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17. The Gorgon (1964) Hammer! Cushing! Lee! Steele! Fisher! It's not very good! I was intrigued by this one because of the unique monster and the possibility of a Lee/Cushing team up like Horror Express. Unfortunately, neither of them are in the movie for very long, instead we're left with a series of boring disposable male leads investigating what's going on in the woods only to be Gorgon'd. The Gorgon is unfortunately not onscreen very much, which wouldn't be a problem except that neither the romance story with the eventual male lead or the mystery plot (Hey I wonder if the only woman in the entire movie is actually the Gorgon) really go anywhere. A good Cushing performance, a brief appearance by a swashbuckling Lee, and lush technicolor can't save this from being one of my less favorite Hammer films. Stronger writing for the characters we do follow, or a shift to Cushing or Lee's characters could have made this really strong. Do like the final shots and fatalism of the ending, just wished it'd felt set up properly. 2.5/5  18. The Sixth Sense (1999)  Shyamalan got a lot of comparisons to Spielberg with his debut and while the weird turns his career took may have scattered that, this is a sublimely directed movie. Lots of great compositions and camera moves, with a ton of really effective tracking shots locking us into the perspective of the characters, wandering these moody Philadelphia buildings with the possibility of something horrifying beyond every corner. But more than the ghosts or the fairly legendary final twist, this works very well for long stretches as an effective and empathetic portrait of hurt and traumatized people learning to reach out to each other for support past their fears. Before, what was shocking about this movie was the appearances of the ghosts and the big payoffs, now I was surprised by how effectively done the therapy scenes were and how emotionally pitch-perfect Osment's final scene with his mother was. A great film, one of the rare ones that works equally well as a tender but not overwrought melodrama and a genuinely shocking crowd pleaser. 5/5 
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Oct 18, 2019 17:09
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13. Ég man þig (2017) e. I Remember You Iceland dir. Óskar Þór Axelsson Freyr, a doctor in a small town in northwestern Iceland is called in to help investigate a series of mysterious deaths. Thing turn personal when one of the victims turns out to have been obsessed with Benni, Freyr's son who disappeared without a trace a few years prior. Three young people head out to an isolated old house to renovate it and open a hotel but they soon find out they're not as alone as they thought. A solid film. It moves back and forth between the two segments of the story which eventually intertwine but the haunted cabin portion doesn't feel quite as strong as the investigation portion. The film relies a bit too much on spooky music stingers in parts but the visuals and production design are all very solid. And for an Icelandic film the sound mixing is amazing since I could hear what everybody was saying the entire time. 14. Carnival of Souls (1962)  USA dir. Herk Harvey Possibly the eeriest movie ever made. During a drag race a car full of young people crashes into a river. Only one of them, Mary, emerges alive. She tries to move on with her life by taking a job as a church organist in Utah but she is haunted both by her past and a strange ghostly figure. Herk Harvey made his living making industrial/educational films with titles like Why Study Home Economics? , Health: Your Posture, and Cindy Goes to a Party. Herk was driving home from shooting one such film when he happened to pass by the abandoned Saltair Pavilion on the Great Salt Lake in Utah. He immediatly stopped his car and got out to get a proper look at the place. He was so amazed by the melancholy spookiness of the place that he decided to take a break from his day job to make a feature film using the Saltair as the key location. That film was Carnival of Souls (obviously (otherwise why would I have spent an entire paragraph writing about it if it wasnt? (I mean seriously...))) I first saw the film as a teenager. I was at a fleamarket and in one of the booths there was a large boxset of public domain horror films Shock, Attack of the Giant Leeches, and of course Carnival of Souls. I randomly picked out Carnival and watched it alone in my room. The scene of the phantoms dancing to the cacophonous organ score genuinely horrified me in way few films have managed. Though I"ve seen the film often enough now that it doesn"t quite have the same effect it's still a wonderfully moody film. It feels almost Lynchian in a way. The fantastical and horrific breaking through and coloring the mundane. The ending of Mary having been dead all along is possibly a bit cliché by modern standards but I imagine it was a lot less so in 1962. Especially since the film never makes it quite clear just what happened. Was all of the film a dying dream? Was Mary a ghost refusing to move on the other phantoms were trying to drag into the afterlife? It's left vague enough to be effective. It's a small picture that didn't make much of a splash on its original release but an influential film nontheless. George R. Romero has stated that Carnival of Souls was the film that inspired him to make Night of the Living Dead and Land of the Dead even has a scene of zombies slowly emerging from a lake in a homage to a similar scene in Carnival of Souls. FreudianSlippers fucked around with this message at 17:17 on Oct 18, 2019 |
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Oct 18, 2019 17:12
