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25: Green Room(2015) Punk Vacation Nazi Punks gently caress Off A punk band is desperate for a gig and ends up at a neo-Nazi club. A murder happens and they're trapped in the Green Room. It's tense and grimy and violent and very good. Patrick Stewart is fine as the villain, but I'd have liked a bit more intensity from his performance. Total: 25 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; The Addams Family (2019); The Wolfman (2010); Green Room 
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Oct 21, 2021 12:33
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 48 (82). Nocturne (2020) Written and directed by Zu Quirke Watched on Amazon Prime Fran’s SPOOKY BINGO: Femme Fatale I enjoyed that. An understated horror for sure. There’s a supernatural element but its pretty hands off and psychological. I don’t think there’s any ambiguity to whether or not the supernatural is real even though we’re really never given a direct action, explanation, or source but the whole thing definitely feels like a metaphor for the stress and trap of going for “greatness.” Its a conversation I’ve had a lot over sports or other things. Its a conversation adults have with Juliet in an arguably condescending way a number of times. But its one that rings true and that Juliet is fighting against the whole time. “Greatness” is some peak you can’t necessarily climb. Those geniuses and prodigies had it from the beginning. Mozart, Shakespeare, Tiger, Lebron. People were watching Tiger and Lebron play their sports as children anticipating their greatness. They worked hard and earned their success but they didn’t get their purely on grind and desire. They were gifted. So if you have a school of hundreds of young talented people all desperate to become the next legend at best 99% of destined to disappointment. And that harsh reality is the one Juliet is so desperate to fight. Her parents and counsellors seem to be trying to warn her and push her to make more conservative choice like applying to safety schools or finding a co-major. Her peers seem to be trying to persuade her to be young, have fun, appreciate the moment and not bank it all on winning. Juliet sees this all as condescension and disrespect and some of it definitely is. And here is this magical light that offers her everything she wants. She becomes blinded by that light - to the pain he causes to anyone including her sister. Consumed by it. And the ironic thing is the light never really does anything. Every step of her success comes as the result of her actions. The light “guides” her but never really does anything except prevent her from actually seeing the truth of her own actions. I think Sydney Sweeney does a very good job in that conflicted, desperate, young role. Just wanting everything. Feeling betrayed by everyone including herself. Having been promised that hard work and talent would get her there. Unable to accept defeat, or even the possibility of defeat. Just to consider that “hey, I might lose so I might as well have some fun or set up a Plan B” is too much and something Juliet fights viciously. So did she find that book or was it just the thing she needed to close here yes to do what she felt she needed to do to make it? And ultimately is she making it or is she just destroying herself and everyone around her? So yeah, I enjoyed it. Its not mindblowing or anything but I’ve really been enjoying these Welcome to the Blumhouse films. None of them have really risen to the level of a must watch yet but they’ve all been enjoyable and feel like they over a voice or perspective not often represented in horror. Even this basic plot that could easily be compared to Black Swan (although i think only fits that way as much as two vampire films are the same) is a film that kind of comes from outside horror’s usually borders. So I dig that horror’s got this little opportunity for some more POC voices or female voices like Zu Quirke to make some art and chase that greatness.  - (83). No One Lives (2012) Directed by Ryuhei Kitamura: Written by David Cohen Watched on IMDBTV HalloweeNIT 16/31 ”Why are you telling me this?” At times this film felt like an entire cast of characters made up of cold psychopaths talking to each other about their lack of feelings. None of them can stand each other I couldn’t really blame them. They’re all intolerable assholes even without being cold blooded murderers. I don’t know if the twist is supposed to be that the ruthless gang become the prey of the slasher or that psychopathic slasher shows the most resemblance of humanity. Or both of this things? But its dull and unengaging. Even the one innocent is intentionally presented as icy and indifferent. Bad Guy vs Bad Guy isn’t inherently bad, although I definitely think it benefits if you put someone sympathetic and likable in the middle. But it hurts more when the bad guys suck. Lee Tergusson offers some real fire and maybe over the top spark to things but he’s not actually one of the focuses of the movie. Luke Evans is dull and just kind of annoying about his whole thing and Derek Maygar is just bad. There’s this scene early on in the bar where Maygar is trying to scare Evans and he’s doing that whole “you’re not the type, I know the type” thing. And we know Evans is a bad guy already because its been pretty heavily telegraphed from the get go but there’s no actual tension there. The two actors (and the director) really fail to sell that tension of two predators confronting one another that the scene very clearly is telling us to feel. There’s gore and violence of course, although I don’t think nearly enough to carry this film for fans of that. And nothing really makes any sense. Like how does he do ANY of this? Or why? Having seen Versus the other day and read Kitamura call it his pure style I gather gore and violence without any rational logic or grounding is his entire thing, but even though I didn’t like that in Versus it at least felt like it belonged in that fantastical cartoonish world. No One Lives goes for dark and gritty so the ridiculous stuff just made me roll my eyes. It just felt so out of context and like it was taking itself so seriously. Versus at least has a sense of humor about itself. Also what was that green screening or whatever in the dungeon flashbacks? I don’t want to complain about those scenes because their the closest thing to any character or narrative meat in the film. But man, they were bad scenes on like every level. Also does the girlfriend count as a fridging? I was genuinely annoyed that we’r given no real context for their relationship and then she just sacrifices herself without us ever being given enough context to make sense of why. And it doesn’t actually matter to the film or Evans. He doesn’t seem to really care and she’s forgotten by the film mere moments later. But what the hell? Could women exist in this film as anything but breasts and plot devices for dudes? Admittedly a lot of these problems are basic problems for slashers or exploitation films. And I don’t like those films in general. But this also feels like safe, commercially made version of those. In some weird middle ground, too much to be some kind of broadly accessible PG-13 film but too lame to really stand out in any way. And it feels like its trying to be something more. It feels like its kind of trying to be what The Guest turned out to be a couple of years later. But I just thought it sucked.  49 (84). Faust aka ‘Lekce Faust’ (1994) Written and directed by Jan Švankmajer Watched on Youtube HalloweeNIT 17/31 Fran’s SPOOKY BINGO: The Devil Made Me Do It The gently caress? I understand next to nothing of what I just saw. There’s some really good puppet and claymation work. Freaky and entertaining. Absolutely great stuff and clearly that’s Jan’s thing. But also clearly his thing is also weird as gently caress stuff that doesn’t make a poo poo load of sense. Like this dream is not unlike that of a waking nightmare. Tons of super weird imagery, some vague connective tissue, nothing really making much sense when you try and think about, and the uncomfortable feeling that there’s something deeper about myself that I don’t wanna get into. But the puppets are real good. And at one point the devil puppet turns into a 6ft wooden devil statue and escapes in a getaway car. It made about as much sense as a dream image but its the kind of dream image you wake up shaking your head about and going “wait… what did I…” Oh, also there’s puppet rape. Content warning? Ohhhhh.. the puppet IS Faust… I think? Hold on, is the devil crossdressing as Helen of Troy? Nope… I’m lost again. I definitely did not get this but its definitely a spectacle. If you’re into visuals and style over substance I’d definitely recommend this. If you’re into stuff making sense I dunno. Maybe you’ll have better luck than me or be more familiar with the source materials. Or maybe you really like watching and listening to people eat stuff grossly? Like the sound of slurping? At just over 90 minutes and with a ton of stuff constantly happening and changing and testing your ability to follow what’s going on. So not a bad watch for me. Definitely an interesting one. A good one? I dunno. But definitely interesting.   A weird one for sure. Can’t say I really liked either but Faust was interesting and kept me engaged trying to figure out what was going on while Versus felt overly simple and bored me and literally put me to sleep. So gotta give this one to Jan I think. I think his claymation and puppet madness is more interesting than Kitamura’s gore and wire madness. Feel free to vote and decide who advances to the Championship and I keep watching. Championship matchup drawn sometime later today!
