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More rewatches! 3. Jennifer's Body (2009) (dir. Karyn Kusama) re-watch blu-ray - extended/unrated cut High school students Jennifer (Megan Fox) and Needy (Amanda Seyfried) are an unlikely pair of best friends - Jennifer is a popular and gorgeous cheerleader, and Needy is mousy and shy. Despite having little in common, they’ve been friends since childhood and are inseparable. When an obscure indie rock band comes to a nearby bar, Jennifer is determined to meet and hook up with the “extra salty” lead singer. Unfortunately the band turns out to be Satanists looking for a virgin to sacrifice, and they choose Jennifer for their victim. One problem - she’s not a virgin, and this causes the ritual to have some… side effects. Namely, she becomes possessed by a succubus and is driven to kill and eat men. Needy finds herself terrified of her best friend as she races to find a way to stop Jennifer before she kills again. Directed by Karyn Kusama (The Invitation) and written by Diablo Cody (Juno), this is a movie that I think was a victim of poor marketing and was unfairly dismissed at release. It’s funny, bloody, original, and has some genuinely scary moments. It’s smart too, with strong female leads that despite initial impressions don’t fit neatly into the virgin/slut roles assigned to women in so many horror films. There are also some LGBT themes in Needy’s barely concealed feelings for Jennifer. Plenty of interesting things to say about rape culture and slut shaming too - I think this is a movie that’s ripe for deeper analysis if you’re into that kind of thing. And I am, just not when I’m already falling behind on write ups! Cody’s dialogue borders on annoying and unnatural sometimes, and I don’t doubt that it’s a turn off for many viewers. Megan Fox in particular just doesn’t strike me as the kind of person that would say something like “you’re totally lime-green jello”, but for the most part the writing works for me. A highlight of the supporting cast is J.K. Simmons as one of their teachers - he’s got a goofy curly hairdo and a hook for a hand, and steals every scene he’s in. An underrated and smart supernatural horror film that I definitely recommend. 4.5 boxcutters out of 5  (was gonna post the theatrical poster, but I found this one and it rules) 4. The Lords of Salem (2012) (dir. Rob Zombie) re-watch blu-ray Heidi, one of the hosts of a popular radio show in Salem, Massachusetts, receives a mysterious record in the mail by a group called "The Lords". The song is little more than three notes repeated in a creepy dirge-like droning style, but when played it gives her a terrible headache and seems to put her in a sort of trance. She is convinced by her co-host to play it on air, and we see that it has a similar effect on all the women of Salem. Heidi experiences increasingly strange and terrifying visions, and her life begins to fall apart as she succumbs to the evil forces controlling her. This seems to be somewhat divisive among Rob Zombie fans - it certainly feels like a bit of an outlier in his filmography, as it's a relatively slow burn and doesn't feature any gross evil rednecks. I like it a lot and I think it shows that he has more range than many people give him credit for. I also just really love movies about witches and the occult, and there's a lot of terrifying demonic hijinks in this. On this re-watch I think I liked it slightly less than I did at first though - it features some wildly inventive and stylish visuals, but without the shock value of the first-time watch, the fact that there is very little substance beneath that style becomes much clearer. Especially in the final third of the film, it feels like very little is happening beyond "whoa look at this rad creepy thing". And I'm OK with style over substance to some extent, especially when this style is this good - but it's also the difference between a good film and a great one, and I think the plot is just a little too thin for me to call this great. 4 jerking off demons out of 5 Total: 4 Watched: Hellraiser | Hellbound: Hellraiser II | Jennifer's Body | The Lords of Salem
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Oct 4, 2021 21:51
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 7)Scream, Queen! 2020 shudder After watching Freddy's Revenge had to watch this. I knew things weren't great in the 80s when it comes to homophobia and aids epidemic, but every time it comes up in a doc it's still shocking the callous disregard of people's lives both in terms of the virus itself and the national enquirer breaking into hospital rooms of dying actors. I'm glad it has a relatively happy ending for Mark, given everything he went through. The scene where he confronts the screenwriter was squirm inducing, as was the cut of casual slurs in other 80s movies.  /5
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Oct 4, 2021 21:54
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11. Witchfinder General (1968) Directed by Michael Reeves 🇬🇧 United Kingdom Watched on DVD  Witchfinder General is a grim movie with high production values. Set in the early-to-mid 1600s, it follows self-proclaimed “Witchfinder General” Matthew Hopkins and his assistant John Stearne as they roam East Anglia professing to do the Lord’s work. Their modus operandi is simple, ingenious, and diabolical. They go from town to town, offering to extract confessions from, then execute, accused witches. Because they operated during the English Civil War, there wasn’t much law and/or order to stop them.  The performances are generally good, with Vincent Price playing it very straight. There’s quite a bit of violence as well. Considering how genteel the sets and costumes are, it’s a really striking contrast.  The punchline here is that Matthew Hopkins and John Stearne were real people who are responsible for at least 200 deaths. It’s comforting to know that in the much more enlightened 21st century, we don’t need to worry about monsters who exploit our fears and superstitions to make themselves rich. 💀💀💀💀 Spooky Travelogue 11/31 1. At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul 🇧🇷, 2. Pontypool 🇨🇦, 3. Inferno 🇮🇹, 4. The Queen of Black Magic 🇮🇩, 5. The Forest of Lost Souls 🇵🇹, 6. Tumbbad 🇮🇳, 7. The Silent House 🇺🇾, 8. The Phantom Carriage 🇸🇪, 9. Housebound 🇳🇿, 10. I Saw the Devil 🇰🇷, 11. Witchfinder General 🇬🇧
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Oct 4, 2021 22:08
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I remember finding out later that the real Matthew Hopkins was 27 when he died and began his career in witchhunting at 24. Vincent Price absolutely kills it as Hopkins in the film and trying to imagine the film with a more age appropriate actor is almost impossible.
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Oct 4, 2021 22:20
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FreudianSlippers posted:I remember finding out later that the real Matthew Hopkins was 27 when he died and began his career in witchhunting at 24. Age appropriate Matthew Hopkins is basically just the villain in The Nightingale.
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Oct 4, 2021 22:22
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gey muckle mowser posted:3. Jennifer's Body (2009) But I also think Cody's dialogue is challenging at best. It creates this weird rear end language and world all its own that can be tough to fully immerse yourself in. Kusama also structures the film oddly with like flashbacks within flashbacks and non linear plotting. There's like 3 or 4 finales for the movie. I think the good outweighs the bad but I do think between its own stuff and the stuff put on it unfairly its fighting against a lot, or at least was at the time. twernt posted:
I just wanted to say I LOVE this gimmick.
