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#16. The Monster Club Bingo Challenge: Origin of Evil (Film was released in 1981, though the copyright date is 1980.) A vampire (Vincent Price) bites the neck of a horror author (John Carradine) and, by way of making it up to him, invites him to the Monster Club, a night spot full of monsters and people in monster masks and also early 80s British rock bands. While there we see a few mostly-comedic stories about monsters of various kinds, according to a genealogy full of funny names. The first involves a woman who takes a job working for a reclusive wealthy man with a sinister background- she's there to help her boyfriend plan to steal things, but she starts to feel pangs of conscience over her employer's lonely existence. The second is about a boy whose father is a vampire. The final one's about a movie producer who goes location scouting to a remote English village. Director Roy Ward Baker has some really good genre films in his credits, including Quatermass and the Pit, but he stumbles here with a tone that moves into "wacky as all get out" without much wit or creativity. Take the first story; the reclusive man is supposed to be so ugly that the woman, on first getting a good look from him, runs from the house, and he talks later about not going out or needing to wear a mask in public, but... he's just a guy. The makeup gives him dark circles around his eyes but that's it, he has no deformities or weird exaggerated features, at worst he looks like a member of Parliament. The vampire segment plays like a sitcom (and saying the kid's father is a vampire isn't a spoiler at all, the film loves to telegraph any twists it might have), and while the third segment is by far the strongest and most atmospheric, it's also let down by poor physical acting and a very predictable ending. There are multiple musical numbers here, all presented in full, and while the songs aren't bad, they're like the musical guest on SNL, not why any of us are here. (Still I do like the opener, titled "Monsters Rule OK.") There's just an odd feeling throughout that nobody was pushed to try very hard because it's a comedy and serious British horror was pretty dead by this point. (Hell, the British film industry was basically on life support.) For all the above, there's fun to be had, mostly from Price, who at the end gives a wonderful speech about how the Monster Club should admit humans because they've committed more atrocities than he can name. The third segment also features some really good art by British comic artist John Bolton. It might be good for one watch, it looks nice, the music's fun, it's just a trifle really.
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Oct 16, 2021 07:16
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08. V/H/S (2012) (rewatch) Fran's Challenge: none, it's a rewatch  Revisiting this anthology series from around the time I started to get seriously into horror movies. The first one, moreso than any of the sequels, really leans into the grimey nastiness of it, there's a real feeling of should I be watching this? It's... basically exactly how I remember it. There's some crap here, but enough good and memorable parts to smooth it all over. Story by story: -Tape 56 It's the frame. A pack of dirtbags break into a house and search through unmarked tapes til they get their comeuppance. There's some nerve-wracking moments, but it's impossible to build tension when you have to take 20-minute breaks over and over. It doesn't get in the way, I guess. -Amateur Night A group of guys - basically the same people as the frame story, but with more money - try to take home a different sort of predator. This is probably the most rounded, cohesive short; makes sense they'd put it first. There's an interesting side to this where the guy filming is just kinda letting himself be pushed forward by his friends, and this carries over to the whole filming of the thing; they've convinced him to wear glasses with a hidden camera. He's not leading, but is interested enough to see where this goes, not unlike the audience. I think they made a full movie based on this short, but honestly I'm happy with what I got here. -Second Honeymoon A couple take a roadtrip across the American West, and also make a home movie of it; unknown to them, someone is stealing their camera and then returning it every night. A slow burn (which is saying something, given that it's like 15 minutes). Honestly, having the villain taking control of the camera every now and then is a really novel idea. -Tuesday the 17th Some kids at a -The Sick Thing That Happened to Emily When She Was Younger Over Skype, a woman enlists her boyfriend's help in investigating some ghosts in her house. This one's pretty decent, with the slow reveal of exactly how their relationship works; the central question of "why is someone recording this?" actually plays into the twist, which turns the whole thing from a domestic conversation into archival medical footage being recorded by aliens??. Messy, but there's a good idea in there. -10/31/98 Some guys get lost while looking for a Halloween party, and wind up stumbling into a Satanic ritual in an actual haunted house. This one has no real theme and hardly any plot; it's just a good time with the boys, who spend most of the short unaware that they're even in danger. It takes advantage of the format to get away with cheap CGI that wouldn't work in a decent resolution, it's great. Basically a fun capstone on a bunch of unsettling stories. 09. V/H/S/2 (2013) (rewatch) Fran's Challenge: none, rewatch  The second one is more varied in tone and theme, even though it has one fewer short. It moves away from the central idea of the first one, being Stuff You Should Not Watch, towards more generic horror movies, and the found-footage aspect feels more gimmicky. The shorts themselves are about as good as those of the original, but the whole thing is weaker. Anyway, -Tape 49 Almost the same as Tape 56, but with less memorable characters. I don't know if it's possible for one of these things to be good. The breaks are short. -Phase I Clinical Trials A man with a robotic eye implant begins to see ghosts. Eh, it's a fun idea, but I prefer the grounded scenarios of some dude with a camera. The ghosts are genuinely creepy, and the ending is sharp and bloody. This one just doesn't make much of an impression on me, I guess. -A Ride in the Park Zombie with a GoPro. How did this end up on VHS? Ah, who cares. It's straightforward and fun; no explanation, no world-ending consequences, just some people having a bad day in the woods. There is a surprising amount of pathos to it, and it's quite effective at characterising the PoV zombie, which is impressive considering you barely see him. -Safe Haven The obvious standout. A news crew choose to do a report on an Indonesian doomsday cult, and they happen to do this on the day The Plan goes into action. A very fast-paced action-horror; it starts, it builds mood, it all goes to hell, and it ends on a pretty good joke. I could very happily watch a feature-length version of this thing. -Slumber Party Alien Abduction Exactly what it says on the tin. Nothing special. Basically the first half is the little brother+friends exchanging mean-rear end pranks with the older sister+friends, and then the second-half is a bunch of aliens playing the same prank over and over on all of them. It's repetitive, and difficult to tell exactly what's going on. There are a few concrete developments in the second half, like the cops showing up and getting deleted, but it's mostly just the aliens hitting the kids with floodlights and airhorns, over and over. It's not quite nasty enough to fit in with the rest of the shorts. 10. V/H/S: Viral (2014) (rewatch) Just kidding, there's no way I'm watching that piece of poo poo again. 10. V/H/S/94 (2021) Fran's Challenge: [REC]  I thought it was tight, a real return to form. It's got that ugliness to it, that sense that the world's all hosed up around the edges. I'm glad they were able to bring it back. It still doesn't have the cohesiveness of Part 1, but the quality from short to short was higher. -Holy Hell At this point, I would be scared and confused if someone made a good frame story for one of these. This one, at least, features characters who are all worked up and decisive, instead of just wandering around. They're pumped to get to the next short, they're eager. This one does a decent job of getting you creeped out, and only goes to poo poo right at the end, which I appreciate. Oh, I forgot, it's about cops raiding a stash house where people test out the evil videotapes, or something. -Storm Drain An investigative reporter (and a cameraman) venture into the sewers to do a story on some sort of rat-thing. This one was alright. It does a good job of building up the tension, and then it sort of just skips to the climax. I know it's a short in an anthology, but the ending just felt too sudden. Still, it's a ridiculous premise, and I guess it could have easily come off as absurd if they belaboured it too much. Loved the epilogue, too. -The Empty Wake It's a dark and stormy night, and Hailey has nothing to do but sit around at an unattended wake and wonder where that knocking sound is coming from. I really liked this one; they give it some room to breathe and let your imagination run wild, and the conclusion was a lot of fun. It's refreshing to see something that generates tension at such a small scale: basically three characters and one room. Sort of like A Ride in the Park in that regard. -The Subject A mad scientist, as viewed by one of his creations. By the same guy who directed Safe Haven. Honestly, this was the low point of the movie (frame doesn't count); I didn't hate it, but it fell short of the others. It went on over-long, and felt like it was just wandering about. I liked the build-up as you wonder what the hell Subject 99 looks like, and I thought the payoff was well-done, but otherwise it felt like watching someone else play a game. -Terror A rural white supremacist militia plans an attack using supernatural tools. This was the standout for me; it really felt like a home movie, and the routineness of what the guys are doing (mixed with how weird and incomprehensible it is) really worked well for me. The final sequence was kind of half-baked, but overall it was interesting and unique. 
