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Franchescanado posted:SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #3: Horror Noire Here's a great list to pull from: https://letterboxd.com/losman94/list/horror-noire-all-the-movies-mentioned/
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Oct 9, 2019 15:29
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That's a great challenge. Ganja & Hess is a really good one, and I have a soft spot for Def by Temptation too.
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Oct 9, 2019 15:35
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I hope someone watches Bones for the Horror Noire challenge. I've seen it so I can't use it but it's shockingly good.
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Oct 9, 2019 15:35
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Basebf555 posted:I hope someone watches Bones for the Horror Noire challenge. I've seen it so I can't use it but it's shockingly good. that's probably gonna be mine, I've seen almost everything else on the list
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Oct 9, 2019 15:41
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gently caress I really wanted to rewatch NOES3 but then I realized it was only films we haven't seen.
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Oct 9, 2019 15:42
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Jedit posted:How the gently caress can you "mainly know" Brion James from a lovely DTV movie with Marc Singer? It does have a good soundtrack, I'll say that much.
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Oct 9, 2019 16:03
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#13: Hereditary (2018) Ari Aster disturbs me. Seriously. He's kind of a mad genius and is really good at doing what he does, but gently caress me.  So I went into this knowing a couple of things I wish I hadn't, but ultimately it didn't detract from the experience of watching this. After watching "Midsommar" I listened to a ton of podcasts dissecting it and every single one of them brought up the decapitation of Charlie (without spoiler warnings I might add, so gently caress you podcast people) and they drew obvious comparisons to "Hereditary." Both movies share similar themes, especially of loss and the handling of grief, and this is why I was nervous about subjecting myself to this movie. Thankfully, Ari Aster really is a master of his craft, and he handles these things with a kind of reverence and care that I appreciate greatly. Toni Collette is wonderful from start to finish in this thing. Her performance is powerful on so many levels. Her reaction to the death of Charlie was hard to watch, and that kind of pain rings very true in a raw way that you don't often see depicted in film. What I wasn't expecting was Ann Dowd, holy poo poo. I LOVE her. "The Leftovers" is one of my favorite shows of all time, and between that and "The Handmaid's Tale" I know that whenever she is on screen you need to expect amazing performances and hosed up situations. This movie has both. It also shares some of the same discordant string music that pervades "Midsommar," and I'm almost certain that both movies use the same ring tone for cell phones. I don't know why that jumped out at me, it's just a thing I noticed. I'm not even going to go into a breakdown of the plot here, it's just a movie that you need to watch, and preferably with as little knowledge of what you're about to see as possible. It's shocking, it's powerful, and it's scary as gently caress in ways that will probably surprise you. I can't wait to see what Ari Aster comes up with next. 5/5 Watched: Midsommar; One Cut of the Dead; Apostle; Wolf Creek; Lake Mungo; Viy (Challenge #1); Demon Knight; Witchfinder General; Razorback; Joker; A Quiet Place; Spider Baby, or the Maddest Story Ever Told (Challenge #2); Hereditary Total: 13 T3hRen3gade fucked around with this message at 16:12 on Oct 9, 2019 |
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Oct 9, 2019 16:09
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I highly recommend re-watching Hereditary after you have a chance to digest it a bit. There are tons of little details that don't mean anything to you the first time around that really add to the film. One of my favorites - when Annie runs into Joan in the parking lot of the art supply store, in Joan's backseat you can see the little chalkboard she later claims belonged to her grandson, brand new in the package
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Oct 9, 2019 16:13
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 SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #2: Dead & Buried Watch a horror film featuring an actor who has passed away since last October.19. House of 1,000 Corpses (2003)  RIP Sid Haig (1939-2019) I haven’t seen this one in over a decade now and from what I recall: I hated it. I did see it after watching The Devil’s Rejects but even at the time I thought it was sloppy, stupid with poor pacing. I don’t know what changed but I actually really like it this time around. Rob Zombie is a really polarizing director because of his dialogue and pacing issues. I’ve learned to try to enjoy his films as more of a Halloween horror maze than anything. Because of that this one really worked especially with the 70s aesthetics giving it more of a grindhouse kind of feel. So, yeah, just a good fun ride and it’s a shame Captain Spaulding (played by the late Sid Haig) wasn’t in this one more. At least he steals the drat show in The Devil’s Rejects.  /520. The Wolfman (1941)  I’ve been parading around this thread talking about how classic and perfect the Universal monster movies are. Well, I just had to curse it because this one falls a little short. Lon Chaney Jr really does give it his all but this one has been severely outclassed by later werewolf films. It just lacks a lot of the atmosphere, tension, dread or aesthetics that made all the other ones masterpieces. One thing of note, though, is watching these films within such a short span I noticed a huge evolution in the production. Dracula for example was this weird mix of stage theatre and silent film techniques (because it came so early in cinema history) but Wolfman is something that has more focus on conventional Hollywood techniques. /521. Body Bags (1993)  Oh man do I recommend this one. It’s a super shlocky horror anthology (as in lots of over-acting and buckets of splatter gore) of 3 parts. It also has John Carpenter himself playing a character in the wraparound segments to each one. I won’t say anything more because, like horror anthologies in general, sometimes knowing less is more and just having that “WTF?” reaction when you find out what it is about. I will say if anyone here is looking for some good absurd horror with camp and cheese and dark comedy this is for you. Oh, and it has a ton of horror icon cameos all lending their own presence into each part. /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), 13. See No Evil (2006), 14. The Invisible Man (1933), 15. Why Horror? (2014), 16. Bad Moon (1996), 17. Head Count (2018), 18. The Bride of Frankenstein (1935), 19. House of 1000 Corpses, 20. The Wolfman (1941), 21. Body Bags (1993) Super Samhain Challenges: Justin Godscock fucked around with this message at 06:45 on Oct 24, 2019 |
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Oct 9, 2019 16:27
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9. Little Evil dir. Eli Craig 2017 This was fine. It's basically a live action version of that one Treehouse of Horrors where Bart has god like powers ala The Twilight Zone. The humor is pretty good and the movie is fun enough. Craig has a pretty strong hardon for Edgar Wright. A lot of the editing is trying to cop from Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz without the sense of purpose. It's also really fun to see a movie with a trans character who just exists and fills a tropey role (In this case the loud bestfriend) that lets him not be defined by his gender identity. 3/5 Timeless Appeal fucked around with this message at 00:44 on Oct 10, 2019 |
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Oct 9, 2019 16:46
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 49) Piranha - 1995 - Prime There was a stint in the 90s where it was the vogue to remake older films by the people involved with them. It was a mixed bag of quality since some were pretty decent like Earth vs The Spider, and some were pretty crappy like How to Make a Monster. In the case of Piranha, it's practically a redo of the original using new actors with little to no changes. It's pretty much skippable save for it being Mila Kunis' acting debut.  50) Piranha 3D - 2010 - DVD While remakes tend to be divisive in general, I've found this one is strongly in the camp of people either like it or hate it. Aja embraced the essence of 70s era b-movie schlock and put it to a big budget. The gore is good, the camp is high, and the people you want to see come to a bad end get it in full. Definitely one of my faves when it comes to over the top movies.  51) Piranha 3DD - 2012 - DVD Pretty much with this one, they doubled down on the excess from the previous film so if you didn't like Piranha 3D, you probably won't like this one. Plotwise, it takes place a year after the previous film and in the aftermath of the Spring Break Massacre, the lake ended up uninhabitable and the town abandoned as the lake dried up. So, this translates into the neighboring areas lakes and waterparks getting more in demand. Of course since the piranha were living in the underground rivers, they've migrated so we know we're in for more feeding frenzy insanity. We do have some returning characters from the previous films and a David Hasslehoff appearance. The post credit scene always gets a chuckle out of me. Final Thoughts: There's not much one can do with the concept of mutated piranha swimming amok. I'd say this franchise milked it for all it was worth and at this point can call it here unless someone comes up with something really imaginative.
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Oct 9, 2019 17:09
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Dead and Buried I enjoyed the last half more than the first, overall enjoyable. 4/5 Brain Dead 1990- Prime- Gotta love the two Bills. This turned out to be really great, not knowing which is reality and which isn't. Watching this and Magic the other day has me going on a psychosis kick. 4/5
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Oct 9, 2019 17:46
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 12. The Devils (1971, dir. Ken Russell) criterion channel At first watch it's basically a story about organized religion as an outlet for the cruelty of man. Kind of simple really, and well-tread territory, but Russell's overwhelming style makes it feel transcendental. With everything cranked up to 11 it's impossible to look away, completely engrossing. 5/5  13. Screamers (1995, dir. Christian Duguay) A very mid-90s sci-fi/horror. It's got robot-graboids with blades and is mostly generic and predictable. Not offensively bad or anything, if you're in the mood for something like this you could do worse. Or better. It's just completely forgettable except one scene where they flamethrower an army of killer child androids. 2/5  14. One Cut of the Dead (2017, dir. Shinichiro Ueda) shudder Add me to the list of posters recommending going blind into this one. I wasn't sure about it for the first half, but it's good and very charming. 4/5 Watched (14): 36.15 code Père Noël | Tetsuo II: Body Hammer | Devil Fetus | The Wolf Man | Don't Torture a Duckling | Prime Evil | Lurkers | The Exorcist III | Dracula | Trouble Every Day | Creature from the Black Lagoon | The Devils | Screamers | One Cut of the Dead
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Oct 9, 2019 17:48
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Justin Godscock posted:
I think I was only dimly aware this film even existed and watched it due to recommendations here. It's good, and I really really enjoyed Carpenter hamming it up as the host/cryptkeeper type character, he really seems to be enjoying himself. The middle story about Stacy Keach being obsessed over becoming bald (but with a cool plot resolution) dragged on a bit for my tastes but I really liked the first and third stories. The first one really captures the vibe of working a lonely graveyard shift job (in this case being a cashier at a gas station) and the random people that pass through, and the last one with Mark Hamill as a baseball player who gets a transplanted eye after a car accident goes exactly where you'd figure a story like that will go and it's a fun ride all the way.
