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6. Contamination 1980, streaming on Shudder Watched this on Last Drive In. Director Luigi Cozzi has skillfully trimmed the fat off of Alien and pared down the formula to the essential bits everyone loves: eggs and torso explosions. And immobile cyclopses. And endless dull exposition. There’s one special effect of a cyclops tentacle swallowing a dude that I kinda liked, but that’s a paltry reward for sitting through all the boring dialogue and pointless shots of the New York skyline. Having Joe Bob interrupt it and dunk on it helps though. 1/5 1. Day of the Animals | 2. The Snarling | 3. Nekromantik | 4. Wolfcop | 5. Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things | 6. Contamination
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May 13, 2019 16:38
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Shrecknet posted:The whole gimmick of Behind the Mask is that Leslie is playing the film team the whole time. All his work laying out how he's gonna murder generic teens is another level of showing off, because he was always going to attack the film team and make Taylor the final girl. He wants to impress his horror icons, which is why he has the arrogance to literally introduce Taylor and her crew to the tricks and traps he is going to use on them. Yeah, that was clearly laid out in the film. Like I said I just think while the movie did a good job balancing the deadpan with the serious but it just shifted a bit too much for me at the end or something. But still a good film that pulls off what it's trying to do and my criticisms probably lay more in me not being a fan of the thing it's mocking than failures on its part. I guess the "twist" didn't really surprise or satisfy me enough to elevate the final act the way it did with you. But like I said, some of that was probably my tastes.
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May 13, 2019 17:27
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I like the premise of Behind the Mask but the lead was just too smug and annoying for me to enjoy it as much as others did. His personality was just very grating to me, for whatever reason.
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May 13, 2019 17:37
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Yeah, but I chalked that largely up to him being a prententious "artist". He's a total douche but that felt like part of the mockumentary to me that the film crew had to deal with. Like I didn't see him as the protagonist, as much as I sorta saw Taylor and the film crew that way. Especially in the moments where they showed revulsion, fear, or guilt about what was happening. Which is probably why the revelation that Taylor was the real target and he was playing the film crew didn't really surprise me much or elevate it. I didn't exactly call it, but it fit with the way I was viewing the film. But again I think that might loop back to my tastes re: slashers and how some fans watch as fans of the killer/kills. But I think it was an interesting angle the movie tried to play to be on both sides of that idea. STAC Goat fucked around with this message at 18:07 on May 13, 2019 |
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May 13, 2019 18:03
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I just think Man Bites Dog pretty much did the best version of that movie 14 years before Leslie Vernon. Behind The Mask also has an aesthetic that feels 'cheap' to me, like Session 9. There's something about the depth or flatness from a cinematographic level that I just don't like. It reminds me of DTV Christian movies from the late 90's/early 00's.
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May 13, 2019 18:20
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Been saying it for like a decade now but the good version of that is S&MAN.
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May 13, 2019 18:28
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Accidentally settled on a new goal: 13 movies from 13 different countries, all new-to-me Trollhunter  Found footage documentary about a man who hunts trolls for the Norwegian government. Not the funniest or the scariest movie but has a great "day-in day-out" vibe to the monster hunting procedures and wonderful use of Norway's natural scenery and some effective budget CGI. The cheeky use of traditional folklore, jaded working-class protagonist, and occasionally stunning visuals make this a better adaptation of Mike Mignola's Hellboy comics than any of the actually existing adaptations I like how Christianity is proven to be the one true faith in this movie and everyone just kinda brushes it off and goes to kill a big troll. 3.5/5 Dark Water  Japanese ghost story about-yup-a stringy haired ghost kid whose presence is announced by all manner of hosed up things affecting a single mom and her kid. I was surprised by how much of this was essentially a custody drama and how true-to-theme it remains throughout without ever letting the metaphor bog down the horror movie parts. The gradual build is great and there's a tremendous sense of gnarly texture with the dirt and water stains accumulating throughout. I was pleasantly surprised by the ending, choosing to go in a surprising but organic direction for the story instead of just wringing out one last scare. 4/5 Terrified  Argentinan movie about ghost hunters who are called in to deal with extrademensional beings in a housing development. The best moments of this have a little bit of that The Beyond energy, with creepy ideas and images taking precedence over narrative. Unfortunately, it has a very annoying habit of cutting away from scenes and dropping concepts right when they're getting interesting, preventing it from building up any sort of momentum. I kinda feel that there was enough with just the returned little kid to generate a whole movie out of if it had taken the time to explore its concept from every angle 2.5/5 Currently: 5/13
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May 13, 2019 18:36
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:Been saying it for like a decade now but the good version of that is S&MAN. That's been on my list for years now, but I never got around to it. I've been busy with a lot of personal stuff all month (break-up, funeral, house-sitting, etc.) so I'm hoping things will finally settle down enough where I can unwind and watch some horror movies. I've watched one movie in the past 9 days, and it was a non-horror movie on Criterion Channel.