Kazzah fucked around with this message at 01:35 on Oct 29, 2021 |
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Oct 16, 2021 08:19
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21. Scream (1996) Watched On: Blu-ray I debated whether I was going to save Scream for closer to the new movie or put it in my October rotation like usual, then I thought to myself, "Why does it have to be one or the other?" so here we are. Still a favorite and still so much fun. I can say over the years I've grown to like the performances more and more over time and I always like looking to see if anything new will pop out rewatches. This go around the party scene prior to the climax might have been my favorite, especially so the moment that Randy is announcing that the principal was found dead while the Myer's House piano notes play in the background. Really the couple of parts that incorporate music from Halloween. Also, I just love Matthew Lillard all the way through Scream, what an actor. Also this go around as a collector of knives I really want to get a Buck 120 like the one Ghost Face uses and just put it in a little display case on my horror movie shelf.  22. Southbound (2015)  Watched On: Some Marathon Stream I Found I remember catching this one knowing very little about it a few years back and what a surprise it was. Two of my favorites, road movies and anthology movies come together for some rather unsettling stories and mystery. Each story flows into the next and has little references to the others sprinkled in. On top of it all the whole movie has an isolated or otherworldly feeling, like there's no world outside of what's happening immediatly to the characters. Even the characters that aren't our protagonists seem wrong in small or sometimes large ways. A movie like this can really set off anxieties of having a car break down and being stranded somewhere isolated at night, somewhere you don't know. Who can say what goes on in all those buildings in between civilization in the dark of night? TheKingslayer fucked around with this message at 09:26 on Oct 16, 2021 |
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Oct 16, 2021 08:47
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Guys, if you're going to post a more detailed review of Halloween Kills than "it good, Michael stabs people" can you please put it in spoiler space?
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Oct 16, 2021 09:49
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15: The Beasterbunny (2014) Holiday Massacre: Easter Lazy and miserably unfunny. They used a computer graphic of a mound of earth because piling up a mound of real earth would have been too much effort. No entertainment here, not even to laugh at. Worthless shite. 16: Bride of Chucky (1998)  They always come back This is more like it, here's some fun trash. Chucky is brought back, again, this time by an ex girlfriend. He turns her into a doll. highjinks ensue. Jennifer Tilly and Brad Dourif are great together. The human characters are ok I guess. It's more comedic than earlier films and once or twice it gets a little too self-aware, but mostly the humour lands for me. Total: 16 Q the Winged Serpent; Zombieland Double Tap; Saint Maud; A Chinese Ghost Story; Halloween 4; Halloween 5; Gamera VS Viras; Saw 3; Boar; Crash (1996); Vampyr; The Wailing; The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism; Enemy; The Beasterbunny; Bride of Chucky 
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Oct 16, 2021 11:08
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28. Ginger Snaps (2000) (rewatch) A personal favorite. I've even seen it as a midnight movie. The movie follows two sisters who have a morbid fascination with death. The older sister gets her first period on the night of a full moon, which naturally attracts a werewolf that bites her. Her transformation into a werewolf is used as a metaphor for puberty and her budding sexuality. The pace is great here, with a kind of race against the clock element as the younger sister tries to find a cure before the next full moon on Halloween. The momentum builds throughout the entire movie as the situation escalates and the older sister starts losing more and more control of herself. The relationship between the sisters is wonderful and very believable. There are also some nice bits of make-up and practical effects. Highly recommended. (SPOOKY Bingo: I realized after typing this up that I can't use Ginger Snaps because I've already seen. However, I highly recommend the movie. This one checks off "Femme Fatale" for feminist themes such as sisterhood, puberty/menstruation, female empowerment, strong female protagonists, etc. Googling "Ginger Snaps feminist" brings up tons of great analysis--I even found a few academic articles!) 29. Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed (2004) (first viewing) I've been wary of checking out this sequel because Ginger Snaps feels like such a complete story by itself. I won't go into the plot too much because it requires full knowledge of the plot of the first movie. Basically it's a chase movie with a werewolf stalking the characters. This sequel is watchable but unnecessary. It doesn't further the themes and metaphors of the first movie, and the strong relationship between the sisters is lacking. Instead, there is a little more focus on werewolf kills, gore, etc. Probably only of interest to satisfy the curiosity of fans of the original. SPOOKY Bingo: This one checks off "Full Moon." 30. Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning (2004) (first viewing) I've also been wary of this one. In a somewhat baffling decision, the filmmakers set a prequel in 1815. It follows ancestors of the two sisters who: are portrayed by the same actresses; have the same names; and have very similar personalities and a similar relationship. After the death of their parents, the sisters are left alone to travel alone become lost. They stumble upon and are taken in at a fort occupied by a group of traders. They soon learn that the fort has been under a prolonged siege by a group of werewolves. This one also fails to elaborate on the original' themes, but does have more of the relationship between the sisters. As with the sequel, nothing much to see here. SPOOKY Bingo: This one checks off "Picnic at Hanging Rock." Next up: Hopefully several more films to progress the bingo card, although I have not nailed down my itinerary quite yet.