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Oct 9, 2019 18:06
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Gotta get working on those challenges soon, but for now... #12: Adventures of Electric Rod Boy A.K.A. The Adventure of Denchu Kozo (1987)  A boy with an electricity pole growing out of his back goes forward in time to light the future and save everyone from the cyber-goth vampire menace. Written and directed by Shin'ya Tsukamoto, this came out 2 years prior to Tetsuo and if you've ever seen that then you probably have a fairly good idea of what to expect from this. Electric Rod Boy features many of the same sorts of effects, themes, and concepts from Tetsuo, though not quite as refined. There's heavy use of stop motion particularly, and it's just as cool as ever to see these massive, hulking, mechanical golems merge with our flesh and go sliding across the streets. This movie is very claustrophobic. I don't know my lenses, but it's filmed largely in close-up, and the subject of each shot usually takes up the entire screen or even spills out past the borders. There isn't much of a sense of space with the editing either. It's largely not clear where everyone is relative to each other, and characters often slip between locations in the blink of an eye. I don't really mean this as a criticism, though, because I think it contributes to the atmosphere and otherwordly feeling of the vampire-laden technofuture. It's worth noting that there's some psychosexual weirdness with an underage girl being hooked up to a super weapon, but thankfully the actress playing her seems much older than the story describes. If you liked Tetsuo (and I would hope you did), I think this is very much worth seeking out as well. It's rougher, but it's also a short watch and still has plenty of great stuff, particularly in the second half. Watched (12/31): #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), #9 One Cut of the Dead (2017), #10 Possum (2018), #11 EGG. (2005), #12 Adventures of Electric Rod Boy (1987) Challenges (1/3):
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Oct 9, 2019 18:15
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Franchescanado posted:SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #3: Horror Noire  #57) Blackenstein (1973), a.k.a., Blackstein, a.k.a., Black Frankenstein, a.k.a., Return of Blackenstein Found on Youtube. Went into this one hoping it would be as good as the Blacula films, which I love. It wasn't, but it was still interesting, mainly because of the story tying in Vietnam. Eddie is a soldier returned from the war, without his arms and legs. Dr. Winifred Walker is his girlfriend, who can't stand to see him being consumed by despair, and so she contacts a former teacher of hers, the Nobel Prize-winning Dr. Stein (played by John Hart (Day of the Nightmare)), in hopes that he'll be able to restore Eddie to his former abilities. Turns out Dr. Stein's plan to do this is with DNA injections. Yup. Unfortunately, the lab assistant gets jealous and fucks around with the injections, turning Eddie into a murderous, groaning monster who wanders off on a mild rampage. There's no one to match William Marshall's quality of performance as Blacula, and in fact, this is the sole acting credit for both Blackenstein and his girlfriend. The pacing of the movie is stumbly, with long stretches of nothing much happening besides, for example, rummaging around in an office, pouring chemicals, or watching a long-take comedy club performance. I like that they kept the plot point of the assistant being the one to gently caress things up, but I also felt like there could have been tighter thematic scripting. Have the mad doctor be employed by the veterans' hospital, for instance, or have another soldier be the one who has to take down Eddie, instead of the weak, dumb ending that we do get. The monster attacks don't have much going for them, and the movie's over before it really builds up any horror steam. It's much more understandable why this one's been largely forgotten, compared to the Blacula films. Watch those or Dr. Black, Mr. Hyde instead, if you're looking for '70s black community twists on classic horror monsters. Further taking the edge off of the movie, with all of the "No, Eddie, no, Eddie, no!"s and "Stop, Eddie!"s, I couldn't stop thinking of Frasier. rating: 5/10"What the hell did you go for? You didn't have to go. No no no, that old scam, patriotism, huh?"