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Oct 21, 2021 13:05
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#20. Innocent Blood 1992 | dir John Landis Starz SPOOKY: Masters of Horror  A beautiful vampire, Marie, comes out of hiding to feed on criminals. Her foolish gluttony accidentally gives a prominent Pittsburgh mafioso, Salvatore "Sal the Shark" Macelli, the powers of vampirism. Now both Marie and an undercover cop, Joe, have to destroy Sal the Shark before he can begin a new reign of terror over the entire city. What a fuckin' film! Landis managed to land a final good film before his career totally tanked in the 90's with the failure of Beverly Hills Cop 3 solidifying his reputation as a filmmaker to avoid. Here he brings the same energy and charm of An American Werewolf in London and Blues Brothers with a love for over-the-top crime thrillers and vampire fiction. Landis has described the film as "a Hammer film as if it was directed by Scorsese", and that's the perfect attitude to go into this with.  The film fully delivers on it's premise. The cast is fantastic. Robert Loggia commands every scene he is in with perfect energy, sometimes terrifying and other times hilarious. It's obvious Tim & Eric saw this performance and put him in Billion Dollar Movie (and I mean that as a compliment, Loggia is a stand-out in that film.) With him are Don Rickles, Tony Sirico, Chazz Palminteri, David Proval, Kim Coates, as well as Luis Guzman, Frank Oz, Angela Bassett, Leo Burmester, and plenty of others "Where do I know that person from?" performers (including cameos from Tom Savini, Sam Raimi, Dario Argento, Linnea Quigly...) It is stacked. It's so stacked that it both helps and hinders the lead performances by Anne Parillaud and Anthony LaPaglia, Marie and Joe respectively. Neither of them get as much room as the villains of the film, especially LaPaglia who's playing the grounded straight-man of the film. Parillaud puts in a few strange moments that fall flat, and it's hard to know if it's the language barrier (she's French), or if they are character choices and she's choosing to play Marie ignorant to aspects of modern society. With so many heavy-hitters in this film, it's easy to side-step the few moments that fail to shine, as the next scene you are almost guaranteed another awesome choice from Loggia or one of the many Sopranos alumni. The vampire effects lean into the idea of a corpse regenerating after death, with pale flesh and viscera healing as they feed. Sunlight causes spontaneous combustion. I can see some aspects of the film turning people off, like bullets to the brain can kill vampires, but vampires are maybe the most re-written monster in film history, so bending a few rules while staying true to big ones works. The make-up and visual effects were by Steve Johnson and Syd Dutton, and many other talented artists, and they did great work. I especially love the color-changing contact lenses used for the vampires; they look fantastic (and were probably painful to wear). Also, fans of all the car stunts in The Blues Brothers will have a lot to enjoy here.  It's not a perfect film. It's a little long, but some scenes or stunts are a little short (the film has a car destroyed by a semi-truck, for instance, and we only get a brief glimpse before it cuts away; you destroyed a whole car with a semi, lemme see that stunt!) But the overall experience is fantastic. No, it's not as good as An American Werewolf or Blues Brothers, but dare I say it, this might be Landis's 3rd best film? Top 5, easily, for me. I've watched a lot of vampire films over quarantine, and I am so excited to have finally found this one. It does so much right that I can easily forgive what it does wrong.  Strong Recommendation. Total: 20 New: 18 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, Deadline, Innocent Blood Favorites: Titane, Images Worst: Scarecrow (2002) 
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Oct 21, 2021 13:32
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Franchescanado posted:#20. Innocent Blood This film is hysterical to watch as a Pittsburgh native. It has all the usual weird geography inherent in movies filmed here, and Anne Parillaud intoning in her most outrageous French accent "How ze hell do I get to Shadyside?" is still a line my dad and I will pull out to crack each other up even years after we first saw this.
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Oct 21, 2021 13:49
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16. The People Under the Stairs (1991) Spooky Bingo: Horror Noire  He's still like 80% under the stairs A boy called Fool is enlisted to help rob a house, and gets trapped inside, hunted by the residents. It was quite good. No, actually, it was excellent. Despite having two children as the main characters, this is intensely not for kids; once they realise they have an intruder, one of the residents puts on a gimp suit, and hunts him down with a dog and a shotgun. The residents - they just call each other Daddy and Mommy, and are credited as Man and Woman - are not slasher antagonists, they're not omnipresent and unbeatable. Fool is able to outrun and outsmart them, at least some of the time. He's also willing to just kick Daddy right in the dick, and tries to drop a brick on Mommy. The gradual shift in the movie as Fool (and company) gradually master the house reminded me of the last act of 28 Days Later, with Cillian Murphy running around the mansion like a lunatic. We go from Fool sneaking through crawlspaces while Daddy blasts holes with his shotgun, to the titular people bursting through the walls, to the house blowing apart. The notion of the regular suburbanites with a dark secret has been done to death, but it's done well here. It's just so over the top; Mommy and Daddy are so sanctimonious in how they talk, and so completely depraved towards anyone below them (which, as it happens, means anyone who isn't white). There's just nothing to them other than a drive to possess and dominate and amass wealth in the basement. While their house served a similar function to the rooms of Escape Room, the feel of it was completely different. Escape Room asked me to be awed at the cleverness and technological mastery of the people who built the rooms, while The People just uses it to characterise the builders as complete psychos. The whole movie toed the line between slapstick high-stakes hide n seek, and moments of genuine terror. Like there's a scene where Fool jumps from the second storey into a pool of uncertain depth, and I genuinely tensed up. On paper it's such a low-stakes stunt, but it really got me. 5/5 edit: here's where I'm at: 
Kazzah fucked around with this message at 01:36 on Oct 29, 2021 |
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Oct 21, 2021 13:56
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Bruteman posted:This film is hysterical to watch as a Pittsburgh native. It has all the usual weird geography inherent in movies filmed here, and Anne Parillaud intoning in her most outrageous French accent "How ze hell do I get to Shadyside?" is still a line my dad and I will pull out to crack each other up even years after we first saw this. That rules. I was curious about that. Some cool shots of the city as a whole, but I've never been, so I wouldn't have caught any of that.