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SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #3: HORROR NOIRE Ganja & Hess I wish I liked this more but I found it to be quite boring overall. The performances are good though, and I appreciate the history of the movie, how Gunn really had no interest in doing a "black vampire"(as the studio put it) movie but decided that he could make it work by using vampirism as a metaphor for addiction. Then, when the studio saw how meandering and unconventional it was, they pulled it from distribution and recut it under a different title. The original cut survived though, and was eventually donated to the Museum of Modern Art in New York. So I think it's worth checking out just for the chance to see Duane Jones in another lead role, and as a historical curiosity more than a compelling film. In reading about Ganja & Hess I found out that Spike Lee remade it as Da Sweet Blood of Jesus. Is it any good? Watched: 1. Child's Play(1988) 2. Child's Play(2019) 3. VHS: Viral 4. Tales From the Crypt 5. (SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #1)Viy 6. House of Frankenstein 7. Van Helsing 8. The Shining 9. Salem's Lot 10. Poltergeist 2: The Other Side 11. Pumpkinhead 2: Blood Wings 12. The Ravenous 13. Alucarda 14. Horror of Dracula 15. Dracula: Prince of Darkness 16. Midsommar 17. Candyman 18. Hellraiser 19. An American Werewolf in London 20. Bad Moon 21. Prince of Darkness 22. The Fog 23. (SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #2)House of 1000 Corpses 24. The Devil's Rejects 25. 3 From Hell 26. (SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #4)Crawl 27. (SAMHAIN CHALLENGE# 3) Ganja & Hess
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Oct 18, 2019 17:22
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 85) Amityville: No Escape - 2016 - Youtube First time watch, and I'm ready to escape at this point. I guess the town screwed up since the last film since now it's the most haunted town in America. A group of students go into the Amityville woods to do a thesis project on fear. While this one's a clunky mix of found footage, from a technical standpoint, it's not too bad. The footage from 1997 looks pretty convincing. The night footage does look like it was shot at night. I'd say this is worth a watch as a curiosity, but that's about it.  86) Amityville: Evil Never Dies - 2017 First time watch. At this point I think this franchise will never die. Well, we're now into sequels of sequels. This one's a sequel to Amityville Legacy. I'm now officially tired of that drat toy monkey in horror films. Skip this one.
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Oct 18, 2019 17:28
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 30. City of the Living Dead (1980) Amazon Prime I took some flak for giving up on The Church and not much liking The Beyond. But this. This, I loved. Cheap, trashy, mean, poorly dubbed, poorly acted, neat gritty camerawork, and great effects. Just bloody fun from start to finish. Watched - 1. Get My Gun (2017), 2. The Last Man on Earth (1964), 3. It Stains the Sands Red (2016), 4. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), 5. Errementari: The Blacksmith and the Devil (2017) *Tied for Current Favorite*, 6. Halloween (1978), 7. One Cut of the Dead (2017), 8. Phamtasm II (1988), 9. Ramekin (2018), 10. Les Affamés (2017), 11. Braindead (1992), 12. Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943), 13. The Haunting (1963) *Tied for Current Favorite*, 14. House of Wax (1953), 15. Shock (1946), 16. Annihilation (2018), 17. Westworld (1973), 18. Kuroneko, 19. In the Tall Grass (2019), 20. Sound of Horror (1966), 21. Rubber's Lover (1996), 22. Bubba Ho-Tep (2002), 23. The Similars (2015), 24. Creatur from the Black Lagoon (1954), 25. The Mummy's Tomb (1942), 26. Drag Me to Hell (2009), 27. Deathwatch (2002), 28. Wake in Fright (1971), 29. The Mummy's Ghost (1944), 30. City of the Living Dead (1980) Decade - 1920s, 1930s, 1940s (III), 1950s (II), 1960s (IV), 1970s (IV), 1980s (II), 1990s (II), 2000s (III), 2010s (IX) Black & White:Color:Hybrid - 10:19:1 By Country - Australia (I), Britain/Gremany (I), Canada (II), Italy (I), Japan (III), Mexico (I), 'Murica (XVIII), New Zealand (I), Spain (II) New:Rewatch - 25:5 Super Samhain Challenge - 1. Westworld (1973), 2. Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), 3. N/A, 4. The Mummy's Ghost (1944), 5. N/A
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Oct 18, 2019 17:44
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 SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #5: TOURIST TRAPquote:Watch a horror film you've never seen before that was made by / filmed in a country you've never watched a movie from.  25. Errementari: The Devil and the Blacksmith (2017) Dir: Paul Urkijo Alijo (Netflix streaming) Wasn't entirely sure if this one was going to make it for the Samhain Challenge, because it comes from Basque Country, which is an autonomous community inside Spain (where I definitely have seen horror movies from). It's in kind of a grey area, but I think it's different enough to count. I have a few other options if this doesn't. One of the more distinctive and interesting Netflix originals I've seen, which doesn't neccessarily seem like high praise considering how much trash they put out these days, but it is. I'm at least thankful that they have the pull to bring a horror movie with such a distinct cultural identity to a wider audience. I don't know very much about Basque folklore and culture, so some of the particular cultural beats might be lost on me. I love the film's aesthetic, particularly with how it depicts the devils that roam about. It's one of the best attempts at making the "horns and pitchfork" version of devils work on screen since Haxan. You can tell the film put a lot of its budget into the practical stuff, which was probably a smart move. It does feel like the film relies a little too much on stock sound effects for its own good. It's not enough to ruin the film, but it took me out of things a little bit. Definitely worth a try. 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 Pt 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 19. Bride of Re-Animator 20. The Phantom Carriage 21. Thinner 22. Robot Monster 23. Color Me Blood Red 24. A Bay of Blood 25. Errementari: The Devil and the Blacksmith
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Oct 18, 2019 18:26
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M_Sinistrari posted:Amityville You're so close to the end!
