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Crawl was GOOD ya'll! drat! That rocked! That might give Suspiria a run for its money. Demanding a rewatch at least.
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Jun 26, 2020 00:47
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Yea see I think Crawl is actually precisely the type of movie that could potentially take down something like Suspiria. A simple, streamlined, very well crafted creature feature that's just a lot of fun to watch. It's like the polar opposite of Suspiria and if that dreamlike loose narrative of Suspiria isn't your thing then I think it would be very very easy to vote for Crawl. I hope it doesn't happen though because I love Suspiria and I want to see at least a few more Argento films get some attention in this tournament.
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Jun 26, 2020 02:41
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Crawl vs. Suspiria, hmmm. I've seen Crawl a couple days ago, and there's a lot to like about it. The lead actors have really good chemistry, the colours pop, it actually manages to be rather scary for a creature feature. Someone in the horror thread pointed out the weird sex vibes between dad and daughter, and yes I can see it, and it does make it even more interesting. I still loved the protagonists and wanted everyone to pull through, and I hooted and hollered in joy at several points in the movie, to myself, alone, in my empty apartment. Somehow I'd not seen any Ajas before, but he is definitely on my radar now. Then again, Suspiria is a one of a kind masterpiece (sorry Inferno). The 4K remaster on a big screen with the volume turned to the max, its dazzling, it's brutal, its beautiful. Crawl could have beaten a lot of Argentos' movies, but definitely not Suspiria.
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Jun 26, 2020 02:44
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married but discreet posted:Somehow I'd not seen any Ajas before, but he is definitely on my radar now Also, I saw Crawl in theaters with a retired Duke law professor, and he remarked as we walked out, "Well that whole movie was stupid, because if the dad was following his fiduciary duty he'd have an escrow set up for the house" or some tort law nonsense and I found it just adorable that that was his takeaway.
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Jun 26, 2020 02:49
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married but discreet posted:I've seen Crawl a couple days ago, and there's a lot to like about it. The lead actors have really good chemistry, the colours pop, it actually manages to be rather scary for a creature feature. Someone in the horror thread pointed out the weird sex vibes between dad and daughter, and yes I can see it, I thought it was actually a really good and simple relationship. Dad pushed daughter in sports. Dad and daughter are too alike so they clash in their stubbornness. Daughter's been conflicted after the divorce. Dad feels bad because he feels like he messed up. Very simple, worn tread territory that was established simply through dialogue and solid acting/chemistry as we moved along quickly.
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Jun 26, 2020 03:17
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Shrecknet posted:
I remember when I saw the original Amityville Horror at the show. The big takeaway was 'Holy poo poo the property damage...how would you even list that with insurance?'.
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Jun 26, 2020 10:26
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M_Sinistrari posted:I remember when I saw the original Amityville Horror at the show. The big takeaway was 'Holy poo poo the property damage...how would you even list that with insurance?'. Stephen King said the same thing in Danse Macabre. He was at a screening and heard someone moaning in horror, "Oh God... the bills." And the one true ringing moment for him was when the money Lutz is given for the repairs by his brother in law vanishes. He described it as an economic horror movie.
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Jun 26, 2020 10:40
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Jedit posted:Stephen King said the same thing in Danse Macabre. He was at a screening and heard someone moaning in horror, "Oh God... the bills." And the one true ringing moment for him was when the money Lutz is given for the repairs by his brother in law vanishes. He described it as an economic horror movie. It does make sense. Even more when you envision trying to deal with an insurance company over this. "Yeah, I know you don't cover Acts of God, but this is an Act of Satan and I've gone over all the fine print and there's nothing saying you don't cover Acts of Satan."
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Jun 26, 2020 11:56
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Has anyone found a decent option for watching Basketcase 3 yet? I mean, I could live without it but I wouldn't mind checking it out, I've seen the first two but I'm not sure I even realized there was a third one.
