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Would The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad count for the challenge? They're specifically put together for whatever reason, but only the former really works for Halloween. It's just over an hour with both though so seems like a gray area.
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Sep 29, 2020 02:18
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 2. Taxidermia (2006) "I worked hard for success! [...] I had a vomiting technique named after me!" This is a film that's disgusting on an industrial scale. This film would make Takashi Miike blush, Tom Green whimper, and Lloyd Kauffman faint. Okay, perhaps an exaggeration, but just to list a few of the things contained within this movie: The graphic depiction of a man turning his penis into a flamethrower. A man lubing up a hole in the wall to have sex with it, only to have his penis pecked by a chicken. A man self-harming with a candle. Heavily implied paedophilia culminating in a graphic cum shot. The graphic and deeply unpleasant killing of a struggling pig, and it being subsequently cooked and butchered. A philosophical treatise on the word “oval office”. Multiple incidents of people creepily spying on women. Actual and graphically presented penetrative sex between consenting adults, which is in fact heavily implied to be bestiality with a pig. Multiple extremely drawn-out depictions of people vomiting. The graphic depiction of suicide by self-taxidermy, which even conceptually speaking is fascinating. All of this, all of this, and it’s also one of the most beautiful and inventively shot films I’ve ever seen. I can't recommend this in good conscience, but everyone must see it, it’s a dilemma. The film itself is an anthology of sorts, told over three generations of men within the same family. First, a young sex-obsessed pervert serving during WW2, then his son of bestiality(?) who grows up to become a speed eater and champion vomiter, and then in turn his son, a taxidermist, feeder, and hater of cats. When the film isn’t being disgusting it really is exceptionally beautiful. The paedophilia scene for instance is told within a pop-up storybook world, which naturally draws the audience in with its inventiveness, and once there, made me want to escape this horrible man and what he was attempting to do to a child. The film is full of these whiplash moments of being drawn in and then immediately punished, like a penis poking through a hole in the wall, only to be pecked by a chicken. I need to stop thinking about this film immediately. 0.5/5 with animal cruelty 4/5 without animal cruelty Total: 2 Queer Interest: 1 Countries visited: 2 (USA, Hungary) Debbie Does Dagon fucked around with this message at 02:46 on Sep 29, 2020 |
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Sep 29, 2020 02:28
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I was really trying to wait until October, but the temperature dropped like 30 degrees here and it feels like autumn so gently caress it. 1) Tanny and the Teenage T-Rex This was so much fun! It's not something I would have ever given a chance if not for you horror goons, and it's movies like this that finally convinced me to join in the October challenge. IIRC the filmmakers had the animatronic T-Rex for a very limited amount of time, and I'll be damned if they didn't do everything they could to build a wild 90's flick around it. That dino's head poking out of the transport truck's top reminded me of a happy pupper sticking his head out of the window of a car on the highway  Besides the robosaur of the film's namesake, I was most captivated by Dr. Wachenstein. "I feel like Christopher Columbus on the verge of discovering a whole new world." "He thought he was in Asia..." "This is much better place!" I can't even call him the villain when you have deputies Norville and Neville dropping casual misogyny and homophobia willy-nilly. Speaking of which, I love love love Byron and wonder if he was some of the inspiration behind Jordan Peele's character in the Gremlins 2 sketch (This is a stretch but it's the first thing that popped into my head upon Byron's introduction). Between his fashion sense and Denise Richards' Clueless/Blossom wardrobe, I was transported to a simpler time in my life. I think there are several lessons to be learned from the film: One: No matter how punk you are, don't fight Paul Walker in a half-shirt; and if you do, grab his nuts. Two: The best way to ensure a successful booty call to Paul Walker is by calling him on your 1930s telephone. Three: Some goon needs to make a sequel in one of those inflatable T-Rex costumes.