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Oct 18, 2019 18:27
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It’s funny how everyone comes away from Errementari pumped about the red horns and pitchfork devil. That’s what the people really want!
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Oct 18, 2019 18:36
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Anonymous Robot posted:It’s funny how everyone comes away from Errementari pumped about the red horns and pitchfork devil. That’s what the people really want! Well they also lit the hell out of that movie. Without top-tier lighting I'm not sure that style works.
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Oct 18, 2019 18:38
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Anonymous Robot posted:It’s funny how everyone comes away from Errementari pumped about the red horns and pitchfork devil. That’s what the people really want! Basebf555 posted:Well they also lit the hell out of that movie. Without top-tier lighting I'm not sure that style works. Yeah, I mean that stuff's really fun when it's done right. I think lighting is such an underrated factor in making things look real/intimdating. When it's done right, it gives stuff that looks goofy otherwise a real weight. See also: Haxan.
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Oct 18, 2019 18:43
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Anonymous Robot posted:It’s funny how everyone comes away from Errementari pumped about the red horns and pitchfork devil. That’s what the people really want! I'm so sick of movies and tv shows where the devil is just some loving guy.
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Oct 18, 2019 19:04
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Lurdiak posted:I'm so sick of movies and tv shows where the devil is just some loving guy. For the most part I agree, but Vigo Mortensen is one of my favorite versions of Satan in "The Prophecy." The way he hisses "I'll love you more than Jesus" is serious  gently caress I love that movie.
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Oct 18, 2019 19:29
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I was pretty disappointed with De Niro in Angel Heart, when I finally got around to watching it earlier this year. He gets a lot of praise for that movie and but to me it was just like "oh De Niro is putting on a creepy voice" 
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Oct 18, 2019 19:35
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 #112) The Doll of Satan (1969) Youtube. In the wake of their patriarch's death, a reclusive castle-dwelling family host his niece and her boyfriend. The uncle's desire to sell the castle is a point of much discussion, and the rest of the family are creeps to the niece. As such, a lot of the movie operates as inheritance drama, but there is a black-gloved killer skulking about, a 'paralyzed' sister, and much plotting and scheming. Also some Rosemary's Baby ripping. This also features one of the sweetest juke-boxes I've ever seen, and the quivery electronics in the score were right up my alley. Things moved slowly, and probably could have trimmed ten minutes out without adverse effect, but it had that Italian '60s look to it, and I'm a sucker for that. Also a torture dungeon filled with mannequins. The plot turns out to be basically the framework of an early Scooby-Doo episode, and that dumbness detracted from what could have been a cool mystery. Good thing the sets looked as nice as they did, because it was hard to care about the vents taking place. rating: 5/10"The benefit of having a two-seater is that you never have to take people with you."
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Oct 18, 2019 19:44
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Friends Are Evil posted:
Basque country is no more Spain than Ireland is England. So obviously this is allowed.
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Oct 18, 2019 19:59
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This thread's gonna get closed when somebody says a Hong Kong horror movie should count for the challenge even though they've already seen Chinese horror movies.