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May 13, 2019 18:38
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That's a very cool design for the creepy little kid.
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May 13, 2019 18:40
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Weekend catch-up time. #4. Contamination aka Alien Contamination (Shudder via Joe Bob Briggs) -  /5Terrible, nonsensical, and flat-out dull. Not even Joe Bob's periodic interjections could keep this one interesting. This movie lost me for about 10-15 minutes in the middle, as going and cleaning the microwave on a Friday night seemed like a better way to spend my limited time on this planet. I give it a half of a point for its commitment to exploding people's stomachs, and another half point for the big, doofy, utterly immobile cyclops monster at the ending. Otherwise this is a big fat goose egg of a movie.  #5. Rogue (2007) (Starz) - /5One of the best "hey, look, its ____, remember them?" casts in horror (Radha Mitchell, Michael Vartan, Sam Worthington?!) and handsome production values still add up to not that much. Its a perfectly fine "animal on the loose" movie, maybe even the platonic ideal of the "giant crocodile eating people" movie. But, at the same time, it's not high art like Jaws or enjoyable schlock like Anaconda, so it's pretty much an in-one-ear-and-out-the-other kind of movie. Fine for killing time on a rainy afternoon, but don't expect it to linger very long.  #6. Prevenge (Shudder) - /5This was my ironic Mother's Day choice, and it ended up being far better than I expected. It's got a fairly bleak sense of humor that ends up drifting in and out, so it feels a bit off tonally, which ends up working well to compliment the lead actress' mental state. I'm still not sure that it really earned the cop-out "well he was planning on leaving you anyway, so why do you care if he's dead?" reveal late in the third act, but at least it paid off by shifting the motivation away the unborn baby to Ruth herself - it was always her, the voice was just her self-rationalization for wanting to hurt the people that hurt her. Having recently met my infant nephew, I can imagine this whole thing hit harder now than it would have if I'd watched it when it first came out. Still, I can't deny that it ended up working on me better than I expected, so maybe the same thing would happen to someone else. Watched so far: The Sacrament, The Frighteners, Land of the Dead, Contamination, Rogue, Prevenge Class3KillStorm fucked around with this message at 19:49 on May 13, 2019 |
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May 13, 2019 19:06
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Franchescanado posted:I just think Man Bites Dog pretty much did the best version of that movie 14 years before Leslie Vernon.
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May 13, 2019 19:07
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It was way late when I did my reviews last night and I was tired so something I skipped about Behind the Mask. Midway through I kind of thought they were implying that Leslie and Jamie were into each other based on some little looks and stuff. I also thought they were implying that Taylor might be into Leslie and jealous when she saw Jamie, again, just little looks and stuff. They were just passing thoughts. I think that kind of came together when later on its implied that Jamie might be Eugene's "survivor girl" in which case all those looks and vibes I got kind of make sense in playing to Taylor being Leslie's "survivor girl" and him hoping for the "happy ending" that Eugene got with Jamie with her and all his creepy "romantic" delusions of the "job". Kinda clever, kinda cute, probably played into why I wasn't super floored by the twist.
