|
 39 (73). The Ward (2010) Directed by John Carpenter; Written by Michael Rasmussen and Shawn Rasmussen Watched on Youtube. Fran’s SPOOKY BINGO: Asylum I thought I had seen this before. In fact I thought I had already watched this “new” once only to realize I had seen it then. But despite my belief that I’d seen it twice I remembered absolutely nothing about this film and nothing seemed familiar while watching it. So maybe I just never did see it. Or maybe I saw it back in the days when I’d come home from work and drink myself to sleep watching games and movies. Either way this feels 100% new to me so I’m counting it. Sue me. The thing is… I’m already starting to forget this. I don’t know. I love John Carpenter and there’s rarely a film of his I can’t find good in. And there’s some in here if you want. There’s some decent moodiness and the institutional hospital setting is always effective. The ghost is actually solidly creepy in a way that ages better than a lot of CGI ghosts from that period. And its actually a surprisingly solid cast pulling Lyndsey Fonsecca and Danielle Panabaker from the casting pool for supporting roles and of course the brilliant Jared Harris. And I’ve always been fine with Amber Heard. She’s not great but she’s effective with what she’s given, I think. There’s just nothing here. No fire, no tension, no excitement. That feels so strange from Carpenter. He is the master of horror and while the script isn’t anything special there’s certainly room to do some basic horror tense scenes here. But I dunno. More and more as i go through these last few movies of his it just feels like the effort and passion is gone. And this is obviously a special case. Carpenter had been done for 10 years but his Masters of Horror rekindled an interest in filmmaking. But I dunno. Sometimes you pick something up after a long time because you remember how much you used to love it and its just not there anymore. Its not bad, really. Its perfectly serviceable. Its also very derivative and forgettable. Its a sad ending for an amazing career but it also kind of is an appropriate final chapter. He tried one last time, not because of momentum or a refusal to change but because he wanted to. And it didn’t work out o he moved on and put it behind him. That’s sad. I’m sad. But he’s happy and making great stuff somewhere else. So what more can you ask?   40 (74). Versus aka ‘ヴァーサス’ (2000) Directed by Ryuhei Kitamura; Written by Ryuhei Kitamura and Yūdai Yamaguchi HalloweeNIT 13/31 Hooptober Ocho 24/39: 8/8 decades (2000s) My most favorable thing to say about this film is that it put me to sleep and I got the first good night’s sleep in a week. Its obviously good at what it is. This kind of cartoony/comic mash up of swords and guns and zombies and whatever else makes a 12-year-old happy. Its barely horror. I saw comparisons to Evil Dead but like the “zombies” are just kind of one random thing thrown in here. Like a random thing we liked so we added in. And that kind of feels like the whole vibe for this kind of movie. Just “cool” stuff thrown at it over and over. 20 years ago i might have actually kind of enjoyed it but I dunno. It just felt like went on and on and on and on… and then I was asleep. It just felt so relentlessly excessive to the point where I wasn’t exhilarated or intrigued, just bored and tired. It takes like an hour for the main villain to show up and then once it felt like it was finally getting to a point I was horrified to see there were another 45 minutes left. Its just fighting and shooting and fighting and shooting and a quip here or there and an exposition dump or something. On and on and on. I just found it exhausting. I dunno. If you like this kind of thing its probably a very fun ton of it packed together. But for me it was just a surprising sleep aid. There's also so much in this film that I feel like it SHOULD fill a bingo spot but I can't figure out one. And that makes me mad.
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2021 13:42
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 9, 2024 21:02 |
|
|
21: Terror in the Aisles (1984) Behind the Screams An early documentary about horror movies hosted by Donald Pleasance and Nancy Allen. It's mostly extended scenes from various movies with Donald Pleasance asking rhetorical questions about why we watch horror. There's some old interviews from Hitchcock where he describes how to build tension. The clips aren't labelled and mostly we're not told what they're from, which is a weird choice. It's pretty light on content or insights about filmmaking honestly. 22: Sleepaway Camp (1983)  Origin of Evil Teens go to summer camp by a lake and a mystery killer is after them. It was very strange to see actual adolescents playing the roles. I'm so used to seeing 30 year old teenagers being dispatched by Jason or whoever, and I was more invested than normal in a slasher because I don't want the children to die. The main three kids are good actors. Then there's the twist. I did not see it coming. It was shocking, but foreshadowed well enough. I don't know what people ITT think about the trans portrayal, but I think this movie is pretty well regarded on this forum? I recall there were a bunch of people with the Aunt in their avatar. Definitely stands out among the busy crowd of 80s slashers. Total: 22 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; V/H/S 2; Evilspeak; The Ward; Prince of Darkness; Terror in the Aisles; Sleepaway Camp 
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2021 14:14
|
|
|
15. Terrifier I had been wanting to check this out for awhile because I really loved the short featuring Art from All Hallow’s Eve. Truthfully, I didn’t really like it that much. I think Art is a fabulous villain but the movie itself just seems like violence against women for the sake of it. If it had been a half hour/45 minutes long featuring just the two ladies from the beginning it probably would have been pretty effective. The gun bits had been spoiled for me a hundred times over so it was not shocking to me as maybe it should have been. They could have saved it somewhat by ending it when Art blows his brains out but as soon as they cut to the coroners office you knew what was coming.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2021 15:08
|
|
|
 Rats: Night of Terror(ORIGIN OF EVIL) I'm going for a SPOOKY bingo on the bottom line of the card so instead of using this for the Wild Beasts challenge it's gonna go in the Origin of Evil square because it was released in my birth year. So many weird choices in this movie. For one, it feels like a risky move to do a film about killer rats where you sink a big chunk of your budget into creating a post-apocalyptic, dystopian world. Not that this is a big budget film by any means, but clearly some money was spent on stuff like retrofitting cars to look like something out of Mad Max and just general production design of this world they trying to establish. And I'm not sure if it really was necessary, I mean you don't need to reach this much for an explanation as to why there is a horde of mutated rats. Just do a quick scene with some dude in a lab coat where he injects a mouse with something mysterious and then the rat escapes the lab. Bam, done, you've got your killer rat movie established and the audience is on board. Instead we have this whole exposition about different factions and how this is 20XX "AB", which stands for "after bomb", because there was some sort of nuclear holocaust, and it never really feels like it adds a whole lot. This being an Italian production, there's an uncomfortable sex scene and various awkward interactions that don't always make a whole lot of sense. There are definitely some scenes featuring the rats that will make you squirm, although there are also a few shots that definitely seem to have been unsafe for the rats or even hurt a few of them, which is no good. It does have a pretty ridiculous ending though that may be worth checking out, depending on how much you value completely absurd things that make you laugh your rear end off at the end of a horror movie. Cant' say I recommend this really on any level but I also can't say I regret watching it. It was an experience.  1. Phantasm 2. Malignant 3. The Thing 4. The Mummy(1999) 5. The Curse of Frankenstein 6. Child's Play 7. The Fog 8. Hellraiser 9. Beetlejuice 10. Elvira Mistress of The Dark 11. Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein 12. Dead Heat 13. Halloween 14. Halloween 2 15. Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers 16. Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers 17. Halloween: H20 18. VHS 94(TALES OF TERROR)19. Count Dracula(PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK) 20. It Came From Outer Space(SPACED INVADERS) 21. Rats: Night of Terror(ORIGIN OF EVIL)
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2021 15:15
|
|
|
Justin Godscock posted:Then there is Halloween 3 which is a stand-alone film in the entire multiverse. Or Halloween 3 is the Tokyo Drift of the Halloween-verse and is actually in the future with every movie after it being a prequel.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2021 15:21
|
|
|
 #21. Near Dark (Blu-ray) A young farmer's son gets swept up into a cadre of vampires prowling the southwest when he falls for a pretty girl one night. Needed a quick break from chasing after Fran challenges, so I went with something I'd seen once like a decade ago and had next to no memory of. Watching again after so much time, I kinda get why I'd put it up on my shelf and kinda forgot about it. It's not that the film is bad or anything, but I do find that there are elements of it that leave something to be desired. The acting from Adrian Pasdar and Jenny Wright as the lead couple feels stilted and a little bit underdeveloped; I don't know why these two zeroed in on each other, nor see any real reinforcement of their relationship throughout the runtime. The trio of character actors brought over from the recently-completed Aliens - namely Lance Henricksen, Jennette Goldstein and Bill Paxton - fare a lot better and give the film much of its energy, even I think Paxton is giving something of a weak performance here. There's a sense of ethereal brooding in the film, helped greatly by the wide open framing of the desert landscapes and the moody electronic score throughout. However, that feeling can also lead into the pace of the film getting slowed way down. Not helping is how repetitive some of the scripted elements are, with certain lines being repeated pretty much verbatim in a single scene. The film is reliant more on ambiance than the script, which can be a good thing, but I just don't feel there's quite enough of the ambiance to offset the dialogue sometimes; either it needed less dialogue or better dialogue, but we're stuck in a weird in-between state throughout. The real sticking point for me is that the last third is very poorly set up and explained - namely, how does a partial blood transfusion by the self-reliant farmer manage to cure vampirism? This element was barely alluded to in the beginning - showing that farmer dad acts as his own veterinarian - but the idea of how it would work seems to come out of nowhere. I don't know if this was an element that was set up and left on the cutting room floor, or if this was something that the scriptwriters thought would be a neat twist and tried to paint themselves out of the corner they were in, to limited success. That said, it does lead to the most interesting moment in the whole film - namely, the final shot of the film, where vampire love interest Mae is cured of vampirism, but ends the film on a shot where she seems more horrified of the light hitting her hands than anything else, even being embraced by her now-also-human lover. It lends the film a feeling of doomed romance, the idea that these two people are totally incompatible with each other and will keep ruining the others' life and lifestyle in their attempts to make the other over in their own image. It's an interesting thought, and the journey to get their is fine and all, but I can't help but feel like I wanted more from it than broody night landscapes and occasional okay fire stunts.  /5Watched 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!, Ghost in the Machine, Halloween Kills, Near Dark duz posted:Or Halloween 3 is the Tokyo Drift of the Halloween-verse and is actually in the future with every movie after it being a prequel. Is that how they were able to get Halloween 1 onto tv screens in Halloween 3? We were just seeing the in-universe version of "Stab," the fake movie-within-a-movie adaptation of the events of the first film?
