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Random Stranger posted:
Thank you for taking the bullet for me on this. I was gonna watch this for Tourist Trap and it sounds 100% not my bag.
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Oct 20, 2019 20:51
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SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE 5
TOURIST TRAP
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Darthemed posted:Holy poo poo, M_Sinistrari, how good does it feel to reach the end of the existing Amityvilles? Happy to not have more to sit through, and even happier to be able to never watch another again. Random Stranger posted:Coagulations. I feel like there's enough of those movies that Amityville should be it's own horror subgenre. Pretty much. While after a point a franchise is going to crap out a clunker, it was really surprising how actively bad some of the films were. It was like some they figured we got a camera, that's all we need for a film. I've sat through DTV on Prime with a one star rating which had more awareness of film making than what's in the Amityville franchise.
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Oct 20, 2019 20:54
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 Aenigma Always a pleasure to enjoy a Fulci for the first time(this one is available on Prime). I wouldn't put Aenigma in the top tier but it's definitely a solid slasher with an interesting supernatural twist. It's actually pretty restrained for Fulci. Of course, "restrained" for Fulci still means someone killed via a swarm of killer snails. This movie was made six years after The Beyond, and three years before A Cat in The Brain, so it proves that Fulci really kept his roll going for an extended period of time. Very proud of myself because this marks the first time where I picked out Fulci's standard cameo right away without having to read about it beforehand.  City of the Living Dead Watching this movie every year is one of my more recent traditions, but I think it's my personal favorite Fulci film. It has some of the most gnarly Fulci gore moments in his entire filmography, but it also has so much more. Spooky graveyards, an extremely 80's protagonist, psychics, zombies, evil priests, you name it. Everything you could want in a horror flick.  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 28. Aenigma 29. City of the Living Dead
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Oct 20, 2019 21:52
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 #126) The Eye (2002), a.k.a., Seeing Ghosts Youtube. Yeah, this plot has been used dozens of times. A woman (fully blind in this telling) gets an eye transplant, and starts seeing ghosts and poo poo that may somehow be connected to the life of the eye's previous owner. At the start, the film spends some time at the hospital where the transplant recipient is recuperating, and she goes back there a few times over the rest of the movie, which is a nice change from the treatments of this story that immediately send the person home and (at most) talk over the phone once problems emerge. The movie keeps up a good atmosphere, but most of the ghosts pop up and go before they can get a sense of their own story across. The coolest touch is that the Chinese(?) equivalent of the Grim Reaper appears a few times, flickering and escorting spirits away. There's some very good sound design, a furious violin scene, and one of the movie's greatest strengths is that the main character, Mun, is shown to be a good person, even through the tribulations of ghost hassling. It's a Singapore/Hong Kong/Thailand production, which left me feeling like I was missing out on a number of implicit cues, but I came away from it more impressed than I'd expected. The story path is a bit weird, basically going through two full arcs, but more of it works than not. I'm sure it positively glows next to the remake with Jessica Alba, though.  rating: 7/10"Were you reincarnated into the wrong body? Why are you so different from the rest of the family?"
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Oct 20, 2019 22:29
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#48: Puppet Master: Axis Termination Both of the previous Axis movies tricked me by having promising opening 10-20 minutes. I went into Axis Termination prepared. I wasn't going to be fooled a third time. So when they got the actress I liked back(For like 30 seconds, admittedly), they introduced a character played by a little person, a replacement nazi babe, a black character, showed that Blade's mouth could move again, and established that we were going back to the old standby of a team of people with non-puppet related psychic powers, I refused to be tricked But then I got past the halfway point, and I was still being entertained by Puppet Master: Axis Termination. And I started to suspect that maybe this one was gonna be OK The return of boobs! All three of the first Puppet Masters had boobs but none since. Until now, the last of the pre-reboot series. I can only assume it's a deliberate callback There was a funny bit where the older nazi babe was weirded out by the overly enthusiastic Hitler Youth girl. the puppetry still isn't to the standard of the early movies, but it's improved over the last two, with Blade especially. Whereas the previous Axis movies muddled things by making the American heroes racist, and also the movies themselves racist, it's super clear here. The good guy psychics are a multinational team of different races and genders, led by a person with a disability. The bad guy psychics are all nazis. And the nazis are triumphantly defeated and murdered. By far the bloodiest Puppet Master, and also the horniest by a huge margin. I went in fully prepared to not like Puppet Master: Axis Termination, but I ended up enjoying it. It fixes all the problems I had with the previous Axis movies, it's just an enjoyable mediocre good psychics with puppets vs nazi psychics with puppets movie. What a nice way to end the first Puppet Master continuity.
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Oct 20, 2019 23:47
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 #127) The Terror Within (1989), a.k.a., Good Night Hell Post-apocalyptic (due to chemical warfare) movie with survivors, in some Ghostbuster-looking jump-suits, scrounging the wastelands. During an expedition, they find a wild survivor, and bring her back to base, but find that she's carrying more than they expected. George Kennedy is their commander! Released by Concorde, so there's a strong feeling of rental store fodder to this, but it's decent enough. It feels something like a trashy mix of Alien's basic plot with the set stylings of Leviathan, but without nearly as much tension or moodiness as either of those deliver. Fallout vibes are minimal. The energy never gets too high, the pacing works against what life the movie does manage to build up, and the cheap-looking set dressing brings things down even further. The monster designs look pretty good in comparison to the rest of the movie; they were created by Dean Jones, who's done make-up on a variety of properties, including Blue Velvet, Slumber Party Massacre II, and DS9. The parts with the monster plodding around are fun, but can't carry the rest of the movie to a successful finish. By the time it hits the last chase, I was sighing and drumming my fingers, impatient for the end. Maybe the sequel brings the pieces together with more panache. rating: 5/10"Hey, we got buzzards circling about a quarter mile away. Whatever it is still might be edible."
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Oct 21, 2019 00:10
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Breaking this week's reviews in half while I finish writing them. 38. The Snake Woman (1961)  A mad scientist is injecting his pregnant wife with snake venom because he’s a mad scientist. When she gives birth, the midwife declares that it is a cursed baby and gets the villagers to riot and burn down the house and kill the new parents. The baby escapes and almost two decades later Scotland Yard sends someone to investigate all the strange snake venom related deaths. Pretty straight forward movie, nothing special about it. 39. The Bat (1959)  A man tells Vincent Price he’s stolen a million dollars and hidden it in his mansion, so Vincent Price kills him and goes to find it. At the same time a strange prowler known only as The Bat because he wears a shroud on his face and has claws, you know, like a bat, begins attacking the current occupants of the mansion. A nice little murder mystery with some good work from Vincent Price. 40. Witchfinder General (1968)  During the English Civil War, Vincent Price is hunting witches and kills the father of our hero’s to be wife as well as sexually assaulting her. As our hero is a Parliamentarian of rising renown, he gets sent on an independent mission which he then diverts into getting revenge. Good Vincent Price as always, good use of the English Civil War as the setting even if this was sort of based on a true story. 41. Homicidal (1961)  A woman shows up at a hotel and asks the bellhop to marry her ASAP. She then uses this excuse to kill the Justice of the Peace and runs off. We then see her taking care of a mute woman and threatening to kill her as well. Another William Castle movie, the gimmick this time is there is a one minute fright break before the reveal of the twist in case anyone wants to not see how the movie ends. Other than a disappointing gimmick for a William Castle production, a good crazy person / Psycho rip-off. 42. In the Mouth of Madness (1994)  Sutter Cane is the most popular horror writer that everyone just can’t stop talking about. Sutter Cane is a mix of Stephen King and H.P. Lovecraft and so his writings have an effect on the people who read them. Our star Sam Neil works for an insurance company that has to find the final Sutter Cane manuscript or pay out a claim. He tracks him down and loses his mind along the way. A great John Carpenter film along with great monster designs. 43. Caltiki, the Immortal Monster (Italian) (1959)  A group of archaeologists investigating Mayan ruins lose a member near an interior pool with a warning in Mayan next to it so they do the next logical thing, send down a diver. The diver returns with gold and no face, it seems they have awakened the monster known as Caltiki. They cut off hunks to study later and head back to their home in the city. The hunks they cut off grow due to a passing meteor and start ingesting everything. A Blob ripoff with lackluster effects, the blob doesn’t look very convincing and the model work is extremely basic. 44. House of Wax (1953) THE SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #4: Inktober  Vincent Price is an artist who part owns a wax museum and his partner wants out and will burn down the museum with Price in it if he has to. After recovering from his wounds, Price opens a new wax museum using a special new technique to make his mannequins especially life like. A new technique that is connected to all the bodies disappearing from the local morgue. Creepy Vincent Price is a good Vincent Price. 