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Oct 9, 2019 18:17
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 #13. Beyond the Gates (Hulu) A pair of estranged brothers meet up to pack up their missing father's old video rental store. There, they find a mysterious VHS board game, "Beyond the Gates." When they start playing, they get drawn into a deadly game with the mysterious woman on their TV screen... with deadly consequences for people around them. An unfortunate waste of a premise, Beyond the Gates never really does enough interesting stuff with the idea of "haunted board game opens a door to another dimension." That second part is key, because while they DO go through The Gates to see another dimension it's limited to the same living room and basement sets we've seen before, just with spooooooooky 1980s appropriate blue-and-pink lighting. Which is dumb because the film is supposed to be trading on 1990s nostalgia, not 1980s nostalgia, but whatever. Also, they're only in that alternate dimension for all of 5 minutes, just enough time to wander in, stab some zombified versions of unlikable side characters and a dad character we've never really met, okay that's enough go home. God, what a dreary, disappointing ending. Horror Jumanji should be an easy slam dunk, but it can't be made with such a limited budget or limited scope of ideas. I want the idea of parallel evil dimensions or accidentally summoned monsters to be explored and celebrated, not nudged around with the toe of someone's shoe for a minute before moving on to some other talky scene with the boring leads. The film treats its central conceit like an eight year old treats some diverting garbage on the road; something to be poked and prodded at for a minute, but never directly touched. I'm rating this slightly higher than bottom rung because I liked the score and it's always fun to see Barbara Crampton show up, even if she doesn't really get a chance to do anything here. Oh, and one or two of the gore effects are cool, though that aspect is sadly missing from the grand finale. Otherwise, you don't need to bother here. /5Watched so far: The Curse of Frankenstein, Villains, Horror of Dracula, You're Next, House on Haunted Hill (1959), Halloween 4, Army of Darkness, A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), The Fly (1986), Joker, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, Beyond the Gates
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Oct 9, 2019 19:14
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 10. The Ritual (2017) After spending the entire month so far watching 60s-80s horror, I decided to dig into some of the more recent movies on my list. The Ritual follows a group of friends who, while on a hike in the Swedish wilderness, decide to take a shortcut through the forest instead of staying on their established route. A solid backstory helps it rise above that lost-in-the-woods premise, and while the middle could have been tightened a bit, the ending works well. I will say that I wish more of these kinds of movies gave us at least a small glimpse of the aftermath. I left The Ritual wondering if the survivor tells his whole, crazy tale and if so, how it was taken by authorities. That would have taken more time though, and it would have been tricky to keep interesting. The horror elements are exactly what I want out of this kind of story, with a good mix of actual scares and the spooky atmosphere. I liked that even once I thought I had a handle on what was going on, there were still a couple of effective surprises. The biggest weakness, for me, was that the characters felt a bit flat. Considering how small the cast was, I expected a little more on that front. They aren’t badly written; each one has a role in the group and a couple of distinguishing traits. There just wasn’t much depth there beyond their collective trauma. Overall, I’d say I liked this but didn’t love it. 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); 6. The Witches (1966); 7. The Crimson Cult (1968); 8. A Return to Salem’s Lot (1987) - Challenge #2; 9. Next of Kin (1982); 10. The Ritual (2017)
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Oct 9, 2019 19:15
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 #58) Monstrosity (1963), a.k.a., The Atomic Brain Found on Tubi. A black and white sci-fi horror, heavy on narration, with a scientist on retainer to a rich elderly woman, doing experiments with corpses so that she can have a young body in which to continue living. Visibly low-budget, but with enough of a straight face given to its material to lend it some charm. Much less nuttiness than you might expect (if you haven't seen the MST3k version) from a movie in which a cat's brain is transplanted into a human body. The portion focusing on the girls who've been invited to stay with the woman realizing what a bad situation they're in is the most interesting part, and it doesn't last long. There's a little bit of side stuff going on with the titular monstrosity (some other animal's brain in a human body), but the film fairly barrels along through the main line of its story. The sets (especially the science equipment) aren't great, but they do the trick, and the finale set-piece rises to the occasion with lots of sparks and explosions. A better film than its reputation would suggest, but definitely not great. rating: 5/10"Making love to an 80-year-old woman in the body of a 20-year-old girl is insanity."
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Oct 9, 2019 19:22
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10. One Cut of the Dead dir. Shinichirou Ueda 2019 It's a good movie and you should go in blind. What I will say is that it's been very talked up in these parts and I think you should relieve yourself of some of the hype. For me, it started as a very strong movie that got me suspicious and in the end left me smiling. I think going in without expectations is helpful. 4/5
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Oct 9, 2019 19:30