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Oct 4, 2021 22:52
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 7. Three Extremes (2004) "I was in all five of your films, sir." An uneven but enjoyable anthology with one short each from Fruit Chan, Park Chan-wook, and Takashi Miike. The first, Dumplings, was the best of the bunch - an actress afraid of aging visits a woman who makes dumplings that make you younger, and they work! Unfortunately, the dumplings have a secret ingredient that puts the actress in a bit of a moral dilemma, because she has been eating aborted fetuses. Solid throughout with a perfectly "horror movie" end. The second short is "The Cut" where a movie director and his wife are taken hostage by a man who does extra work but can't seem to get his career going. It felt a bit like a Jigsaw game, but with an offbeat sense of humor and some great visuals. The ending fell a little flat for me but otherwise, great. The last was Miike's and while it had a lot of tension, and a few spooky visuals, the ending was kind of baffling in how goofy it was and it was probably the worst of the bunch. 3.5/5 8. The Pit and the Pendulum (1991) "Hidden charms, poisons, a third nipple where Satan may suck. Any blemish may be a witch's mark." Hey, a Stuart Gordon flick I hadn't seen. Glad to cross it off my watch list, but this wasn't my favorite. Some great hammy performances like Lance Henriksen but the tonal shifts were a bit too much for me and it needed WAY more pit. And a little more pendulum. 3/5Total Watched: 8 // 'New to Me' Total: 7/40 Years Complete: 1985, 1989, 1991, 1995, 2004, 2018, 2021 Fran Challenges Complete: --/--
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Oct 4, 2021 22:53
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 1. Child's Play [1988] It's Child's Play. A classic in every regard. Still has a great atmosphere mixed with just some dumb comedy bits and solid gore and horror moments. Probably still one of my favorites of child hood and one all my siblings would sit down and watch every time it came on tv. Just a delight and I'm looking forward to seeing the rest (including the reboot) as well as the upcoming tv series. 4  out of 5 2. Haunt [2019] ~Holiday Massacre~ Pretty solid halloween story. I enjoyed some of the build up and they did a good job of parceling off the characters you were rooting for and the ones you could go ahead and just see die in the coming minutes of the film. I liked that it kept me guessing if whether or not the murders were really happening. Its cool and I think it was overall very effective. Maybe it got saggy in a few sections and there's one plot line that kinda just went nowhere, but cool for the scope of the project. 3 and a half out of 5 3. Child's Play 2 [1990] What a follow up tbh. Just solid all around, gets in and out with the setup and story. All the kills are dopey and pretty cool. I really forgot Jenny Agutter was in this one as well. I feel like I've seen the majority of these Chucky films only on basic cable and missed all the messy bits. That basement kill still gets me. Just a solid follow up and probably the best design for Chucky all around. 3 and a half out of 5 4. Titane [2021] ~Femme Fatale~ I still dont know how to write about his movie. Go see it. Probably my favorite of the year. 4 and a half out of 5 5. Child's Play 3 [1991] Might've been my least favorite of the Child's Play franchise (until we get to Bride). Maybe its that I kinda dont care about Andy at this point? Still pretty solid kills. The heart attack gag will never not be funny and the trash compactor is probably one of the most chilling deaths I could imagine. It was alright, doesnt hit the peaks of 1/2, but not the worst of the series. 3 out of 5 6. The Faculty [1998] This is just drat good fun. Still probably one of my favorites of the horror/sci-fi genre and coming back around to the topic of having not seen the actual theatrical cut of some movies and only the basic cable ones, this is another culprit. One I would watch anytime I came by it while playing on USA in the afternoon. A big talented cast just having a ball it seems with all these fun alien gags and dumb teenager theatrics. I still really like their "The Thing" homage with finding out who is who with the drug snort. Also great alien design at the end. 4 out of 5 7. Bride of Chucky [1998] Well this one certainly happened and we gotta live with it. Really didnt care for it when I saw it as a kid and dont care for it now. I dont know how Ronnie Yu got to touch such legendary franchises, but drat what a shame and what a poo poo director. There was not really much to hang your hat on here. I was mostly just bored and maybe the best part was John Ritter taking a jar of nails to the face. that was pretty creative, but otherwise, meh. Not good, just middling. 2 and a half out of 5
dorium fucked around with this message at 00:52 on Oct 18, 2021 |
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Oct 4, 2021 23:04
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STAC Goat posted:Yeah, I think Jennifer's Body is a tale of two problems both of which you nailed. One is that its a victim of bad marketing as some kind of sex romp, Megan Fox was unfairly dismissed as nothing but a pretty face even though she's actually got a pretty solid dry wit and plays the stereotypes on themselves (aa bit like Elvira, although not as well), and that its themes were probably a bit ahead of its time and still mired in that toxic 2000s culture the same year Hangover came out. I saw it in theaters because I was excited about Diablo Cody writing a horror film, and I remember the marketing wasn't clear what exactly was wrong with Jennifer. I liked the movie, but the reveal of the boy band did a sacrificial ritual was too hard to take seriously and it really made the whole film weird and unbalanced to me. It was just too out of nowhere in the context of the film. Knowing that twist now, and also having a greater context and awareness of what Jennifer's Body is doing, I could appreciate it more now. I might work it in the challenge, cuz it's been a while.
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Oct 4, 2021 23:05
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FreudianSlippers posted:I remember finding out later that the real Matthew Hopkins was 27 when he died and began his career in witchhunting at 24. In England in the 1600s, life expectancy was less than 40 so maybe it still works?
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Oct 4, 2021 23:12
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 #14) Blood Beat (1983; Blu-ray) After Devil Story, I needed something reliable to help me recover. So we jumped over to a different Vinegar Syndrome release by a French director. This one is set and filmed in the Midwest, though, in the heart of 'hunt a deer, clean it in your front yard' country, so there's a decidedly different vibe. A family gets back together for Christmas, with the widowed psychic mother and the son's new girlfriend (Sarah) having a bit of unusual friction between them. Then a samurai ghost shows up and starts killing people. Shot with an artistic eye, the rural landscapes and bare trees lend things an almost tangible chill, as do the nightly drifting scenes as the ghost seeks a victim, set to a minimal synth score, pulsing and burbling with understated creepiness. Except for the mother's painting scenes, which get some nice violin work backing them. It's tempting to think that the musical element determined the name of the film, because... where else would it come from, without being practically meaningless? Pretty much all of the actors in this have acting credits in the single digits, leading to some fairly natural outsider performances. Sarah is an outsider freaked out by everyone else's eager willingness to kill a deer, and her actress plays the vulnerability well, wanting to connect with the family, but not quite fitting in. Commentary by the director suggests their her build (small and slight) played more than a minor factor in her casting, and on top of her physical contrast with the other characters, it makes her scenes of writhing in bed while receiving psychic visions have a sort of lizard-brain impact to them, evoking defenseless during a nightmare. There's a sexual component, too, but... French director. There's something that really works for me about the way the psychic and supernatural events just slide into action once night falls. The special effects have their issues (as the director notes in his commentary), and with the climax relying on overlays, that's not an easily-ignored issue. But the physically-handled stuff, like rattling furniture, bouncing windows, TV rabbit ears wiggling, and telekinetic grocery assault, are executed cleanly and competently. It's more about the overwhelmed reactions from the characters, anyway, as the events just avalanche into the climax. I get a little more out of this one each time I watch it, though the exposition dump explaining the samurai ghost is still rough to digest. All in all, one wacky Wisconsin Christmas. “Gary? Mom is right, burn it.” Rating: 7/10
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Oct 4, 2021 23:15
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STAC Goat posted:I just wanted to say I LOVE this gimmick. Thank you! It's a great way to see stuff I wouldn't otherwise check out. Someone somewhere mentioned it as an October theme and I can't remember who, so I can't give them credit.
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Oct 4, 2021 23:16
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Late to the thread this year, but still been keeping up with the movies! In for 31 this year, per usual. 1. The Boys from County Hell (Shudder) 2020 Dir. Chris Baugh This was a fun one! An Irish Horror/Comedy with generally quick wit, some brutal kills and some touching moments. A father and son construction team disturb a Cairn, that they feel to be nothing more than a tourist attraction, to build a new bypass. The local folktales about Bram Stoker taking the idea for Dracula from the small town might be a tad more accurate. I don't think it's going to be the next iconic horror/comedy in the way that Shaun of the Dead and Tucker & Dale were, but it's a solid, fun contender. I thought the idea of the primary villain being [spoilers]a vampire so old and powerful that people bleed by just being near him[/spoiler] is kind of a cool idea. 3.5/5 2. Aftermath (Netflix) 2021 Dir. Peter Winther Based on the real-life horrifying story of Jerry Rice and Janice Ruhter, Aftermath takes that story and, uh...sure does go places with it. Shawn Ashmore and Ashley Greene star as a couple attempting to start fresh in a new home after an incident of infidelity - the home of a violent murder-suicide by the previous owners. While the couple struggle to build trust in one another, strange things start to happen in the new house. It's a mess. "Based on real life events" stories usually go off the rails from the truth, but the actual story is pretty eerie on it's own. Adding in the affair subplot, the murder-suicide, the affair element of the previous owners and the [spoilers]gangly white walker living in the walls,[/spoiler] you end up with something that feels confused, baffling, and cobbled together from five different script ideas. 1.5/5 3. Bingo Hell (Amazon) 2021 Dir. Gigi Saúl Guerrero A group of elderly friends in a small neighborhood deal with their local community hall being bought and turned into a flashy Bingo Hall, run by the sinister Mr. Big. Another of the Welcome to the Blumhouse movies, of which I haven't seen any but this one, so I can't attest to their typical quality. It seems like this one didn't go over well, but I had a good time with it. Yeah, I mean, it's Needful Things with a different setting. That being said, there's some genuinely brutal kills, the cast does a great job (Notably lead Adriana Barraza and L. Scott Caldwell), and Richard Brake as Mr. Big is a goofy, scenery-chewing Leland Gaunt-alike. It's breezy and the older cast of actors are fun to watch. I'd say give it a go. 3/5
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Oct 4, 2021 23:19
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Franchescanado posted:
Um actually they were a indie rock band not a boy band thank you very much. Which makes a massively 2009 film even more 2009.