45. Q: The Winged Serpent (1982)  Something is flying around New York City eating people who are on rooftops and occasionally dropping bits of them down below. At the same time someone is removing people’s skin and hearts. Luckily the police find a helpful professor who says the two things are connected to Aztec sacrificial rites and that he’s certainly not the one responsible. Larry Cohen, David Carradine and Michael Moriarty make this cheesy and low budget monster movie a thing worth watching. 46. Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988)  A couple at makeout point decide to leave the inflatable raft they’re making out in to go investigate a shooting star. What they find is a metallic circus tent full of cotton candy bundles that contain bodies. Then the klowns appear. Incredibly silly and amazing fun. 1. Killer Workout (1987) 2. Ænigma (1987) 3. Killer Fish (1979) 4. Rear Window (Theater) (1954) 5. House on Haunted Hill (1959) 6. Nail Gun Massacre (1985) 7. Paranorman (2012) 8. Night of the Comet (1984) 9. Corpse Bride (2005) 10. 13 Ghosts (1960) 11. Vampyr (German) (1932) #1 12. Amuck (Italian) (1972) 13. Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man (1951) 14. Fascination (French) (1979) 15. Lake of Dracula (Japanese) (1971) 16. Sorority House Massacre (1986) 17. Prophecy (1979) 18. Sorority Massacre 2 (1990) 19. Leviathan (1989) 20. Night of the Lepus (1972) 21. Puppet Master (1989) 22. Ice Cream Man (1995) 23. Return of the Living Dead 2 (1988) 24. The Giant Claw (1957) 25. One Cut of the Dead (Japanese) (Theater) (2017) 26. Return of the Living Dead 3 (1993) 27. Return of the Living Dead: Necropolis (2005) 28. Spider Baby (1967) #2 29. Dollman (1991) 30. The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll (1960) 31. The Addams Family (Theater) (2019) 32. Return of the Living Dead: Rave to the Grave (2005) 33. Ganja & Hess (1973) #3 34. Arcade (1993) 35. Terrorvision (1986) 36. I, Frankenstein (2014) 37. Drácula (Spanish) (Theater) (1931) 38. The Snake Woman (1961) 39. The Bat (1959) 40. Witchfinder General (1968) 41. Homicidal (1961) 42. In the Mouth of Madness (1994) 43. Caltiki, the Immortal Monster (Italian) (1959) 44. House of Wax (1953) #4 45. Q: The Winged Serpent (1982) 46. Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988) duz fucked around with this message at 01:47 on Oct 21, 2019 |
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Oct 21, 2019 00:20
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 31. Knife + Heart (2019) Dir: Yann Gonzalez (Shudder) A lot of giallo pastiches/films influenced by giallo have left me pretty cold because they mostly seem to take the surface-level influences (Argento, Bava, and all that) without really adding anything new or having a creative voice of their own. Thankfully, this is one of the rare exceptions. By reframing the tropes and surface images of giallo through an explicitly queer lens, these trope instantly become more potent and vital. It feels like a film made by someone with a real understanding of both giallo and the gay porn industry, and a real understanding of how to make those influences work in a film. It helps that it's one of the most beautifully shot movies I've seen all year. Hard recommend. 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 26. The Lighthouse 27. TerrorVision 28. Phantom of the Opera (1925) 29. Stay Alive 30. Hobgoblins 31. Knife + Heart And that's 31! I watched 10 more films before the challenge, but I didn't count them. I'll keep going because there's still a lot I want to get around to, but I'll probably slow down a bit approaching the end of this month because I have a lot of real-life stuff on my plate.
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Oct 21, 2019 00:20
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19. God Told Me To A moody paranormal police procedural with religious and scifi elements that is well shot and doesn't waste a single minute of screentime. I loved it and realize I need to watch a lot more Larry Cohen movies.  20. Zombieland: Double Tap  I didn't see the original, so perhaps I missed out on some references to the first, but it was showing and I wanted to see something on the bigscreen this weekend. The characters play off of each other quite well and the humor hits some of the time, but it suffers from a story that doesn't seem to know where it is going. quote:1. The Shining [5/5 Spooks]
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Oct 21, 2019 00:20
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Yikes, it's been about a week since I've posted last - I frontloaded the month but now I have to play catch-up. 21) Horror Noire (2019) - watched on Shudder Trailer  SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #3: Horror Noire - Watch the documentary Horror Noire if you haven't seen it beforeI'm really glad this challenge came up or I otherwise would never have watched this - I'd seen it while scrolling through Shudder and just thought it was about like, you know, black and white horror movies or something. It's a really engaging documentary about the history of black people in horror movies - how they've been used, what they've represented, and how black actors and filmmakers have had to overcome through the history of horror cinema. It brings up tropes and metaphors that I was familiar with and some that were not totally obvious to me. They have a ton of great black filmmakers and actors doing the commentary for the whole thing and it's a fascinating watch. I won't be posting a HOUSE, HOME and/or ROOM OF HORROR entry here because I'm planning on doing something special each day this next week involving that, so here, have some extra special bonus AMITYVILLE ENNUI  22) Amityville: It's About Time (1992) - watched on Tubi Trailer SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #6: Sometimes They Come Back - Watch a horror sequel you haven't seenA West Coast architect returns home from a trip out on the East Coast where he knocked down a few buildings (where was it? Amity-something in New York?) and brings home a clock from one of the houses. Unfortunately for he and his family, it's a spoopy clock from 112 Ocean Avenue! Soon after, unfortunate things begin to happen to his family and the clock is playing for keeps! Well, I'm going to say something I'll probably regret...this was, for me, probably the second most-entertaining of the series behind Amityville 2: The Possession. Don't get me wrong - it's a bad movie, and it's the sixth Amityville sequel which carries its own damning implications, but it is some solid early '90s DTV horror that is way, way less irritating than the one that preceeded it. The clock is definitely a more engaging evil doo-dad than the lamp from 4, and unlike Amityville 5, which had just about no connection to the original story and no effort put into it, this one frequently shows images of our protagonists' house with 112 Ocean Ave. superimposed on top of it (ooh!) and has a good amount of gore and other weird poo poo going on. I thought the family makeup in this one was a little unique too - there's the neglectful business guy dad (played by a dad from The Monster Squad) and the main protagonist is his - girlfriend? ex-girlfriend? - Andrea, who has a good relationship with his kids; they don't call her "mom" or anything but she clearly cares about them. There's ne'er-do-well son Rusty(!), a heavy metal fan who instinctively knows the clock is up to some evil poo poo, gets blamed for evil poo poo around the neighborhood the clock does, and has a nice relationship with the old woman down the street who does research into the clock and reveals it used to belong to a 15th century necromancer. This is before the clock offs her by using one of the oldest horror film tricks in the book, the "evil cracked pavement and mechanical stork statue" combo, in a laughably bad proto-Final Destination style sequence. Andrea's new boyfriend is played by a guy who appears to be channeling Dennis Miller from Bordello of Blood a few years early, which is really weird to watch. Oh, and I should also mention that this movie has DICK MILLER OUT OF loving NOWHERE in a cameo! He's in one scene playing a concerned neighbor and I have no idea why! It's so weird seeing it. This review is already going on a little long and I'm looking at my notes here, so we'll just point out some other stuff. There's great goopy effects when the dad gets bitten by a dog and the wound never heals, leaks pus and eventually the clock possesses him like this. He makes a little diorama with tons of Amityville houses and it's a neat little scene. Oh and that dog (which didn't actually attack the guy, it was a spoopy apparition from the clock) dies horribly - the clock stuffs him in a little pool drain, which is a real bummer. The clock makes the nice virginal daughter dress and act super provocatively, and she leads her boyfriend back to he house in an amazing sequence that ends with the guy being melted alive. The ending is pretty wild (said sister is killed by Rusty using an electric guitar amp in a way that clearly screams THAT ISN'T HOW THIS WORKS IN REAL LIFE!!), there's a lot of time fuckery and people are over-aged and de-aged, and it has a happy ending, which is not uncommon for the series but kind of disappointing here. So yeah, a bad movie but not the worst Amityville film I've seen so far by a long shot.  23) Amityville: A New Generation (1993) - watched on Tubi Trailer SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #4: Inktober - Watch a horror film you've never seen that heavily features art or artists, or the main character is an artist. - the main character is an art photographer, his colleagues are artists and the last act of the movie revolves around an art exhibit/installation in the apartment building they all live inPhotographer Keyes Terry is gifted a mysterious mirror from an old vagrant after taking a few pictures of the guy. Unfortunately for Keyes, his live-in girlfriend, his artist friends and his landlord, it's a spoopy mirror from 112 Ocean Avenue! Soon after, unfortunate things begin to happen to Keyes and his colleagues and the mirror is playing for keeps! Compared to the previous film, this one just lacks a lot of its oomph. There's only a handful of boring kills, the story is more psychological than the last one, and none of the characters really stick out. This is odd because there are some real names here, including an early Terry O'Quinn role, Lin Shaye from the Insidious movies, Richard Roundtree and David Naughton from American Werewolf in London. The Amityville tie-in is also real weird - 112 Ocean Ave shows up in the mirror a lot, and the movie revolves around the events of a murder at the house - but not the DeFeo murders, you know, just some other family got murdered there, no biggie. The whole plot twist is kind of meh too (the vagrant is the main guy's dad - who he only met once as a kid as he was in a mental institution - who went crazy and murdered this other family at the Amityville House - he gave the mirror to his son in an attempt to make him crazy/murderous too? I think? Anyway there's your title folks!) although given the franchise's repeated stories involving families with problems, it's not that surprising. The effects aren't as good as in previous films either - they try to do the "people appearing in photographs/paintings look spooky" thing that was done much better in Amityville 3D. This one also has a happy ending which I didn't really care for. So yeah, aside from seeing a few former and soon-to-be-famous faces here, there's not much going for this one.