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Sep 29, 2020 02:44
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 #12) Skinned Deep (2004) This movie looks like poo poo, but holy cow, its off-the-wall creativity was a balm to my soul after the banality of Annabelle. Part of the proud tradition of letting a special effects person direct, this movie's loaded with dingy sets with above-and-beyond efforts from the decorators, trick shots with the seams showing, only-credit actors, half-second insert shots, nutty creature designs, and a few contributors who probably owed the director a favor or three (plate-throwing Warwick Davis, I'm looking at you). There's some Lynch-y old person creepiness, hodge-podge sci-fi cobbling, goopy grossness, disturbingly disjointed dialogue delivery, off-putting facial close-ups, and plotting from a fever dream. There's a senior citizen biker gang, guerilla-filmed footage of a cast member streaking through city streets, forced lipstick application, and the bizarre Creator behind the mutant household. Plus a setting that's like the child of Battleland from Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 and the tunnels from House of 1000 Corpses. This film may be visibly low-budget, but at least it doesn't settle for boring recreation of things that have all been done a hundred times. It's bursting with ideas, and while few of them may be brought to full fruition, I still admire the attempts at incorporating them all.  Rating: 6/10Watched on DVD. Darthemed fucked around with this message at 03:27 on Sep 29, 2020 |
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Sep 29, 2020 03:04
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Hmmm, I think my goal will be 23 movies this year because there is some bad poo poo associated with that number (including a Jim Carrey movie I will absolutely not watch as my 23rd entry, don't worry). Standard spooky numbers of 13 (too little) or 31 (too many? - big question mark) don't seem suitable this year. One important qualifier - 100% MUST be first time viewings! I did watch a movie Sunday night that I'm excited to share but I'll do my reviews in batches.
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Sep 29, 2020 03:05
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Lets see if I can stay on top of the reviews and not fall too far behind. (1) Tombs of the Blind Dead (Spanish) (1972) Dir. Amando de Ossorio Hundreds of years a troop of Templars started drinking the blood of human sacrifices to gain eternal life. They were hung and their eyes pecked out as punishment. A young woman seeking to escape an uncomfortable vacation with a friend ends up spending the night in their haunted castle. When she turns up dead, her friends go looking for answers in the castle where they are also attacked. A nice change on the zombie formula by making them blind but it would’ve been nice to have been used a bit more. There’s a hilariously fake torso used for one of the gore scenes. A pretty decent watch overall.  (2) Child’s Play 3 (1991) Dir. Jack Bender The company that made the Chucky doll decides to bring them back now that it’s been 8 years since the murders from the previous movies. Naturally Chucky getting resurrected is the first thing to happen once production on the dolls resumes. Andy has been kicked out of foster care and put into a military academy. Chucky goes there to get revenge / transfer his soul and murder some people while he’s at it. These movies keep getting dumber and I’m all for it. Certainly not worth watching if you haven’t watched the first two.  (3) The City of the Dead (1960) Dir. John Llewellyn Moxey Christopher Lee sends a student to his hometown where a witch was totally burned at the stake and didn’t make a pact with the devil to obtain immortality. Shortly after arriving at the very foggy town the immortal witch and her coven sacrifice her. A month later her brother and her boyfriend go looking for her in the very foggy town and take on the coven. Man, the town has so much fog. To quote MST3k, even the movie The Fog didn’t have this much fog. Feels a bit like a lesser Hammer film. It’s a decent little flic.  (4) Count Dracula’s Great Love (Spanish) (1973) Dir. Javier Aguirre Some time after the events of Dracula, a carriage with a man and four women throws a wheel in the area. In the nearby abandoned sanatorium, the doctor gives them shelter. Doings transpire which include a tramp vampire, a trampire. It seems the good doctor is Dracula and is using people that wander onto his property to resurrect his daughter. Really enjoyable and almost works fine as a sequel to Dracula. Totals: (1) Tombs of the Blind Dead (Spanish) (1972) (2) Child’s Play 3 (1991) (3) The City of the Dead (1960) (4) Count Dracula’s Great Love (Spanish) (1973) Zombies: 1, Witchcraft: 2, Vampires: 1
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Sep 29, 2020 04:11
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M_Sinastrari already on seventeen movies drat it's been only 2 days at this pace they'll pass up 31 films by Wednesday! Insane.