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Oct 4, 2021 23:25
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Forgot to post this last night. It annoying me so much I just closed the computer and vegged out.  10 (16). Room 237 (2012) Directed by Rodney Ascher Watched on AMC+ Oh boy. I went into this with the entirely wrong impression. A bunch of people were watching the Shining and I got interested to rewatch it. And then someone mentioned something about a First Nations’ genocide interpretation of it and I got curious because I couldn’t see that at all. And someone suggested I watch this and… I guess I took them more sincerely than I should have. Sure enough that’s in here but its not some kind of detailed, analyzed, and peer challenged theory or anything. Its just one of many random rear end things a bunch of random rear end people ramble about. I didn’t realize I was watching a Youtube video. Did someone just pause it to check on his kid? Why is that in this? Why would you include that? What is this? I guess if there’s anything this does it really shows off the kind of obsession, self important film critique the gets passed for intellectualism. On its face a lot of these theories are just crack pot but they’re also just really poorly explored and reasoned. There’s a lot of stuff that just could easily be argued or countered or dismissed but no one does that. And the way these folks talk it becomes clear they’re the types who wouldn’t actually hear any of that anyway. There is this manner of critique that’s just deliberately obtuse. Maybe its because some people know that kind of thing will get attention. Maybe its because they’re really obsessed and can’t interpret it themselves? I dunno, that’s not my place, but I don’t think it really accomplishes anything. If you’ve got an interesting idea or interpretation, sure, ok. I wanna hear it. Its why I watched this. I mean, for gently caress’s sake, one of them just assigns meaning to some random story her kid told her and something Kubrick did 30 years earlier. <i>”I was a smart kid and liked art, but I really did not like movies and thought they were a sub standard art.”</i> That feels like it sums it up. A statement that strikes me as very pretentious and self important. “Movies, ugh. For fools. This is art. Because I like it.” I went to film school, I know this kind of thespian. The kind of person who calls themselves a thespian instead of just saying they like movies. Of course film is art. So are comic books and video games and graffiti. There should be no reason to have to explain or justify that, and if you need to separate a small fraction of film as the actual art compared to all the rest then enjoy yourself but I’m not interested in your point of view anymore. There are people of this type in any medium and it always seems like a way to raise yourself up above the fray and make yourself feel special. Film criticism seems to be loaded with it these days. It always has but the internet has given this big voice to criticism and the best ways to get attention are negativity or hot takes. And it feels like the popularity of post modernism and “death of the author” has given way to something new where no longer is it just that you can interpret any meaning from a film you like, but if you can argue it then it was actually a secret message from the director that you interpreted. I suppose its healthier for people to obsess over interpreting the Shining or Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Heart Clubs Band than other conspiracy stuff and obsession. But I just find this whole thing boring and self serving. Its not really worth engaging with it because most of the time there’s no real exchange of ideas. You can’t prove something right or wrong. Anything that doesn’t fit is just a “joke” or secret code. Any mistake or flaw is actually intentional. I think that’s the problem with the kind of obsession people build with auteurs or other “geniuses”. It starts to become this thing where if they’re a genius then they can’t make mistakes or just have bad ideas. Everything is justified and has purpose and if you don’t get it then its because you’re too dumb, and I can’t be too dumb so I have to get it. Credit where its due, that thing where the guy played the film backwards and forwards to see what synchs up was kind of interesting. I don’t think it means anything but its funny to get wasted and do stuff like that. And that sure seems like what this guy did. And it only takes like 80 minutes to get there. I regret watching that. That was stupid and it gave me a headache. STAC Goat fucked around with this message at 02:17 on Oct 5, 2021 |
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Oct 4, 2021 23:51
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 6) The Beast Must Die (1974) Trailer Seen on: Shudder Millionaire big-game hunter Tom Newcliffe has his sights set on the biggest game of all - "This film is a detective story - in which you are the detective. The question is not 'Who is the murderer?" - but 'Who is the werewolf?' After all the clues have been shown - You will get a chance to give your answer. Watch for the werewolf break!" Here's a movie that's so mid-70s that it hurts in every way, from the soundtrack to the fashions. It's more mystery than horror film, and it's hard to be scared when the film's "werewolf" is played by the biggest good boy German Shepherd around. However, the character actor cast is pretty good - obsessive hunter Tom is played to the hilt by Calvin Lockhart (King Willie in Predator 2!), and you also have Peter Cushing, Charles Grey and Marlene Clark (Ganga & Hess) doing their best. There's all the usual things you'd expect from a werewolf/whodunit film - the guests are subjected to silver, wolfsbane and the full moon but nothing happens, except all the side characters start being murdered. Oh, and when the werewolf break came at the end...I had no idea who it was because they don't really give you any clues. But I guessed and I was right! it's Tom's wife! I based that guess on some old Creepy comic I read from the '70s that had a similar story. But the movie also cheats, because there are TWO werewolves, so your chances of getting it right are pretty good!. WARNING: there's a regular dog in this movie and he dies after fighting off the German Shepherd werewolf - he's put out of his misery by Tom with a pistol. It's off-camera, but I just thought I'd throw that in there.  7) Bride of Re-animator (1989) Trailer Seen on: Tubi Eight months after the events of the first film, mad Dr. Herbert West and his beleaguered colleague Dan Cain are still experimenting with West's reanimating reagent. West believes he's found a way to create life with the reagent instead of simply resurrecting it and thus avoiding the violence and chaos that comes with the latter - the problem is, he wants to use Cain's former fiance's heart and the body of a terminal patient Cain cares for as basis. Matters are complicated for our heroes, though, by a police lieutenant who has a personal vendetta against West for the massacre at the hospital, and West's re-(re)-animated rival Dr. Hill - or at least just his head - is also closing in for revenge. The original Re-Animator was a film I ignored for a long time until watching it for one of the challenges here in the past few years, and I loved it - it managed to be witty, scary and over-the-top in all the best ways. I don't think there was any way this sequel was going to top it, and I was right - it's good, but it lacks the transgressive quality of the first. Jeffrey Combs and Dan Abbott as West and Cain are still very good, and the cast is game - particularly Kathleen Kinmont as the titular grotesque Bride at the end, who makes quite an impact. The gore and effects are also quite good, courtesy of Screaming Mad George and KNB. I just kind of felt like I had seen this all before in the superior original, but it was still worth a watch. WARNING: there's a pet dog that gets violently murdered in this, but is then hilariously resurrected by the reagent in a way I don't want to spoil here. I felt bad, but I laughed. Ok, maybe this movie still has some of that transgressive quality of the first after all.  8) Lords of Salem (2012) Trailer Seen on: Amazon Prime Salem, Massachusetts radio DJ Heidi (Sheri Moon Zombie) is a recovering drug addict whose life begins falling apart again when she's introduced to a strange song by "The Lords" at her radio station. She begins hallucinating about witches that were put to the stake in Salem hundreds of years before and other horrible stuff. Meanwhile, a local historian begins researching the history of the so-called "Lords of Salem" and begins to realize that a curse placed on the town by the witches is putting Heidi's life, and perhaps the fate of the world, at stake. Soooo I've never watched a Rob Zombie movie before; this was my first, so I came into this with no expectations. I saw an interview blurb with Zombie online about this movie, describing it as if were Ken Russell directing The Shining, and I guess there are parts of this that kind of resemble that comment. There's stuff here that I think works - the song is creepy, there's some great shots and imagery, and I really enjoyed the performances of all of the older women featured in this - Patricia Quinn, Dee Wallace (that frying pan action) and Judy Geeson, and especially Meg Foster who is nearly unrecognizable (except for those eyes) and is really unsettling. But as for the rest of the film, it veers between silly (on purpose) to silly (unintentionally) and I found it very hard to feel creeped out. Heidi is also one of those characters who's just sort of there with little control over what's going on, although maybe that was the whole point of what Quinn was telling her during the palmreading about the difference between fate and destiny. Oh well. The bleeding Commando Cody wall was neat, I guess. WARNING: there's a golden retriever in this movie, and while the last we see of him is him locked in a bathroom, my head canon says he (presumably) survives and is a good boy.  9) Star Crystal (1986) Trailer Seen on: YouTube Jesus, for a mid-'80s Alien ripoff, this thing needs a Star Wars title crawl to get up to speed with what happens: on Mars in 2032, astronauts find a weird pod that contains a crystal and some alien goop. Shortly thereafter, the ship (a shuttlecraft, this is an important distinction the characters insist on throughout) malfunctions and the crew dies. When the shuttlecraft automatically returns to the nearest space station, the repair crew that gets onboard has to flee and use it as a lifeboat when the space station explodes(!) for some reason. We're 20 minutes in folks and just met our main characters! While the crew bickers and tries to plan how to get to the nearest supply outpost and, eventually, Earth, the alien goop has become an alien slug and people start dying. Low-budget Alien rip-offs can be a fun time - see William Malone's Creature released a year before this for a low-budget Alien rip-off done well. Star Crystal is simply bottom-tier in this space. It looks like it was filmed on a budget that must have run into the tens of dollars (spacesuits made from cloth and duct tape; Millennium Falcon toys on the walls of models! The same model spaceship shots used over and over again) and looks like it was filmed in 1976. The actors are uniformly terrible and their characters are painfully stereotypical (butch female engineer that hates everyone, horny black soldier guy, NotLD Barbara-like load that is in panicked shock until she dies, standoffish female scientists, etc.). There are some very weird comedy bits here: watching astronauts play football on Mars, two people get drunk immediately after assessing the dire situation they're all in and harass people, etc. Then there are pacing issues. All of the deaths to the monster happen in the first 45 minutes. We spend the last 45 minutes with the last two survivors as they sweat and run out of air and talk on and on about nothing. And then we get to the INCREDIBLE TWIST ENDING of Star Crystal, do not read if you want the earth-shattering twist revealed! the alien's crystal is a supercomputer, he hacks into the human computer and learns about our species and reads the Bible, then becomes very contrite and apologizes for killing the other three people in self-defense. Then he helps out the last two survivors with telekinesis and lots of cutesy scenarios. His name is GAR! GAR, you can do Look, what I'm trying to say is I love bad movies and bad Alien rip-offs, but this is too terrible to be bad enough to be good. Avoid. WARNING: there are no dogs in this movie. It could only have been improved by having a dog in it. Stupid movie. Bruteman fucked around with this message at 00:07 on Oct 5, 2021 |
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Oct 5, 2021 00:04
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twernt posted:In England in the 1600s, life expectancy was less than 40 so maybe it still works? Life expectancy of 40 didn't mean you were an old man at 40, it meant that you'd die of an ailment younger. And it was also skewed downwards by high rates of infant mortality. If you lived to be six in 1640 you'd probably live to be 60. 9) What We Do In The Shadows I've been meaning to watch this for a while, but I've kept putting it off because I find Taika Waititi's brand of "domestic humour" kind of cringy. My sister spent a year in New Zealand five or six years ago and brought me back a copy of Boy - I still haven't watched it. He's a good director, and his actual jokes are on the whole pretty good. And honestly I mostly enjoyed this movie. He just keeps trying to do the same thing without it always working.