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Oct 18, 2019 20:05
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I watched this movie before going to bed last night and completely forgot to do the write up SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #5: Tourist Trap #35: Train of the Dead  Found on Youtube while searching for Midnight Meat Train clips, and it's pretty terrible. Train of the Dead opens with a dude going through a series of scary dreams, but then the credits start and it's all BMX. "What?" you might say. Yeah. Look at the poster for the movie. Here's what the credits look like  And after that, we get a long BMX race scene. After that there's no more BMX stuff in the movie ever again. It was all just to introduce what I'm going to charitably call the main character, a guy who is good at BMX. Which sucks because I was very excited for BMX horror. But no, it's just some completely unrelated BMX stuff at the beginning, and then all train horror. BMX guy gets kidnapped by some bank robbers on the run from the law. I don't know why they do that, they never provide a reason. They aren't like using him as a hostage or anything, they just force him to come along as they get on a train to escape the cops Spooky train stuff happens, there's plenty of terrible CGI, whatever The real problem is the characters. The BMX guy is a total flatline, and all the robbers are constantly unpleasant. You can absolutely do a movie with criminals, or even flat out unpleasant people. Reservoir Dogs is great. But they have to have interesting relationships with each other, or at the very least be even the tiniest bit charismatic. The robbers are unpleasant people who are unpleasant to each other, and that it. The only one who isn't just completely no fun to watch is the offensive gay stereotype, because at least he's sassy. Train of the Dead, it's not very good. And with that done I can move on the main event of the month
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Oct 18, 2019 20:14
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#36: Puppet Master Surprisingly not focused on puppets. The puppets are just one kind of magic in this magic heavy universe. All the characters are different kinds of psychic. Which I don't think ended up mattering at all in the plot. They're also all different kinds of slightly goofy, which I don't think really worked. They were just all kind of off putting. When they get killed by puppets it's just, oh, I guess puppet violence is finally happening now, for some reason, like fifty minutes into the movie? But the puppets are fantastic. They're so cute. Not the designs really, the designs are pretty ugly. But the way they movie is so full of character. Even when the camera is running along the ground to show the puppet's point of view, the way it has to hop over stuff and dodge feet, it's great. Love the puppets. I dunno, it's weird to say this about a movie where a group of psychics go to a hotel and are killed one by one by a group of bizarre puppets, but it just doesn't feel like there's much to this movie. Nothing really has much weight or impact. I guess overall I'd say Puppet Master is fine. I never wanted to turn it off, I was reasonably engaged when there was puppet stuff happening. Perfectly acceptable movie. also, how are leeches a puppet thing? Puppet with a knife for a hand, great. Puppet with a drill head, got it. Puppet with human sized arms so it can punch with the strength of a man, sure. But puppet that is full of leeches? What? That's something I'd expect to see in like, Puppet Master 4 when they're running out of ideas for new puppets.
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Oct 18, 2019 20:14
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Franchescanado posted:SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #5: Tourist Trap  #24. Aterrados (Terrified) (Shudder) When strange events in a neighborhood in Buenos Aries start culminating in people's deaths, a group of amateur paranormal investigators - including a doctor, her colleague, and a pair of cops - decide to investigate by staying in the houses where people died. Not sure if I've ever watched an Argentinian film before this one, and not sure if I'm missing some cultural context here. I thought, based on trailers and stuff, that this was going to be a straight-forward ghost story, but apparently this was about tiny inter-dimensional beings using people's bodies or something, and also they transmit themselves through water, except for the second guy who is never shown drinking things but whatever, we can ignore that? I'm not sure if this is a reference or play on something that I'm unaware of or just something of a mess. I'm kind of leaning more towards the latter, because the film is kinda all over the place in terms of approach. It feels more like a loosely connected series of horror vignettes than a coherent narrative, and the attempt to do an extended pair of side-story flashbacks in the middle makes the whole back half feel less substantial. Things just seem to go from zero to sixty once the teams start locking themselves in their respective haunted houses, without any typical haunted house style slow builds and releases. It looks good, the acting is decent across the board (though characters are a little thinly sketched), and there was one jump scare that actually got me. On the whole, though, I don't think any of those good elements add up to enough to counteract the jumbled narrative or scrambled pacing.  /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, Killer Klowns from Outer Space, Halloween II (1981), The Addams Family (2019), The Mummy (1932), Jason X, It Stains the Sands Red, The Invisible Man (1933), Zombieland, Terrified
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Oct 18, 2019 20:14
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 #113) Satan's Little Helper (2004), a.k.a., Satanic Halloween, a.k.a., Halloween Killer Tubi. Went in with high hopes, since it was written and directed by Jeff Lieberman, who also did Remote Control. A kid who's obsessed with his new videogame, which has the same title as the movie, is ready for Halloween. Coincidentally, someone wearing the mask shown on the cover is going around killing people, so the two of them form a team. Of course! The characters were quirky in believable ways, for the most part, and Satan (Josh Annex) did a solid job of emoting while remaining completely silent. Weird that this is one of only three acting credits for him on IMDb, all in the same year. The movie could have done some commentary on the fascination and lack of understanding some kids have for violence, and incorporating an act of violence against an animal, as it does, might have underlined how that fetishizing can cross over into sociopathic acts. But the movie didn't follow that line of thought too far beyond indulging the kid's glee at the spectacle of hurting people. I dunno, the movie sits at an odd balance. It's too goofy for 'serious' horror fans, and too slow-moving for the gorehounds, those who want something like Terrifier, or people who want something to put on in the background. The score was alright, nothing special. Didn't unseat Remote Control as my favorite Lieberman, but I'm glad it was willing to get so weird. rating: 7/10"Oh, I love trolls, man. I saw Shrek three times."
