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 Messiah of Evil, 1973 I didn't go into this one with much expectations as it is from that b-movie DVD box set I got many years ago, but drat, this one turned out to be pretty great. Well, good at least. It had plenty of atmosphere and gruesome poo poo. A girl travels to a small town to find her lost father who stopped communicating with letters and told her not to come in the very last one. People in the town sure like their raw meat and the notes left by her father in his art gallery tells a grisly tale of bad things happening. The whole movie feels very Lovecraftian, especially with the unseen evil behind the events of the film. It got the same vibes as The Shadow over Innsmouth by Lovecraft, only imagine if someone made that story to a zombie film. It is a low-budget movie from the early 70s, so it is a bit slow in parts, but drat, if the pitch of The Shadow over Innsmouth, only turned to a zombie film don't excite you, then why are you even a horror fan? I don't want to oversell Messiah of Evil, but if you like atmospheric poo poo from the 70s and like zombie films with zombies that aren't quite zombies, but close enough, then you should definitely watch this.
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Oct 22, 2021 02:01
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14. Screamtime (1983) 🇬🇧 Check out that poster! It’s a masterpiece. Can’t say the same for the film. Like Night Train to Terror, this British anthology seems to be a collection of edited down features with a shoddily put together wrap around story (which did have a fun little VHS theme) It’s super low budget and mostly pretty boring. The first segment features a mad Punch and Judy puppeteer that gets pretty silly. The second segment is a mostly decent haunted house story with a nice twist ending. But the third segment is the only thing in this film really worth seeking out. David van Day, a British pop star (not sure the level of “star” we are talking here) stars as a teenage rebel who takes a handyman job at some creepy old ladies house. When he and his friends decide to rob the place they are attacked by creatures who defend the house including...a loving killer gnome. And by gnome I mean a little person in a gnome costume leaping onto someone’s back. It’s a few minutes of cinema that must be seen. This really feels like the most hilariously stereotypical British version of horror.  Well despite the amazing gnome attack, Screamtime is very rough and quite a slog. I still give the film credit for some bizarre creativity.  2/5 Film 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) 14. Screamtime (2/5) *=rewatch WeaponX fucked around with this message at 02:47 on Oct 22, 2021 |
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Oct 22, 2021 02:42
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October 21 Fatal Frame When I saw Darthemed watched this, I perked up. I love Fatal Frame/Project Zero. I've got the terrible 3DS augmented reality spin-off game. I own the Japanese only Wii game. I've even seen the 4D movie experience for Fatal Frame 2 (I don't think you can anymore, I found it as an out of place booth inside Tokyo Tower around ten years ago; you put in your yen and then you sat in this tiny booth as a roughly ten minute long 3D CGI movie based on FF2 played out and occasionally there'd be effects that made it feel like ghosts were groping you and things like that). I hadn't heard about this movie, but obviously I had to watch it. I'll admit I'm going in with low expectations since I didn't see any mention of the defining feature of the series in his description, but I'm still going for it. Darthemed posted:SPOOKY Challenge: Video Games Cause Violence At the most Sapphic Catholic school in Japan, girls are going missing. There's a rumor at the school that if you kiss the picture of someone you like at the stroke of midnight then you're bound together and the girls just love making out with a photograph of their classmate Aya. Aya hasn't been seen in weeks, locked away in her room. Meanwhile, the girls who kissed the picture vanish one by one. So here's some background for people unaware of Fatal Frame. It's a game series based on a real life "psychic" whose schtick was taking double exposures with an old camera and claiming he was photographing ghosts. In the games, the player has one of these cameras and has to go through spooky locals. The camera is the player's weapon against the ghosts that constantly attack and the the better picture you take, the more damage you do until they're driven off. I'm mentioning this because the camera and it's ability to drive off ghosts is the most important thing about Fatal Frame and it's effectively not in the film at all. There's a kid who takes pictures of ghosts and appears in two scenes, one completely isolated from the action of the film. This is definitely a script for a ghost movie they had sitting around and then put the Fatal Frame name on it. I was enjoying the film and it's odd, dreamy visuals up until the halfway mark. Then the movie takes a turn and it heads rapidly downhill. The resolutions to the plot (and that is plural because they give us two completely different ones), are nonsensical. There's several out of nowhere additions to the plot that don't fit thematically or are elements from the game and they give the movie a disjointed feeling. The acting by the women playing the students is actually pretty good. I was anticipating it to be pretty awful given the tendency in Japanese cinema to fill these roles with the idol of the moment. However, they do a great job, especially with making their relationships feel believable. The movie looks good and when it's being spooky it works pretty well. There's an unsettling scene where all the girls in school collapse in a way that feels choreographed (more than just how it was arranged and acted, of course). And some of the shots of the girl who is haunting things are pretty cool. One more thing, I wasn't sure when the movie was set. Initially, I thought it was a period piece. Then they wind up in a modern-ish Japanese city for a scene and then it all goes back. It could be set in 2014 when it was shot, 1975, and if not for two or three scenes that have things clearly out of place it could be 1925. I really wish Fatal Frame had stuck the landing. Even if it wasn't a good adaptation, it was a good movie starting out. That shift in the second half makes me unable to recommend it, though. It's not enough to sink the movie, but it does make it feel like the movie is just taking you for a ride. For SPOOKY, Fatal Frame is falling on Femme Fatale for alliteration, since I can't in good conscience put this down as a video game adaptation, and the director, Mari Asato, is a woman.  Darthemed posted:This was considerably better than I expected. There's a heavy air of melancholy hanging over everything, with the wistfulness of teenage romance and forgotten friends forming a large part of the emotional core. The curse works in disregard of the Catholic school setting, piercing right through the implicit divinity, while the spirit manifesting from the curse engages in imagery like walking on water and descending from the sky before a cross. A character's drowning references Hamlet's Ophelia, the cause of the curse is intergenerational, and society's shifting acceptance of lesbian relationships is a fundamental plot point. In short, there's more put into this than the usual video game adaptation. I agree with this, but I also have to point out that all of this is the first half of the movie.