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Jun 26, 2020 14:55
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It looks like its on Youtube? https://youtu.be/l_V1cmAzEps
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Jun 26, 2020 15:18
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STAC Goat posted:It looks like its on Youtube? poo poo that's a nice looking version too.
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Jun 26, 2020 15:26
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If you didn't like Basket Case 2, definitely give 3 a try. It's a much better film in my opinion.
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Jun 26, 2020 15:56
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I've only seen the first Basket Case but, uh, judging from that opening scene I missed a lot between what happened since the end of the original.
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Jun 26, 2020 16:39
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Oh yeah! The third film begins with the end of the second, so um, spoilers. They're also all in direct continuity with eachother, so if you want to catch up 2 is available on youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rs0LFSUJBxM As is the original Basket Case https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYy7-iuzj64 I guess this is was always going to be an issue with franchise directors, given the random drawing
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Jun 26, 2020 16:59
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I've been so out of sync with being able to pay attention to movies lately, I've watched like 7 or 8 movies this entire month, which for me is jack poo poo. Since it's Friday I may try to double Basket Case 2 and 3 tonight.
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Jun 26, 2020 17:56
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So I really didn't enjoy Crawl, and I think I didn't enjoy it because it's a good film. The film is written as a dumb b-movie, with tons of schlocky elements, plot points that make no sense, and characters who are introduced just so we can watch them die. However it's filmed and acted in such a compelling and interesting way, that the fun b-movie elements became unwelcome distractions. I wanted to see the tense, realistic home invasion movie that this film could have been. Instead I got a movie that has a speech about outswimming alligators, and says it with a straight face. That isn't to say that alligator racing films shouldn't exist, but this film felt far too serious to really capitalise on those moments. If you really want to race alligators I want there to either be a wink at the audience, or for the director to be so incompetent that we can at least laugh at the film. Instead we're stuck in this weird space, where the film is simultaneously too serious and not serious enough.
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Jun 26, 2020 23:26
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I think I was expecting it to be a campy, wink at the camera thing and was expecting to not like that at all. Instead I got the straight thrill ride and I had an absolute blast. Plot holes? I dunno. Nothing that was enough to take me out of it. Like the biggest nitpick I could say is that I have no idea what the floor plan and dimensions of that crawl space are. But it was such a fast paced, tightly done punch to punch ride that I was happy going along with every new thing that got thrown at them. I gotta admit I don't know what the "realistic home invasion movie" in it is. Also Basket Case 3 is loving nuts.
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Jun 26, 2020 23:48
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Its actually an insane movie that makes no sense as there are no basements or crawl spaces in the state of Florida because the water table is so high.
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Jun 27, 2020 00:57
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I have absolutely no idea if its remotely plausible to be trapped in your flooding basement in a hurricane as a bunch of gators hunt you. I just know I'm terrified of everything about that sentence which is yet another reason why I will never live outside the North East. But I just watched two films about an amputated conjoined twin who has super strength and psychic powers and am now gonna turn on whatever the gently caress Pan's Labrinyth is. I think we might be being unfair to the gator movie if we start our nitpicking there.
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Jun 27, 2020 01:04
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STAC Goat posted:But I just watched two films about an amputated conjoined twin who has super strength and psychic powers and am now gonna turn on whatever the gently caress Pan's Labrinyth is. I think we might be being unfair to the gator movie if we start our nitpicking there. Fair warning, Pan's Labyrinth is probably gonna blindside you. It's pretty heavy.
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Jun 27, 2020 01:18
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I really loved The Devil's Backbone so I'm kinda prepared for something similar in like a deeply emotional and haunting tale but on a bigger scale. But truthfully, I've been meaning to watch this film for a decade and somehow in all that time I've never gotten any sense of what its about. Or even what language its in. So I'm excited to finally find out.
