get" the whole Elvira thing without seeing this movie. Her sexuality is on full display, obviously, but she's always 100% in the drivers seat and has a presence that dominates everyone around her(both men and women). It's very easy to root for her. And of course, the movie itself comes from a place of genuine love for horror and especially schlocky midnight drive-in horror, so I couldn't help but have a great time watching this. What is the general opinion on this movie? I feel like it never gets brought up in the horror thread, maybe because it's more of a straight comedy than true comedy/horror. WATCHED: 1. Evil Bong 2. Let's Scare Jessica to Death 3. Mom and Dad 4. Train to Busan 5. Full Moon High 6. Elvira: Mistress of the Dark
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May 10, 2019 14:44
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Basebf555 posted:
Also, the greatest stealth joke in history quote:**Elvira gets a paint can dropped on her head**
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May 10, 2019 14:48
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Basebf555 posted:
I, like you, threw it on one day for an October challenge, figuring I'd get a sleazy goofy movie, and found myself enjoying it on a sincere level. I think it'd make a fun double feature with Ernest Scared Stupid.
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May 10, 2019 15:10
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I took a break from this challenge because I was dealing with some personal stuff (work and life stress, mostly). I figured getting back into something I really do enjoy will help me out. 5. Urban Legend (1998)  This was actually one I watched when I was 12-13 first getting into horror movies at the time. I remember it scaring the crap out of me and now I just find it really cheesy if anything. It was made in the wake of Scream with teen stars playing the protagonists in a plot that tries to be somewhat self-aware. The problem is the plot is incredibly contrived with so many coincidences and laughable set-ups that could not be explained in anyway. So, yeah, sucks.  .5/5Total: 1. Annihilation (2018), 2. 1408 (2007), 3. Hereditary (2018), 4. Critters (1986), 5. Urban Legend (1998)
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May 10, 2019 19:34
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Justin Godscock posted:5. Urban Legend (1998) I like how many people at that college own the same ugly rear end coat. also the opening scene with Brad Dourif is the only decent part of the movie
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May 10, 2019 20:01
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Basebf555 posted:What is the general opinion on this movie? I feel like it never gets brought up in the horror thread, maybe because it's more of a straight comedy than true comedy/horror. I think it helps immensely that Elvira comes off as a larger than life, kind of cartoony, individual against everything else.
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May 10, 2019 20:04
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FilthyImp posted:I think it helps immensely that Elvira comes off as a larger than life, kind of cartoony, individual against everything else. Yea, like before the credits are even over she has already thrown an axe into some dude's back(accidentally!) and blown up a gas station attendant, so the whole thing is very cartoonish.
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May 10, 2019 20:07
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 I watched The Shining. I was somewhat concerned going into this. I've been alive in culture, so I knew a lot about this movie without having seen it. I've seen the Simpsons parody multiple times. Would it hold up when I've already seen all the scares and know the story? It turns out it holds up. Even though I knew pretty much everything that was going to happen, there were two big things none of the parodies or memes got across. First off, how the hotel feels. Somehow the vastness of the rooms is intensely claustrophobic and constraining. All the hallways that loop around but still just lead right back into the hotel. The constant tracking shots that make the characters feel like they're trapped in an endless oppressive maze. I'm pretty sure they hosed with us in those shots, did some hidden edits or something to make the layout inconsistent or impossible. And the storm outside is so bleak, when it cuts between the storm and the maliciously bright and cheerful hotel, it makes the hotel feel like a timeless hellish pocket dimension completely cut off from reality. Secondly, what the movie is about. The sense I got from culture was The Shining was the story of a guy who gets driven insane by a magic hotel. But that's not it at all. It's the story of a lovely abusive husband who can't deal with his failure or communicate with his wife so he takes it out on his family. The magic doesn't even matter, you could cut out all the magic and tell the same story. so yeah, good movie, 7/10, needs more jump scares.
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May 10, 2019 20:52
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Gripweed posted:Secondly, what the movie is about. The sense I got from culture was The Shining was the story of a guy who gets driven insane by a magic hotel. But that's not it at all. It's the story of a lovely abusive husband who can't deal with his failure or communicate with his wife so he takes it out on his family. The magic doesn't even matter, you could cut out all the magic and tell the same story. That's the part that Stephen King initially hated, although he seems to have softened on it in more recent years.