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Oct 21, 2021 13:57
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41. Candyman (1992) (first viewing) Two grad students are researching urban legends, focusing on the Candyman, a hook-handed killer who can supposedly be summoned by saying his name five times while looking into the mirror. One of the students makes the poor decision to try to summon him. There's a nice investigation/mystery element as the students travel into the projects of Chicago to interview people about the legend. This movie does an excellent job slowly building up the lore behind the Candyman before actually bringing him into the picture, so it is scarier and more satisfying when he finally appears. There is an interesting aspect to the story in which the Candyman draws his power and his very existence from the retelling of his legend and the fear it invokes. I expected a supernatural slasher film, which it kind of it, but the arc of the movie is the Candyman targets the main student for discrediting the legend and thus reducing his power. He starts framing her for murders in an effort to bolster his own legend, as well as turn the student into a legend of her own. I am curious to see this year's film, although I am wary about dropping the twenty bucks for a rental. Is it worth it? And do I need to see the other sequels first, or can I jump right to the new one? SPOOKY Bingo: This one checks off "Based on the Novel," as it is based upon a short story by Clive Barker. 42. A Page of Madness (1926) (first viewing) This Japanese silent film follows a janitor at an insane asylum at which his wife is a patient. There is a plot here, but also many surreal elements. The version I was able to rent from Amazon had (superb) music, but no dialogue cards. Evidently there would have been a live narrator when this was originally screened, the lack of which was kind of a problem. I read a plot synopsis, but it was still very hard to follow along. Because of this, I was unable to get into the movie as much as I wanted to. The film making itself certainly can't be knocked, as striking visuals and a strange atmosphere do a lot to carry this version of the movie. Shout out to M_Sinistrari for mentioning this one, as I was having trouble finding something for the silent film category. SPOOKY Bingo: This one checks off "Salomé." 43. Phenomena (1985) (first viewing) An oddity from Dario Argento. A teenage girl named Jennifer (Jennifer Connelly in one of her earliest roles) is sent to a Swiss boarding school. Jennifer, with the help of a nearby entomologist (Donald Pleasance) and his chimpanzee sidekick, discovers she has the ability to telepathically communicate with insects. This ability helps her to investigate a serial killer that is preying on the school-age girls in the area. This one is pretty messy. The premise is absurd to begin with, and leads to strange scenes like flies buzzing around and leading Jennifer to clues about the murders. It definitely has a dream-like logic--Jennifer literally sleepwalks--but this can make it seem very disjointed. The score is supplemented with wildly inappropriate contributions by Iron Maiden and Motorhead. And what a finale--I've never seen a movie that ends with a chimpanzee with a straight razor coming to the rescue and killing the villain. SPOOKY Bingo: This one checks off "Origin of Evil." Next up: Some anthology action with Trick 'r Treat.
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Oct 21, 2021 14:17
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 42) A Bay of Blood (1971) Trailer Seen on: Shudder Fran Horror Challenge 2021: SPOOKY BINGO Video Nasty -Watch a Video Nasty When a rich countess is murdered, several groups of individuals with an interest in her valuable real estate are pitted against each other with increasingly gruesome results. It's always weird watching these trendsetter movies for the first time in these challenges and feeling deja vu - so that's where Friday the 13th Part 2 got that kill! Actually most of this is "that's where [insert F13 movie here] got that kill," and now I understand why this movie comes up constantly on "best of" or "most influential" lists, because all the slashers and thrillers to come took liberally from this one. Carlo Rambaldi's makeup work is great and it's pretty shocking for the time (and of course what landed it on the UK's video nasties list). What I really enjoyed about this one that many later knock-offs didn't get right is Mario Bava does it with style. The movie looks great, it has a legitimately groovy soundtrack by Stelvio Cipriani, and there's an actual plot with some meat to it and plenty of intrigue - it has a neat twist, in that it's sort of a "whodunit" but the movie doesn't always keep the killer(s) to the shadows, so it's fun seeing how everyone is pitted against each other and whether or not alliances hold. The ending is definitely lmao  material that sort of comes out of left field and felt like a weak punchline to everything that came before, but I can forgive it that seeing how the rest of the movie is great.
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Oct 21, 2021 14:53
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Franchescanado posted:Horror Noire  #23. Def by Temptation (Shudder) A succubus is preying on black men in NYC, and only a preacher-in-training, an aspiring actor and a supernatural detective can stop her. Director James Bond III managed to make a ridiculous vanity piece about on par with Lady in the Water, with a similar ego-boosting self-casting decision that ends up tainting the whole thing. Here, he casts himself as a preacher-in-training, the last of a line of notable preachers I guess, that is targeted by the succubus as being one last stand for humanity being able to avoid self-destruction by temptation. In the end, he succeeds, avoids temptation, returns to the faith and vanquishes evil; obviously, you see it coming. The interesting wrinkle here is that I think this performance and the writing ends up undercutting Bond the Lesser's intentions a bit, mainly because of how weak his performance has been to this point, how much everyone else is doing in his stead/for his benefit and how pathetic the final stand is. Like, in the big finale, Grandma, who has been in North Carolina this whole time, busts through the door and starts fighting with the demon in order to buy Bond enough time to crawl over and grab a crucifix and deliver a big sermon to save the day. And all that happens is the cross glows a little bit and basically whisper shouts some mealy-mouthed "I rebuke thee"s real quick and then the succubus, now looking like The Reptile, immediately falls over and melts. The rest of the film seems to be fawning over the other performers here, at least a bit, when Bond is pushed into the background. I can understand being in awe of Samuel L. Jackson, but Kadeem Hardison and Bill Nunn kinda get short-changed by the script, so the over-reliance on them to serve as the only point of interest works against the movie. They're fine when they finally get paired up around the 2/3rds mark, but prior to that there's a bunch of repetitive scenes of them hitting on disinterested ladies and seemingly improving a bunch of terrible pick-up lines, and these all go for an interminable amount of time. (This while also having some repetitive scenes of the succubus sitting around in bars, picking up dudes, going back to her gauzy Penthouse Letters apartment, some goofy sex scenes, and then some fairly tame "uh oh the monster is eating someone" attack scenes in either silhouette or off screen.) All of this adds up to me not really being able to maintain interest in what was happening on screen for huge stretches of time. The scripting is bad, the staging is flat, and the few times that they go for a special effect scene it doesn't really work. (The best was Hardison's death-by-television, but the effect of it was undercut by how much better that scene was in Videodrome from several years prior.) I'd heard rumors that cinematographer Ernest R. Dickerson ended up ghost-directing the film on set; seeing how meek and weak-willed Bond III comes across on screen, I'm willing to give those rumors some amount of credence. Either way, whatever happened on set or whoever actually directed the film, they still managed to come up with a dud here. Not recommended.  /5 Oh, hey, SPOOKY! Finally finished that column. 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!, Ghost in the Machine, Halloween Kills, Near Dark, Actress Wanted, Def by Temptation
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Oct 21, 2021 16:11
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15. The Slumber Party Massacre **½ Spoiled myself a little by already having seen the first sequel, but the original is a fun enough, albeit by the numbers, slasher too. A villain that improves as time goes by, and a cast of characters that feel more lifelike than most, the usual nonsensical nudity, and every trope in the book. You can really fill up a bingo card with this one. I'm looking forward to checking out the 2021 redo now, and I'll undoubtedly check out III at some point for completions sake. Loses points for killing off my fave before the party even begins! 