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Jun 27, 2020 01:22
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STAC Goat posted:I really loved The Devil's Backbone so I'm kinda prepared for something similar in like a deeply emotional and haunting tale but on a bigger scale. That's a pretty accurate description of it so you sound prepared. I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts because not every movie could deliver on a decade's worth of hype but I think Pan's Labyrinth is one of them. Actually I think I'm gonna rewatch it tonight as well.
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Jun 27, 2020 01:25
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Well I watched Basket Case 2 cause I didn't want to skip it, and while I like it a bit more than the first one, it's still not really my thing. It's definitely a labour of love and I get why people are charmed by it. I'm also curious where the third one is going to go, but I'm not expecting much.
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Jun 27, 2020 02:35
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i thought 1 was weird and dirty and cheap but kinda charming in a sleazy way. I though 2 was kinda silly and dumb. 3 is loving nuts. And probably the funniest to me in terms of actual written jokes.
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Jun 27, 2020 02:52
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STAC Goat posted:I think I was expecting it to be a campy, wink at the camera thing and was expecting to not like that at all. Instead I got the straight thrill ride and I had an absolute blast. Plot holes? I dunno. Nothing that was enough to take me out of it. Like the biggest nitpick I could say is that I have no idea what the floor plan and dimensions of that crawl space are. But it was such a fast paced, tightly done punch to punch ride that I was happy going along with every new thing that got thrown at them. As for plot holes, I think I had a problem with them introducing injuries, and then forgetting about them after five minutes. Which is not normally something I'd nitpick, but honestly the film lost me pretty quickly. As for "realistic home invasion movies" that's probably garbled nonsense, but what I mean is there's a wonderful moment at the beginning where a tree smashes through a window. My first thought was that we'd get something that felt a bit more oppressive, where the storm takes on a greater role as an antagonizing force. However I felt like whenever the film was just about to create some genuine tension, they'd diffuse it by killing some random looters, that combined with the injuries not mattering just made the whole thing seem like the father/daughter were in zero real danger.
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Jun 27, 2020 04:27
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Basket Case 3 vs Pan's Labyrinth Well, the Basket Case Trilogy is quite a journey, going from a dude dumping hot dogs into a wicker basket to a mutant in a mecha suit going on a small town cop killing spree to save his one dozen mutant babies. I actually really enjoyed Basket Case 3, which I can't reaaaally say about the first two. Starting off with the absolute nuts ending of Basket Case 2 actually made me appreciate number two a bit more - somehow it had eased me into accepting the events which, when put at the beginning of 3, made me laugh out loud in disbelief. And it just goes from there, a campier Nightbreed (which I have to rewatch) that, like its predecessors, oozes love and care. Really strong entry, and Del Toro is lucky he's bringing out the big guns with Pan's Labyrinth. It's a real beauty, it's eery, sad, and brutal. I wouldn't call it a horror movie, but there is real horror in some scenes. Del Toro loves his monsters just as much as Henenlotter, but he's just downright better - more sensitive, more technically accomplished, and yes, there's more money of course. No shame in losing to that.