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#6: Alucarda, 1977 Justine, an orphan, is sent to live in a convent, where she befriends Alucarda. After getting separated from their group and encountering a strange man in the forest, their friendship quickly turns much more sinister. I had no idea what this film was going to be when it started up (turns out it’s not about vampires!) and mostly enjoyed it, although they could have cut out about 75% of the screaming and it would have worked even better. One issue that I have with horror films which feature exorcisms is that they often try too hard to ape The Exorcist, but thankfully Alucarda is entirely different. The religious themes were strong, and I enjoyed the juxtaposition of strict, devout, self-flaggelating nuns to the lesbian makeouts and naked dancing offered by the devil. Not a particularly scary movie, but another one I’m glad to have been exposed to due to the Scream Stream! / 5#7: Who Can Kill A Child, 1976  A man and his pregnant wife return to the island where he used to vacation, only to find most of the adults missing, leaving only strange, quiet children on the island. I had seen trailers for this film before, so I knew the general plot of this movie, but was NOT prepared for the opening shots of horrific war footage. It left a bad taste in my mouth, and made it much harder to enjoy the real plot line of the movie, which maybe was the intention. I like the idea of a film that tries to indict its audience for their desire for violence, but if that’s what the director was going for here, it falls flat. The pacing was slow, and the trope of a husband not telling his wife what he sees, or what’s going on until it’s too late is a huge pet peeve of mine, and made the movie more frustrating to watch. Two frowning jack-o-lanterns / 5 for the war crimes. #8: Seventh Curse, 1986  Summary not found I was pretty inebriated by the time this movie started, but turns out I didn’t need to be, as this movie was weird and disorienting enough on its own. I remember the shaman(?) character’s green, glowing fetus creature flinging itself at people, and a monster reminiscent of the Crypt Keeper, but that’s about it. Definitely an enjoyable watch with the Scream Stream! / 5
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Oct 9, 2019 19:47
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 #59) Terror Circus (1974), a.k.a., Nightmare Circus, a.k.a., Caged Woman II, a.k.a., Barn of the Naked Dead If the poster with the last of those title variations hadn't caught my eye, I'm sure I wouldn't have watched this. I'm glad it did, since this turned out to be a creepy little psychodrama exploitation flick, with a loving sweet soul-funk opening song. There's a little bit of a Hills Have Eyes set-up, with some friends driving to Vegas, their car breaking down in the desert, and a demented 'family' unit finding them. There's some radiation horror and military complicity for the damaged mentalities in the mix, too. I wonder if Craven was a fan. Turns out the villain, Andre, has a whole barn of abducted women, whom he forces to act out circus-like performances for his enjoyment, with extensive use of a whip for coercion. He also has a mountain lion and a ringmaster's outfit, so it's not entirely internalized circus trappings. Part of the horror is from the incarceration, part of it from how the women who've been there longer are breaking down, and part from Andre's unpredictable derangement. A good chunk of the movie is devoted to their agent searching up and down the highway for them, while the women try to survive. The tension is well-managed, but for the most part, the women are written as thoroughly passive, just hoping for someone to come along and rescue them. Even so, the men are near-useless, and it's largely happenstance that things end the way they do. Something of a gem in the rough, and if the script had been tightened up just a little more, I'd be rating it higher. Some very unpleasant desert-set griminess. rating: 6/10"You'll be my reptile lady."
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Oct 9, 2019 20:53
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https://twitter.com/KennethJWaste2/status/1181753221263564800?s=20
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Oct 9, 2019 21:51
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 #60) The Initiation (1984) Another Tubi pick driven by the strength of its poster. This turned out to have a lot more layers than I expected. Kelly is a sorority member who's been having the same nightmare since she developed amnesia at the age of nine, and with a professor who specializes in dream analysis, she's hoping to figure out what it means. Beyond the imagery that occurs whenever they delve into Kelly's dreams, which are nice and hazy and fire-filled, there's someone stalking students and doing violent crimes on campus, and with the sororities starting up the pledging processes, the possible suspects are endless. Then there's Kelly's family issues, which may be the real root of her amnesia, while her relationship with her professor (James Read, looking like a brunette James Spader) gets quite unprofessional. One of the things I liked best about the character of Kelly (who's played by Daphne Zuniga, Princess Vespa from Spaceballs) is that she has a normal life, and it's only when we brush against her dreams and lost memories that she shows her troubled side. When she's hanging out with her friends, she's able to put that trauma aside. Too bad she keeps getting reminders. On the downside, the second half of the movie is spent in a mall, and with all the good mall horror that's out there, it was hard for me to shut off hopes that a zombie or killer robot would stumble out and liven things up. It's not that kind of movie, though, and instead we get some cat-and-mouse games that, if they weren't shot so well, would be even more tedious than they already are. This section of the film really kills the momentum of the psyche side of the narrative, and while the students, both male and female, are given more dimensions than usual for this time in the slasher genre, the scenes of them sitting around drinking and joking don't do much to advance the interesting part of the story. The gore appears sparingly, but the effects are good when it does. I dunno, by the end of it, my expectations were scrambled. I went in thinking I'd be getting a Satanic campus cult story, based on the poster, and then the early part of the movie sets up a really interesting story that just sputters away as the movie twists into underbaked slasher territory. And then the big twist was absolute bullshit. As frustrating as that was, the script is the only part I took issue with. The performances are solid, all the sides of the cinematography are nicely handled, the fashion is on-point, and the score, while generic, does a fair job with its synth stings and warbling drones. The writer (Charles Pratt, Jr., who went on to have dozens of writing credits for shows like Melrose Place and General Hospital) just didn't seem to have any interest in pursuing the one part of the story that I found intriguing. I can't even say that this would benefit from a remake, since they'd have to diverge so far from the original that they might as well just make it its own thing at that point. Unsatisfying, but nice to look at. rating: 6/10"I do wish you had told me about the suppressed-desire business, though."
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Oct 9, 2019 22:39
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gey muckle mowser posted:14. Uninvited (1988) Man, are they ever. I'd say the ending rivals the most amazing scenes that the likes of Troll 2 can offer.