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2021 15:42
|
|
|
STAC Goat posted:Yeah, I really wanted Child's Play to just ditch Chucky and run with the smart evil toy AI idea. Its unique and wholly different and you can avoid the unnecessary comparisons. I still wouldn't mind seeing another Child's Play movie that just goes with it.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2021 15:47
|
|
|
13. Peeping Tom A disturbed man obsessed with cameras murders women on film as part of his attempt to make a documentary about himself. This is way ahead of it's time and obviously a huge inspiration for slasher movies as well as serial killer media in general. I'd be shocked if Thomas Harris in particular hadn't seen this before writing Red Dragon. This released just a few months before Psycho and is a great companion to it. Both movies are about the psychology of murderer but unlike Psycho the killer is the main character and we spend almost the entire movie with him from the first frame. This provides a great feeling of tension throughout the whole movie as the viewer knows from the opening scene exactly what Mark is capable of and it hangs over everything else in the movie. Carl Boehm is fascinating and disturbing as Mark Lewis. From the way he moves to the halting way he speaks he almost never looks like he's comfortable in his own skin. He only seems confident and calm when he is filming his murders and he comes off as very dangerous. The meta aspects to the movie are also interesting. Mark has spent his entire life being recorded and to some extent views his life as a film and even intentionally stages his own death to be a thematically satisfying ending to his "documentary." This is a classic for a reason and I strongly recommend it. With that I've reached my goal of 13 movies waaaay sooner than I expected! My new goal is to get to at least 16, beating my personal record from last year.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2021 16:19
|
|
|
Catching up on the stuff I watched over the weekend, of course I watched these two... Halloween(2018) I liked this when it came out three years ago but I actually liked it even more when I rewatched it this weekend. Now having seen Halloween Kills, I kinda wish they would've just been content to end it with the one film, which is perfectly self-contained and has an extremely satisfying conclusion. For me the movie actually starts a bit slow, the parts leading up to Michael's arrival in Haddonfield are probably the weakest, but it just gets better and better and then the climax is expertly crafted for tension and some real fist-pumping moments. I also love the look of the film. It's very modern, you certainly wouldn't mistake it for one of the classic Halloween sequels from the 80's, but the color palette is really well done and basically every shot has something Halloweenish or seasonal in it. The Carpenter score is also really striking, it's pretty great that he did so much with the previous score to put new twists on it as opposed to just keeping it mostly the same. So that's where I was on this movie when I went to watch Halloween Kills, it's a movie I like quite a bit and even with some flaws I'd call it a very solid 8/10. So unfortunately with that somewhat high standard to live up to Halloween Kills really disappointed me in a big way.  Halloween Kills So yea pretty much everybody here is gonna watch this at some point in October, and from what I've read in the other threads opinions are split. It's hard to get too into the details of my complaints without using a bunch of spoiler tags, but I can tell you that I really really wanted to like this. I was feeling good about it at first, because I thought the flashback to 1978 thing was a cool idea. After that, things quickly shift to a bar while the Strodes are taken to the hospital and we're introduced to some new characters. And that's where things derailed for me. The new characters didn't work and I found myself waiting for those scenes to be over but then as the movie went on it became clear that this was going to be the main core of the story. I also found the depiction of Michael to be way off, at least for my taste, and that was particularly strange because I felt like they handled him almost perfectly in the previous film. He's big and powerful, sure, but do we need scenes of him wading into a crowd and chopping up scores of people? Another big difference here was that the 2018 film left a great final impression, as I mentioned earlier I thought the ending to that film was basically perfect. The ending of Halloween Kills did not leave a good taste in my mouth at all. It didn't feel effective for what they were going for, it didn't feel earned, it didn't feel like the right way to go for these characters. So who knows, maybe I'll rewatch this at some point and reevaluate, because obviously a lot of these complaints are based on my own personal preferences for this series/characters, but my first reaction to it was not a positive one at all. 1. Phantasm 2. Malignant 3. The Thing 4. The Mummy(1999) 5. The Curse of Frankenstein 6. Child's Play 7. The Fog 8. Hellraiser 9. Beetlejuice 10. Elvira Mistress of The Dark 11. Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein 12. Dead Heat 13. Halloween 14. Halloween 2 15. Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers 16. Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers 17. Halloween: H20 18. VHS 94(TALES OF TERROR)19. Count Dracula(PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK) 20. It Came From Outer Space(SPACED INVADERS) 21. Rats: Night of Terror(ORIGIN OF EVIL) 22. Halloween(2018) 23. Halloween Kills
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2021 16:57
|
|
|
 8. Edward Scissorhands: B Rewatch I watched it when I was 17 and didn't love it. I have now rewatched it when I was 35 and didn't love it. I was really hoping that I'd fall for the movie more with additional time and experience and perspective under my belt, but sadly this was not the case. I do think that I can appreciate it a bit more now than I did at that age, but I didn't really connect with it more. I can see a bit more nuance in it this time around, but after letting it sink in for a bit, I'm not sure that factored into my enjoyment of the film itself. I had remembered the film being a little more simplistic in it's "normies bad, weirdos good" message—it's still not subtle about it, but I can now more clearly discern Burton's self-insert as speaking to the commodification of his talent and uniqueness and there are shades of depth to his message. That being said, the whole thing still just feels like a self-hagiography to me. A creative, interesting, whimsical, occasionally beautiful self-hagiography. But there's an arrogance to it that doesn't feel earned because the film isn't actually very transgressive at all. It's just dripping with that smug unholier-than-thou Gen X attitude that I can't stand. That being said, Burton's suburbia feels wonderfully cartoonish, homes that are colorful outside but oppressively empty and blank inside. At times like a John Waters film with a budget, often too slick but occasionally retaining some of that ideal chintziness. Every second Vincent Price is on screen is absolutely magical and we should feel blessed that Tim Burton gave us this gift of a final great performance from him. Depp is quite good, but the character is too much of a passive blank slate for much of the story. Ryder is totally wasted. Wiest is far and away the standout performance of the film, bringing layers of depth to a character that could easily have been one-note. A bit disappointing, all said. I was really hoping that I'd revisit this one and fall in love. Supplemental Material: None of this counts  Goosebumps — Monster Blood Part I: B A kid visits his weirdo great aunt, makes a friend with a neighborhood girl, and discovers a jar labeled "monster blood" in his aunt's pantry. He takes some and plays with it like Flubber, but eventually the stuff grows out of control until it becomes a giant life-threatening blob. Then we get some backstory about how the aunt came into the monster blood and suddenly witches. The goo itself is fun, I liked the bits with the dog, the kid acting was alright, the aunt was rad. This was a super straightforward episode, but did everything it had to do well. I could've chopped 5 minutes out of the middle, but overall a decent time.  