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Oct 21, 2021 17:31
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Leprechaun 3 • DVD • 2.5/5 In which the Leprechaun franchise continues to get weirder and punnier. There wouldn’t BE a leprechaun problem if people had the ability to A) follow directions and B) not steal gold. This one takes place in Vegas for some inexplicable reason, featuring a main character who is the biggest dipshit I’ve seen in a while. However, it being Vegas, he is pretty nice/charming compared to the other absolute sleazeball characters. This movie was… fine. That’s all the opinion I really have about it. Two Thousand Maniacs! • DVD • 2.5/5 I watched this on a box set where HGL introduces each film. And when he said the general synopsis of this one was “south gets revenge for the civil war” I was concerned. This movie is a cast of all white people though, which is a good thing considering the plot. So, once my inital fears that this was going to be the most racist thing I’ve ever seen was quelled, we settled in to watch. Overall this wasn’t anything too special for me. It was shot competently, and the effects were pretty good (that barrel roll seemed painful) but these characters honestly all seemed dense as bricks for letting a bunch of random rear end people stop their journey, stay overnight in a weird place, and then not contact anyone from the outside. The first couple to die was irritating, so their death had basically no effect on me. The second couple were… incredibly naive. Like I don’t know how to explain to you that this is on purpose and yall are gonna die. So the third couple escaping was a relief. gently caress Billy though, I’m glad you didn’t get any candy Billy. Color Me Blood Red • DVD • 3.5/5 Well, HGL certainly didn’t skimp on the blood. This movie was strange, but most of the strangeness was charming? Adam lives on a bay, where he and his partner(?) Gigi go aquacycling for… reasons. (It looks like a terrible time honestly I don’t know why you’d choose that as a form of exercise or wandering around bodies of water.) I spent most of the first quarter of this movie concerned for Gigi (LPT: if you tell you partner continually “IF I marry you” you should just leave) but it appears like she at least dies quickly? Adam is the irritating artist who won’t loving shut up or stop chain smoking that nobody at the bar wants to talk to. His pieces also don’t seem to center around any theme or style, so they’re not a cohesive collection of work. I have no idea how he got a gallery show of all things with this mish-mash. Sydney and Jack are definitely my favorite characters of the whole caboodle. They’re first introduced wearing matching shirts, wigs, and glasses, as well as talking in the same goofy 60s slang. They do this supposedly as a joke on the mom…? But the rest of the movie makes it clear they’re just doing this for fun. Also Sydney has to be trans, with the following conversation taking place between the mom and April. (just let me have this.) quote:Mom: You know I'm not used to a girl being named Sydney. Santo and Dracula's Treasure • Rental • 3/5 A film featuring actual wrestler Santo. Half of this movie is us watching Santo watch a television screen, featuring the woman he sent back in time. (For “biological reasons” it had to be a woman testing the time machine.) The effects were… not the best, to hilarious effect. A pretty wild, enjoyable time to be had overall.
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Oct 21, 2021 17:43
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 9. Halloween Kills (2021) They Always Come Back There were some things here I enjoyed, like Big John and Little John, most of Michael’s kills, the awful teens stealing candy, etc. I think the idea of the fear of Michael creating chaos in Haddonfield and causing collateral damage is a good one, but the whole sequence at the hospital was not good. Laurie gets almost nothing to do, which sucks. But I still had fun. The Carpenter score was tight. 
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Oct 21, 2021 18:08
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I am bad at posting, so I'm gonna upload these in chunks so no one murders me for a page long post. Spooky Bingo  Short CutsMurderabilia • DVD • 30 min. • 3/5 I liked the art direction of this film. The color palette serviced the overall narrative well, and I really liked the shots in the beginning looking over the interviewer's shoulder. I also liked the opening credits sequence, especially considering how many utterly unreadable ones I've seen this month. While I enjoyed the overall narrative and seeing the main character trying desperately to find all the puzzle pieces of his mother's murder, as a goth who's consumed an average amount of true crime media, the shop keep bugged the absolute poo poo out of me. I know a semi-local record store owner who collects a ton of Gacy stuff because he's making a documentary (recently he got all of his PDM records, which haven't previously been compiled into one timeline.) People who are actually into this stuff don't just keep it laying around wherever (or in their goddamn fanny packs). In a way they're performing archival work so they take steps to preserve items that this dude clearly never does (seeing as he huffs a stained hospital sheet that's just in a random bag.) My weird nit-picks aside though, I felt this was definitely stronger at the beginning than the end. The shop keeper showing him all the unrelated items really slowed down the pace and for no real reason, since the main character isn't there for a fetishistic experience like the owner is, and he's explicit multiple times that he's only there for one specific thing. While making him wait before he sees the trailer does create tension, I feel like it kept going for too long which mostly tried my patience. The Trilogy or Progaganda Videozine Volume 1 • YouTube • 18 min. • 1.5/5 I hated this. It left me in a bad mood for the rest of the day, and I was much harsher reviewing the films I watched after this. We watched this on YouTube, discovered because we have Vol 2, received through a free box of tapes from Facebook. I did do a google to figure out what the gently caress was wrong with the director (because Propaganda is apparently a very popular well-known goth magazine) and discovered the 90s before I was born was when "Nazi-chic" was around. This is using Nazi-imagery, slogans, etc for shock value to be a loving edgelord. In my opinion it's really difficult to pull off art that uses Nazi-imagery (especially in non-satire pieces.) This is because most of the time, at best it's going to look like the artist supports Nazis, and at worst the Nazis are going to take it as an endorsement and co-op it. The fact that this was made by a crew of queer-coded goth people is even more baffling to me, because the Nazis would have killed them. Nazis are still killing queer people *today*. The second segment, Twilight of the Gods, was when I stopped being able to view this in any analytical light. Spliced throughout this short was actual footage of the concentration camps and thousands of dead Jewish bodies, which is just ghoulish. This whole tape didn't even have a thesis IMO, so using this footage was infuriatingly tasteless. Weak, low effort, and vulgar. Captain Voyeur • Plex • 8 min. • 2.5/5 I didn't really get this. I understood the flow of events, but I'm not sure what message I was supposed to take away from this film. People are horny? If you don't want to get shot don't look in people's windows? Don't put on a weird super-person costume to go stare at your neighbors? It was shot technically well. *shrug* The Alphabet • DVD • 4 min. • 4/5 I really like the animation techniques of this, combining 2D animation with sculptural stop motion. It reminds me a lot of the Wolf House, although this is decades before so I'd be curious to know if this was an influence on it. I especially like how the live action film was edited in and shot at a weird frame rate, because it pushed the uncanny factor higher. 
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Oct 21, 2021 18:09
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SPOOKY Challenge: Dead & Buried (RIP Dena Dietrich, December 4, 1928 - November 21, 2020) #66) The Strange and Deadly Occurrence (1974; Youtube) After moving into a new home, a family experiences weird events, as though something is trying to push them out. We open with the family having already moved in, and enjoying a house-warming party of sorts. Robert Stack (Unsolved Mysteries) plays the father, who has a healthy relationship with his wife and daughter. But then small things start to happen. The lights go out, the thermostat gets cranked up in the middle of the night, and the bathtub floods. Then larger things. The daughter swears that someone came into her room at night and touched her hair and face. Vermin show up in their kitchen cabinets (except apparently the film couldn't find a rat wrangler, so it's a bunch of guinea pigs squeaking around). Then a doctor starts coming around, trying to buy the house. For a white family in the mid-'70s, their reactions and escalations seem fairly natural. They call the cops, who provide no help beyond bland assurances that nothing's really wrong. They get a dog (named Adolf), who ends up out of his depth, leading them to call the cops again, who are useless again. It's only after the mother gets locked in the sauna that the husband gets a gun, which both mother and daughter object to even having in the house. And then they make their stand... but it's not quite over. The small scale of the horror actually works to the movie's favor, being a TV movie. Visits are made to the police and assorted offices, but about 90% of the film is spent at the family's home. We get enough of a range of activities by the family there to really build the sense of it being their home, which makes the intrusions that much more unsettling. Good performances, good script, not quite satisfying ending. “Thanks, Sheriff.” “I didn't do anything.” “I know.” Rating: 7/10 
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Oct 21, 2021 18:21