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Oct 21, 2019 00:24
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SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #6: Sometimes They Come Back (sequel to House of 1000 Corpses) 23)Devil's Rejects Shudder  My challenge is complete, but I'm definitely going to keep going. Anyway, this is my first watch of Devil's Rejects. I'm not much of a Rob Zombie fan. Didn't like house of 1000 corpses, thought 31 was ok Lords of Salem I kind of liked but thought it was a bit of a mess. This one has not changed my opinion on him much. It's super well made and I love the aesthetic, but the movie itself is... eh. It's no TCM or even I Drink Your Blood. There are bits that are mean spirited and gratuitous when the woman gets hit by the truck And bits that I really dig (the ice cream vignette). The final act is better than the two preceding it, and I can see why this film gets love, but, I dunno, Zombie isn't really my thing I guess, because this doesn't work for me as well as it should. .5/5
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Oct 21, 2019 01:16
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 #128) The Terror Within II (1991), a.k.a., Danger Mutations That's some fast sequel cranking. They got R. Lee Ermey for this one, and he's wearing an impressively natural-looking beard. Andrew Stevens appears to be the lone hold-over from the cast of the original (they might have reused the dog, I wasn't sure), and he also got to direct this thing. We're off to another bastion of survivors, where the plot of the first movie basically repeats, except we know what to expect this time, it moves slower, and there's no major twists on the formula, so... Yeah. There's blue filters for monster-vision this time, which is about as exciting as it sounds. Oh, and I didn't mention this about the first movie, but the monsters' weakness is dog whistles. For most of this, I wished I was watching a Nemesis movie instead, so that there'd at least be some nutty inventiveness with time travel or cyborgs or martial arts or something going on while the characters wandered around in rating: 4/10"Must take after your side of the family." Darthemed fucked around with this message at 21:20 on Oct 22, 2019 |
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Oct 21, 2019 01:38
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And the second half of the week's reviews. 47. Mr. Sardonicus (1961)  A famous doctor who can cure paralysis with hot towels and massages is summed by the girl who got away to a far off castle on the continent. There the Baron who rules the land through torture and fear asks him to cure his horrible rictus grin or else his long lost girlfriend who is now the Baron’s wife will be tortured. Another William Castle film and it’s pretty well done. The gimmick for this one was that at the end of the movie the audience would vote as to if the movie should end or if Mr. Sardonicus should receive his comeuppance. There was only one ending filmed and he always gets it. 48. Prince of Darkness (1987)  Donald Pleasance is a priest that invites a professor friend and his students to investigate a strange glowing canister in the basement of a church. Crazed bugs and hobos appear, fluids get sprayed at people and anytime someone nods off in the church they dream of a video of a shadowy creature leaving the church. It’s beginning to appear as if the canister holds Liquid Satan. A decent John Carpenter film but it feels like it’s missing something. I think maybe there’s not enough action/monsters. 49. The Fog (1980)  One hundred years after a pirate crew is betrayed by a town, a mysterious fog is rolling in. Glass starts shattering and electronics are shorting out. Then shadowy figures start coming out of the fog to kill people. John Carpenter does a good job building suspense here, a pretty good movie. 50. Piranha 3DD (2012)  The piranhas are back and this time in a water park with an adults only area. A Sci-Fi channel level plot but with better cameos and way too much nudity. It’s like they took the previous movie which was already turned up to eleven and turned it up to eleven again. It’s not very good but I don’t think they were trying to make a good movie, just something with gore and nudity. 51. Rawhead Rex (1986)  In an Irish town, a man trying to remove a stone monolith from his field causes a monster to be set loose on the town. An American writer is visiting to document the local churches and gets involved when the monster attacks his family. The monster doesn’t look all that good but the kills aren’t too shabby. 52. Viy (1967) THE SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #5: Tourist Trap  A seminary student has to pray over a corpse for three days while a witch attacks. A beautifully shot film, I just wish I wasn’t stuck with a dubbed copy. 53. Psycho Shark (2009)  Ever wanted to watch a found footage movie of someone watching found footage? You do not, it is very boring. Even when everyone is wearing bikinis and the camera keeps focusing on their breasts and occasionally asses. The word psycho is in the title is because it’s a psycho ripoff. The word shark is in the title is because the movie ends with a giant shark eating everyone. What a terrible movie. 1. Killer Workout (1987) 2. Ænigma (1987) 3. Killer Fish (1979) 4. Rear Window (Theater) (1954) 5. House on Haunted Hill (1959) 6. Nail Gun Massacre (1985) 7. Paranorman (2012) 8. Night of the Comet (1984) 9. Corpse Bride (2005) 10. 13 Ghosts (1960) 11. Vampyr (German) (1932) #1 12. Amuck (Italian) (1972) 13. Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man (1951) 14. Fascination (French) (1979) 15. Lake of Dracula (Japanese) (1971) 16. Sorority House Massacre (1986) 17. Prophecy (1979) 18. Sorority Massacre 2 (1990) 19. Leviathan (1989) 20. Night of the Lepus (1972) 21. Puppet Master (1989) 22. Ice Cream Man (1995) 23. Return of the Living Dead 2 (1988) 24. The Giant Claw (1957) 25. One Cut of the Dead (Japanese) (Theater) (2017) 26. Return of the Living Dead 3 (1993) 27. Return of the Living Dead: Necropolis (2005) 28. Spider Baby (1967) #2 29. Dollman (1991) 30. The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll (1960) 31. The Addams Family (Theater) (2019) 32. Return of the Living Dead: Rave to the Grave (2005) 33. Ganja & Hess (1973) #3 34. Arcade (1993) 35. Terrorvision (1986) 36. I, Frankenstein (2014) 37. Drácula (Spanish) (Theater) (1931) 38. The Snake Woman (1961) 39. The Bat (1959) 40. Witchfinder General (1968) 41. Homicidal (1961) 42. In the Mouth of Madness (1994) 43. Caltiki, the Immortal Monster (Italian) (1959) 44. House of Wax (1953) #4 45. Q: The Winged Serpent (1982) 46. Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988) 47. Mr. Sardonicus (1961) 48. Prince of Darkness (1987) 49. The Fog (1980) 50. Piranha 3DD (2012) 51. Rawhead Rex (1986) 52. Viy (1967) #5 53. Psycho Shark (2009)
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Oct 21, 2019 01:46
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Sareini posted:20. Killer Condom (1996) I mentioned this movie to a German friend of mine. She instantly replied "Oh yes, by Ralf Konig! I have read the comic book, I have it on the shelf somewhere!" This was ... not the reaction I was expecting, to say the least.
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Oct 21, 2019 01:49
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Also worth noting that H.R. Giger worked on the designs for Killer Condom, but left the production when he saw the way the tone of the film was going and didn't care for it.
