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Gripweed posted:I thought I wasn't gonna do a big franchise watch-through this year. Until I found this at Half Price Books Oh you sweet summer child
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Oct 4, 2019 19:32
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The first three are great!
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Oct 4, 2019 19:34
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Gripweed posted:all nine Puppet Master movies Wikipedia tells me there are either 12 or 14. Plus everyone said such good things about the latest, racist one!
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Oct 4, 2019 19:40
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Iron Crowned posted:Oh you sweet summer child I haven't seen any of them, so I'm pretty excited
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Oct 4, 2019 19:44
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graventy posted:Wikipedia tells me there are either 12 or 14. Plus everyone said such good things about the latest, racist one! poo poo, you're right. The set I got has the first 8, then skips Puppet Master vs Demonic Toys, and then it ends with Puppet Master: Axis of Evil, which, judging from the titles, is the start of a new "Axis" series of Puppet Masters Puppet Master fans, help me! Should I track down Puppet Master vs Demonic Toys? If so, do I also need to watch Demonic Toys first? Will I be unsatisfied if I stop at Puppet Master: Axis of Evil, should I make sure I have the rest of the "Axis" Puppet Masters ready to go after I finish this DVD set?
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Oct 4, 2019 19:49
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Gripweed posted:Will I be unsatisfied if I stop at Puppet Master: Axis of Evil, should I make sure I have the rest of the "Axis" Puppet Masters ready to go after I finish this DVD set? You'll be unsatisfied way before you get to Axis of Evil. My recommendation is just to watch the first three, then decide if you want to continue after that. The first three are worth $4 on their own anyway, it's not like you will have wasted the money.
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Oct 4, 2019 19:53
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Gripweed posted:poo poo, you're right. The set I got has the first 8, then skips Puppet Master vs Demonic Toys, and then it ends with Puppet Master: Axis of Evil, which, judging from the titles, is the start of a new "Axis" series of Puppet Masters I think you are greatly underestimating how lovely these movies are going to be
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Oct 4, 2019 19:59
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Poseurs ITT telling an innocent goon to avoid endless bad sequels
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Oct 4, 2019 20:01
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Gripweed posted:Puppet Master fans, help me!  Puppet Master has no fans
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Oct 4, 2019 20:01
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SUPER SAMHEIM CHALLENGE Uncle Walrus' 3 Sentence Horror Review 1.This is the End  One of the better stoner-comedy collaborations between James Franco and Seth Rogan. The last act drags a little bit, but the ensemble of current actors playing inflated versions of themselves hits home and delivers the laughs. The spooky setting is just a backdrop for the cast to crack wise and riff off each other, if you liked Pineapple Express or Up in Smoke this lightly horror flavored comedy is for you. 2. Mandy  So seldom does a movie feel like a legitimate dream, wherein a plot moves forward following it's own logic and the viewer is left stricken in awe. The glowing, LED drenched fragments that Cosmatos played with in Beyond the Black Rainbow have congealed into a coherent whole this time around- and the outcome is a neon soaked modern myth. I almost can't wait for it to be October again just to give me an excuse for yet another rewatch. 3. Three from Hell  Ever since I was a boy, I have enjoyed the many mediums of Mr. Zombie's work peaking with The Lords of Salem. His style is synonymous with gore, sleaze and an extra helping of dark humor, and we see faint echos of this in this ultimately sloppy and pointless film. The sadistic, raw energy that colored his early work is gone, as is the story telling mastery of his late career- I really wanted to like this but it's hard to warm up to characters that have zero arc or growth over three films, as such I cannot recommend.