Kolchak — Mr. R.I.N.G.: B+ My first proper episode of Kolchak after watching The Night Stalker a few years back. Here, a rogue sentient artificial being with a limited lifespan breaks out of the Tyrell Institute and kills its maker in an attempt to not die. Kolchak tracks it down then gives it an empathy test and sympathizes with its worldview. The whole thing ends on a monologue questioning the empathic nature of humanity. This episode is clearly an unofficial adaptation of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? where Kolchak steps into the shoes of Rick Deckard. What's particularly fun, though, is that Tyrell is not a character in the book. That name came from this episode, and was picked up by the screenwriters and inserted into Blade Runner! I love that sort of circular inspiration. The episode itself was fun enough, but more for those parallels than anything great it did on its own. I enjoy serialized detective fiction, but the formula can occasionally wear on me. Here, it was a bit too apparent and some of the whodunnit bits felt rather cliche. The pacing was a bit off but hey, it was 70s television. I was hoping this would be more of a thriller based on the show's reputation, but I probably picked the wrong episode for that. Overall it was perfectly enjoyable, but probably not a great first episode to dive into. feedmyleg fucked around with this message at 17:07 on Oct 19, 2021 |
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2021 16:59
|
|
|
bitterandtwisted posted:22: Sleepaway Camp (1983) I don't know if anyone would argue it's a positive trans portrayal - at best it's problematic and at worst it's deeply transphobic. I think people just like it in spite of those things because it's such a solid slasher. I've read some interesting takes on how it handles gender dysphoria but this probably isn't the best place for that derail. I'm sure the main horror thread would love to talk about it though if you're interested.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2021 17:15
|
|
|
10. Demonic Spooky spot: The Devil Made Me Do It I don't think I've ever seen a movie that was bad in quite the same way this one is and I'm still sort of struggling to articulate the impression. It's less than the sum of its parts in a very dramatic way, and I think it's mostly down to script problems. Absolutely baffling that so much money and so many basically competent-to-talented people showed up and put real effort into this, while the writer just handed in a first draft that was wrapped up in a single night. I'm going to break from my normal habits and do a plot recap now because it's the easiest way to talk about this thing. There are three scenes that handle the entire work of the story. They cover, in order: setting, character backgrounds, and plot. In the first of these, our hero Carly meets up with someone named Martin who she hasn't talked to in half a decade. He tells her that some medical technology startup is in physical possession of her mother, who is a felon now in a coma, and they're trying to locate Carly because of this. The rest of this is in spoilers just in case, but I really don't think it matters - you learn all of this in the movie pretty much exactly as and at the pace I will describe it. In the second, Carly explains the backstory to employees of the startup: her mom was a nurse who went off to poke at an abandoned sanitarium one day. Carly was hanging out with her friends Martin and Sam when she got a bad feeling about her mom and taker Martin to go investigate. They find her mom unconscious on the floor with her wrist slit open and bring everyone home. Over the next few weeks her mom goes from comatose to dissecting birds in the kitchen to killing 30-ish people. In the third, Carly visits Martin and asks him to re-explain all the crazy theories he developed back when this happened with mom. Martin says the Vatican has a special ops team that buys medical startups working on conditions that could potentially be demonic possession, mom was definitely possessed by a demon when she did all those murders, and the guys she met at the startup were definitely actually priests who are now going to do an exorcism. He gestures at some forum posts by way of evidence while he's explaining this. And that's it, that's the story. In a normal movie that would just be the bricks of the plot, and there would be an exploration of ideas or themes or some character development mortaring it all together, or...something. Here, no character has an arc of any sort - Carly is presented with what she takes to be irrefutable proof of one thing, which changes how she feels about her mom in a completely binary way. We can't even say she learned this thing during the movie since Martin told her way back before it ever started. And while it doesn't normally bother me when movie characters are bad people or do dumb things, here everyone is a sort of insanely myopic self-centered that makes sure I don't care what happens to them. Now, you might notice there are a few things I've omitted from my description here, especially if you've seen a trailer. Wasn't there something about stealing the idea for a mind simulation device from hit videogame The Evil Within? Yes, but it doesn't matter. Every scene with it is filler that's not even interesting to look at. What about the third friend, Sam? She's around for a filler scene and a spooky dream I actually kind of like. Then she burns to death because, after Carly and Martin retrieve her from a spat of possession, Carly wants to go poke at the exorcism instead of getting her traumatized friend to safety. What about the resolution? There's a vatican special forces team and you've seen a movie before, come on. You know exactly how this goes. The reason I wrote so many words here, the thing I find so fascinating, is that if you zoom in on any individual snippet of movie it looks perfectly fine - more interesting than usual for a demonic possession movie, even. There's a spooky dream that's actually kind of cool even though there's not really any reason for it to be a dream instead of just a thing that happens. The demon itself is kind of a neat design. Demon trapped in a coma patient? Yeah, you could do something with that premise. Possession plus goofy mind simulation fantasy tech? Why not, show me what the demon's thinking about or how the mind is divided between original owner and intruder or something. Go wild with it! I cannot understand why they took all of this and just went nowhere instead. This movie is terrible and I want everyone in the thread to watch it. 
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2021 17:26
|
|
|
Heavy Metal posted:stuff about The Editor Cool, thanks - I've seen The Void and Psycho Goreman, I'll check out some of their other stuff. And the shorts, especially for the shorts challenge! And now for some movies!  23. Grizzly (1976) Beat-for-beat, character-for-character remake of Jaws. It even has a similar theme for the Spooky Card: Wild Beasts!  24. The Curse Of The Mummy's Tomb (1964) Another rehashing of a familiar story, but it was nice to see the Hammer touch on it - more vivid, bloodier, and a fun take on an American through British eyes. My second favorite telling of this story so far, and I think better than the Universal mummy movie. Spooky Card: I was going to go with Picnic At Hanging Rock (made in 1964, about 1901) but I don't think the period is really all that relevant other than making people think about the historical tomb openings. SPOOKY CARD:  24/31: The Lure, Candyman, Wyrmwood, Malevolent, Vivarium, Three Extremes, Def By Temptation, Fanatic, Kuso, The Pit, VHS94, Blackwood, Shadow Of The Hawk, The Queen Of Black Magic (1981), Monstrous (2020), American Psycho 2, The Nesting, Halloween Kills, Mimic, The Mutilator, The Field Guide To Evil, The Editor, Godzilla Raide Again, Grizzly, The Curse Of The Mummy's Tomb Spooky Card: Hausu: The Nesting, Holiday Massacre: Halloween Kills, It's Only A Myth: Monstrous, Don't Torture A Duckling: Godzilla Raids Again, Wild Beasts: Grizzly, They Always Come Back: The Queen Of Black Magic, Behind The Screams: The Editor, Tales Of Terror: The Field Guide To Evil
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2021 17:41
|
|
|
Sequence Breakquote:what if we kissed... 
