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CREATURE FEATURE BATTLE ROYALE Triffids vs. the Vines of 'The Ruins' – *** # 12 THE DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS (1962)  I had to give myself time to get over the silly premise that a meteor shower has blinded all of Europe, with few exceptions. One such exception is our hero, a British military man who had his eyes operated on and bandaged up during the night of the meteors. He is able to witness the chaos unfolding across the continent, which more or less involves British actors pretending to be blind and some adorable set pieces and matte paintings indicating widespread destruction. Oh, and if the blindness epidemic wasn’t enough of a problem, plant monsters known as triffids have come down to Earth as well. They reproduce rapidly through spores in the air, vary in size and appearance, are intelligent, and are keen on terrorizing humanity. To the detriment of pacing and suspense, however, they move very slowly – they are plants, after all. This is a fun creature feature that benefits from being a non-U.S. production, which makes it culturally distinctive from your standard monster B-movie of the era. The characters are likeable. The military man travels Europe and eventually adopts an orphan girl and a lonely socialite, forming a family. They band together and try to discover the weakness of the triffids. In one memorable scene, drunkards take over a home and force women to dance and drink with them, an apocalyptic frenzy. Our hero, seeing the triffids approaching the home, decides that it is time to go, and does not bother to inform these people. Too bad for the women. The weakness of the triffids ends up being salt water. They picked the wrong planet to visit. SCORE: 6.1 /10 *** # 13 THE RUINS (2008)  Now we’ve got a different plant monster movie in a whole different decade - a jarring switch! Instead of the wholesome main characters in The Day of the Triffids, this movie opens with college kids vacationing in Mexico. They lounge around by the pool drinking margaritas. Deciding that it is time for “some culture”, they hook up with a random German guy they spoke to for two minutes and decide to visit mysterious, non-touristy Mayan ruins. As an avid hiker I’m a bit annoyed by their logistics of navigating the jungle with a very undetailed map. Do they not know how easy it is to get lost in the jungle without a trail? Also, they took a taxi to an obscure spot in the jungle, how are they going to get back? Why are the girls wearing flip flops? Miraculously, they arrive to the ruins. They also get trapped on them because local Mayan descendents will not allow them to leave after coming in contact with vines. Uh oh. The stupid decisions exponentially increase. The German guy lowers himself down a pit - on a bad rope! - after hearing a cell phone ringing at the bottom. The rope breaks and he falls, breaking his back. The girls go down too, finally using a makeshift platform to raise him up. The vine monsters barely get screentime. I do love the idea of the vines replicating noises it hears to lure people to their demise. That’s right, the cell phone ringing was not a cell phone, it was the vines! The vines also mock the kids by mimicking their screams. Hey, that’s creepy! Unfortunately the conclusion of this movie is abrupt and disappointing. Most of the horror comes from the vines entering people’s bodies and them needing to dig it out. Lots of gross-out body mutilation in this movie, which isn’t my cup of tea, especially in a creature feature. SCORE: 5.6 /10 *** So let’s say triffid spores populate the Mayan ruins and a conflict ensues. I’m leaning toward the triffids on this one. Their numbers are immense and they seem immune to most things. It is not clear if the vines’ ability to burrow inside its prey would be an advantage, however. Hmm… By all accounts the triffids are immortal other than salt water, which the vines do not have handy. Winner: the triffids, both the movie and the monsters.
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Oct 11, 2019 19:55
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Mokelumne Trekka posted:The weakness of the triffids ends up being salt water. They picked the wrong planet to visit. That's not in the book. In the novel I don't even think it's ever established whether the Triffids are alien or earth plants. They're found somewhere and people start growing them for their oil. That's how they manage to get everywhere so fast, after people go blind the Triffids break out of the greenhouses where they were being cultivated. The book doesn't end with them being defeated, but people moving towards figuring out how to have civilization in the world where most people are blind and there are murderous plants everywhere. But I guess that's not a very satisfactory ending for a movie
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Oct 11, 2019 20:02
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Gripweed posted:But despite the seriousness of the situation, with the ghost and the murder and the secret past and the evil lesbian therapist, it all felt rather light and airy to me. I don't really know if that kind of tone situation worked for me to be honest. I looked up info on the movie after I watched it and it's been on multiple "scariest horror movie" lists and I just don't understand that. "Scariest movie I ever saw!" - a 90 year old grandma who has never watched a movie that wasn't about a talking dog, probably
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Oct 11, 2019 20:05
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 #73) Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966), a.k.a., Disciple of Dracula, a.k.a., Revenge of Dracula, a.k.a., The Bloody Scream of Dracula, a.k.a., Dracula 3 Another Hammer, this time back in line with their more typical vampire treatments, right down to a warning to 'Stay away from the castle!'. The two vacationing couples of protagonists ignore that warning, of course, and pay the price. I kvetched about how the main antagonist of Blood of the Vampire didn't appear until a third of the way through the movie, but in this, Christopher Lee is absent until halfway through, and his resurrection makes that delayed gratification all the sweeter. Part of it is how much more of a charismatic presence he has, but there's also the build-up and atmosphere of foreboding that permeates everything. The villagers are warning them, the supernatural occurrences are portioned out neatly, and the increasing sense of isolation for our  rating: 7/10"Fortunately, my calling still allows me the luxury of a warm posterior."