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Jun 27, 2020 16:20
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Guillermo del Toro’s Pan's Labyrinth vs. Frank Henelotter’s Basket Case 3 Pan’s Labyrinth is a gorgeous, heartbreaking marvel of a film. More on that later. The Basket Case trilogy is a trip. Did I love it? No, I don’t think i can say that. Did I enjoy it? Certainly to some extent or another. Its sleazy at times, sophomoric at times, but there’s definitely a weird charm and heart to it. Henelotter clearly loves his creations in the same way del Toro does and by 3 he’s really kind of mastered them and seems to have figured out what he wants and just goes batshit crazy with it. And he seems to have found the voice of his comedy as I think its a genuinely funny film with a ton of one liners and little gags that you could miss if you’re not fully paying attention but had me laughing regularly. 1 is sleazy and raw and 2 is silly and dumb but 3 is just Henelotter’s opus for better or worse. And while its terrible draw to go against Pan’s Labyrinth its also kind of a very fitting one because del Toro and Henelotter both seem to share a love for their creatures and both films feel like the mastery of their visions. But Henelotter’s vision is still kind of a silly, juvenile, Saturday matinee while del Toro’s is something entirely different. Labyrinth is easily the best film I’ve seen during this and one of the best I’ve seen in some time. Its rich, its magical, its haunting. It has levels I don’t imagine I fully appreciated on a first viewing. It has a gut punch I wasn’t remotely emotionally prepared for. It has all the magic and wonder and heartbreak of childhood. Del Toro is such a gifted storyteller that I almost feel like he’s wasted making some the big budget monster flicks he does. Like it seems a shame that this guy devoted so much time to The Strain or Pacific Rim when he probably could be a modern legend. But he also clearly loves his monsters and creatures and this feels like the perfect marriage of the two. I went in kind of expecting a larger scale Devil’s Backbone and that proved truer than I realized. In a lot of ways they’re two sides of the same coin. If you haven’t seen it and you love this film I’d highly encourage you to track it down. Its a much darker, more haunting tale. A ghost story to Pan’s fairy tale. But they feel like the same dna adjust two sides of what del Toro wanted to express. Its just really a devastatingly beautiful film and while Basket Case 3 was fun there’s just no competition. And I’m fine calling it horror because there’s unquestionably horror in the tale. And Doug Jones’ Pan was a very effectively creepy monster to me mirroring Sergi López’s uglier monster. And lets get this out of the way. Wes Craven’s Last House on the Left vs. Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow Sleepy Hollow isn’t streaming anywhere and I’ve seen it a bunch of times including back around October so like I’m not gonna go crazy looking for it. Its alright. I like it. Its a little bit of a mess of a story but its very stylish and Halloweeny and Burton looking, Depp is doing his thing, Ricci is good and sexy, Walken is monstrous, there’s tons of good Burton effects and horror. I never really know how i feel about the film but I always enjoy watching it. I know exactly what I think of Last House on the Left. In some ways I think Wes Craven might have felt the same way about exploitation movies that I do and that’s why he tried to tell a story that didn’t glorify or glamorize or revel in violence but just showed it for the evil and ugliness it is, and played it against beauty and comedy to try and showcase that. Not just the evil and viciousness but the sadness and pointlessness of what’s left behind. Other exploitation stuff I’ve seen feels like the director is taking joy in what he makes, but I never get the sense Wes enjoyed the violence in this film I know what Wes was doing, on some level I respect it or at least I respect him. But this was one of the singular most unpleasant film experiences of my life and I don’t think it says or does anything that we don’t know by turning on the news or living long enough to experience grief. So gently caress Last House on the Left and one vote for Sleepy Hollow. The only film I have left to watch I haven’t seen is Hounds of Baskervilles which I’ll probably get in this afternoon. Then I gotta remember DD’s stream tonight and keep reminding myself to show up but I’m gonna definitely try and get rewatches of Suspiria and The Frighteners in. Last round was kind of a soft set of films but this has just been the total flip on that. Even with Last House in the mix.
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Jun 27, 2020 17:31
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HotB and Frighteners are running neck-and-neck for me. Both are crowd-pleasers in their own way, and I wasn't really familiar with either of them before so I have no particular associations. Watched Last House on the Left for the first time today after first watching The Virgin Spring a few days ago. I'm try to judge it simply on its own merits, though, although, so really the first film just helped prepare me for what would happen. And since there are actual characters in The Virgin Spring it is way more disturbing and affecting. I can see that there are some ideas in Craven's film and clearly a good horror sensibility that will at some point help define the genre, but man, the execution really is inept at parts. It's interesting that it's one director's early work up against another one's later work, especially since Sleepy Hollow seems to be Tim Burton getting a bit tired of what he's been doing for a while. I think I have to give it the nod for not making so many mistakes that the other film does.