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Oct 21, 2019 01:58
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#49: Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich What the gently caress, Tom Lennon? This is a movie for nazis. The puppets gruesomely murder minorities. Jews, gays, gypsies, people in mixed race relationships, black women, drug users, women who won't gently caress you, they are all gruesomely murdered in lovingly created, unique gore sequences. Gore that would be intense in any movie, but in a series where the most gruesome death is typically a leech getting dropped in someone's mouth and then they vomit blood and die, it stands out. All of the creativity and care in this movie went in to the depiction of the deaths of minorities. Deaths that deny the victims dignity, deaths that are pure spectacle and entertainment. I know this sounds like a joke, but this movie genuinely is a betrayal of everything the Puppet Master franchise stood for. A dumbass series of bad movies about cute little murder puppets, made with care as quickly and cheaply as possible. They didn't have the most well thought out morality, or well thought out anything for that matter, and maybe a couple of them were pretty racist. But at least they knew who the bad guys were. The Puppet Master series didn't deserve this. And one more thing. You know the Jester Puppet, one of the original Puppets that, along with Blade, Tunneler, and Pinhead, has been in every Puppet Master movie? It's been replaced by a clown frog puppet. This movie isn't just for nazis. It's for 4chan nazis.
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Oct 21, 2019 02:22
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To be fair The Littlest Reich predates the whole clown-pepe thing so it's not a specific reference to that. I would buy that making the Jester a frog is overall a Pepe gag, though. God, S. Craig Zahler sucks.
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Oct 21, 2019 02:36
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#10 - Don't Hang Up (2016) Mediocre Saw ripoff where a creepy dude demolishes Youtube pranksters. Fun enough way to kill time, especially since it was short, but this probably won't stick in my mind long. / 5
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Oct 21, 2019 02:39
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Well that put me in a bad mood. And it's not like watching any six Puppet Master movies in a day is a good idea. But what a miserable stopping point. I guess I should give my thoughts on a franchise as a whole The Puppet Master franchise It's pretty bad. Like, I wasn't even sorting them into good or bad, my rankings were whether or not I was reasonably entertained throughout the movie. An only five of thirteen achieved that. The first two are entertaining mainly for how weird they are. Bizarre characters, baffling plots, and of course, the adorable murder puppets. The third and forth are entertaining in the way that entertaining movies usually are. They have followable plots, reasonable characters, and adorable murder puppets. They rise to the realm of competently executed. The twelfth works mainly by having a lot of stuff in it. Two teams of psychics, lots of puppets, a guy gets sex murdered, one of the puppets is a werewolf. All of it done at just the bare minimum of competence. There's enough going on that it mages to fill it's 75 minute runtime without ever really dragging. And that's the good ones. Out of the remaining eight movies in the franchise, five are bad because they're boring. Curse of the Puppet Master is bad because of it's insanely abrupt and unsatisfying ending. Puppet Master vs Demonic Toys is bad in every way a movie can be normally bad. Script, acting, effects, etc, just complete failure on every level. And The Littlest Reich is beyond bad, it's a straight up movie for nazis and anybody who likes it should be tagged by the FBI. Learn from my mistake, don't watch Puppet Master movies. Don't decide to watch the whole franchise on a dumb internet challenge. It's not worth it it. Puppet Master movies will leave you worse off than when you found them. I gotta take a day or two off horror movies. I need... I need to think about some stuff. I haven't been to mass in a long time...
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Oct 21, 2019 02:45
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You know... I knew there were nazi Puppet Master movies. And I knew there were really racist Nazi Puppet Master movies where the Nazis were the good guys. But I didn't know there were actual Pepe Puppets. God the world sucks.
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Oct 21, 2019 03:02
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Franchescanado posted:SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #6: Sometimes They Come Back  32. [REC] (2007) Blu-ray Watched with a friend to introduce him and refresh myself for the sequel. I liked it just as much the second time. My buddy was itching for more so stayed long enough to finish off the pot of mulled wine while.slamming in the second disc.  33. [REC]2 (2009) Blu-ray Sucked but was a wild ride and I ultimately liked it well enough. Be nice if one entey team member didn't have an obvious rimfire clone of his firearm. Be even nicer if he didn't show off the top of the magazine to show off the reduced size feedlips to double down on it. 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), 31. The Ritual (2017), 32. [REC] (2007), 33. [REC]2 Decade - 1920s, 1930s, 1940s (III), 1950s (II), 1960s (IV), 1970s (IV), 1980s (II), 1990s (II), 2000s (V), 2010s (X) Black & White:Color:Hybrid - 10:22:1 By Country - Australia (I), Britain (I), Britain/Gremany (I), Canada (II), Italy (I), Japan (III), Mexico (I), 'Murica (XVIII), New Zealand (I), Spain (IV) New:Rewatch - 27:6 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, 6. [REC]2
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Oct 21, 2019 03:10
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32. Häxan (1922, Benjamin Christensen) Criterion Blu-ray It's been about ten years since I've seen this, but I remembered mostly the surreal (and sadistic) depictions of witchcraft and witch hunts. This time around, I'm more impressed with how it's almost a self-reflexive sort of documentary-essay. W for Witch, perhaps (Haxan does literally translate to "The Witch" in Swedish). The production values are exquisite, with great effects and a bizarre sense of humor. Director/writer/producer Benjamin Christensen even stars as the devil, wearing ash and hair, sticking his tongue out, and occasionally churning butter. This was also an inspiration to Carl Th. Dreyer (who cast Christensen in his film Michael), as well as the animators at Disney who deliberately homaged it for the Night on Bald Mountain segment of Fantasia. (Note: Criterion just put out the Blu to this and it's loving gorgeous)
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Oct 21, 2019 03:14
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 #129) Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich (2018) Since Gripweed powered through the Puppet Master series like a champ, I figured I'd watch the only entry in it I hadn't yet gotten around to watching. The reputation this one's gained since release had me kind of dreading that, to be honest, especially since I'm usually such a big fan of Thomas Lennon as an actor. In this story, Toulon was a Nazi, but he still made puppets, since that was the family business. Years later, people come to the hotel, start getting killed. Ehhhh. I really wish this series would get away from Nazisploitation for a while again. Throw it back to DeCoteau, if he's not too good for the series these days. Fangoria's name being attached to this makes me feel less bad about their print division folding. The puppetry and production look way better than they have in years, and might be the peak of the series as far as that goes. The gore also looks great, despite the ends to which it's being put (Gripweed detailed those better than I want to). Numerous cops get killed, something I'm usually up for in my horror watches, but what a waste of Barbara Crampton. I don't think there's one likable character in this, they've all got some rear end in a top hat quality or other, and with a different writer, that might be saying something. Zombie-puppet Toulon getting his last kill in with a gun is just staggeringly stupid and anti-climactic. The new puppet designs look good, but there's so many choices that I wish were inexplicable, instead of just 'Yeah, that's Zahler being self-indulgent.' Why make Toulon a Nazi, instead of someone fleeing Nazis? What the poo poo is with the helicopter 'puppet'? This movie tries really hard to be edgy, and I guess it would be, to some viewers. But it's such juvenile, empty edginess. The larger effect of the racial targeting this movie wallows about in is to make itself look stupid, and it does more to paint Zahler as gross than it does to build any theme or ambition other than Nazi puppets killing minorities. This makes the Leprechaun movies look thoughtful. I wish I had a gif of Tom Lennon mumbling "Yeah, I try to mirror reality," at the end, looking like he just wants to be done with the movie, as that would be a great summary of what watching this film is like. Pretense of content, failure to land, grating to experience. I'd be rating this lower if the visuals weren't such an improvement over every other film in the series. rating: 6/10"Why would anybody create a Nazi puppet?"
