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 The Mummy (2018) - This was a soulless movie. Big budget, big effects, and really no heart. Maybe it’s just that I can’t take Tom Cruise seriously anymore. Even when he is supposed to be in anguish, I half-see a that smug smile. It had some action pieces, some attempts at horror, a sprinkle of drama on top, but for the most part this was very forgettable.  Frankenstein vs. The Mummy (2015) - I didn’t hate this movie. I thought I would, because, it was a slog. 54 minutes before the audience sees that yes, there is a living monster, and yes, an undead mummy. And they may even meet at some point. Given that those reveals were within minutes of each other, I wonder if this started as a script for a TV series - 54 minutes in and suddenly we see the two monsters given life is pretty good. There were a few other moments that seemed to be good television, poor movie. And if that were the original intention, they should have stuck to it - the biggest problem with this movie was pacing.  Prisoners Of The Sun (2013) - This wasn’t really a horror movie, more sci-fi, but it was also the last movie on a Joe Bob night so my brain wasn’t registering much anymore. Great title, and I wanted to like it more than I ended up liking it, but I’m afraid I don’t really have much more to say about it, so I’m probably not going to count it towards my 13. Produced by Uwe Boll, I think?  Blood From The Mummy’s Tomb (1971) - This Hammer movie is already sexier than it’s Universal predecessors, unsurprisingly. It foregoes any actual mummy in favor of focusing on the princess resurrection angle of the story, with a cursed artifacts accent that’s cool. I was glad that there wasn’t a mummy to be seen. Eminently watchable, maybe not very *good* - most deaths were just noise, wind, a character looking terrified at some inanimate object, and then cut to them with some syruped-up-latex on their neck, and then there was a hilariously bad car crash - but I do love the feel and atmosphere of Hammer movies so I’m glad I watched this. There were some parts of (perhaps intentional….?) humor, such as a very solemn ceremony to chop off a hand that is symbolic evil, take it away, and then unceremoniously dump it on the ground where it is *immediately* and *loudly* set upon by dogs. That same hand then goes on to Thing around. I haven’t seen their other two mummy movies that came before this, so maybe I’ll watch those to finish this up. 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), 9 - The Mummy (2018), 10 - Frankenstein vs. The Mummy (2015), 11 - Blood From The Mummy’s Tomb (1971)
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May 21, 2019 20:33
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Vincent Giallo.
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May 21, 2019 21:02
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:Vincent Giallo. Good one, Horror Dad
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May 21, 2019 21:06
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:Vincent Giallo. That's how I wrote his name in my notes during the movie. Didn't even notice the joke I made until I wrote my post this morning.
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May 21, 2019 21:06
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My phone tried to auto his name to giallo actually I should have recognized the power of this joke and left it
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May 21, 2019 21:08
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Franchescanado posted:Trouble Every Day This is absolutely true of their recent work together, but at least according to an interview I listened to recently with Denis the first film they shot digitally was Bastards. Unless I'm forgetting certain scenes being digital. Trouble Every Day is absolutely great though and needs a better home video release, I might have to cheat and rewatch it for this thread. I also usually can't stand Vincent Gallo but like him fine in Denis films, my favorite is his small role as a weird army guy in the underrated US Go Home. But he's definitely the weakest out of her frequent actors (Descas rules all). Now for my movie: 11. Shivers dir. David Cronenberg (1975) This is a weird one for Cronenberg, a director I love, because it's stuck between the totally low budget and weird Stereo and his more fully realized films afterwards like Scanners and The Brood. It ends up not having the appeal for either for me, it's too controlled to have the novelty of seeing a film maker's early, passionate stumblings and it's not actually good enough to even be on like, Rabid's level. It's just kind of a slog outside of some good moments of body horror body-lumps. On the bright side, he's spent forty some years since making consistently great work so one clunker here and now isn't that big a deal, especially since a lot of the thematic stuff here he would return to and refine pretty quickly. I did also like the J.G. Ballard-y setting of the apartment building, I almost wonder if it started out as a unofficial High-Rise adaptation. 2 pickles eaten by Joe Silver out of 5 Watched: 1. Noroi 4/5, 2. Mandy 3.5/5, 3. The Stuff 4/5, 4. Gozu 3.5/5, 5. Dark Water 3/5 6. Hellraiser 3.5/5, 7. God Told Me To 4/5, 8. The Others 4/5, 9. Dead Birds 3/5, 10. Q 3.5/5. 11. Shivers 2/5
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May 22, 2019 04:33
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 Errementari: The Blacksmith and The Devil This is one of the best movies I've seen all year, in any genre. It really took me by surprise. Actually there were like two separate surprises. First, immediately when the film begins it became obvious to me how amazing it was going to look and I didn't see that coming. But this is one of the most meticulously designed films I've seen recently, with amazing stylized costumes and sets and top notch dynamic lighting in almost every shot. I have no idea who this director is(Paul Alijo?) but I'll most definitely be keeping an eye on him from this point on.    The second surprise is that this movie delivers. You want demons and The Devil? Well, there's no dancing around it here, you get more than you could ever ask for. I'm talking gates of hell with a whole menagerie of demons and a huge hulking monster demon that blots out the whole screen. There is no holding back here. On top of all that the character work is great too, it has a real, affecting story with multiple characters to root for and then a plot twist or two as well. I don't quite understand why Errementari didn't get more attention but I hope more people get a chance to see it. Like myself, I'm sure there are a ton of people out there who would love it but just kept scrolling by it on Netflix. 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 11. Terrorvision 12. Noroi: The Curse 13. The Nest 14. Bad Taste 15. Errementari: The Blacksmith and the Devil
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May 22, 2019 14:25