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May 13, 2019 20:32
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 5. The Car (1977) Shudder The Car’s small-town sheriff vs. killer car story is better than it should be. If it came out today, it’s the kind of thing that’d be full of of CGI garbage and washed-up 90s actors, and the director would probably play it for laughs. But there was actual effort put into this weird little movie, and it shows. It’s got that deliberative 70s pacing that often works for me, and there are some nice performances. It also looks great for the most part; the bright desert setting and wide shots add to the menace. There’s one particular scene that sounds utterly ridiculous, but it drew me in anyway, probably because the movie had already been so earnest about that whole demon car thing. I liked the low, heavy look of the car itself, too. Some of the subplots weren’t handled all that well, and the finale was dark and spent too much time on guys scrabbling around in the dirt. It’s one of the better late-70s Jaws imitators I’ve seen so far though. Watched: 1. Cast A Deadly Spell (1991) 2. The Other (1972) 3. Bloody Birthday 4. Bad Dreams (1988) 5. The Car (1977) deety fucked around with this message at 02:16 on May 14, 2019 |
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May 13, 2019 20:44
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 43- Netherworld - 1992 - DVD A pity this one was only a one off since I felt it had some potential for a sequel or two. Interesting voodoo cult interpretation on this one with the ending that was pretty much expected. It's a comfortable entry for a occult themed marathon.  44- Pit and the Pendulum - 1991 - DVD I think the only pretty close adaptation to the Poe story is a Vincent Price solo recitation of it in a Poe anthology I think only me and a handful of others remember. For the most part, everyone calls it good with having a pit and a pendulum show up at some point. This one at least takes an additional step of being set during the Inquisition. Overall, it's a fine B-movie entry with Jeffrey Combs, Caroylin Purdy-Gordon, Tom Towles, Oliver Reed and Lance Hendriksen chewing up the scenery like a starving man at the buffet.
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May 13, 2019 22:04
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 Delivery: The Beast Withing I've got a weakness for found footage movies. But, one thing the genre does that really annoys me is fake video glitches. They're never scary, they're always stupid and always knock me out of the scene. What's even worse is fake video glitches with sound. What's even worse is when the fake video glitches have sound despite the fact that had boom mics, so they were recording the video and the audio separately! Goddamnit, found footage horror movie makers, quit with that poo poo! But, that being said, I actually kinda liked Delivery The Beast Within. There was good escalation, I liked that(not counting the glitches) there was nothing explicitly magical, the acting wasn't bad. The biggest misstep is actually a missed opportunity. "A situation being filmed for a reality show turns into a horror situation" is a great setup for a found footage movie. But not just because it gives you an excuse to have all the footage. Which is all Delivery really does with it. What makes it so great is that the producers on a reality show are always putting the characters into new situations and stirring the pot. Do you think the Vanderpump crew would be having extravagant costume parties every other week if they weren't being filmed? No way, the producers encourage them to do stuff like that because it's good TV. In Delivery's case, the second the lady started thinking about ghosts the producers would've had a priest in there to do a blessing. Because that would be a fun segment on the show! But instead Delivery is a reality show being made by a super moral producer who would never do anything to influence the incredibly boring events of a couple having a baby he set out to film. Lame. But goddamn, they got me with that ending. Best scare I've seen this entire May Horror Challenge. Watched: The Prophecy, The Prophecy 2, The Prophecy 3, The Prophecy Uprising, The Prophecy Forsaken, Pet Sematary, Return of the Living Dead, Laserblast, The Shining, Tales From The Darkside The Movie, The Alphabet Killer, Ghost Ship, Delivery: The Beast Within
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May 13, 2019 23:37
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 13) Hush Another movie I love that my girlfriend hadn't seen before. I love the way they use sounds as a conceit to add tension. Really clever home invasion movie. / 5And that's my 13! That I'm reporting on at least.
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May 14, 2019 00:12
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7. The Ranger (2018) Watched On: Shudder  I'd been waiting for this to drop since I saw the premise and tragically it's a mediocre film with good ideas at best. The things I didn't really enjoy. Other than our final girl, I have no sympathy for any of these characters. They're just complete assholes through and through and exist as fodder for an eco-fascist maniac to kill. These characters really give punk culture an awful look. On the subject of kills and the chase sequence of the film, it really doesn't exist. Yes characters get killed by our slasher, but it's not a challenge at all and it's not creative. The kills just leave so much to be desired and a little more effort here might have been what pushed this movie to being at least good. It comes off like there was an attempt to keep the run time lean and the wrong cuts were made. Now, the thing I liked the most is the story of the final girl, Chelsea, goes through. She's haunted by the guilt of killing her uncle and has never really faced it and in fact mostly forgotten the incident after the titular Ranger covered it up for her as a child. She had always intended to go back to her uncle's cabin where she used to live but is forced to after her boyfriend stabs a cop with a knife he calls "Guilty" maybe not the most subtle thing in the world. Slowly all the memories return to Chelsea and just before the poo poo hit's the fan she has a crisis about what she and her friends will do, take responsibility for their crimes or just keep running from them, maybe a way for her to externalize what her subconscious is telling her about her uncle's death. The Ranger sort of represents that receipt coming due, he covered for her and takes the price of it out by murdering her friends and Chelsea overcomes her guilt and recognizes her true self in killing The Ranger. As she takes the knife, "Guilty" and walks into the forest, her own guilt washed away by the blood of The Ranger, she has a moment with a creature closer to her own self, a wolf. Which now that I type I think there's some more to that as well, seeing as Chelsea realized how little in common she shared with her punk friends as they stayed in the cabin. I dunno, something about this part of the movie was very compelling to me and has me a bit sad that this wasn't at least just a little better. I'm sorry if that wasn't the most coherent thing, it's been a long day but I really wanted to talk about it.