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Oct 16, 2021 11:24
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 18)The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser or Every Man for Himself and God Against All 1974 tubi. *spooky bingo picnic at hanging rock* Werner Herzog taking on the strange true story of a boy who appeared out of nowhere, possibly escaped from a dungeon, who knew practically nothing of the world and was kept, and is still sometimes attacked by, a mysterious man in black. It really happened. In 1828. It's a weird story. You should read up on it. Herzog decided to cast the 16 year old boy with an actor in his mid forties. It is a choice. I'm glad this category was called picnic at hanging rock, as that's a film it reminds me a lot of. A little bit of Valerie and her week of wonders too, though without the explicit supernatural bits. Even a smidge of herzog's later nosferatu. It's definitely a weird movie. It's not a thriller or straight horror, but it does have a very ominous vibe over the proceedings as Kaspar is taken in and educated by the town, becoming a bit of a minor celebrity. besides the opening bit with Kaspar being taken to the town, Herzog doesn't seem particularly interested in any of the theories surrounding the mystery boy, just showing this outsider weirdo clash with nineteenth century society, and deliberately ignoring the darker undertones. In that case it's really sort of the aftermath of a horror movie.  .5/5 
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Oct 16, 2021 12:50
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HalloweeNIT #23 In Dreams - 2.5/5 I checked the box office receipts after watching this, and I wasn’t surprised to find out that it was a flop. Not that I think it’s less than mediocre, it just has the feel of something that had too much money spent on it. Nice production values, but the story is rather simple and was not that interesting to me. Gets to be a slog during act two as Annette Bening’s character goes increasingly crazy. HalloweeNIT #24 The Vault of Horror - 3/5 Has the same problem that the 1972 Tales from the Crypt does of adapting stories that are rather simple without the heavy narration of the original comics. So the segments feel weirdly silent and insubstantial, almost dreamlike. My favorite segment was the second with the neat freak, my least favorite the fourth with the faked death. The scariest thing in the film is Tom Baker’s beard, which is truly hideous.
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Oct 16, 2021 15:27
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hey here’s a Movies Anywhere code for the 2018 Halloween, please only take it if you intend to watch it for this challenge or I will haunt u. Also let me know when you redeem so I can edit this post UU1XN1S83YPX1DE4
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Oct 16, 2021 16:43
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13) Woe (2020) This had an interesting premise, but they spun their wheels for 90 minutes and didn't do anything with it. 2/5 14) Angel (1984) BINGO: Scream, Queen! There's a lot to like about this movie. Everything about it is completely unbelievable, but it's fun and the performances are very lovable. I'm putting this under the "Scream, Queen!" category because Dick Shawn's trans woman character Mae is one of the highlights of the film and really presents a trans character in a more in depth way than you usually see in the 80s. 3.5/5 15) The Blair Witch Project (1999) BINGO: [REC] I hadn't seen this since I saw it in theaters, and since that was 22 years ago, I'm counting this as a fresh watch. I really didn't remember anything about it. The cast really acted the poo poo out of this movie, and the emotional breakdowns really feel... real. I'm surprised how much I enjoyed it! 4/5 16) Maniac (2012) One of my favorite movies, which I like even more than the original. Elijah Wood just absolutely disappears into the role of Frank, and it's one of the most disturbing movies I know. My wife is deathly afraid of mannequins and agreed to watch it with me this year, so that was fun for both of us. 5/5 17) The Devil's Advocate (1997) BINGO: The Devil Made Me Do It The acting in this film is much better than I expected. It's weird, I thought I knew all about this movie through cultural osmosis, but I was still really hooked. 4/5 18) Night of the Demons (1988) BINGO: Punk Vacation It's exactly what you want from an 80s horror movie. Cheesy, schlocky, fun makeup effects, and good pacing. It's a great way to spend 90 minutes. And it features some really cheesy 80s punk stuff. 3.5/5 19) Resident Evil (2002) BINGO: Video Games Cause Violence This was awful. Absolutely awful. I want to give a swirlie to everyone who gave this a halfway decent review. Maybe back in 2002 I would have given it more of a pass, but considering how theatrical games like RE7 and RE8 are, there's no excuse for this existing. Garbage. 1/5 20) Let's Scare Jessica to Death (1971) There's something really intriguing about this movie. I think part of that is the title. You've drawn in expecting, well, exactly what the title implies, but... you're taken on this journey of so much more. Of waiting for some pivotal moment for 90 minutes. And it's a wonderful ride. 3/5 21) Razorback (1984) BINGO: Wild Beasts Yeah, I think 3.5 out of 5 is a fair score for this. It's definitely a killer animal movie. There's interesting characters, there's tense action... nothing really blew me away but it was fine enough. 3.5/5 22) The Halloween Tree (1993) BINGO: As Seen On TV This was cute! It had a very TV-movie quality to it, but it was fun and cute and really I can't say anything to fault it for a children's cartoon. This premiered on ABC in 1993 so I'm counting is as a TV movie. 3/5  Total: 22 The Shining (1980) / The Devil's Rejects (2005) / Raw (2016) / Disturbing Behavior (1998) / Killer Klowns From Outer Space (1988) / Pumpkinhead (1988) / Videodrome (1983) / Candyman (2021) / Children of the Corn (1984) / The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) / V/H/S/94 (2021) / The Mutilator (1984) / Woe (2020) / Angel (1984) / The Blair Witch Project (1999) / Maniac (2012) / The Devil's Advocate (1997) / Night of the Demons (1988) / Resident Evil (2002) / Let's Scare Jessica to Death (1971) / Razorback (1984) / The Halloween Tree (1993) Count Thrashula fucked around with this message at 17:47 on Oct 16, 2021 |
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Oct 16, 2021 16:55