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Oct 4, 2019 20:34
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 #8 Tales of Halloween 2015 Tubi I’m a sucker for Halloween-themed movies, and for anthology series. Trick ‘r Treat sets a high bar, but Tales of Halloween ain’t bad! It ain’t all bad, at least. The shorts vary in tone, length, and quality, but that wide variation gives it a fun grab bag kind of feel. While some pictures are exactly what you’d expect them to be and nothing more, the better shorts throw in some clever tricks, whether by taking the narrative for a twist, or messing with formal elements by introducing, say, a GoPro skate video into a feature-style short, or a claymation alien into a slasher story. In one fun short, a boy is bullied into egging the house of a neighbor who doesn’t celebrate Halloween, only to be caught by said neighbor, who turns out to be an actual devil that’s never home on Halloween because he’s out reveling in causing mayhem, now with the protagonist in tow. There’s another short where a couple who lost their child on Halloween have a traumatic fight on Halloween night when the husband tries to cajole the wife into celebrating. The next year, the wife is suddenly overbearingly enthusiastic for Halloween, down to reciting an elaborate routine for every trick or treater that comes to the door. Things get stranger when a child that looks identical to her late daughter comes to the door. This has all the makings of an interesting, trippy little Halloween psychological flick, but instead they layer on comedy and try to make it a monster show. They also played their hand with the monster in the first minute if the short. Too bad, there was some real promise buried here that a more restrained hand could’ve dug up. I also liked the slapstick short where two men try to ransom a costumed child on Halloween, only to find that they’ve inherited a mini nosferatu that daddy doesn’t want back. Not every short fires, but this is a fun one, and has the spirit of the season. It also packs a lot of shorts into its modest runtime, so nothing overstays its welcome. You can definitely do worse than Tales of Halloween! 3/5
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Oct 4, 2019 20:40
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8. Midsommar - Director's Cut - 2.5/5quote:Theatrical Cut: ★★★½ 9. The Fog (1980) - 4.5/5 quote:drat, john carpenter made the sickest scooby doo episode ever. this movie is so god drat cool, it's basically built from a laundry list of every little thing that will make me love a movie: 10. Children of the Corn - 1.5/5 quote:this is just what new englanders think the midwest is like normally. 11. The Vault of Horror - 3/5 quote:conceptually great, and fairly well executed, just a bit too dry. it's very english. good early october viewing for the comfort of a quiet horror anthology. 12. Viy - 2.5/5 -  SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #1: The Best Month quote:nodding sagely @ the soviet union making precisely one horror movie and it being about how man is incapable of handling the untempered power of a goth gf. Viy's last 10 minutes are just incredible, just the highest concentration of Halloween energy ever. I wish the rest of the movie could at least sprinkle that in and not be so boring...
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Oct 4, 2019 21:02
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Gripweed posted:poo poo, you're right. The set I got has the first 8, then skips Puppet Master vs Demonic Toys, and then it ends with Puppet Master: Axis of Evil, which, judging from the titles, is the start of a new "Axis" series of Puppet Masters Puppet Master vs Demonic Toys is the one that's a clip show, I think.
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Oct 4, 2019 21:07
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Gripweed posted:Puppet Master fans, help me! You're gonna need them all and you're gonna need them all ready to watch sequentially without breaks for food or human contact. Toulon didn't half-rear end his leech lady puppet and you're not going to half-rear end this franchise binge.
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Oct 4, 2019 21:28
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 4: Phantom of the Paradise - This was pretty fun, definitely the sort of movie that punches above its weight class. Comically brutal setup for the Phantom at the beginning, and things just kept escalating. It was pretty over the top near the end, and it was interesting how setting up the fake concert deaths made the crowd not notice the real ones, which lead to an few very memorable scenes where the crowd keeps cheering and dancing throughout the deaths. Loved the synth room and general environment of the paradise. The songs were solid enough, but none were really the catchy or super memorable sort you'd expect from this sort of movie.  3/51: K-12 2: Gozu 3: The Wailing 4: Phantom of the Paradise
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Oct 4, 2019 21:30
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you guys who are watching all 10 Children of Corn movies or all 9 Puppet Masters, etc. are hilarious. And brave. Its like the Super Size Me experiment of the horror genre.
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Oct 4, 2019 22:01
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Mokelumne Trekka posted:you guys who are watching all 10 Children of Corn movies or all 9 Puppet Masters, etc. are hilarious. And brave. Its like the Super Size Me experiment of the horror genre. It could be worse, man. It could be 10 Hellraisers.
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Oct 4, 2019 22:32
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5. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre My first rewatch so far, and it’s just as good as I remembered. Having not seen it in a decade at least, I had forgotten that almost nothing happens until the last half hour and yet the movie never drags. It’s grimy and gross and hilarious (The Cook poking his victim with the broom stick, the music while the hitchhiker is being all weird in the van) all at the same time. The first time I watched TCM the scene that really stuck with me is when Leatherface hits the dude over the head with the mallet and he just lay there twitching. While I still enjoyed that part the scene that got me this time was how quickly, brutally, and randomly Franklin is chopped to bits out of the (literal) blue. The only gripe I have is why the hell did the truck driver climb out of the truck at the end instead of driving away? 6. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 This was a new one for me and woooo boy what a ride! There is so much to love here even though it’s nothing like it’s predecessor. Bill Moseley’s character is a welcome and insanely funny addition. From the first scene you know poo poo is off the rails in the best way possible and movies like this are the reason I enjoy doing these challenges. I really enjoyed Leatherface’s characterization. It also features an even better chainsaw fight than Mandy! If I have one complaint it’s that after viewing this I have to wonder if the “Pennywise runs towards the camera shaking his head” is an homage to “Leatherface holds the chainsaw over his head while doing an Elvis shimmy and groaning” because they played that card like a dozen times. My understanding is that this is where the good movies in this series end but if any of the rest are worth trying, I’m down to give them a whirl.