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May 14, 2019 00:20
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creep Intense, unsettling and incredibly effective. It has three or four false-finishes, like the best sort of wrestling match. "Josef" is totally in control from the first frame of the film, and what starts as a somber, "let's-see-where-this-goes" sort of minor-key bleak horror quickly - but, and this is important - effortlessly escalates. We get taken through single white female town on an express line to The Strangers. I loved this movie. The only thing keeping it from a perfect score is a few plot contrivances, and the overlong, pointless shot - but that last nitpick probably is just a fault of the found-footage format in general that they will all have until the trend dies. 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 9. Overlord 10. Revenge 11. The Ritual 12. HISSS 13. Creep Shrecknet fucked around with this message at 02:16 on May 14, 2019 |
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May 14, 2019 01:10
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Oh hey, I hit 13 movies today. But I've got some more to watch so I'm gonna keep going
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May 14, 2019 01:50
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Shrecknet posted:creep Now watch Creep 2, it’s even better
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May 14, 2019 03:08
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10. The Case of the Bloody Iris After the grisly murder of two beautiful women in a high rise apartment, two new beautiful women movie in, at the risk of getting murdered, grislyly. Aaand another derivative giallo featuring the usual trenchcoated hat+sock killer. It's a bit above the average due to the entertaining cast and some nice camerawork, but I really don't have much to say about this one either. It's interesting how well 70s fashion has aged compared to what came after. Maybe it's just cause they're Italians and always knew how to dress? Thankfully that means I'm almost done with 1972, next up is forum favourite Your Vice is a Locked Room And Only I Have The Key
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May 14, 2019 03:20
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 Pharoah’s Curse (1957) - Slightly, ever so slightly, fresher take on the Mummy movie. With a theremin soundtrack this was firmly entrenched in the 50s. It had some more action than most, slightly more depth than the Universal Mummy movies, but ultimately basically covered the same ground - open the tomb, get the curse, get hunted down. Old hat. This had a plot centered around revenge, and not literally carrying a girl off, so that was refreshing. More enjoyable than The Mummy’s Curse, for sure, if only barely. It had more drama, characters who existed beyond the script and had a sense of history and life to them. By now, though, I was getting pretty tired of whitewashed mummy movies. I’m still assembling enough movies from the Egyptian scene to do a mini-marathon of movies that aren’t exclusively white folk playing Egyptians, but needed another movie tonight. So I bummed around Prime until I stumbled on..,  Time Walker - This only has a 3.1 rating on IMDB. I *know* it’s bad. There are scenes that just plain don’t make sense. But honestly? After 7 movies from the 30s, 40s and 50s of mummy movies that all basically followed the same plot, I was ready for something really different, even if it ended up being really dumb. It’s still a mummy. The Pyramid, at least, was about something other than a mummy. But this mummy, this mummy here? It turns out it is an alien. And this movie delivered a lot of really bad, really cheesy, but, and maybe this is just Stockholme syndrome speaking, really fun 80s schlock. I only assume this was filmed in three weeks flat after The Thing came out because it seemed like the poster from The Thing inspired this whole movie. That and someone saw a documentary about Tut’s tomb discovery? Regardless, I enjoyed this very, very bad and cheesy movie, and maybe that says more about watching 7 Mummy movies from the 40s and 50s than it does about the quality of this movie. 1 - The Mummy (1932), 2 - The Mummy’s Hand (1940), 3 - The Mummy’s Tomb (1942), 4 - The Mummy’s Ghost (1944), 5 - The Mummy’s Curse (1944), 6 - Abbot And Costello Meet The Mummy (1955), 7 - Pharoah’s Curse (1957), 8 - Time Walker (1982)
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May 14, 2019 04:22