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Oct 5, 2021 00:09
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Jedit posted:9) What We Do In The Shadows Now watch the excellent FX series (on its third season) which, rather than an American remake of the movie, is an American extension to the world of the movie. The New Zealand vampires actually show up in a couple of episodes. The show builds the movie's weird world so much more, introduces tons of other fantasy/horror creatures and elements, and the new roster of characters is perfect. Maybe the best new character is Colin Robinson, an entirely different sort of vampire that you'd recognise if you've ever worked in an office
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Oct 5, 2021 00:18
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6. The Wolf of Snow Hollow A small-town sheriff investigates a series of gruesome murders... with spooky results. This was no at all what I thought it was going to be. I'm not sure anyone making it knew what they wanted it to be in the first place. The tone is all over the place. It wants to be a comedy sometimes? It wants to be a serious character study sometimes? And now the score is like it's a Looney Tunes cartoon. But now there's no score at all. Is this a Peter and the Wolf reference? Why does the main character talk so damned fast? Why is there all this family drama in a horror movie? Is it a horror movie? Yeah, there's a werewolf, it's a horror movie. Oh no, wait, it's just a guy in a costume. HOW THE gently caress WAS THAT A GUY IN A COSTUME?. I do not understand. The thing I want most out of a movie is to be so surprised I spend the whole time asking "What is this?" Not this time. What was this? 1.5/5
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Oct 5, 2021 00:23
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 8)Creature from the black lagoon 1954 criterion Maybe it's just because I prefer spooky castles to the amazon, but it's my least favorite of the universal flicks thus far. More of a pulpy sci/fi action adventure, it deals with scientists researching the amazon and discovering the creature and then the debate about whether to kill it for science, or keep it alive, also for science. Which isn't to say it's bad. It's good for what it is, but it's so far removed from the rest of the series in terms of tone and years that it barely counts. Doesn't do much for me spooky wise, but if you're looking for a two fisted romp, you could do worse. The creature itself looks great too.  /5
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Oct 5, 2021 01:02
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October 4 Haunt My self-imposed challenge is turning out to be harder than I thought it would be. It's a case of "seen to many horror movies" + "streaming services are way too fragmented". I have to spot what's interesting in what people have watched in the past day that I haven't seen (which narrows things down a lot) and then if I am interested in something I need to pick out a film, and hopefully it's streaming on something I subscribe to. I started a Shudder trial yesterday thinking I'd have plenty of options while I'm stuck in a hotel in bumfuck nowhere, but I don't think I'm going to keep it. The library just feels way too limited, probably due to that streaming service fragmentation problem. So, no offense, dorium, but Haunt was not a top pick for me, just what was there. Here's his post which led me to this movie: dorium posted:
Your standard pack of lovely horror movie victims go out on Halloween and visit the most intense haunt out there. Except this one is real! Also, it plays up their fears. Look, this is pretty much the exact movie you'd expect from that premise. All the exact beats delivered the exact way you'd think they would be. Nothing wrong with that; Haunt is perfectly adequate. It's also never any better than adequate. There's one thing that bothered me in Haunt more than anything else: the location of the haunt makes zero sense. Okay, if it's a supernatural evil haunt then sure, it's fine that doors that there's doors that can't exist and too many rooms and impossible architecture. But the supernatural elements of the haunt aren't significant; it mainly appears to be a bunch of crazy people who built a murder house to lure people in on Halloween (or seven people; they're never going to make any money if they're only getting seven visitors on Halloween). And they show a map and the map doesn't make any sense. I'm sure the director was "It's disorientating to people! It's intentional!" but there's no sense of space to the place since every location looks like it was shot in a different building. People go through doors to completely different sets that can't possible be there in the space of a single cut. The Overlook this ain't. I have more complaints than that, but what they come down to is that the editing in this movie is pretty bad. It feels like it's edited to do things the way other horror movies have done them, but without understanding why and the results are just jarring and slopping editing. There have been a lot of movies in the past ten years that have been "haunted house, only it's real!" over the past ten years and Haunt is one of them. I think I don't need to see this storyline again. STAC Goat posted:
I had pretty much the exact same reaction to Room 237 which I watched in that brief period when people were talking it up. It's pretty much the stupid film theory given pretense of importance. And yes, the only interesting one is the guy who spooled it up forward and backward and then projected each of them on top of each other since it was an interesting way to view the structure of the film. Everybody else was just engaged in "intellectual" masturbation, and it wasn't especially intellectual.
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Oct 5, 2021 01:17
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5) Final Destination 3 Oh man, this was barf. It's essentially a remake of the first one, but minus the charm and with a stupid camera gimmick where there are clues in a few photos. It also felt cruel in a way, this time the deaths were more mean-spirited than hilariously unlikely. None of the characters were particularly enjoyable, and many were absolutely unlikable. There's also a photo of the WTC with a plane's shadow over them, that felt distasteful and yanked me right out of the film. Going to give it a 1/5 for some nudity and Todd's voice cameos. It also kinda broke the rules a lot. We got two visions, and this time "death" can just spontaneously make poo poo happen. moths fucked around with this message at 01:29 on Oct 5, 2021 |
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Oct 5, 2021 01:24
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1. Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master I had a really good time with this. I’ve seen people say it’s decent when talking about the NoES series but I thought it was outright good. It’s not 1 or 3 but it’s better than 2 imo. The plot is a little so so and basically exists to get from one kill to the next but that’s ok because there are a couple of all timers in there (inhaler, roach) but I really enjoyed most of them. From what I understand it’s downhill from here but then the 7th film is decent again. I’d say only 2 bad movies out of 7 is a pretty great batting average for a slasher series. 2. Final Destination Probably haven’t seen this since it was in theaters. No particular reason why but I know it’s a thread darling and my wife was actually interested so an easy choice. It was alright, it sets up the lore for the rest of the series and a couple of the kills are inspired. I thought it took a while to get going after the crash but I guess that comes with having to set everything up. I’m excited to watch the rest of the series. Except 4.