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Oct 9, 2019 22:51
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7. The Lair of the White Worm A very Irish/Scottish group of people and Hugh Grant must battle a sizzingly hot snake woman who feeds her victims to her snake god. Went in knowing nothing about the movie or the genius director Ken Russell, so I thought this was going to be some rather bland 70s Hammer horror throwback. I was so wrong! Made in 88 and sporting an exceptional cast of weird looking character actors plus Hugh Grant somehow, this is a joy to watch. It’s gleefully nuts, very horny, funny and charming. The movie takes delight in how many things can be made to look like the white worm, and it really gets quite creative with it. The occasional visions suffered by the main character (see picture) are also a hoot and look completely unlike the rest of the movie. Highly recommended! 8. Gothic  Another Ken Russell movie, based on a true story. Lord Byron, Mary Shelley, J.W Polidori and some other folks go on a drug bender and conjure up an entity during a dark and stormy night. This one is very different from Lair of the White worm, at least initially very subdued in the actual horror (a far cry from the crazy previous movie) but the acting is turned up to expressionistic levels. The intensity slowly ramps up as everyone gets more deranged and ends up in quite a finale. Also recommened! 9. All The Colors Of The Dark Samhain Challenge: Dead And Buried My man Sergio Martino directs a solid-rear end giallo that delivers on all fronts, from the funky soundtrack to the neat cinematography, sleazy murders and intriguing mystery. What makes this one stand out among the many giallos I’ve seen is that there a couple scenes that are actually genuinely intense and scary, which I consider a rarity for the genre. The ending is also quite funny with the protagonist’s husband who is portrayed as sort of a loser all throughout the movie beasting on the entire witch coven and basically single handedly resolving the entire movie through the power of most manly murder. Another recommendation! Watched: 1. Children of the Corn, 2. Night of the Comet, 3. The Ruins, 4. Butterfly Murders, 5. Boxer's Omen, 6. Corpse Mania, 7. Lair of the White Worm, 8. Gothic, 9. All The Colours of the Dark
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Oct 9, 2019 23:10
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Franchescanado posted:SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #3: Horror Noire  52) Son of Ingagi - 1940 - Youtube For the record, I was seriously sweating this one since I was dreading what do I do if I've seen everything in the horror genre that fits the criteria. Thankfully, I found this. I went in expecting the standard Mad Scientist film of the era, but ended up a film that was anything but. It starts with the wedding of Bob and Eleanor. Everything looks fine though we know something's going to be up with the one wedding guest who attended dressed like she was going to a funeral. The guest in question is Dr. Jackson, a well respected and wealthy scientist who's returned from a lengthy trip to Africa. Turns out the doctor was in love with Eleanor's father and she left for Africa the day he married someone else. Throw in her sudden having her Will drawn up and we know it's a matter of time before poo poo happens. We don't have to wait long as we learn that Dr. Jackson not only hid the gold she brought back from Africa (private ownership was illegal at the time), she also brought back N'Gina. We're not really sure who or what N'Gina is, other than 'from Africa'. While the title could hint at the earlier film Ingagi with its gorilla/human interspecies erotica, the lack of exposition that would be a given for the era makes it more likely that the title's just an attempt to draw from another film's success/audience like others we've seen in the franchises I've written about. N'Gina seems no different than any of the other ape people we see in the Mad Scientist genre at the time. As Dr. Jackson is in her basement lab, she makes a potion that she says is the greatest discovery for humanity. We never quite find out what it is as while she's documenting her notes, N'Gina drinks the vial and goes on a rampage, killing the doctor. The story doesn't end there and I don't want to spoil the entire thing for anyone who wants to watch this. The movie's pretty good considering the era and it makes me want to track down the original story badly. This one's very worth sitting through as a piece of film history as well as something more meaty in the Mad Scientist genre.  Franchise: Prom Night It's not really surprising that Prom Night would get a franchise considering how much of a cultural marker prom is.  53) Prom Night - 1980 - TubiTV This film's pretty much an unremarkable bog standard slasher of the era, though it is nice seeing Leslie Nielsen in a non-comedy role. I first saw it at the show in a double feature with Phantasm. At the time of it's release, it got hammered by the critics, once again proving critics just don't get it. It drew comparisons to Halloween (expected) and Carrie (bzuh?) and seems most of the antipathy came more from the ad campaign than from the film itself which is pretty tame as far as slasher films go. Overall, it's a fine addition to a slasher marathon.
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Oct 9, 2019 23:59
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Of the two horror movies that Jamie Lee Curtis did in 1980, I prefer Terror Train. Whereas Prom Night just kinda blends in with other slashers being made during those years, Terror Train is pretty unique and is definitely more interesting.