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Sep 29, 2020 04:11
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I'm in part using it to motivate me into waiting until October just to see if it can happen before I do 1.
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Sep 29, 2020 04:17
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 #13) Shrieker (1998), a.k.a., Shriek From the period before Mr. DeCoteau fully found his muse, this features no young men in white boxer-briefs, at least none that I noticed. Just a couple of shirtless ones. Tragic. Some college students are squatting in an abandoned hospital, but weird hex shrines are popping up around the location, inhuman screams are disturbing the squatters, and tensions are rising. Turns out it's some weird mystical demon-like thing, of course. There's some silly occult research scenes (complete with flickering scanlines from filming a CRT monitor), and the squabbling between the students is somewhat entertaining (bless the Communist poli sci student), but things are generally pretty lackluster and disinteresting. Kind of a neat creature design, but it's not put to great use. Eh, give this one a pass, unless you're specifically on a DeCoteau or Full Moon kick. Rating: 4/10Watched on Tubi.
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Sep 29, 2020 04:27
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 3. The Eyes of My Mother (2016) "Why would I kill you? You're my only friend" What if Texas Chainsaw, but the family were sympathetic. No, I mean really sympathetic. What if they were lonely, emotionally damaged people, who yearned for a real connection to the outside world, but kept accidentally killing people because they're just kind of feral and tragic? This is that film. I want to avoid spoiling the events of the movie, as it's quite an emotional rollercoaster, and by rollercoaster, I mean a steady train ride down into a dark foreboding tunnel, which offers no light, no reprieve, no solace. Francisca is our lead, and we follow her story from childhood into adulthood. She experiences multiple losses, each of which would be tragic enough to base entire movies around, but through all of this she survives with quiet hermitic stoicism. Her loneliness eventually forces her beyond the safe confines of her secluded home, and in her attempt to find a connection, she discovers only further tragedy. I feel like this amounts to a lot of words and a lot of tiptoeing without saying too much, but it is very much worth going in as blind as possible. The overall effect of the film is a combination of terrifically creepy, distressing, and unsettling performances, mixed with a series of slow wrenching gut punches, with no relief, no hope, no escape, and it's just a pleasure to behold. The film itself is in an extremely stark black and white, with no soundtrack other than the everpresent noise of a television playing old Westerns concerned with hangings and death, and the occasional cold breeze blowing through the house. There are also cute tragic lesbians being cute and tragic, which is always near and dear to my heart. A definite thumbs-up, and at a spritely 76 minutes long too. 4.5/5 Total: 3 Queer Interest: 2 Countries visited: 3 (USA, Hungary, Portugal)
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Sep 29, 2020 04:41
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I don't know if "sympathetic" was the idea in my head about that movie but I'll be honest I have no idea what I was feeling. Well one more movie on the list.
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Sep 29, 2020 04:42
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I can definitely second that recommendation, The Eyes of My Mother was probably my favorite horror movie of 2016(hard to believe it's been 4 years!).
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Sep 29, 2020 04:50
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1. Poltergeist II: The Other Side (1986) For me, this is better than its reputation. It's not as solidly constructed as the first film, it feels like there's a few holes in terms of characterization that got cut along the way. There's quite a bit of very effective stuff in here, especially the possession scene and the confrontation with Kane at the door. If the magical Native American character had been handled with a lot more care I would probably consider this very good instead of merely enjoyable.
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Sep 29, 2020 04:56
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I feel like May and Eyes of My Mother would be a good double feature. In fact its been a minute since I've seen either so that might happen for me this year.