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This one could've worked for several different boxes on the bingo card, but the reason it piqued my interest is that it's based on a novel by Adam Nevill, so I'm going with that 14. No One Gets Out Alive (2021) (dir. Santiago Menghini) Netflix SPOOKY bingo: "Based on the Novel" Amber is an undocumented Mexican immigrant who moves to the US in search of a better life. She is bright and would’ve gone to college if she hadn’t stayed at home to take care of her dying mother, but instead she ends up working at a sweatshop in Cleveland until she can get forged documents and land a better career. Desperate for somewhere to stay but without documentation, she ends up at a sketchy women-only boarding house run by “Red”, a gruff white man who doesn’t seem entirely unsympathetic to her situation but also has no problem taking advantage of it. Right away she begins seeing and hearing strange things in the house, and soon finds out why no one stays there for long… This film is at its best when focusing on the experience of being poor and undocumented. Living without any legal protection or recourse if abused or victimized is scary, and Amber has no choice but to live in fear or not live at all. There are some cool and creepy scenes with ghosts early on, but as the film progresses it moves in a different direction and became less interesting to me. Much like The Ritual, another Netflix film based on a novel by Adam Nevill, this feature a cool and unique creature, but here the CGI is really obvious and kind of distracting. It’s a neat design but is otherwise kind of disappointing. It also starts to fall apart thematically towards the end. I did enjoy it well enough though, and I wouldn’t call it a bad film. It’s just an OK one that doesn’t live up to its potential. 3   out of 5Total: 14 Watched: Hellraiser | Hellbound: Hellraiser II | Jennifer's Body | The Lords of Salem | The Bride of Frankenstein | Motel Hell | V/H/S/94 | Scream of Fear | Evil Dead Trap | The Masque of the Red Death | The Lure | The House that Screamed | Trouble Every Day | No One Gets Out Alive 
gey muckle mowser fucked around with this message at 18:31 on Oct 16, 2021 |
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Oct 16, 2021 18:12
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 33. Mikey (1992) "Are you going to be my new mommy and daddy?" Have you seen The Stepfather? Same idea here, except it's an adopted kid who kills off his family and then gets adopted by a new one. Brian Bonsall (the kid from Blank Check) is surprisingly spooky as Mikey, the little psycho who snaps animals' necks and electrocutes anyone who won't give him what he wants. You do have to suspend your disbelief a little bit (he's 9, he's coming at you with a hammer... just kick his fuckin' head in, he's like 3 feet tall!) - but there are some gruesome moments that caught me off guard. Most unsettling stuff in the movie is the unhinged sexual content, the much older neighbor Mikey develops a crush on, who drinks beer and tells (again, 9 YEAR OLD) Mikey that he's a good kisser (more than once!!!). Not into that. I am however into Mikey's class chanting "MARBLE TIME! MARBLE TIME! MARBLE TIME!" like a deranged cult. Worth a watch. 3.5/5 -- Spooky Bingo: Don't Torture a Duckling 34. Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (1973) "Let's go spend some more of our husbands' money right away." Weird little made-for-TV movie where Sally and her husband inherit and move into a big old house that belonged to Sally's grandma. She finds a bricked up fireplace and despite the handyman warning her away, decides to unseal it because she wants to turn the hidden room into a little reading space. Unfortunately by opening the chimney, she has released some... uh, goblins? I don't know. They look like the Grinch but also like a bunch of walnuts. And they want to steal her spirit and make her one of them. And of course nobody believes her because these little Fraggle fuckers skitter away into the darkness any time she tries to show someone. It's light on scares and is a little slow, but there are some startling moments and a fun spooky ending. Apparently Guillermo del Toro produced a remake of this about ten years ago with Katie Holmes as the lead, I kinda want to check it out. 2.5/5 -- Spooky Bingo: As Seen on TVTotal Watched: 34 // 'New to Me' Total: 26/40 Years Complete: 1985, 1986, 1987, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2001, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2018, 2021 Current state of my Spooky Bingo card: 
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Oct 16, 2021 18:32
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MOVIE 11: SUSPIRIA (1977) Video Nasty  "Do you know anything about witches?" Man, I was not prepared for Suspiria. I don't know what expectations I had going in, but they did not come close to what I actually saw. Or maybe "experienced" or "endured" because Suspiria almost feels like an assault on the viewer at times. I watched the 4K Blu-ray with a Dolby Atmos soundtrack, and the experience was intense. Much like Demons, Suspiria leans heavily on colour. Many scenes are lit exclusively with coloured lights, the sets are garishly colourful, visually very complex and busy, and the camera angles are often inventive and even a bit disorienting. Layered on top of this is a bizarre soundtrack that almost feels like pure chaotic noise at times, played very loudly and from all possible speakers. The blood looks amazingly fake and has an almost orange colour, and they definitely had better blood technology back then, so it doesn't feel like a goof or bad production values. It feels like they're saying something, especially together with ... all the rest of it. I don't know for sure because I didn't look into it, but all of this feels intentional, like Dario Argento set out to overwhelm the viewer's senses from the start. It would also be interesting to watch the movie all over again more analytically, because the brightly coloured lights also seem to indicate certain things. Like in one scene while Sara is trying to talk to Suzy, who is mysteriously passing out every evening, the room is lit normally except for red lights highlighting Suzy's dinner trays, the contents of which were almost definitely laced with drugs or witch stuff. It would be easy to jump to some kind of "red light == witch stuff" conclusion, but there seems to be more to it than that. What does blue represent? Yellow? Individual witches in the coven? Something else? The overwhelming sensory assault was definitely a good choice, because it helps cover up for the fact that as a movie, Suspiria isn't amazing in many ways. The plot is almost nonsensical; a young American dancer arrives at a prestigious German dance academy, which turns out to be the hiding place of a coven of witches, who murder people in cartoonishly brutal and surreal ways. A lot of the actors wouldn't be that great to begin with, and then because Suspiria is an older Italian horror movie, they redubbed portions of it. Despite the actors obviously speaking English on film, a lot of the dialogue has been re-recorded after the fact quite poorly, and it just sounds like people fake screaming or whispering in some sterile recording studio with zero ... atmosphere? Like it hasn't been mixed properly. But again, that feels if not intentional, then at least like Dario Argento & co didn't give a poo poo, because Suspiria isn't that kind of movie. It's not a movie you watch for the clever plot, or for the amazing performances, and they probably knew that. It's a movie you watch if you want to live through a bizarre, dreamlike fantasy sequence that goes on for 100 minutes and come out the other way feeling like someone slapped you around violently the entire time. And that's cool. SCORE: 4 My October 2021 Movies: 1. Fear Street 1994, 2. His House, 3. Willy's Wonderland, 4. Halloween III, 5. Demons, 6. Werewolves Within, 7. No One Makes It Out Alive, 8. Shaun of the Dead, 9. Call of Cthulhu (Based on the Novel), 10. Friday the 13th 2009 (They Always Come Back), 11. Suspiria 1977 (Video Nasty) 
Shaman Tank Spec fucked around with this message at 18:47 on Oct 16, 2021 |
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Oct 16, 2021 18:39
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Shaman Tank Spec posted:"Do you know anything about witches?" 