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May 10, 2019 20:57
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I've read the piece of trivia a few times, but is there any truth that one of the conditions for the TV min-series of The Shining to get made was that King couldn't badmouth the Kubrick version anymore?
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May 10, 2019 21:28
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Basebf555 posted:That's the part that Stephen King initially hated, although he seems to have softened on it in more recent years. Gripweed posted:The magic doesn't even matter, you could cut out all the magic and tell the same story.
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May 10, 2019 21:52
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FilthyImp posted:I think what I remember the main beef being was Kubrick's version removed the intended nuance in Jack's character. King wanted the viewer to know he struggled to be a good father and with his alcoholism. King just felt Nicholson made the character bugshit from the first frame so he went from lovely dad to crazy dad. Which is understandably important to him, when you consider that Jack Torrance was a direct self-insert. @Gripweed - you are quite correct about the layout of the Overlook. It was intentionally devised to be impossible if a viewer tried mapping it out.
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May 11, 2019 00:35
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10. Curse of Chucky The highlight of the challenge, so far. Chucky is legit creepy, and has more of an intimidating presence here than he does in any of the other movies, including otherwise good Cult of Chucky. There's lots of good close up shots of his face throughout, occasionally using a fleshier face with bloodshot eyes and it works every time. Creepy doll gets 5 deep reds. The film kept a brisk pace, without rushing itself too much. The first big set piece is a mostly normal family dinner, and it works just as well as the more traditional, stabby murders. I didn't really care about any of the characters, but Chucky's presence carries the movie even when Brad Dourif isn't talking. I was about to dock it for a criminal lack of Jennifer Tilly, but then she showed up and I was happy. Pomp fucked around with this message at 00:57 on May 11, 2019 |
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May 11, 2019 00:53
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 Tales from the Darkside The Movie Alright so it turns out this is an anthology First story, nerd unleashes mummy for revenge. Stars Steve Buscemi and Julianne Moore. Otherwise completely unmemorable and unremarkable. Second story, evil cat or something, I dunno I lost interest pretty early on Third story, great bat monster puppet. But the whole thing is built around a twist so obvious that if you have ever encountered fiction before in your life you will see it coming when they're halfway through setting it up. And then you just gotta wait out the next twenty minutes for them to execute it. Wraparound story, little kid tells stories to a witch to delay her killing and cooking him. Witch is played by Debbie Harry so it made me think about how if this movie came out today half of Twitter would be talking about how much they want to be killed and eaten by Debbie Harry. And hell, It's a kid's horror movie, but with enough swears and a nipple to make it rated R. You could probably literally get it down to a hard PG with a half dozen bleeps and cutting a couple seconds of nip footage. I guess they were aiming for adults who really like EC Comics style horror? Whatever they were intending, I was mostly bored.
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May 11, 2019 01:41
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 35) Head of the Family - 1996 - TubiTV A couple decides to blackmail a wealthy family of mutants who are psychically controlled by the 'head of the family' who's a head in a wheelchair. Fairly predictable and probably okay for background noise.  36) Hideous! - 1997 - TubiTV Pretty middle of the road entry. Collectors of 'unique biological specimens' end up quibbling it out over a collection of mutants which have thier own opinion on things. While not a sequel to Head of the Family, God it feels like there's got to be a connection somewhere.
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May 11, 2019 05:18
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M_Sinistrari posted:While not a sequel to Head of the Family, God it feels like there's got to be a connection somewhere. Full Moon, from around the same time period, so probably largely the same crew.
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May 11, 2019 06:14
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5. Maniac - 1980 (Shudder) I asked my wife to pick a movie from a Shudder for us to watch so I could knock one off the challenge. Unfortunately she picked Take Shelter. While Take Shelter has some horror elements, however brief, I don’t feel right counting it. To make up for it I decided to do my first rewatch. I’ve only seen Maniac once, 15+ years ago. I remember loving the hell out of it though, probably one of my top 5 of all time. I watched the Elijah Wood remake for the 2017 October Challenge and while it was solid, and certainly more accessible than the original, I felt like something was missing. I was hooked by the first scene. There’s something about this movie that just scratches that itch for me. There is a griminess to it that is rarely pulled off well in media. Every murder scene comes away feeling realistic despite the age of the film. Much like The Evil Dead, I feel that the shoestring budget actually enhances what the filmmakers were going for rather than detracting from it. Also, the score is drat fine. If I were friends with Joe Spinell I probably wouldn’t have been able to hang out with him for awhile after seeing this. Watching him move seamlessly from panting, sweaty madman who handcuffs himself to the mannequins he’s having full on conversations with to successfully sweet talking beautiful Bond girls really sells Frank’s insanity. Tl;dr: I love this film. 5/5.