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Oct 4, 2019 23:11
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Belzebuth (2019) Shudder- I had started watching this movie last week, but couldn't really handle the first 2 mass murder scenes and turned it off. I caught it today on Shudder's free stream right at the point I had turned it off, so I took it as a sign that I should finish it. Turned out alright. Something about movies in Spanish that I really like though./5 Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) Shudder- This was my first viewing, and it just really didnt click for me. Nothing really stood out that I cared about. Maybe I don't like good movie? Favorite scene was the ending get away. .5/5
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Oct 5, 2019 00:00
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Finally caught up on writing reviews just in time for the weekend and to get behind again. 10. 13 Ghosts (1960)  A broke family suddenly inherits a mansion from a long thought dead uncle. The uncle was big into the occult and claims to have caught 11 ghosts and is keeping them contained in his mansion. The uncle’s lawyer thinks there is money hidden in the mansion and is trying to convince the family the house really is haunted so he can get it before they do. Another William Castle gimmick film. This time the gimmick is an anaglyph ghost that you look through one half to see the ghosts and the other to hide them. It would’ve been better if the ghosts were always present instead of in just select scenes but it works well enough for 1960. 11. Vampyr (German) (1932) Super Samhain Challenge 1  A man obsessed with the occult goes chasing shadows and ends up in a house plagued by a vampire. Luckily he was given a book on how to defeat them by the man he just watched die. A beautifully shot film for its time with some delightful effects work. 12. Amuck (Italian) (1972)  A famous writer takes on a new assistant after his last one left under mysterious circumstances. It turns out his new assistant is her friend and is helping the local police look for her. Unfortunately for her she’s in a giallo so things get sexual between her and the writer and his wife. Then the writer starts gas lighting her about what had happened with her friend. An enjoyable giallo that had a simple little murder mystery tucked in it. 13. Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man (1951)  This time Abbot and Costello are detectives. They get hired by a boxer accused of killing his manager who turns invisible so he can prove his innocence. This requires Costello to challenge the real killer’s boxer to a match so they can get close enough to investigate. I liked this one better than Meet Frankenstein since it wasn’t so packed with characters. 14. Fascination (French) (1979)  After a successful robbery in 1905, the leader is not trusted to pay out to the rest of the gang and is chased into a nearby castle where two women are staying. He tries to take them hostage to let him stay while they try to both convince him to stay the night and to leave before midnight. This is because midnight is when their friends will arrive and have their secret ceremony. Their secret satan worshiping lesbian vampire ceremony. A really simple and fun vampire flic. 1. Killer Workout (1987) 2. Ænigma (1987) 3. Killer Fish (1979) 4. Rear Window (Theater) (1954) 5. House on Haunted Hill (1959) 6. Nail Gun Massacre (1985) 7. Paranorman (2012) 8. Night of the Comet (1984) 9. Corpse Bride (2005) 10. 13 Ghosts (1960) 11. Vampyr (German) (1932) 12. Amuck (Italian) (1972) 13. Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man (1951) 14. Fascination (French) (1979)
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Oct 5, 2019 00:19
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10. Razorback (1984) This was sold to me as an Australian Jaws with a huge boar. That description is not completely wrong but it really misses why this movie is loving amazing. The first thing that stands out is how absolutely unbelievably beautiful the cinematography in this movie is. Easily in the top 10 of the 80's. I was also really impressed by how weird it was willing to get with some of the characters. The kangaroo poachers are a very weird but also very amazing blend of Mad Max and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. This frequently leads to scenes that are both absolutely disgusting and super gorgeous. Have I mentioned how loving beautiful this movie looks? God drat. I don't want to repeat any story beats here but I really liked how the movie the big cliches without doing the big wink wink nudge nudge "hey we know what you expect here but we are doing something different" thing. The movie moves on at a break-neck pace but it never feels rushed. Watch this movie! 100% recommendation. 4.5 /5
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Oct 5, 2019 00:21
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8: Foes I saw somebody on twitter talking about Foes and it sounded interesting, so on a lark I decided to see if it was on Youtube. And it was! Foes opens with a jet fighter flying through the clouds. An effect they achieved by photographing a model of a jet fighter from multiple angles, and matting those pictures into some stock footage of clouds. Absolutely seamless, and a great sign for the quality of the rest of the film to come. That's not entirely fair, some of the effects, although they're all crazy cheap, do work OK. Unfortunately Foes uses those effects way too much. When the people get beamed up in the saucer, the first couple shots look OK. It's clearly just footage of the actors falling reversed and slowed down, but it looks alright, the "wrong" motion of it looks eerie. The next seven shots of the actors falling reversed and slowed