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Oct 11, 2019 20:06
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Gripweed posted:That's not in the book. In the novel I don't even think it's ever established whether the Triffids are alien or earth plants. They're found somewhere and people start growing them for their oil. That's how they manage to get everywhere so fast, after people go blind the Triffids break out of the greenhouses where they were being cultivated. The book doesn't end with them being defeated, but people moving towards figuring out how to have civilization in the world where most people are blind and there are murderous plants everywhere. But I guess that's not a very satisfactory ending for a movie I did some reading about the book and I must say it sounds pretty cool. A lot of stuff probably works better in it.
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Oct 11, 2019 20:09
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Mokelumne Trekka posted:I did some reading about the book and I must say it sounds pretty cool. A lot of stuff probably works better in it. Yeah I watched a bit of the TV show, and judging from what you've said of the movie, I'm not sure it's the sort of thing that works outside of the book format. It has to tell you so much about the Triffids and get you used to the idea of there being fields of walking plants in England before the story proper starts and the people go blind.
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Oct 11, 2019 20:18
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The book owns, if you like classic sci-fi it's a great one. It's basically a zombie apocalypse story about people trying to adapt and survive, but since zombies weren't a thing yet, it's killer plants instead.
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Oct 11, 2019 20:24
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2. Dead Don't Don't Die - Don't Watch
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Oct 11, 2019 20:24
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 #14. Rodan (1956) (Starz) A series of earthquakes in Japan awakens a horde of man-sized insects, and a giant Pteranodon monster named Rodan. A large cast of characters - including miners, scientists and the military - try to combat these new monsters. Rodan is less impressive than Godzilla - he's not symbolic, so he's not iconic, and vice versa; so it goes with the movies as well. Rodan, as a standalone movie, is a lot less impressive than the original 1954 Godzilla, even if it was the first Toho kaiju movie filmed in color. Rodan's problem is that he is less tactile than Godzilla, less hands-on - he tends to either just fly overhead, letting his slipstream wreak havoc below, or just stand around beating his wings, letting the winds he kicks up blow everything away. So there's a lot less simple monster movie pleasure to watching Rodan. There's almost never a moment where a guy in giant rubber suit directly interacts with the model buildings, and you don't get that many instances of those models collapsing and falling over. It's a kaiju movie where you don't get the principal pleasure of a kaiju movie - a big old monster laying waste to his surroundings. All the rest of the non-monster stuff is boring. The cast is overlarge and there's too many plots and subplots going on to care about. There's also no real need to introduce the Meganulon bug monsters into the story, since they just straight up vanish once Rodan finally starts appearing on his own. It's an odd time sink in a film that already takes way too long to get to the fireworks (which end too soon after Rodan finally appears). Oh, and speaking of Rodan appearing, the surprise reveal of a second Rodan seems to come out of nowhere, and never really gets addressed in the film proper. Killing off two is never treated as a more difficult prospect than killing one, and they're both dispatched soon after the second one first appears anyway. Seems like a waste to introduce a second antagonist and kill it off immediately. Oh, and the sound design in this movie is terrible. The bug monsters are always chittering, there's a high-pitched jet whine that plays whenever Rodan is flying (and he is pretty much always flying), and the ending (where they decide to get a volcano to erupt over the Rodans' heads, pretty much out of the blue) involves something like 3 straight minutes of missiles exploding on a mountainside, with the same sound effect being used like 2-3 dozen times in a row. I hated listening to this film almost as much as I was bored watching it. If you feel the need to watch a giant kaiju movie this Halloween season, you can do a lot better than this one.  /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, The First Purge, Rodan
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Oct 11, 2019 20:37
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Mokelumne Trekka posted:I did some reading about the book and I must say it sounds pretty cool. A lot of stuff probably works better in it. It's one of my favourite sci-fi books and I'm sad that there will never be a great adaptation of it because the perfect intro scene was already used for 28 days later.
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Oct 11, 2019 20:49
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10) One Cut of the Dead (2017) I don't think this was worth half the praise other goons have been giving it, but it would have been worth none of it if I'd not gone in blind as recommended. So: no more from me.
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Oct 11, 2019 21:51
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14) Little Monsters (2019) I was pretty annoyed by the main character for the first ~45 minutes of the movie, he just comes off as such an unlikable rear end in a top hat. The movie really picks up when the zombies finally appear, Lupita Nyong’o is amazing, Josh Gad is pretty entertaining and the kids are pretty great too. It has a few great jokes but in the end I hated Dave too much to really love the movie, the obvious third act redemption story did nothing to change that. Still a fun movie. 3/5 15) SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #3: Horror Noire: Tales from the Hood (1995) Based on the poster I expected some super stupid low tier trash. Well that was a mistake, TftH is one of the best anthology movies I have seen so far and I love how much it focuses on social commentary without ever sacrificing the "fun" horror elements. It has some dodgy CGI but the rest of the movie is pretty solid from a technical perspective. The heroin-needle Jesus at the beginning of the movie really set the tone. 4/5
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Oct 11, 2019 23:30
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SAMHEIM CHALLENGE Uncle Walrus' 3 Sentence Horror Review 6. Witchfinder General 1968  Tigon studios, you were a candle in the wind next to your more well-known cousin Hammer Horror. Vincent Prices gives maybe his best villian role in a character thats backed by both state and church in the atrocities he commits on the peasantry. Very anti-establishment, very cool, we get a 17th-century knight errant tale with some very satisfying torture scenes and gore. 7. Bone Tomahawk 2015  The western genre has always been kind to Kurt Russel, this film continues that fine tradition and drip a bloody toe into horror with amazing results. The character chemistry is on-point, the two hour runtime feels like a breeze and at the end you're left wanting more cowboy banter of all things. Detail dense and very re-watchable, the only shame is that the director has drank deep the right-wing koolaid and we likely won't see more from him. 8. Daughters of Darkness 1971  The spiritual precursor to The Hunger, this film was a little slower and clothed than I wanted it to be. Lesbianism, oral sex and general lewdness was in it's spooky infancy during this stage, but I'm given the general sense this film doesn't push the envelope too far. That said, stories about Elizabeth Bathory are in short supply so I'll take what I can get.