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Oct 16, 2021 18:43
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SPOOKY Challenge: Based on the Novel #42) Cujo (1983; Blu-ray) Bitten by a bat, a normal St. Bernard dog acquires sensitivity to sunlight and sound, increased strength, and a thirst for blood! Also, a family has car trouble. Good sense of the family's relationships and the balance of power in their home, contrasted (briefly) with how it is with the mechanic's family. Respect to the kid actor; I'm sure conditions on the set were always controlled, but he does a great job of communicating being under intense stress. Ditto for the lead actress (Dee Wallace), who maintains her sense of character through about half a film's equivalent of a bottle episode. The camera-work is well done, especially when it gets to play on distance and open spaces. And man, do they mat up the fur of that dog with some syrup. One of the more faithful King adaptations, though the ending change is understandable for a Hollywood treatment. “How'd the monster get out of my closet?” Rating: 8/10 
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Oct 16, 2021 19:03
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 19)The Devil's Rain 1974 shudder *spooky bingo the devil made me do it* Star studded cast about a devil worshipping cult in an old west ghost town, that is inexplicably boring as gently caress. It falls into that weird zone, where it's a little too good to be so bad it's good, but not good enough to actually be good. It takes effort to be this dull. The ending is kind of fun, watching everyone, shatner, goatman borgnine, travolta and Ida Lupino(!) melt into goop but by then it's still too little too late /5
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Oct 16, 2021 19:06
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 For Holiday Massacre, I watched Halloween Kills on Peacock Premium This was an excellent Halloween movie, but I'm biased because I've loved almost every movie in this series starring Michael. Jamie Lee Curtis absolutely helped the enjoyment of it, as did the kids from the 1978 movie being all grown up and ready to help kick Michael's rear end! I liked that there was an undertone throughout the movie, as people started forming random posses of vigilantes to try to kill Michael, of "who's the real monster here?" The kills were gross and gory and sometimes went on a bit too long. Lots of the time, though, I was rooting for Michael because his victims were just so stupid! Yes, there's a masked man chasing me, I'm going to run into the woods, rather than to the nearest house screaming my head off.  It ended with a bit of a "surprise" (for anyone who hasn't seen a Michael Myers movie before). I enjoyed it and one jumpscare actually made me jump!Rating: 4/5
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Oct 16, 2021 19:16
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Franchescanado posted:
 #17. Werewolves Within (iTunes rental) A movie adaptation of the mafia-style video game "Werewolves Within." An eclectic group of townspeople are stuck inside together by a bad winter storm, and must determine if one of them is a werewolf out to devour them all. On the whole, I ended up liking this film all right, but I can also tell that the comedy beats were fairly broad and full of stock Hollywood archetypes,, so it could be a tough sell for some. The humor does end up being better suited to the front half, when we're setting up all of the characters that we'll be following throughout. I liked a lot of them okay, but the comedy ends up petering out about halfway through; maybe this is due to the fact that conventions dictate that most of these characters will end up dead by the end, and it's hard to laugh when the body count starts rising? At least, it is if the characters are likable enough - I think you need a more black-humored streak than this film has in order to make killing off most of your cast funny. And some of those death scenes, which on the surface should be goofy or get a dark humored chuckle, don't really land either, probably because of the rapport we built with these characters in the first half. Like, I know the film wants to build up the selfish crazy dog lady as a minor antagonist because she selfishly wants to sell out the land to the greedy industrial type so she can open her own craft store, but I still can't really get a dark chuckle out of her getting her neck broken by a fire poker, followed by her corpse flopping over face-first into the fireplace. One, because she gets distracted enough TO get cracked across the face with a poker because she was distracted by her husband quietly dying on the couch, which isn't funny. And two, because the film in general was not mean-spirited enough to have built up "corpse landing in a fireplace face first" as a beat that you can laugh at; that's a hard enough needle to thread in general, but that type of moment just doesn't work with the vibe the film has built up until this point. Oh, and not for nothing, but while the film is operating as a "whodunit?" mystery, with a big scene of group discussions among the currently surviving cast - I suppose similar to the video game, I never played it - I still called the ending well before it got there. There's a few too many obvious red herrings throughout, and while the big explanation scene at the end kinda cheats to show you things you wouldn't have seen otherwise, the sensible option still seems a little too easy to guess. I dunno; Werewolves Within is a mess, but it's a mess that worked well enough for me. Horror is a tricky thing to explain; comedy even more so. I think that this is a film I might personally enjoy returning to at some point in the future, despite its flaws, but it's also a hard film for me to recommend for anyone else to go seek out. /5 (mixing up my bingo token images here)Watched so far: The Hunt, The Fog (1980), The Howling, Venom 2, Curse of the Demon, The Mummy's Tomb, The Stepfather (1987), Maniac Cop, The City of the Dead, Halloween (2018), Killer Klowns From Outer Space, DeepStar Six, Dracula's Daughter, Tremors, Friday the 13th Part 8, The Voices, Werewolves Within
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Oct 16, 2021 19:47
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9. Scream, Blacula, Scream (1973) 🇺🇸 William Marshall returns as Blacula just one year after the characters debut and it’s more of the same- and that’s a good thing. I watched Blacula for the first time last challenge and I adored it. I love the low key, super cool, very 70s atmosphere. I just want to hang out in these bars and at these parties. Unsurprisingly, William Marshall continues to be incredible as Mamuwalde. He is so regal, so mannered, so loving cool. Someone mentioned in this thread how funny it is that he seems completely un-phased by waking up in the future surrounded by modern technology but in my opinion it makes total sense. Mamuwalde is unshakeable, so what if cars exist now, you think this guy gives a poo poo?? Also the 70s is the only era where’s guy could casually wear a cape and is usually only the 3rd or 4th most ridiculously dressed person in the room.  This time we get Pam Grier as well so that’s a big win. It’s kinda hard to judge up against the first film since it’s so similar (it was filmed so quickly afterwards I wonder if William Marshall even got out of costume) but I think I liked the first better- mostly since I really enjoyed Thalmus Rasulala’s character and that musical bit in the club that features a song that still pops into my head now and then. But either way, if you liked Blacula you have to check this one out. Two really good, and important, horror films 4/5 Film list (ranked) 1. Demons* (4.5/5) 2. Demons 2* (4/5) 3. Scream, Blacula, Scream (4/5) 4. V/H/S 94 (4/5) 5. The Slumber Party Massacre (3.5/5) 6. Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum (3.5/5) 7. City of the Living Dead (3/5) 8. Skull: The Mask (3/5) 9. The Mortuary Collection (3/5) *=rewatch WeaponX fucked around with this message at 20:20 on Oct 16, 2021 |
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Oct 16, 2021 20:16
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8. Dream Home - A woman has a normal life in Hong Kong, which looks remarkably like a normal life in the US. The film largely takes place during her attempt to secure housing, although we spend a fair bit of time looking back over her life and seeing the neighborhood she grew up in change over the years. Above all else, I appreciate this movie for being  very directI spent most of the run time wondering why it was set back in 2007 given that looks remarkably like what I imagine I will have to go through when I try to buy a home at some point in the next couple of years, but there is a satisfying answer to this by the end. Strong recommend if you enjoy gnarly slashers and the Korean horror vibe - it definitely shares some of that feel. Which is making me realize that basically every other HK movie I've seen has been from the 80s, I should see what else they've been up to lately. Unfortunately not useful for my SPOOKY. Pair with: Parasite
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Oct 16, 2021 20:27
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#14 Possession (rewatch) Andrzej Żuławski, 1980  I saw the 4K restoration of Possession last night in the theater. This was a rewatch. My first viewing was about 5 years ago and I strongly disliked the movie but I found it fascinating. So I was hoping seeing it again would reveal what I've been missing... but nope. I still don't like it. The characters' exaggerated emoting is like fingernails on a chalkboard, and it's interminable. The dialog is difficult to understand with all the screaming, echoes and background noise in every scene. It's a grating, perplexing, exhausting experience. But still I really WANT to like it. I see the uniqueness of it. There's really no other film like it. And the horror aspects, as few as they are, are exceptional. But the experience of watching it is just so unpleasant. 2/5 14 Films watched: 1. Titane (2021), 2. Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989), 3. The Lair of the White Worm (1988), 4. Maniac (1980), 5. Maniac (2012), 6. Possum (2018), 7. We Are the Flesh (2016), 8. V/H/S/94 (2021), 9. Antropophagus (1980), 10. The Boy Behind the Door (2021), 11. A Cat in the Brain (1990), 12. Grotesque (2009), 13. Sleepaway Camp (1983), 14. Possession (1981)