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Oct 10, 2019 00:04
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#18: Graveyard Shift There's a monster in the paper mill. A monster called unsafe working conditions! Bra Dourif is in it! He plays an exterminator that's... racist against rats? It's a weird character, but Dourif is fantastic. Even the character has no effect on the plot. Seriously, you could cut out all his scenes and show it to someone who hadn't seen the movie before, and I don't think they would notice that there was anything missing. The real problem is the non-Dourif characters. There are six major characters. The lead is a complete loving flatline, both in writing and acting. The love interest is actually pretty well written and acted, but she doesn't do anything. The four remaining characters are a supervisor rear end in a top hat, an rear end in a top hat, a fat rear end in a top hat, and a guy. The movie picks up a lot in the last third, but it's spent the whole first hour making me not really give a poo poo if these people live or die. The last third is pretty good though. It's a big haunted house style sequence. People fall through the floor, there's a pile of bones, there's skeletons and coffins and rats, it's all great. And the giant rat monster is great. Quality giant rat monster puppet. It's just a shame you have to wait so long to get there and go through it with such lovely characters. Graveyard Shift has it's moments and quality Dourif, but overall isn't worth it.
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Oct 10, 2019 00:14
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 #61) Sweet Sixteen (1983) Another Tubi pull based on the poster, though you have to enter it as "Sweet 16" in the search bar to get this instead of a 2003 crime drama. Uh, this is about Melissa, a fifteen-year-old girl who likes to go out drinking and flirting with older boys in her new town. And they start turning up dead. She gets a pop ballad centered around repeating her name. I wish I could say Patrick Macnee was slumming it by playing Joanne's father, but he was in all three Thunder in Paradise movies, so... Anyway, that's pretty much the whole of the story, aside from an under-current of racism against American natives. It's a lackluster slasher, without enough humor or violence to make it noteworthy. Melissa's actress was twenty when this film was made, which reduces the skeeviness, but also takes the usual 'adults playing high-schoolers' unbelievability and pushes it further. There's a little bit of whodunnit structuring to the story, but it plays by the mystery rules about as firmly as the original Friday the 13th. Outside of the teenager conversations, and the bar scuffle towards the start, this was boring. A lot of police-work chasing empty leads without tension, an unobtrusive but unexciting score, small town interactions that flesh out the setting a bit but don't go anywhere... This was the first movie this month to make me start feeling drowsy. Everything was fine on the presentation fronts, it was just... so bland. What a waste of a cool poster. rating: 5/10"Might be able to score some herb." "Herb?" "You know, smoke?" "You mean grass?" "Yeah." Darthemed fucked around with this message at 03:13 on Oct 30, 2019 |
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Oct 10, 2019 00:15
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Oh yeah, Graveyard Shift also has another weird thing. The rear end in a top hat supervisor has a very strange accent. An accent I've only ever heard one place. It's the same accent that the old guy in Pet Sematary has. I guess that's just a Steven King adaptation accent
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Oct 10, 2019 00:17
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Gripweed posted:Oh yeah, Graveyard Shift also has another weird thing. The rear end in a top hat supervisor has a very strange accent. An accent I've only ever heard one place. It's the same accent that the old guy in Pet Sematary has. I guess that's just a Steven King adaptation accent It's the Maine accent.
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Oct 10, 2019 00:25
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16. Prince of Darkness (1987) Watched On: AMC, Then A Reluctant Amazon Rental SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #2: Dead & Buried (Jessie Lawrence Ferguson 1942-2019) Now this is the kind of poo poo I was looking for by exploring Carpenter's back catalog. Where In The Mouth Of Madness dips in the middle, this one stays strong the whole way through. This movie reminded me of a classic Call of Cthulhu scenario: a broad group of curious investigators brought into an environment where the inexplicable is occurring. Donald Pleasance is in Serious Mode in this movie as the priest and, as a huge fan of Big Trouble In Little China, it was great to see Victor Wong and Dennis Dun in prominent roles here. Special credit has to go to Jessie Lawrence Ferguson for his strong portrayal of Calder, the seminary student in over his head. I won't be forgetting him walking up the stairs belting out Amazing Grace, then slicing open his own throat in front of his colleagues for a while. Though I expected some horror, I definitely wasn't expecting the existential dread with which Prince of Darkness really makes its mark. There's a lot about the nature of evil at the center of this movie, whether it's innate in the human soul or something put there by outside forces. I loved the simple ways that the giant swirling mass of evil manifested itself in simple, but effective ways. Insects crawling through electronics, crucified pigeons, worms sticking to walls and the green ooze dripping upwards out of its tank to form pools on the ceiling all got to me. But the creepiest thing was the photonic dream broadcast from the future, especially how it played out after the film's climax. All in all, I highly recommend this one.
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Oct 10, 2019 00:27
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I feel like movies where a woman is an object on the poster should be a challenge because there is a lot of that on this page.
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Oct 10, 2019 00:43
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I don't know why Prince of Darkness doesn't get more love. It's one of my favorite Carpenter movies, it's just such a bonkers concept and a really solid film
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Oct 10, 2019 00:55
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Retro Futurist posted:I don't know why Prince of Darkness doesn't get more love. It's one of my favorite Carpenter movies, it's just such a bonkers concept and a really solid film I think Carpenter has made technically better films (Halloween and The Thing to name two), but Prince of Darkness is easily my all-time favorite of his and one of my top-five horror films. It suffers because the characters aren't as strong as in his other films, it's a super slow burn, and the "bonkers concept" is a little too much for some (all the quantum science stuff is in there because Carpenter just thought it was cool), but as mentioned above, if you can get into it, the dread the film creates is second to none - it really nails the feeling of a "waking nightmare."