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2021 17:47
|
|
|
SPOOKY Challenge: As Seen on TV #60) Slayer (2006; Prime Video) Commandos in the rain forest run into some vampires. Vampires who don't care about sunlight, who like to do wire-fu, and who can karate-chop people in half (but only do so once). So it's fighting time, for the rest of the movie. Painfully clichéd dialogue (“What in the name of God's green earth was that?” “I don't think God's involved in this.”), a half-assed Incan connection, an ex-wife rescue plot thread, and a need to repeatedly emphasize how these vampires aren't the ones from “fairy tales” bag this down with failed attempts at edginess and macho attitude. It's directed (and written, and edited) by Kevin VanHook, whose name might be familiar if you read Valiant Comics in the '90s, after they pushed out their founder. Casper Van Dien leads, Lynda Carter plays a colonel, Ray Park is there to do some flips and spin-kicks as identical twin vampires, and Danny Trejo pops up for a scene and a check. It feels like they're going for a Predator vibe, but none of the good stuff from that movie (including tension, understated senses of character relations, cool special effects, attentive sound design, or actor charisma) materializes to hold this up. Arguably, someone who knows what they're doing is behind the camera (there's plenty of scenes shot at night, and they're not washed out or murky). But aside from that and Ray Park, there's not a lot of talent on display, and hardly any enthusiasm from anyone. I can't really blame them. The script would probably have worked better as an episode of an anthology series; militarized South American vampires isn't a terrible concept, on its own. But making it a Sci Fi Channel feature-length stretches the script's meager content far too thin. Waste of time. “Now me, I'm more of an old bull.” Rating: 5/10 
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2021 18:04
|
|
|
gey muckle mowser posted:I don't know if anyone would argue it's a positive trans portrayal - at best it's problematic and at worst it's deeply transphobic. I think people just like it in spite of those things because it's such a solid slasher. I've read some interesting takes on how it handles gender dysphoria but this probably isn't the best place for that derail. I'm sure the main horror thread would love to talk about it though if you're interested. While I wouldn't call it a positive portrayal, there is a feature on the Shout Factory blu-ray that talks about the film's legacy, and there's sections about LGBQT+ fans who like it, not because the portrayal is exactly positive, but that Angela is largely a sympathetic character, and that it captures the alienation many closeted people feel, especially at that age. And, like you said, the gender dysphoria of being forced in a body you don't feel is your own. And I have read similar positive reviews and write-ups from trans fans and other LGBQT+ writers I follow.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2021 18:05
|
|
|
 76) Flora - 2017 - TubiTV Picnic At Hanging Rock When it comes to period piece horror, it seems like the 1800s is the default go to. I've sat through so many, I was looking for something different. This one being set in the late '20s fit the bill. Story follows a group of students heading out to join their professor on an expedition to chart the native plants in an uncharted forest. Once there, it turns out there's a reason it's uncharted. This one was a mixed bag. Visually, it was quite good. The premise has solid potential. The attention to the era detail had the history major in me grin ear to ear. The soundtrack was an excellent fit. But, where the film dropped the ball was in pacing and the 'monster'. The film tends to meander to the point a fair chunk could've been edited out with nothing lost. As far as the killer pollen/spores goes, it needed more presence considering what it is. It's mentioned that before killing, the infected hallucinate and go mad. But the film really doesn't do much with that. There's some heavy potential here and I wouldn't mind the director revisiting this one when they've got a bigger budget.  77) Godzilla vs. Biollante - 1989 - Internet Archive Don't Feed The Plants For how long the Godzilla franchise has gone on, it's impressive when they manage to still bring something fresh to things. Here, we have some of Godzilla's cells being used in plant experiments to terraform deserts into fertile land, but of course things don't go well and we end up with Godzilla duking it out with a Rosezilla. I liked this one. It has what you look for in a kaiju film along with some good side stories. I recommend this one.  78) Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum - 2018 - Shudder Asylum The short-short summary of this one is 'Grave Encounters, but South Korea'. Overall, this one's pretty good. I felt it did help that Gonjiam is a haunted former asylum, though the movie was not filmed there. Particularly impressive was the film did manage to creep me out at times since that doesn't happen often considering how much horror I sit through. The bit in the dark room with the barely visible face and the scrabbling hands got to me. I did find the characters believable, particularly the leader continuing with the streaming when he clearly should've gotten everyone out of there. In this era of likes and subs being all, who needs friends? For a bit I did question whether this counted as found footage since the premise sets this as a livestream, but with the footage going on after the stream's cut, I'd say it does count. This one is a definite recommend.  79) Ghost Stories - 2020 - Netflix Tales of Terror Like all anthologies, there's going to be one standout aspect with the rest of varying quality. There's no wraparound, just the four stories after a pretty nice animated opening credits. The stories have no titles so I'll just number them. Story 1 involves a young nurse taking care of an elderly woman. Story 2 has a paranoid pregnant woman babysitting her late sister's son. Story 3 has a town beseiged by ghouls. Story 4 has a new bride dealing with her husband's preoccupation with his grandmother's ghost. The best story here is 3. It's good enough to be its own stand alone film. For some reason reviewers and Wikipedia call the flesheaters zombies when they're clearly not. They're the traditional definition of ghouls, monstrous humanoids that feast on human flesh. For the time allotted, the director does an amazing job giving us the basics for the setting so it's straight on tension the rest of the way. Particularly standout were the child actors in this one, they completely sold the idea of two children survivors surrounded by ghouls. The rest of the stories just aren't as good. Story 1 is a basic ghost story. It turns out that the elderly woman's son who was supposed to show up to care for her during the change of nurses never showed up so she died and it's her ghost the nurse was tending. Story 2 has some very trippy imagery, but it turns out that the woman's nephew has powers and didn't want to share her affection/attention with her baby so he made her miscarry which drove her mad Story 4 was okayish. The family's acceptance that 'granny didn't pass on, she just died' was creepy, but what was odd was while the bride is researching who granny was and finding out how much a caring pillar of the community she was, the ghost has the bride killed like she has anyone else who doesn't believe she exists Overall, this was okay enough.  80) The Disco Exorcist - 2011 - Youtube Scream, Queen! When I first saw the poster, I thought it was a photoshop. I even remember commenting that I would definitely watch it if it was real. Well, turns out it is, and it joins High School Ghost Hustlers in the 'are you watching porn' comments from my fiance when he glanced at my screen while watching. Story follows Rex Romanski, King of Disco and swinger. He ends up having what to him's a one night stand but ends up pissing off the woman in question who's more than she seems. As far as retro themed films go, this one was pretty decent. Usually the trend tends to be add some film grain in post production and call it good, but the director put some good effort into this one. It's not perfect, but the amount of 70s feels right aesthetic was enough for me. The raunchy humor had me snortlaughing enough Herbert-cat gave me a look like I'd lost my mind. Soon as some stuff clears, I'm buying the DVD. Overall, while not for everyone, I liked this and do recommend. 
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2021 18:51
|
|
|
  41 (75). Cult Following (2021) Written and directed by Matt Hartley Watched on Amazon Prime <b>Fran’s SPOOKY BINGO: [REC]</b> This caught my attention for… some reason. I think its just that the very basic post kind of reminded me of Tales from the Crypt or something. Also I like cult stuff and found footage so… it was one of many totally random movies on my list that probably sucked and didn’t fill any challenges or anything so it was just there for a palette cleanser or something. And today the mood struck me. And really, I enjoyed this. Its not great or anything, but its kind of fun. The characters are weird but obviously intentionally so. Rob Regis is a weird dude who wants to be Indiana Jones and seems like he might be pretty terrible but then actually kind of turns out not that bad after all. Its surprising how the film takes him from kind of a joke that seems like it might wear out to actually a pretty human person and kind of likable through the second act as you see more of how he really is and not the character he’s putting on or bravado he wears for his image. Tyler the documentarian is also a weird dude in his own right, a dork who doesn’t quite seem to know what he’s doing or getting himself into but just can’t seem to say no to his new role model. Its an interesting thing kind of turning it into a road movie between these characters in some ways while the horror happens between those scenes. And that horror is very simple and low budget but pretty solid. Its all the simple found footage tricks you’ve seen before. Cutting in and out, things being there when they weren’t a second ago, jump scares. Nothing revolutionary but its used sparingly and effectively I think. Its definitely not a scary movie but its not exactly a comedy either. It walks the line by having its characters kind of silly but its situation serious, and I think the film does manage to sell the latter while its trying to charm you with the former. So yeah, I liked it. Not anything you necessarily need to go out of your way for but a fun little low budget found footage film that tries something and does a solid job with it. Definitely the palette cleanser I was hoping it would be. 42 (76). Fran’s SPOOKY BINGO Short Cuts DIY Anthology Fran’s SPOOKY BINGO: Short Cuts Hooptober Ocho 25/39: The Scooby Doo Project Last year I grouped a bunch of Tim Burton shorts together and created a DIY anthology with them and it was one of the highlights of my challenge. So I was super excited to do it again. So excited that I have like 3 of these. But this is the main one, just a bunch of shorts I’m interested in added together to a feature length collection and sorted in an order I think might work. I think they add up to like 99 minutes combined? Something like that. Well over an hour but within the limits of film length that doesn’t give me pause. Also a Youtube playlist of them if you wish to watch as I did. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJsByf9TVAjvVOh1s8CMrQMU2J0b3OweK  Suckablood (2012) Written and directed by Ben Tillett and Jake Hendriks https://youtu.be/fw4gwwS-nFI A GREAT start. An extremely well done little horror story told in a gothic fairy tale way. Simultaneously playful and fantastical and still spooky and horrifying. The kind of Grimm lesson learned and resolution experienced. I’m sad to see Ben Tillett doesn’t seem to have anything else out there. I guess this is really more of a technical effects piece than a film or anything so I hope he’s had success elsewhere in his main field. But a great little horror taster.  The Tunnel aka ‘Tunnelen’ (2016) Written and directed by André Řvredal, Based on The Tunnel Ahead by Alice Glaser https://youtu.be/ciJiLNncHLc A really harrowing little short in one of those sci fi sociopolitical stories. I don’t think this really has a lot to say. Certainly I get it. In a society of over population the dystopian folks in charge eliminate population sporadically and randomly and people risk death just to get a couple of hours away from the city. Its horrible and impactful but there’s nothing much deeper there, which is how I feel about a lot of those sci fi moral tales. But as a pure horror story its really very, very good. Told incredibly simply without everything spelled out but very well felt through the acting and editing. As the slow crawl through traffic happened it was very tense and easy to feel the fear if what could come at any moment. And the end punch works to really sell the tragedy and randomness of it all. I already like Ovredal and that brought me in here so no major surprise or new things to add, but another very effective bit of storytelling from him to continue growing my respect for him as a fan.  Conventional (2015) Written and directed by Karen Gillan https://youtu.be/kssgzmZ2sqg A very darkly comedic little tale about the harsh reality of many “scream queens” in the horror fandom. Karen Gillian may not be a scream queen herself but she’s certainly no stranger to the similar world of obsessive fandoms and conventions and such given her time on Doctor Who and now in the MCU. And this is a pretty bleak look at that world. It starts feeling more comedic and maybe a little mean. Showing those fans who love a film maybe way too much, not only cosplaying but taking it a step farther and being very… awkward about things. Certainly there are a lot of those fans but it wasn’t super clear at first where exactly this was going with that. But then it takes its turn and comedy drops out. Or at least, it gets real dark. Gillian expressing the the harsh disposable treatment of many women in horror or these genres where they can be the “stars” titillating and exciting the audience with those things they want but then discarded for someone younger and new and left with nothing but a fading career and fandom. And worst of all maybe the personal questions of your own worth. That fall from grace and how you deal with it. The comedy feel of it might not be for everyone. I’m not sure it was for me. Its that kind of very dark humor common in a lot of british or modern internet stuff where its laughing to keep from crying. Not really my thing and I’m often uncomfortable with it but not exactly here. But it also didn’t fully click with me. But the ”story’ and message of it still came through effectively and the differences between Gillan’s two monologues are a very effective way of selling it. I well done turn for her and man I hope it ain’t that bad... but I know it is for some.  The Captured Bird (2012) Written and directed by Jovanka Vuckovic https://youtu.be/YckihDuoUxU I enjoyed this, I think it was well made and a very interesting concept. Another dark fairy tale of children and monsters. But it doesn’t feel like a poem or a short story but more like a proof of concept video. There’s a story here, and one I’d definitely be interested in watching. But this is really just the opening scene of it before the title card drops. I’ve only seen shorts from Vuckovic but I have her one feature on my list and I think I’m gonna make a point to watch it this month. She seems to have an interesting voice and eye for this so I’m very curious to see what she can do. And I really would kind of like to see a full feature of this, or even a full short. Its hard to be critical of something you have nothing bad to say about and was under 10 minutes. Its well done. And there’s a lot of visual and imaginative elements in that short time. But not a fuller story.  Night Swim (2014) Written and directed by Rod Blackhurst and Bryce McGuire https://youtu.be/R5mPELbWVDk Not much her ego be honest. I just happened to add it to my list because I’m a big fan of Megalyn and this was the other horror on her list. She does well and its a very good looking little story but there’s not enough here to make any real impression. Even for a short story its pretty short on story, although in some ways that’s actually pretty effective. This is basically that quick death that happens in the first act of a horror film with a victim that gets talked about more than they appear themselves, if they’re not forgotten entirely. It happens so quickly and the shortness of this piece does sort of get across the horror of that. By focusing on this character for once with no quick cut to the movie’s actual protagonist or anything it kind of sells how quick and terrifying one of these horror deaths are. Its not some long chase or cat and mouse game or battle for these victims. Its a few moments of feeling something is wrong and then a sudden realization and its over. I don’t know if that was the intent behind this but as I wrote through this review and “talked through it” I definitely took more away from it than I realized. As an avid horror fan, as someone who has watched way too many horror films this kind of death scene feels very familiar and unimportant. But in that is maybe the short’s means of showcasing the importance by singling it out. So I guess I’m saying you should all tell people you love them, wash behind your ears, and appreciate the sacrifices of the first act horror kills because they were people too.  Dońa Lupe (1985) Written and directed by Guillermo del Toro https://youtu.be/yXwnbD2wo08 ”Hi, this is Guillermo del Toro and the first thing I would like to say is I apologize, I apologize, and I apologize for this piece of crap you’re about to see.” This was the big short I came for as its the last available work of Guillermo del Toro I haven’t seen and I’ve become such a huge fan of his. One of the reasons I love him so much is his self deprecation and charming rough judge of his own work. Or at least I hope its charming because it reminds me of myself. The piece itself is rough, obviously. An amateur piece from early in a master’s career as he was teaching himself the art of filmmaking with his peers, and long enough ago that many of the things they were teaching themselves were the things they’d teach another generation or two of filmmakers. And yeah, the director’s commentary here I watched after watching the piece is more interesting than the piece itself. But truthfully that’s kind of what I came for. I find these early pieces from established directors so interesting to see how they started, see the first touches of brilliance, and in cases like this hear them reflect back on the process, their mistakes, and their successes. GdT’s got an interesting story here about the struggle of the production where they had to reshoot all their night scenes in one sleepless 32 hour nightmare. Its also interesting to hear him talk about how he was improvising lighting himself in that marathon and that the tricks he used became stuff he continued using through his career with his major productions. And its that kind of stuff, just generally hearing GdT’s ideas of how his story came together or how he was attempting to shoot the film in the style of a comic book but failed in part due to his own mistakes and in part due to comic books apparently being different in Mexico. Also GdT tells a story of his pet crow in the film and hometown soda. So really, how can you not be charmed by this? The short itself isn’t anything amazing unless you’re as big a fan of GdT as I am. But if you’re not I’d definitely recommend the Director’s Commentary and maybe you’ll become a fan if you listen to the guy rip apart his own work and himself while also giving a ton of information and even teaching a little as tells a really engaging and full story of how this was made. ”I thank you for your patience and its time for you to go to dinner or start making your short film and realize that if incompetent motherfuckers like me can do this short, continue to have a career, and even make features then there's hope for everyone.” Director’s Commentary: https://youtu.be/PRWW0AZJwfA  The Scooby-Doo Project (1999) Written and directed by Casper Kelly, Steve Patrick, & Larry Morris https://youtu.be/SPZWfXLTDuo I had no idea this was a thing but am a big fan of Blair Witch. I don’t really have an opinion of Scooby Doo one way or another so I imagine if I had seen it 20 years ago 2when everyone and their brother was making Blair Witch parodies it would have just blurred with the crowd. But honestly, for all the really easy jokes people made for just filming yourself in the woods yelling and crying this is really pretty creative and well done. Its interesting to see its the actual Scooby Doo voice actors in some case so this is like… canon? Official? Whatever. Its fun and a very true to both original sources parody I enjoyed. Final Thoughts I really enjoyed that with none of the segments disappointing. I really dig this whole DIY anthology thing. Shorts often feel very passing for me so I don’t watch them much, but in these fuller formats i just process them more. The flow did get broken up by me watching the Dona Lupe director’s commentary which bums me out a little, but I don’t regret it because that really was my main event and it didn’t disappoint. Conventional and Night Swim didn’t totally fit the overall fantasy feel that I kind of built around GdT originally. I added them late just to create kind of palette cleansers and they did work that way and I enjoyed them, but if I had it to do over I’d probably just watch two “anthologies.” And the Scooby Doo Project was an add just to get my Hooptober challenge out of the way and I figured it would be a nice come down, and it was. Maybe the whole thing was too long especially with the commentary and having to write reviews but I dug it and each of the shorts has something to offer. 