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Oct 5, 2021 01:33
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Well, here was my weekend. Aiming for mostly new movies and started off well in that regard. 1. Frozen (Adam Green, 2010) [1st viewing] A testament to simplicity and tension building, Frozen is an anxiety-inducing nightmare to watch. Essentially a ski-lift version of Open Water, Frozen seems like the result of a creative writer trying to brainstorm the absolute worst things that could happen to you while stuck on a ski lift. The first ten minutes or so are a little awkward with dialogue reminiscent of a cheesy 90's movie, but there is enough in the characters to create empathy later for their disaster. I think the script itself is probably better than the overall execution, but this is still well worth watching if you are a fan of minimalist horror thrillers. Sidenote: as a kid it always amused me that there was Jack Frost the family movie and Jack Frost the horror movie. I liked fantasizing about the idea of a mixup or a kid sneaking it by his parents at the video store. But I do not wish this movie as a surprise to anyone since it really is a massive dose of anxiety. 3.5 / 5.0  2. The Final Girls (Todd Strauss-Schulson, 2015) [1st viewing] Partial parody of and partial nod of admiration to slashers, The Final Girls is a frequently funny and fairly well-made movie. Some of the gags are particularly creative, although some have definitely been done before. I think there is just enough of a backstory for the main character to give the movie some depth beyond being just a slasher movie within a movie. Not particularly revolutionary, but if you're looking for a horror-comedy with some laughs and endless references, this is fairly enjoyable. And as another "same title" sidenote, I thought this was a movie based on the Riley Sager novel Final Girls but that movie has not been made yet. I didn't realize the release date difference while reading the book and thought I had a movie adaptation lined up to watch afterwards. 3.0 / 5.0  3. Warm Bodies (Jonathan Levine, 2013) [1st viewing] In the super saturated genre of zombies, and particularly zombie-comedies, Warm Bodies stands out by doing things a little differently and telling a less-than-stereotypical story. It's not particularly scary, but it's an intriguing angle of the zombie genre and I think it is actually charming and inspiring. With more time to tell the story, I think the book probably dives into things a lot more, but the story line here still has some nice metaphors to it and feels like it's about a lot more than just a zombie apocalypse. Definitely better than the standard zombie parody, I had this one on my radar for too long. 4.0 / 5.0  4. Life After Beth (Jeff Baena, 2014) [1st viewing] Similar to Warm Bodies, Life After Beth is another zombie comedy with romance infused into it, but I don't think it has the same depth to it. I wouldn't say it wasn't enjoyable, but the pacing felt slightly uneven and wasn't as unpredictable and original. The final third or so in particular felt slightly rushed. The performances are quite good, but there weren't enough laughs for me and the actual horror aspect is almost a footnote. If you're specifically looking for a movie like this, I wouldn't say it's a complete disappointment but it's not extremely memorable. 2.5 / 5.0
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Oct 5, 2021 01:38
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12. Kuroneko (1968) 藪の中の黒猫 Directed by Kaneto Shindō 🇯🇵 Japan Watched on Criterion Channel  Kuroneko is a beautiful and somber ghost story. It’s more ambitious and much more overtly supernatural than Onibaba, but it never feels impersonal. Because it’s the story of two women who seek revenge after they are sexually assaulted and murdered by traveling soldiers, it would be a much different story if the audience was kept at an emotional distance.  The cinematography is just fantastic. Sometimes the sets and backgrounds are simple and spare, giving Kuroneko the look of a stage production. Other times, shots use shadow and contrast to pack so much visual detail into the frame. The subtle special effects are just right. I especially liked the shot in which Yone and Shige’s house appears to be traveling through the forest.  Kuroneko is also surprisingly feminist. Two women transform themselves from victims into agents of vengeance, in their own way doing what they can to break the endless cycle of war and violence that plagues their country. It’s kind of a cheat because they’re not human anymore, but I was not expecting it because Women in Japanese period pieces tend to be either objects or victims. 💀💀💀💀 Spooky Travelogue 12/31 1. At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul 🇧🇷, 2. Pontypool 🇨🇦, 3. Inferno 🇮🇹, 4. The Queen of Black Magic 🇮🇩, 5. The Forest of Lost Souls 🇵🇹, 6. Tumbbad 🇮🇳, 7. The Silent House 🇺🇾, 8. The Phantom Carriage 🇸🇪, 9. Housebound 🇳🇿, 10. I Saw the Devil 🇰🇷, 11. Witchfinder General 🇬🇧, 12. Kuroneko 🇯🇵 twernt fucked around with this message at 18:29 on Oct 5, 2021 |
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Oct 5, 2021 01:48
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 #3: V/H/S Viral It's a V/H/S movie. The shorts are hit and miss and the connecting segments are lame. What do you expect? But to be less succinct, The connecting segments A car chase through an unnamed American city spreads madness and mayhem supernaturally, all of it caught on hundreds of cameras. Great concept, terrible execution. Since it's only connecting segments there's no need for main characters, but they're there and they drag it down. And over reliance on glitches loving sucks. I hate it when found footage movies have nonsensical glitches at all, and the connecting segments here quadruple down on glitches. Deathcape: The Cape That Eats People A found footage movie about an absurd high concept horror thing is a fun idea. Like found footage Puppetmaster or found footage Wishmaster. Once again though, this part stumbles a bit in execution. Tons of footage that has no reason to have been filmed, and by the end they just give up and have tons of impossible angles and such. The main guy is too convincing as just some charismaless loser. An Italian discovers that in an alternate universe he and his wife are swingers Probably the best part of the movie. Lots of fun, doesn't overstay it's welcome, and it's not one of those shorts where you're like, drat I wish this was a full movie. Skaters accidentally use a Satanic summoning circle as a halfpipe Great stuff. Once again it's a ton of fun, it just goes crazy. This is the one I'd have liked to see pulled out into a full movie. I don't remember the previous V/H/Ss well enough to really do a comparison, but I feel like this has a better hit rate than normal. Although the fact that there's only four segments helps, and it's somewhat offset by the fact that the connecting segment is both the worst one and the biggest chunk of run time. But hey, it's fine. If you've seen one V/H/S and after that have any desire to see another V/H/S, V/H/S Viral will suit you just fine.
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Oct 5, 2021 01:48
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 (4) Scooby-Doo! and the Goblin King (2008) dir. Joe Sichta Wayne Knight is a stage magician who gets booed off stage for not being a real wizard. Luckily it’s Halloween which is the one time of year a mortal can steal the real magic of a Fairy Princess. Wallace Shawn directs the gang to Tim Curry as his Goblin Wand is the only thing that can stop the power mad Wayne Knight. Also Jay Leno is a talking pumpkin. I started watching Scooby Doo for the first time over the pandemic and I have to say the actually supernatural monsters aren’t my favorites. I really like them coming up with really contrived ways for an actual human to have done the insane stuff they witnessed.  (5) Titane (2021) dir. Julia Ducournau A body horror film where the main character leaves her horror movie and enters a different one. A really amazing film that can get hard to watch at times.  (6) The Raven (1935) dir. Lew Landers Bela Lugosi plays a retired neurosurgeon obsessed with Edgar Allan Poe. Escaped criminal Boris Karloff shows up and demands to have plastic surgery done. Legosi decides to disfigure him instead and turn him into a servant. Legosi then decides to get revenge on those he feels have wronged him. Lugosi and Karloff are putting on wonderful performances.  (7) Scooby-Doo! and the Samurai Sword (2009) dir. Christopher Berkeley A suit of samurai armor comes to life and starts looking for the sword of fate. The gang are visiting a friend in Japan when they are attacked by it and robot ninjas. They decide to get the sword first and find out who is behind the samurai (robots) and the robot ninjas (their friend). It’s not the most culturally sensitive movie from the gang. The only mystical element is a dragon voiced by Brian Cox. Also sadly the last time Casey Kasem voices Shaggy. Total: (1) Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021) (2) The Addams Family 2 (2021) (3) Addams Family Reunion (1998) (4) Scooby-Doo! and the Goblin King (2008) (5) Titane (2021) (6) The Raven (1935) (7) Scooby-Doo! and the Samurai Sword (2009)
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Oct 5, 2021 01:50
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 What We Do in the Shadows, 2014 A mockumentary on the lives of vampires. It follows centuries old vampires, out of touch with the modern world as they only come out at night to kill people, who live together in a house in New Zealand. Later someone is turned to a vampire and have to learn about the vampire lifestyle. Just about everyone knows this movie by now, and there's a Netflix series based on it. So without going into much details on plot and characters, is this a good comedy? Is it a good horror movie? As for the later, it got some creepy visuals here and there. I could very much see a more serious version of this work. As for the humor, it is funnier than 99% of comedies out there. I'm not the guy that laugh out loud very often, even if things are funny, so I wasn't laughing out loud the whole way. But I was, as I often are when I see genially good comedy, very amused. There were no bad jokes or bits, they all worked. I cared about the characters and I can picture putting this film on at any time and have a good time watching it. What We Do in the Shadows is everything a great comedy should be.
