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05. The Evil Dead (2013) 2020/04/10  Saw the originals a few years back, but didn't get around to this one 'til now. I had a great time-- in some ways, I prefer the remake. There's this force to it, where the characters don't even have a moment to think they've got things under control. It's not as overtly comedic as Evil Dead 2, but there's a certain cartoonish aspect to the ridiculous damage everyone endures. The defibrillation scene, for instance: the actor plays it straight, and the music plays it up as a big emotional moment, but the home-made defib is so gross and the way Mia jolts each time push it around to being funny. This is for the best, because there's a lot of serious bodily trauma in this, and I couldn't watch it if it were played straight. Hands, tongues, eyes, knees, and hands. Poor Eric. In some ways he gets it worse than the girls, even though the demon clearly wants them first. Amazing ending; it just goes full death-metal cover art.  06. 28 Days Later (2002) 2020/04/11  This is a rewatch, but it's been a few years. I somehow didn't know who Brendan Gleeson was last time. Watching this, I was shocked at how similar it was to Sunshine, which I also rewatched a couple months back. Obviously they're by the same director, same lead actor, and so on. But I remember a lot of people making a big deal out of the genre shift in the third act of Sunshine (usually as a negative). This movie sort of pulls the same trick. It's not as severe, of course-- I mean, this is overtly a horror movie from the word go, whereas Sunshine starts out as a creepy, unsettling sci-fi-- but there's a similar shift between the middle of the movie, where the characters travel through the mostly-peaceful countryside, and the end, when they're running around an unlit mansion on a dark and stormy night.  There's something going on there; leaving the dangerous city for the idyllic farmlands and manor houses, only to find a worse danger there. (Though in the end, things turn out fine once the infection burns through them as well). I love the small amount of characterisation given to the infected. They're not mindless creatures that can somehow walk forever without running out of energy; they're just extremely angry people, and are still bound by the same limitations as healthy people. There are indications that they're still conscious in there (one boy shouts "I hate you!" at Cillian Murphy); merely crazy. Also, I'd forgotten how immediately prickish the soldiers were; feels like they just reused the same actors for Children of Men.  I disliked some parts of it; the action scenes have tons of quick shots that make it hard to parse what's happening, and the whole movie is noticeably blurry, as you can see from the screenshots. I didn't get a lovely copy; it really does look like that. I know the cuts are to evoke a certain mood, and the cheap cameras are a side-effect of filming "abandoned London" quickly in the small hours, but I don't like it. Still, glad I rewatched it. I'm starting to get a better picture of how influential this thing is, and I love its strain of grimy 2000s paranoia. Kazzah fucked around with this message at 09:48 on Apr 13, 2020 |
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Apr 13, 2020 09:38
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13: Microwave Massacre This is poo poo and boring and I don't recommend it. The main actor has some charisma, which kept me watching, and I found myself cracking a smile several times at the bad jokes. The supporting cast all suck. There are no microwave deaths. At the start, we're introduced to a small, ugly dog and I thought 'for sure, that dude's going in the microwave', but no. Nothing. I don't expect much from a movie titled 'Microwave Massacre' but ffs give me one microwave kill. Seen: 1) The Abominable Dr. Phibes; 2) Contagion; 3) The Devil's Rejects; 4) The Changling; 5) Frankenhooker; 6) Midsommar; 7) Village of the Damned (1960); 8) Wishmaster; 9) Der Golem; 10) City of the Living Dead; 11) A Nightmare on Elm Street 2; 12) Leprechaun; 13) Microwave Massacre bitterandtwisted fucked around with this message at 10:28 on Apr 13, 2020 |
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Apr 13, 2020 10:24
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VFW During my weekend trip into the hot zone, I spotted the Blu-Ray for $13 at Walmart, and knowing that it's a bit of a darling among the Spook-A-Doodles, tossed it into my cart. This homage to Assault on Precinct 13 owns! I'm not exactly sure what to say about it because it's fairly straightforward, a VFW hall is assaulted by a gang of drug addicts. One thing I've noticed about a lot of good, modern movies, is that aside from a few cosmetic things that are usually not plot specific, it could take place just about any time, and this one is no exception to that rule. I think the only real thing that dates it as set in the present is an off-hand comment about millennials. 4/5 1. Society 2. Pet Semetery 3. Pooka Lives! 4. The last Broadcast 5. Parasite 6. The Stuff 7. VFW
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Apr 13, 2020 12:37
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Iron Crowned posted:VFW One thing I dug about VFW is they show you a truck with .50 Cal on it, then don't use it, because of course a VFW hall wouldn't have a working machine gun or ammunition for it. This isn't Maximum Overdrive.
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Apr 13, 2020 14:02
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 VFW I also watched VFW! One thing I appreciated about VFW is that it still looks and feels like a real movie. Sure, the exploitation/midnight drive-in aesthetic is definitely there, but without ever crossing the line into self-parody. It's nothing groundbreaking, but it's just a really well made version of something we've all seen and enjoyed before, with some super engaging and memorable characters. And that's really what elevates it, I've seen people say that consistently about VFW and I definitely agreed. Lang, Sadler, Williamson, Kelly, and Kove play off each other wonderfully and the chemistry there makes the whole movie. It's Lang's movie though, make no mistake. The guy is a force of nature, and I hope he gets another ten or twenty roles like this before it's all said and done.  That's the face Stephen Lang makes when he decides he's going to cut out your heart with a fireman's ax. You definitely don't ever want to see that face. 1. Leprechaun 4: In Space 2. Leprechaun In The Hood 3. Leprechaun: Back 2 Tha Hood 4. The Uncanny 5. Rockula 6. Come To Daddy 7. Cast A Deadly Spell 8. In The Tall Grass 9. Pet Sematary(2019) 10. Pet Sematary(1989) 11. The Wind 12. VFW
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Apr 13, 2020 14:29
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8. Three Extremes Asian horror anthology movie with entries from Hong Kong, Korea and Japan. Fruit Chan's entry (Hong Kong) featuring Bai Ling as a lady who performs abortions and makes rejuvenating dumplings out of the fetuses is the most down to earth and political of the shorts. There's one shot that's so creepy it made the hair on my arms stand up but I was laughing at the same time, which is everything I wish for when I watch a horror movie. Park Chan Wook (Korea) swings for the fences with a hilariously mean Korean New Wave entry. The man is an effortless master of his craft, and he's having a blast here. Absolutely fantastic. Takeshi Miike (Japan) is in somber effort mode for his entry, delivering a gorgeously shot, very uncomfortable and genuinely creepy short and then pulls the rug out from under you with an extremely Miike joke ending lol All three shorts are very different in tone, and each individually could easily be the highlight of a lesser horror anthology. Don't sleep on this one! Watched: 1. Southbound, 2. Vampire Circus, 3. Verotika, 4. Next of Kin, 5. Frankenstein (1931), 6. Body Bags , 7. Hell House LLC, 8. Three Extremes married but discreet fucked around with this message at 14:40 on Apr 13, 2020 |
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Apr 13, 2020 14:36
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Watched several films this weekend, and hit my goal of 13 "new to me" films! I'll probably throw in some rewatches from now on. 11. Human Lanterns (1982) Prime I love this poo poo. A pair of rival kung fu masters clash over a lantern competition, leading one to hire an old enemy to create a special lantern for him. You can probably guess what that lantern ends up being made of. It's a really fun mix of Wuxia kung fu and horror, with great fight choreography and some surprisingly graphic scenes. Super fun the whole way through. I really need to check out more films like this, I've only seen a handful but always really enjoy them. 4.5 lanterns out of 5  12. The Wailing (2016) Shudder I've heard great things about this since it came out, but kept putting it off because it's super long for a horror film. I gotta say though that I didn't feel its long runtime at all. It's intense pretty much all the way through, and shifts gears enough to keep things interesting. It has parts that I'd call legitimately scary. It's also an interesting look at the idea of "evil" and what that means. Also I don't know much about Korean culture, but I feel like it's probably significant that the foreigner is Japanese. I'd bet there are themes here that I'm missing. It reminds me of Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Cure in a lot of ways, being essentially a police procedural centered around a mysterious stranger. This is more "traditionally" horror though, about ghosts and demons and such. A really great film with enough to unpack that it deserves another viewing. Fantastic acting too, especially from the little girl! 4.5 screaming children out of 5  13. Beyond the Darkness (1979) blu-ray Sleazy Italian horror at its best. Excessive gross gore, unnecessary nudity and sex, a fantastic Goblin score, bad ADR, and a totally nonsensical story. The gore is really something - it's certainly one of the grossest Italian films I've seen. Despite the plot (about a man with an unhealthy relationship with his dead lover) it's thankfully not as offputting as something like Nekromantik, but there's still some messed up stuff. Fortunately it's too dumb to be truly disturbing. I think it's closer to a Herschell Gordon Lewis movie - it's trying to gross you out and it definitely succeeds in that. Like I said, it makes absolutely no sense and the characters are unbelievably dumb, but I'm not sure that's especially important for this kind of movie. The lead actor reminds me of the guy that plays Jon in those surreal Lasagna Cat videos on YouTube and it was kind of hilarious to think of him yanking fingernails off that poor hitchhiker. If you're into Italian horror I think you'll like this, but if you aren't this will probably not be the film that turns you on to the genre. 4 hacked off limbs out of 5  14. Xtro (1982) A young boy's father is abducted by aliens, but no one believes the story. Three years later, the father returns - but he has changed... then naturally the boy gets psychic powers that mostly involve a dwarf in clown makeup. For some reason I had it in my head that this was really bad, but I actually quite liked it and I see that it has good ratings on Letterboxd. Maybe I was thinking of the sequel? I was a little disappointed that the alien on the poster is only in the film for like 5 minutes, but the film gets so fuckin weird as it goes on that I'm kind of okay with it. Some of the practical effects are awesome, like when a woman gives birth to an adult man, or the gross alien eggs. The synth score started off pretty good over the credits, but I thought most of it was kinda weak. Overall this is good and worth a watch for sure! Lots of points for originality at least. 4 dwarf clowns out of 5 Watched: 14 - Horse Girl | Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II | Resident Evil: Extinction | Resident Evil: Afterlife | Phantasm II | Swallow | Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead | The Stendhal Syndrome | Deathgasm | Saturday the 14th | Human Lanterns | The Wailing | Beyond the Darkness | Xtro
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Apr 13, 2020 15:57
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 5. Wishmaster (1997) 3/5 Fun, but feels a little underdeveloped. Sometimes the kills are on point, sometimes they're whatever the hell this is. The terrible 90s CGI and a distracting amount of horror icon cameos make this one fall just shy of being a classic. I'll definitely check out the sequel because Divoff is a lot of fun as the evil djinn and a tighter, less fanservice-y version of this movie could be amazing.  6. The Blob (1988) 4/5 The human characters are all dull and obvious but let's be honest--You watch this for the special effects. The blob is an amazing presence on screen. It can be a pulsing, meaty organ in one moment and quickly become grasping, ropy strands of acidic goop in the next. It's an intimidating and captivating presence on screen, and the kills are suitably gruesome. From an effects perspective this holds up extremely well, but the plot skews so close to 1950s homage that it sometimes drags and the lack of any interesting human presence doesn't help. Still, it's a fun movie, definitely something to keep in rotation.  7. Sea Fever (2020) 3/5 This is the kind of movie I should absolutely adore but it left me feeling a little cold. The movie is reasonable and scientific to such a degree that the movie feels distanced from any mounting tension. There are some minor dustups among the crew but there are never any full on The Thing style moments of infighting and paranoia. It's ultimately a movie of people waiting to develop symptoms, and while there is certainly tension in that situation, it's the kind of tension that I've grown tired of in the past few weeks. This movie might be worth revisiting in a couple year's time, maybe I'll be able to appreciate it more with a little distance.