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Oct 11, 2019 23:36
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14.) The Taking of Deborah Logan 2014, first watch, Shudder via Prime This has been sitting on my queue for a while and it was a free space day, so here we go. Taking of Deborah Logan starts in the fruitful territory of rooting the unease and discomfort in the all-too-familiar realm of an elderly relative's slow collapse. Deb's "understandable" frightful episodes and explicably inexplicable behavior provide cover for the fact that she is, in fact, no longer herself. This is the real meat of the premise, and things go off the rails once the unnatural source of her outbursts becomes the focus. There's a fair amount of wheel-spinning in the runtime, with some of the events getting repetitive. I've often felt that a good chunk of horror media consists of someone arriving at one striking or nightmarish image and trying to backfill to create the setting and story to frame it properly. It's not a problem, but it's how you arrive at so many things with one gnarly or impactful sequence surrounded by a lot of foam packing peanuts. The unhinged jaw from the finale is that sort of thing, a high point which makes Taking's final act memorable despite being a fairly stock running-and-flashlight-failure found footage sequence. How do fight your way through something you can't see or know? 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], 13.) Us [New Releases, Samhain Challenge #3], 14.) The Taking of Deborah Logan
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Oct 11, 2019 23:42
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Went ahead and accidentally did a Satanic batch of rentals from Beyond Video with Prime Evil, The Devil's Rain, and Motel Hell (I know this one's not actually a hell movie, but whatever). I'll be spreading them out through the stuff I've already got on my backlog. 18. Prime Evil (1988) Dir: Roberta Findlay (DVD rental via Beyond Video) This starts out really strong, but I don't think it goes quite far enough to be memorable. There's an interesting subtext where the leaders of the secretive Satanic cult (including the protagonist's father) are mostly affluential old white men who look and feel like they stepped off the set of the 700 Club, but I just wish it was pushed much further and made more a part of the text. Enjoyable enough schlock with some real untapped potential. Really neat Satan puppet at the end, though! It also takes place around Christmas, so I guess it counts as part of the Christmas horror canon! I've been told Roberta Findlay has some other movies worth watching. The Vinegar Syndrome DVD (they were out of the Blu) I rented also comes with Lurkers, so I may put that one on the backburner. Watched: 1. Candyman 2. The Wailing 3. Spookies 4. One Cut of the Dead 5. Viy 6. The Driller Killer 7. Tammy and the T-Rex 8. Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives 9. Scary Movie 10. Ice Cream Man 11. Freaks 12. The Hills Have Eyes 13. Spider Baby 14. Lady Terminator 15. All The Colors of the Dark 16. Tales From The Hood 17. Man Bites Dog 18. Prime Evil Friends Are Evil fucked around with this message at 01:13 on Oct 12, 2019 |
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Oct 12, 2019 01:06
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15)Freaks Criterion Channel  It's not really a horror movie, though it does have a lot in common with Tales from the Crypt Ironic morality tales. It's relatively non-exploitative especially considering the time.n The ending scene is tense and atmospheric, and I have to wonder if it was an influence on the T.Rex scene in Jurassic Park. /5
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Oct 12, 2019 01:42
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#22: Venom Venom kicks rear end. Tom Hardy is great. I love the arc that Brock goes through. Usually with superhero movies the low point for the hero is that they're basically the same but a bit sad. Eddie Brock goes from confident super cool motorcycle dude to depressed Woody Allen. He plays a good straight man to the Symbiote. The little girl Species is here! Once again(albeit briefly) playing a combination of human and alien. The action is fun and uses the symbiote concept well. I especially liked how goopy the final fight got at parts. And it even ends with a rap song summing up the events of the movie. How can you not love it? Strong recommend Venom. It kicks rear end
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Oct 12, 2019 02:03
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18. Tales From The Crypt Presents: Demon Knight Watched On: Vudu Rental SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #3: Watch a film mentioned in Horror Noire that you haven't seen before Yes, this movie is goofy. Yes, it's shot like a high-budget episode of a basic cable show (but then again so was Scream, so maybe it's a 90s thing?). Yes, it is bookended by a boobtastic TFTC episode directed by the Cryptkeeper and a guillotining at the big premiere. But holy poo poo did I love this movie. The thing that impressed me the most was how easily this movie got an entire backstory/mythos across in its relatively short run-time. It's lean and compact, never revealing more than it needs to. The cast is full of classic "oh hey, them!" character actors, including Dick Miller and CCH Pounder, plus a particularly badass William Sadler and Jada Pinkett. But none of that is the real reason to watch this movie. You should watch this movie because this is the Most Billy Zane movie ever made. Think of every wide-eyed, over the top and overly dramatic performance you've seen out of Mr. Zane. Now crank that up to 150% and just watch him go. Whether he's trapping Jada Pinkett in a Sade video in her own mind or angrily kicking up dirt in a fake hillbilly accent outside a hotel, it's his movie. Does that intrigue you? Then check this out. If not, why doesn't it? Billy Zane loving rules.