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🎃 It's Only A Myth 🎃 Thale (2012) Directed by Aleksander Nordaas Watched on Shudder  What if Harry and the Hendersons was a low-budget Norwegian movie and instead of a Sasquatch the creature was a pretty lady who is naked most of the movie and instead of a family finding and hiding her, it’s two guys who clean crime scenes?  Based on the Scandinavian mythological creature the hulder, Thale basically has three characters. There are Leo and Elvis, the crime scene cleaners, and Thale, the mysterious lady. The unfortunate thing is that Thale doesn’t talk and Leo and Elvis could be more interesting. They don’t seem to have much of a personal relationship and the movie really depends on their interpersonal dynamic. None of the three do a bad job, it’s just difficult to perform when you either have no lines, or few very interesting ones. The effects are not great, but they're not used very much. Instead, Thale (the movie) depends on camera angles, lighting, and sound to build tension. It usually works. 💀💀1/2 Spooky Bingo 14/? 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), 13. Sword of God (2018), 14. Thale (2012)  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 🇳🇴
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Oct 21, 2021 18:28
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 26)Tales of halloween 2015 shudder *spooky bingo tales of terror* it's no Trick R' Treat, that's for sure. The first half is incredibly bad. Like some of the worst anthology shorts. Trying to be funny, but not, slurs that shoukdn't be used. it's a mess. Doesn't help that they're all practically killer kids. Second half picks up though. There's a good one about neighbors fighting over halloween decorations (starring dana gould), a decent riff on Friday the 13h, a one joke kidnapping gone wrong, which is fine for a short, and a killer pumpkin finale story that kind of ties it all together. I don't think they're worth the price of admission, but they're definitely hurt by being in this anthology. Which at the very least isn't the worst anthology I've watched this season/ /5
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Oct 21, 2021 19:28
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Last night, I watched: For the Spooky Bingo Full Moon Criteria, Ginger Snaps - 2000 - on Peacock Premium I'd never seen this movie before, and it ended up being better than I thought it would be. Two sisters, Bridgette and Ginger, live in a suburb where what the entire neighborhood thinks is a wild dog is killing the neighborhood dogs. It turns out to be a werewolf, who attacks Ginger. She and her sister suspect it's a werewolf when Ginger starts growing very coarse body hair, and it becomes obvious when Ginger starts to grow a tail and kills her own dog because he wouldn't stop barking at her. The plot escalates from there, and Bridgette finds what she thinks might cure Ginger. This is a really good werewolf movie, with some suspense, some gore and chase scenes. I do recommend it if you haven't seen it before. Rating: 4/5  After that, I realized Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed was on Tubi, so I watched it too. It's not as good. It was alright for about 2/3 of the movie, but I didn't care for the character of the young girl named Ghost (played by Tatiana Maslany). She was just annoying and the ending of the movie was a bit of a letdown to me. Rating 2.5/5 raven77 fucked around with this message at 21:21 on Oct 21, 2021 |
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Oct 21, 2021 20:58
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 94) Doom - 2005 - Prime Video Games Cause Violence Doom has been a longtime favorite game of mine. I lost count how many times after a rough day at work, I'd fire it up for a bit. If it was a really bad day, put in god code and set it on nightmare. I might still have the Hellraiser WAD buried on a backup disc somewhere. The premise is pretty basic. An experiment with teleportation ends up opening a gate to Hell and Doomguy's the marine to take them out. One would think this would be enough to work with, but no. The movie gives us this extra chromosome mutation crap. The only good part of the movie is this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Jf-E7oEguU It's so infuriating that this movie had so much promise and it just dropped the ball. The sequel/reboot Doom: Annihilation is not much better.  95) Doctor Sleep - 2019 - Prime Based On The Novel This wasn't the first time I've said to myself that not everything needs a sequel. The Shining novel ended fine, which is something for Stephen King. The movie was a fine Kubrick film, but a poor adaptation of the novel. The Doctor Sleep novel had its moments but overall wasn't that good. I would've been a bit salty if I'd bought it rather than borrow from the library. The movie as it is, is 'meh', but as a tribute to the Kubrick film, it's pretty decent. The actors were fine enough, the references back were nice. I am curious about the director's cut but not enough to hurry to watch it.  96) Gallows - 2015 - HBO Max [REC] Well, I've sat through worse. Premise is a play that's not been performed in 20 years due to a lethal accident is dusted off to commemorate the anniversary of the accident and ends up waking the spirit. The concept has promise, but the execution is lacking. It started good with an audience camcorder recording the accident, but after that, it just fizzled with every flaw found footage has to offer. I am still left wondering what sort of an idiot drama teacher supervising signed off on a real gallows being used in a high school play?  97) Countdown - 2019 - Showtime fear dot com At the time, I planned to see this at the show. I get free movies so why not? This was out of rotation before I had the chance, which should've been a warning sign. Story is focused on a phone app that tells you when you'll die. I wouldn't say it was awful, but just painfully Blummy. This is the sort of film a parent would rent for the kids' sleepover when they asked for a scary movie. I did like the idea of a programming code in Latin, but the rest was just so bland and not particularly creative. This just isn't worth the time to watch.  98) Bats - 1999 - TubiTV Wild Beasts I love bats. They're adorable sweetlings of joy and moonlight. I would love to have one as a pet, but I know it wouldn't work out. Those flappy sweeties deserve better than what I could give. With that said, why am I sitting through a movie about killer bats? Well, because. This is a basic genetically engineered animals run amok plot. The reasons for the engineering was to make the bats smarter with an improved ability to handle a wider diet. Of course one scientist in the group got a wild hair up his rear end to push this to an extreme because he could. The film's okay enough. It does suffer some from the early CGI in parts and doesn't take full advantage of the practical effects used. Overall, it's fine enough as a turn your brain off popcorn flick. 
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Oct 21, 2021 21:01
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M_Sinistrari posted:
The sequence with "If Love Is A Red Dress (Hang Me In Rags)" has always stuck out. Probably cuz it was the first time I heard that song (suck it, Pulp Fiction) and it's spooky.
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Oct 21, 2021 21:11
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How have you watched almost a hundred films so far? That's really impressive.
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Oct 21, 2021 21:14
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9: The Severed Arm Challenge: To Serve Man Wanted something a little different for this challenge and tracked this one down. A group of friends go caving and get caught in a cave in. They're stuck there for a couple weeks with no food and very little water, and eventually get desperate enough that they decide to cut pieces off each other to eat. They draw straws and the unlucky loser gets his arm cut off. Naturally rescue shows up minutes later, so the others concoct a story about how he lost it in the cave in and went mad. Five years later one of the men receives an arm in the mail, and upon checking finds out the one armed man has been released from the asylum he was at. Sure enough the men start dying one by one, in various ways involving getting their arms cut off. There is a bit of a twist ending, but it's one of those twists you're going to call half an hour in if you've ever seen a movie before. The movie itself was fine, but it's a bit dull and while it's definitely a 70s slasher with all the grime, beards, bellbottoms and synth you can handle, it's surprisingly entirely bloodless and sexless. Fine if you're looking for something a little different, but definitely nothing special.
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Oct 21, 2021 21:16
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13. The Void (2016) 🇨🇦 A Lovecraft-inspired tale about a group of people stuck in a mostly empty hospital as they battle a mysterious cult. This one is from Astron-6, the same people that made PG Goreman. This film seems to be best known for, and rightfully so, it’s wonderful practical effects. It’s clearly not a high budgeted film and the limitations are rather apparent, but there is a palpable love for the craft. This is a common theme among the Astron-6 crew who do a great job stuffing their films with latex, rubber, goo, and puppets.  It’s certainly a film that owes a lot to the ones that inspired it, and it does get derivative in that regard. It’s not reinventing the wheel in anyway. The acting and storytelling are competently done but nothing more. If you are going to seek out this film it’s for the practical effects and I think it’s worth watching for those alone. Also the final form that Dr. Powell takes looks a prototype PG Goreman and it was very distracting! Anyway, big fan of Astron-6 and I’m looking forward to seeing whatever they do next. When I find filmmakers who so clearly love the genre and will spend every penny of their limited budgets and every minute of their limited time crafting detailed, real, tactile monsters, ghouls, or beasts I find it to be very infectious. 3/5Film list (ranked) 1. Demons* (4.5/5) 2. Demons 2* (4/5) 3. Aliens* (4/5) 4. Scream, Blacula, Scream (4/5) 5. Dolls (4/5) 6. V/H/S 94 (4/5) 7. The Slumber Party Massacre (3.5/5) 8. Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum (3.5/5) 9. City of the Living Dead (3/5) 10. The Void (3/5) 11. Skull: The Mask (3/5) 12. The Mortuary Collection (3/5) 13. Night Train to Terror (2.5/5) *=rewatch WeaponX fucked around with this message at 21:22 on Oct 21, 2021 |
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Oct 21, 2021 21:18
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FreudianSlippers posted:How have you watched almost a hundred films so far? Careful planning, a movie friendly work schedule and making the most of my days off.