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Sep 29, 2020 05:00
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Hollismason posted:M_Sinastrari already on seventeen movies drat it's been only 2 days at this pace they'll pass up 31 films by Wednesday! Insane. Knowing them from previous years, that's pretty par for the course 
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Sep 29, 2020 05:14
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Darthemed posted:
Have you seen Gabe Bartalos’ other film Saint Bernard? It’s loving bonkers, just absolutely balls to the wall insane and great a showcase for his awesome effects and sets. I haven’t actually seen Skinned Deep yet but I’m gonna try to check it out Anisocoria Feldman posted:I was really trying to wait until October, but the temperature dropped like 30 degrees here and it feels like autumn so gently caress it. Speaking of loving bonkers, everyone should try to watch this too, the movie that somehow manages to spell its main character’s name wrong on the title card
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Sep 29, 2020 05:14
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I’m gonna try for 31. My fiancé hates horror so I hope I don’t relegate him to another room for a whole month. I’ll be watching a bunch of these in my lunch break “at” work (WFH woo) or in double features on weekends. He does want to watch Train to Busan with me though, as we’re on a Korean media kick lately. My yearly tradition is open with a Nightmare on Elm Street movie (I’m up to the third one this year) and close with a movie set on Halloween (Hocus Pocus this year). I’ll post my full list tonight Edit: let’s see if linking from discord works 
Hedrigall fucked around with this message at 05:26 on Sep 29, 2020 |
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Sep 29, 2020 05:19
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gey muckle mowser posted:Have you seen Gabe Bartalos’ other film Saint Bernard? It’s loving bonkers, just absolutely balls to the wall insane and great a showcase for his awesome effects and sets. I haven’t actually seen Skinned Deep yet but I’m gonna try to check it out  #14) Blood Rage (1987) Ted Raimi selling condoms in the opening credits, what a start. And it begins at a drive-in! We don't spend much time there, though, because some dopey kid in high socks gets to axe-murderin', and it's off to an institution for his unlucky identical twin. That leaves the psycho twin to camouflage himself in suburbia, which he does quite easily. Of course, he can't quite contain his homicidal impulses, which leads to some great (and some not-so-great) practical effects shots. Shout out to the wriggling legs separated from their torso. Kind of a Chopping Mall vibe with the old teens hanging out and shooting the poo poo, and the film keeps its energy up pretty steadily. More nudity than I expected, and a surprise appearance by an Atari or Colecovision or something, with an actress pretending to get excited about near-collisions in its racing game. Some amusing playfulness from the killer, a variety of violence and locations, and a good balance of goofiness and aggression. Top it off with a classic nutty '80s slasher ending, and I'd call this an underknown gem... by slasher standards. Rating: 7/10Watched on Shudder, also available on Tubi. Darthemed fucked around with this message at 06:30 on Sep 29, 2020 |
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Sep 29, 2020 05:51
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8. FeardotCom (2002) Watched On: Prime Video So a guilty pleasure of mine are the tech horror movies. Things like The Den, Brainscan, stuff like that. This is one I haven't seen before so I was excited going in. Did it ever deliver on the 00's trash factor. That kill scene with Rammstein playing over it? Chef's. loving. Kiss. I wouldn't at all be shocked if this were something rushed into production after someone got wind that The Ring was also happening. As much as I get a good chuckle out of this brand of trash... this sucks as a whole movie even if some scenes are fun/funny. It's ugly to look at, things as they happen in the movie are silly, just a mess all around. I feel like I'm watching scenes from a music video with a boring cop movie in between.
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Sep 29, 2020 06:02
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 18) Haunters: Art of the Scare - 2017 - SHUDDER Like how seeing the first snowflake would send some kids into orbit excited for winter, or seeing a neighbor start setting up a Santa display for Christmas. For me, it was the signage announcing the Amling's Haunted House. I'd immediately change into a bouncing pig-tailed wild thing near howling the Haunted House sign's up as if somehow my Mom missed seeing the bigass sign. From that moment, I'd be on my best behavior. Do all my chores without griping, start my homework on my own with no prompting, practically be on company manners around family just to make sure there was absolutely no reason for us to not go to the haunted house. Over the years I went through that haunted house so many times I repurposed my Brownie sash with all the braveheart awards I got for going through. Even as a teen, still went when my friends considered it something for babies. So, with that said, I was really curious about this documentary. I loved the segment on the history of haunted houses, and the interviews with the haunters was fascinating. I loved the bit on Universal Horror Nights and hope to go someday. Then we hit the vomiting elephant with diarrhea in the room: McKamey Manor. I've heard about the place over the years, seen the Youtube footage and I know it's not my sort of thing. McKamey came across obnoxious and my concept of a haunted house doesn't involve getting hurt by the haunters. Having seen the interviews with McKamey in the documentary, well, if someone told me McKamey's a sociopath, I'd believe them. It's only natural for haunted houses to evolve along with sensibilities, and there's always going to be people who want a more extreme experience. But McKamey's not that. That he's gone from a ten page waiver to a forty page waiver and doesn't use safewords should be indicator enough that not offering a haunted house, a terror experience or horror interactive theatre. People have come out of McKamey's with PTSD. It's not just him either. The interview with Grace where she changed her mind about going through the first time and McKamey's wife tracked her down in the car to bring her back doesn't reflect well, same as McKamey tricking Grace back because he wants 'footage' is not sane or healthy. It probably makes me a bad person to say this, but if McKamey ever ends up arrested and given jail time, I would take joy in that.