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Oct 12, 2019 02:11
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October 11 - The Evil of Frankenstein https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSLgPfzB6PY It's been a long week and I thought for my pick tonight I might as well go with something I've been looking forward to watching. And you can't go wrong with Peter Cushing, so Frankenstein has risen from the grave (obviously). Frankenstein goes back to his house which he had to leave behind after dodging the guillotine in previous movies because he wants some cash. He finds his original monster frozen in So this film was made when Hammer had come to arrangements with Universal and as a result, it totally retcons the first film to make it much more like the Universal Frankenstein. They even do a recounting of his first creation and the creature make-up is clearly designed to resemble Universal's. And I don't like the change. The make-up looks like they just dumped a pile of plaster on the actor's face, vaguely shaped it into a block for the forehead, and called it a day. It has to be said for every Hammer Frankenstein movie, but Peter Cushing is great. In this outing, the baron is more bitter and angry than delightfully malevolent like he is in some of the other movies. But it's great when he can't even sneak back into town because he flips out at the police. I think this movie is a step down from Curse and Revenge. The shithead hypnotist isn't as great of villain as Frankenstein despite being the linchpin of the plot and the extended flashback to rework the story of the original movie wasn't great. But the film feels more like a series starting on the downhill slope rather than it going into the dumpster. I'm still on board for Frankenstein Created Woman, though it'll probably be next year before I get around to it.
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Oct 12, 2019 02:17
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Russian Guyovitch posted:
12. Dethgasm - A group of teenage metalheads in small town New Zealand unwittingly play a song that summons a demon who will destroy the world, and now they're the only ones who can stop the apocalypse. As someone who's gone to many a Gwar show, this one was right up my alley. It's also helped by a great performance from Milo Cawthorne as the protagonist Brodie. 13. The Ruins - A group of American tourists in Mexico find out about an unknown Mayan pyramid being studied by a group of archaeologists and decide to go check them out. Upon arriving at the pyramid, a group of indigenous people surround them and refuse to let them leave, but it turns out that the threatening locals are the least of their concerns. I decided to check this out after a number of other posters commented on it being an underappreciated film, and I have to agree. The performances are solid and the premise is genuinely unsettling. Also, fans of body horror who haven't seen this should definitely check this out. 14. Forbidden World - A Roger Corman produced sci-fi/horror flick trying to cash in on the success of Alien a few years prior. Scientists trying to bioengineer a new food source accidentally create a man-eating monster and a troubleshooter is called in to help deal with the mess. This creature feature revolves around a monster that looks as though the xenomorph had been designed by a second-rate Jim Henson wannabe. This is some prime eighties sci-fi schlock.
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Oct 12, 2019 02:20
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#13) Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019) A quick review since I have a cold or something. The creature designs were absolutely wonderful. Guillermo del Toro brought to life the creatures from these beloved books exactly as I imagined them when I was in elementary school. However, it felt like they spent too much time focusing on the design and not enough time on the story, which was a bit mediocre in my opinion. I enjoyed it, but it won't be one of my favorites. 3/5
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Oct 12, 2019 02:22
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21. Oct 10, 2019 Dr. Phibes Rises Again (1972, Robert Fuest) Scream Factory Blu-ray [part of The Vincent Price Collection II] While falling short of the original, this is still just silly enough to be enjoyable. Good murders, Vincent Price hamming it up to the nth degree, and some amusing signs of AIP having zero money to actually make the film (lots of stock footage and literally reversed footage starting off the film). 3.5/5 22. Oct 11, 2019  Kiki's Delivery Service (1989, Hayao Miyazaki) GKIDS Blu-ray [subtitled] Amidst all the murders and mayhem in the horror slate, I thought a sweeter movie would break up things a bit. I don't think it's quite as good as Miyazaki's masterpieces like Nausicaa, Totoro, Mononoke, or Spirited Away. This might have the cutest cat in cinema, Jiji. 4/5 23. Oct 11, 2019  10 Rillington Place (1971, Richard Fleischer) Indicator Blu-ray One of the more disturbing films I've seen. Based on actual court documents, the murders of John Christie. Richard Attenburough is absolutely chilling. This also has John Hurt in a brilliant role that might be the heart of the film. Shot mostly in dark surroundings, it's such an unnerving, creepy film. Apparently, it was actually shot in the house where Christie murdered at least a dozen and a half people. 5/5
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Oct 12, 2019 02:46
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11. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre dir. Tobe Hooper 1974 (Rewatch) I still love it, but my joy for it is much more academic as I go on. It was interesting watching it with my wife who got the subtext and could recognize the historical significance, but was still struggling to keep with it. I often roll my eyes at people who just yell EDITING at movies they feel are too long, but there are some extended sequences that I was struggling with too. There is a youthful indulgence in the movie for better or for worse. I think the one example of this that I love is how painful the dinner scene is. The American Family as viewed from our dinner is the film's best accomplishment. Regardless, I do still think it's great and is buoyed by it's important. There are shots and sound design that have really defined the aesthetics of the genre. 5/5