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Apr 13, 2020 17:12
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3) Mandy (2017) I'm not sure why Panos Cosmatos felt that his remake of Hobo With A Shotgun needed a 45-minute prologue featuring Andrea Riseborough's complete lack of personality, but he did. This film didn't need to be two hours long, and in fact you can get most of the value out of it if you start when Nic Cage takes the LSD and stops acting. Mostly, though, this movie reminded me of nothing quite so much as Drive: killer soundtrack, an interesting colour scheme, that one ultraviolent scene that everyone talks about later and a heap of nothing else.
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Apr 13, 2020 17:48
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Another rainy, quarantined day… lets burn off some DTV sequels… 35 (45). Wishmaster: The Prophecy Fulfilled (2002) Directed by Chris Angel, written by John Benjamin Martin. Watched on TubiTV, also available on Pluto. The Djinn is back one last time with the same goal of getting some pretty lady to make 3 wishes so he can raise his brethren and bring hell to Earth or something, which seems like a fairly low bar for bringing about the apocalypse so maybe he’ll pull it off this time? Last chance. This is one of those deals where they just cranked out the 3rd and 4th films back-to-back in that way horror sequels do when they stop really caring and are just making sequels for weird fans like moi who will watch it just because its a sequel. But to be honest, if I had done the research ahead of time to realize that Andrew Divoff was not in all four I might have never ventured down this road. I should have probably skipped this one but sunken cost and it was 7:30 AM when I turned it on so its not as if it was taking the place of some better movie I would have been watching. It was just keeping me from turning on the news or something else in the background. Anyway, the bad Djinn from the 3rd film comes back but then he steals the face of Michael Trucco so we got a 4th Djinn now but this one’s an actor I recognize at least so there’s that. The female lead is Tara Spencer-Nairn who I guess is a bit of a name herself from Corner Gas which I’m vaguely aware of but haven’t seen. Also the other guy is on General Hospital, so I guess Wishmaster 4 struck gold on its Before They Were Famous pool of Canadian actors. The wishes get real lazy and low effects here. Like someone wishes for “killer sex” so they just orgasm a bunch and then die off camera. Although that does lead to a silly wish of “being a pimple on her rear end” which amounts to a guy disappearing and then a wide shot of a lady’s rear end. This film bears no resemblance to where it started at all. There’s also this really odd thing where some lady casually wishes “to be kissed like that” and then starts getting sexually assaulted by every dude in the room, but weirdly the women only kiss her on the cheeks. Who were the Wishmaster filmmakers scared of upsetting with their DTV romance horror? All in all this is a weird one. All that gore and effects are gone and instead this one is a weird PG-13 sex and romance novel thing. It also digs deeper into the idea of the Djinn’s evil race and their hell dimension and that stuff. Which isn’t done terribly well but the whole package makes this a much easier watch than the 3rd film. Its not good but its its own weird little story so it at least didn’t feel like a retread, and worst a cheap retread. And the other Djinn are genuinely pretty good designs and it would have been kind of interesting to see them in a movie with the budget to really go for it. Ah well. The Wishmaster franchise is done and in the end I think the first film is probably better than it gets credit for and probably could have been a bigger deal if it was slightly better or was released at a slightly different time. But it did not need sequels and they did not make their existence worth it. 2 is better than 3/4 of course but that’s a low bar.  36 (46). The Prophecy: Uprising (2005) Written and directed by Joel Soisson, based on a story by John Sullivan. Watched on Blu Ray. A woman who hears voices gets hold of a Bible that contains the unfinished last chapter of the Book of Revelations which reveals the fate of the angel war and name of the Antichrist and ends up pursued by a body jumping demon and a sadistic cop being led by a divine guide. A surprising amount of this film is spoken in Romanian and the Blu Ray offers no subtitle options. Its not overly confusing but it is odd and I feel like I missed a few touches. Also I forgot Walken was out of this one too. On the bright side he got replaced by Doug Bradley and Sean Pertwee so it could have been a lot worse. Plus Kari Wuhrer! I haven’t thought of her in many, many years. Oh, and Jason London is there. At least we got a B movie all star cast instead of the Vancouver 20-something talent pool. I even thought John Light might be someone but it turns out he just looks a lot like Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock. Anyway, this is actually a pretty good little film. Trust me, no one is more shocked to say that than I am but it really is. The plot’s a little loose but its a wholly unique story within the basic “war in heaven” setting of the franchise. The film looks good and is actually pretty well done considering Soisson was making his directorial debut here and doesn’t have much of a resume after this. But what really carries the film is that cast of good to solid actors really giving it their all. Pertwee in particular is loving captivating from the word go and is just giving 110% to this. Light’s also a really good performance and there’s a bunch fo other solid jobs from Wuhrer, Bradley, and a relatively small but really good performance from Georgina Rylance. This is a cast that no one told they were making a DTV sequel to a bad horror movie in Romania. Someone convinced them to just make this the best film they could manage and I dare say they pulled it off. Hell, if you told me this whole thing was the setup for a TV show starring Light, Wuhrer, and Pertwee I’d be 100% on board. Also Bradley plays a cop named Laurel and his partner’s name is Hardy. Oh, and Pertwee early in the film gets tipped off about the existence and general assholeness of angels by an anonymous internet user by the name of Joseph_1995, a really fun easter egg callback to Steve Hytner’s coroner who along with Walken was the only person to appear in every film to this point and kinda felt like the heart of it in a way. There’s a lot of little things I enjoyed in this film and these were some fun moments of levity in an otherwise arguably dour film. . I am half tempted to recommend this film solely on Pertwee’s performance. But I don’t think its really THAT good. Is it a solid little low rent film noir horror? Yes, absolutely. Is it one to go out of your way for if you don’t have interest in the franchise as a whole? Probably not. Still, I am back on board with the Prophecy franchise and officially interested in the fifth and last installment. Holy gently caress, the last film stars Tony Todd? I’m half tempted to turn that thing on now.
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Apr 13, 2020 17:50
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Jedit posted:3) Mandy (2017) It's funny, because I had the complete opposite experience. I was so invested until the sleeping bag scene, and then my interest fell off a cliff. I wanted to see Mandy get a rape/revenge thriller arc, and escape from the cult covered in their blood, but then Cage gets all of those scenes.