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3. The Innkeepers (2011) The Yankee Peddler Inn is closing down after over a century is business. It's the very last weekend before everything is shut down and there are only two remaining employees: insecure and geeky Claire and edgelord rear end in a top hat Luke. Both of them are 20something college dropouts who don't know what to do with their lives. Since there are barely any guests in the hotel they plan to use their last couple of shifts to gather evidence about the ghost supposedly haunting the hotel. Also when Claire puts a lock on the outside of the basement hatch and we get a several second close-up of it I immediately knew she was going to get stuck down there and get killed when she couldn't open it from the inside if that foreshadowing had been just a wee bit more subtle that later moment might actually have surprised me. For some reason I thought this was going to be a period piece set in the early 20th century until the opening credits were over and it was the present day possibly because the only other Ti West film I had seen before this was House of the Devil (2009) which is set in the 70s or 80s. I feel the same about this film as I felt about House of the Devil I like it on the whole. It's well made and has a nice creepy atmosphere that keeps building and building dread until the climax however in both cases I felt the climax didn't go quite far enough. I can't quite put it into words how it could've been different but it just feels like both films didn't go quite crazy enough near the end though I feel like The Innkeepers gets closer to the sweet spot. I do like all the scenes of Claire and Luke being very awkward and her being totally clueless that he's very badly hitting on her.    4.  Witchfinder General (1968) It is the 17th century (the worst century or at least bottom 5) and a civil war rages in England. The parliamentarian Roundheads, lead by general and soon to be Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell, are gaining the upper hand against the royalist Cavaliers but there is still much fighting to be done and chaos reigns throughout the country. In the midst of all this Matthew Hopkins, the titular witchfinder, is roaming from town to town rooting out accused witches with the help of his assistant the sadistic John Stearne. Soon they find themselves in the village of Brandeston where the priest is accused of being a secret Catholic, the priest's niece tries to save her uncle but her efforts don't go as planned. Soon after her fiance, a young soldier in Cromwell's army, returns home to find out what has happened and goes on a roaring rampage of revenge. I've seen this touted as a quintessential folk horror film it stands apart from other entries in the genre like The Wicker Man (1973) and Blood on Satan's Claw (1970) in that actual folklore or paganism play little or no part in it. Numerous accused witches are tortured and executed in Witchfinder General but there is no sign that the witchcraft is anything other then empty accusations. The other films are also more reactionary with the heros being authority figures (a cop and a judge) and good Christian men combating pagan (or neo-pagan) forces who are very sexually liberated and formed mostly of young people in what is probably an allusion to the hippy movement whose iamge had just turned considerably darker following the Manson murders. In Witchfinder General, as in life, the authorities are the enemy. Hopkins is sanctioned in his trade by parliament and every magistrate he works with is intensely corrupt. The hero is a soldier in the army of Cromwell, a zealous Puritan who outlawed dancing and Christmas once he actually took power, but he highly suspicious of the power structures and seemingly not that religious by 17th century standards. Witchfinder General is a great film. It's intense and exciting and so brutal that sometimes that it's even hard for someone as seasoned as me to watch in parts. It is also gorgeous and contains this amazing match cut where the the ocean turns into a witch burning as the sounds of the rushing waves fades into the roars of the fire    
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May 22, 2019 18:18
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Timby posted:The resurrected Jason is like a zombie pro wrestler. I kind of feel like this iteration of Jason is what the WWF used when developing the Kane character. Apparently, when Glen Jacobs had only just started playing Kane (or just before), he saw a Friday the 13th movie in his hotel room one night. He saw Jason do the head-tilt, and decided to incorporate it into Kane's mannerisms.  967-Evil (1988) An evil psychic hotline gives out favours to people but turns on them when they don't do what it demands. A high-school biker gets caught up in it when his nerdy cousin becomes corrupted by the evil premium line. This was Robert Englund's directorial debut, and after watching this I can understand why, apart from two episodes of Freddy's Nightmares, he didn't direct again for 20 years. The pacing is so, so bad, characters appear and disappear in the film with little to no explanation, nearly all of the gore is off-screen, and the only likeable character dies halfway through. I also spent most of the film staring at the character of Hoax (and who names their son Hoax anyway?) wondering if he was supposed to have a learning difficulty or something similar, and also why he kept reminding me of Evil Ed from Fright Night. Well, at least I got an answer for the second question.  Apostle (2018) In 1905, a man travels to a remote island where a devout religious community lives, in search of his missing sister, and discovers something sinister going on there. Well, of course he does. It wouldn't be much of a horror film if he didn't, would it? Apostle was directed by Gareth Evans of V/H/S/2's "Safe Haven" fame, and so I think I was expecting something... different from this film. Someone exploding, for example. Not that the film is lessened through a lack of exploding cult leaders, because it has a knife-edge atmosphere throughout and the gore, when it does happen, is suitably horrific. I really cared about the various protagonist characters, even the ones who had their fates stamped on their foreheads, because it was easy to empathise with them, and the eventual antagonist was equally hateable.  Death Line (1972) After a government official disappears in a London Underground station, a police detective investigates and discovers evidence that people have been living in the abandoned tunnels for decades in secret, preying on unwary passengers in order to survive. Despite what the poster above suggests, there aren't nearly that many underground cannibals in this movie, and they don't flit around barely clothed either. They (or he, to be exact) are pathetic, plague-ridden creatures who can barely speak, having survived for so long without outside human contact - humans that they don't kill and eat, that is. Donald Pleasence is the Cockney working class detective, while Christopher Lee turns up in one scene as an MI5 agent with a moustache I'm certain was fake. The opening credits and scene have a funky beat to them that was very much at odds with the rest of the film, which is probably why they only used it at the start of the film. Despite already knowing most of what happened in the film through word-of-mouth over the years, I still found myself quite caught up in the film.  