down do not look OK, and the entire beaming up sequence is ruined. One thing Foes does have is atmosphere. The sound design is actually pretty good. When the aliens are doing stuff it's always accompanied by a kind of eerie dull roar. The background music is used very sparingly and it works well. There are almost no closeups during the scenes on the island. Lots of wide shots showing how desolate and lonely it is. Windswept island where you can see all around you so you can see there's no one to help and nowhere to go is an absolutely underutilized horror setting. This is absolutely one of those movies that if you watched it on cable by yourself when you were like 9, staying up too late at night, you would absolutely have an unjustifiable soft spot for Foes for the rest of your life. But Foes isn't good. The characters are absolutely nothing. At first it seems like the main characters are "guy who would be an rear end in a top hat if the actor was better at expressing emotions", and "woman who is always complaining, like they do". But they are out of the picture by the halfway point, leaving "guy" and "another guy" as the protagonists. The first two are terrible, but at least they're normal people getting involved in a strange situation. And they're there from the beginning. They're the ones who get the scenes where they banter with the locals before they go the island. Y'know, like characters in a movie. The second set are... some dudes? Diver I guess, who just happen by. They show up half an hour in, they have zero characterization, by rules of narratives you expect them both to get killed by the aliens to increase the danger for the actual characters. But instead they just kinda take over. They take over the story of, "oh no, aliens" Which is really what kills it. The atmosphere is great. The cheap effects range from effective but overused to charmingly crappy. This is absolutely a movie that could be an enjoyable watch if they gave you literally anything at all about the characters. They have very little dialogue, none of which is about themselves or each other. You get no sense of their relationship, or anything. I can't overstate how little characterization Foes gives to the two main characters you're trapped on an island with. I don't even remember if they have names. It's just a couple dudes on the beach, being menaced by a spaceship. For 90 minutes. It's so loving dull. So yeah. I would recommend Foes if you have the ability to go back in time and leave a VHS copy in the vacation place your family is going to and you've seen all the other movies so you watch it by yourself after your parents go to bed, sitting right in front of the TV with the sound low so you don't wake them up. If you can't do that, Foes is of no use to you.
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Oct 5, 2019 00:32
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Gripweed posted:I haven't seen any of them, so I'm pretty excited I'm glad you posted that. I was going to mock you for having to watch a particular movie in the series, but now you need to feel the pain with no foreknowledge of what is coming. Iron Crowned posted:
Not fans so much as victims.  Mokelumne Trekka posted:you guys who are watching all 10 Children of Corn movies or all 9 Puppet Masters, etc. are hilarious. And brave. Its like the Super Size Me experiment of the horror genre. A lot of posters in this thread need to do something to crank up the challenge difficulty. Or are masochists who get off on being forced to watch these movies. October 4 - The Curse of the Werewolf  .https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1T5RDIdtpgo After Draculas and Frankensteins and mummies and Jekylls, Hammer finally gets around to werewolves. They even licensed the book The Werewolf of Paris for it (the book sounds kind of interesting as a historical novel set among the chaotic events of Paris in the 1870's). And the result is not as good as their earlier efforts. Maybe that's why Hammer generally avoided werewolves. The movie recounts the life of a Spanish werewolf in the 18th century. But first we have to get the story of his mother's entire life so we can see how he was conceived. Then born as unwanted child at the same time as Jesus, God punishes his for this by having him turn into a wolf when the moon is full. As a child, his adopted father locks him up until he stops changing for a while. But when he goes off to work, the changes start again. I'm really happy I watched this one on bluray, it makes the brownface really stand out. So obviously, this movie deviates from its source material quite a bit since it ditched the titular setting, the characters, and the plot. Which would be fine, it's not like anybody has read the book in fifty years. But the plot is as meandering as it bare bones. It lacks the action to make up for that. The werewolf action is all offscreen until the very end of the film. And I don't mean they were being mysterious about thing and keeping it shadow; the movie kept skipping over the interesting bits of the action. Were they avoiding having to put the weak as they werewolf make up on screen as much could? I doubt it since the night shots of it look pretty solid (the brightly lit interiors, not so much). This is Oliver Reed's first major film role (he's been extras in other Hammer films and a couple of tiny roles before this) as he plays the were part of the werewolf. He's doing his best but there's not a lot for him to work with other than looking haggard and afraid. I think the real problem with this movie (other than the racism) is the script didn't have the strength to be a drama about a man going through life with a curse and didn't have enough action to be a rollicking werewolf movie. The last ten minutes of it are pretty solid and that's the movie I wanted to see.