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Oct 5, 2021 02:19
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 #15) โอปปาติก เกิดอมตะ (Demon Warriors) (2007; DVD) Built around a mythology involving a potential fourth form for humans following their death, one which grants them access to supernatural abilities. However, use of these abilities comes with a price, one which tends to corrupt the user to a demonic form. This reminded me of a more sedate Blade, as the film repeatedly emphasizes that all these supernatural creatures exist in a world alongside humans, but about which humans know nothing. The mix of gunplay and swordplay in the action scenes was another stylistic link, while the semi-gritty look to the scenes put me in mind of more White Wolf style, as did the camera blur used to highlight the inhuman characters. Then there's a few scenes tinted Matrix-sequel green on top of that. I appreciate that the movie tried to blend action scenes with philosophical discussions, but (like the Matrix sequels), it didn't quite come together as well as it could have. Despite that, they manage a wistful, melancholic mood that endures the action scenes without much reduction. Kind of like The Crow in that regard, and in the last-minute 'Oh, and here's this other extremely important note about your superhuman powers' interjection. And the action scenes are done well, though the more grounded stuff (melee and gunplay) looks significantly better than the CGI superpowers. Too bad the climax drags on to the point of draining its own tension. Respectable final product, but not sharp enough on either the philosophizing or rear end-kicking fronts to make for an especially memorable film. “Nothing... comes without an exchange.” Rating: 6/10 Darthemed fucked around with this message at 03:21 on Oct 5, 2021 |
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Oct 5, 2021 02:56
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 4. Shocker (1989), dir. Wes Craven Shocker was one of those movies that has a VHS cover burned into my brain, but that I never saw. It's an absolute mess of a movie: --It's twenty minutes too long --It's unclear what the premise actually is. It starts being a movie about seeing murders in your dreams then turns into a possession movie before settling on being about traveling through TV --It's the overly blunt, new agey ending of Nightmare adapted into an entire movie But I liked it regardless. The movie is a ridiculous B-Movie, a cash-in version of Nightmare. And Craven absolutely plays up the B-movie nature of it. Stuff like the cop massacre or pre-execution attack was great. There is a ridiculous extended fight/chase scene that goes from our hero being shot at in his home to tackling a little girl in the park, and it's a delight. I think the main thing I learned from this is that truly good Craven is really defined by having a good protagonist. People Under the Stairs, Scream, and Nightmare are elevated by having very compelling heroes. Peter Berg's Jonathan is such an odd character. He's pretty boring, but has an action movie level proactive nature that is a bit at odds at being in a horror movie. The aforementioned trilogy of great Craven films all have reluctant heroes who end up saving the day and making their stands against the baddies whereas Jonathan is setting up police stings in the first twenty minutes. But there is also something in Berg's delivery that is bizarre and we get weird moments of him being scared of his ghost girlfriend who he already knows is a ghost and was pretty chill with earlier in the movie. I think if it was just a tight 85 minutes, this would be the perfect movie to throw on at a party, but the length really holds it back from being a classic bad movie. /5
Timeless Appeal fucked around with this message at 04:21 on Oct 5, 2021 |
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Oct 5, 2021 03:16
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Gripweed posted:
With some creative editing, you could turn VHS 1, 2, and Viral into one amazing anthology horror movie. I will be using my Shudder free trial to watch the latest though. Anyway 4) Malignant Watched On: HBO Max Wow… that was… certainly a movie. My friend asked me a month ago if I saw the trailer for Malignant and I told him I’m burnt out on James Wan. And I say this as someone who enjoyed Insidious 1/Insidious 2/The Conjuring. Malignant definitely broke the mold and left me guessing what the twist was going to be. The villain wears black gloves like they’re in a giallo movie and a trench coat like they’re in an early 2000s Matrix ripoff (including bad techno butt rock). Go see Malignant if you want a wild ride. Oh yeah trigger warning, the climax of the movie features EXTREME violence towards women. So I guess it has that giallo influence too?
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Oct 5, 2021 03:28
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Cell (2016) A corrupted cell phone signals turn people into "zombies". Starring John Cusack and Samuel L. Jackson. Based on the novel by Stephen King. I can't. I just can't. This is god awful. It took all my strength to finish this piece of crap. If I had seen this in a theater, I would've walked out before it finished and asked for a money back. I watched this for free on Tubi, and still feel like someone owes me a refund. 0. Just a 0 rating. 1. Final Exam (1981) 2. Snowbeast (1977) 3. Suburban Gothic (2014) 4. Pledge Night (1990) 5. Without Warning (1980) 6. Death Machine (1994) 7. Cell (2016)
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Oct 5, 2021 03:36
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Davros1 posted:Cell (2016) John Cusack has been in sooo much direct to video garbage in the last 10 years it’s pretty sad
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Oct 5, 2021 03:45
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 9) Uncle Peckerhead - 2020 - Prime An indie band acquires a roadie who's more than he seems. I thought this one was a lot of fun. It brought back memories of when a boyfriend in my teen years was determined to make it in music. No, he did not. Uncle Peckerhead for the most part is human save for a 13 minute window starting at midnight where he turns into a flesh eating creature. When the band's van gets repossessed, they pass around fliers to borrow a van to be able to go on tour. That's how they meet Uncle Peckerhead, who's living out of his van and offers to drive and be roadie for them. The band was pretty believable, even down to the stoner ignoring the creditors calling leading to the repo, them quitting their jobs to just do music, and that one person being music dictator when it comes to what gets played while on the road. Even their being okay with Uncle Peckerhead's killing people when it benefits them until it doesn't fits going from some musicians I used to know. The film's pretty goopy at times, but considering it opens with a bloody savaged corpse, you'd expect there better be some goopy. Ending is a bit abrupt, but it does work. Overall, worth a watch.  10) Wacko - 1982 - Prime This one's another early horror spoof like Student Bodies. It opens with some teens getting killed by a slasher on the way to the Halloween Pumpkin Prom, then it goes 13 years later where a detective and the sister of one of the earlier victims being certain the killer will return. The humor here's wild like in Airplane!, and some of it hasn't aged well for modern times which happens for any comedies over the years. This film would fit fine in any early horror spoof marathon. I did like this one, but I like Student Bodies more. M_Sinistrari fucked around with this message at 04:03 on Oct 5, 2021 |
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Oct 5, 2021 03:58
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3. Velocipastor (new)- A priest questioning his faith after his parent's death travels to China, and finds himself cursed with the ability to transform into a velociraptor. Pretty strong start, and lots of gags -for the most part they hit and it's a pretty funny movie. A few of the scenes start strong and fizzle a bit, but it never dwells on anything too long. I like that they used an actual costume, it was bad but pretty funny. Music video near the end was pretty solid too. Technically it's plenty adequate, no real issues to detract from things. By no means a good movie, but it's entertaining: it punches above it's (admittedly quite low) weight class. 2.25/5 4. Siren (2006)(new) - I think this one is based on the game Siren, not sure how much though. A writer's family moves to an island in Southern Japan - primarily for the two children's health. However, the villagers seem to be a bit distant, and have one rule: don't go outside when the siren sounds... Really good use of the color red - not sure if this may have been a reference to the game, but it worked well. The monsters weren't too scary when they did show up, not too much teeth - they did look pretty good though. There were a lot of scenes where things contradicted each other, and I thought that might just be unresolved - but the movie did end up tying all the details together - though it did have to play a powerful card to do so. The brother - seen throughout the movie with the sister, had died years earlier and had been her hallucination, as well the sirens. It's doesn't enough special stuff going on for a strong recommendation, but builds some good ambience and tension, and is decently interesting - so maybe a light recommendation for anybody looking for some slightly more obscure Japanese horror. 2.75/5 5. Vivarium - A young couple looking for a house decides to go on a tour of a house in a new development, and after momentarily losing sight of the agent, find they are unable to make their way out of the neighborhood - endlessly looping no matter which direction they travel in. Soon after, they find a baby in a box with the note that they will be released if he is raised. This is one of those where they never really make any mistakes - things were a little off at the beginning, but never seeming dangerous. This one was really good. Shows the cuckoo symbolism immediately and leans into it hard throughout. I'm a huge sucker for any sort of weird looping terrain, and this did a lot of fun stuff with it. The cinematography and lighting are really good, but the movie is extremely gripping and I hardly even noticed until some late scenes. The child was a great blend of hostile and innocent - never actually being threatening, hostile, or evil as an individual, but having a nature so inherently opposed to ours that he can thrive in that strange environment ultimately at the cost of the unwilling foster parents. Very thought provoking movie, we talked about it for a long while afterwards. Not a very happy movie, but definitely would recommend. 4/5 Prelude: vi: Jaws v: Gozu vi: Slither iii: Let the right one in ii: House on Haunted Hill i: Lair of the White Worm New watches: 1: The Pit and the Pendulum 2: Suspiria (2018) 3: Velocipastor 4: Siren (2006) 5: Vivarium Rewatches:
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Oct 5, 2021 04:05
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Underway on the kaiju part of my challenge. I started the Godzilla movies last month, hence the lack of Godzilla/Raids Again/Vs. Kong, and Rodan this month. What I've learned over the past two evenings is that it should be called the Mothraverse. 1. Mothra (1961, Archive.org) - A great heist film, with the heist in question being the two fairies off of infant island. There's a great adventure film here, reminiscent of Skull Island in Kong, with Mothra showing up at the end to save the day, at least from her perspective. 5/5 2. Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964, HBOMax) - Follows the Godzilla vs. Kong mold of clowns try to profit off of kaiju, get what they have coming, and also Godzilla shows up (, stumbles around, gets his rear end kicked by Mothra, gets his rear end kicked by the military, gets his rear end kicked by a literal baby). Once again a great film even without the kaiju, coupled with great miniature city destruction. The fight at the end does drag on a bit. 4/5 3. Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (1964, HBOMax) - Espionage thriller with a turncoat attempting to assassinate his nation's princess... who gets possessed by the last of the Venusians, floats away from her ship, and comes to prophecy the end of the Earth at the hands of King Ghidorah, who promptly gets his rear end beat by Baby Mothra (mostly). Ghidorah looks great and it's a big advancement in the series. 4/5 4. Invasion of the Astro-Monster (1965, HBOMax) - Alien attack plus Godzilla. Astronauts visiting Planet X encounter Ghidorah on a rampage there, and request Godzilla and Rodan to deal with him. They then show up on Earth with the three mind-controlled kaiju and demand surrender. 2/5
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Oct 5, 2021 04:18
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#4. Psycho Goreman An evil universe-conquering alien warlord is imprisoned on Earth, where countless eons later, he is discovered by a brother and sister. The sister swiped a gem from his prison that gives her power over him, so she forces him to do her bidding instead of destroying the world. He's not happy about this, but things get worse when the aliens who imprisoned him discover he's awake, and they're not really good guys either. This film was clearly made with a lot of love- there's a lot of nostalgia for tokusatsu, monster movies, gore, etc., all blended together with cartoonish gallows humor. The thing really holding it together is Nita-Josée Hanna as young Mimi, who is selfish and arrogant in the way kids that age tend to be. She's always convincing and never irritating. I also like Adam Brooks as the extremely useless father. There seems to be a theme of loving people despite their obvious flaws. It's funny, there are lots of cool monster designs and goopy prosthetics (I especially love the creature that's just a giant tub full of gore and bones), and the film even has its own equivalent of Calvinball. It's fun stuff, not great but entertaining.