The Sect 20 years after a Manson-style cultist murders a bunch of hippies in the California desert, a young teacher finds herself caught up in the machinations of a mysterious Satanic cult. She dreams of giant birds pecking holes in her neck and finds a secret underground well hidden in her basement, but what does it all mean for her? Directed and co-written by Michele Soavi, and produced and co-written by Dario Argento, this film manages to combine two of my favourite Italian filmmakers into one very confusing film. You would think, for example, that the hippie massacre at the start of the film would have something to do with the main character Miriam, but no, it's just there to introduce the Manson-esque guy who then disappears again until the very end of the film when the worldwide Satanic murder cult meets up for the big ritual. And this cult has connections, because by the end of the film it seems that there's even a rabbit for a member (Chekov's Rabbit, who appears in time to bite the fingers of someone who had already proclaimed an allergy and hatred for rabbits, just as they are climbing out of the underground well). There's also a character called "Moebius", played by none other than Herbert Lom. Also, I'm pretty sure the crane or whatever giant bird that is was supposed to be Satan and was doing a Rosemary's Baby on Miriam, so take heed there. Seen so far: Alice, Sweet Alice (1976); The Descent (2005); They Live (1988); Beyond the Darkness (1979); Evil Dead Trap (1988); 967-Evil (1988); Apostle (2018); Death Line (1972); The Sect (1991)
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May 22, 2019 18:26
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 Y'know those War Makes Our Troops Sad movies, like Jarhead and The Hurt Locker? Monsters Dark Continent is the ultimate War Makes Our Troops Sad movie. And there's some monsters in the background. Imagine watching a really boring, lovely version of the Hurt Locker, and you've got some Godzilla toys next to the TV. That's the Monsters Dark Continent experience. Is there at least some good troops vs monsters action, you might ask, based on the poster. No! There is not! There's literally one troops vs monster fight, and it's in the dark and very short. All the other action is troops vs insurgents. There's literally not a single named non-American character. Everything is just filtered through the lens of how sad it makes the troops. They find a school bus that was hit by an American bomb, all the children in it are dead, and the only response is "drat, that makes the troops really sad" And you can't even care that the troops are sad, because the characters are the most generic sad troop movie characters ever. The rookie who joined the army because he had no prospects at home and finds out war makes him sad. The old troop who only knows war and how sad it makes him and is sad because he can't be unsad at home. Very compelling. Monsters Dark Continent sucks rear end. 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, Pulse, The Lure, Stranger Things, The Vampire Lovers, Masters of Horror Stuart Gordon H.P. Lovecraft's Dreams in the Witch House, Monsters Dark Continent Gripweed fucked around with this message at 19:28 on May 22, 2019 |
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May 22, 2019 19:13
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 Amsterdamned This felt like it was trying to be a giallo but in the end there really was no mystery to be solved. Although I kinda liked that in a way, there are red herrings but because the killer's identity didn't turn out to be some major twist it felt a little more real than the average giallo. The biggest thing that made the movie watchable was the setting. Amsterdam is a a great setting for any film, and this one is propped up by it because really it's overlong and not all that interesting without the unique backdrop. The kills are also not anything memorable. So in the end it's a perfectly average slasher with some nice scenery and not a whole lot more than that. I probably wouldn't recommend it unless you're scraping the bottom of the giallo/slasher barrel and looking for something obscure. 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 11. Terrorvision 12. Noroi: The Curse 13. The Nest 14. Bad Taste 15. Errementari: The Blacksmith and the Devil 16. Amsterdamned
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May 22, 2019 19:23
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 #10. Eight Legged Freaks (Netflix) -  /5This ended up being better than I expected "early 2000s giant CGI spider rampage" would turn out. I think that stems from the fact that the movie knows exactly what it is, and leans into how ridiculous the whole thing is. They have the giant spiders making ridiculous stock sound effects and doing "Looney Tunes" style pratfalls, so they knew what they were making. You can tell, though, that the filmmakers have a genuine love for this throwback 1950s camp, since almost none of the humor stems from an ironic detachment or disdain for the source material that inspired this. It's been a while since I've seen a movie really lean into being goofy fun, so I applaud the movie for going for ridiculous. It's not a great movie - hell, it may not even be a good one - but it is a fun movie. And since that's all I really asked of it, I think I got everything I needed. Recommended. Watched so far: The Sacrament, The Frighteners, Land of the Dead, Contamination, Rogue, Prevenge, The Stuff, Hellraiser III, Jaws 3, Eight Legged Freaks
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May 22, 2019 21:11
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The Living Dead Girl A beautiful woman's corpse becomes a fingernail vampire after being exposed to toxic waste (???). When her *cough* friend discovers her, she helps find her victims, even as she wants to stop. My first Rollin and I can already see what people are referring to when they talk about him. Manages to be hypnotic and elusive and trashy and obvious. There's a lot here that doesn't work at all, like the cutaways to an annoying and doomed American couple, and unlike Rollin there is actually a point after which a woman wandering dazed in a nightgown stops being interesting to me. But the fable-like quality of this worked on me and it builds to an ending that's genuinely devastating. 3.5/5 Bad Taste  Of the hundreds of people who made a movie like this with their friends, you can see why Peter Jackson was the one who eventually got the big jobs. loving around with a vision and clarity of purpose most people don't bring to their jobs. The way this builds from homemade goofball poo poo to the audacity of its climax makes it kind of a documentary of its own making. 3.5/5 Currently: 9/13 Countries "visited": China, Italy, Norway, Japan, Argentina, Austria, Brazil, France, New Zealand
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May 22, 2019 21:51
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9. Errementari: The Blacksmith and the Devil (2017): I tend to enjoy horror that’s deeply rooted in folklore and this movie delivers on that front. It’s not particularly scary but the character designs are good and the hell sequence near the end looks pretty hellish despite what appears to be a low budget. Fun little movie.