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Oct 16, 2021 20:33
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 7. The Shout (1978)  /5A genuinely weird film, not in the wacky sense but in the unsettling. Alan Bates is an intruder who inserts himself into the fragile domestic life of John Hurt and Susannah York - they the kind of relationship that is fraying at the edges with the boredom of straying glances, he the kind of guest who discomfits his hosts with disturbing speech. Bates is an uncouth curiosity until he reveals his "shout" to Hurt and instantly unmans him. Their long, silent and portentuous walk out into the dismal coastal dunes together is an astonishing piece of cinema, that makes what should be no more than a local hike into an act of summoning primeval power. York's character is hard done by the script that makes her a simpering moll to Bates' supernatural vigor, but Hurt's character is delightful to watch as he goes from amusement at Bates' antics to chafing and fuming. His petulant woodchopping bit is a hilarious antecedent for similar scenes in Robert Eggers' The Witch, both films where husbands do a piteous job coping with their emasculation at the hands of forces beyond their ken.  8. A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)  /5A gem of carnival ride horror. A Nightmare on Elm Street is the proud antithesis of moody, cerebral, "elevated" horror films. Where they brood and withhold, Wes Craven showers us with a smorgasboard of gory delights. Sometimes the special effects are nutty like Freddy's extend-o-arms, and sometimes they're nutty and blood-curdling like young Johnny Depp being devoured by his bed and vomited back as scarlet effluvia. And throughout the spectacle, alongside all the kooky electronic score, Robert Englund expresses a joy in his sadism. That's what makes this an enduring classic. I've endured too many lovely modern ghost films where everyone was moping and despairing and the supernatural "villains" were actually trauma victims recreating metaphorical cycles of abuse or some poo poo - yeah sure, some of that is fine, but at least five nights out of seven I'd rather watch Freddy have a grand time being a bastard!!  21. The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959)  .5/5"This, I think, is a two pipe problem." A cracking Hammer horror take on a classic story. Love the sets stuffed with stately furnishings, the ominous mood, the glee when the villain unveils, the way Christopher Lee seems to be standing at normal human height and then stands up two feet higher when he bristles with indignation. The prologue is a fantastic horror short film in its own right with David Oxley as a nearly inhuman rear end in a top hat leading a pack of debauched aristocrats. But towering above an already delightful film: Peter Cushing's Sherlock Holmes!! So much fun to watch. In every scene he gives the impression that his rhythm is misaligned with the world, always a half-step faster. He rides the line between confident genius and smug sonuvabitch, and director Terence Fisher deploys a few choice moments of dashing heroism too: a close-up on Cushing's brilliant blue-eyed stare, or showcasing the torrentuous swirl of his traveling cape as Cushing charges off into the foreboding moors. Spooky bingo: It's Only a Myth. A local legend of a "hound from hell" cursing the Baskerville family is central to the plot. 
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Oct 16, 2021 20:34
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20. Sugar Hill A photographer sets out to get revenge for her dead boyfriend... with spooky results. This is a decent revenge movie that at once matches and defies expectations. It's probably racist (and definitely sexist), but for 1974 I feel like black stereotypes being used against lovely white people is just a tiny bit on the progressive side. The zombie design is interesting. I don't think I've seen them portrayed this way before. The kills are pretty creative. There's next to no blood, no gore and barely any violence, which is interesting and surprising for zombie revenge. The most violent scene is a catfight, which isn't great but ends with Sugar's opponent getting a face full of ice, which was awesome (and I think that was a real bucket of ice in that actress' face). The acting is not good, but Baron Samedi devours the scenery, which is fun. If you're going to watch exploitation, you could do a lot worse. 3/5 
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Oct 16, 2021 21:04
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Jedit posted:Guys, if you're going to post a more detailed review of Halloween Kills than "it good, Michael stabs people" can you please put it in spoiler space? My sincerest apologies.
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Oct 16, 2021 21:25
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 8. Tammy and the T-Rex (Gore Cut) (1993), dir. Stewart Raffill This is legitimately great and makes me rethink Mac and Me as intentional comedy. As a horror movie, it's just fine, and honestly it sort of blows its load with the horror element pretty early on. I could have gone for more t-rex attacks. But Denise Richards and Theo Forsett are very charming. They are unironically a good comedy duo. It's a movie where a T-Rex with Paul Walker's brain sobs at his won funeral. Very fun! /5 9. Halloween Kills (2021), dir. David Gordon Green This movie isn't really for me. The big thing that people are on is about the violence and gore, but very little of it is all that effective for me. There are some decent sequences, but a lot of the bloodbaths you'll hear cited are more interesting on paper. What we ultimately get is a pretty boring Halloween sequel that makes the same mistakes as all the other Halloween sequels and turns a B-Story from Part IV into an entire film. Honestly, I'm someone who even with movies I don't like, I tend to like them more when I talk or read about them. This movie has just gotten worse the more time I have spent with it in my head. Watch Resurrection instead. /5
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Oct 16, 2021 21:45
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 20. The Children (2008) “Did you ever hear of contraception?” Spooky Bingo: Don’t Torture a Duckling I didn’t click with this killer kids movie right from the start. A pair of sisters, their husbands, and all their kids get together for a family party, and the script jumps into the deep end of all these family relationships. There’s the pinterest-perfect granola mom and her husband, creepy uncle. Her sister was a teen mom who later married a wannabe business guy with anger issues. Then there’s the surly teen, who's noticeably older than her half-siblings and cousins. Helpfully, all the little ones are played by kids with easily distinguishable haircuts. Usually these kinds of movies start slow, introducing us to everyone before the killing starts. And this one does that, kinda, but those early scenes feel hectic thanks to lots of quick cuts, crosstalk, and the ever-present sound of kids playing, often while screaming, in the background. There are definitely more screams in the movie before anyone gets murdered. I think it’s supposed to be eerie to have the children go from lively play to a more sinister level of calmness, but I was left feeling like I didn’t get much chance to settle in because holy poo poo, that was a lot of screaming. When the main plot does get going, the editing sometimes makes it hard to tell what the gently caress just happened. The kids are hardly ever scary, and their actions tend to be too telegraphed for me. I think the largest source of horror here is meant to be the question of how these parents react to the threat their kids pose. But the shock value of the mere existence of killer kids in horror has long ago worn off, and the first half of the story doesn’t set things up enough to make me give a poo poo about these people’s decisions. The overall story was fine; this just wasn't executed very well.  1. Elvira, Mistress of the Dead (1988) 2. The Dead Pit (1989) 3. Blacula (1972) 4. When a Stranger Calls (1979) 5. When a Stranger Calls Back (1993) 6. The Beyond (1981) 7. Slaxx (2020) 8. House of Wax (1995) 9. When a Stranger Calls (2006) 10. Till Death (2021) 11. Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981) 12. Peeping Tom (1960) 13. Intruder (1989) 14. Lifeforce (1985) 15. The Keep (1983) 16. Halloween (2018) 17. Night of the Living Dead (1990) 18. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) 19. Halloween Kills (2021)
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Oct 16, 2021 21:55
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13. Halloween Kills Not gonna risk it, too new, gonna spoiler the whole thing. I liked a lot of this but there are some things I really hated. I know these are decisive issues but I liked the 1978 flash backs, I didn’t mind the main story focusing on side characters and the lack of JLC.Some of the kills were super brutal and fun and I really liked the idea that Michael is supernatural due to the fear of the people of Haddonfield. I really, really dug the idea that Michael would as a child, stare at himself in the reflection of the window studying his true self. I really hated the characterization of Michael. He’s The Shape. He’s the Boogeyman. He’s a stalking shadow or a killer not a guy who fights 12 armed people at a time (multiple times) and comes out victorious with ease. Even the scene where Michael is stabbing the corpse in the back with knives to find the one he wants would be bad rear end normally but just does not fit Michael Myers as we’ve known him. This was a mixed bag for me but probably not something I will revisit like I have 2018 multiple times.