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Apr 13, 2020 18:09
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Easter weekend catch-up time. #5. The Exorcist III (Shudder) An atheist police detective investigates a series of murders, which have all the hallmarks of the deceased Gemini serial killer, who appears to be possessing the body of Father Damian Karras, believed dead since the events in the first Exorcist movie. I think I prefer part 3 here to part 1, which seldomly happens when it comes to movie making. Exorcist 3 is less out-and-out "scary" than the original, and its maybe less well put together too, but I think it's more compulsively watchable than the first. It's form as a generic cop thriller helps that, obviously, but I think it's much better at creating long term dread as a background element than the first is, which is much more reliant on shocking content. E3 is much more mannered and sedate, and the violence is often more of implication than obvious gore effects; it helps cement things as being far more horrific in your mind than any amount of pea soup vomit or backwards crawling down stairs ever could. Also, this is one of the rare horror movies where performances are the main draw. I love George C. Scott and Brad Dourif as performers, and they get a lot to work with here; it's one of the rare films where monologues are among the best parts. William Peter Blatty was obviously a good writer, but I also think he's a better director than people give him credit for. He's great at getting good performances out of his actors, and he has a better eye for composition than you'd expect for most people, especially ones who hadn't done that job for 10+ years. (E3 is his sophomore effort, and now I kinda wanna go watch The Ninth Configuration, to see if it ends up being anywhere near as good as this.) It's not a perfect film, and you can see the fingerprints of the studio all over it in parts. I think this is a rare time where studio meddling helped things - the exorcism element is underbaked, but I think it's a fitting conclusion to the film, and a good thematic element to more closely tie this one to the original. (Karras the unbeliever goes from the exorcist to receiving an exorcism, which helps tie a neat bow on the complimentary storyline for Lt. Kinderman and his relationships with faith and belief.) Had that element been better developed throughout the film, it would have felt less jarring, and might have helped Father Morning's sacrifice feel more worthwhile. All in all, though, this is a fantastic film, and one that I would highly recommend to fans of the original. It's satisfying to see this one gaining more attention from people over the years; I think time is finally catching up to how good this movie was, even in the long shadow of its (not immediate) predecessor. ghost:  /5 #6. Victor Frankenstein (IFC on YouTube TV) Told from Igor's perspective, we see how brilliant but troubled scientist Victor Frankenstein became the man - and the legend - we know today. But really there's a lot of faffing about and we miss all of the most interesting bits. There's a lot of elements and actors here that I like, in general, but in the end I don't think they gel together as well as they should have or come together seamlessly at the end. It's unfortunate, because the basic setup and thought behind it makes a good amount of sense. I don't think that the film had the correct focus, though, and the whole thing came together as more scattershot than it needed to. Plus, it feels like we miss a lot of the best elements of the normal "Frankenstein" story by wasting so much time on the not-interesting precursor stuff with building the evil chimpanzee and that whole thing, and again at the end by skipping straight to "well, he already ran away and made the monster. Gotta wrap this up with a stake through the heart, that was Frankenstein right?" The pieces are there to make an interesting story about Igor's faith in Frankenstein being misplaced and unraveling, and an interesting comparison to be made in the man that Frankenstein "made" (since the film posits that Igor's devotion comes from Frankenstein curing his health and giving his intelligence an outlet) and the one that he built. Unfortunately the film never puts those puzzle pieces together, and instead we end up with a sad, lumpy, misshapen thing with no clear picture. Shame, that. /5 #7. Varan the Unbelievable (1962) (American version) (Prime) A prehistoric behemoth is unwittingly awakened from hibernation due to a U.S-Japanese military experiment on it's watery lair, where it proceeds to attack Japan. I usually spend part of Easter watching some kind of sci-fi, horror or action movie in the theater. Since we can't do that this year, I went searching for a replacement option, and settled on this one to serve as noise while I was on my exercise bike. I probably should have kept looking. It's not the worst kaiju movie I've ever watched, or even the worst Americanization of a kaiju film, but that's damning with the faintest of praise. Varan (who keeps getting referred to as Obake throughout the film, for some reason) is a super generic looking monster, and his eventual rampage is much shorter and less interesting than it should be. The whole production feels shoddy, where the monster doesn't do too much, and all of the military attacks don't really hurt him, but do keep him kinda stalemated near the coastline. Eventually they resort to using gas bombs, and then Varan - and the movie as a whole - just kind of gives up and slinks away. The end. I've mostly been talking about the last 20 minutes, but you know how this goes. The first 40 minutes is a whole bunch of boring talking, this time laced through with a lot of ugly American paternalism in the person of Commander James Bradley, who's kind of dick to everyone. The film wants to try and ape the ending of Godzilla: King of the Monsters and its message of good environmental stewardship and scientific conservatism, but frankly nothing in the movie adds up to anything that would support that, narratively or thematically. The whole thing is just kind of there, so the ending monologue ends up falling flat. I guess that does make it appropriate, at least. /5 #8. Critters 2: The Main Course (Vudu) Eggs of the small, furry alien carnivores are left behind on Earth and, after hatching, attack the town of Grover's Bend over Easter weekend. Fortunately, child hero Brad Brown and the alien bounty hunters from the first movie have returned. And here it is, the actual creature feature sci-fi horror movie to actually spend Easter watching. This movie is a ton of fun, even if you can feel the ideas straining against the budget limitations. There's a lot of ideas that come across as half-baked, and since they're treated as standout moments (like the Critter in the oil fryer or the one that gets inflated and then squished by a car), everything else just goes for a lot of cheap, easy and unfortunately repetitive options. There's only so many times you can watch a Critter get shot and either blow apart or just flop over in quick succession, after all. Still, there's a lot of heart going into the making of these low budget effects, like any good Chiodo Brothers effort. Like the best of those, this gets by on a sense of trying to do a live action Looney Tunes bit, where Critters make ridiculous cartoon noises, pull faces (kinda) and otherwise go squish when needed. It never really works like they hope, but there's a sincerity to it all that you kind of have to root for. Ultimately, it's not a "good" movie, but it is a good enough movie, and, viewed within the confines of what the film is trying to achieve, it all works in spite of itself. This is still probably the best thing that Mick Garris has ever directed. Oh, and the music is great, too. /5Watched so far: April Fool's Day (1986), Howl (2015), The Mummy's Tomb, Demonic Toys, The Exorcist III, Victor Frankenstein, Varan the Unbelievable, Critters 2
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Apr 13, 2020 18:16
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Just a reminder that Critters, Ghoulies, and Gremlins are all series that don't blossom until their 2nd film. If you're someone who has only seen the first of any of those series, do yourself a favor and watch #2 at the very least.
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Apr 13, 2020 18:39
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 71) Don't Kill It - 2017 - Prime This one was pretty good. Demon hunter's on the trail of a demon that body hops to that body's killer. Only way to stop it is for the possessed to kill themselves. Dolf Lungren does a fine job as the demon hunter. My only grumble is wondering why there isn't some other way to deal with the demon permanently other than imprison it and hope for the best. Overall, I enjoyed this.  72) Scare Campaign - 2016 - Prime Points to this one for working some different angles. A long running prank show's at risk of getting the axe as their ratings are dropping and nearly having someone killed by a prank gone wrong on their last show. With internet shows being competition, the prank show goes out to prove old & busted can pull off the ratings like the new hotness. Of course we know it's not going to work out well. The twist's pretty expected same for the follow up twist, but this film wasn't bad. I'll likely give it another watch.  73) Lord Shango - 1975 - Prime Holy poo poo! A Blaxploitation film I've never heard of. On the downside, the animal sacrifices appear to be real animal killings. The rest of the film's pretty good. A single mother who's not fared well with Christianity starts getting into the local Yoruba sect. Equally it could be said to be about the clash between Southern Baptists and the Yoruba Faith. The only thing holding me back from recommending this is the real animal death.  74) Bornless Ones - 2017 - Prime While the basic plot of 'gifts from demons have a nasty price' has been done to death, this film does a good job of it. There are plenty of ways they could've gone wrong with it, but personal touches and an energized cast really make this one a better entry in the subgenre. This is definitely worth giving a chance.  75) Parasite - 2019 - Prime I know this one's been praised high and beyond, but it just didn't click with me. Why? I don't know. The cinematography's good, actors did a great job, effects are good, story's fine. It definitely earned the awards it won. I'll likely give it another try after some time's passed, just for now, didn't click with me. I will recommend it to others.
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Apr 13, 2020 19:18
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I said I'd watch 13 movies I hadn't seen that dealt with themes of contagion, medicine, disaster, or societal collapse, and despite a couple hickups (never assume a movie with a zombie on the cover is a zombie movie, that's how they get ya) I have accomplished that goal. I saved this one for last #15 Color Out Of Space  It's good! It's like a more fun Annihilation. There's a really good gradual ramp up in weirdness. I liked that it's not a normal family to begin with. The daughter is a straight up witch, the dad is a weird dad, the mom has her financial attic. That's especially important with the dad. Having him start off a bit weird makes the transition a lot more natural when Cage starts going for it. The monster effects are really good. the mom son fusion is so disturbing If anything my one big criticism of the movie is that there aren't enough of them. C'mon you could've thrown a hosed up squirrel or bird cluster or something in there Color out of Space also does a good job at capturing that Lovecraft indescribable cosmic horror vibe. The color does weird stuff, unpredictable stuff, with the one basic connecting rule being that it's not good for us. On like a basic level it's inimical to human existence. And towards the end when it's really doing it's work it's just like, oh no that's not good at all. I liked Color Out Of Space a lot, and I'm 100% on board for this being the start of a Lovecraft Cinematic Universe.Get that hydrologist to Innsmouth!