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May 23, 2019 13:25
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 19. Saint Bernard (2013) (blu-ray)  This is one of the strangest films I've ever seen. It doesn't have much of a plot - it's more of a showcase for the special effects and set design. A conductor named Bernard starts to slip into madness, and the film is basically his journey through insanity/drug induced hallucinations while he wanders the streets of LA carrying the severed head of a Saint Bernard dog he found by the side of the road. It's full of truly bizarre sequences, from skydiving raw chickens to creatures made from the discarded hair in a barber shop to a "police station" run by a wine-swilling ogre-like Chief. The sets, special effects, props, and wardrobe are incredibly creative and detailed. Some of the acting isn't great, and it occasionally gets a little too "lol random" but for the most part it follows a sort of surreal dream logic comparable to something like Eraserhead. A lot of it reminds me of a gorier and weirder Terry Gilliam film. Much of it defies description, so I'm just going to post some images. The director Gabe Bartalos normally works in special effects, and has worked on films by Stuart Gordon and Frank Henenlotter (and also horror thread favorite Gremlins 2), and it really shows. If all this sounds good to you, I highly recommend it. It occasionally feels like a low-budget indie film but it also features some effects and production design that rival anything I've ever seen. Like almost nothing else I've seen.     trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ll7KHBO6g40 Total: 19 Watched: Hagazussa | Deep Rising | Thoroughbreds | Wolf Guy | The Old Dark House | The House that Dripped Blood | Phenomena | Brain Damage | Demons | Demons 2 | Wolfcop | Suddenly in the Dark | Pieces | Candyman | Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh | Ganja & Hess | Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror | The Killing of a Sacred Deer | Saint Bernard
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May 23, 2019 13:53
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Holy poo poo. That looks awesome.
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May 23, 2019 13:56
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Franchescanado posted:Holy poo poo. That looks awesome. yeah it's wild. I blind-bought it from Severin on a whim and I'm glad I did.
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May 23, 2019 14:00
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12. The Beyond (Shudder) The middle film in Fulci’s “Gates of Hell” trilogy. A young woman inherits a Hotel in Louisiana. This hotel has has some past goings on that has opened a portal to Hell underneath. While this movie is better from a technical standpoint than City of the Living Dead, it looks better, the score is better, the acting is better, and the plot is tighter, I actually enjoyed it less. The best parts of CotLD were the strange and dreamlike scenes that are mostly absent from The Beyond. The gore is not all that impressive and was being done better elsewhere around the same time period for equal or lesser budgets. If this is Fulci’s masterpiece, I guess his work just isn’t for me. All that said though, the final scene is incredible. 13. Tusk (Shudder) I had no idea that Kevin Smith had anything to do with this until it was over. Half of the “Not-See Party” podcast team played by Justin Long ventures to Canada to do an interview for his podcast. Upon arriving his intended guest has taken his own life. Long discovers an ad for an interesting old timer with many stories to tell. He decides to take the old man up on his offer to not make the trip a total waste. I hated the hell out of the first half of this movie. First there is the aforementioned “Not See Party” but also, the main character is a douche which keeps being underscored by cuts to his girlfriend back in LA explaining just how giant a piece of poo poo he is. This removes any tension you might feel once he gets tangled up with the crazy old man, because you don’t give a poo poo if bad things happen to him. The second half though, once Long becomes the human walrus, hits the perfect blend of absurd and serious. I was dying laughing at the reveal of the suit and once Johnny Depp shows up it takes another hilarious step. I was ready to eviscerate this movie for the first 40 minutes but it really saved itself in the back half.
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May 23, 2019 16:01
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TheBizzness posted:
it's such a dumb movie but when Michael Parks shows up in that walrus suit I'm not sure I've ever laughed harder at anything in a theater
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May 23, 2019 16:09
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His conversation with Johnny Depp and both their horrible accents was drat near as good. My poor wife didn’t know wtf.