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Jun 28, 2020 07:40
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Bison brought up a good point in the Horror Thread. It's probably too late for this round, but now that I have a bit of experience streaming I'd love to host some of the more hard to find movies for everyone! One potential issue is that we have people in the US and UK, so I'm not sure when the best time would be to suit everyone. Perhaps something like 9pm GMT/5pm EST on a Saturday?
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Jun 28, 2020 15:38
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Yeah, I was thinking we could like set up a thing every Thursday where we determine the tough to get movies that some people have access to and then schedule like Saturday/Wednesday screenings or something. I dunno, its asking a lot of people and while I'm willing to help I have no idea what movies I could provide and I'd have to be walked through the process. But it was fun and I specifically took part because I wanted to be able to say I watched Amer.
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Jun 28, 2020 15:45
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STAC Goat posted:I went in kind of expecting a larger scale Devil’s Backbone and that proved truer than I realized. In a lot of ways they’re two sides of the same coin. I think my personal favorite Del Toro film to double feature with Pan's Labyrinth is Hellboy 2. I'd call it a truer opposite side of that coin just because it's got Del Toro completely letting lose with all the creature stuff and the aesthetic is actually very very similar to Pan's Labyrinth. But of course it's much lighter and more of a nod to the superhero/blockbuster phase of his career, and probably represents the high water mark for that version of Del Toro.
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Jun 28, 2020 18:34
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I actually set my DVR to record Hellboy 2 off TNT or some channel this afternoon, mainly because of how much I enjoyed Pan's Labyrinth (also I watched the Hellboy reboot last week). Its PG13 so I don't see the harm. I was looking forward to watching Cronos soon and seeing if I can find a "thematic trilogy" in there with Backbone/Labyrinth but if Hellboy 2 is the third point so be it. I think I personally prefer early stage Spanish del Toro films to his US big budget stuff. But its obvious he loves doing both. Makes me regret not watching Shape of Water when that was bouncing around my streaming services. STAC Goat fucked around with this message at 18:40 on Jun 28, 2020 |
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Jun 28, 2020 18:38
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For Sleepy Hollow vs. Last House on the Left, both films are indebted to already highly-regard previous films, although where they take that influence separates the two. Sleepy Hollow is fun-enough-for-what-it-is. It's an homage to Hammer horror (with a small smattering of Bava, Corman's Poe-cycle, and Amicus), containing only a surface relationship to the source material of the Washington Irving story. There's a great fidelity to his cinematic inspirations, as you often see with Burton, yet nearly none to the actual story other than the vague concept of a headless horseman and a guy named "Ichabod Crane." I don't think that's too much of a problem though, because seeing Burton do his take on 60s gothic horror is thrilling. All the right images are there with all sorts of studio gloss – production design is not quite at the level of some of Burton's earlier work, but Rick Heinrichs still does some wonderful work and it's beautifully photographed by Emmanuel Lubezki. But as much as I do enjoy watching it, the movie feels oddly empty. It ultimately kind of feels like "here's some stuff that Tim Burton likes" and doesn't have the same imaginative spark Burton had before. It's right on the cusp of Good Burton/Bad Burton, so it doesn't quite fit into either category. It just ends up feeling like a thing that's <i>there</i>, which doesn't ultimately mean much of anything. And really I'd be watching like any of the movies that influenced it instead. With Last House on the Left, there is a complete clumsiness to basically every element of the film; from the performances, camera placement (and focus), tonal shifts, blocking, dialog – under most circumstances this movie would be a complete mess. It kind of reminds of a Herschell Gordon Lewis in that way, even if its obvious inspiration was actually Bergman's The Virgin Spring. But like Bergman, there's something else here which creates a weird alchemy with all the awkward elements; it has a moral center. It might be unusual to state that about a movie as controversial and as brutal as this, yet it definitely has a moral center. There's no delight in any of the violence – even the villains have a moment when they realize they've gone too far, and there's no sense of catharsis even in retribution. All of it is repugnant. It actually takes things much further than The Virgin Spring. There, some sort of goodness can be found at the end of all of this. No church will be built. It mortifying, much moreso than how Bergman handled the material and with good reason – Sweden was unscathed from WWII. They thrived in the 1950s, with both economically and socially. The United States in 1971 was in a tumultuous time, and Last House on the Left deals with burn out of 60s ideals. Things like free-love gave way to Manson and ended up doing nothing to stand against the military's participation in Vietnam. The cruelty of the world will find its way to you, and when it does, that same cruelty can come out of you. It's blunt and it's nihilistic, but it's made with a level of interest in society at large which is totally absent in something as studio-bound as Sleepy Hollow.