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Oct 22, 2021 03:45
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I realized I had only seen all the Halloween part 1s,so figured this would be a fun trilogy. 11. Halloween 2 (1978) Challenge:Masters of Horror Picks up right where the first ended (actually about 2 minutes before) and keeps on trucking. A good example of how to do a sequel, more if the same but in a good way. Loomis is just the worst doctor ever but terrific. 12: Halloween 2 (2009) Challenge: Starring Brad Dourif I appreciate how this incorporates elements from the original part 2, and even a few bits from the Thorne stuff, but still manages to be its own thing. Ultimately I think that's part of the problem though; i would like this a lot better if Rob just made a slasher movie homage as it's own thing, like what 1000 Corpses was to TCM. I love McDowell but I hate this Loomis, and I don't care for how vocal Michael was (although the kid Michael talking bits were a clever idea) 13: Halloween Kills Challenge: they always come back I really dug this. Just going to spoiler the whole thing because I'm on mobile and switching back and forth sucks. I suppose I can see how this was divisive, but I think breaking into these little piecemeal parts worked a lot better for a middle part of a trilogy. I actually wish they'd gone farther with it and done a bunch of vignettes instead. I really like the idea of Haddonfield rising up and going after him, and I really really like that show just how quickly that would devolve into chaos and get out of hand. I'm pretty curious to see how Ends turns out, since 2018 worked so well as a final confrontation.
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Oct 22, 2021 03:55
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Tales from the Hood Watched this last year and adored it and a local indie theatre was playing it on the big screen and I couldn't pass it up. Still an excellent blend of serious and campy. The montage in the fourth story is excessive and traumatizing and probably the only false note in am otherwise flawless film. What's really interesting, and a conscious reversal of most horror films, is that the horror stems from the real world and all the supernatural elements are actually rescuing/vengeance. For Black people in the real world they have no power and they have to turn to irreality for it; for the standard white folk in horror it's the real world that's safe and they have to face monsters to actually feel powerless. 4.5/5 Chinese Ghost Story  The absolutely mangled subtitles added to the charm of this. It feels like a forbiddem gem you're not supposed to see. It's a delightful horror comedy that is silly but has heart, it should absolutely be more of a cult movie just for its sheer uniqueness. 4/5
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Oct 22, 2021 04:15
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Shrecknet posted:above everything else, I'm mad they shot that pig. the #1 job on any film set is to keep every actor and crewman alive and safe. having live ammo on set, especially in the hands of a clearly untrained and unrespectful actor, is not just dangerous but loving criminal. Justin Godscock posted: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. I just read these posts, catching up on the thread, and then saw an article that Alec Baldwin shot and killed someone on set of a western today with a prop gun. Holy poo poo.
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Oct 22, 2021 04:20
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The Berzerker posted:I just read these posts, catching up on the thread, and then saw an article that Alec Baldwin shot and killed someone on set of a western today with a prop gun. Holy poo poo. I know, holy poo poo, I actually squirmed when I read it. Just a loving bizarre coincidence for me knowing what I posted like an hour before.