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Apr 13, 2020 20:24
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 44. Desperate Living The film opens with the heartwarming scene of a loving husband bringing his wife home from a psych unit, in order to give her the proper care and attention she needs. Then it instantly descends into anarchic, disgusting, trashy, insane, inspired revellry, and that's the opening ten minutes. The rest of the film is "What if Mad Max, but with John Waters and punk lesbians?" No description of this movie could do it justice, and I cannot in clear conscience reccommend it to any living soul. 5/5  45. Nightbreed A troubled young man is drawn to a mythical place called Midian where a variety of monsters are hiding from humanity.  I think I would have loved this movie as a kid. It's full of fun, creative practical effects and cool monster designs. As an adult though, there's really not enough meat on the bone. The story acts as an origin tale for a monster superhero, and his supervillain counterpart. The male lead however doesn't have the charisma to pull it off, and the supporting cast aren't given nearly enough time to develop their characters. Special mention goes to Cronenberg, who does an excellent job as a cold hearted serial killer. 2.5/5
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Apr 13, 2020 21:04
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OK, since I completed my challenge here's my wrap up postGripweed posted:I will watch 13 horror movies I haven't seen before. In keeping with the spirit of the times, all the movies will deal with one or more of the following topics The Crazies Rabid Contagion Shin Kamen Rider Twister Crawl Threads Seoul Station The Thaw Splinter Daylight's End Bloodwork Color Out Of Space The stand outs in terms of standing out for being good were Crawl - just a really well made creature feature. It always kept moving, simple but solid characters, and enough gore to do justice to the premise but without going overboard and being gratuitous. I'd recommend it not just to horror fans, but pretty much anybody who wanted to watch a horror movie. Color out of Space - really good effects, creepy and weird, and great performances. Stand outs in the other way, the bad way Seoul Station - Ugly animation and overall mediocre until a twist ending so unpleasant and mean spirited it will just make you angry Daylight's End - Super boring. The movie was so clearly made by and for Blue Lives Matter shitheads I started actively hoping it would get racist or offensive so at least I would feel anger, an emotion other than boredom. But it never did. My challenge is complete, but the month's not over! I'll probably actually start watching horror movies faster now that I don't have to worry about them fitting a theme. Maybe I'll find a franchise to binge through. I've hear people talking about the Witchcraft series...
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Apr 13, 2020 21:33
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 37 (47). Hatchet III (2013) Directed by B. J. McDonnell, written by Adam Green. Watched on Prime, also available on Hoopla. May Beth walks into a police station covered in blood carrying Victor Crowley’s scalp sending the police out to the swamp to collect bodies just in time for Crowley to regenerate and leaving Mary Beth and others to figure out how to stop him once and for all. I actually had to go back and re-watch the last 5 minutes of the second film even though I only watched it a couple of days ago. I couldn’t remember what happened at all. Lets chalk that up to it being on the tail end of a really bad insomnia and sleep deprivation spell for me. Generally speaking this is the rare franchise that seems to be getting better with each sequel. Now, a lot of that has to do with it starting very, very low and the fact that Green gives up directorial duties in this one might speak to me thinking this is the best of the bunch so far. But while the comedy of the series is staying in the same place it was always at - for better or worse - the packaging is just getting more and more watchable each time through. Even Parry Shen has grown from an absolutely terrible actor in the first film to a perfectly adequate one in this one. It also helps that the film ditches the need to build up a dozen different one dimensional joke characters just for them to be cannon fodder and instead focus on a couple of perfectly capable actors in The Gremlins’ Zach Galligan and Texas Chainsaw Massacre II’s Caroline Williams. It turns out if your audience is here to see randos die in gory, ridiculous ways then you don’t actually need to give each rando a story arc. And then you can go and focus your non gory death time on a couple of characters who can sort of drive a semi adequate plot. But its still what it is. By the numbers slasher. Absurd deaths. A bunch of horror cameos. A few “edgy” jokes to be uncomfortable with. The Hatchet franchise is a mediocre sandwich that I’m not quite enjoying but I get what other people like about, but I’m not hating it and each time I have it it gets a little better but I still don’t really like it and I’m not entirely sure why I keep eating them. Speaking of meals I don’t really like but I keep coming back for more for some reason…  38 (48). The Final Destination (2009) Directed by David R. Ellis, written by Eric Bress. Watched on Netflix, also available on Hulu. sigh… A teen has a premonition of a fatal accident at… a car race? Seriously? And he freaks out and saves a bunch of strangers lives and then Death comes for them. Its Final Destination 5. We’re not exactly thinking out of the box here. Ugh, 3D. Its rough when you’re already sick of a franchise and the big fans of it are like “that’s the bad one, skip it” but I’m actually gonna give FD4 a point here. Thank you for breaking away from the formula JUST enough that the teen with the premonition was FINALLY able to save his friend. The contrivances we were taking to make sure that the teen’s friends and loved ones never listen to him and get off the X with their panicky friend was starting to feel like the ultimate refusal to change anything up at all. Even if your friend’s a total rear end in a top hat. On the other hand you managed to save a loving cross burner so great job there, buddy. But also Emmanuelle in Space so fate is all highs and lows. Despite that point I give it its probably the most uninspired episode to date. Like even its wacky deaths are all either old gross out urban legends or horrific tragedies/crimes turned on their head. I can’t tell if I’m annoyed at them for the ostentatious title when they had so little or impressed that they might have recognized that this represented squeezing the last bit of blood from the stone. The second premonition really felt like the cherry on the sundae of that. Instead of something new or trying to tie things together or whatever you just double up on the formula. Its a twist! Also why did they think they changed the plan? That ending made no sense from a character sense. “I had a premonition we’re all gonna die!” “Death has a plan and its gonna kills us anyway.” “We have to disrupt the plan!” “Maybe we ended it by disrupting the plan.” “We didn’t!” “We’re all gonna die!” “Maybe we ended it by disrupting the plan… this time.” Why would you think that? We JUST went through this! These guys were idiots. Is it weird that the scene I had the most trouble watching was the pedicure?
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Apr 13, 2020 21:41
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16. Delicatessen (1991) Dir: Jean-Pierre Jeunet  Might be a stretch calling this horror, but whatever. It's about cannibalism, it's close enough. Probably the only movie Jean-Pierre Jeunet's made that I cared for? Alien: Resurrection is a shitshow (I'm choosing to blame that on Joss Whedon) and I really didn't care for Amelie. I felt like Amelie was way too self-conscious about being cute and quirky, but aside from a few moments, this felt more naturally funny and weird? Even if I'm not a fan of his films, I can't knock his keen sense of visual style. The film feels very claustrophobic and chaotic, like an apartment in the post-apocalypse should.
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Apr 13, 2020 23:12
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#16 The Island of Giant Insects A group of people end up on an abandoned island full of giant insects. Luckily one of them knows a lot about regular sized insects, and her knowledge just might be the key to keeping them alive. I didn't know much going in, just that it was an anime movie called The Island of Giant Insects, about people who go to an island and are attacked by giant insects. All of that sounded good to me. None of it is good. First off, it turns out this movie was beyond straight-to-DVD, it was straight-to-DVD-included-as-a-bonus-with-a-later-volume-of-a-long-running-comic-series. So not only is is really cheap looking, it also assumes you're a fan of the series and already know these characters. Very little character setup, they don't even say why they're all on a plane together, and then bam they're on a island. Literally there's the opening scene in an airport, and then credits, and then bam they're waking up on an island. I guess a plane crash would've been complicated to animate. And the giant insects look like poo poo. Just the cheapest CGI they could do. But the real problem is how sexualized the insect attacks are. If a girl gets attacked by an insect, at the very least her clothes are getting ripped off. It's very gross, and it happens a lot. I don't want to see a woman's boobs bouncing around while she's getting eaten by larvae. That's no good for anyone. In fairness, I will admit that the idea of a human getting infected by a green-banded broodsac is a very good horror idea, even if the movie doesn't execute it well. So, uh, half a point for that, I guess. The Island of Giant Insects is a poorly made bad movie for perverts, and not in a good way. Absolutely give it a pass.