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Oct 5, 2021 04:30
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The journey continues... 11 (17). Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (Producer’s Cut) (1995) Directed by Joe Chappelle; Written by Daniel Farrands An Amazon Prime Rental Hooptober Ocho 9/39: 4/8 decades A movie I’ve seen many times but a truly first time viewing this time because I finally watched the Producer’s Cut. Matter of fact, i watched this twice because it had been long enough that I wasn’t super confident about what the Producer’s Cut does differently but they really do feel like completely different movies. Its amazing what a difference just the soundtrack makes. The Theatrical cut feels like any generic horror film. Michael is looming about and Loomis is there but there’s none of that Halloween feel. But the Producer’s Cut uses that classic Carpenter synthesizer and it makes all the difference. It entirely changes the tension and tone of the film and makes this fit into the bigger whole in a way the Theatrical version doesn’t. It also just adds an energy to film that otherwise feels a little drab. But you hear that theme and you perk up. Or at least I do. And more than that its cut differently, faster, less of a focus on what’s lurking in the shadows and more of a shift towards the era of jump scare, added sound effects, odd swipe effects. “MTV”. That being said, the Producer’s Cut is a better film but its still not a great one. I don’t mind the Curse of Thorn stuff. I like druid cult witchcraft and demon stuff. And its a fitting enough explanation for what Michael is and why he does what he does. But the question does exist of whether explaining Michael is a good idea at all. He’s the Boogeyman. Does the Boogeyman still work the same if you know his origin and secrets? Lets be fair, we often do. We know Jason’s. We know Candyman’s. We know Freddy’s. I think the idea that you can’t explain Michael for fear that its sacrosanct or something is a little arbitrary, but at the same time you do have to weigh if it adds more than it takes away. I don’t know. Michael was already a person with a name and a family. I do like the cult, but I dunno. It doesn’t deliver enough to feel totally worth it. It may not be a bad idea, but its an unfinished idea. Also Paul Rudd is weird. That’s probably not his fault. He did Clueless the same year and as best as I can remember was pretty Paul Ruddy at the time. He’s obviously a charismatic star but he’s such a wooden, weird dude here. Obviously that’s deliberate but it doesn’t work at all. I like the ideas behind him. A link back to the original film that could continue on in the role Loomis served, but also one who like Laurie and Jamie had been terrorized by Michael. Those links and characters are a big part of what makes Halloween Halloween. It just doesn’t work. It sounds like scenes got cut and maybe they flesh him out more but I just don’t think Rudd was quite equipped to play that role. And a messy film doesn’t help. Obviously this film is a deeply troubled production. Two versions that feel significantly different and yet there was also allegedly a lot from the original script left on the floor and rewritten. Its kind of impossible to say if this would have worked with a different director or less pressure from the studio. Or if they hadn’t tested it to “a theater of 14 year old boys” and changed the entire thing based on their opinions. Or if they had just paid Danielle Harris a decent fee to return. That one feels like a small thing in terms of the overall quality of the film but it does feel like its emblematic of the problem of a movie compromised between some kind of vision and a studio’s monetary demands and market reported ideas. But the Producer’s Cut is a small revelation to me because it at least feels like it fits. Its the least of the proper Halloween films. The ones that feel like Hadonfield and Loomis and Laurie and Jamie. The ones that feel like Halloween. But it does feel like those things. I enjoyed this fresh watch for me and I think I’m gonna have to buy a copy the next time I feel like doing a marathon. Having rewatched the Theatrical version after the Producer’s its just night and day for me. Maybe not a good movie, but definitely a better one.  - (18). Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998) Directed by Steve Miner; Screenplay by Robert Zappia and Matt Greenberg; Story by Kevin Williamson Watched on AMC+ HalloweeNIT 4/31 The Michael/Laurie stuff is good. In particular that moment when they’re face to face for the first time in 20 years and you can see them both processing it is one of the most memorable moments of the franchise to me. And there’s something solid about the idea of Laurie going into hiding, being traumatized by things, and choosing to fight back. I think its done better the 2018 film… and Scream 3… but its a solid idea both as a continuation for Laurie’s story and a way to possibly deal with the events of 4-6. I mean sure, it doesn’t exactly explain why she would have abandoned Jamie but she’s clearly messed up enough that its something you can kind of accept as a character flaw. But the film just skips that stuff so its moot. The problem is this good/interesting stuff is actually a relatively small part of the movie. Things take a real long time (in the words of a friend) dawdling about. The extra characters in this thing don’t matter at all. None of them factor into the end game. Adam Arkin being the guy Laurie confides in or Josh Hartnet being her son who is the same age she and her sister were as some kind of beacon for Michael are potentially interesting ideas but the movie doesn’t actually do anything with them. They happen and we move on. And everyone is gotten rid of (one way or another) for that final confrontation between the two characters who actually matter. And that could have been ok if it happened earlier in the film but everything feels kind of rushed from that point on. Like we needed to spend all that time with Hartney and Michelle Williams flirting just so they could not be in the finale. Did we? And I’ll admit it, I hate Kevin Williamson. He’s the ghost writer here even though he’s not in the credits, and that’s no surprise to anyone familiar with his stuff. Its his story idea, he did rewrites, he wrote dialogue, he crafted the final resolution. This is very much his film and it feels like it is. That stuff that I said felt unnecessary and disconnected? It feels like Michael and Laurie just wandered into Dawson’s Creek. And honestly, that’s a movie I’d watch. And for as much as the Laurie story KINDA works once you think about it its pretty obvious that this story would make more sense if it was Sydney Prescott. At the time i hated this film because it felt like more of the same. The Williamson Era of horror with pretty young Hollywood in generic slashers that all sound and feel the same. The franchise and characters I love had just kind of been squeezed in to sell another one, but no real effort was made to really match it up. In hindsight, years since I can even remember the elements of I Know What You Did Last Summer, I don’t hate it but I don’t really like it either. There’s good stuff there with JLC but this doesn’t feel like a Halloween movie. Even III feels like a Halloween movie. But H20 changes the setting, changes the soundtrack, changes the flow. Instead of Williamson writing a Halloween movie he wrote Halloween into one of his movies. Its not a bad movie, but its not very good either and its truly the moment where Carpenter’s original vision kind of dies and the franchise just becomes another brand to remake.  - (19). Halloween: Resurrection (2002) Directed by Rick Rosenthal; Screenplay by Larry Brand and Sean Hood Watched on AMC+ ”We’re gonna be bigger than the Osbournes. We’re gonna be large.” I hate this movie. I love Halloween but this really isn’t a Halloween movie. It has Michael and it does Laurie dirty and that’s kind of it. Has none of the feel, none of the vibe, no interest in a link of any kind. Its just a generic slasher that ages terribly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Busta Rhymes fights Michael and that’s fun. But that doesn’t age too great either considering Busta’s stuff. Everything about this from the music to the cast to the early internet stuff to the reality tv stuff just feels like so lame and bad. And like its just not bad aging, its just a lazy, bad sequel cash in. Say what you will about the others but they at least try to connect back and have some kind of purpose. I know people who kinda like this and they do for the reasons I dislike it. Because it cares so little about being a Halloween movie and because its just a stupid, generic slasher there to kill some young pretty people. Halloween was never really about that. It veers a little more or less in sequels but its actually got a core story and characters and stuff. Not this. Its just a cynical, cheap, dumb, bad movie. I mean… consider this. The hook for why Busta Rhymes casts the final girl in his show is because of her scream. But the actress couldn’t actually scream and had to have them dubbed in. So like… why cast her? And why make that a plot point? Why make a think of the main character’s screaming when you can never have her scream on camera? And the answer is clearly because someone did a first pass on all of this and didn’t make any more effort. They even go into the Myers home without in any way capturing any of that Haddonfield Halloween feel. It doesn’t even feel like autumn. And why can’t they get out? Its a house that’s been abandoned for like 40 years. There’s windows everywhere. You could probably punch through a wall at this stage. Also the main girl has reception on her palm pilot but only calls for help through the web cams. Also she has a palm pilot. I hate this movie. The only good thing I can say about it is that by the time you’re done its well and truly killed any lingering enthusiasm you had to the franchise. The franchise i love. 