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May 23, 2019 16:36
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I wouldn't call either Tusk or Yoga Hosers anything remotely resembling "good" but they're both just so weird and perplexing that I ended up watching them back to back and will probably watch the third of the "trilogy."
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May 23, 2019 18:23
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I actively hate Tusk and will never watch a Kevin Smith movie again. Red State is almost good, but it's still bad.
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May 23, 2019 18:27
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deety posted:6. Without Warning (1994) It's the moral that kills the movie for me. The setup and execution are pretty good but when it turns out that we're evidently supposed to believe that the aliens had initially come in peace I checked out. So there's a civilization capable of interstellar travel and also of tracking down our messages to the source and the best form of communication they can manage is throwing goofy rocks at the earth to embed a lethal coded message into bystanders? "Make the nations of the world come together in a time of stress to cooperate" blah blah blah it reads like a bad D&D puzzle that ends with a town in flames and the DM wondering why the players didn't follow his poorly thought out story. I hope whichever alien came up with the goofy rock plan was suspended. Without pay. ~~  20) The Blackcoat's Daughter (2015) A pair of girls at a boarding school are waiting for their respective parents to come pick them up to go home for winter break. One of them has a disturbing vision of her parents not arriving at all; meanwhile, a couple traveling to the school try to be good Samaritans and pick up a hitchhiker along the way... In my book Oz Perkins is 2/2. How is something this good a debut? There's more movie here than in I Am The Pretty Thing and I already really dug that movie. I'm sure detractors of this would call it slow and boring but since I liked it I'll call it deliberate and evocative. The problem with reviewing atmospheric movies is that sometimes saying something is saying too much. I can readily list several things I love about this film but besides generic comments regarding acting and mood it's all in the payoffs. This movie is stocked with soft misdirections that warm my heart. Bald incestuous Satanic lesbian nuns? No, just concerned women. Imposing authoritative priest? No, just a dude trying to do his job. Creepy lecherous middle-aged dad? No, an actual sympathetic guy trying to help a stranger. A dark entity forcing its way into the heart and mind of a defenseless child? No, the kid was so twisted with worry and grief and inside her own head that she invited the force in and begged it to stay. Even the setting, a girl's school, is regularly home to a much different story in execution than what this winds up being. I'll give this one a pretty high score. Broadly recommended. Looking forward to Gretel and Hansel.
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May 23, 2019 18:51
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I haven’t watched a movie in over a week. Just super busy and stuff. But I’ve got the day off and tomorrow, nothing to do, my team played a 12:30 game for some reason, and my body is sore and I don’t want to move so lets go crazy today with horror movies. And I heard the Jason films will leave Netflix in June so I’d kick myself if I didn’t finish that marathon and didn’t have the means to in October. So lets go. 16. Friday the 13th Part VII: New Blood (1988) Available on Amazon Prime. Tommy Jarvis is gone hopefully living a better life with his crazy girlfriend and the sister who seemed to abandon him, but Jason’s back. This time he’s resurrected by the power of a little girl’s wish. Ok, not really but the actual reason isn’t more interesting than that and to be honest I’m not sure I even followed the real reason he got resurrected. He just did. You know the deal. Except this time the girl is psychic. The most striking thing about this is that after Part 6 seemed to actually become more self aware and take itself less seriously Part 7 reverses that entirely and is back to the same pre Tommy routine. There’s a bunch of barely developed characters wandering around the woods and having sex in cabins. There’s a nice girl who will be last. There’s a love interest who has a 50/50 chance of making it. There’s a mom who ain’t gonna make it. And a couple of cabins by the lake. Blah blah blah. We even got back the gratuitous nudity. Say what you will about the Tommy Jarvis Trilogy but at least it tried something different and Part 6 was genuinely watcheable. This one adds some psychic stuff but like, all that does is make for an uninteresting subplot that I don’t think got resolved and a rather silly final fight. Also I have absolutely no idea how to take the whole “daddy dearest” thing with Tina’s abusive father. Like I was fine with the idea that she had guilt and unresolved poo poo about his death. Family is complicated. But her resurrecting him to save her was just all kinds of tonally weird. Also wasn’t the shrink just an rear end in a top hat who wanted to harness psychic power or was he conspiring something about raising Jason? I feel like that was a whole dangled plot line that never resolved. I was mildly interested in the off screen tool shed Jason kept disappearing to to get his new kill weapons. I feel like all the creative thought put into this film was in researching what new and unique power tools could kill a person. Do they really have weed whackers with mechanical blades? That’s insane. I did like Melissa. Not because she was a likable character. She was the worst. But she did have enough of a personality for me to remember her name. In retrospect Jennifer Cooke really scored in the last film. Not only did she get to play a character with development and agency but she didn’t have to take her shirt off. Wikipedia taught me two mildly interesting things about this film. The first is that this is apparently when the whole Freddy vs Jason production ordeal began and they made this film as a consolation “Jason vs Carrie” substitute. Which is just funny. The second is that apparently this film focused heavily on intense gore and kills but then got chopped up to avoid an X rating. Wiki says the deleted scenes are on the Blu Ray set I have but