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Sep 29, 2020 06:03
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I don't think you're a bad person wishing that on him at all. He's found a legal way to torture people and it is especially gross that he started hiring heavies to police his haunt, He's a step away from being a sick murderer in a found footage movie.
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Sep 29, 2020 06:05
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 5/31 Trhlina/Rift (2019) 3/5 A slovakian horror film about a group of people who go into the woods to explore a mysterious area where people go missing and later reappear dead with cuts and similar injuries. The movie takes quite a while to get to what it's really about. The main character is forced to work on a demolition of an old psychiatric hospital, where he randomly discovers clues that lead to the expedition in the woods. This part could have probably been shorter. The movie becomes entertaining when the group gets into the woods and weird things start happening, but it's nothing special. Slightly reminiscent of Yellowbrickroad. Not a bad effort though.
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Sep 29, 2020 06:26
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2: The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad I'm not really sure why these are edited together. The Wind in the Willows segment is great and everything but it's not meant to be scary and has nothing to do with Halloween. Luckily the back half makes up for it. I haven’t seen it in probably 30 years and was surprised how much stuck with me. The animation is top notch and you can’t go wrong with Bing Crosby telling your story. It's also kind of neat in a "Disney history" sort of way, with how much Brom Bones clearly influenced Gaston about 45 years later. 3: Housewife A woman goes through a very traumatic event as a child that leaves her unable to really connect with people and a host of phobias and disorders. She gets mixed up with a doomsday cult of “dream surfers” to try and fix herself and it goes as well as you’d expect. Nothing really makes sense in this movie and not in a good way. It’s not bad enough to be enjoyable there either, just really mediocre and meandering. It tries to keep the dreamlike state going but it just makes things confusing and uninteresting. This movie is what Ari Aster would make if he sucked. Opopanax fucked around with this message at 16:55 on Sep 30, 2020 |
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Sep 29, 2020 06:27
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 19) Attack of the Crab Monsters - 1957 - TubiTV I'm not sure how scary the giant crabs in this movie were back in the day, but looking at how tired and puffy their eyes are I keep wondering if they're just hungover from a bender and lashing out. And now I'm envisioning the party they must've had looking like something out of the Crab Rave video on Youtube. As far as the movie goes, it's perfectly fine Corman drive-in fare and good for a movie night with friends and plenty of beer.  20) Horrors of the Black Museum - 1959 - DVD I freely admit I would love to take a tour of the real Black Museum. Unfortunately this isn't possible going from the last time my fiance researched it as a possible stop for our eventual honeymoon. Instead, I make do with documentaries and this film. Only complaint I have on this one is the HypnoVista prologue is overlong and draggy. The rest of the film is wonderful. Plotwise, any of us'll know where it's going, so we're here for the ride not the destination. Gruesome murders in lurid color, Michael Gough rocking his role. Only other person I could see in the role is Vincent Price. I would love to see a specialty showing of this on the big screen. Definitely worth a watch.
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Sep 29, 2020 08:50
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Debbie Does Dagon posted:
This sounds more like Spider Baby than TCM. One for your list, maybe?