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Oct 18, 2019 22:06
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 SUPER SAMHAIN #1. The Best Month  Westworld A full submersion amusement park opens where you can pick Medieval World, Roman World or West World in which other occupants are robots and only sometimes other guests. The robots are programmed to please the guest, rather it be letting the guests kill them, or serve in a capacity for other types of worldly pleasure. You know where this movie is going (well, frankly, from the cover) but probably when, over the intercom, it’s announced “Nothing bad can happen, you’re entirely safe” and confirmed when the lead scientist admits they let robots program other robots and he’s not sure exactly how they work. This doesn’t subtract from the enjoyment of the movie, and it was a real treat, I can’t believe I haven’t seen it before. The end is maybe longer than it needs to be, but no big deal. Recommended! / 5SUPER SAMHAIN #2 Dead & Buried  Dead & Buried A small town sheriff (that has a Master Degree!) and his strange coroner buddy are faced with dead coming back to life. This movie absolutely owns bones, as does the title and the cover art . The murders are innovative and gruesome thanks to the really good special effects. This is my favorite movie of the month so far . / 5 Next Of Kin Caught on the scream Stream, I had to go back and watch maybe half the movie because I was falling asleep (I had to get up early that day) , but this one is worth the slow build up to the wonderful finale. One thing that quickly stood out for me in this movie is the framing . The shots are really interesting to me and I’m surprised this director doesn’t have more of a catalog. One shot in particular stood out, where our main character is standing in the hallway and the camera slides down the hallway. A unique film I need to rewatch soon when I’m able to pay it closer attention . / 5Seen; Stepfather 2*, Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark, House Of Dracula, Murder Mansion, Curse Of The Mummy's Tomb, Your Sweet Body To Kill, Legend of 7 Golden Vampires, Bloodsuckers From Outer Space, Viy*, A Dark Song, Blade, Hell House 3, 10 Cloverfield Lane, Westworld, Dead & Buried, Next Of Kin Super Samhain Challenge Completed; #1 Westworld, #2 Dead & Buried #3 Blade *= rewatch, all others are first time watch Dr.Caligari fucked around with this message at 22:20 on Oct 18, 2019 |
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Oct 18, 2019 22:14
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I was trying to find a horror movie that had the word "ripe" in the title for the Inktober challenge, but decided to go with Who killed the Prosecutor and Why? but I can't find that either : (. e; Yay, good old YT has it Dr.Caligari fucked around with this message at 22:42 on Oct 18, 2019 |
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Oct 18, 2019 22:38
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 23. Viy (1967) (Shudder) While traveling at night, a young seminarian named Khoma has a run in with a witch. After she hops on his back and forces him to fly around, he ends up beating her nearly to death before she turns into a beautiful young woman, at which point he runs away in confusion. The following day, a rich merchant asks for a priest to come and say prayers for his dying daughter, and asks for Khoma by name. She dies before the young priest can arrive, and he is horrified to discover that she is the witch he killed. He is forced to stand vigil over her corpse for three terrifying nights. I don't know much of anything about Soviet cinema beyond Tarkovsky, so I didn't know what to expect from what was the only horror film from this era*. It's based on a short story of the same name by Nikolai Gogol and has the tone of a Russian folk tale (fun fact I just learned: Bava's Black Sunday is a very loose adaptation of the same story). It looks better than I expected, and I'd compare it favorably to a Hammer film from the same era. The directors LOVE tracking shots and it seems like almost every scene has some sort of camera movement, which for the most part helps keep things visually interesting. Most of this film is fine and charming but unremarkable, but the last act where Khoma is in the church praying over the witch is absolutely fantastic and fun as hell. The interior of the church is maybe my favorite set I've seen in a long time, it's all covered in cobwebs, melted candles, and paintings of angry-looking saints and it looks amazing. Everything that happens is really fun. At one point the witch's corpse surfs around the church on her coffin, and later swarms of demons come pouring out of the walls. Most of the creatures look really goofy, but in a good way. I was grinning throughout the whole thing. If the idea of a '60s Soviet horror film interests you, or if you like wild creative costuming and set design, I definitely recommend checking this out. 4.5/5 *technically I guess there was another Soviet horror film made like 20 years later in the '80s but I'm not sure it's actually possible to watch it anywhere Total: 23 Watched: Dead of Night | Child's Play (2019) | Escape Room | Hell Night | The Wind | Evil Dead (2013) | Cure (Challenge #1) | Tigers Are Not Afraid | The Craft | Tower of London | In Fabric | Popcorn | Cube | Uninvited | Galaxy of Terror (Challenge #2) | Brightburn | Body Bags | The Tingler | The Wax Mask | Cube 2: Hypercube | Dark Water (2002) | The Ruins (Challenge #4) | Viy Samhain Challenges:
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Oct 18, 2019 22:40
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gey muckle mowser posted:*technically I guess there was another Soviet horror film made like 20 years later in the '80s but I'm not sure it's actually possible to watch it anywhere I've posted about wanting to find Den Gneva every year in these threads and never found a copy I could watch. A subtitled version definitely exists because TCM has an entry for the film on their website which means that they've shown it. I've found it without subtitles on some obscure site that was definitely downloading viruses directly into my brain. But I just cannot find subtitles for it.