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Apr 13, 2020 23:50
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Today is "Let's see what direction autoplay on Tubi takes me" day. 58. The Mirror (TubiTV) - British found footage movie about a cursed mirror. Monotonous, with a repeated, laughable GoPro shot that looks like something out of an FPS. (Gotta hold this knife in frame so people know I have a knife.) 1/5 59. The Paranormal Diaries: Clophill (TubiTV) - Weird mixture of a documentary and a found footage film. The haunting of the Church is "real," and apparently the background interviews are as well. On that front, it's a quite interesting story about a medieval church that was desecrated in the 1960s. The found footage bits are fine, I suppose, but this would've been better as a straight documentary. 3/5 60. Spirit in the Woods (TubiTV) - Bad Blair Witch ripoff. Five college students go off along a well marked trail in "the woods" in suburban Cleveland, get horrifically lost, and the inevitable happens. This may have qualified for mediocre if there weren't loose threads hanging all over it. 1/5 61. Possession Diaries (TubiTV) - One actress, who can't act. One webcam, except when they decide to go to another shot in something that thinks it's a found footage film. 1/5 Today's lesson: GIGO Watched so far: 1. The Unwelcoming House (Prime) - 3/5, 2. The Unwelcoming House 2 (Prime) - 2/5, 3. The Writer's Ghost (Prime) - 0/5, 4. Dark Exorcism (Prime) - 5/5, 5. The Ninth Configuration (Prime) - 3/5, 6. The Exorcist III (Prime) - 5/5, 7. The Prophecy (Prime) - 3/5, 8. The Ghost (1963) (Youtube) - 4/5, 9. Shock (Youtube) - 4/5, 10. Wes Craven's Chiller (Youtube) - 3/5, 11. The House by the Cemetery (Youtube) - 4/5, 12. The Werewolf of Washington (Youtube) 3/5, 13. Snowbeast (Youtube) 1/5, 14. Good Against Evil (Youtube) 3/5, 15. The Horrible Dr. Hichcock (Youtube) 1/5, 16. The Terror (Youtube) 0/5), 17. Night of the Demons (1988, Prime) 5/5, 18. Night of the Demons 2 (DVD) 4/5, 19. Night of the Demons 3 (DVD) 3/5, 20. Night of the Demons (2009) 4/5, 21. Species (Prime) 3/5, 22. The Rohl Farms Haunting (TubiTV), 2/5, 23. Poltergeist Encounters (TubiTV) 2/5, 24. Paranormal Apparition (TubiTV) 1/5, 25. Strawberry Estates (TubiTV) 1/5, 26. Strange Events (TubiTV) 3/5, 27. Chasing the Devil (TubiTV) 4/5, 28. #Screamers (TubiTV) 0/5, 29. Madhouse (Shudder) 3/5, 30. Deadbeat at Dawn (Shudder) 3/5, 31. Hansel & Gretel Get Baked (Shudder) 4/5, 32. Lizzie (Shudder) 2/5, 33. Psychopaths (Shudder) 3/5, 34. Dead Birds (Shudder) 3/5, 35. Most Beautiful Island (Shudder) 4/5, 36. Monster Party (Shudder) 2/5, 37. Bog (Prime) 1/5, 38. 1 Must Fall (Prime) 2/5, 39. Night of 1000 Cats (Prime) 1/5, 40. Ghostkeeper (Prime) 4/5, 41. Grim Woods (Prime) 3/5, 42. 4bidden Fables (Prime) 5/5, 43. Something Beneath (Prime) 3/5, 44. Lords of the Deep (Prime) 3/5, 45. The Skull (Prime) 3/5, 46. Scream Park (Prime) 3/5, 47. The Maze (Prime) 2/5, 48. Bloodwork (Prime) 5/5, 49. The Midnight Man (Prime) 4/5, 50. Cabin Fear (Prime) 3/5, 51. Hellmington (Prime) 2/5, 52. One Eyed Monster (Prime) 3/5, 53. The Binding (Prime) 2/5, 54. Animal Among Us (Prime) 2/5, 55. The Harvesting (Prime) 3/5, 56. You Can't Kill Stephen King (Prime) 1/5, 57. Before Someone Gets Hurt (TubiTV) 1/5, 58. The Mirror (TubiTV) 1/5, 59. The Paranormal Diaries: Clophill (TubiTV) 3/5, 60. Spirit in the Woods (TubiTV) 1/5, 61. Possession Diaries (TubiTV) 1/5
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Apr 14, 2020 02:51
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14.Train To Busan 2016 | Yeon Sang-ho  I did not expect Train To Busan to live up to it's hype and deliver one of the best zombie movies of the 2010's, but it definitely exceeded my expectations in the best ways. Normally a zombie film keeps selfish vs selfless as an intrinsic theme with the survival aspect of the genre, but I appreciate Train To Busan to make that it's main theme, and to explore it with a father who sacrifices his relationship with his daughter for a career to provide her with a great life, and the innocent eyes of a child who just wants a loving father, thrown into a zombie apocalypse where the disease spreads within seconds. Compounded with the fast pacing, some excellent characters (Ma Dong-seok steals the show), and an emotionally fulfilling exploration of love, sacrifice and selflessness, I was yelling and screaming along with the film during the whole ride. 115. Who Can Kill A Child? 1976| Narciso Ibáñez Serrador  Fascinating how this film came out a year or so before the first publication of Stephen King's Children of the Corn. As much as I love this film's story--kids are scary!--it's held back by a lot. The characters are incapable of communicating the very premise--"Hey honey. All these kids? No adults? Yeah, the kids murdered the adults. We need to run."--and it really hurts the experience for the viewers. Evelyn, our female protagonist, is made completely insufferable because of how deep in denial she is about their situation. Children committing atrocities is unthinkable! The point is hammered home to the point of emotional detachment. Yes, kill her. Kill them both. They're idiots. There is a bitter truth that our children look upon our horrors and want to destroy us for it. It is repeated across generations, it's a human trait to feel ashamed of where we came from but to also repeat it. That this culminates in a hive mind/group hysteria of murder is truly terrifying, and feels earned. The opening credits--a mondo collage of actual children suffering and dying and human corpses, all from war footage--nails this message home. The taste it leaves is bitter, and all the ensuing nihilism pales in comparison to the thesis. When the movie is scary, it is quite scary. Tom wandering into the church and finding a group of giggling boys removing clothes from the body of a woman they just murdered while a child prays into a confessional is definitely horrific. Tom, drained and crazed for freedom, staring into a crowd of smiling children is haunting. The final shots of children playing and swimming before continuing their murder spree is pitch-perfect. It's a shame that as a whole, the film isn't cohesively enjoyable. The imagery of actually dying and suffering children is a dreadful start, and the insult of characters stupid with denial, makes it bitter and frustrating, and impossible to recommend. Probably one of my least favorites I've seen from Edgar Wright's list. Not necessarily bad, but one I don't care to revisit. Planet of the Vampires | The Brain That Wouldn't Die | Popcorn | Plan 9 From Outer Space | Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers | Rockula | Ringu | Four Flies on Grey Velvet | Seconds | Theater of Blood | Frailty | Daughters of Darkness | Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street | Train To Busan | Who Can Kill a Child? Total: 15
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Apr 14, 2020 03:32
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 46. The Case of the Bloody Iris I wrote down two notes while watching this film. 1. Everyone is very blase about this murder. 2. The black lady just asked "does anyone want me as a their slave?" Maybe I'm just in the wrong headspace, but I just wasn't feeling this one. It's misogynistic and racist. The characters are flat. The kills are ordinary, and uninspired. The mystery isn't even worthy of Murder She Wrote. The cinematography is interesting in parts, but nothing spectacular. The finale in the stairwell is the best scene in the film, and even that isn't anything special. Case closed!* 2/5 e: *This is totally 100% my original snappy way of ending this review, and is not stolen from Fran Debbie Does Dagon fucked around with this message at 03:39 on Apr 14, 2020 |
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Apr 14, 2020 03:33
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 8. I'll Take Your Dead (2018) 3/5 William has a simple job: he makes dead bodies disappear. His daughter Gloria has become used to rough-looking men dropping off corpses, and is even convinced that some of them are haunting their house. Three parts crime thriller, one part ghost story. It's an interesting combination, but the ghosts feel unnecessary right up until the point in the final act where they are absolutely necessary and swoop into action with deus ex machina efficiency. The performances are strong, but the story is a little too disjointed with its competing crime and horror plots.
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Apr 14, 2020 05:44
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One more before I fell asleep last night.  39 (49). Shudder’s Cursed Films: Episode 3: Poltergeist (2020)/Poltergeist (2015) Directed by Gil Kenan, written by David Lindsay-Abaire. Watched on FXNow, also available on DirectTV. The Bowen family move into a sunny suburb but immediately realize that their home is haunted and have to find help in getting back their young daughter who has been taken from them and lost somewhere within the home. “The Poltergeist Curse” is probably the most known of these Cursed Films, or maybe its just the most known to me. Its really just the most viscerally tragic since it involves the death of a little girl who we watched for 3 films, not to mention the senseless murder of a young woman with her entire life ahead of her. And that tragedy probably gave this episode the most meat of any of them to date. There was no need to draw in “exorcists” or “satanic curse whatever” to address the thing being serious or not. Instead we got people who knew the girls kind of justifiably scolding us for turning tragedy into entertainment and games. Its interesting because its kind of shaming the very show, but shame is a good thing. It keeps us decent. I did think it was kind of funny that the one guy actually confirmed that they used real human skeletons in the movie and listing all the other famous movie scenes that used human skeletons. I’m sure that will silence the conspiracy. All in all it was I think the most… enjoyable episode? That’s not the right word because it was a genuinely sad thing to watch. But it felt most full and deserving of watching then the other “some weird stuff happened on movies about demons and believers blamed demons”. I thought the most interesting part was the interview with Gary Sherman and him talking about how they didn’t want to finish or release the film after Heather died. He seemed genuinely ashamed of it and the grief was kind of tangible. Ok, onto the movie. The last Poltergeist I got, its probably one of those things that I should have just let go because there was never any expectation of the film not being inferior to the original. But I’ve been curious about it so I figured I’d finish it up, especially with the Cursed Films thing. Off the bat my first instinct was that Sam Rockwell just sleazes me out. Dude’s just slimy naturally and it kind of made the otherwise fine stuff like him and his wife drinking and flirting and joking around calling their kids “brats” or him being snarky to the kids just come off meaner to me than it probably would have with most any other actor. That’s probably not fair, but it is what it is. They also made the teen meaner and, I dunno. This family felt less tranquil than the last and that makes the disruption of that tranquility feel less traumatic. This version feels like it jumps to the spookiness way quicker than the first. It runs 30 minutes shorter and it feels like a lot of that is in that setup and just basic home life and build of the family and their lives. It doesn’t build the way it does in the first one, its just “in the house… spooky poo poo… all hell breaks loose”. And I’m not sure this stuff is landing. Its not entirely fair to compare each thing 1:1 but its also kind of impossible not to especially when they’re directly repeating stuff like the tv set or the clown or the tree. And like… if I have to compare ’82 to ’15 each time I’m not sure ’15 wins many rounds. When it was at its best I think was when it was just doing something different like the teen being grabbed in the basement or the shadows. I also think I mostly liked the look into the spirit dimension. It was a little but Insidious-y and maybe too CGI/commercial like (especially with the skeletons outside the house, again, a place where it pales to the original) but I do think I liked the very eery, sinister world they set up there in very quick glimpses and I think the visuals of things peeking around corners and such really worked. Ultimately it wasn’t bad and the shorter run time means it moved very quickly from beat to beat. As is the case with a lot of remakes of classics it probably would have been better off just largely diverting completely from the original and trying to do its own thing with just a few callbacks. Instead we got kind of the reverse where it was like all the same skeleton and major plot points and iconic scenes and imagery as the original but with a few of its own things tossed in or changed here and there. A remake should strive for a larger percentage of “new” and “different” than “homage” and “repeat.” I think stuff like Evil Dead and Suspiria pull it off. But a lot make the same mistake this one did and go the opposite way and then all you really can end up doing is saying “the original was better.” April “Spring Shut-In” Marathon Watched - New (Total) 1. Blood Punch (2014); 2. La morte vivanta aka The Living Dead Girl (1982); 3. Prom Night (1980); 4. Rabid (1977); 5. Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II (1987); 6. Mayhem (2017); - (7). Wishmaster 2: Evil Never Dies (1999); 7 (8). The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986); 8 (9). Color Out of Space (2020); - (10). Critters (1986); 9 (11). The Prophecy II (1998); 10 (12). Hell House LLC III: Lake of Fire (2019); 11 (13). Demons 2 (1986); 12 (14). Final Destination 2 (2003); 13 (15). Wishmaster 3: Beyond the Gates of Hell (2001); 14 (16). Maniac Cop (1988); - (17). The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971); 15 (18). Zombieland: Double Tap (2019); 16 (19). Hatchet (2006); - (20). Suspiria (1977); 17 (21). Climax (2018); 18 (22). The Prophecy 3: The Ascent (2000); 19 (23). Shudder’s Cursed Films; Episode 1: The Exorcist (2020)/Exorcist: The Beginning (2004); 20 (24). Psycho II (1983); 21 (25). Freaks of Nature (2015); 22 (26). Dave Made A Maze (2017); 23 (27). You Might Be The Killer (2018); 24 (28). Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III (1990); 24 (28). Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III (1990); 25 (29). One Cut of the Dead (2017); - (30). YellowBrickRoad (2010); 26 (31). Final Destination 3 (2006); 27 (32). Beyond Re-Animator (2003); 28 (33). The Wind (2019); 29 (34). 3 from Hell (2019); 30 (35). Patchwork (2015); - (36). Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation (1995); - (37). Shudder's Cursed Films: Episode 2: The Omen (2020)/The Omen (1976); - (38). Stake Land (2010); 31 (39). Dr. Phibes Rises Again (1972); 32 (40). Hatchet II (2010); 33 (41). Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror (2019); - (42). See No Evil (2006); - (43). Critters 2: The Main Course (1988); 34 (44). Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter (2001); 35 (45). Wishmaster: The Prophecy Fulfilled (2002); 36 (46). The Prophecy: Uprising (2005); 37 (47). Hatchet III (2013); 38 (48). The Final Destination (2009); 39 (49). Shudder’s Cursed Films: Episode 3: Poltergeist (2020)/Poltergeist (2015);
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Apr 14, 2020 11:48
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 8. The Witchfinder General aka The Conqueror Worm (1968) This era of gothic horror just does it for me. The tone, visuals, and atmosphere are all sublime, Vincent Price is MVP as usual, there were some gruesome as hell torture/burning scenes, and there was a kindly young couple at the center who were too lovely to not like. Overall this was a great time at the movies. That being said, I think my expectations were a bit off going into this. I was vaguely aware that this was based on a real figure but I wasn't particularly familiar with the true historical events. What we're told about Matthew Hopkins in the film is absolutely bare-bones. We see his reign of terror across the countryside which gives us the general idea. We hear him vaguely mention his ambitions in passing. But that's about it. As someone who isn't familiar with witch-finding outside of Salem... this wasn't enough. This is an incredibly thinly written character on the page, and I never got a good sense of his motivations behind his campaign—was it the silver? He didn't seem particularly driven by it and was quickly willing to give half up to his wronged partner. Was it the power? The one time he mentions it he seems more amused by it than lusting for it. Was it his faith? He didn't seem to have any and was fine faking confessions. Was he just an amoral monster? Maybe the filmmakers wanted to present a man whose actions are as baffling to them as to history. But if that was the intention then it came off limp. Maybe it was my ignorance, but I was expecting some sort of twist when it came to his motivations—had he sworn allegiance to Satan, was he a real witch himself, had he hired all of the accusers himself, etc. Had I known the history I wouldn't have expected something supernatural, but the fact that he was so enigmatic and that he kept running off for mysterious meetings during the narrative, I felt like some kind of reveal was coming that never did. It just felt like a missed opportunity, and his character's actions being so core to the film I was left wanting. And especially after looking Hopkins up after and seeing how widespread his reign of terror was—the film just didn't have the same impact without that context. Even an opening bit of text saying "In his 3 years as self-appointed Witchfinder General, Matthew Hopkins was responsible for the execution of more than 300 alleged witches—more than half of all such executions in 3 centuries." or whatever would have done enough. All that aside, Vincent Price is delicious as always. Here he plays a particularly heightened version of his persona, and he manages to be simultaneously high-camp and terrifying. I totally understand why the director wanted a more grounded, "serious" actor for the role, but it's hard to not love Price here. His hair, clothing, and makeup add to the effect, being just a bit more camp than those around him. So seeing his constant sociopathic disregard for human life just felt so much more shocking. Ian Ogilvy plays a pretty ideal strapping young soldier out for revenge against the man who wronged his true love. I wasn't expecting much out of this character, but he really won me over in time—specifically the scene in the church when he finds Sara after her uncle was slain. His reaction to his true love confessing that she slept with a monster to try and save her uncle's life being to take her hand, kneel down before God, marry here, and then swear an oath of revenge was really goddamn good. Hilary Dwyer was lovely but not given enough to do, Robert Russell was delightful as a real son of a bitch. The pacing was great and the story moves at a clip. The production design wasn't much to speak of but seeing how low-budget of a flick it was they stretched the budget well. Plus, that ending was just brutal in the best possible way. Overall a really great drama that was just missing some pieces for me. I know that the senselessness of it all is somewhat the point, but the film seems to assume I would have an understanding of history going in that I just didn't. Plus I had gone in expecting real witches, which in a way is an ideal way to watch the film, but it also provided a bit of disappointment in the end as I had gone in wanting some supernatural nonsense. 8/10 feedmyleg fucked around with this message at 18:25 on Apr 23, 2020 |
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Apr 14, 2020 16:19
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I'm having a very productive challenge so far, not in terms of quantity but I'm really knocking some stuff out here that I should've watched years ago.  Piranha Well I feel pretty dumb. Not only did I sleep on this for years, but I assumed it was a fairly standard Jaws imitator even though I was totally aware that it was directed by Joe Dante! Well apologies to Joe, I should've never doubted the guy's imagination. So of course this is not just a piranha movie, it's a MUTANT piranha movie! You might think hardly makes a difference, but it really really does. The cast is also a lot more fun than I expected. Barbara Steele seems like she's having a great time with her character and then about 3/4 of the way through all the sudden Dick Miller shows up. If there's a criticism it would be that the two leads aren't up to the level of the rest of the cast, but I suppose that's not an uncommon problem in this type of film. I'm probably the last person here that hadn't seen Piranha but if by chance anyone else is in the same boat(ha!) definitely add it to your list.  Jaws 4: The Revenge Not sure how I missed this one in all those Jaws t.v. marathons over the years, but it's always eluded me. The movie is maybe most famous for the Michael Caine quote about how he never actually saw the movie......but he has seen the house that he bought with the paycheck and he's very happy with that! You know what though? I didn't hate this nearly as much as I expected to. It's got some pretty nice atmosphere and Lorraine Gary is back as Brody's widow so this doesn't feel like a soulless cash-in at all. The shark itself is inconsistent, it looks great in some scenes and pretty bad in others. But they definitely did some ambitious stuff with it where you've got people interacting with it in the same shot in a way that didn't seem possible in the earlier films.   Can you believe Mario Van Peebles is 63 years old? I saw him pop up in this movie and I was like wait a second, you should be too young for this! 1. Leprechaun 4: In Space 2. Leprechaun In The Hood 3. Leprechaun: Back 2 Tha Hood 4. The Uncanny 5. Rockula 6. Come To Daddy 7. Cast A Deadly Spell 8. In The Tall Grass 9. Pet Sematary(2019) 10. Pet Sematary(1989) 11. The Wind 12. VFW 13. Piranha 14. Jaws 4: The Revenge
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Apr 14, 2020 16:34
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Been accidentally using this challenge as an excuse to power through series I never bothered to watch. Next up is Final Destination! Thinking about this series always scared me way more than any other as a kid. I never watched these, so I was always stuck with the concept, but just the concept of Death coming after people freaked me out (it had also recently set in that people, including myself, would die). It ended up being one of those things where the concept I built up in my head ended up way scarier than the actual thing. As I got older, the slapstick nature of the series became apparent, but I still haven't watched any of these until now. Still one of the all-time great horror pitches. 17. Final Destination (1999) Dir: James Wong  The deaths aren't quite at the famously intricate Rube Goldberg levels the series is famous for yet, but I think there's still something kind of shocking in that. Devon Sawa's weird manic energy helps this movie a lot, as does Tony Todd hamming it up and basically becoming Death's hypeman. It's kind of adorable seeing them try to work in some of the least subtle director references out there. Probably the best this series gets as a horror film you're supposed to take seriously. 18. Final Destination 2 (2003) Dir: David R. Ellis  This one's more fun, though! The premonition is an all-timer, and you can start seeing the slapstick aspect really start to form. I appreciate how egalitarian the roster of victims is in this one. It's not just teenagers, but professional adults and adults pretending to be children. The film loves giving you like five or six potential death scenarios, and then faking you out with something that was never alluded to. So potently early-2000s the Blu-Ray might as well come with a chain wallet and a pair of JNCOs. Tony Todd even gets a Dracula castle, complete with an entrance where he comes out of a font of red fog. Friends Are Evil fucked around with this message at 17:07 on Apr 14, 2020 |