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Sep 29, 2020 09:16
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3. Session 9 A quintet of asbestos removal contractors, working against a punishing deadline in an abandoned asylum, experience strange events and growing conflicts and stress as it seems some unseen force is affecting them. I used to see this film in my local Blockbuster all the time in 2001, and often debated renting it, but somehow I always ended up with some 80s or 90s DTV monstrosity instead. So finally getting to watch it now actually felt a bit nostalgic, taking me back to that time when most of the movies I watched were still on VHS and I only had a few DVDs. Session 9 was doing the creepy abandoned asylum before it was beaten to death by every zero-budget found-footage "paranormal investigation" movie that's come out since. Does that make it a bit "hipster" horror? Maybe. What it definitely is is genuinely creepy and suspenseful, with its small cast, limited set and lack of black-eyed ghosts with wide yawning mouths wandering the corridors. A good part of this is due to the characters in the film - you can guess early on that *someone* is probably going to snap and go on a killing spree, but all five of the asbestos crew are so tightly wound and barely getting along that it really could have been any of them and it would have made sense (although when we do reach the film's climax, it is the most obvious choice). My only complaint is that the film as I saw it doesn't really make it clear whether it's a purely psychological horror, or if there's something supernatural going on as well (connected to the session tapes one of the crew becomes obsessed with listening to). Apparently the director's cut includes deleted scenes that make things much clearer in that respect; as it was, I was left feeling that there were some missing connections in the version I saw. Also, David Caruso is in it. Letterboxd Totals: 3 2 new (The Abominable Dr Phibes; Session 9) 1 rewatch (The Grapes of Death)
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Sep 29, 2020 10:24
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4) In Search of Darkness (2019) A Journey into iconic 80s horror. This is long at over 4 hours, but it's a very easy watch and you can dip in and out. It goes through each year of the 80s spending 2-5 minutes on each film they chose to represent, which is almost entirely American films - some Cronenberg to represent Canada and Lair of the White Worm for some reason for the UK, but essentially it's all about American Horror. It was a really great decade for that after all. At the end of each year, it talks about some aspect of film making such as special effects or marketing. There's a great cast of interviewees here: directors, actors, and even internet people like James Rolfe. It was one of the last things Stuart Gordon was in before he died. There's no central thesis or a lot of insight to be had to be honest, it's just a celebration of these movies but it was fun to guess what movie would come up next and there were a bunch I've not seen that I now want to find for this challenge. Watchlist: Tenebrae; Mary Shelley's Frankenstein; Body Melt; In Search of Darkness (total: 4)
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Sep 29, 2020 10:28
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Jedit posted:This sounds more like Spider Baby than TCM. One for your list, maybe? Oh nice, thank you! On the list it goes
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Sep 29, 2020 10:31
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bitterandtwisted posted:4) In Search of Darkness (2019) I funded this on Kickstarter at the DVD level. I really should watch it
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Sep 29, 2020 10:42
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 3) The Evil (1978) Trailer Seen on: free on Tubi and can be found on YouTube; also on Amazon Prime and Shudder A drug rehab doctor (Richard Crenna) and his wife buy the isolated old Vargas house, which has had a bad history with the locals for as long as it's existed. They intend to turn it into a rehab facility with the help of some friends and students. When everyone arrives to start the work, Crenna's wife starts seeing ghostly images and warnings about the house, and when someone removes the old crucifix barring a giant metal door in the basement, all hell breaks loose. This is surprisingly decent for a late '70s haunted house flick with a pretty high body count. There's some mystery and misdirection about the nature of the haunting that seemed a little reminiscent of The Legend of Hell House (one of my favorite haunted house movies) and some very '70s characters too - the teacher and the student he's sleeping with, the paranoid lady, the prank guy who you know is gonna die for real, etc. The house telekinetically throws people around, there's immolation and electrocution and a great scene with an electric hand saw. Keep an eye (and ear) out for the killer dog that sounds like a TIE fighter! I really enjoyed the ending (please do not reveal the incredible secret of The Evil!) where the main characters enter the area sealed off by the door in the basement and literally find themselves in a blank white Hell, and Victor Buono plays the Devil! The Devil was haunting the house! Doesn't he have anything better to do than haunt one old house? Anyway, he chews the scenery real good and it's probably the best part of the film. Definitely had fun watching this one. Bruteman fucked around with this message at 13:05 on Sep 29, 2020 |