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Oct 18, 2019 23:18
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Random Stranger posted:I've posted about wanting to find Den Gneva every year in these threads and never found a copy I could watch. A subtitled version definitely exists because TCM has an entry for the film on their website which means that they've shown it. I've found it without subtitles on some obscure site that was definitely downloading viruses directly into my brain. But I just cannot find subtitles for it. You could've just learned Russian by now
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Oct 18, 2019 23:21
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 #114) Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell (1978), a.k.a., Devil Dog Tubi. Starts off with a group adopting a dog, then cut to them performing a ceremony to imbue it with the spirit of the Barghest. Roll opening credits. A family whose dog has passed away adopt one of the possessed puppies, and trouble follows. This was a TV movie, and it shows. The sets, shots, and acting aren't bad, just a little lacking. The bigger problem is that it's boring. I found myself yawning several times, and as much mayhem as a demon dog might promise, this movie doesn't deliver. Virtually all the evil happens off-screen, as do most of the effects of the dog corrupting members of the family. We're told the mother has stopped teaching her art classes, we're told the son is misbehaving at school, we're told that the parents were told that the daughter is misbehaving. It's paced well, but it moves from viewers being told about one event, and then to being told about another. Even the final showdown is a disappointment. Tony and Tia from the Witch Mountain movies played the son and daughter, which was some odd casting, and Weena from the 1960 Time Machine played the mother. Seeing Richard Crenna younger than I usually do was nice, and he put in a more than decent performance, but there was very little off of which he could play. Hell, the scene in which I'd argue he did the most emoting was just him and a lawnmower. In the end, while the movie doesn't rise to the possibilities of its premise, it's carried off with respectable poise. rating: 6/10"I wanna help. It's what I get paid for, and it's good for my ego."
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Oct 18, 2019 23:41
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Gripweed posted:You could've just learned Russian by now But then I'd have to read Russian novels and have you seen the size of those things?
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Oct 18, 2019 23:42
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16) Super Samhain Challenge 5: The Untamed (2017) I don't know why someone in Mexico felt the urge to make a live action hentai movie, and I'm not inclined to find out. At least Possession tried to have a plot.
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Oct 19, 2019 00:48
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 #115) Sex of the Devil (1971) Youtube. Opening with a cover of "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" (which gets reused A LOT), this Italian film shot in Turkey focuses on vacationers in Istanbul, and the mysterious events that await them. Psychedelic reminiscences, drip-fed character background details, a light Zodiac theme, and heavy use of ambiguous metaphors lends this something of a giallo feel, but if it is one, it's the most round-about I've encountered. Witchcraft, buried secrets, hypnosis, curses, death plots, and more all factor into the story, but I have to admit, I wasn't able to follow along with everything going on. Any of it, really. And this time, unlike The Doll of Satan, the visuals aren't strong enough to carry me over that hurdle. I ended up frustrated at how little the plot seemed to hold together, and then I gave up and accepted it. I've never been so mystified by a mystery. I don't even know if there was a mystery, or if poo poo just happened and people ended up dead incidentally. There was one part towards the end where I thought a couple of the characters might have turned into mermaids, and that seemed like a perfectly reasonable advancement of the story to me by that point. If anyone else in CD is willing to take a run at this and give me their thoughts, please let me know, 'cause I am clueless on this one. rating: 5/10"You can only go to a masked ball dressed like that."