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Oct 12, 2019 03:25
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14. The Dead Zone 1983 | dir. David Cronenberg  It's much more subdued than what I expected from a collaboration between Cronenberg and Christopher Walken with a Stephen King novel. It really is a direct adaptation, albeit with a few narrative ties moved around to make a more cohesive film. Ultimately, it's a solid film, but it isn't a huge stand-out for Cronenberg's career. I'd put The Dead Zone as one of Stephen King's best novels, but it also has a sense of melancholy that isn't translated in this film. I'm also surprised Cronenberg didn't go deeper with the medical implications of psychic abilities, like he does in The Fly and eXistenZ. Recommended 15. The Fog 1980 | dir. John Carpenter rewatch  Solid, creeping ghost film with some light elements of slasher. I love the little community in this film, the gorgeous cinematography, and the cast. It's a movie that promises fog and delivers. Recommended Movies Watched: Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom | Annihilation | Evil Bong 2 | Overlord | Dead of Night | The Ruins | Under Wraps | Attack The Block | Don't Go In The Woods | Body Snatchers | Island of Lost Souls | Village of the Damned (1960) | Wrinkles the Clown | The Dead Zone | The Fog Rewatches: 3 Total: 15 Edgar Wright's 100 Favorite Horror: 4/20 (blaze it) Super Samhain Challenge: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
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Oct 12, 2019 04:01
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 12. Insidious (2010): Holy gently caress. Usually when I watch horror movies I enjoy them but maintain a certain detachment from the events of the movie. That didn’t happen with Insidious. Once spooky poo poo started happening, I was all in and it creeped me out. All the haunted house stuff was spooky as hell. The bit where Rose Byrne is following the mysterious child through the house legit reminds me of nightmares I’ve had. Things drop off a bit when the paranormal investigators show up but the astral projection sequence is great. This movie just worked for me.
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Oct 12, 2019 04:25
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 - (18). Halloween II (1981) Available on HBO Go. Picking up immediately after the end of the original film Laurie is taken to a hospital while Dr. Loomis continues his search for Michael, but can he find his wayward patient before Michael finds Laurie and finishes his Haddenfield killing spree? Ok, so was this necessary? No. Halloween is a classic and stood on its own as a great story with an eery ending. The boogeyman can just get away because he’s the boogeyman, we don’t need an answer to the cliffhanger. But is it a bad movie? No. The whole team is back and John Carpenter and Debra Hill are more than capable of making a good film with Jame Lee Curtis and Donald Pleasance. The mistake of the film is that it falls into that horror sequel trap of spending time on characters solely so they can be murdered and added to the body count so you can appeal to that part of the audience constantly craving more death and gore. You can probably shave like 20 minutes off this film and lose absolutely nothing. The film is at its best when its dealing with Laurie’s fear, Michael’s pursuit of her, and Dr. Loomis’ growing madness. Loomis I think is the star of the movie as his 15 year breakdown is reaching a pitch. I said it in the review of the first film, Loomis might have been a good doctor 7 years ago but now he’s clearly just a desperate man cracking up as he’s forced to betray his calling to save lives. For the first third of the film that’s on full display as Loomis is absolutely frantic having just put 6 bullets in Micheal and seeing him walk away. Michael is everything Loomis feared he was and more and he’s just a mess trying to stop him and end this nightmare. There’s a great performance and a lot of great moments as people who know Loomis is right are still scared by how unstable he seems and how Loomis himself has moments of clarity where he can’t believe what’s happened in part because of him. The sheriff repeatedly saying “you let him go” and Loomis repeatedly denying and saying he tried with less and less strength until he finally admits he didn’t prepare them or do enough is just a great, subtle story. Sadly it disappears for the entire second act, as does Laurie, and we just spend time with Michael doing a Jason impression. Which sucks because Michael isn’t Jason. Jason would have killed that old couple he got a knife from. Jason wouldn’t have hid from a nurse to stay secret. And done so in a baby nursery. Can you imagine Jason in a baby nursery listening to a couple of nurses talk? I think that’s what makes Micheal scary and my favorite. He’s not a rabid dog. There’s a brain in there and motivations. He makes decisions and has some kind of agenda. I have no idea what it really is, and that’s what’s so drat scary. Micheal truly is the boogeyman. “Why won’t you die?” What do I think of Laurie being Micheal’s sister? I have no idea. I’ve never really know how that sits with me because its just so inconsequential to the story. It doesn’t really explain or enhance anything. It doesn’t really contradict or confuse anything. It doesn’t get expanded on. I don’t think it even gets mentioned. You could probably remove one quick scene from the film (and a really weird and random flashback that feels very thrown in) and absolutely nothing would change about this or the previous film or story. Should Carpenter have gotten his way and Micheal Myers’ “Boogeyman” story end with Halloween while the series went on to tell more stand alone stories like that? Yeah, probably. That would have been fun. But a solid if unspectacular sequel happened… and then some other stuff happened but we’ll get to that later. And there’s some drama about how it was all tied up in drama with Carpenter wanting to make The Fog so I’m just gonna kind of assume that if we hadn’t gotten Halloween II we might not have gotten one of my absolute favorite horrors of all time. So I regret nothing. September Pre-Game Tally - New (Total) 1. NOS4A2 (2019); - (2). Splice (2009); - (3). Drive Angry (2011); 2 (4). The Twilight Zone (2019); - (5). Event Horizon (1997); - (6). BrainDead (2016); 3 (7). The Dark Tower (2017); 4 (8). The Collector (2009); 5 (9). The Bad Batch (2016); - (10). Rose Red (2002); - (11). Salem’s Lot (1979) October Tally - New (Total) 1. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920); 2. Nightmare Cinema (2018); 3. Dead of Night (1945); The Queen of Spades (1949); 5. Tragedy Girls (2017); 6. House of Wax (1953); SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #1: 7. The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016); 8. In the Tall Grass (2019); 9. The Night of the Hunter (1955); 10. The Thing (1951); - (11). The Thing (1982); 11 (12). The Thing (2011); - (13). Halloween (1978); 12 (14). Dracula (1931); SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #2: 13 (15). Q (1982); 14 (16). The Black Cat (1934); 15 (17). The Unknown (1927); ]- (18). Halloween II (1981)
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Oct 12, 2019 04:42
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 #74) The Horror at Party Beach (1964) Tubi. Another one of director Del Tenney's four films, this isn't nearly as good as The Curse of the Living Corpse (with which it was apparently shown as a double feature), but it's a lot more iconic. A teen-age beach party with performing band is disrupted by leather toughs, and then by monsters spawned by radioactive pollution. Later, a slumber party is disrupted, but just by the monsters. Those mutation creation of those monsters, by the way, is introduced with a totally bad-rear end underwater SKULL TRANSFORMATION that aces out everything else in the movie. There are some funny-rear end dialogue exchanges in this, and not all of them stem from bad writing. The are actually good jokes up in this thing. Those song lyrics, though, yikes. "Wiggle wiggle wiggle and a wigglin' and wobblin'." It's not a musical like the poster claims, they're just in the background playing songs in several scenes. There's a jealous fight scene that's just adorable; at one point, the biker's friends pick him up to use as a battering ram. The atomic monsters look goofy as hell, but so do the band members. Aside from looking like the monster's claws are smeared in Hershey's Syrup, the first attack is shot pretty well, with quick cuts of flashing claws and a screaming face. The monster costumes are pulling down my rating for this, because every time they showed up on screen, it made me think they had hot dogs sticking out of their mouth. But I was laughing so often, and so honestly, that I can't judge it as harshly as I would had it been played more seriously. rating: 5/10"♪ Oh my, here's a traffic circle / How far can we go? ♪" "Tina's death has affected a great many people, but it doesn't give you or anyone else the right to be discourteous."
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Oct 12, 2019 04:59
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STAC Goat posted:While this is a fair warning I do find it mild funny that there's no kind of warning for a new mother being fed her baby. if you can think of a worse "harm to a pregnant woman"...  edit: and YES i completely agree, somehow it was extreme while feeling fairly... limp. Not sure how they pulled that off
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Oct 12, 2019 05:03
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I've been slacking with updating this thread, but I've still been on my grind. Vey sorry for the text dump everyone. 13. Ghost in the Machine - 4.5/5 quote:Final Destination x The X-Files x Chuck E. Cheese 14. Beetlejuice - 4.5/5 quote:it's a lovely 55 degrees outside and peak leaf season, so i drove out to the town where they filmed Beetlejuice. it's only half an hour away but i'd never been. kinda grim now, but the library does indeed have good parking. 15. Alucarda - 4/5 quote:lean, mean, gory, and horny to the point of psychosis—the best kind of horror movie. catholics are >not doing okay. i'm trying to not be lazy by describing this as reminiscent of a certain director known for animalistic performances b—IT'S ZULAWSKI. THIS MOVIE IS ZULAWSKI-ESQUE AND I LIVE FOR THIS poo poo. CAN'T HELP IT I'M SORRY. 16. What We Do In The Shadows - 5/5 quote:you know what it is. one of the like, five, funny comedies released in the past 15 years. I can't count it for the challenge, but I followed this up by watching the first season of the FX series. It's not as funny, but it is funny. 17. Exorcist II: The Heretic - 3.5/5 quote:BOORMAN INNOCENT!!! Look at these sets!! There's not a single frame of this movie that isn't gorgeous. This film's bad rap is nonsense, this is prime weirdo horror. It's honestly just a few non-sequitur murders away from being an Argento film. The only real crime here is that its plot—which it insists on seeing through—is a bit boring (probably a symptom of its length). I can for sure see this becoming a fav on a rewatch. 18. The Exorcist III - 3.5/5 quote:i mean yeah...a moody serial killer film is cool too...and it is legit creepy...but it's just not a faux-giallo weirdo jam, is it? i'm being difficult, but it's still very good. perfect rainy day horror movie. brad dourif is on my mount rushmore of actors. 19. 3 From Hell - 5/5 -  SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #2 - DEAD & BURIED quote:YES!!! YESSSSS!!!!!!! YESSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!! IT LIVED UP TO MY HYPE!!!!!! ROB ZOMBIE'S WESTERN HANGOUT!!!!!!!!! YEEHAW!!!!!!!!!! 20. Halloween (1978) - 5/5 quote:I watched the rest of the Halloween series for the first time last year, and ever since then, I've been blessed with a misplaced sense of nostalgia. I didn't even like most of them that much—this film included—but I've been so excited for the season to arrive, just so I could watch them again. (It feels heretical to watch a Halloween film outside October). As it turns out, fourth time's a charm. I think I love this movie, if only by virtue of repetition. I've seen it enough times now that it feels like an old sweater. I can throw it on and just vibe with it. It's fuckin Halloween, man. I can't picture this time of year without it. 21. Halloween II (1981) - 4/5 quote:Halloween II is the third best Halloween II. God I love horror movies. 22. Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers - 3.5/5 quote:In the time since I last watched this, I went from having seen like 5 slashers to over 100, so I've melted my brain enough to realize this is actually pretty good. It's dark and moody and generally has great kills with decent stakes. It also gets into the lingering effects of traumatic violence on small town* communities. It makes me realize that even though I loved Halloween II (1981), the narrowed hospital setting somewhat missed the mark on what makes this series special. It's about the town itself—communal grief. In contrast, a series like A Nightmare on Elm Street is more about uniting outcasts and forming a new community, bound by a specific, shared trauma. In Halloween, it's the community you had no choice in joining and can't escape. The unspecificity of Michael's victims is scary. Mere proximity gets you or your loved ones killed senselessly. That's why the familial connection introduced in II has always been this series' death knell. 23. Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers - 1/5 quote:A note to my future self: 24. Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers - 0.5/5 quote:Theatrical cut. 25. Halloween (2018) - 4.5/5 quote:Okay, perhaps it's a bit airheaded when it comes to the big picture view of trauma, but this movie is so unbelievably hype on a purely functional level that I can't help myself. I'm not a wrestling guy, but if I had to compare it to anything, well…BAH GAWD IS THAT MICHAEL'S MUSIC? I'm sure this take will endear absolutely no one to my cause, but I have to speak my truth. When the inmates start howling at the sight of the mask, buddy, I'm right there with em. Head smashed like a pumpkin? Cop-o-Lantern? Judy Greer's "gotcha"? Too fuckin good. I have to love this; it hits me right in my lizard brain. 26. Land of the Dead - 3/5 quote:Not at all the late career phoning-in I was afraid of. Romero's still got an edge to him, but seems to have given up any pretense of subtext, not that that's a bad thing. (Though now that I think about it, calling anything in the original trilogy "subtext" is a bit generous). Zombietariat rise up and devour the petite bourgeoisie. Eat the rich! 27. Diary of the Dead - 0.5/5 quote:if i wasn't stuck without literally anything else to do i would not have finished this. god. 28. Survival of the Dead - 1/5 quote:hindsight is 20/20, but it must be said: one person should probably not make six zombie movies. unless you're doing some insane Chucky bullshit, the well is gonna run dry. this is a noticeable step up from Diary, at least in terms of posting cringe, but that only elevates it to "depressingly generic”. 29. Night of Fear - 2/5 quote:an hour long, dialog-free slasher is an interesting concept. don't know if i can say the same for the content. XX. Unaired Abduction Interview I can’t count this for the SA Challenge but I logged it on Letterboxd. Bit of context for this one: a twitter friend of mine is a filmmaker and this is her newest short horror film. It's a super cool found footage piece. You can check it out here. quote:Problematic with a capital P. As an unironic Posadist, I'm troubled by the depiction of extraterrestrials as beings to be feared, rather than welcomed with open arms. This short film may be a nasty bit of pro-terra propaganda, but as a fan of the arts, I must concede that it is indeed quite spooky. Critical support for M.K. Rhodes at this time.
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Oct 12, 2019 05:37
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Those Beetlejuice pics are good content. I wanna go there.
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Oct 12, 2019 05:50
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feedmyleg posted:Those Beetlejuice pics are good content. I wanna go there. I tried to scope out the hill the house facade was built on, but it seemed inaccessible because of overgrowth and whatnot. Also the lying fake news media wants you to think you'd drown in this stream if your car fell in. I'd like to see them try to stop me!!! 
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Oct 12, 2019 05:59
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SMP posted:16. What We Do In The Shadows - 5/5 The best thing in the tv show was the vampire council. Anyone who is posting in this thread should die at the vampire council. The joke is they're all actors who have played vampires playing themselves as their vampire characters. Including Wesley Snipes who skypes into the council, literally phone in his role.
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Oct 12, 2019 06:02
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https://twitter.com/KennethJWaste2/status/1182896833565249536?s=20
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Oct 12, 2019 06:55
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Egbert Souse posted:
The technical advisor was Albert Pierrepoint, the man who hanged both Christie and Evans. He had to go under a fake name because he was still bound by the official secrets act.
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Oct 12, 2019 07:30
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 Bone Tomahawk, 2015 You really don't see western and horror mixed together at all. Bone Tomahawk definitely check both of those boxes. It don't feel like horror most of the time, but it cranks it up all the way towards the end. Most of the movie is spent letting us get to know the characters on their journey towards the horror. It's a very slow movie in that regard, but so rewarding to watch. There's practically no music, just the ambient sounds of the wild. The sounds of the old frontier miles away from any people. The plot is pretty straight forward. Some tribal savages separate and outcast from all the other native American tribes kidnaps some people and the sheriff throws together a small rescue party to go to their land. The horror elements are far and few between until the very end. Then there's some seriously brutal gore and disturbing imagery. This is more a movie you watch when you are in the mood for something more slow, atmospheric and character driven than straight up horror, but drat, the horror bits are just top notch. Maybe one of the best movies I've seen so far in this year's marathon.