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Oct 21, 2021 21:29
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19. Video Nasties: Moral Panic, Censorship and Video Tape Watched On: Arrow Fran Challenge: Video Nasty (Watch a documentary on video nasties) Every time I talked with my fiancee about the challenge, she was baffled about what the hell a 'video nasty' was. So we watched this documentary! This is tied with Horror Noire as my favorite documentary watched for the challenge. It lays out a timeline of the video nasty panic, the responses by government and law enforcement and its lasting effect in the UK. Solid interviews all around with a wide variety of people: filmmakers inspired by them, anti-censorship advocates, cops and politicians. I appreciate that, even as a film decidedly on the side of the nasties, Jake West got perspectives from the conservative/establishment wing to fully flesh out the story. Martin Barker kicks rear end and takes names. 1. Prince of Darkness 2. Possessor 3. The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh 4. Death Walks On High Heels 5. Death Wish Club 6. There’s Someone Inside Your House 7. The Devils Rain 8. The Stuff 9. Dead Heat 10. Attack of the Crab Monsters 11. The Wasp Woman 12. Graveyard Shift 13. VHS94 14. Troll 2 15. Killer Klowns From Outer Space 16. Berberian Sound Studio 17. WNUF Halloween Special 18. Arcade 19. Video Nasties: Moral Panic, Censorship and Video Tape
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Oct 21, 2021 21:49
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 46. Feardotcom (2002) "Do you like to watch?" It's rare to see a movie with production values this solid, be this absolutely atrocious. Have you seen The Ring? OK so imagine that, but instead of a video tape it's a snuff website, and instead of 7 days it's 2 days, and instead of anything scary happening you just see a ghost barf up blood sometimes and a white ball bounce around. Add in some bad performances and a huge waste of Jeffrey Combs and you have a recipe for making me take an angry nap. That said, you should check out the website... if you dare. 0.5/5 -- Spooky Bingo: fear dot com 47. Dante's Inferno (1911) I struggle to go back and watch silent films because I struggle to stay focused on them, but whenever this challenge comes up it gives me the push I need and I always see something cool. This is no exception as I decided to check out the oldest fully-surviving feature film on the planet. I watched a version on YouTube with a live score from an organist. This has some really cool sequences, like when Francesca and Paulo reveal themselves to Dante. Some of the punishments are interesting without any of the context to understand them. For example, "misers and spendthrifts" are condemned to roll big bags of gold around their circle of the Inferno, okay I get it. "Gluttons" are condemned to lay naked while it rains on them really hard. Uh, okay. Anyway this is worth your time both as a cool movie and as a cultural artifact, it has some great costuming too. The demons look pretty bad rear end. 5/5 -- Spooky Bingo: Salomé 48. Children of the Corn (2009) "This is the word of He Who Walks Behind the Rows." This Syfy adaptation of the Stephen King short story is pretty true to the source material in terms of plot beats and even some of the dialog. Unfortunately, it also kept in the fact that Burton and Vicki are a really unpleasant bickering couple and there's not much to like about either of them, so it's hard to get invested in their survival from this town of murderous children. There's also a very weird choice to give Burton this big backstory as a Vietnam war vet, which gets mentioned about fifty times. It's not bad, but I don't know why they keep making these other than it likely being very cheap to do so. 1.5/5 -- Spooky Bingo: Based on the Novel 49. Rogue (2007) "We'd like to get on with our tour." This was a nice surprise. A group of tourists are taking a riverboat cruise in Australia when they spot a distress flare and go see if they can help. Unfortunately they find themselves stranded on a small island in the river that will eventually be underwater as the tide rises, and of course they are being stalked by a giant saltwater crocodile. You've got a classic group of heroes, villains, and B-players waiting to be chomped. Good tension and escalation (even if the beats are predictable, you'll appreciate that the characters aren't completely braindead in their decision-making), and the film is really nice to look at (except for some dodgy CGI, especially toward the end). Solid little creature feature. I wouldn't put it above, say, Alligator or Crawl, but I'd take it over Crocodile any day, that's for sure. 3/5 -- Spooky Bingo: Wild BeastsTotal Watched: 49 // 'New to Me' Total: 40/40 Years Remaining: 1994, 2000, 2008, 2016, 2019
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Oct 21, 2021 22:19
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2LDK Two roommates are competing for a part in a movie. This competition brings out resentment between them that boils over. I really enjoyed this, although I think it could've been either 20 minutes longer (and added in some more backstory, let things amp up a bit smoother) or 10 minutes shorter. That said, when things do ramp up there's a great blend of incredibly mean violence and slapstick comedy level shenanigans. 4/5 Wounds (FRAN CHALLENGE: Based on the Novel) A bartender at a dive has a fight break out between some of his friends, which is filmed by some college kids. IN the aftermath the kids run away, but leave the phone. Bartender picks it up, and sees things that maybe he shouldn't have...I liked some of the ideas this seemed to have, but it doesn't ever come together entirely. It could be due to how it was adapted from the source material, but it feels as if there's gaps in exposition almost. The ending also hints at more, but a lot of the goings on seemed focused more on the deterioration of the protagonist's life than the weird cultish mysteries that are floating around the edges. 2.5/5 Mosquito State A weird data analyst at a large financial firm starts seeing things that don't match his models predictions prior to the 2008 economic crash. As he sees his models starting to flounder more and more, his mindstate deteriorates alongside with them. This was an odd movie. There's an obvious message here but I'm not sure if the way they go about making it entirely hits home. And while the lead does a great job portraying a neurotic, dweebish, antisocial man having a mental breakdown few of the characters actually seem believable in a movie that in theory should be a bit more grounded in reality (the romance "subplot" for instance makes zero sense). And there's a few too many outside indications that everything going on isn't just being manufactured in his head. But it's well filmed and looks and sounds great. Just could use a bit more connecting of the dots. 2.5/5 Vivarium A young couple looking for a home gets a bit more than they bargained for when the go to a viewing as they're trapped. So I had an interesting reaction to this. A lot of the movie I kinda hated it. Not so much the movie, but the characters and a lot of what it seemed it was saying. I mean the premise is quite terrifying, especially when you think about it. But as it progressed I also got frustrated-the character reactions seemed a bit unrealistic, and the movie seemed to be a bit restrained. At least until the end, when it got really real really fast. But even at this time, I just didn't like what was going on. But as I was finishing it, I realized that's part of the point I feel, part of the horror-you're supposed to have that visceral reaction to what's going on. It's a horrible situation and the resolution is horrible and the motives are also likely horrible and that's the point, that's where the horror comes in. Honestly I'm kinda hoping to rewatch this with some other people some time to see if their reactions are the same as mine. 3.5/5 edit-I'll edit in a bingo card later. 1. Possessor 2. E-Demon 3. The Hornet’s Sting and the Hell It’s Caused 4. VHS 94 5. 2LDK 6. Wounds 7. Mosquito State 8. Vivarium
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Oct 21, 2021 22:51
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FreudianSlippers posted:How have you watched almost a hundred films so far? I’m pretty sure they have watched over 300 movies in an October once. Definitely more than 200.