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2021 19:13
|
|
|
Can't believe nobody else has reviewed 13. Halloween Kills ***˝ For the first time in the forever forking timeline of Halloween, we're given something that the series feels like it's craved since the start - a plan to produce a set number of films to tell a singular story. If we had that earlier, maybe the fantastic ending to 4 might not have been completely squandered in 5? So, Kills definitely has a different feel to the other entries due to this. Knowing it has a final film yet to come, it doesn't have to play by the normal rules and can instead have some fun. Bringing back a ton of ancillary characters from the original that haven't really ben heard from since, as well as giving the town a level of history with Myers that goes down generational divides - the elder people still remember, and their kids/grandkids also know, but everyone else knows little to nothing. It's something that Curse touched on a little, but now we have full on vigilante squads forming to deal with him once and for all. Except, that of course comes with the caveats of such reactions. With their catchphrases and dubious identification methods, it feels like they share elements of the mobs of the past with the online, Reddit witchhunts of the present. It adds another level to the pain that a character like Myers brings, whether he's present or not. Once again, there's a nice amount of fan service for movies that are no longer part of this canon, and an ending that provides a decent emotional punch to fuel the finale from the word go. There's some repetition (I nearly needed the use of a 2nd hand to count how many times Michael was being hunted around the same house) and the dialog is clunky at times, but it's overshadowed by the shift in direction and gnarly kills throughout.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2021 19:42
|
|
|
#18. Cruising 1980 | dir William Friedkin Arrow blu-ray SPOOKY: Scream, Queen!  A fascinating film with a complicated history in LGBQT+ cinema. 1980. A serial killer is targeting men in S&M Gay Bars. The issue is largely ignored by the police and the city, but more murders are putting pressure on the Mayor and the Chief of Police. Officer Steve Burns is asked to throw away his identity and go undercover in NYC's S&M Gay culture. He is a similar look and build of the previous victims, so he will now be bait to lure out the killer before more victims are claimed. Filmed and released only a year before the AIDS epidemic was acknowledged, based on a novel based on six real murders and mutilations that took place in 1977-78, and filmed in actual gay bars with many real patrons as background extras. Almost everything shown in this film--from the S&M culture to the actual bars and even people--would be changed or gone because of the AIDS epidemic only a year later. The production was a miasma of controversy. Friedkin and Gerald Walker wrote the script with good intentions, according to everyone involved in the production, with Friedkin spending weeks attending gay bars and S&M bars, lightly participating in the culture, and they involved Det. Randy Jurgensen, who actually went undercover to find the real killer which inspired the events for the novel and film, and incorporated Jurgensen's stories about how it affected (or widened?) his understanding of his own sexuality in the script. The main inspiration for the setting was The Mineshaft, a BDSM gay leather bar in Manhatten, where Friedkin and Pacino did most of their undercover research, and which was members only but attracted a rather eclectic group of celebrity . Nonetheless, the NYC LGBQT+ community protested the film in the summer of 1979, urged on by journalist Arthur Bell, who had written about the unsolved murders that inspired the film. Gay people and businesses owned by gay people were urged to disrupt any filmmaking they saw or to refuse service to the staff. There was a protest of over one thousand people marching through East Village, asking the city to withdraw support. Friedkin, Pacino and others tried to vocalize that this film was about a specific place in a specific time with a specific culture, and that it wasn't intended as anti-gay, or homophobic, or a statement about the entirety of LGBQT community, but this was largely ignored. "Cruising came out around a time that gay liberation had made enormous strides among the general public," says Friedkin in retrospect. "It also came out around the same time that AIDS was given a name. I simply used the background of the S&M world to do a murder mystery; it was based on a real case. But the timing of it was difficult because of what had been happening to gay people. Of course, it was not really set in a gay world; it was the S&M world. But many critics who wrote for gay publications or the underground press felt that the film was not the best foot forward as far as gay liberation was concerned, and they were right. Now it's reevaluated as a film. It could be found wanting as a film, but it no longer has to undergo the stigma of being an anti-gay screed, which it never was." To further complicate the production, the film was re-edited multiple times, to eliminate a total of 40 minutes. There isn't a definite explanation for what the footage contained, since it changes with each account and interview. What is known is that it involved more footage of the gay culture, scenes in the gay bar, and more gay content. "There aren't enough XXX's in the alphabet to rate this movie," said Richard Heffner, head of the ratings board. Even if the writing of the film and it's production weren't marred with issues and concerns of homophobia, the demands of the MPAA certainly held an anti-gay agenda. To frame my thoughts: I am heterosexual, with a handful of homosexual experiences. I live in my city's LGBQT neighborhood, and have for years. Going to drag shows, gay bars, BDSM showcases, PRIDE events, and volunteering in conjunction with our local LGBQT+ support networks has been a regularity in my adult life, partially from spending time with my LGBQT+ friends and partially with how inviting the community I live in is. (In fact, October is my city's PRIDE month, so Halloween is always started with PRIDE marches and community events.) A few years ago, in my city, we had a person frequenting one of our local gay bars who murdered trans patrons of a local bar by taking them into the woods under the (assumed) guise of hooking up. They were never caught, or if they were, were never charged and identified for these murders. There is a lot of ambiguity in Cruising. Are we hunting a single killer, or are there multiple killers? What are the motivations? How is Steve Burns being affected mentally, emotionally and sexually from his investigation? What does the ending mean? The atmosphere in Cruising is one of underlying hostility and fear. The film begins by framing this fear from the perspective of two sex workers--in drag or possibly trans, difficult to properly frame with how they are discussed in 1980s terms--who are picked up by police officers (the easily recognizable Joe "Maniac" Spinell and Mike Starr). At first the sex workers are harassed, then threatened, then sexually assaulted by the police officers. We then shift the narrative over to a gay bar where we see two men interact (flirting isn't accurate, since one flirts and the other is cold and severe) then leave together. After their sexual encounter, the mysterious man produces a knife and kills the other man, in a sadomasochistic torture of fear and bondage. We shift the narrative again to Capt. Edelson approaching Officer Steve Burns about the idea of going undercover to catch this killer, whose body count is rising. This conversation is treated as procedural, but is homophobic, biting, dismissive of the crimes, and expresses that this is more of an interest in public perspective of the police, and not an attempt at providing safety to a scared community. In the first act, there is another scene with Capt. Edelson being approached by one of the sex workers from the opening scene, who tries to take action against the police officers who sexually assaulted them earlier. These officers are known for doing this regularly. The sex worker is met with dismissive hostility. "I can't prosecute stories," Edelson says. "I need names, badge numbers and evidence. How do I know you aren't making this up? Or that these aren't gay men pretending to be officers?" This hostility and fear permeates many of the scenes in the S&M gay bars. Most of this comes from Steve Burns. We know that he is currently in a heterosexual relationship (with Karen Allen) and his partner does not know anything about his investigation, and that he claims he doesn't have any gay experiences. Infiltrating the scene proves difficult for him in many ways, from practical issues of not knowing different hook-up codes ("...A yellow bandana means golden showers. Put it in your left pocket, you like receiving golden showers. Put it in your right, you like giving golden showers..."), not knowing how to dress, important people in the community, or different themed nights and how that attracts different patrons, to more personal inhibitions, like flirting, dancing, watching men hooking up, etc. The hostility is not just with Steve. Everyone is aware that there is a murderer targeting gay men, that undercover cops or violent homophobes infiltrate the gay bars to find someone to beat the poo poo out of or prosecute, or more specific moments, like a man who approaches Steve to fool around only to grow angry with rejection and yelling at him for violating the bandana code ("If you just want to watch, take that loving bandana out of your pocket!") There is just as many moments about the gay community fearing itself, as there are fears about the straight and homophobic community persecuting the community. It is no surprise that one of the possible killers in this film suffers from self-loathing for being gay. Steve grows even more scared with himself. He starts to enjoy the culture, the attention, and the freedom. There is a fascinating scene where Steve is invited to dance with a man. He turns him down, but the man coerces Steve into dancing. On the dance floor, we see Steve's inhibitions evaporate, and he has fun. He feels the energy, and he likes it. Soon afterwards, we see him having sex with his girlfriend, and it is violent but passionless, like he is trying to gently caress away his gay thoughts with vaginal intercourse. Later, as his investigations continue, we learn that Steve and his girlfriend are no longer having sex. He expresses fears that he doesn't know how far he can go, sexually, in this investigation. He is scared of what he is learning about himself, or maybe what others might think of him, or if his masculinity is endangered by this newly found facet of his sexuality. (Masculinity is also a really fascinating theme in this film. None of the men are traditionally (stereotypically?) effeminate portrayals. Besides the sex workers at the beginning of the film, almost all of the men in this film are Leather Daddies, and there are multiple scenes with men, in their spare time, working out.) Steve seems compelled to find the killer and end this investigation, but is it because he wants this case to be over, or because he wants to stop looking at the mirror showing him other sides of his personality he denied before? The ambiguity in the film is both enriching and a hindrance. There is more room for the viewer to think about Steve and his fears and this community and the themes, but it also leaves more room for negative connotations, which was exactly what the LGBQT+ community protested on it's release. It can feel like an indictment that gay men or people into BDSM are prone to violence, which we know now more than ever to not be true. I do think that the film gets more right than wrong, with showing actual fears that are still faced by LGBQT+ communities. At the time, there weren't more positive portrayals of gay men in the media, so for a big Hollywood film to posit that gay men are murderous is painful and could empower prejudices audiences might already have. I think now, with gay stories being more accessible and more positive portrayals available, the film can be taken more for what it offers: the fear of discovering parts of your sexuality that others might not condone, the fears brought with AIDs, police corruption, fascistic practices fueled by anger and hatred, and rampant hate crimes that are ignored because of the group that is being targeted. On a technical level, this film rules. It's one of Pacino's more subdued roles. There are positive gay characters throughout the film, and it's interesting hearing their perspectives.("Oh, I would never go cruising. Always seemed to risky to me.") Not everyone is a victim or a killer, and I think that's lost with the more controversial aspects of the film. I see it's influence in The Safdie Bros films, and in films like Knife + Heart, and even Memories of Murder. It is interesting reading about how this film is now getting a wider audience and is now being accepted by LGBQT+ audiences as a fascinating (and painful) time capsule.  Recommended. Well that was the hardest review I've written all challenge. Total: 18 New: 16 Rewatches: 2 Films: Whoever Slew Auntie Roo?, Prince of Darkness, Titane, Hide and Seek, Vampire's Kiss, Werewolf of London, Scarecrow, Malignant, DeepStar Six, The Raven (1935) , Mom and Dad, Images, The Funhouse, The Wasp Woman, The Bay, Fade To Black, Pet Sematary (1989), Cruising Favorites: Titane, Images Worst: Scarecrow (2002) Franchescanado fucked around with this message at 13:53 on Oct 20, 2021 |
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2021 19:50
|
|
|
🎃 Masters of Horror 🎃 Opera (1987) Directed by Dario Argento Watched on Tubi  Opera is not one of Argento’s better films. It's not exactly bad, but compared to Suspiria or Tenebre, it’s just very conventional. The characters are all relatively flat and none of the performers seem to be very committed to their roles, just going through the motions. There are barely any colored lights!  Even though it has problems, it’s still definitely an Argento. The camera work is still very interesting and creative. The the female lead gets caught in the rain. There is sudden, brutal violence. I wanted to like it more than I did, but there are so many places where it just drags and the characters just weren’t eccentric enough to keep me engaged in the spaces between all the murders. 💀💀💀 Spooky Bingo 12/? 1. The Crazies (2010), 2. The Ritual (2017), 3. Blacula (1972), 4. Malignant (2013), 5. Black Sheep (2006), 6. [REC]2 (2009), 7. Demons 2 (1986), 8. Birdemic 2: The Resurrection (2013), 9. The Masque of the Red Death (1964), 10. Night of the Demons (1988), 11. The Witch Who Came from the Sea (1976), 12. Opera (1987)  Spooky Travelogue 31/31 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 🇯🇵, 13. The Untold Story 🇭🇰, 14. Brotherhood of the Wolf 🇫🇷, 15. Şeytan 🇹🇷, 16. Rift 🇮🇸, 17. Alison’s Birthday 🇦🇺, 18. The House at the End of Time 🇻🇪, 19. Daughters of Darkness 🇧🇪, 20. 122 🇪🇬, 21. Us 🇺🇸, 22. 2012: Curse of the Xtabai 🇧🇿, 23. Faust 🇩🇪, 24. Rigor Mortis 🇨🇳, 25. Penumbra 🇦🇷, 26. November 🇪🇪, 27. Killbillies 🇸🇮, 28. Alucarda 🇲🇽, 29. Sputnik 🇷🇺, 30. Djinn 🇦🇪, 31. Cold Prey 🇳🇴
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2021 20:51
|
|
|
twernt posted:Opera is not one of Argento’s better films. You're right. It's one of his best films. 