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Oct 21, 2019 03:23
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Eli (2019, Netflix This is Netflix’s newest horror offering, with many of the people behind last years hit Haunting of Hill House involved in this. A young boy named Eli suffers from a vague medical condition and is admitted into a special facility where they assure him that he will be cured. Of course things at this facility are more sinister than they appear... This was a pretty average movie. It’s plot is kind of jumbled but it has some pretty good scare scenes and a few decent jump scare. I think your enjoyment of this will probably depend a lot on your enjoyment of Hill House, as it has a similar look and feel to it. Return of the Living Dead 3 (1993 Amazon Prime Canada This was a really fun movie that I regret not renting ages ago. RotLD is one of my favourite movies, but I’ve always been skeptic all of the sequels. I was disappointed by part 2 and I was put off of renting this entry, despite its pretty awesome cover. This is loosely related to the first movie. The military is conducting experiments on the dead, and a colonel’s son discovers this and uses the zombie gas to resurrect his dead girlfriend. We then get what is probably the first entry in the Zombie Romance genre. The plot itself is merely okay, but what stands out is the special effects and creature design. It’s directed by Brian Yuzna of Society and are-animator fans, so we get a good dose of mind bending creatures and body horror. The special effects are so good that when the closing credits hit the first names we see are the effects crew. I would recommend watching this one if you haven’t seen it. Psycho (1998, Netflix) Samhain Challenge: Sometimes they come backWhen I suggested watching a remake as a challenge I had an ulterior motive. This movie has been in my watchlist for ages - it’s disappeared and reappeared on my Netflix list several times - but I’ve never had much desire to sit down and watch it. I knew I needed an extra push to watch this so I suggested this challenge and figured I’d watch it if the challenge was accepted. What we get is essentially a shot for shot remake of the original. It’s kind of off-putting to see old transition styles and staging in a modern setting. The dialogue is largely the same too and that’s a really bizarre directorial choice. The way people talk changes over the years so when people use old slang and phrases it seems anachronistic. The acting is pretty bad in this. Vince Vaughn in particular is a horrible Norman Bates. Some reviews suggest that this film is intentionally campy. I’d agree for this to a degree but I wish it embraced its campy aspects a little more. I’m really not even clear on what the point of this was. It’s too similar to the original to really offer any artistic vision. I suppose is Van Sant changed anything though then people would have complained so maybe that’s a meta-commentary? Either way I can’t really recommend watching this. Watched (26): Brightburn, Tales from the Hood, Pet Semetary 2, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, One Cut of the Dead, Leatherface (1990), Summer of 84, Viy, Mandy, In the Tall Grass, Street Trash, See No Evil, Haunt, Idle Hands, Horror Noire, Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night 2, Doom Asylum, Eaten Alive, The Craft, The Wolfman (2010), 3 from hell, The Most Powerful Witch 1&2, Zombieland 2, Eli, Return of the Living Dead 3, Psycho (1998) Samhain Challenges: 1. The Best Month - Viy 2. Dead and Buried - 3 from Hell 3. Horror Noire - Horror Noire 4. Inktober (legend) - The Wolfman (2010) 5. Tourist Trap - The Most Powerful Witch 1&2 6. Sometimes they come back - Psycho (1998)
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Oct 21, 2019 03:37
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 #130) Demonic Toys 2 (2010), a.k.a., Demonic Toys: Personal Demons, a.k.a., Demonic Toys: Revenge Tubi. What am I doing. Some old dude is buying up spooky toys, drags along his entourage, family, and existing collection to get the latest one (a devil doll), then that doll reanimates the rest of his collection, and killing follows. They actually spend some time on character development (by Full Moon standards), and with a cast of seven main characters (not counting the toys), that does help. William Butler (who wrote the story for all the Gingerdead Man movies) wrote and directed this, but the inclusion of a dwarf psychic feels like something Charles Band would have pushed. She out-acts everyone else, thankfully, softening the exploitative quality. The toys look good, though Baby Oopsie-Daisy is as obnoxious as ever. Slightly disappointed that the robot didn't make an appearance, but he always felt like an odd member of the toy party. Less excusable is the absence of the teddy-bear. I started drinking and lost track of the plot, but after a seance that goes on way too long, there's a devil crawling out of the castle's well, and whacking off doll heads with a baseball bat is apparently enough to take care of that situation. There are so many other films you could watch, please don't spend part of your life on this. rating: 5/10"You've been Beelze-bamboozled, sugar tits!"
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Oct 21, 2019 04:49
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 20. Wake Wood (2009) This one’s about a couple who face a family tragedy, move to a small town, and are given a chance to spend three more days with their late daughter. It’s got a strong Pet Sematary vibe even apart from the revived kid concept, though Wake Wood is slower and includes more folk horror elements. Some of the actors do a nice job here, and there are some great, grisly scenes that lead up to the monkey-paw chunk of the story. But once Alice shows up, much of the tension disappears. At first her parents try to pretend that things are going as expected while the townspeople act pointlessly mysterious, and then there are some slasher style scenes. The overall tone stays pretty static through all this though, which makes the final third feel like a plot-driven march to the credits rather than an exploration of parental angst. Overall, I’d say Wake Wood has a good central idea but the execution falls a bit flat.  21. Happy Death Day (2017) A friend and I have a twenty year tradition of going to see questionable looking horror movies in the theater, and we caught this one when it first came out. Today we got together to work on our Halloween costumes, so we decided to put it on again and see how it held up. Happy Death Day is probably never going to top anybody’s best-of lists, but it’s a fun movie that more or less succeeds at what it’s trying to do. Jessica Rothe is great as Tree, whose backstory gives her a little more depth than you tend to see in a college slasher. Tree’s changing approach to living through her birthday leads to some interesting choices and character growth, too. I liked the twist that put a ticking clock on Tree’s do-overs, and I also still love the big dumb baby-head mascot. I haven’t seen the sequel yet, but will probably watch it sometime this week. 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); 20. Wake Wood (2009); 21. Happy Death Day (2017)
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Oct 21, 2019 04:50
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21. The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971) This horror spoof has the same quality that the Batman show from the sixties has where an adult can watch it and recognize all of the gags, but a kid could easily take it for the real thing. Vincent Price gives what will probably always be the most satisfying screen portrayal of a Dr. Doom figure, embracing all the ludicrous gusto of his baroque revenge, while playing it extremely straight and sinister. For the most part, Price is silent in the title role, leading him to sell his character largely through gestures and presence instead of his iconic voice. Of course, he nails it. One murder in particular made me laugh like a hyena, you'll know it when you see it. Weirdly, elements of this, like an ever-tightening piece of headgear and a key surgically embedded in someone's body, seem to foreshadow the Saw movies, if those movies were the exact opposite amount of fun. 4/5  22. End of the Wicked (1999) Challenge #5: Tourist Trap  Watched via Scream Stream. Nigerian evangelical propaganda film about the dangers of witchcraft and satanism in the vein of American Christian exploitation films like If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do?, but with more uh...stuff. Beelzebub on his throne in hell sends witches to do horrifying things like shapeshift into owls that shoot lasers or grow giant penises and marry their sons-in-law. I found this fairly vile in both content and worldview and largely has the vibe of a Tim & Eric skit run too long, but the craziness almost takes on a Fulci vibe at times, and if you're interested in weird outsider art from a genuinely different perspective, well, here you go. RIP to the goat that gets loving killed on camera. 0.5/5  (An aside: I urge anyone interested in low-budget African genre films like I am to check out the genuinely funny and playful action movies from Wakaliwood instead.)