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Oct 10, 2019 01:10
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Let's all take a ride on Clive Barker and Ryuhei Kitamura's 12.) Midnight Meat Train  2008, rewatch, Amazon Prime A struggling photographer with an ambitious artistic obsession finds himself drawn below the skin of the city. As with the condos in Candyman, a thin veneer papers over the occult world "beneath" the city (one character remarks on how safe and sanitized the train has become - seconds before it becomes an abattoir.) There's a nice echo of this - the notion that the clinical and clean papers over the gnarly and raw - in a later sequence in which Mahogany (Jones) opens up his pristine, professional-looking shirt and reveals a nest of pustules and boils underneath. Things, sadly, never come all the way together. There's some dud scenes, and sometimes it seems to experiment with a visual motif or style just to set it aside. The more rambunctious CG gore effects undermine their scenes - they're not raw and organic enough. The story's proposing an intensely physical and intimate process, so I think it should strive to be as tangible as possible. Compare the comical exploding eyeball to the deliberate and close-in butchery later on, for instance. And I've got no loving clue why anyone thought this story needed fight scenes in it. Please step away from the meat. Watched: 1.) Cabinet of Dr. Caligari [Classics], 2.) Occult [J- and K-horror], 3.) Son of Frankenstein [Threequels, Samhain Challenge #1], 4.) Game Over [India] 5.) Candyman [Clive Barker], 6.) Knife + Heart [New Releases], 7.) Butterfly Murders, 8.) The Phantom of the Opera (1925) [Classics], 9.) One Cut of the Dead [J- and K-Horror], 10.) Hatchet III [Threequels, Samhain Challenge #2], 11.) Neighbours: They Are Vampires [India], 12.) Midnight Meat Train [Clive Barker]
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Oct 10, 2019 01:20
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Bruteman posted:I think Carpenter has made technically better films (Halloween and The Thing to name two), but Prince of Darkness is easily my all-time favorite of his and one of my top-five horror films. It suffers because the characters aren't as strong as in his other films, it's a super slow burn, and the "bonkers concept" is a little too much for some (all the quantum science stuff is in there because Carpenter just thought it was cool), but as mentioned above, if you can get into it, the dread the film creates is second to none - it really nails the feeling of a "waking nightmare." You make a good point with the characters. Not having Kurt Russell probably hurt it more than anything
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Oct 10, 2019 01:27
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It was also a great pairing with Hell House LLC because both of those movies nail the “something is intensely wrong here” mood.
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Oct 10, 2019 01:33
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October 9 - Unfriended https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lgj4GjqCFlY I'm entering the doldrums of the month which makes it the perfect time to try to flush the movies I'm anticipating being the worst ones in my box set viewing. For the Blumhouse set, that means Unfriended, another movie in the "evil Internet" subgenre that had a short boom about five years ago. Of course, the horrors of evil social media is the world we're now living in and ghosts popping up through crappy internet streams to kill teens through found psuedo-footage is a much more cheerful reality. Last year, someone posted a video of teen girl titled "KILL URSELF" to YouTube and then she committed suicide. Now a bunch of teens are chatting on Skype and a mysterious person joins their call that can control their technology and has a connection to the dead girl. You know how in bad horror movie you have people stick around in the haunted house or whatever long past the point where any sane person would have just gotten in their car and driven away? This movie is all about that, except it's the Internet. If you're being cyberbullied by a ghost, maybe turn off the computer and walk away. Okay, eventually the ghost starts killing people who try to log off, but really these people should have walked away long before it got to that point. This is effectively a found footage movie where we spend the entire movie staring a computer screen. And just like looking over someone's shoulder as they use their computer, it's infuriating how they're using it. They seem to be on dial-up half the time, basically when the movie wants to drag something out. There's a real question of whose screen we're watching. It's definitely supposed to be a certain character, but her audio drops out randomly and if we have her perspective it should be constant. In terms of plot, these are some of the shittiest teens I've seen in a movie. Horrible people all around and not in the "enjoyable villain" sense or even the "and now they get to die in a gruesome way and I'll enjoy it" way. They're lovely in the way that everyday lovely people are and that just makes me want to not be around them. There's room to tell a story here about bad online behavior and instant backlash, but it's badly undermined by the horrible act that triggered this was a video of a girl who had gotten drunk and shat her pants. That's in spoiler because that's a big reveal about 80% of the way through the movie. The horrible thing that was done, the thing that made the Internet call for a teen girl's death, was probably the most boring thing possible. I see worse things than that opening my news feed and forget about them within six hours. Unfriended was annoying to watch because of the format, unpleasant to watch because of the characters, and in the end there wasn't anything there. If it wasn't for the fact that one of the box sets I'm working through is one of those where they slap whatever's cheap on some disks, it would be a good contender for the worst movie I'm going to watch this month.
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Oct 10, 2019 02:24
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