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2021 20:54
|
|
|
2. Tremors I'm gonna be honest I'm probably not going to make 13 horror movies. So I'm trying to at least watch ones that a super enjoyed. With that in mind I chose Tremors which is one of my favorite horror movies. Everything about this movie is great and it really amounts to whether you love Kevin Bacon or not. I happen to love Kevin Bacon. Everything about this movie is perfect. The acting , the comedy, the special effects, the story. Its all fantastic. Whats not to love.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2021 20:59
|
|
|
16. It's Alive III: Island of the Alive 1987 Larry Cohen Doesn't quite hit the highs of the OG, but what a wonderful time this movie is. Moriarty is always a delight, and we even get a little Karen Black! The baby puppets are still good, and even get a fun upgrade! I thought splitting the settings between the island stuff and the city stuff made the film a bit uneven, but it gave us Moriarty being goofy on a boat so I can hardly complain. The climax was pretty wild. The woman being chased by a punk gang was really well shot. Loved how it moved through the street into the beach. Solid B movie fun. 3.5/5 17. All the Colors of the Dark 1972 Sergio Martino With this and Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh, Martino certainly earns being among the best of the giallo directors. I love that he uses the same three leads in both pictures. Played with my expectations quite a bit. This is just another wonderfully made paranoid horror film. All the classic hallmarks of giallo getting checked off: great music, sets, costuming, creepy cults, outstanding visual style and use of color, a hallucinatory/dreamlike atmosphere, and a barely hangs together plot. The hazy hospital scene was extremely cool, loved the direction Martino took it and plays perfectly into the climax. Fenech is incredible again, just a great screen presence here. Hilton and Rassimov are both beautiful men and play their roles to really well, but are bit more limited in this compared to Strange Vice. I think Mrs. Wardh edges this one out a bit, but you can't go wrong with either. 4/5 18. Escape Room: Tournament of Champions 2021 Adam Robitel Count me among the marks for this series. Just a really fun gimmick done fairly well. Great set design throughout too. I was unsure how it would play out including the behind the scenes plot, and even thought it was going to botch the ending but I really enjoyed the final moments so it worked. Really fun traps, only complaint is about a reveal that kinda makes me question the choice to end Nate's run in the game. Still, had a lot of fun. 3.5/5 19. Terrifier 2016 Damien Leone A really effective and brutal slasher gore fest. Feels like a throwback at times with its willingness to be mostly plotless and sleazier compared to more modern horror. Some outstanding practical effects, and Art the Clown is a very well designed slasher villain. I wish the opening was different, makes the ending a little too predictable. Otherwise it's a one gore fans will really enjoy. 3.5/5 20. Cyst 2020 Tyler Russell That was an unexpected treat. A silly but fun and well made rubber monster movie with its share of goop. It stretches its budget to its limit and just about everything worked for me. The Dr and Nurse were great and I really enjoyed their actors here. The whole cast seemed to be having a lot of fun. 3.5/5 21. Halloween Kills 2021 David Gordon Green I enjoyed it. Michael is super brutal and I liked how it continued the themes from the previous one. Anthony Michael Hall as Tommy mostly works, I think Rudd would have sold the dorky guy trying to be tough a little better, Hall tries to sell the menace a little too hard. That sometimes works, like the shot where he's all red was dope. JCL is great, but her and Will Patton don't get much to do and that's a shame. Judy Greer fills in nicely though. There's some really cool shots throughout the movie. Some of the editing seems off at times. The music is outstanding. Decent follow up, wish it felt more stand alone than something that sets up for a third movie. Expands on the themes about fear/paranoia pretty well, and I like how it amps up Myers. 3/5 22. Slumber Party Massacre 2021 Danishka Esterhazy A cool way to breath new life into the series. I think it's kind of neat how the previous movies seem to have a bit of a resurgence (at least in my horror circles) in recent years and this remake comes a long and gives a lot of love while making something that fits today. I do have a minor complaint about the plot, but it's spoilery so I'll save it for conversations elsewhere. The script is a little too clever at times, making some jokes land a little poorly. However, it's quickly paced (86 mins is the perfect run time for this) and the surprises it throws at you are really good. I giggled at how just about everything with the guys plays out, especially with the main guy. All the characters a bit 1 dimensional, but the lead is pretty good and I found her motivation compelling enough to overlook her lackluster companions. The way the storytelling plays with slasher conventions is the real draw here anyway, which is does quite well. Some cool set pieces and the villain is neat. 3.5/5
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2021 21:03
|
|
|
 #20: Lair of the White Worm bingo square: Based on the Novel Lair of the White Worm is great. It's got that classic horror feel, with conversations in fancy rooms and the like. But it also has a completely straight-faced silliness that's just fantastic. And a level of eroticism that's, I mean, I really can't express how hot this chick is. The entire cast is very strong. Hugh Grant is perfect as a posh toff(I don't know what either of those words mean) and as I said before, Amanda Donohoe as the evil snake priestess is so, so, so hot. Lair of the White Worm is a very silly movie, but it's completely knowingly and straightfacedly silly. There's also a lot of attention to detail. Like, High Grant having a drum set in his parlor and the evil priestess having a bust of an evil Roman emperor in her house, little touches that just flesh everything out. And a happy embrace of every single opportunity to work a snakey word into the dialogue. It's a very well put together, very watchable movie. It's also got the best cop vs bagpiper scene I've ever seen.  I heartedly recommend Lair of the White Worm. It's just a fun watch overall and that chick is, I just, Jesus Christ. The shot where she pushes the guy's head underwater with her boot. Goddamn. 