🎃Halloween 2021: Hooptober Ocho and Spook-a-Doodle HalloweeNIT ’21🎃 Hooptober Ocho: 9/39; HalloweeNIT: 4/31; Fran Challenges: 0/??; Svengoolie: 0/26 Watched - New (Total) 1. The Funhouse (1981); 2. Elvira, Mistress of the Dark (1988); 3. Eden Lake (2008); - (4). Halloween (1978); - (5). The Purge (2013); 4 (6). The Company of Wolves (1984); 5 (7). Kiss of the Damned (2012); - (8). Halloween II (1981); 6 (9). Malignant (2021); 7 (10). The Vatican Tapes (2015); 8 (11). Hard Labor aka Trabalhar Cansa (2011); 9 (12). Alice aka Něco z Alenky (1988); - (13). Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982); - (14). Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988); - (15). Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989); 10 (16). Room 237 (2012); 11 (17). Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (Producer’s Cut) (1995); - (18). Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998); - (19). Halloween: Resurrection (2002);
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Oct 5, 2021 04:40
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I'm terrible at reviews or critique, so I'm going to just give impressions of the movies my wife and I watch this month. We do a 31 movie run every year, so my challenge will just be writing something about them. Here's the first seven (I watched three without her): 1) The Hills Have Eyes (1977) [solo view] - Oddly, I had never seen this before. It's a very messy movie. The editing is pretty bad, the sound is pretty bad, the acting is pretty bad. Still, it has charm. The creepy cannibal family in the desert thing is frightening. Unfortunately the family members come off as more goofy than scary (other than the murder, rape, and cannibalism). Ended up being more horrified by the casual n-bomb thrown in by the cop-dad than anything else. 2) Resurrection (1999) [solo view] - Imagine you watched Se7en. Imagine you were a bad screenwriter. Imagine you believed you could do better. Imagine you are Christopher Lambert. Congrats, you just wrote and starred in Resurrection. What we have here is a thriller about a serial killer who takes parts of his victims in order to build a Jesus golem. Lambert plays a tough-guy cop who recently moved from N'awlins to Chicago and also lost his son. He doesn't talk to his wife and has lost his religion. David Cronenberg is his priest. Anyway, this killer starts taking a limb here, a head there and leaving "clever" clues as to where the next body can be found. Lambert and his partner (Leland Orser who, by the by, was in Se7en - played the guy who hosed the prostitute to death with knife strap-on) spin their wheels for a bit until something happens that makes it personal to Lambert. The killer is then revealed in an unsurprisingly telegraphed twist and then Lambert shoots the baddy on a roof and catches a newborn baby by the feet in one of the most laugh-out-loud feelgood endings of a movie I've ever seen. Seriously - this movie sucks but that scene makes it totally worth it. It's like a 1 1/2 hour build up to this ridiculous punch-line. Anyway, the direction is pretty horrible in that late '90's way that these movies all had. Swooping camera movements for no reason, awful distortion filters on the images, bad lighting, etc. Oh yeah, I forgot that these homicide cops from Chicago get sick from seeing a beheaded body and the aforementioned Jesus golem. I mean, it's Chicago in the late '90's. I'm sure they've seen some horrible poo poo. 3) His House (2020) - This is good. It's about the horrors of guilt and war. A refugee family from Sudan escape to to England, losing someone on the way. Given a house to move into, strange things start happening causing Bol and Rial to believe that the house is haunted by a night-witch. The direction is really effective at giving a feeling of isolation. Unfortunately it leans a little hard on jump-scares which will never not annoy me. Ultimately I think I'd be more interested in a straight drama using the premise instead of turning it into a spook movie. Still, worth a watch - the parts that take place in Sudan are loving heartbreaking. 4) The Bird With the Crystal Plumage (1970) - Neither my wife nor I had ever seen this. We're no strangers to giallo in general or Argento specifically so we were fairly prepared for what we were going to see. To be honest, this was less a thriller/horror and more a comedy/horror. An American in Rome sees a woman being attacked by a man in a gallery and saves her. Multiple other homicides have happened recently, leading the cops to think there's a serial killer about. At first, thought to be a suspect, our hero, Sam, suddenly becomes an unofficial cop helping to find the killer. He gathers evidence, gets attacked by an ex-boxer(?), gets friendly with a jailed pimp, visits a cat-eating artist and starts loving his girlfriend in front of his friend. The titular bird makes an appearance for all of 20 seconds and then we learn who the killer really was. I dug it. Wife dug it. 5) Halloween II - Directors Cut (2009) [solo view] - I watched this alone because my wife hasn't seen the Zombie H1 yet. I remember reviewers panning this pretty badly when it came out. I thought it wasn't bad at all. The actress playing Laurie Strode did a really good job of seeming emotionally hosed from the PTSD of tussling with Michael Myers. I'd watch Brad Dourif read a cereal box. The Loomis side-story was pretty lame and pointless. Rob needs to tell Sheri Moon to eat a sandwich or something. She looks terribly unhealthy. The horse poo poo was stupid. Michael stomping that one dudes face in was fun. Overall, it was pretty bleak and nihilistic but still a fun watch. Zombie is such a weird director, man. He knows his poo poo, gets some great shots and good performances, but his movies always feel slightly hollow to me. They're missing something which I can't articulate well enough to put down. I think it comes down to the writing. I wish he'd direct someone else's script for once. 6) Possession (1981) - What the gently caress did we watch? This poo poo was just nuts. Isabelle Adjani puts in some loving work. Heinrich is kinda a pimp. I know my wife is going to start saying, "almost, almost" the next time we get busy just to gently caress with me. Recommended I think. 7) The Blair Witch Project (1999) - My wife had never seen it and wanted to check it out. So, the first time I ever saw this was when I was given two CDrs by a dude I knew who somehow got it like 6 months before it was even shown at Sundance. There was no marketing yet and he handed it to me and was like, "I dunno if this is real or not but it's pretty creepy". So I watched it in my basement on my computer a 2AM with headphones stoned as hell. It was also a different edit than the one that came out later. The interviews with the locals were different. The two fisherman weren't in it, which they should have kept out because they don't sell their interview at all. There were other minor changes that I don't recall but I do know that I liked that version better. Anyway, my wife was like, "oh that's it?" and I said "yep" and then we turned off the TV. Oldstench fucked around with this message at 17:26 on Oct 8, 2021 |
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Oct 5, 2021 04:40
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Hell House LLC This is a very standard found footage: low budget, poorly acted, nonsensical at times, with some okay effective scares. Breaks no new ground, but it's a decent, mindless way to spend your time if you don't think too hard. I think I came across this recommended from the last thread and I don't know why. It feels utterly unremarkable. 2.5/5
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Oct 5, 2021 04:49
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