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Ok, I always try and make my “milestone” numbers special so since 13 was the official thread goal I pushed this one back a bit, hoping it delivers as well as the last ‘80s schlock one did this marathon. 13. The Stuff (1985) Available on Hoopla and Shudder Some dudes find an oozing goo in the ground, stick it in their mouth, and decide to sell it as the hottest new food item. So Big Ice Cream hires an industrial spy to go find out the secret formula of the food leading him down a path of discovery with abandoned towns, oozing zombies, and racist militia revolutions. I mean, I’d like to make a joke about the basic plot and outline of the film but if The Stuff isn’t essentially the most American thing ever I don’t know what is. Things you don’t want to hear you dad say. 1) “We eat lots of things that are still alive.” 2) “Get him!” You know, on some level I always knew yogurt was evil. Why don’t I have anything to say about this besides one liners? This was my first Larry Cohen film (I think) and boy, it was a weird movie. Like not just the content but the way the plot moved so franticly and jumping from scene to scene and escalation to escalation. A couple of times I checked to see how much time had passed, not because I was bored or antsy but because I just was kind of spinning about the pace of the film. I made the America joke already but obviously the whole thing is satire about consumerism and the 80s and obesity/junk food and I guess on some level the origins of racist sovereign citizen Trumpism… or something. It felt really too broad to make any kind of real point but I don’t get the sense that Cohen was a super intellectual so much as a guy who liked to make dumb jokes about the world. And the movie works and is a fun, wild ride in that regard. I went in kind of expecting more of a horror film and something somewhere along the schlocky lines of From Beyond (a confusion apparently Cohen blamed for the film’s failure when it was released), but what can you do? It was a fun watch and I’m glad to finally get to know Cohen a little. Although I think I will always on some level consider it a travesty that this entire film wasn’t just Michael Moriarty and Garett Morris riffing while punching the goo out of zombies. It was so, so short but so wonderful. Ok, I haven’t actually had anything scary in awhile so I’m gonna go for a movie I remember getting the “scariest movie ever!” treatment a couple of years ago.  14. Veronica (2017) Available on Netflix Grieving the loss of her father and struggling with the burdens of caring for her siblings and watching her peers live like teenagers 15-year-old Veronica goes loving around with a ouija board and ends up opening a door that an evil spirit comes through to terrorize her and her family. There's cute kids in danger, creepy blind people who know things, and lots of teenage metaphor. You know how these things go. I wonder if ouija boards are made by Hasbro in Spain. So, its definitely not the scariest movie ever. It does have a REALLY strong closing act that bails out the film and pulls it all together. The problem with the rest of the film isn’t that its bad, its that its really thin and basically asks an actual teenage actress Sandra Escacena to carry 120 minutes on her own, give or take a few scary moments. And she does a generally good job, she’s just really not given a ton to work with. The idea is deeply treaded territory that we could all probably draw up the points of on our own. Oh, you mean you’re not supposed to mess with ouija boards because bad stuff can get through? And you’re supposed to always end a seance or the thing hangs around? I’ve never heard that before. But Veronica is forced to slowly find her way through all of this by herself as we just kind of wait politely for her to catch up with where we are. And there’s a ton of metaphor in here, but I think too much. There’s Veronica’s isolation and stress of having to care for her younger siblings and being pressured by her mom to grow up fast. There’s Veronica’s jealousy and resentment that her peers are growing up in a different way with boys and parties complete with a late first period dilemma. And there’s a dead dad in there, but he’s not really explored very much. Really, not much is explored. Again, its a strong performance with Escacena because she’s given very little actual material or story or just people to play off of, but she still gets across how Veronica’s gotten to the place she’s at. I don’t know if I think the ending wusses out or not. For a second it seemed to be teasing that there was nothing supernatural going on and Veronica had just lost it. But that seems quickly discarded a moment later so I don’t know what the deal with that is. I mean, obviously there’s more metaphor but there was definitely a moment there where they were pushing it beyond that and then stepped back. I’m not even