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Oct 5, 2019 01:04
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11. You're Next (2011) Watched On: Blu Ray Bought this used from a library sale like a year ago and never watched it until now. I have no idea why. This movie has a hell of a lot of moving pieces and every single one of them hits at the exact right time. Everything starts simple (family drama, home invasion, bickering siblings) and then gradually gets more complicated in increasingly satisfying ways. Usually when a movie puts this much stuff into motion, some of the threads end up loose but Simon Barrett's script is tight and tense. The cinematography is also top notch, making the tight spaces feel tighter and the dangerous situations more dangerous. There's not really much else I can say. I really liked it.
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Oct 5, 2019 02:21
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11. Grizzly (1976) Ah yeah, get to watch some schlock this time courtesy of Amazon Prime. Yeah, basically this one is your typical 70s disaster movie where everyone is trying to warn someone in authority about a danger while bodies pile up. Actually, it reminds me more of Jaws than anything now that I’ve typed all that up. It’s not very good either going through all the same story beats Jaws did which made me just want to watch Jaws again if anything. The bear they used was an actual bear and they try to go “less is more” like they did with the shark in Jaws but it has none of the suspense that made it work. Yeah, there is some gory bits here and there but aside from those there is nothing in this movie that works. /512. The Mummy (1932)  Continuing on my Universal Monster kick, next up is the Boris Karloff film The Mummy which saw adaptations with Brendan Frasier and Tom Cruise (don’t watch the latter, it sucks) later on. I’ve noticed a trend with these films: there is a lot of talking that explains what the plot is. Like, entire scenes are just the characters explaining what is going on and you actually need to listen to know why things happen later on. I guess it’s a product of its time to have two dudes in a room sitting at a desk just monologuing over the stuff that’s going on. Not that that’s a criticism, just an observation. Overall this is a great film with more classic monster action, scenes and a plot that has a little more meat in it than Dracula or Frankenstein due to more character development. Boris Karloff really establishes him as a GOAT of horror because, drat, his performance of Imhotep is amazing and deserves the iconic status. He owns every scene he is in. /5Total: 1. One Cut of the Dead (2017), 2. Chopping Mall (1986), 3. All the Creatures Were Stirring (2018), 4. Creepshow 2 (1987), 5. Black Christmas (1974), 6. Dracula (1931), 7. Frankenstein (1931), 8. The Monster Squad (1987), 9. All Hallow’s Eve (2013), 10. The Addams Family (1991), 11. Grizzly (1976), 12. The Mummy (1932) Super Samhain Challenges:
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Oct 5, 2019 02:33
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graventy posted:(PS Fran you should link the challenges in the OP so people can find'm easily.) He did actually, just in the second post instead of the first.  On that note: SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #1: The Best Month Perfect Blue: A retired Japanese pop idol turned actress Mima grapples with a deranged stalker and her own sense of reality. I ended up liking this one a lot. The film regularly challenges the viewers own perception of what they're seeing, via mirroring of events between Mima's show and her reality, as well as through multiple character's psychosis, all playing nicely into the central theme of Mima's self doubt. Where it gets to it most unsettling and genuinely uncomfortable for me though was in its moments where Mima would push herself way beyond her comfort zone and deeply regret herself, all for the sake of proving herself and impressing the right people. Halloween III: Season of the Witch: Novelty company Soylent Shamrock unleashes a line of Halloween masks hiding a dark secret that is unearthed when a fleeing, delirious man is murdered in the hospital. I went into this one on the basis of it's cult following and unique direction within the franchise. And yeah, while it certainly isn't as good as the original or the 2018 sequel, I still enjoyed this one for what it was, and I really respected it's ambition in not only eschewing Michael Myers, but shifting genre entirely from slasher to sci-fi thriller. Comes with the added bonus of not being able to get that loving commercial jingle out of my head for the entire rest of the month. Movies Watched (4): Stereo, Crimes of the Future, Perfect Blue (Challenge # 1), Halloween III: Season of the Witch Challenges Completed: 1/1
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Oct 5, 2019 02:45
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 4. Donnie Darko I don't get it. I think my brain may have gotten this movie switched up with the premise of the Mothman Prophecies. I originally thought I was going to be watching a horror movie about a demonic rabbit who prophesied doom and found out that the real horror is rich people. As it started to get going, I was worried that this was going to turn into a revenge story for an angsty, rich, white guy which isn't fun espeically considering recent real world events. It's the kind of movie that makes me really appreciate that I have family and people in my life who love me. The characters have all of the material possessions they can want but they are all living miserable self centered lives. I didn't really see any character growth from Donnie that would make his actions in the third act make sense. I thought the reveals were kinda blah and didn't turn this into the horror/thriller story I was expecting it to be. When I read all of the reviews of the movie on Letterboxd that say this is a masterpiece, I can't help but wonder if that's more due to a young, attractive Jake Gyllenhaal.