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Oct 21, 2019 05:23
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For the first time in I think all October there’s no loving baseball which means I’m just free to watch some movies with no social obligations or stress or whatever. And conveniently my 31st new film is up so its time for LADIES’ NIGHT! - (41). The Bride of Frankenstein (1935) Watched on DVD. Dr. Frankenstein and his Monster have both inexplicably survived and while the Monster eludes capture, murders some more people, and learns a bit about humanity Frankenstein’s old mentor Dr. Pretorius enters the picture and encourages him to take back up his experiments to make his Monster a mate with whom he can start a new species with, a species created by them making them gods. “To a new age of gods and monsters!” And then there’s Minnie… I watched this on January but like its predecessor it didn’t seem right to skip it this month with me watching all the other big Universals. Plus this is definitely a film worth a second viewing and will be one worth a third. Now that I have many of the Universal classics under my belt this definitely feels like one of the best combinations of directing, performances, cinemotgraphy, atmosphere, and comedy if not THE best. It just seems like Universal, Whale, and Co all realizing what was working from the past films and taking all the best parts. We even get Dwight Frye and Una O’Connor after their scene stealing supporting roles in Dracula and The Invisible Man, and Karloff getting to act more and show more humanity as he did in The Mummy. When I saw it back in January it just felt like a lot of weird random ideas Whale threw together, but now it seems much more like a product of trial and error to get the perfect Universal recipe. And of course from Whale takes from Frankenstein itself and builds not just off Karloff and the Monster but Colin Clive’s over the top delirious performance and the lab sequence taken up a bunch of notches into an even more crazy scene. I also really liked the nod to the Monster killing Ygor in the first to him just immediately seeing another sketchy assistant and going right after him. Poor Dwight Frye. And the Bride is of course completely iconic in both look and that twitching and hissing performance. There’s obvious christian imagery in here but I don’t think its really done with a whole lot of purpose or meaning. My interpretation is mostly that Whale was just taking a piss with the whole “man playing god and creating life” and “man risen from the dead” stuff and maybe trying to upset some people and be 1935 edgy. But I don’t think there’s any deeper “Christ figure” stuff or anything. Man creating life is still an idea that will upset some people today and there’s modern films that play with the same basically ideas in Frankenstein, but I bet in 1935 even half way alluding to putting the Monster on a cross got some people in an uproar. I’ve still got a few more Universal classics to watch but this really does feel like THE Universal picture in all the era and studio’s glory. And Minnie.  But I still want to know why Frankenstein/Pretorius built a self destruct function into the lab.  31 (42). Dracula’s Daughter (1936) Watched on DVD. With Dracula dead (and Mina and Harker apparently ditching out real quick) Professor Van Helsing is left with a couple of bodies and no real answers for Scotland Yard. A friend of his comes to London to help but also ends up tangled up with Countess Zaleska who seeks his help in finally being free of the curse of Dracula’s Daughter. I gave this the coveted 31st slot in part because it seems to have a bit of a cult following and partly because it seems to be considered the last of the golden era of Universal horrors in the 20s and 30s. The Laemmle family lost control of Universal during the filming of this movie and a ban on horror in England resulted in no other horrors being made by the studios until three years later in ’39. The production seems like a mess. As best as I can tell there were 3 or 4 different scripts that were rejected because they either skirted copyright laws, dealt too much or too little with the characters from the first film, or were deemed too scandalous because of a woman doing the kind of violence, torture, and sex stuff you’d expect from the role. In particular there was one script that seemed to focus on Zaleska being a kind of sexual sadist that sounds like an interesting take but that they couldn’t imagine flying. It also sounds like at some point or another James Whale, Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, Colin Clive and… Cesar Romero… were attached to the film but didn’t end up there in the end. And Gloria Holden who did end up in the title role hated the idea of being in a horror film and potentially being typecast like Lugosi. So how is the actual film? I think Holden is really pretty good and if she hated the idea of playing a vampire maybe it helped contribute to the self hating role of a vampire who was desperate to no longer be a predator. There’s some fun play between the human leads and Marguerite Churchill’s Janet is probably one of the most non passive female characters in a Universal along with Holden’s Zaleska. And its great to see Edward Van Sloan back as Van Helsing but he really doesn’t get enough to do to affect the film. Still, I always get a kick out of horror sequels that deal with the immediate consequences of you standing in a room with a bunch of dead bodies and no rational explanation of what happened. Professor Van Helsing, the first Final Girl stuck in endless psych exams and trial hearings? I’m avoiding saying that I didn’t really love the film. It was ok but there really wasn’t a lot going on and while Holden’s aloof self loathing kind of works it also didn’t make for a super compelling antagonist. In fact, there really is no antagonist in this film… which is kind of the problem. Zaleska is killing people but its handled in such a way that its not until the last act that it really feels like there’s a pursuit or danger in play. Its nice to go back to Transylvannia and confirm the idea I had that the people in that poor village must have been really relieved when Dracula headed off to London. But not a whole ton happens there either and while I kind of understand why Sandor killed Zaleska it still wasn’t super satisfying. Obviously the reason the film has such a cult following are not just the strong female leads but the overt lesbian/bisexual overtones of Zaleska’s character. I doubt there’s much I could say on the subject that isn’t self evident or has been discussed in great detail by others with more of a connection to the subject. Its as obvious that its there as it is that they clearly had to tone it down to a not so vague hint so as not to offend people. While I think the gay subtext in Bride is probably mostly just Whale or the actors putting themselves into the work or having a little fun here it definitely feels more deliberate both in its purposeful inclusion and in some people desperately trying to downplay it. The result of it is that the final act of Zaleska kidnapping Janet to lure Garth to Transylvannia to spend eternity as her mate feels… confused. Ultimately I wouldn’t put it at the top tiers of the Universal films but its a perfectly fine little flick along with stuff like The Old Dark House and The Raven.
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Oct 21, 2019 05:56
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 The Invisible Man, 1933 Re-watched some classic Universal Pictures last night, so I felt I should keep it up. Too lazy to look up if I also saw this one last year. This is maybe my all time favorite Universal Pictures horror movie right after the three Frankenstein ones with Boris Karloff as the monster. I just love The Invisible Man because he is unapologetic evil and mad. He takes delight in killing people and causing destruction. He is technically speaking a tragic villain in that he was driven crazy by the drugs in the formula that made him in him invisible, but that don't make him any less fun. Guess this is another lazy review in that I've written about this movie before and it's such a classic any horror fan already knows. Just watch it if you haven't seen it for whatever reason.
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Oct 21, 2019 06:58
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#27: Body Melt (1993) I love me some good schlocky B-movie madness, and I've come to love Australian horror films, and this movie lives squarely in the middle of that very specific Venn diagram. It's got a silly plot, hilariously bad performances, gross gore, gratuitous nudity, and a self-aware sense of humor that makes it work. If Stuart Gordon had a twin brother from Australia, this is the kind of movie he would make.  An evil company is making experimental pills and vitamin supplements and using the residents of a cul-de-sac in a suburb of Melbourne as unwitting test subjects. I mean, that's pretty much it. That's the plot. What follows is a series of gross body horror vignettes where people's bodies... melt. Or explode. Or grow little tentacles and smear goo and goop and gore everywhere. The practical effects are really good, which makes up for the fact that that the plot is thin and the acting is quite bad. My one quibble is a personal thing, even though it produces what is probably one of the best creep-out moments of the movie, but it relies on a trope that I hate. I love body horror stuff, but I don't like it when it involves pregnant women. I just... don't like it, it's a personal preference thing. I hated AvP: Requiem for many reasons, but that was a big one for me. In this movie a pregnant woman goes into premature labor and her placenta falls out, complete with writhing umbilical cord, and it attacks her husband like a facehugger from Alien. I mean, it's a pretty rad idea and I get it. That's okay. But then her stomach blows open in a gaping maw of hollow horror and I just don't enjoy that particular kind of thing. It's like watching someone drown a sack full of puppies; I don't see the entertainment value in it. This movie has many issues, and coherent storytelling is top of the list. They don't explain some pretty fundamental things, leaving you to connect the dots yourself, but it's not horribly complicated and is basically just excuse after excuse to string together really gross scenes that look amazing. It's impressive on a practical effects level, and from what I've come understand was done on a shoestring budget, but as much as it wants to be a Cronenberg-esque classic it just doesn't have the storytelling to back up the crazy. Still, I enjoyed it for what it was. It has style and knows exactly what it wants to be, and that's good enough for me. 3/5 Watched: Midsommar; One Cut of the Dead; Apostle; Wolf Creek; Lake Mungo; Viy (Challenge #1); Demon Knight; Witchfinder General; Razorback; Joker; A Quiet Place; Spider Baby, or the Maddest Story Ever Told (Challenge #2); Hereditary; The First Purge (Challenge #3); Killer Condom; Road Games; Next of Kin; Zombie aka Zombi 2; Suspiria (1977) (Challenge #4); Phantom of the Paradise; In Her Skin; Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon; Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead; Troll Hunter aka Trollhunter (Challenge #5); The Tunnel; Profondo Rossa aka Deep Red; Body Melt Total: 27
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Oct 21, 2019 07:32
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24. Bride of the Monster For Bela Lugosi's birthday I decided to revisit this, his last speaking role, an Ed Wood epic. Lugosi plays Dr. Erik Vornoff, a mad scientist living in a house in a swamp, where he captures people and subjects them to atomic rays to try and turn them into supermen to conquer the world; he's made a giant octopus, and also has a hulking, mutated assistant, Lobo (Tor Johnson.) An intrepid female reporter heads to the swamp to investigate monster stories, instantly crashes her car, and Lobo takes her to Vornoff's house. Composed of at least one-third stock footage, this movie has a pleasant Poverty Row vibe, touched with Wood's unique dialogue and attempts at world building (Vornoff is somehow connected to the Loch Ness Monster). It maybe moves too fast for its own good, but that at least ensures it never wears out its welcome. Lugosi is great, despite the final scenes relying heavily on a stunt double- the famous "I have no home" speech is well done, but he also gets a supremely badass moment shortly thereafter when he casually gestures for Lobo to dispatch an intruder. Very light, but very fun. Wood could spin a nice yarn.