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Oct 12, 2019 07:48
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12. Shriek of the Mutilated I had low expectations for this, and while not really good it's sort of engaging. A professor takes four students out into the woods in search of a yeti, seven years after he got a bunch of other students killed trying to do the same thing. The yeti is apparently an aggressive man-eater, and happily begins the slaughter anew. Now I'd actually had this one spoiled for me but the story does go in an interesting direction, and there are some nice macabre concepts here. Sadly it's let down by inept staging and blocking in a number of key scenes, and there's no getting around the fact that the Yeti looks like an English sheepdog. I wasn't bored, to be sure.
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Oct 12, 2019 08:29
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17. The Furies (2019) Elevator pitch: what if Battle Royale, but with nothing much to say, most of the humor stripped out, and all the weapons are just blade + handle? Our protagonist is a woman who wakes up in a box that says "Beauty" on the side. If you immediately guessed that the men wake up in boxes labeled "Beast", congratulations, you are conscious and nothing this movie does at any point will surprise you. It's not a total waste. In no particular order, things this movie does well: the setting is a forest during the day, which is sort of novel - things are pretty bright basically the entire time and I know people are sometimes looking for that. Everything seems reasonably well produced and technically acceptable. There's, like, one joke but it's not bad. Axes and faces intersect in ways you don't see very often, and it looks pretty good. There's a reasonable argument that this entire thing basically just exists as a showcase for the effects team. That's about it. I guess it's sort of charming how quickly the woman we're following gets over accidental murder, but there's so little characterization or plot backing this that it's whatever. If you really really want daytime horror and an axe going into a face, check this out. Everyone else should skip it. Oh, and that poster? Just a mask. There are no cool monsters to be had here.
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Oct 12, 2019 09:09
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Irony.or.Death posted:17. The Furies (2019) this is the saddest thing ive read yet
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Oct 12, 2019 10:43
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20) Lair of the White Worm 1988 Hugh Grant before his romcom days. Weird seeing a youngish, smooth faced Peter Capaldi. Also weird how they have to emphasise his Scottishness all the time, culminating in him battling the monster with bagpipes. There's a lot of neat little visual gags referencing snakes or worms. I laughed out loud when Lady Sylvia literally emerges from a basket to the sound of snake charming music I liked the musical exposition scene at the party It's a silly, entertaining movie. 21) Black Sunday 1960  Vampires swear revenge on a family. The opening scene was grizzly for 1960 and very effective. The threat builds up at a steady pace. There are no big surprises here really, but it's well crafted with a great gothic atmosphere throughout.
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Oct 12, 2019 10:51
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 9 Mountaintop Motel Massacre [Arkansas] youtube I've never had the classic video store experience, picking movies purely on their cover art, not knowing if it'll be a hidden gem or a turd. However, recently I've found this youtube channel chock full of VHS rips of (mostly) horror movies and I', having great fun going through some of the more obscure titles. Some were good (Prison, The Video Dead), others not so much (To Die For, The Brain). Sadly, Mountaintop Motel Massacre belongs to the latter category. I can live with bad acting, underdeveloped characters or crappy lighting/sound (and this movie has all off that) but a much more serious problem is that this movie lacks any interesting ideas whatsoever. There is nothing here that hasn't been done better in other movies. Since on top of that the pacing is glacial, the kills are dull, and there is no mystery of who the killer is since were told staight away, this isn't worth it even if you like cheap 80s slashers.  10 The Video Dead (1987) [???] youtube Now this is what I'm talking about. Sure, it has bad acting and a nonsensical plot but it is a lot of fun! poo poo happens at a steady pace and the special effects are solid considering the budget. It also has some of the most bizarre scooby-doo type rules to defeat a zombie: since they think they're alive, attacking them with ordinary weapons can make them think they are hurt and dying, making them easy targets to finish off. Brilliant! However, since there are only about 5 of them, characters have to act like complete idiots that constantly forget this, as well as basic human abilities like screaming or running, to keep the plot going. Nevertheless, this is very much worth watching if you like dumb, fun 80s schlock. I watched a VHS-rip, which while appropriate, looked like rear end. Looking at the trailer for the dvd-bluray release it actually looks kinda decent and definitely makes me want to rewatch it some time.  11 Chosen Survivors (1974) [New Mexico] youtube A bunch of people are being brought into an underground facility where they learn that a nuclear was has started and they have picked to survive, however a colony of vampire bats have found their way in. This was a real slog, shifting between psychological thriller and animal attack movie and failing at both. Everything plods along culminating in a scene where a guy climbs an elevator shaft which drags on forever. There's also way too much characters that all blend together and only two are killed off before the finale. The character who gets the most screen time is a total rear end in a top hat, he gets drunk and destroys their only way of communicating with the outside (which no one finds out) and he rapes a woman, who after a short struggle suddenly goes, ok fine let's do this, and it’s never brought up again, it's supergross. In the end he doesn't even get killed off (or is the sole survivor, for that bleak gently caress-you ending), he's just one of the 5 random people who don't die the in chaotic dark mess of a finale. Avoid.  12 The Messengers (2007) [North Dakota] netflix A family moves into an old farmhouse, spooky poo poo starts to happen to the daughter (Kirsten Stewart), her parents don't believe her, yadda yadda you know the story. I've never been a fan of these modern ghost movies that rely heavily on (the anticipation of) jump scares, and this didn't win me over. It shoots itself in the foot by showing one of the ghosts jankily walking along the ceiling very clearly early on, which reduces a lot of the tension in the rest of the movie. The concept that the toddler-son who does not speak can actually see the ghosts is pretty fun I guess.
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Oct 12, 2019 13:15
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