sure it would have made sense. But you can’t convince me that they didn’t openly float the idea for a second. It was odd. It also feels a little tasteless that its “inspired” by a real teenage girl dying but also goes all “no, its our own story but also same date and its a police report and totally, totally like that but not it.” It feels tacky to me. I’ve been really wanting to rewatch [REC] from the same director and explore those sequels, and just can’t find them anywhere convenient. I’m not sure this lessened my desire to do so, but I definitely just feel a little colder on Paco Plaza due to some creative and tasteful choices. But its not huge so it will probably pass. Anyway, maybe not the scariest film ever but not a bad film either. A strong lead performance and final act carry it past some serious pacing problems and a very thin LONG first 2 acts. ”Wonder How This Holds Up” PreGaming in April 1. World War Z (2013); 2. As Above, So Below (2014); 3. The Cabin in the Woods (2011); 4. The Last Exorcism (2010); 5. Trollhunter (2010); 6. The Blair Witch Project (1999); 7. Unfriended (2014); 8. Absentia (2011); 9. The Last Exorcism Part II (2013); 10. The Prophecy (1995); 11. Dawn of the Dead (1976); 12. Mandy (2018) May “New To Me/Clean Up” Marathon Watched - New (Total) 1. From Beyond (1986); 2. Train to Busan (2016); 3. Coraline (2009); 4. The Old Dark House (1932); 5. Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984); 6. Apostle (2018); 7. Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (1985); 8. Suspiria (2018); 9. Venom (2018); 10. Winchester (2018); 11. The Masque of the Red Death (1964); 12. Behind the Mask:The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006); 13. The Stuff (1985); 14. Veronica (2017)
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May 14, 2019 06:25
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I dunno how many I'll do but I've done and will do more! Well this movie is a roller coaster of genres and emotions. I really like how it transitioned out of a pretty normal "guy getting dragged back in to the assassin business" to a folk horror movie that escalated with each act. Highly recommended and you can definitely tell Ben Wheatley watched a lot of hammer horror as there were a bunch of influential ones for this movie.  4/5 clean hotel soaps 
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May 14, 2019 11:05
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 Angel Heart Finally got around to this one after years of seeing it on various best-of lists. I can't say I was much of a fan of De Niro's Cypher, maybe it was an interesting change of pace role for him at the time but after decades of seeing him deliver dialogue in his own patented way, this one just felt clunky and amateurish. There's a reason he rarely attempted accents. Rourke is solid, and the film had really nice production design with the period setting and costumes. Still, I liked the movie but didn't love it. Not sure if going in completely blind would've helped, but the plot never really goes anywhere all that unexpected and Cypher's true nature is pretty clear from the opening scenes. It didn't feel like it was really even supposed to be a twist. It's definitely worth seeing though for the 50's New Orleans atmosphere, if nothing else.  Forbidden World Where has this movie been all my life? It wasn't even on my watchlist for the month but I'm glad I took a detour because this is exactly the kind of shameless creature feature I love. Produced by Roger Corman, Forbidden World(aka Mutant) rips off almost every single iconic sci-fi film you can think of. Mostly Alien though, and I think you could call this film the midnight drive-in version of Alien. The acting is mediocre at best, the special effects are goopy and gross, and LOTS of nudity. But as with everything Corman touches, there's a charm to the film that allows me to easily overlook it's flaws. And really, there's some striking imagery here. The creature is far from original in design(the poster is hilariously inaccurate) but it's still different enough in some ways to keep it interesting and actually legitimately frightening in some scenes. I guess I'd describe it as like a hybrid between a regular xenomorph and the xeno queen from Aliens. Makes me wonder if Cameron ever saw this film. Highly recommended for anyone who enjoys a good creature feature. 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 7. It's Alive 8. King Cohen 9. Angel Heart 10. Forbidden World
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May 14, 2019 15:28
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Gripweed posted:
I'll check this out, a surprising number of FF movies are about Demon Pregnancy.