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Apr 14, 2020 17:05
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In which I set any entire day’s viewing schedule based off the laziness not even needing to change apps. - (50). The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) Directed by Marcus Nispel, written by Scott Kosar. Watched on Starz. Jessica Biel (and her wardrobe) are one of a group of teens driving through Texas in the summer when their carefree adventure is sidetracked by horrible tragedy and the unrelenting danger of Leatherface. This is the other TCM movie I had seen over the years when it was out and a big thing and I saw with friends. Truthfully all I remember is Jessica Biel. I had no idea Jonathan Tucker was in this. I love him. Also the hitchhiker is that lady from Lucifer. How about that? Its also always fun to be reminded Eric Balfour was once everywhere. The best thing I think this does is diverge from the original’s story right out the gate. I said it with Poltergeist but I think if you’re gonna remake a classic you gotta find a way to tell your own story. Pay respects, nod at the original, be true, but tell your own story. TCM ’03 introduces the same basic group of teens with the same formula driving down the same Texas summer road in the same van picking up a hitchhiker… and then takes a sharp turn. To me that signaled a good thing right out the gate because it told me I gotta pay attention to the story and not just assume I’d seen it before. I guess what’s lost in that is that in the first one the kids don’t know they’re in a horror story until all hell breaks loose and its too late to do anything and that contributes to the shock factor of the original. In the remake we’re in a horror movie for a long time as pieces are put into place and the situation just gets progressively worse. Its a very different vibe. Which is fine. It allows the movie to be judged as its own thing, while still obviously paying tribute to the original. As its own thing though I didn’t really care. It has that distinct feel of the movies of the era like Saw and Hostel but without any of the hooks or creativity or humor that help make the better of them stand out. This is a gauntlet of pain and torture and horror but in being so unrelenting it kind of just falls into a rhythm where nothing really hits. Biel has to just keep moving and screaming for an hour and it feels like they’re on a track just moving along. Nothing that happens really stands out to me or resonates besides maybe the conclusion where Biel essentially just murders the sheriff, kidnaps a baby, and books it in the cop car all chill. Which kind of gave me a laugh. But I don’t think that was really the intent. Its fine if you like this kind of movie but its nothing special and all. And my complete ambivalence to this and the fact that I saw it in theaters in friends probably speaks to why it took me so long to get around to seeing the original. I guess maybe mediocre remakes can hurt the originals in that way. But seriously, putting Biel in that outfit and then soaking her with water was just gratuitous. But also thank you.  40 (51). Damien: Omen II (1978) Directed by Don Taylor, written by Stanley Mann and Mike Hodges. Watched on Starz. As Damien Thorne nears adulthood he begins to experience strange abilities, a sense of importance, and individuals around him - some of whom seem to want to elevate him and prepare him for his destiny and some of whom seems frightened of him and concerned about the coming of the Antichrist. This is a really weird film, not for the usual “weird” reasons, but because it has no protagonist. Damien is basically a background character and the focus of the story shifts from person to person as they get a whiff that there’s something going on and then are snuffed out. Its actually kind of bizarre. The obvious center of it is (besides Damien) is Damien’s uncle and caretaker who is the one constantly having people around him start to raise a flag only to be taken down by a cultist or black magic or something. But he doesn’t actually listen or get involved until the final act so it doesn’t have the same kind of build and tension that it has with Gregory Peck’s great performance in the original film. And weirdly once he’s in he just jumps all the way in. Compared to everything Peck went through it really stands out how his brother has a mere fraction of the journey before he gets to “Lets kill our kid!” There is a REALLY awesome twist that I did not see coming at all. It actually helped redeem the movie quite a bit for me in literally the final moments. Which isn’t to say this was a bad film. It was actually very much fine all things considered. Acting, directing, look, sound. Its all fine and I was never bored or disengaged or anything. It just kind of was weird like I was watching Episodes 3 and 4 of a 13 episode season where like the setup happened before and I know something big is coming after but right now I’m just in the character and plot line establishment stage. In a lot of ways the actual diving structure of the movie is kind of a slasher where the killer is just the unseen devil. The whole movie is basically “I read this crazy thing about the antic… AHH! I discovered this odd conspiracy about… AHHH! Damien signals who he’s throwing the ball to too early and… AHHH!” It becomes almost amusing to see characters introduced and wait to see how long it takes or how it will happen. This is basically a prototype for a Final Destination movie. There’s a bunch of gory and wacky, convoluted kills but there is one particularly gnarly death that got a reaction from me for the connoisseurs of such things. You can probably find it on youtube or something. Or well I’ll make it easy for you fellas.  The Sugarbakers shall roll over in their graves. The biggest disappointment for me is that this movie has the inspired casting of getting Lance Henriksen to play a Satan cultist but all he really ends up doing is scolding Damien for showing off his Antichrist powers too much. Omen II aka Final Destination 0. STAC Goat fucked around with this message at 19:57 on Apr 14, 2020 |
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Apr 14, 2020 19:43
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 76) Pooka Lives! - 2020 - Hulu The Into the Dark series has been pretty hit or miss with me. Since I really liked Pooka and found out from the thread that there's a sequel, I gave it a watch. This was probably not the best thing to watch considering I've been watching a fair amount of tales of the internet type stuff on Youtube. Not helping either is I was one of the people posting in the Create Paranormal Images thread way back when, so I was at Ground Zero for Slenderman watching how that exploded. Both gave this an extra notch to make it genuinely unnerving to me. I didn't realize Wil Wheaton was in this, I didn't recognize him. I wasn't too thrilled about seeing Felicia Day in this since I've found her nerve gratingly annoying since I first saw her in The Guild. Here, she was just annoying so that's progress, I guess. Overall, this was good. I liked it. My only nitpick is the ending since it feels a bit abrupt. I wanted to see the Apookalypse, dammit.  77) Tragedy Girls - 2017 - Hulu This one didn't click with me, probably from the tales of the internet type stuff I've been watching. The reality of some internet persona being sociopathic enough to do anything for likes/retweets/fame pretty much dampened the satire for me. Just because this film didn't work for me doesn't mean it's unwatchable. If it sounds like your kinda thing, give it a go.  78) Crawlers - 2020 - Hulu This one had it's moments. Story's aliens attack a college town on St. Patrick's, and it's up to the heroes to stop it. I wish I could like this more, but the poorly handled parts dragged it down for me. Having one of the main characters narrate at times is okay, but having her narrate as much as she did detracted from the story. Equally, the timely social issue messaging was heavy handed and pulled away from the story. It came across more like clumsy virtue-signalling. At this point I'm convinced all finesse with handling the balance of message to story ended in the 70s and no one has a clue how to do it anymore. I found myself more wanting to see a film about the earlier alien attack that gets mentioned by the conspiracy theorist character.  79) Vampires - 2010 - Hulu Essentially this is a knockoff of What We Do in the Shadows, though it's lacking in the charm the other film has in spades. It's not unwatchable, but does tend to drag more than it should.  80) Garden Party Massacre - 2019 - Prime It's listed as a horror-comedy but it's more like a comedy salad with horror croutons. An awkward garden party goes further south when a killer with a pickaxe shows up, and that's just the beginning. This wasn't unwatchable, but I like there to be more of a balance with horror comedies. This had a lot of dad jokes. I was happy that Wesley and Link not only survive but end up as a happy couple. So, if you don't mind a very heavy on the comedy horror-comedy, this has potential.
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Apr 14, 2020 20:28
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4. Contamination (1980) 3/5 I watched this as part of catching up on Job Bob Briggs episodes on Shudder. It's an Italian self-proclaimed rip-off of Aliens and...a ton of other poo poo. Bacterial eggs start popping up in "New York" and, upon ripening/hatching/whatever, explode goo onto nearby people who explode themselves. It's batshit nuts and less an homage and more of a laundry list of copyright infringement. I mostly loved it. It's got some moments where the pacing is glacial, but the practical effects and the exploding people are a good time. 5. Gretel and Hansel 1/5 Oof. Boy. I don't know what to say about this mess. I went in on a whim and thought, "Oh hey, Sophia Lillis was good in the new IT, I'll give this a shot." Then I realized it was the new Oz Perkins and I loved The Blackcoat's Daughter. So I was all in. The end result was probably the dullest fantasy-horror I've ever sat through with strange, stilted acting that I can't tell if it was on purpose or not. Some people are doing accents. Some aren't. Sophia Lillis seems like she should be doing one, but she sounds like a normal 2020 teenage girl. I honestly can't critique this one too in-depth because it was genuinely difficult for me to care about any given moment of it. It reminded me of The Witch but with less care and craft and none of the sense of dread established in the atmosphere of that film. 6. The Room (2019) 2.5/5 A couple moves into a house where they discover a room that gives them anything they wish for. This didn't blow me away, but it was entertaining and sufficiently unsettling. I hesitate to go into much detail, as the plot doesn't sound like much and I feel has been covered in other horror media, but this one does some weird poo poo with it that is interesting to see where it goes as the couple navigates the pros and cons of being able to have anything they want. I've been told this would be a good pairing with the film Vivarium, which I haven't seen - so maybe that'll be next on my life.