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Oct 16, 2021 22:00
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Timeless Appeal posted:
You're a monster.
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Oct 16, 2021 22:06
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October 16 Southbound I might have enough time to watch a few extra movies this weekend, though my personal challenge is one film a day, every day in October. So the extra films won't count for that, though I'll stick with my "movies other thread posters have talked about in the past day" rule. First up for me is Southbound, which I've had on my extended list for several years' challenges but I've always had other options that were more interesting to me. TheKingslayer is the one who led me to finally viewing it. TheKingslayer posted:22. Southbound (2015) This is an anthology film in which the end of each segment leads into the next. A pair of guys are on the run from something and get stuck in a town. Some women whose car broke down in the middle of the desert are picked up by some strange people. A guy who hit a woman with his car desperately tries to save her life with only the assistance of voices on his phone. A man hunts for his lost sister in a town full of people who aren't quite human. A home invasion happens and ends with a pair of guys on the run from something that emerged from a person they killed. I had heard mixed things about Southbound which is what always what put me off and watching the film, I get it. This is aggressively low budget indie. It's not incompetent, it's just that 80% of the film is basically what film students think are edgy horror movies and the linking of all the segments and the film going in a circle is another thing only a film student would think is a good idea. Not to mention shooting in the desert outside of LA, setting of way too many low budget indie movies. The one segment I'd call interesting is the guy trying to save the woman. That has some tension and you get the character and the medicine is pretty gruesome. It ends on a wet fart, but in general it's pretty good. There's very little in these segments that we haven't seen before. Not a lot of it makes sense and characters seem to do stuff because it's a horror film script. I don't need answers for everything, but consistency would be nice. Southbound winds up being very middle of the road. I don't hate it, but I'd never recommend it since the only interesting thing here is the creature design. Since it's an anthology film, it's going under Tales of Terror on my SPOOKY card:  TheKingslayer posted:On top of it all the whole movie has an isolated or otherworldly feeling, like there's no world outside of what's happening immediatly to the characters. Maybe it's just seeing too many movies and knowing too much about how they're made, but all it signaled to me was "we shot this segment on a $20000 budget".  Especially when some segments are defined by their isolation and others are defined by the large groups in them. It's one of the things that I felt gave the segments some thematic disconnects that would be fine in a normal anthology movie but are a problem when you have each segment rolling into the next.
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Oct 16, 2021 22:09
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7. The Witches of Eastwick Cher, Susan Sarandon and Michelle Pfeiffer are single, small town women falling for the devil Jack Nicholson. They learn magic and everything seems like a pretty sweet deal, but ultimately they have a falling out, perhaps because Nicholson is really absolutely balls to the wall bugfuck deranged in this, dear lord. Kind of sad because he's an ok guy, he just doesn’t like to be ghosted. Overall feels a bit bloated in some parts and too short in others, but surprisingly horny for a mainstream Hollywood comedy. Amazing to learn that George Miller of Happy Feet and Babe fame directed this movie. 8. Gerald’s Game Horror thread favourite Mike Flanagan does it again! Workmanlike Stephen King adaptation that has some genuine creeps to the point were I was almost going to give it an ecstatic thumbs up, but the ending (apparently exactly as penned by King) absolutely burns down the whole movie with how idiotic it is. Does it work in written form? Maybe it does? I can see how it would make some things even creepier retrospectively, but in the movie it amounts to a 10 minute voiceover + montage explaining all the character development after the fact, and destroying all the mystery from the main story. I’ve never ever seen a movie poo poo the bed so badly with the ending. 9. Spook Warfare An ancient Babylonian evil flies to Japan and runs afoul of its goofiest ghosts – a ninja turle, large Baby Yoda, a woman with a face at the back of her head (she also has a hand for her nose), a leg/umbrella mashup and that big balls fox, except it’s just a big belly as far as I can tell. A weird Power Ranger esque affair with admittedly lovely moonlit sets and nice costumes, but going for a target audience that couldn’t be further away from me. I’m sure some people will love this? Not me but I respect the effort. 10. The Pyjama Girl Case A giallo that’s 1) based on a true story and 2) set in Australia. The former is of course in bad taste, but the latter is absolutely bizarre, since clearly none of the people involved ever set a foot in the country before filming. What are Australians like? Italians with British names. What do Australians eat? Beer and white bread, also spaghetti? Sure! What do they watch on TV? Muppet Show, gently caress it. They got nobility, no? Put them in, they dress like from the Great Gatsby. Now, this is of course fantastically goofy, but don’t let that distract you from the fact that this is also a top notch giallo. Slick editing, a great funky soundtrack, charming cast, surprising turns, and perhaps the best ending in the genre since Short Night of Glass Dolls. Absolutely worth a watch! Watched: 1. Titane, 2. In the Earth, 3. Goke Body Snatcher from Hell, 4. Baby of Macon, 5. Paganini Horror, 6. Hearts in Atlantis, 7. Witches of Eastwick, 8. Gerald's Game, 9. Spook Warfare, 10. The Pyjama Girl Case
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Oct 16, 2021 22:10
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Franchescanado posted:You can't use a film you've already seen. To clarify, this just means so far this season, right? I can I re-watch something I love like Exorcist 3 for the challenge, I just can't retroactively count something I watched earlier this month, correct?