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Jun 28, 2020 18:40
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STAC Goat posted:I actually set my DVR to record Hellboy 2 off TNT or some channel this afternoon, mainly because of how much I enjoyed Pan's Labyrinth (also I watched the Hellboy reboot last week). Its PG13 so I don't see the harm. I'm not sure you can really even limit it to a thematic trilogy. I think you can find a through-line in almost every film Del Toro has made.
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Jun 28, 2020 18:45
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Its interesting because like even on a surface level the vampires from The Strain are basically the same ones from Blade 2 and for awhile I thought Shape of Water was a spinoff of Hellboy.
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Jun 28, 2020 19:12
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I'm really hoping someone makes an effort post about why The Hound of the Baskervilles is the greatest movie ever, because I don't really feel like I have a way into the film beyond the obvious. I like the Hammer aesthetic, I like what spookiness there is, I like Peter Cushing, and Christopher Lee. Otherwise it just felt a bit ordinary. Maybe it's just a victim of its own success, and has inspired so much it's lost its luster?
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Jun 28, 2020 20:17
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Rewatched The Frighteners, for the first time in what, decades? I remember overly sensitive child me getting nightmares from this, in particular the (in retrospect) extremely tame shotgun head explosion. Shotgun head explosion in a Michael J Fox comedy? Hoooo boyyyy, what a tonally disjointed mess this is. It's easy to forget that before the epic fantasy trilogy thing, Peter Jackson used to be a Raimi style high energy horror director, and it does show occasionally. Still the whole thing comes off much more like a very mediocre Zemeckis joint (he produced). CGI is everywhere and it has not aged gracefully, so it's hard to cake over how sort of extremely hosed up the whole light ghost comedy about mass shootings is. Yikes, but I guess 1996 was a more innocent time in that regard. Fox is really low energy in this one, but Jake Busey and Dee Wallace are fun and so is Jeffrey Combs. Still, overall it just does not work as a movie at all. Oh it also ends with an absolutely inexcusably lovely cover of Don't Fear The Reaper, god drat. I thought Jackson was going to knock out Fisher in this round - Hound of Baskerville is charming, Cushing and Lee and pretty much everyone else in it is entertaining, but it's also not really that great. Still, way better than The Frighteners.
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Jun 28, 2020 23:39
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Counter... Peter Jackson’s The Frighteners vs. Terence Fisher’s Hounds of Baskervilles I love the Frighteners. Hounds was fine. Charming enough. Rainy Sunday afternoon fine. Peter Cushing running across a foggy plain into a foggy pit of some gothic architecture of some kind. Its fine. But it didn’t do a lot for me. I’ve never been that into whodunits or mystery stories and Cushing is a perfectly fine Sherlock but, I dunno. I won’t say I don’t like Sherlock Holmes because there’s a zillion versions of him out there but the guy who just kind of knows everything and figures everything out and then kind of condescendingly tells you you should have too never did a lot for me. I guess that’s the whodunit thing because you’re supposed to be following along and looking for the clues yourself. And I did. I more or less got there. But like… I don’t care. Pretty scenery because its a Hammer film but not a whole ton of story. But fine. But I love the Frighteners. Its not a great film, but I think its a very fun film that kind of shows Jackson’s love of horror and schlocky, dark sensibilities being forced into the Hollywood package that would one day make him something else entirely. Really, I just really like this film. I’ve seen it probably a dozen times. Michael J Fox is charming even though he’s kind of a slime ball. Jeffrey Combs, Jake Busey, Dee Wallace, Chi McBride, and the rest of the supporting cast are fun and over the top. CGI isn’t like gonna wow you in 2020 but I think its kind of charming for what it is. I think the story is a weird little interesting and dark twist. I like this movie. I probably would have voted it over a LOT of films people would have been shocked by but like… Hounds didn’t really put up a fight.