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Apr 15, 2020 01:18
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It is genuinely odd how much joy I’m taking from not having to leave this one app. Incidentally, Starz really has a solid library of horror to choose from. 41 (52). Psycho III (1986) Directed by Anthony Perkins, Written by Charles Edward Pogue. Watched on Starz. Norman’s just minding his own business, trying to run a small business, taxidermying his new mom, having hallucinations, and people gotta mess with him. There’s the reporter who thinks he killed his new mom, the vagrant looking for some quick cash, and the mentally disturbed nun with really bad ability to sense social danger. Its enough to drive a man crazy. I swear, Norman Bates lives in the nicest town in America… or the most obliviously naive. “Leave that fella alone! All he did was go crazy, murder his momma, imagine she was still there, imagine he was her, and murder a whole bunch of other people! How dare you be suspicious of all these other people dying and disappearing around him!” This is alright, but its a clear step down. I don’t really put that on Perkins’ directing. I think he mostly did a fine job, even if this one played a little more on visual hallucinations we could see than just the implied. And that’s where I think Perkins’ directing might have hurt this a bit. He’s good as he always is but he feels like he’s not doing as much acting here as in the first two. Perkins’ portrayal of Bates in the first two films is absolutely brilliant and would have carried weaker movies but here he feels a little more one dimensional. And I imagine that might have had something to do with Perkins having his attention split between duties and not having someone to direct him. But mostly I just thinks its not a great story. Its a fine enough one but its mostly rehashes of what we’ve seen. I mean theres’ definitely new dimensions in the innocent genuinely naive to Norman’s danger and the amoral guy trying to take advantage of it for himself. But the show is still Norman and it feels like we can only go to the well here so many times before the sheriff just looks like a crazy person for not searching his place better. Which I imagine was at least someone intentional considering that ice cube scene. But still, it starts to feel a bit like we’re straining the premise and just killing time before the inevitable. I have to give it for some prescient casting of Jeff Fahey as the slimy hunk. I’m getting a little bored of the “Before They Were Famous” gimmick but that’s a really good one as its one of his first performances but he is just perfect for the role and does a great job with it. Its a fine film, just you know… fine. But I’ll have this song stuck in my head for days. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwFe7aoXIqQ People: Watch Piranha. Goat: Ok, I’ll try. Fran: Watch Piranha. Goat: Ok, I’ll move it up. Basebf: Joe Dante…  42 (53). Piranha (1978) Directed by Joe Dante, written by John Sayles Watched on HBO Go, also available on hoopla, DirectTV, and Amazon’s Cinemax channel. Mutated piranha, a gruff loner drunk who wears flannel, an ambitious but kinda silly goofy investigator, you get the picture. I was disappointed. Its fine but its played way more straight than I was expecting. They tease a way wackier movie early on with those mutated things in the lab including the one sneaking around in the background and then they just disappear and never come up again. Similarly the two leads are introduced with their flawed, kinda comedic characters but then just switch into basic action movie leads. First act is kinda interesting but the rest is basically just Jaws but darker. And I guess once again that’s what makes it popular here. The dark and gruesome results and nihilistic approach. The final image of the hero lying in a near fatal state amidst a mass of bodies with his young daughter crying over him. But like… that does nothing for me. But it was fine. I can see why fans of gore and sad endings like it. I can see why people who might have thought Jaws wasn’t mean enough would like it. I just can’t say I liked it and I’m a little surprised Dante did it. Obviously he didn’t write it, and there’s some clear dark comedy or satire and that first act stuff in there which seems more like him. But I guess its kind of keeping with The Howling and maybe he just hadn’t fully moved to the style he’s known more for early in his career. Or maybe he was limited as a young director. Or maybe Piranha is good and I'm just a fart face. Who can really know?
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Apr 15, 2020 02:01
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 The Watcher In The Woods This was not good. Anjelica Huston really phoned it in, and everyone else just kind of moved through their lines and actions. A nod to Sam Raimi and some vagina tree action were basically the only interesting part of this snoozefest. I was disappointed that I couldn't find the original, and disappointed in this.  Society Another rewatch, still hilariously weird. A (virtual) room full of people were in various stages of WTF throughout, which is what you really want for a movie. A fantastic time! Watched So Far: 9 - 1. Satanic Panic, 2. Alpha Incident, 3. Planet Of The Vampires, 4. Popcorn, 5. Matango, 6. Rockula, 7. Underwater, 8. World War Z, 9. The Lighthouse, 10. The Watcher In The Woods (2017), 11. Society
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Apr 15, 2020 02:02
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 47. Eko Eko Azarak: Wizard of Darkness   After the occurrence of several Satanic murders triangulated (pentagramulated?) around a high school, a new student appears. After she demonstrates her ability to perform curses targeting a child molesting teacher, suspicion falls upon her, but could she be the schools only hope in combating the forces of darkness? Eko Eko Azarak is a very workmanlike supernatural slasher, with a few inventive kills, and some disturbing erotic scenes. Disturbing in the bad sense. We have creepy male pervert teachers molesting students at the school gate, and a graphic statutory rape scene between a female teacher and a female student. When the students begin to die it becomes nicely scary. Overall it's alright, but just stop touching kids movie, y'know? 2.5/5  48. Eyes of Laura Mars I'm not the biggest fan of Giallo films, I can appreciate them, but they don't light a fire under me. This on the other hand, this lights my F I R E. First you have the excellent casting of Faye Dunaway, Tommy Lee Jones, Brad Dourif, Raul Julia, AND with a John Carpenter script. Brad and Raul are underutilised in my humble opinion. Then you add a gimmick that is rare in that it is used well, and used to add to the tension, and add to the creativity of the kills. Plus I've been a sucker for POV in film ever since I saw Lady in the Lake as a child. Definitely recommended. 4/5
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Apr 15, 2020 02:15
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 The Strange Colour Of Your Body’s Tears WTF did I just watch. A wild neo-giallo, with Argento colors and dream logic, some compositing of shots that reminded me more of a Western or straight detective story, fantastic sound, and more and mashed it all up. Hell it even had a sequence that called to mind Babadook and Tim Burton. What an appropriately strange movie. It isn’t very comprehensible though, at least to me. I’ll definitely be giving it another watch just to figure out what is going on - as one reviewer on LBD said it makes Mulholland Drive look accessible. Watched So Far: 9 - 1. Satanic Panic, 2. Alpha Incident, 3. Planet Of The Vampires, 4. Popcorn, 5. Matango, 6. Rockula, 7. Underwater, 8. World War Z, 9. The Lighthouse, 10. The Watcher In The Woods (2017), 11. Society, 12. The Strange Colour Of Your Body’s Tears
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Apr 15, 2020 04:23
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62. The Nightmare Gallery (Prime) - A slowburn, dreamlike (nightmarelike) film starring Amber Benson as an anthropology professor obsessed with the occult-related disappearance of a student three years earlier. Creepy early on, it gets very weird late and comes to a satisfying conclusion. 4/5 63. The Night Sitter (Prime) - Perfectly serviceable teen scream about a babysitter/cat burglar watching two kids in what is basically the Warren House, although don't expect Annabelle Comes Home. This feels more like a straight-to-video 90s sequel. Strong Night of the Demons 3, but PG-13, vibe. (It's unrated, and probably wouldn't actually be PG-13 because there's buckets of blood flying around, but no nudity or cursing.) It also falls apart quite a bit at the end. 3/5
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Apr 15, 2020 04:43
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14: Sisters This is tense and exciting, with dashes of humour used appropriately. The opening scene took me by surprise to say the least. There's some split screen action that I thought worked really well. It's been compared to Hitchcock and I can definitely see that sort of style on display, albeit lower budget. The music reminded me of Psycho, but not in a Re-animator way of blatantly ripping it off. I loved it right until I got to the end scene, which I'm not sure about. The hypnosis block was just frustrating. Danielle's still arrested for a different murder so what's the point? Seen: 1) The Abominable Dr. Phibes; 2) Contagion; 3) The Devil's Rejects; 4) The Changling; 5) Frankenhooker; 6) Midsommar; 7) Village of the Damned (1960); 8) Wishmaster; 9) Der Golem; 10) City of the Living Dead; 11) A Nightmare on Elm Street 2; 12) Leprechaun; 13) Microwave Massacre; 14) Sisters
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Apr 15, 2020 11:26
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M_Sinistrari posted:
Quite impressive to have knocked off WWDITS four years before it came out.
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Apr 15, 2020 11:37
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Jedit posted:Quite impressive to have knocked off WWDITS four years before it came out. My bad on that since I saw What We Do first and presumed it came first. Still wasn't as good as What We Do is.
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Apr 15, 2020 12:05
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One I got in before I slept last night. 43 (54). The Church (1989) Written and directed by Michele Soavi, co-written by Dario Argento and Franco Ferrini. Watched on Prime, also available on Epix. A librarian at a cathedral built on the mass grave of “witches” killed by Teutonic Knights unearths the church’s secrets and unleashes demons to possess and stalk those within it. I was super hyped for this but I started it 2 nights and dozed off. I think I was obviously expecting more of the all out crazy of Demons and [/b]Demons 2[/b] but it sounds like Soavi rewrote the script to get away from that. Which was… disappointing. I wasn’t prepared for a low key, small circle of characters setup. Gave it a 3rd try tonight (because that second time resulted in a nap so now my sleep was hosed) and powered past those expectations. All in all in was a fine enough film but I felt the pacing was really off. Nothing really starts to happen until half way through the piece and while I don’t have a problem with slow build and developing characters, nothing really came of it that development once stuff did start to happen. The principle relationship that takes up most of the first half of the film becomes an odd unexplained demon plot or something in the second while a couple of relatively small characters become the principle players in the film’s climax. It was odd. I also couldn’t really make sense of what was happening in the Church. Dream logic and hallucinations are fine and all but I could never really tell what was happening, who was still on the board, or what mattered or didn’t. The whole thing was just weird. Characters appear and disappear, no one seems phased by murders or hosed up poo poo, and there’s no sense of how much time is passing or what’s being done. All that said its a solid enough film once I accept the dream logic and “nothing makes sense” of it all. My criticisms are more about unfinished ideas or disappointments than anything else. Obviously when its all said and done this isn’t a Demons’ sequel and that’s kind of disappointing, but judged on its own it was perfectly fine.
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Apr 15, 2020 15:22
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