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Oct 5, 2019 02:48
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#4: Candyman (1992) Watched on Netflix Candyman is great, and with it just being added onto Netflix, get on it quick! The supernatural urban legend flavor leads toward a movie feeling a bit elevated above its more schlocky slasher peers, though it does not skimp on the gore. Tony Todd does so much work here, and it immediately makes him into one of the all-time horror greats. He's seductive, brutal, and terrifying, and that's without the thousands of bees crawling all over him. Add in that extra level of apian unease, Phillip Glass' haunting score, Virginia Madsen increasingly out of her depth and losing her mind, and some attempts at social commentary, and you have horror must watch. The social bits can feel a bit shallowly done, though that might just be looking back on it and expecting more with 2019 sensibilities. Regardless, this movie is a chiller delight, watch it now to whet your appetite for when Jordan Peele takes a shot at a sequel next year. .5 /5Watched: 1. From Beyond 2. Evil Dead 3. Phantasm 4. Candyman
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Oct 5, 2019 02:53
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#7) IT Chapter Two (2019) What happens to us when we run from our pasts? How does it hurt us? How does it hurt those around us? The thematic elements of IT Chapter Two run a lot deeper than I was expecting, based on my viewing of the TV mini series two decades ago, and my cursory knowledge of the book. This was a movie about love, about loss, about trauma, and about the dangers of running from and bottling up those feelings. Without going into spoilers-- in both a figurative and literal sense, the kids from Derry are told that they can go back to their normal lives and forget their pasts, but it will eventually kill them; OR, they can stay and fight their demons, and it may kill them, but it may also set them free. They have to dig up and face past traumas, and they have to let go of the tokens of their pasts that they've been holding on to, in order to defeat their demons. Once you start noticing the symbolism, the film has a lot to say about the nature of trauma and the nature of emotional growth. On a thematic level, I think it was incredibly effective. Now, I don't completely feel the same way on a technical level. I'll start by saying the acting was fantastic - Bill Hader especially was a wonderful surprise. The score was wonderful (aside from one very weirdly placed 2-second snippet of a song that honestly felt like an editing mistake). However, the whole 2.5 hours played out like walking through a haunted house. After the first 3 or 4 jump scares, they stopped having much of an effect because it was the same technique over and over again: music goes quiet, camera pans, and BOOM. That's not to say it was all contrived, there were some legitimately very well done scenes. Again, not to get into spoilers, but when Andy Muschietti utilized the grandiosity and the pure WTF-ness of IT's illusions, that's when they were the most effect. All in all I really enjoyed it and it successfully hit me on an emotional level, so I'm giving this one 4/5
Count Thrashula fucked around with this message at 03:03 on Oct 5, 2019 |
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Oct 5, 2019 02:59
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Lurdiak posted:Puppet Master vs Demonic Toys is the one that's a clip show, I think. Puppet Master: The Legacy is the clip show. Puppet Master vs Demonic Toys is the SciFi channel one set at Christmas, with Corey Feldman and cyber-upgrades for the puppets. It's also a side-story with no impact on the lore of the main series. Curse of the Puppet Master is the sixth one in the main-line series, but also doesn't fit in the series' continuity.
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Oct 5, 2019 03:08
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8. Tigers Are Not Afraid (2019) - This exists somewhere on the line between Pan's Labyrinth and Calvin & Hobbes. Closer to the former, but still. If you want to watch Pan's Labyrinth for the first time again, go see this. Really outstanding cinematography, too.