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Oct 21, 2019 07:46
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32. Brightburn (2019) A “what if?” of Superman is what would he be like if he didn’t use his powers for good? This film explores this in a totally unrelated way with a character who has the same origin as Superman (ship crashes in Kansas field, raised by a farmer couple who discover his powers while trying to raise him). This is a pretty disturbing film at times because of how absolutely (and completely) powerful Brandon Breyer (the main character) is and how amoral he becomes despite that good upbringing. The film explores themes of adolescence but at the same time having his ship basically telling him to kill kind of takes a lot of the ambiguity out of it.. I appreciate the idea of exploring evil Superman but it really does feel like more could have been done. The results are still horrifying and feel real with a haunting feel when I stopped watching. But, more could have been done with this. /533. Mayhem (2017)  This was Steven Yuen’s next big project after his offing in The Walking Dead. It’s a film about a virus that breaks out in an office building (with office politics taken to an extreme) and the resulting carnage. Yuen plays a workaholic character who is no match for his cutthroat office environment who becomes infected and begins to lash out (and find justice). This is a great, maniacal action-horror flick with scene after scene of unleashed carnage. /534. 3 From Hell (2019)  I really think this film would have been something special if Sid Haig lived to finish the film. Rob Zombie opened up in interviews after release that Haig was in poor health. Such poor health he was only in the first 10 minutes of the film then they replaced him with another character to become “the third”. He really made this trilogy fun by adding some morbid imagery and pitch black comedy. A new third character, Foxy, is introduced to make up for it but it’s really just Otis B. Driftwood’s other half and doesn’t balance this film out at all. It tries to make up for it with some great action at the end and some horrific kills (with Zombie’s trademark 70s exploitation style) but...drat, the whole time I felt we missed something by the nature of time. RIP Sid Haig. I will make fried chicken and get some gasoline this week in your honor. .5/5Total: 1. One Cut of the Dead (2017), 2. Chopping Mall (1986), 3. All the Creatures Were Stirring (2018), 4. Creepshow 2 (1987), 5. Black Christmas (1974), 6. Dracula (1931), 7. Frankenstein (1931), 8. The Monster Squad (1987), 9. All Hallow’s Eve (2013), 10. The Addams Family (1991), 11. Grizzly (1976), 12. The Mummy (1932), 13. See No Evil (2006), 14. The Invisible Man (1933), 15. Why Horror? (2014), 16. Bad Moon (1996), 17. Head Count (2018), 18. The Bride of Frankenstein (1935), 19. House of 1000 Corpses, 20. The Wolfman (1941), 21. Body Bags (1993). 22. Us (2019), 23. The Craft (1996), 24. Thankskilling (2008), 25. Beetlejuice (1988), 26. Psycho (1960), 27. Gacy (2003), 28. Malevolent (2018), 29, Day of the Animals (1977), 30. Overlord (2018), 31. Train to Busan (2016), 32. Brightburn (2019), 33. Mayhem (2017), 34. 3 From Hell (2019) Super Samhain Challenges:
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Oct 21, 2019 08:07
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#22. Atterados / Terrified SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #5: Tourist Trap Take two - this time I actually read the challenge and ended up with Argentina.  About five minutes into the movie we see an invisible force bash a woman to death against her bathroom wall. A few minutes later furniture starts moving all through the house and a huge ghoulish figure hides under beds and in closets. I wondered how they would top that and the problem is they just don't. The movie goes back to two weeks earlier and it becomes a muddled, disconnected mess trying to cram every kind of scene they saw over the last few decades into one film. By the time it picks up again it is an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach where few things are explained, there is no internal consistency and it just hopes that something will stick. The plot, the characters, everything is sidelined just to do another jump scare, another copy of a James Wan scene or whatever else the director saw and it was an awful experience. It was shot competently, but I can't think of it as more than an sfx reel or some crazy highlights compilation on YouTube.
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Oct 21, 2019 08:31
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Franchescanado posted:SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #5: Tourist Trap This one actually turned out harder than I expected. I mean, I could have picked a random film from Indonesia or Peru or something but I was looking for something with some modicum of interest level. But every foreign film of some regard I looked up had been from a country I’d seen stuff from. I ended up debating between this Israeli production and Tobe Hooper’s final film done in UAE and by an Emirate production studio. Both were qualified foreign films but filmed in english, but hey, they speak english in other countries. Both deal with monsters we don’t usually see. Both look ok at least visually. But it felt a bit like cheating to be watching a Hooper film. And this kind of seemed to fit more neatly in my “Ladies’ Night” (although the Djinn seems to be female so that would have worked too).  32 (43). The Golem (2019) Available on Netflix. In 17th century Lithuania the plague rips through the countryside and a group of sadistic sufferers blame an isolated community for cursing them with their “magics” and threaten to kill them all. So a grieving mother conjures up an ancient protector of her people but when it comes in the form of her dead child things get complicated and she loses control of her monster. Anyway, I didn’t really like it. It wasn’t really bad, just pretty by the numbers and nothing that really stood out or was done exceptionally well. It probably fits neatly into the current trend of folk/prairie/whatever horrors that work more on mood and atmosphere and what’s not allowed kinda stuff, but it doesn’t really have the tension or atmosphere that a lot of those films pull off. The golem really doesn’t do a hell of a lot and when it does its kind of that bad looking Hollywood gore that looks bad. The villains are just kind of cartoonishly evil in a way that bordered on xenophobia. There’s no great story. You know the basic deal. Create a monster, get attached to the monster, lose perspective, poo poo goes bad. We just kind of spend a long time waiting for poo poo to go bad and then when it does its not that interesting and about 99% happens off camera. I’d say it was a disappointment but to be honest by that point of the film I already knew it was going to play out that way and just kind of was glad to get to the ending quicker. Hani Furstenberg does a solid job in the lead as a grieving mother struggling with a lot of poo poo that gets us to this place. And the film is basically carried on that. But I just don’t think they really give it the right focus or attention. The story is there. We can see it before they explicitly state it. Its just that there’s nothing really between. The problem exists, people don’t talk about it, it gets bad, someone finally acknowledges it… then that’s it. Melodrama should actually work through the issue. It has an 88% rating on RT which… I don’t take that stuff overly seriously but its always helpful to just kind of see what people are saying or what they liked or disliked. To be honest most of the positive quotes amount to “Jewish”. Which like… yeah, that’s why I checked it out. A different spin on a common story. But outside of a little Hebrew and some rabbinical training it really didn’t feel all that different to me. Maybe its one of those things you have to connect more with personally to get the full impression of. Its clear I was watching a “Jewish horror” and that was the appeal coming in, but like… is just being Jewish a virtue on its own? I guess for Jewish viewers looking for more representation in the horror genre it might be. The directors - brothers Yoam and Doran Paz - also made something called JeruZalem which I’m gonna end up watching now that I know it exists probably. Franchescanado posted:SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #6: Sometimes They Come Back I was gonna watch a sequel already on my radar but that felt like a bit of a cheat since (a) there’s a million sequels and (b) it was already on my radar. So fine, whatever. I’ve been half meaning to watch this… eventually… I mean… I guess. At least I’ll be able to have some context next time I argue that yes, Freddy was always a child predator. And I mean… I guess Nancy keeps the “Ladies Night” thing going?  33 (44). Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) Watched on Blu Ray, available on HBO. Teenagers are being stalked in their dreams by scary man and somehow dying in real life, and they don’t know why. But as they put the pieces together they start to realize that their parents are keeping a secret and Freddy is pissed about it. Yeah, it’s a bad film. But I don’t think its a bad film for the reason that’s brought up so much, its a bad film for all the usual reasons these big studio CGI remakes are usually bad films. It repeats all the classic and iconic scenes and elements but they look worse without practical effects. It has underdeveloped characters who don’t affect us when they die. It makes a really bizarre choice to ignore its main character for the first 20 or 30 minutes. It has that bad Hollywood gore and splatter stuff. You know what I’m talking about. Freddy 2.0 looks much worse than OG Freddy and that’s a fatal mistake with such an iconic character. It doesn’t really do anything new or interesting while doing everything old worse. Its just not a good reason to make a movie and its not a good movie. But holy crap, Katie Cassidy and Rooney Mara can scream. My poor ears. Ok, on the elephant in the room. Freddy was always a child molester. Wes Craven said as much many times, the studio just wouldn’t let him say it explicitly in the film. But it’s completely there. He’s a creepy man luring children into a basement and killing them. He licks his victims, attacks them in their beds, and there’s a creepy sexual component to it so much so that the second film has been turned into a sexual awakening cult classic. Freddy was a creepy pervert. We just erased that from our memories because Freddy became this jokey cartoon guy everyone loves and horror fans become so desensitized that they start rooting for the monster to kill the kids. So no one wants to be reminded that the child killer they’re rooting for is also a pedophile. But he totally always was. What I do think is a LITTLE off is that he molested Nancy and Co. Which is kind of weird because… I kind of think that was implied too. Like… Freddy wasn’t killed by their ancestors, he was killed by their parents. I don’t think the movie ever gave years to it but at most Freddy was killed a couple of years before the kids were born. So like… there should have been at least older kids who were told stories from their older brothers about that pedophile in the school who got burned up. But that always kind of played to the idea of the town covering up and everyone repressing the memories. So again, I think that was always kind of there. But stating it explicitly was a little awkward. Especially they way they did it with the whole ”WE LIED AND HE WANTS TO KILLS US BECAUSE HE WAS INNOCEN… oh wait, here’s naked photos of you.” That was weird. But it was an execution problem, like most of the movie. Rooney Mara is a fine enough Nancy, but the character just isn’t developed. That’s not her fault, its whoever decided that the first act of the film was going to be entirely focused other characters. Especially characters who don’t make it to the second act. That was a bizarre choice and I guess made in the name of the whole ”we repressed knowing each other” thing so they felt like they couldn’t have the kids just be friends and hanging out together. But it ends up leaving everyone underdeveloped and makes the entire first act feel like a really long prelude. Jackie Earle Haley was… I dunno. Its Freddy Kreuger. He’s not Robert Englund. Maybe his angrier, less playful version would have been better with a better movie. Maybe the “real burn victim” and CGI stuff would have worked with a better movie. I don’t know. I think this version just really doesn’t give much to do. They made a decision to make him as unjokey as possible and to hide his origin until the final act. So… he just didn’t really have a lot to do. So yeah, bad movie. But I’m a Freddy Truther. He was always a kiddie toucher.