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Sep 29, 2020 11:09
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 21) Frankenstein 1970 - 1958 - DVD This is the Frankenstein film near everyone seems to forget or only remembers when they want to rag on it. Pity since this is the sad ending of the Classic Frankenstein franchise. I admit I'm getting a little misty eyed typing this. It's set in 1970, though the only futurey thing here is it's possible to purchase an atomic reactor for the home. Here we have Karloff playing the last living member of the Frankenstein family. He's old, in poor health and disfigured from being tortured by the Nazis because he wouldn't cooperate with them. The family fortune's gone, and he has to resort to letting in a TV crew to film a special about his family. Of course he's working on a new monster in the basement and when he runs out of parts, he turns to using the film crew as needed. As expected, the monster lashes out at the Baron and they both die in a cloud of radioactive steam. It's once the lab's radiation's dropped enough, they find a recording left by the Baron. It turns out as he was the last of the family, he was making the monster to be his heir and carry on the Frankenstein name. On a meta level, it was also the end of the Classic franchise as Curse of Frankenstein came out the same year and Hammer would now be the face of Frankenstein films. This is a better film than some consider and worth a watch.  22) Monster of Piedras Blancas - 1959 - Youtube This one always kinda felt like it was the Creature from the Black Lagoon's California cousin. It's standard B-movie fare, though the severed heads were gruesome enough to be edited out for TV. My only gripe is I would've liked to've seen more of the monster. From what we see of him here, he's pretty much running on appetite. Compare that to the Creature where we see he's curious and has some intelligence. This film makes a fine entry into any B-movie marathon.
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Sep 29, 2020 12:04
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There's so many of you doing so many great reviews. It feels like the most participation since I've been around. So exciting. I feel like a kid a couple of days before Christmas. Or a few days before going to Disney World. I'm so excited, all I can think of is all the stuff I want to do, and I'm just holding out and counting every hour. M_Sinistrari posted:
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Sep 29, 2020 12:28
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Is anyone else waiting til oct 1 like me 
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Sep 29, 2020 12:39
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2. Ginger Snaps (2000) Tubi I've sat on this one for a while and I don't know why. It's a great werewolf movie and I see why people equate it to a story about puberty. It actually reminded me a lot of Society with a Casio keyboard score, and simple blocking and lighting. The big thing that stuck out to me is just how ridiculous everyone outside of the main three characters plays it up, and it works. It works because it takes place in high school, and the farther out from the ages of the main character, the more ridiculous it's played, ramping up with the school staff, and then maxing out with the parents. It really gets that feeling we all had back then of being the smartest person in the room. 5/5 3. Horror Express (1972)* What can I say about Horror Express? Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, and Telly Savalas should be all I need to say. Anyway, Christopher Lee is transporting a spooky fossil by train through Russia. The fossil comes back to life and starts killing people on the train, it's fairly straight forward in that sense. The monster does have an interesting dynamic, which I won't spoil here, which I thought was a pretty cool idea. There really should be more movies that take place on trains. 5/5 *I started watching on Tubi, but they appeared to have a garbage VHS transfer, but it appears to be on every single backwater streaming channel you can find, I settled on one called "The TCL Channel," which had a HD transfer, but it was a version where all the credits and text was in Spanish, and had a weird "pause" periodically, I probably won't use that stream again.
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Sep 29, 2020 12:47
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Debbie Does Dagon posted:Oh nice, thank you! On the list it goes I love The Eyes of My Mother, and I also love Spider Baby. I see the similarities, I'll add a recommendation to the film, but Spider Baby is much more light and playful.