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Oct 5, 2019 03:40
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 #32) Witchouse (1999) I guess this is Full Moon's knock-off of Night of the Demons. A group of acquaintances who are trying to act ten years younger than they appear to be gather at the spookily-decorated house of a female friend who's throwing a party. After gathering around a glowing pentagram and having story-time about her witch ancestor, some of those old evil spirits get loose, possess a few of the attendees, and make with the evil. This is directed by David DeCoteau (under a pseudonym, of course), so while there's hetero sex scenes and flirting, they're done in a way that communicates negative chemistry between those involved. Outside of that, none of the actors really bring much enthusiasm or commitment to their roles, so it very much feels like what it is: actors standing around in sets, delivering bad dialogue and hoping that the scene will be over soon. On the upside, it's shot and lit decently, the audio is clean, and there's not an excessive amount of redubbing. But the jokes land flat, there's no tension, and the climax is barely a rise in action. Bleh. Waste of a good title. I wonder how long it'll be before I cave and watch the two sequels that are on Tubi. rating: 4/10
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Oct 5, 2019 04:04
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12. Green Room (2015) Watched On: Netflix I thought this would be a good companion piece to You're Next. What the previous films wrings uncomfortable laughter out of, Green Room goes for sheer visceral horror. This is the second time I've seen it and the first for my girlfriend and it was just as affecting, mostly thanks to the performances. The film is still beautifully shot and lit and the script is tight, but without the acting ability of Yelchin, Stewart et al, the whole thing would be the sum of its parts and not more. The violence is incredibly upsetting both because of its suddenness and the reactions of the characters. Pat screams so horribly when he's hurt, the whole band reacts with stunned horror as a Nazi's stomach gets opened up with a boxcutter and you can almost see the survival instinct in their eyes as the situation keeps getting worse and worse. This movie is a lot, but gently caress it's really worth it.
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Oct 5, 2019 04:34
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13. Oct 3, 2019 Dead of Night (1945, various) Kino Lorber Blu-ray When I first started watching this, I thought it wasn't that scary. That's exactly how this fools you. A bunch of people talk about dreams and they get progressively spookier as the film goes on. Think of it as campfire stories except it's in a posh English home. I think most people talk about the "last" segment involving Michael Redgrave as a ventriloquist, but it's after that the film goes completely off the rails. And watch through the credits. 14. Oct 4, 2019  The Ghost of Sierra de Cobre (1964, Joseph Stefano/Robert Stevens) Kino Lorber Blu-ray If you're a fan of The Outer Limits, you'll want to see this repurposed pilot for another show by Leslie Stevens and Joseph Stefano. When the pilot didn't sell, the film was re-edited into a theatrical feature. Spooky and moody, reminds me a lot of the sort of tone with episodes like Forms of Things Unknown. Martin Landau stars in this and there's some really effective ghost effects by Conrad Hall. 15. Oct 4, 2019  Tomb of Ligeia (1965, Roger Corman) Scream Factory Blu-ray [part of The Vincent Price Collection Vol. II] While all of the Corman/Poe/Price films had been shot in-studio (and mostly in California save for Masque of Red Death), this features extensive location shooting. I don't think it's quite as creepy, but it's still unsettling with plenty of corpses, burning flesh, and blasphemy. Best sight, though, is Vincent Price sporting some creepy sunglasses.
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Oct 5, 2019 04:36
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 #4. Final Exam (1981) (First watch) A killer kills college students. That's it. Well, after a kill and a kill off screen we're treated to unlikable characters for 50 minutes before there is another kill. Please don't mistake my use of the word characters as protagonists that have any sort of development. There isn't any. Hell, I wasn't able to figure out who was important because not a single person in this movie did anything other than annoy the hell out of me. It felt like that they wrote a few of the characters with developmental disabilites the way their dialogue is written. Most of the kills happen off screen, the killer is somehow stronger than Jason Vorhees despite being alive, and it's never made clear why the killer is doing what he is doing. A slasher should be centered around the suriviors/prey, but there isn't anything there either, literally nothing. So my guess is the writer had a really bad college experience?
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Oct 5, 2019 04:54
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4. Exorcist II: The Heretic After all the mayhem of the last two entries I decided to go with something a little more... poetic. John Boorman's sequel to William Friedkin's horror masterpiece is nowhere near as scary or as technically astute, but for all its clumsy moments there is something special here. The story of Reagan continuing to fight the demon within her becomes a strange art film about human frailty and the pervasiveness of evil, and the souls who resist it. Like a poem it's built out of patterns of imagery- flight and flying creatures, flashing light, a burning African sun, a church in the cliffs, howling winds- and while the literal action sometimes suffers, this is still one of the most conceptually dense and fascinating horror films ever. Linda Blair is legit charming, the Ennio Morricone score is a classic, and it's full of arresting images. You get the feeling Warner Bros. hired Boorman because they wanted the man who made Deliverance, but they got the man who made Zardoz instead.