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Jun 29, 2020 00:39
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June Director Roulette Dario Argento’s Suspiria vs. Alejandra Aja’s Crawl Crawl might be the first film of this that I might not have ever watched and I absolutely loved. No reason I wouldn’t have watched it, just didn’t really speak to me on its own although I had added it to my long list a couple of weeks ago based on talk in the main thread so maybe I would have gotten there. Either way, Crawl rocked! Not a great film or anything but a really fun thrill ride that fully invested me despite whatever plot holes or lazy writing or whatever i may or may not have noticed. I was in for the ride and honestly, a little surprised that by the end I really did feel like I could see myself voting it over Suspiria and probably demanded a rewatch. I just watched Suspiria in April so while I kind did feel like rewatching I also kinda didn’t. But that was the second time i saw it and I appreciated it more, and I’ve also seen Inferno since and felt like that gave me more appreciation. So why not? Its not a chore, I really did feel like watching it. And I’m glad I did. I feel like each viewing I either get a better quality, notice more, or both. The score and color really stood out to me this time more in the way the film’s reputation has that it didn’t the first time. Maybe a lot of that is I know what I’m getting story wise so I know what I should be watching for. Maybe its that I’m becoming more familiar with it so like I’m not overly concerned about dialogue or plotting since I know it and I can pay attention to everything else going on. And there really is just a ton going on in the filming of this and I’m seeing Argento’s brilliance more and more. Suspiria and Argento are feeling less like the unknown reputations they were to me a few years ago and are starting to feel like very familiar classic horror. But which did I like more? I have to be honest a big part of me feels like I just plain enjoyed Crawl more. It had me captivated and engaged with each thrill of the plot. On the flip side Suspira felt like a more comfortable, relaxed watch to me which could be good and could be bad. I think technically Suspiria is probably the better made film, but you know I really dug those gators and those chases and all that poo poo. I’m having a genuinely hard time with this, which is a little silly since I’d be very surprised if Argento doesn’t pull this off. If this were director vs director I’d probably go Argento and I’m more interested in his catalogue the rest of the tourney. But we’re not doing that. So film vs film. Man, I really don’t know. Its two very different films doing two very different things that I liked very much in two very different ways. I might change my mind later but right now I think I’m going Suspiria.
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Jun 29, 2020 06:00
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 The Frighteners is the same fun, dark, and inventive film that I remember. It takes what could have been a very dumb, hokey, even offensive premise, and manages to carve it into something extremely entertaining. Some of the jokes are maybe a little broad, and I wasn't completely sold on Dee Williams' performance, but these are minor quibbles really. There are also some surprisingly arresting shots in the film, like the above one of Julianna McCarthy looming menacingly upon the stairs. I was also pleasantly surprised to learn that John Astin, who you might recognize as OG Gomez Addams, played the Judge. He completely disappeared behind the prosthetics and accent. Compared to The Hounds of the Baskervilles, I have to throw my vote to The Frighteners. While both are very entertaining films, Baskervilles seems to drop the ball both in terms of an engaging narrative, and also as an interesting adaptation. For a more successful version I really have to recommend that you watch my future boyfriend Jeremy Brett as Holmes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFXT7_cKgKo
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Jun 29, 2020 20:23
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