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Oct 16, 2021 22:23
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Spawnquote:What an annoyingly busy film. Theatrical cut and all that, but still - there isn't some mythical extra twenty minutes of R-rated footage that would have saved this irritating film. Everyone involved is so sure we're all going to love this brave new vision of superhero that it ends up being a loud, confusing, ramshackle mess of pieces that never stops to actually catch its own breath while simultaneously laboriously overexplaining everything. quote:I love me a good creature feature, and 'mean-rear end crocodile' certainly fits the bill. There's probably one too many side characters to keep track of and the ticking clock never really comes up but it's an economical and grisly little film that gets the job done.  1) One Cut of the Dead 2,3)Freddy's Return, Never Fall Asleep 4,5,6) Fear Street(s) 7) Debug 8) Astro Loco 09,10)Flesh, TX & Black Christmas (2019) 11) GOG 12) It Came from the Desert!13, 14) Happy Death Day 2 U & The Perfection 15) Train 16) 15/05/11 17) The Brain 18) EAP's Requiem for the Damned 19, 20) Rogue & Spawn Shrecknet fucked around with this message at 22:38 on Oct 16, 2021 |
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Oct 16, 2021 22:31
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Franchescanado posted:
 #18. It! The Terror From Beyond Space (Vudu) In the far-off future of 1973, the only survivor of the first manned mission to Mars is being brought back to Earth for court martial. However, the strange creature that actually killed his crew on Mars has snuck aboard the ship headed back, and the new crew is in danger as well. Hey, I guess this one counts for both variations of this challenge, since it's pretty much entirely set on an olde-timey rocket ship heading back to Earth. Neat. Setting aside the naivety of the film's approach to space travel, where we'd have artificial gravity and enough rocket fuel for wood-paneled office spaces to be included in the ship... Setting aside the film's retrograde sexual politics (don't think I didn't notice that the two womenfolk are there primarily to serve dinner and coffee to the male crew members, or that during the scene where they try to gas the creature to death* the women don't rate high enough to get gas masks)... set aside all the stuff that's part-and-parcel of a 1950s b-monster movie and this thing is still slow, talkative garbage. * I did like the way that scene basically played out though. "Huh, gas bombs. We'll only use these as a last resort... okay, let's try using them right now!" I think the best way to describe this movie is "ponderous." The monster suit is too bulky and ill-designed to let the actor move freely, so It! doesn't do much but lazily wander around and slowly swipe at people. This ends up killing any of the potential for jump scares, as the creature is too easily seen just squatting in place waiting for his cue and moves to slowly to effectively startle you when he pops in; the one potentially great moment where he attacks a crew member in the air ducts is ruined because the monster's "sudden" appearance is too slow to land effectively. (He also makes far too many sounds, both looking and snarling like a giant pig-nosed dinosaur that won't shut the gently caress up; the movie is both tough to watch and listen to at times.) Meanwhile, the human cast members are pretty much all interchangeable he-man scientist-types, Committed To The Mission and Doing Things By The Book, so good luck trying to find anything to separate one meat sack from the next. (Unless you're a woman, then you don't even rate that much on the character definition side.) This thing was boring as sin. I wish there was an option to watch it with some smart-rear end robots in the corner; I don't know if they'd have been able to bring any life to this barren thing, but it might not have made that hour of my life feel like a total waste. /5 Watched so far: The Hunt, The Fog (1980), The Howling, Venom 2, Curse of the Demon, The Mummy's Tomb, The Stepfather (1987), Maniac Cop, The City of the Dead, Halloween (2018), Killer Klowns From Outer Space, DeepStar Six, Dracula's Daughter, Tremors, Friday the 13th Part 8, The Voices, Werewolves Within, It!
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Oct 16, 2021 22:48
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 10. Censor (2021), dir. Prano Baily-Bond This was a decent psychological thriller about a censor of video nasties being targeted by the media after a movie slips by that is blamed for real life murder. She slowly loses her sanity as she explores a film that brings back past trauma. You can figure out the central metaphor at play pretty early and the film feels pretty slight, but it has a strong lead and sleek direction. It's also less than ninety minutes, so a perfect little psychological thriller to put on. /5
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Oct 16, 2021 23:57
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14. The Exorcist III (1990, Netflix) Claiming Starring Brad Dourif I watched this entirely for the Brad Dourif square on the bingo card and wasn’t expecting a thing from it. I mean, it’s a sequel to a sequel of the loving Exorcist, who needed it to exist? Turns out it rules, and I think I might actually like it just as much as the original. George C. Scott and Ed Flanders could just talk for an hour and a half and I’d watch it. I would hate it if a carp was swimming around in my bathtub too. I was already enjoying it a lot in the first act, but then it takes a turn and gets scary, and then it takes another turn and gets bananas, and at every part where you think it should stumble it doesn’t. Dourif giving his monologues, just staring into the camera, is out of his mind and amazing. My only real complaint is that the priest character just comes out of nowhere and starts an exorcism, but I did some reading after finishing this and it turns out that was all studio interference and actually was tacked on, so it makes sense. Highly recommended, and you don’t have to watch the Exorcist 2 for this to make sense, I didn’t! 4/5 
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Oct 17, 2021 00:30
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 Dead Snow is not worth it, even for the one perfect scene. It's just not. None of the characters are good and are mostly repulsive. They're also idiots. A concept like "a group of medical students go on Easter vacation (I was SO tempted to use the holiday square but nah, haha, it's not a holiday movie) to an isolated cabin for snow fun and drinking, and find a box of Nazi gold that summons a regiment of nazi zombies to come eat them" should be great b-movie action nonsense, but somehow it was only that for one scene. The rest of the time it was kind of gross (hated the scene where one of the main characters upsets his girlfriend for no real reason! if she's claustrophobic don't kneel on her hands and cover her eyes and try to smother her as a joke!) or literally gross, with lots of gore effects and/or one kill in the outdoor privy. I "loved" watching the girl climb out of the privy, covered in poo poo, holding her intestines in with her hands. The zombies had fun makeup and even as you could kill them there were more of them (an entire regiment) and watching them stomp around in the snow was neat. The single perfect scene, the thing that vaguely redeemed it for me by having two of the survivors team up with a sledgehammer and a hammer n' sickle and loving rip through a pack of zombies. They even flash the hammer n' sickle sign at them as a perfect gently caress you to the Nazis. It's done to Norwegian rock music (I think) and it's a perfect little music video in the middle of an otherwise terrible movie. Anyways it may have 1 star out of 5 for giving me that. Otherwise christ I wish I'd picked something else. PS It's in the A Perfect Getaway square because I've never seen a Norwegian film before. I'd like to think that there are better Norwegian films out there. Anyone got recs?
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Oct 17, 2021 00:34
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StrixNebulosa posted:
Trollhunter or Rare Exports.
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Oct 17, 2021 00:42
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Rare Exports rules!
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Oct 17, 2021 00:45
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1. Halloween Kills https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQdgYFJGxvI  First horror movie of the season I've been super busy and well honestly just not in the mood for horror. I'm still going to try for 13 horror movies. We'll see if we make it. Overall I really loved this movie. I thought it was a great "middle" piece of horror and I think thematically if you remember that its a bridge between Halloween 18 and Halloween Ends it serves a great purpose. The kills are ridiculously over the top and Myers is absolutely brutal with the kills. This may have the highest body count of any Halloween film ever made. Theres a strong theme running through it that Myers is a unstoppable killing machine and Laurie just can't keep up. We see Myers never really slow down the entire movie except a bit at the end. Juxtaposed with the scenes of Laurie struggling with her injuries from the first film. Overall the movie was great and its super gorey as well. I think this is going to be a divisive film.
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Oct 17, 2021 00:49
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| # ? Jun 10, 2024 03:31 |
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Trollhunter rules!
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Oct 17, 2021 00:49
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