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Oct 5, 2019 05:07
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 5. The City of the Dead (1960) This one gets rolling right at the start with a classic witch burning scene. The dying witch curses the town and swears she’ll perform more sacrifices, and then we switch to Christopher Lee enthusiastically sharing her story. He’s giving a college lecture series on witchcraft, and one of his students, Nan, decides to do research in the town he was talking about despite the objections of her brother and her obnoxious boyfriend. Most of the locals are less than friendly, but the reverend’s granddaughter lets her borrow an old book that seems to have the kind of information she’s looking for. Then some strange things happen, and Nan gets firsthand experience with things she’s been studying. First of all, this is a really nice-looking movie. (The quality of it on Amazon Prime sucks, so go with the Tubi version if you’re interested.) It has some interesting shots as well as a crisp style that works well both for the college scenes and the misty streets of the cursed town. The story is darker and twistier than I expected, with a Psycho-style heroine swap after Nan’s murdered by the witch cult. Christopher Lee carries a supporting role with his usual intensity, and I was also impressed with Patricia Jessel, who plays a witch that sometimes masquerades as a barely hospitable inkeeper. I liked this one a lot and would recommend it to anyone who’s looking for a movie from the era or who wants something atmospheric and relatively mild to break up a streak of heavier stuff. Watched: 1. Burn, Witch, Burn (1962); 2. TerrorVision (1986); 3. Evilspeak (1981) - Challenge #1; 4. Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971); 5. The City of the Dead (1960)
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Oct 5, 2019 05:41
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6: Escape Room ABCs: E I mean, it's what I expected it to be. I love doing escape rooms so I was interested in it when it first came out, but I'm fully aware it's a PG13 Saw. If you go in with that expectation it's fine, the rooms are interesting and the cast is decent. The franchise hook stuff is pretty lame and it should have ended about 10 minutes before it did, but it was a perfectly enjoyable dumb popcorn movie
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Oct 5, 2019 05:45
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1) The Reptile It's a traditional Hammer period piece with really nice sets and acting. It falls into the monster movie trap where it focuses too much on the investigation of what the audience knows is the titular reptile. Renaming this to The Black Death would help but I would be thrilled with one early, graphic reptile kill to deliver on the title. 🐍🐍 2) The Comedy of Terrors  This is fine and sometimes very funny but it's not a feverish delight like The Raven (1963). The physical gags are very good but the wordy jokes don't land as well. Karloff is underused and the middle drags but the third act does a lot of save this one. ⚰️⚰️⚰️ 3) Cujo  It's fine for what it is (a confined psychological horror movie) but nowhere near the bloodbath I want. Dee Wallace is good and and Danny Pintauro is amazing for a kid but I'm not watching a rabid dog movie for the acting. The handful of action scenes are quite good. 🐶🐶 4) God Told Me To  I'm shocked by how good this is. I hate most supernatural detective stories outside of The Omen but this is gripping. The movie lives on Tony Lo Bianco's performance. My only complaint is that I wish the abduction sequence was something more than the composite shot and stock footage. It's not a bad sequence but it doesn't have the guerrilla vibe of Cohen's New York. 🏙️🏙️🏙️🏙️🏙️ 5) Dead Snow  A good time but not really a good movie. This is a fun group watch and has lots of nice gore but the tribute scenes are tiresome and everything between the kills is awful. It's a solid base for a sequel but this one is not a classic. 🧟 🧟 🧟 5/31 Movies 4/10 Decades: '60, '70, '80, '00
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Oct 5, 2019 06:02
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#8: Sliders of Ghost Town: Origins (2016) A very light, fun little documentary about sliding, which if you didn't know, is when Halloween haunt actors put on special gear that lets them slide around while they scare people. The movie goes into detail about how it all started at Knotts Scary Farm and how it's continued to grow and spread ever since. One thing I thought was cool is that even though it's such a big part of official haunts like the one at Knotts, everyone has to make their own gear and they all approach it pretty differently. People will prioritize things like distance, speed, sound, or making sparks, and it seems like people really get into personalizing their approach to it. The doc is mostly talking heads but there are some good anecdotes and they do also show some fun/goofy footage of the actual sliding, including extremely dramatic shots of their off-season practice sessions.  It's a quick watch and it was neat to learn a little about this extremely niche hobby/career. I'm also just kind of delighted that this is as much of a thing as it is. Watched (8/31): #1 Gozu (2003), #2 Spider Baby or, the Maddest Story Ever Told (1967), #3 Viy (1967), #4 Mondo Cane (1962), #5 Dark Water (2002), #6 Blood and Black Lace (1964), #7 Daughters of Darkness (1971), #8 Sliders of Ghost Town: Origins (2016) Challenges (1/1):
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Oct 5, 2019 06:07
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