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Oct 21, 2019 10:49
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STAC Goat posted:It makes a really bizarre choice to ignore its main character for the first 20 or 30 minutes. I think it was going for a Scream/Psycho thing trying to make the audience think the other girl was the main character and then have it be shocking twist that she gets killed early on, but anyone who has seen the original knows Nancy is actually the main character so it doesn’t really work.
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Oct 21, 2019 12:28
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22. Frenzy 1972 | dir. Alfred Hitchcock Edgar Wright's Favorite Horror #37  Hitchcock remains a major blindspot in my history with movies. I've seen the big three: The Birds, Psycho and Vertigo. I was reading a recent interview with Bong Joon Ho, and he said that Hitchcock remains his biggest influence. I've also been listening to the In Myers We Trust podcast, and they spent a long derail on how Hitchcock influenced John Carpenter's entire career, especially the original Halloween. Both of those inspired me to check out more Hitchcock this weekend. I didn't know the Frenzy was a particularly interesting Hitchcock. After years of health issues slowing down his ability to work, a couple of flops (in the espionage genre?), Frenzy would be his penultimate film. He's back to filming in London. He's working, for the firs time, with Gilbert Taylor as his cinematographer (a few years before Taylor would do The Omen and Star Wars) It's the first time he allowed direct on-screen nudity in any of his films. The story is standard Hitchcockian fare. A man is raping women and strangling them to death with neckties. There is heavy circumstantial evidence that our protagonist, Richard Blaney, is the culprit. He must go into hiding from the police while the real killer is on the loose. But people close to Blaney keep dying, making him more desperate with each hour the killer is free. What's most shocking about this film is what Hitchcock was allowed to do. The aforementioned nudity is only used in context of the dead bodies of women, or during scenes where women are sexually assaulted. As you can imagine, a rape scene directed by Hitchcock is incredibly disturbing. Not only that, but the asphyxiation and the predatory nature of the killer (who is revealed at the end of the first act, but who I will keep unnamed for sake of people who've missed this) are disturbing. There's a heavy current of sexual deviancy and perversion with the killer. This is the UK in the early 70's, so some of the ideas they conflate, which really just seems to describe a BDSM relationship, are a little weird with how they're handled. There's also some excellent excellent black comedy in this film. There's an entire sequence that really needs to go down in cinematic history of how to play a scene that is equally macabre slapstick physical comedy that is also tense as hell. This is one of the best Hitchcock films I've seen. I loved it. Just a fun thrill through-out. Highly Recommended 23. The Bride of Frankenstein 1935 | dir. James Whale | in theaters rewatch  The definitive Universal Monster picture, and a perfect classic horror film. Thoughts on this viewing: -The final 20 minutes of this film (the birth of the Bride) is cinematic gold. This sequence completely holds up. The cinematography, the lighting, the editing(!) is so great, that it transcends it's time. It holds up better than most modern film editing. -Allowing the Monster to learn to talk, showing he is capable of learning and cunning, not only makes him more than just a sympathetic (but murderous) simpleton. It gives him much more agency in everything he does, allows him to keep his sympathetic nature, but also makes him sinister, and makes him a true villain. -This film has become the definition of the Frankenstein story in the public zeitgeist. Dr. Pretorius is the archetype of the Mad Scientist, what people (who haven't seen these films) assume Victor Frankenstein is like. The Monster's make-up is better, and matches more modern ideas of how the character is portrayed (however, I think most modern Frankenstein creatures you see in pop culture--you know, the ones that pop up in stuff like Alvin & The Chipmunks Meet Frankenstein--is based on the monster's portrayal in Frankenstein Meets The Wolfman) -It's fun seeing the strands that would later become prominent in Hammer Horror. The set designs are still Universal "giant stone slab" architecture, but the science equipment, the costumes, the acting, the make-up, the gothic cemeteries... All of that is prescient for what Hammer would do with these stories. -The humor of these films holds up. Una O'Conner is hilarious, as is Ernest Thesiger as the sinister Dr. Pretorius. Highly 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 | One Cut of the Dead | Ma | The Devil Rides Out | Halloweentown | 3 From Hell | The Neon Slime Mixtape | Frenzy | Bride of Frankenstein Rewatches: 5 Total: 23 Edgar Wright's 100 Favorite Horror: 5/20 Super Samhain Challenge: 1
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Oct 21, 2019 13:20
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gey muckle mowser posted:I think it was going for a Scream/Psycho thing trying to make the audience think the other girl was the main character and then have it be shocking twist that she gets killed early on, but anyone who has seen the original knows Nancy is actually the main character so it doesn’t really work. Yeah. The original Nightmare does the same thing. Tina's portrayed as the main character until the sleep-over. Craven's pretty clever about using that part of the film as a transition. On a first watch, it fleshes out the rest of the cast and their dynamic, but Craven's secretly setting Nancy up to take over the story when Tina has her infamous nightmare sequence. The remake tried to do this, but fumbled it big-time. So instead, you have a third of the movie where your main character is just being shown wordlessly drawing and painting while everyone else has things to do. I like Rooney Mara a lot, but her Nancy is barely anything.
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Oct 21, 2019 13:25
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I think the big difference wasnt the fakeout but rather that in the remake they just spend no time together. In the original Tina and Nancy are best friends so we can get to know them together. In the remake Nancy is just some girl Kris/Tina knows and has a couple of passing talks with. My guess is they did it that way to preserve the whole "we don't remember knowing each other when we were young" thing. Which seems dumb to me because they could have remembered each other and just not Freddy. And the result is Nancy is just some girl until the second act when shes suddenly the main character. And now you lost all the time in the first act where you would have normally set her character up beyond "is an artist". STAC Goat fucked around with this message at 13:46 on Oct 21, 2019 |
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Oct 21, 2019 13:42
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Are there for sure going to be 13 challenges?
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Oct 21, 2019 13:45
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COOL CORN posted:Are there for sure going to be 13 challenges? Yes. I was just a little slow at the beginning of the month posting them. I try to post them Monday-Wednesday-Friday, and there will probably be two posted this weekend, and one posted on Halloween morning.
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Oct 21, 2019 13:55
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