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Oct 19, 2019 01:41
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25. Stage Fright (1987) Watched On: Shudder Whoo boy, this one was a clunker. It has a fine opening act and a novel premise (sleazy theatrical production is beset by murderer, uses murder to try and hype performance) but once the slashing goes into full effect, the whole thing just falls apart. I haven't seen a whole lot of horror movies, but the characters in Stage Fright might be the single stupidest cast in horror. My girlfriend and I were laughing at first about how they continued to split up, make plans and then abandon them immediately. But after the group has been so focused on escape this whole time, they decide to all run up into the rafters of the theater to chase the killer down and it all went downhill from there. I'm not usually one to nitpick these kinds of movies, but it kept getting worse and worse. Our film climaxes with the main character, while holding a gun and with the killer fully out in the open, deciding instead to climb under the stage and use a nail to retrieve a key from underneath his feet. Instead of, you know, shooting him and then doing that. Not to mention the complete waste of time that is the return to the crime scene and the genuinely insulting killer getting shot in the head, then turning to the camera and smiling at the audience. A total waste of time.
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Oct 19, 2019 02:19
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October 18 - Night Creatures a.k.a. Captain Clegg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQhhQWYJFyo Night Creatures was in my Hammer Horror box set, it's apparently traditionally considered to be part of Hammer's horror library, and yet you really have to stretch with this one. I think it gets filed there because of Peter Cushing and some Scooby Doo style fake ghosts (not a spoiler, they appear about three minutes in and are really obviously supposed to be people pretending to be ghosts). A member of the piratical Captain Clegg's crew has attacked the captain's wife, so Clegg mutilates him and abandons him on a deserted island. Twenty years later, Clegg has been captured and hanged, but his legacy lives on in a small coastal village who makes money off the smuggling operations Clegg set up. A troop of royal navy sailors arrives with the mutilator sailor in tow, and they're looking for both smugglers and Clegg's legacy. So this was a pretty enjoyable little movie. Oliver Reed has what you'd expect to be the lead role as the son of the village squire who is helping with the smuggling and he's decent enough, but Peter Cushing is really Cushing up this movie and stealing every single scene he's in. Cushing plays the village parson who is supporting the smuggling by throwing the sailors off the track whenever he can. I think I might like his performance here even more than when he plays Baron Frankenstein. I don't want to get too much more into this movie because it's fun to watch it unfold. The direction is fine but not brilliant. The story is incident driven but the individual incidents are enjoyable so it doesn't matter that much. I do wish there was more ghost pirating in this movie, but you can't have everything. Night Creatures made me go, "That was kind of neat!" when I selected it for tonight mainly because it was the last film in my Hammer box set that I didn't have any interest at all in.
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Oct 19, 2019 02:31
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#21) Truth or Dare (2018) Truth or Dare (2018) --- Wow what a bad movie. The characters either shallow at best or downright offputting at worst. The stupid CGI smile effect made me laugh more times than it should have. The plot was something someone came up with in 5 minutes and managed to stretch out into an hour and a half. Let me tell you the TRUTH, I DARE you to skip this movie! 1/5
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Oct 19, 2019 02:48
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I don’t particularly love giallo but I would recommend Heart + Knife to others who aren’t thrilled with them. It’s been my favorite thus far.
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Oct 19, 2019 03:05
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 #116) To the Devil a Daughter (1976), a.k.a., Child of Satan, a.k.a., To the Devil... A Daughter drat, Rob Zombie has mined a lot of samples from this one. A nun belonging to a mysterious Catholic off-shoot is entrusted to the care of an author of occult fiction, but as the order attempts to retrieve her, things take a sinister turn. And then a few more. Phew, the clean, linear nature of this story was such a relief after Sex of the Devil. Christopher Lee knocks it out of the park as the sinister head priest, and Richard Widmark was wonderful as the author, investigating and deducing the plans of the order. This hits a lot of the same notes as The Omen, but with a pulpier and more personal approach. Some of the most explicit sex I've seen in a Hammer film, too. I just wish they'd done a better job with the design of the puppet, as that sucked a lot of the tension out of the film whenever it appeared. Thankfully, the unexpected color-shift in the climax, abrupt as it was, more than balanced that out. Bad-rear end film, big recommendation. rating: 8/10"Ninety-eight percent of so-called Satanists are nothing but pathetic freaks who get their kicks out of dancing naked in freezing church-yards. But then there's that other two percent."