like… I don’t really care to watch that stuff even IN a story let alone outside one.  17. Goosebumps (2015) Available on FXNow and Fox Now A teen moves to a boring town and falls for the cute neighbor girl only to discover that her dad is famed author RL Stine and that his horror stories for children contain real monsters that are released on an unsuspecting town. I decided to watch this because the sun was still up and I didn’t feel like going full horror until it was dark. It turned out to really be the polar opposite of a Jason film and a really good palette cleanser. Its a fun, quick moving film that is probably more adventure film than horror, but which obviously has enough roots in horror to count. I’d actually call it more of a “Halloween” film in that its obviously not there to scare or shock but its the sort of light, fun “Halloweeny” fare you can watch with anyone of any age or temperament and get in the mood. I don’t actually think I read a lot of RL Stine growing up. He’s “Stephen King for kids” but I think I was just old enough that by the time he really took that seat I was already reading King. Still I’m sure I read some of his books along the way. I imagine if I had read his work the movie really would have been enhanced with all those monsters from his stories coming to life. Still, the film completely works as a stand alone and without any idea where the hell a vampire poodle or some evil garden gnomes come from originally. Sure, if I had read those stories a long time ago that would have been extra fun but its still a perfectly understandable and fun case of a writer’s children horror monsters coming to life. But did you know that RL Stine created Eureeka’s Castle? My nostalgic mind is blown. Slappy was a pretty good and creepy villain (and I think from one of the only books I remember reading) that really held the story together and gave it some coherent drive. And the ending twist managed to catch me off guard and was genuinely sad (and made total sense). If I'm critical about something its that the CGI monsters are very CGI-like in the bad way. But I think the nature of the film is such that that's not really a big deal. We're not really going for scary or lifelike, just unbelievable and fantastic. But the werewolf scene in particular is hurt a bit by the palpable idea that the actors are running away from nothing. Not a great film but a very good and easily “watchable” adventure story. I use that word since its the test I keep finding myself with the Jason films and it was nice to have a film that actually felt like it had a point and forward momentum and which never compelled me to see how much time was left. Its dark now so I hope for at least 2 more tonight. ”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); 15. Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (1986); 16. Friday the 13th Part VII: New Blood (1988); 17. Goosebumps (2015) STAC Goat fucked around with this message at 05:30 on May 24, 2019 |
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May 24, 2019 01:51
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12. Pan’s Labyrinth dir. Guillermo del Toro (2006) I've been meaning to watch this for ages and it didn't disappoint, always nice when that happens. I'm surprised how little of the pale man there was but that's honestly perfect, having my expectations be off in how major that role is definitely allowed me to enjoy Doug Jones' less famous but more substantial performance as the faun even more. That man is a treasure. It obviously makes a great companion with The Devil's Backbone, both have a sadness to them that lends itself very well to the setting of life under fascism. Not sure if I prefer Backbone's more mournful qualities or Pan's fantastical aspects, but either way they complement each other well. 4 delicious, forbidden grapes out of 5 Watched: 1. Noroi 4/5, 2. Mandy 3.5/5, 3. The Stuff 4/5, 4. Gozu 3.5/5, 5. Dark Water 3/5 6. Hellraiser 3.5/5, 7. God Told Me To 4/5, 8. The Others 4/5, 9. Dead Birds 3/5, 10. Q 3.5/5. 11. Shivers 2/5, 12. Pan's Labyrinth 4/5
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May 24, 2019 02:41
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 Dawn Of The Mummy (1981) - Not too shabby gory b-movie with plenty of bad acting and bad writing. At first I had begun to settle in for yet another slog through by now familiar territory - tomb gets opened, mummy gets wakened, mummy murders some of the party that opened the tomb. However, the movie may have read my mind - as I was getting settled in for that, it’s like the movie remembered that it was 1981 and slashers were the thing, so all of a sudden it became a mummy movie played as a slasher, which kind of ruled and was unintentionally (I think?) hilarious. After all that slashery business was over, though, it got down to brass tacks. You see, a movie called Dawn Of The Dead had come out a few years earlier and changed the horror game. Now, the mummy’s servants who were killed along with him had their chance to shine, and the effects crew got to work building body parts to eat and zombie faces to eat them with. The final siege felt a lot like Return Of The Blind Dead to me, but smaller. 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), 9 - The Mummy (2018), 10 - Frankenstein vs. The Mummy (2015), 11 - Blood From The Mummy’s Tomb (1971), 12 - Dawn Of The Mummy
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May 24, 2019 04:47
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STAC Goat posted:I haven’t watched a movie in over a week. Just super busy and stuff. But I’ve got the day off and tomorrow, nothing to do, my team played a 12:30 game for some reason, and my body is sore and I don’t want to move so lets go crazy today with horror movies. And I heard the Jason films will leave Netflix in June so I’d kick myself if I didn’t finish that marathon and didn’t have the means to in October. So lets go. I uh, don't remember Tina's dad being abusive. He hit her mom once, which is lovely, but that might've been the first time that happened. Her childhood trauma was about causing his death, not anything he did to her. And the psych was an rear end in a top hat but he was basically trying to get an amazing case study to profit off of and get famous, not some kind of master plan where he has a psychic pet or a Jason. The ending was about her dead dad forgiving her being symbolic of her forgiving herself. You don't gotta like the movie but it's not that hard to follow.