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Oct 21, 2021 23:07
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10: House on Haunted Hill Challenge: Hausu Had some extra time so threw this on. Fun movie. Not all of it makes sense and the whole things hinges on multiple people making absurd decisions, but it's short and enjoyable
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Oct 21, 2021 23:16
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TheBizzness posted:I’m pretty sure they have watched over 300 movies in an October once. Definitely more than 200. It was 200. I also had special circumstances of being out on medical leave from work for a few weeks during that. To repeat that, I'd have to use vacation time. As much as I love watching movies, not going to burn vacation time for that.
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Oct 21, 2021 23:20
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29) Dead and Buried Ticking the box for Dead and Buried. So, Fran puts this one in as a comedy option, right? Because this is one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Nobody in it can act - Robert Englund included, at this stage in his career. The plot is gibberish, the dialogue is awful. Stan Winston is as completely wasted on it as my time was. It isn't even so bad as to be funny. It's just bad.
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Oct 21, 2021 23:55
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M_Sinistrati watched all like 20 something Amityville movies one year, they’re an animal
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Oct 21, 2021 23:56
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Jedit posted:29) Dead and Buried 
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Oct 22, 2021 00:09
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Lumbermouth posted:19. Video Nasties: Moral Panic, Censorship and Video Tape Not sure if it’s on there, but it’s worth hunting down the 2nd film too. It’s not quite as good as they covered the main stuff in the original, but it’s a good companion piece for sure.
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Oct 22, 2021 00:10
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21. Dead & Buried (1981) (challenge: Dead and Buried) "Welcome to Potters Bluff." Lmao wtf. This is a hell of a movie to slip into a challenge to get a bunch of people to watch it. I assumed this would be a movie where someone Kill Bills their way out of a coffin to get revenge on the people who left them for dead but uh, not exactly. ????????? 7/10 (ending spoilers) and then John was a zombie 
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Oct 22, 2021 00:16
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15. SPOOKY BINGO: It's Only a Myth The Lure (2015)  Two mermaid sisters, Silver and Golden, get a gig working as back-up singers in a Warsaw nightclub circa 1980something. A rare film that remembers that mermaids, although pretty and alluring, were often monsters who'd lure sailors to their deaths and that seeing one wasn't a good thing as they might also be heralds of storms, shipwrecks, and other things sailors dislike. Not to generalize because there's approximately ten gazillion version of mermaids between different cultures some benign others less so. This version of mermaids is mostly based on the fairly friendly H.C. Andersen version from his 1837 fairy tale The Little Mermaid, which some of you might be familiar with. In which a mermaid falls in love with a handsome prince. So she makes a deal with a sea witch to exchange her voice for legs but with the catch that if someone else marries the prince the mermaid will die and turn to seafoam. She of course fails and dies but gets a sort of happy ending in that because she refuses to murder the prince to save herself instead of dying when she becomes sea-foam she becomes an air spirit and only has to spend 300 years doing good deeds before she can gain a soul and ascend to heaven. This basic storyline is replicated pretty accurately in the film but with the framing of a 1980s nightclub musician scene instead of a royal court. So the film is a bit of a mash of the older more monstrous mermaids and the fairy tale version. The musical elements are pretty fun and a mix between stage perfomances and characters singing their feeling to camera in classical musical style. Not all of the music is my cup of tea but I do like the punk gig. One thing that made me smile is the absolute dickisness of the boy that Silver falls in love with not only marries another woman but invites his ex-girlfriend to a party held on a boat. Which just feels like a deliberate dig when your ex is a fishperson sidenote: H.C. Anderson was a really weird ur-goon and a horrible house guest that was a penpal of a lot of other contemporary writers, most notably Charles Dickens, and would sometimes just show up at their house and not leave for months. Since this was the 19th century everyone was far too polite to just throw him out at least until they became completely sick of his poo poo. Some of his other notable work include The Little Girl With the Matches, a heartwarming story about a small orphaned child freezing to death on Christmas, and The Ugly Duckling, a story about how it doesn't matter if you're ugly as long as you become hot when you're older. 16. SPOOKY BINGO: Masters of Horror Four Flies on Grey Velvet (1971)  Roberto is being followed by a mysterious man. When he confronts the man he accidentally kills him and when Roberto sees a masked figure taking photographs of the murder he realizes he is being framed. An interesting early work by Argento. It's not quite as stylish and slick as his latter films but you can see the seeds of his later masterpieces. There's a lot of great flourishes like when a character is shot and we see the bullet enter them in a sort of proto-bullet time. From the intro and the fact that the main character is a professional drummer I was expecting it to be a bit more music heavy and rhythmic but aside from a few scenes of them in the studio it doesn't do much with it. In one early scene a side character at a party tells the others about a execution via beheading he once witnessed abroad and that execution becomes a reoccurring motif in the film with Roberto having constant nightmares waking up before the sword strikes the neck but as the mystery keeps building the blade gets closer and closer in every nightmare. Roberto himself isn't very interesting and doesn't do all that much sleuthing himself, he actually hires a P.I. to do it for him and because this is a 70s film the detective is a comic gay stereotype who is actually one of the best characters in the film. He also gets help from a hobo called God (played by Bud Spencer) and his hobo associate the Professor. Both of whom are far more interesting and actually do more to move the plot along than the main character. Andrea, an mustachioed intellectual friend of Roberto's, is also good fun although he literally doesn't do anything other than spout some really corny 70s pseudointellectual stories about the Frankenstein monster's sex drive and similarly far-out stuff. One of the most memorable scenes of the film is set in a coffin sale expo and features a number of gags about absurd and stupid kitsch coffins and the sleazy salesmen trying to hawk them with lines like "I can assure you we've never gotten any complaints from a customer that our coffins are uncomfortable". That and the police shooting a laser through the eyeball of one of the victims to extract an image which turns out to be of the titular four flies the last thing they saw. Are the standout scenes to me. Not quite as good as some of Argento's later work in the 70s but miles above any of his post 1990 work.  not a impressive as filling out the card but a decent start. I might actually make it to 20 films this year.
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Oct 22, 2021 00:22
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27. Dead & Buried A small-town sheriff investigates a sudden increase in violence... with spooky results. A good old-fashioned nonsense spook. It's a bit slow for the first hour, but once it hits the last act it goes full on cheesy nonsense. There's some great effects, a nice spooky tension and a great scenery chewing villain. It's interesting, because there's never any question as to who is doing the crimes. It's just a question of why, and then, when you find out what going on, it really doesn't matter because there are no reasons. It's just a bunch of dumb horror cartoonish nonsense that's fun to watch. 4/5 
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Oct 22, 2021 00:26
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I know I've seen Dead & Buried and yet I can't remember a drat thing about it.
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Oct 22, 2021 00:51
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You sure about that? I was just talking with you about it last week.