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May 14, 2019 17:13
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 #7. Dracula (1979) (HBO Go) - /5I'm a bit torn on this one. The acting across the board is good, especially Frank Langella as the title character. (Props too to Laurence Olivier as Van Helsing, Donald Pleasence as Donald Pleasence, and Sylvester "7th Doctor Who" McCoy as Bit Character.) I appreciated the very desaturated look of the film, punctuated infrequently with lurid technicolor, especially in that trippy sex scene. And I liked the musical score, even I feel like some other films had ripped it off for Dracula or vampire motifs. (For some reason, I felt like the music felt reminiscent of what I'd heard in The Monster Squad - that was what was running through my mind over the opening credits, at least.) On the other hand, I feel like the decision to focus on Langella's understated performance and sexuality over any kind of striking iconography means this film is not as memorable as other adaptations of "Dracula." Langella will certainly never appear alongside iconic Dracula imagery like Lugosi's stare (and accent) or Christopher Lee with bloodshot eyes and dripping fangs. I also think the film approaches Dracula, as a character, in a weird way - the film starts with the "Ship of the Damned" sequence where Drac gets transported to England in a crate and kills all of the crew members, and this has one of the most graphic and direct adaptations of that scene that I remember seeing. You don't see Langella in this scene, but he's there as all feral snarls and sudden throat-slashings. This comes up again at the end, too, where Drac basically stops being a conscious, rational actor and starts getting played as little more than a slavering monster. You can tell they want to play the character as sympathetic and even tragic, but this intro and outro (not to mention the bits where he plays at being Spider-Man in the middle) end up making it harder to relate to the character. And, without any striking iconography to fall back on, I feel like the film is destined to be a forgotten adaptation, compared to the more popular 1930s Universal or Hammer versions. Watched so far: The Sacrament, The Frighteners, Land of the Dead, Contamination, Rogue, Prevenge, Dracula (1979)
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May 14, 2019 18:17
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Langella Dracula also came out the same year as Herzog's Nosferatu, which features a legendary Kinski performance. So it even had to share the stage with a superior adaptation in the year of it's release. It's still a hell of a lot better than Palance's attempt, at least in terms of just the Dracula performances.
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May 14, 2019 18:21
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4. The Unseen (1980) - 3 women working for a local TV station go to report a small festival and get forced to stay in an odd couple's home after an issue with their hotel booking. This one was odd. The Unseen is eventually revealed to be Junior, a mentally handicapped and severely abused child who is a product of incestual rape. The villain is a creepy as gently caress abusive shithead that's portrayed extremely well by Sydney Lassick. I think I'd be willing to give this a higher rating if they didn't make the unseen into the killer of the women. It just makes the already troubling portrayal of Junior even worse. Especially since the movie turns Junior into a sympathetic character once the final girl encounters him head on. The movie was really good at creating an uneasy atmosphere, but the main protagonist's plot needed some work to tie it to the horror plot better thematically. Her bf sucks and the movie should have done more with that other than a few conversations, though his "heroic" scene is hilarious. 2.5/5 MacheteZombie fucked around with this message at 22:41 on May 14, 2019 |
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May 14, 2019 18:37
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Friday the 13th, Part IV: The Final Chapter This was ... something. And by that I mean it's just kind of there. There are some interesting kills, but beyond that I can't remember a drat thing about the movie outside of Tommy Jarvis' demented stare at the end. I also really didn't feel much from the actor who played Jason. I can't imagine ever revisiting this one.
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May 14, 2019 21:42
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:I'll check this out, a surprising number of FF movies are about Demon Pregnancy. It seems like "by getting pregnant or having a child you are inviting monsters and demons into your home" is a popular horror movie theme generally
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May 14, 2019 21:57
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Yeah, I don't think its some found footage thing. Although maybe since found footage tends to focus on small casts and intimate settings it sort of makes sense it would lean towards that kind of thing as opposed to like zombie apocalypse or vampire films or stuff that kind of demand perspective.
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May 14, 2019 22:09
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Basebf555 posted:Langella Dracula also came out the same year as Herzog's Nosferatu, which features a legendary Kinski performance. So it even had to share the stage with a superior adaptation in the year of it's release. Years back I saw the Langella Dracula as a double feature with Herzog's Nosferatu. Pretty much the big draw was Langella's being sexy. MacheteZombie posted:4. The Unseen (1980) - 3 women working for a local TV station go to report a small festival and get forced to stay in an odd couple's home after an issue with their hotel booking. I thought Stephen Furst really knocked it out of the park with making Junior sympathetic considering what he had to work with.
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May 14, 2019 22:30
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M_Sinistrari posted:Years back I saw the Langella Dracula as a double feature with Herzog's Nosferatu. Pretty much the big draw was Langella's being sexy. He really does! My issue is that by having him be a murderer the movie undermines itself and creates a lovely "lenny pets too hard" stereotype for Junior. The performance once we get into the basement is pretty good for what hes working with.