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May 24, 2019 07:45
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Friday the 13th Part IX: Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday This feels like a movie that was stitched together from multiple scripts. The first feels like a Romero thing, then it becomes a basic F13 movie, and it also feels like a late-era Halloween movie, like The Curse of Michael Myers. And then there's the bullshit supernatural stuff, which just doesn't hold together whatsoever. It's easily in the bottom-tier of the F13 movies. I need to kind of think of how to rank them, but I'm thinking Jason Lives might be at the top, and as much as I may be a heretic for saying so, Part II might be at the bottom. Watched: Friday the 13th, Friday the 13th Part II, Friday the 13th Part IV, Friday the 13th Part V, Friday the 13th Part VI, Friday the 13th Part VII, Friday the 13th Part VIII, Friday the 13th: Jason Goes to Hell My challenge: Friday the 13th 1 - VIII, Jason X, Freddy vs. Jason EDIT: Jason Goes to Hell because Lurdiak is a jackwagon who reminded me that IX is on Netflix Timby fucked around with this message at 18:15 on May 24, 2019 |
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May 24, 2019 07:51
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Adlai Stevenson posted:It's the moral that kills the movie for me. The setup and execution are pretty good but when it turns out that we're evidently supposed to believe that the aliens had initially come in peace I checked out. So there's a civilization capable of interstellar travel and also of tracking down our messages to the source and the best form of communication they can manage is throwing goofy rocks at the earth to embed a lethal coded message into bystanders? "Make the nations of the world come together in a time of stress to cooperate" blah blah blah it reads like a bad D&D puzzle that ends with a town in flames and the DM wondering why the players didn't follow his poorly thought out story. (Without Warning] Sounds like someone is pissed that they changed the ending of Watchmen for the movie.
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May 24, 2019 08:12
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Timby posted:[b]Friday the 13th Part IX: Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday ok but now you get to experience the sheer transcendental joy that is jason x so cheer up!!!
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May 24, 2019 10:51
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Jedit posted:(Without Warning] Neither does anything for me tbh
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May 24, 2019 13:37
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Adlai Stevenson posted:Neither does anything for me tbh Not you, the filmmakers.
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May 24, 2019 13:41
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Jedit posted:Not you, the filmmakers. Well I hope you enjoy my opinion regardless
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May 24, 2019 13:59
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 Whatever Happened To Baby Jane? I managed to go into this one almost completely blind and I'm glad I did because it really was not what I expected. I was NOT expecting something so real, and because it's so real it's actually a pretty drat scary film. For 1962, it was impressive to me how unafraid the film was to portray this particular subject matter in such a matter of fact and honest way. I'm trying to keep my comments vague so that maybe someone else can watch it blind like I did, but this is one of those movies that starts at a slow simmer and then the true horror of the situation becomes a dawning realization both for the protagonist and the audience. There were several reveals that were almost more effective because they felt inevitable, almost predictable. But just like Blanche, you're hoping that the awful truth isn't what it seems to be. The film is carried completely by the two main performances by Crawford and Davis, and it'd be hard to say which was more impressive. You can't have one without the other, they play so well off of each other and nothing ever feels forced. I have a Letterboxd list of the best horror of the 1960's and this one will immediately be inserted close to the top. An absolute must-see, even for non-horror people. Also, shoutout to Victor Buono, who apparently had his first major role with this film, he's a family favorite of mine because he played the villain in the first ever episode of The Wild Wild West, which is an episode I've probably seen 10 times over the years. So it was fun to see him in this. I'm having a really nice May here with at least 3 or 4 new favorites that I'll definitely be incorporating into my October festivities in the future. My previous May Challenge wasn't nearly as successful as this. 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 11. Terrorvision 12. Noroi: The Curse 13. The Nest 14. Bad Taste 15. Errementari: The Blacksmith and the Devil 16. Amsterdamned 17. What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? Basebf555 fucked around with this message at 15:10 on May 24, 2019 |
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May 24, 2019 15:07
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 #11. Revenge of the Creature (Purchased on Vudu) - /5A group of scientists travel back to the jungle and capture the Creature from the Black Lagoon. The Gill-man is transported to Marineworld in Florida for study and exhibition. Inevitably, the Creature becomes entranced with a beautiful scientist diver, escapes his bonds and goes on a rampage to kidnap her. Hey, it's like the Jaws 3(D) of the Creature of the Black Lagoon franchise - a pointless retread of the previous movie, transposed to a marine park in Florida. And, like Jaws 3, it also sucks. Hooray for history repeating itself! If you've seen the first Creature feature, you've largely seen the best parts of this one - it's got the same beautiful jungle setting and underwater photography - but with the benefit of a feature length, as opposed to crammed into the first 20 minutes like this one. After the movie moves to Florida, everything gets smaller and cheaper looking, while keeping a lot of the same issues from the first. The pacing is abysmal, every male character is a ridiculous square-jawed he-man scientist (?!), and that drat music sting comes in every 5 minutes or so to pretend like something more exciting is happening. Heck, even the promised Creature rampage through the city in the last 20ish minutes is underwhelming - you can see him wandering towards a crowd before he knocks a car over, and then he spends most of the rest of the runtime mainly hiding in bushes at night. And when they finally off the Creature in this one, it's a direct retread of the first - shoot him a couple of times, repeat the same final shot from the last movie, roll credits go home. An insulting end to an anemic movie, and one that is far below the promise of "The Gill-Man Takes Miami" that they tried to promise. Watched so far: The Sacrament, The Frighteners, Land of the Dead, Contamination, Rogue, Prevenge, The Stuff, Hellraiser III, Jaws 3, Eight Legged Freaks, Revenge of the Creature