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May 11, 2019 14:32
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3. Dark Night Of The Scarecrow (1981) Watched On: Tubi TV  I honestly was not expecting what I got going into this one. I thought I was in for some flavor of exploitation\slasher but instead it was a really well crafted film, some of the shots and editing seriously own. The first part of this movie made me so sad  But that just meant what they were doing was working, I was invested in what I was seeing. I also have to give them props, The Otis Hazelrigg character may be one the biggest pieces of poo poo ever in a horror film. I know that's a bold statement in the horror genre, but Otis seems like someone that could actually exist or maybe that we've met in our lives. There is nothing larger than life or extraordinary about him or his behaviour, he's just a small town dickhead that always wanted to be a cop or the like and never could cut it. So he's a busybody postman. Overall though I could describe this as a 90 minute episode of Tales From The Darkside, which I know is sometimes used as a negative, but in this case I mean it as praise. The murder mystery parts of the movie aren't exactly challenging but it's carried on the back of some really good performances (huge props to the guy that played Skeeter) and brutal murders for a TV movie. They don't show you everything but they're still effective. I'll have to give this a solid 3.5 out of 5. Most for far exceeding my expectations and giving me some genuine emotional investment in what I was watching. TheKingslayer fucked around with this message at 17:58 on May 11, 2019 |
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May 11, 2019 16:42
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 11. Wolfcop (2014) (Shudder) This is a pretty fun b-movie, good enough for a Saturday morning where I'm still sick and now also exhausted and slightly hungover from playing a gig last night. Sometimes horror/comedies like this rely entirely on gross-out humor and spend so much time trying to be wacky that they forget to also be interesting - this one does have some immature poo poo (like a werewolf transformation that starts at the dick) but for the most part it keeps the balance between straight and ridiculous well enough. The practical transformation effects are nasty and kind of awesome. It's not a great film, but it's fun and at only 79 minutes it doesn't overstay its welcome. Total: 11 Watched: Hagazussa | Deep Rising | Thoroughbreds | Wolf Guy | The Old Dark House | The House that Dripped Blood | Phenomena | Brain Damage | Demons | Demons 2 | Wolfcop
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May 11, 2019 17:11
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 7) Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich This movie sucked. But I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. 0 / 5
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May 11, 2019 17:30
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4. The Legend of Halloween Jack (2018) Watched On: Tubi TV  So I guess I've decided to watch a bunch of scarecrow movies I could find on streaming services. This movie makes the mistake of referencing a slew of better horror films. I'd really have rather watched any of them. The town is called Dunwich, some characters are named Tramer and Hollister plus an opening clip show of classic public domain horror films. This was a sharp contrast the last scarecrow movie I watched in spite of sharing many of the same plot elements. This is more of a, what if Freddy Kreuger were a scarecrow and had none of the dream baggage. scenario. It also just doesn't look very good and shots seem out of focus for no particular reason. It also just doesn't make sense why the bad guy is a scarecrow at all other than the character carrying out a holiday appropriate vigilante murder. Just about the only thing I'm willing to give this movie is an guy stabs a woman once and tries to jam her in plastic bag only to have her wake up and start screaming, because holy poo poo dude it was only once.It could have been horrifying but instead of going all the way with it he strangles her in like, five seconds. God this sucked. TheKingslayer fucked around with this message at 18:01 on May 11, 2019 |
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May 11, 2019 17:58
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Maniac is one of those films where I just can't see the appeal. Everything it does well was done better in Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer or Vengeance Is Mine. Except for the Savini scene of course. That one's perfection.
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May 11, 2019 18:12
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I can understand that. It’s a situation where favorite doesn’t equal best. My favorite baseball player isn’t the best baseball player and Henry is probably better than Maniac, but I personally like Maniac more.
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May 11, 2019 18:36
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