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Sep 29, 2020 12:48
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2/31 (28th September) (I got a graphics tablet and I'm trying to find excuses to practice on it so here are the two films I watched in Pictionary style - can you guess what I watched?)  Skeleton Key (Guessed by DDD) 1) I didn't plan to rewatch this one but I did see that it was leaving Amazon Prime soon, remembered thinking it was good and my partner loved Kate Hudson so it was an easy thing to throw on for spooks. It didn't take long to hit a couple of tropes that dated it badly, the black best friend and hoodoo in New Orleans with a main cast of white people (including a bizarrely underutilised John Hurt) very much stuck in the craw. Gena Rowland is cool and good and it was really nice to see her chew up on a silly horror role as A Woman Under the Influence... of THE OLD SPOOKY HELP.  The old plantation home was a cool set which could have been used in a much better horror that doesn't just use black people as set dressing. This film particularly annoyed me as it was used an example of why Get Out wasn't "as original" as people were saying it was, as if there wasn't more to that movie than the twist at the end. gently caress me.VEROTIKA (Guessed by DDD) 2) Then later I threw on this Shudder Exclusive horror anthology which I stopped about 10 minutes in because it was garbage soft porn starring literal porn stars forced to speak in French accents. Then later I watched the whole thing after reading it's worth watching because it is so unintentionally bad it is as fun and silly as THE ROOM, comparisons which just don't work for me. My friend-group would NOT have fun watching this; it's outright teen boner fodder in the most cringe-inducing way possible. I read an account of the premiere where the audience started laughing at it and Danzig had to do a Q&A afterwards which sounded like maybe the ONLY way to see and enjoy this travesty. Danzig should gently caress off back to the crusty sheets he wrote this under, utterly embarrassed for him and for Shudder. Ew. The Hausu Usher fucked around with this message at 20:10 on Sep 30, 2020 |
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Sep 29, 2020 13:03
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Iron Crowned posted:
I saw it a while back and yeah I also had trouble getting a good copy Left hand side is Amazon Prime, right hand side the Arrow Channel add-in for Amazon Prime 
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Sep 29, 2020 13:03
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Hedrigall posted:Is anyone else waiting til oct 1 like me Meee but to be fair I simply don't count the movies I watch until then.
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Sep 29, 2020 13:10
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3. Martin Martin is (maybe, definitely, absolutely not) a vampire, who goes to live with his religious uncle and is told in no uncertain terms his uncle will kill him. Hopefully after he saves his soul. I....expected more. I liked the Vampire's Kiss-like ambiguity, loved the bitterness about how none of the magic was real, it was just drinking blood and really felt how lonely Martin was, despised by his family and trying to connect to people. However, most of that is hidden in a plain, uninteresting movie. Running circles after each other can be tense, just look at Revenge, but here it just seemed amateurish. It seems to have the right ideas, but fails to present them in an interesting way. It reminded me a lot of The Transfiguration, which used a better setting and seemed to get more out of the same ideas. 4. Ghosts of War  Five Airborne soldiers have to defend an old mansion previously used by nazis as a command post. Ofcourse it is haunted. I was hoping for something like Overlord, but what I got was the worst movie I've seen in some time. The first problem is that it looks way too clean. Everything feels like a soap opera with soft lights, warm colors and props and costumes that are brand new and shiny. Even the, disappointingly sparse, gore and blood is amateurish and tame. I wouldn't mind that too much if it at least did something interesting, something new, something fun, or whatever really, but instead it just rehashes a bunch of scenes we've all seen a million times before, often done better. And then, during the finale, they wake up in the modern world to learn it was all a computer simulation to help wounded Afghanistan veterans recover from the trauma they suffered by not interfering when an Afghan family was killed by IS in front of them. The simulation was supposed to be fun, but haunted because the mother of the Afghan family cursed them with her dying words. Not even Billy Zane, explaining this whole mess, can redeem any part of it. Hoped for Overlord, would have settled for Deathwatch, got this steaming pile of....
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Sep 29, 2020 13:28
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Hedrigall posted:Is anyone else waiting til oct 1 like me  I am.
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Sep 29, 2020 13:37
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