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May 14, 2019 22:39
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 Pulse! It's good! You got your standard haunted/evil/possessed house thing, the kid sees problems first, then the mom, dad doesn't want to leave, etc. But, like, eveyrone is reasonable and communicates well? The dad's reluctance to leave makes perfect sense and is motivated by understandable emotions and logic. But as soon as poo poo hits a tipping point he's out of there. A lot of evil house movies forget that even if you don't believe anything supernatural is going on, after a certain amount of hosed up poo poo has happened you're gonna want to get the gently caress out of that house. All the acting is good, including the kid actors. And they get little moments to show depth, like the dad's wife hesitating a beat before confidently calling the kid her son, or the kid seeing his dad take a moment to be completely lost and overwhelmed when he doesn't think anyone is looking. It's great, I believe in and am rooting for this family. There'a really good escalation of scary stuff and threat from the evil house. What's especially effective is how grounded and mundane the violence is. The kid gets his hand cut by a piece of glass and it's not life threatening or anything but it bleeds everywhere and it just looks so painful. The final action, with the people trapped in different parts of the house and doing intelligent things to get out is great. It's really tense. I especially liked the moment where the dad is trying to get out the basement clerestory window and he's hammering on an obstruction, which is the gas main. You're just like oh god he's gonna kill them all, but then he realizes what he's doing and is like whoops nevermind and tries to find another way. It's great. Characters being smart is always great. I went into Pulse assuming it was going to be the second best movie called Pulse. Because it wasn't gonna beat Pulse, which is one of my favorite movies, and you'd have to work to be worse than Pulse in my eyes. And it is, it's not better than Pulse. But drat, Pulse is a hell of a lot closer to Pulse than it is to Pulse. I recommend Pulse!
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May 14, 2019 23:37
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Gripweed posted:
That’s a hell of a tagline
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May 15, 2019 00:49
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Now that I've seen it I'm actually really surprised I'd never heard of it. Maybe it's because it came out in the late 80s and that style of kid-friendly horror movie was on it's way out?
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May 15, 2019 01:43
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6 Brain Damage (Shudder) We recently cut the cord at my house and went all streaming. The first night I was setting up all the accounts on the Roku in the bedroom, Shudder showed me this really strange trailer where a very well built man was taking a shower, and then a killer turd attacked a man in a stall. It didn’t look very good but it was hard to stop watching. Somehow I never caught the name of the movie. As soon as I saw “Alymer” I knew I had accidentally stumbled upon the movie. Then he spoke. A single word, “Hi!”, and I cackled. The voice is so wrong ,that it fits everything about this movie. I wouldn’t say this is an actual better film than most of what I’ve watched so far, but I think it’s exactly what it intended to be and I enjoyed it immensely. 4/5 7. Triangle (Shudder) A group of friends goes out for a day trip on a yacht. They enter the Bermuda Triangle and poo poo starts going wonky. Their yacht capsizes due to some triangle fuckery and the group sans one who died during said fuckery is “saved” by a creepy cruise ship. From the point the group gets on the cruise ship the movie becomes Time is a Flat Circle the film. It was entertaining and kept throwing new wrinkles to what exactly was taking place at me but never really blew me away. I’m glad that I watched it, but can’t think of any reason I would bother to watch it again. 2.5/5 8. Dead and Buried (Shudder) Looking at the IMDB a page before starting I learned that this was originally intended to be a black comedy. It still displays this quality whenever the town coroner is on screen. A group of small town locals is killing any outsider that comes to town and the movie centers around the town sheriff investigating the deaths. There is actually a decent jump scare early on (I’m not certain this is what they intended but it was effective non the less) and any scene with the aforementioned coroner is a treat. I’m sure if you put much thought into the plot and especially the final twist it might fall apart, but I’m not going to do that because I really had a good time watching Dead and Buried. 3.5/5
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May 15, 2019 02:08
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Frozen It's not good. There just isn't enough there there. At a 44 minute Tales from the Crypt episode, this would've slapped though 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 9. Overlord 10. Revenge 11. The Ritual 12. HISSS 13. Creep 14. Frozen
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May 15, 2019 02:14
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| # ? Jun 10, 2024 03:58 |
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4. Hellraiser III: Hell On Earth: I should start by saying that Hellraiser is one of my favorite horror films and Hellbound is quite good as well, but I had heard very bad things about the series beyond that point. However, I thought this was pretty decent. It comes close to hitting the saturation point for Pinhead screentime, but doesn’t quite get there. The goofy new Cenobites were fun and the lead was likable. The dialogue isn’t great, but overall the movie works for me.
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May 15, 2019 03:44
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