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Oct 19, 2019 03:19
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 26. The Lighthouse (2019) Dir: Robert Eggers The best film I’ve seen this year and probably the best thing I’ll watch all challenge. I was a big fan of The Witch when it came out, but this outclasses that film in pretty much every single way. The 1:19 black-and-white photography is some of the most gorgeous I’ve seen in a film all year. Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson play off each other incredibly well. It manages the insane balancing act of having tons of fart jokes and also genuinely unsettling horror. It went way weirder than I was expecting it to and I haven’t been this stoked after watching a new film in a while. Hardest recommend I can give. Friends Are Evil fucked around with this message at 07:50 on Oct 19, 2019 |
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Oct 19, 2019 03:22
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https://twitter.com/KennethJWaste2/status/1185392664801357824?s=20
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Oct 19, 2019 04:12
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30. Oct 18, 2019 A Bucket of Blood (1959, Roger Corman) Olive Films Signature Blu-ray What if you were a failed artist and could create great art if only some bodies were to come into your apartment? A fine dose of black humor and beat culture satire in this film by Mr. Corman and starring the wonderful Dick Miller. While I think it's a little silly, it's still fun for the proto-grand guginol stuff. Just have one more to meet my quota, but I'm really hoping to fit in the complete classic Universal monsters cycle in somehow. Even if not, I have the original House on Haunted Hill, Night of the Living Dead, The Shining, and maybe a few surprises.
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Oct 19, 2019 04:36
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 19. Jug Face (2013) I went back to my folk & rural horror list today and watched Jug Face, a movie about a remote mountain community that worships a muddy hole in the ground. The story’s about Ada, a pregnant teen who’s the first to learn that the pit has marked her as its next sacrifice. When she hides the jug that’s meant to tell the group it’s time for an offering, it doesn’t take long for the poo poo to hit the fan. I’ve seen a couple of reviews call Ada selfish, but it seems perfectly relatable to me for someone her age to panic and then get tangled up in lies, especially because her life is harsh even apart from the whole worshipping a bloodthirsty pit thing. The movie does a surprisingly good job with the pit, too. It isn’t overexplained or introduced in some big dramatic way. It’s just a fact of life to the folks who’ve grown up there. Some of the actors are interesting to watch, and it has a really polished feel apart from a few iffy effects. I still came away from this with the sense that it didn’t live up to its potential, mostly thanks to a dreary ending that’s played flatly enough to feel kind of pointless. 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); 11. Def by Temptation (1990) - Challenge #3; 12. Halloween III (1982); 13. House by the Cemetery (1981); 14. The Dorm That Dripped Blood (1982); 15. Phenomena (1985); 16. Color Me Blood Red (1965) - Challenge #4; 17. Girls With Balls (2018); 18. Tarot (2009) - Challenge #5; 19. Jug Face (2013)
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Oct 19, 2019 05:02
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 #117) The Killing of Satan (1983) Tubi. Hahaha, yes... Yes! Filipino film about a young man who must follow the path of his father to its conclusion... by killing Satan. On the way to doing that, he also has to take down "The Prince of Magic," who can knock you back or spin you right 'round just by throwing his hand up. Oh, and our jean-jacketed hero's name is Lando. Minutes ~5-20 are kind of dull, since they're setting up the dramatic justification for revenge, but then things get going hard. Ill winds, falling rocks, psychic attacks, summoning corpses from the waters, staring contests, snake goblins, and so on. Lando fights back with his fists and torches. It's a wonderful spectacle. Those of you who want Satan as a red guy with horns and a pitchfork, this film's got you covered. Whoo, good stuff. rating: 7/10"Satan! Come out and fight! You're yellow, Satan!"
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Oct 19, 2019 05:03
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22.) Child's Play (2019) 2019, first watch, Amazon Rental Initially, I had been pretty skeptical of this, but some horror thread folks seemed to think it holds up okay. The update to the ubiquitous branding of the original is ubiquitous connectivity (the "haunted cloud"), though the Kaslan brand isn't as everpresent in Andy's life until after the cloud becomes the enemy - it could have been in the mix more, to drive that idea home. But in some ways the middle and last acts are different projects, with the network poltergeist activity (seriously, a table saw?) being a separate aesthetic from a murderous doll. So much so that I do wonder if the history of this film involves another screenplay being retrofitted into a remake. I'm not as sold on this as others, but it's not bad. I think something that stayed on the trajectory of the first half would be more focused, but if you want some evil AI shenanigans, at least the finale ain't boring. That's no way to treat your best friend. 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, 15.) People Under the Stairs, 16.) L'Inferno [Classics], 17.) The Host [J- and K-horror], 18.) Hell House LLC 3 [Threequels], 19.) Stree [India, Samhain Challenge #4], 20.) P [Samhain Challenge #5: Thailand], 21.) Lord of Illusiosn [Clive Barker], 22.) Child's Play [New Releases]
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Oct 19, 2019 05:59
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