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2021 21:30
|
|
|
Challenge: Short Cuts Firebase (26.52) I usually go for quantity on these and limit myself to shorts under 10 minutes, but I saw a clip from this and it looked cool so I tracked it down. Didn't realize it was Blomkamp but I figured it out pretty drat quick, his style is all over this. The effects, prostethics, models and all the other visual stuff are great and goopy as poo poo. The story is mostly unexplained and what is explained doesn't make a lot of sense, but it's still cool and works fine in a 20 minute short; Blomkamp should probably to these. Real tease of an ending though so I suppose I can't say I wouldn't want to see a full movie of this one. Kapture:Fluke (4:51) I was impressed enough to check out another from Oats Studios (Blomkamp's group). This is basically an SCP story about testing a super weapon. It's all CGI but crazy good to the point where it took me minute to realize it was, it's like Polar Express but not as terrifying. This isn't strictly speaking a horror short and leans more into comedy, but the idea is pretty creepy and it captures the terror of casual military industrial indifference quite well. Cooking with Bill: Smoothie (2:28) Ok one more Oats. This was weird and messed up, reminded me of those creepy rear end Adult Swim shorts that came out a few years ago. Some sort of infomercial from hell. There's a few of these that seem to run along the same lines. Other Side of the Box (15:49) Good little tension builder. Feels like a pretty classic urban legend with a fun twist in it. Peter the Penguin (9:14) Basically a horror version of one of those awkward british comedies. Probably the best theme song I'll hear this challenge. In the Field (3:06) Not much to say about this one as nothing really happens. Just sort of feels like someone got a new camera and wanted to make a movie with their friends. Total:6 shorts, 61 minutes even
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2021 21:34
|
|
|
 40. eXistenZ (1999) "But it's a game everybody's already playing." Crossing off another Cronenberg I hadn't seen. This was his first non-adapted screenplay since Videodrome which is interesting, but the plot of this movie is a little all over the place. Jennifer Jason Leigh stars as Allegra Gellar, developer of virtual reality games, who is on the run (with Jude Law) after an assassination attempt by a group who want people to live in the real world again. Everyone is speaking in incomprehensible accents and much like Inception, it feels like we keep going deeper - another layer of reality. Some interesting ideas here on our ability to trust our senses, and some of this is oddly prescient, like Willem Dafoe's character, who clearly just wants to stay in his immersive video game to dissociate from his boring life outside of it, or the use of biotech as a type of 3D printing but it mostly devolves into using it to make guns out of gristle. But the ending gets quite silly and I never felt fully locked in because the world seemed so poorly realized (which may be a feature not a bug in this case). 3.5/5 -- Spooky Bingo: Video Games Cause Violence 41. Akira (1988) "Long live Lord Akira!" What a ride! Welcome to 2019, Neo-Tokyo (because Tokyo was destroyed in 1988), where biker punks clash with their rivals in the streets while dodging government overlords and all sorts of chaos. It's amazing how much world building is done with backgrounds in this as there's no heavy narration to tell you specifically what happened but you pick it up easily as you move along. Magic powers with a sci-fi candy coating, explosions, blood, and (eventually) some loving wild body horror. It is clear why this is a classic, it absolutely slaps. If it's not clear I am using this for the 'Punk Vacation' square because it features gangs of bikers who are referred to as punks, and it's widely considered to be a cornerstone of cyberpunk as a genre, so I think it meets the criteria. 4.5/5 -- Spooky Bingo: Punk VacationTotal Watched: 41 // 'New to Me' Total: 32/40 Years Remaining: 1994, 2000, 2002, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2012, 2016, 2017, 2019, 2020
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2021 22:18
|
|
|
Franchescanado posted:You're right. Okay I owe it a rewatch. It just didn’t click with me for whatever reason. I almost gave it a 2.5 instead of a 3.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2021 22:20
|
|
|
twernt posted:Okay I owe it a rewatch. It just didn’t click with me for whatever reason. I think you'll like it more on rewatch. I dunno how much Argento you've watched, but it's stylistically out-there compared to everything else he's done, and I love it.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2021 22:22
|
|
|
Franchescanado posted:You're right. OP knows whats up, Opera slaps
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2021 22:22
|
|
|
I'd be more ready to agree with the statement that Opera isn't one of Argento's best films if it was the last one he made. Unfortunately he went on to make like 5 more that are all varying degrees of mediocre to bad to outright terrible so that drags down his overall batting average and makes Opera look like one of his better films by comparison. I know Fran loves Opera though, he'd probably put it in Argento's top 3. Basebf555 fucked around with this message at 22:51 on Oct 19, 2021 |
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2021 22:45
|
|
|
I respect your opinions so it's going back on the watch list. Here are my current Argento power rankings: Suspiria -> Tenebre -> Inferno -> The Bird with the Crystal Plumage -> Deep Red -> Opera -> ... -> The Phantom of the Opera I also apparently need to find a different version of Deep Red than the one I watched. I think it was STAC Goat who said there's a longer version that expands the relationship between the two main characters and makes it a much better film overall.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2021 22:45
|
|
|
See I'm totally with you about Inferno but that's one that a lot of people don't consider to be one of his best. So for a lot of people that would be below Opera. I love it though. I'm also with you about ranking Tenebre over Opera.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2021 22:49
|
|
|
twernt posted:I respect your opinions so it's going back on the watch list. This is correct. The longer Deep Red version is the only version worth watching. Basebf555 posted:I'd be more ready to agree with the statement that Opera isn't one of Argento's films if it was the last one he made. Unfortunately he went on to make like 5 more that are all varying degrees of mediocre to bad to outright terrible so that drags down his overall batting average and makes Opera look like one of his better films by comparison. I think so! Suspiria, Opera, Deep Red, Tenebre, Bird with the Crystal Plumage are my top 5.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2021 22:49
|
|
|
twernt posted:I also apparently need to find a different version of Deep Red than the one I watched. I think it was STAC Goat who said there's a longer version that expands the relationship between the two main characters and makes it a much better film overall. Google Play has the long version to rent.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2021 22:50
|
|
|
I’ll have to rewatch Opera, I saw it back when I was first dipping my toes into Italian horror and hardly remember anything about it
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2021 22:51
|
|
|
I feel like everyone has at least one Argento that on first watch is a 3 star and on rewatch it becomes a 5 star. I loved Opera and Suspiria immediately, but both Bird and Deep Red took rewatches for me to bump them into Top 5 favorites.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2021 22:53
|
|
|
I still love how the eye spikes are completely for 'wow that looks awesome and brutal' rather than... being effective in any shape or form.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2021 22:54
|
|
|
25: Mother! - A couple's happy life together in a house the woman restored is interrupted when visitors come and gently caress things up. For the first half or so, it's super unnerving. The guests are varying degrees of awful, and their disrespect to the house without being directly hostile is horrifying and really set an edge. It was hard because even though the initial invitation might have been questionable, after the murder the couple was just in an awkward spot - it would have been hard to turn them away at that point. The symbolism is relatively subtle near the beginning, being potentially open to interpretation. After the baby, it becomes pretty obviously an allegory, with the two homeowners representing earth and god, and the visitors being biblical individuals or representations of humanity/society. It becomes much more intense and cruel, but also by that point it's clear that it's all symbolic, so it doesn't hit as closely. It's really a great movie, and not as uncomfortable as some reviews I had seen had suggested (though I can see it being exceptionally horrifying if you don't pick up on some things). Pretty well done movie, got a bit crowded and chaotic near the end, but it's exactly what it sets out to be. 4.75/5 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 6: Ju-on: The Grudge (2002) 7: Boxer's Omen 8: Pulse (2001) 9: Malignant 10: Final Destination 11: Black Swan 12: Dagon 13: Terrorvision 14: Death becomes Her 15: Happy Death Day 16: Pandorum 17: Freaky 18: It Chapter 2 19: Ravenous 20: Psycho Goreman 21 Mother! Rewatches: 1: Liza, the Fox-Fairy 2: Hellraiser 3: Hellbound: Hellraiser 2 4: They Live Challenges: Based on the Novel, To Serve Man, Spaced Invaders, Scream Queen! Lhet fucked around with this message at 23:00 on Oct 19, 2021 |
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2021 22:57
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 9, 2024 21:02 |
|
|
New #12: Freaky (2020) Spooky Square #2: Scream, Queen! A teenage girl, Millie, and a Jason/Michael Myers-style serial killer accidentally switch bodies, much to the former's consternation. Primarily a comedy, with the horror segments more of a parody of other movies than something attempting to be scary. Its attempts to be serious focus mostly on the various relationships of the movie—the girl with her family and a love interest—with a steady reinforcement of Millie's identity, including gender identity, whatever her outward appearance. New #13: The Pool (2019) Spooky Square #3: A Perfect Getaway Set and made in Thailand. A guy working a photoshoot at a disused pool is the last to leave and, thanks to falling asleep on an inflatable raft, ends up trapped inside as the pool drains. This is complicated by his dog being tied up nearby, a crocodile arriving, his girlfriend falling in and hitting her head, and, just, like, several days of nothing but poo poo happening to this couple. It has a fairly strong anti-abortion message I didn't see coming that presumably has a political context in Thailand that I know nothing about. Not something I'd recommend anyone seek out, but competent and enjoyable enough. New #14: Man Bites Dog (1992) Spooky Square #4: Behind the Screams http://i.imgur.com/cDuhEbL.gifv A film crew follows around a Belgian serial killer as he kills some and talks a lot, getting drawn more and more into his orbit. Benoît Poelvoorde is charming as the killer, and I appreciate the dedication to the documentary aesthetic, but I found this a bit slight outside that, with the film crew themselves and the world around the killer feeling under-characterized. Though perhaps that's just the differing cultures, with my simply finding more to recognize in, for example, the movie below. Rewatch #5: Nightcrawler (2014) http://i.imgur.com/g4481PL.gifv As with Man Bites Dog, this movie rests on a strong performance behind the central character it's examining. Where the journalists in Man Bites Dog over-empathize with their subject (and end up dead), Lou can't empathize with anyone (and ends up on top). Whatever the relevance of this movie to the morning news business, it feels as relevant as ever to America more broadly and is one I always enjoy revisiting. 
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2021 23:10
|
|