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Oct 22, 2021 01:02
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Shrecknet posted:Cannibal Holocaust The biggest tragedy is it wasn't until someone actually died (Brandon Lee) that safety protocols regarding firearms on set were taken seriously. Now, live ammunition is forbidden on sets and you need someone actually trained on gun safety to handle the firearms and the blank ammunition.  Spooky Bingo #3: Femme Fatale:siren14. Jennifer’s Body (2009)  There’s a lot of reasons why I chose this one as my “feminist horror” challenge. The biggest one for me is the totally raw deal that Megan Fox got in Hollywood a decade ago. Basically, and she’s opened up about this in the wake of #MeToo, is that when she started acting she wanted to do dramatic roles. But, people like Michael Bay (who directed her in the first two Transformers films) only saw her as eye candy and told her to just put the bikini on and wait for the garden hose (crass, but that was the mentality). She got so sick and loving tired of it that she trashed Michael Bay in the press, got fired and then blacklisted for years and years. Today, she’s starting to make a comeback and talked about how this was one film she was proud of. That it was a true feminist film that required some nuanced acting from her and that she is proud of it. But, if you watched the trailers for it back in the day the camera just took shots of her tits while she was acting sassy...ugh. It then had the classic tale of a cult film where it was mis-marketed, bombed and then over the years people began to re-evaluate it and understand it a lot more. The film is about friends Anita (Amanda Seyfried) and Jennifer (Megan Fox) who have a typical teenage girl friendship that takes a turn after they go to a bar concert together. There, Jennifer is approached by the lead singer of the band whom Anita hears talk about “she’s a virgin” between him and his bandmates. She understandably gets in between them telling the guy to back-off only to find out later that evening they were interested for other reasons. Diablo Cody was a very polarizing writer back in the day but what I’ve noticed about her is she is phenomenal at black comedy. A non-horror film she did was Young Adult which really made me re-examine her (yeah, I was on the anti-Juno bandwagon) because holy poo poo did it explore some dark topics. It kind of balances her weird dialogue in a way you kinda need to watch her actual black comedies to understand. In Jennifer’s Body she honestly really deeply explores teenage girl friendship drama on a dark level by having Jennifer transformed by her “experience”. I don’t really want to say anymore because the film just keeps surprising and surprising as we see what happened to Jennifer and how it impacts people like Anita and everyone else. I highly recommend this one. /415. The Final Destination (2009)  I’m behind on the challenge so instead of plugging another slot on the bingo I’m going with a good casual watch to keep up. I also kinda re-discovered how much I enjoy this series and plan to finish with the fifth film at some point. Kinda two different goals. Though that being said, yeah, this is probably the weakest of the whole series. By this point in time the formula is established and really unchanged no matter how many times they tried to tweak “death’s design”. It’s the same thing: someone sees a premonition of a mass-casualty event, people survived then death starts plucking them off in the order they were supposed to die. What made this series so fun was the black humor and the eleborate deaths and this film just totally fails at the latter. It has the lamest deaths of the whole series which is kinda the selling point of the series. Disappointing, we’ll see how the fifth film holds up when I get around to it. gently caress, I’m also supposed to watch V/H/S/94… /4Spooky Bingo #4: Tales of Terror16. V/H/S/94 (2021)  ...and here I am. V/H/S is known around here as being a series that you kind of take for what it is. It has high points and low points and for me personally I enjoy it for its spirit. It’s a horror anthology that really rolls hard with its concept and with it it becomes a ride. You just don’t know what to expect and those first watchings are always the best. I’m glad we get another one and hopefully it’s better than that crap heap that was V/H/S Viral. This is a big rebound from V/H/S Viral. While I do miss the genuine VHS aesthetic the first film nailed so well this one does find a sweet spot between bigger-budget and VHS aesthetic that works as well. The first segment with Rat Man was very well done with some drat creepy effects for the creature itself. Other segments feature the extreme blood and gore that the series is known for in buckets which is always a thrill. Oh, and the exploitative nature is present at times but nowhere near as attention-seeking as the series’ low points. A big improvement from the third film, worth a watch. /4Spooky Bingo #5: Something Wicked this Way Comes17. Freaks (1932)  This film has an interesting history. It was a horror film with an exploitative angle that was controversial to the max on release and more-or-less banned and blacklisted for being “extreme”. In the decades since it has not only gotten a re-evaluation but it seen as being a rather progressive film for its time. Whenever you hear people say “it’s a product of it’s times” it means that while on the surface it seems crass and insensitive the mere fact they were TALKING ABOUT the subject matter was huge and progressive. It’s like watching the Homer Sexual episode of The Simpsons with the character John (voiced by John Waters). On the surface it seems like a bunch of cheap gay jokes but the mere fact they were talking about homosexuality was huge. On the DVD commentary for the episode the writers talk about how they got nothing but praise from gay rights groups like GLAAD (known for their criticism of gay stereotypes in media) in 1997. Freaks is kind of the same way. On the surface it seems like it asks the audience to stare and be repulsed by the “freaks” it displays. But on a deeper level it shows a kind of sincere community of support that circus sideshows had at the time. This was a time where people like them were shunned and the sideshows allowed them to meet people like them and talk to and learn from one another. It’s kind of a proto-example of modern days where marginalized people find one another and form a community of support. I decided to include this film under “evil carnival” for the revolting way the circus people treat the sideshow people. Then how they respond to it and, really, hate breeds hate. That’s been my mantra since I was a bullied junior high school student who refused to join hate knowing what it leads to (more hate). The circus people early on are seen as just total assholes belittling one another and the hate they have for the “freaks” is something else. It’s a reflection of a world where people shoot one another down to better themselves but only bare their horrible souls. They strike and belittle those that they feel are beneath them yet the community of the sideshow people is strong as they support one another. That’s what much of the film is: the sideshow people mingling with one another just being normal people with typical emotions and desires. It’s way ahead of its time and really progressive as well. The film had an influence on Ryan Murphy who made a “Freak Show” a whole season on American Horror Story citing its influence on marginalized communities. /4Total: 1. Blade (1998), 2. Final Destination (2000), 3. Final Destination 2 (2003), 4. Venom: Let There be Carnage (2021), 5. Braindead (1992), 6. V/H/S (2012), 7. V/H/S/2, 8. V/H/S Viral (2014), 9. The Descent (2005), 10. Final Destination 3 (2006). 11. Halloween (2018), 12. Corpse Bride (2005), 13. Thirteen Ghosts (2001), 14. Jennifer’s Body (2009), 15. The Final Destination (2009), 16. V/H/S/94 (2021), 17. Freaks (1932) Spooky Bingo Card  Don’t Torture a Ducking: Corpse Bridge (2005) They Always Come Back: Thirteen Ghosts (2001) Femme Fatale: Jennifer’s Body (2009) Tales of Terror: V/H/S/94 (2021) Something Wicked this Way Comes: Freaks (1932) Justin Godscock fucked around with this message at 02:07 on Oct 22, 2021 |
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Oct 22, 2021 01:47
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🎃 As Seen On TV 🎃 Stranger in Our House (1978) aka Summer of Fear Directed by Wes Craven Watched on Tubi  Linda Blair followed up Exorcist II: The Heretic with a TV movie (boo?) directed by Wes Craven (yay?) in 1978. It’s a story similar to the 1992 Poison Ivy with Drew Barrymore and Sara Gilbert, but with a spooky twist — an outsider insinuates herself into the protagonist’s family and only she seems to think there’s anything strange going on.  Stranger in Our House (aka Summer of Fear) is preoccupied with the Ozark Mountains and the people who live there. Cousin Julia is from the Ozarks and nobody can let it go. Everyone is flummoxed by her accent and comments about how the area is full of superstitious yokels. The local anthropologist even makes some weird observation about her facial structure. It may be the best Linda Blair TV movie I’ve ever seen. There are some mild thrills here and there and the ending is slightly bonkers, but it’s still pretty forgettable overall. 💀💀 Spooky Bingo 13/? 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), 13. Sword of God (2018), 14. Thale (2012), 15. Stranger in Our House (1978)  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 🇳🇴
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Oct 22, 2021 01:56
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