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May 24, 2019 16:55
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Lurdiak posted:I uh, don't remember Tina's dad being abusive. He hit her mom once, which is lovely, but that might've been the first time that happened. Her childhood trauma was about causing his death, not anything he did to her. And the psych was an rear end in a top hat but he was basically trying to get an amazing case study to profit off of and get famous, not some kind of master plan where he has a psychic pet or a Jason. The ending was about her dead dad forgiving her being symbolic of her forgiving herself. In the opening scene kid Tina says "you hit her again!". Hitting your wife makes you an abuser. "I just did it once" is not an excuse and Tina said he'd done it before. No, the rest of the film doesn't touch on the abuse or how it might have affected Tina. That's what I found weird and uncomfortable. It was like "so what if he used to punch mommy? That's no big deal.". A disturbing case of changing sensibilities from 30 years ago when domestic abuse was taken less seriously as it is today and probably excused by many. The shrink was definitely an rear end in a top hat and I thought for a time to be purposely parallel to an abusive husband and father in a bit of storytelling symmetry. But they didn't really expand on it (which is fine, subtle is ok) but then kind of oddly undermined it with the end. And my confusion plot wise is that at one point it seems to be revealed that the shrink was aware of Jason and worried about him. But that never gets addressed and it was like, huh? It wasn't a hard movie to follow. I just think it had weird half thought out ideas or contradicting ones that were just kind of abandoned to make room for more landscaping equipment kills. Which I get is the point of this series and obviously not something I'm a fan of, but in this case the half dangled deeper story stuff I might have been more interested in caught my attention and left me hanging.
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May 24, 2019 20:13
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Oh, and I fell asleep before I could post my last movie review last night. 18. Unfriended: Dark Web (2018) Available on Cinemax. Matias “finds” a new laptop and uses it to communicate with his girlfriend and friends but he discovers disturbing things on it and its former owner finds him and wants his property back at any cost. All told from the perspective of one man’s computer screen over 90 minutes. I quite enjoyed this. Its a DRAMATIC improvement on the original that an interesting gimmick but a very uncomplying story, kind of a cop out on the idea, and really terrible characters. There’s a little bit of the same problem of the first film where there’s some awkwardness early on as we just watch someone dick around on their computer. But they keep that minimal and do a good job moving things along with different windows and such. One of the other obvious improvements is that I didn’t hate the poo poo out of these characters. It wasn’t a bunch of really terrible teenagers who did some pretty nasty poo poo (not death penalty bad, but enough to make the malicious spirit the most sympathetic character in the movie) but rather a bunch of adults who all seemed like reasonably likable folks who just got sucked into something because of one dumb and morally questionable but not evil action. It wasn’t a ghost’s revenge story like the original but rather something more sinister and unexpected. And that’s probably the best difference I think. The story works and I think the story could probably work without the gimmick. That isn’t to say that the gimmick takes away. Certainly there’s things they did that wouldn’t have worked the same way in a straight film. But it wasn’t a crutch to carry a lazy or simple story. It works with it. I’m not totally sure how I feel about the end twist. The last act is INTENSE and fully sucked me in and got my anxiety going with the characters. I had some concerns that they were delaying that part a bit too long and stretching out the middle a bit too much but it was probably the right call because when poo poo hits the fan it hits the fan so quick that its easy to see why characters make the decisions they make and tough to question if you would have made a better decision. I think I might have preferred it be the case of the wrong place at the wrong time rather than the phishing game that it turned out to be but I’m honestly not even sure of that. I see the benefit of both. Which is probably a fitting feeling to have about a movie that is so heavily about making difficult, impossible decisions. This was a good film. Not a great one, but definitely a much better usage of the gimmick than the original film and a solid bit of anxiety and action. It doesn’t have anything to say or anything and its probably on some level the same kind of slasher gore and exploitation that I’m being so harsh on Jason for. But it worked for what it was. Which is much more than I expected. ”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); 15. Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (1986); 16. Friday the 13th Part VII: New Blood (1988); 17. Goosebumps (2015); 18. Unfriended: Dark Web (2018);
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May 24, 2019 20:28
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Timby posted:Friday the 13th Part IX: Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday I totally get why people don't like this one but it's one of my favorites just for how batshit insane it is. It's almost as if they had a couple other weirdass scripts sitting around and Sean Cunningham said "Hey, this could be the next Friday the 13th." The cast is probably the weakest part. Steven Williams is cool but the guy who plays the main character kind of feels like a low-rent version of Ted Raimi. Also, the opening where they blow the poo poo out of Jason would have made a better ending than what most of the other movies have for endings.
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May 24, 2019 20:37
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Part 7, the opening of Jason Goes to Hell, and Jason X really show off the potential for Jason outside of the standard Friday the 13th formula. Jason fighting a psychic, Jason vs the army, Jason fighting a super robot in space, all fantastic stuff. Give us a full Jason vs troops movie, I don't care if it would be a ripoff of Predator. Jason goes back in time and becomes the leader of a barbarian army and fights King Arthur. Jason actually goes to hell and fights Doom guy. Just go wild with it
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May 24, 2019 20:47
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Basebf555 posted:
Can't believe you didn't mention the boat chase
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May 25, 2019 00:08
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