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Oct 22, 2021 04:32
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 32. Demon Seed (1977)  .5/5This movie could have been made for me. All its faults are the kind of cheapness I forgive, and all its virtues are the kinds I love: evil AIs, '70s futurism, psychedelia. The scenario of a computer imprisoning Julie Christie in a smart house and terrorizing her until she agrees to carry its baby is pretty loving far out there, but drat does Christie perform the hell out of it. Her panic and distress are so blazingly intense that they cut through all the rickety robohand bullshit and make the scenario as terrifying as it deserves: kidnapping and rape by a force without human empathy. The funny thing about watching Demon Seed is that it isn't so much prescient as it is revealing, that so many of our ideas about self-learning neural network intelligence and automated smart systems aren't as innovative as tech bro entrepeneurs want you to believe. Tons of these "new" ideas about technology have been rotting on the vine since the '70s. Now we just have more and cheaper computing power to throw at them. It's pathetic how little difference there is between Fritz Weaver's rear end in a top hat futurist and the modern Elon Musk types; Demon Seed wisely perceives that there will always be this class of dickwad who's so convinced that some technological project is the key to a superior way of life that they pay no attention to how miserable they're making life for people around them. Demon Seed is also the best kind of 2001: A Space Odyssey knockoff. It takes tons of inspiration from HAL's creepy voice and the red ring eye and the trippy space voyage sequences, because those things are all completely cool as hell and should be ripped off more often!! But director Donald Cammell reimagines all of those elements and repurposes them towards a terrestrial, meaner, uglier vision. A vision that includes some truly kooky rear end stuff, like a wheelchair mounted laser and the evil AI building a robot body for itself that flaps around like a gigantic version of those triangle puzzle toys. You know, like we do in the FUTURE!! Spooky bingo: fear dot com. Demon Seed is all about being afraid of technology, it's coming for your drat uterus! 
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Oct 22, 2021 04:47
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SPOOKY Challenge: Something Wicked This Way Comes #67) House of Witchcraft (1989; Youtube) Due to a recurring nightmare involving a witch, a neurotic man is taken to a villa by his occultist wife. Upon arrival, he realizes the villa has the same kitchen as in his dreams! Not the most engaging movie, even though, like The Boogey Man and The House of Clocks, it shows a willingness to ride with absurd imagery in order to keep the fever dream story rolling along. Unfortunately, it doesn't have the big craziness of either of those films; a witch hanging out in a kitchen with a mannequin copy of the man's head is our pull-in hook, and it stays around that level of creativity with the threats and imagery. No mirror possession, evil lasers, mangled bodies rising to undeath, or anything like that. Instead, we get garden shears, people driving too fast, irritable cats, and poorly-cared-for plants. Well, we do get some snow where it's not supposed to be, and a skull on a rope made out of cobwebs, which I did love, to be honest. Sure, this was made for TV, but since when has a low budget stopped Italian horror from going off the wall with ideas? The lead looks kind of like a Jeffrey Combs understudy, and even through the dubbing, he puts on a good performance, bringing a mix of desperation and exasperation to play as he pushes through all the nonsense events he encounters. He's not given much to work with, though, and the movie feels like a slog to get to the weak and abrupt ending. Disappointing. “Oh my God, it's midnight!” Rating: 5/10 
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Oct 22, 2021 05:47
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14: The Blob (remake) Challenge: Spaced Invaders drat, I watched a lot of movies today. Enjoyed this. Thought about waiting and watching it with my kid but glad we decided not to, this is one goopy movie. It's nothing particularly special but worth a watch I'd say
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Oct 22, 2021 05:59
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17. Village of the Damned (1960) Spooky Bingo: none. I thought about putting it under Spaced Invaders, but it's a stretch and I've got a way spacier movie coming up anyway.  Aw man I hope they don't do that thing with their eyes Everyone in a small English village falls unconscious at the same time, for about an hour. Every capable woman gives birth nine months later. The children are all wrong. It was solid. The premise was a good one. The movie was predominantly made up of people in rooms talking to each other, but I didn't mind; was just in the mood for it, I guess. If anything, it was too fast-paced; it felt like it was rushing to the next explanation, instead of building mood. The children were a bit of a surprise. My expectations from parodies and references and so on were a lot eerier than the actual thing; the children here are surprisingly honest and childlike, at least when the protagonist Zellaby is talking to them. While they do kill a bunch of people, they only seem to do so defensively. The people are always killed with their own implements-- own gun, own car, own burning torch-- a trick that is also used in, of all things, The Terminator. And of course, there's the subplot about how several other groups of sinister children have emerged around the world, and all been exterminated. Only the British alien-kids survive, which the movie seems to consider a failing. The children had this line early on that I loved: "It's his turn to study, he's at your home" - speaking to the boy's mother, who is at his own home. Just so much packed in there. There are some social oddities, like how unworried everyone is about the mass-knockout, or a lady saying "Good morning" as a farewell, but that's just what you expect from that era. Oh, and I thought the final metaphor of the brick wall was built up and execited nicely. That is 9 decades down, just need to watch something from the '40s now.  Oh no! Oh gently caress!/5
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Oct 22, 2021 06:32
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44. Trick 'r Treat (2007) (first viewing) A earlier film by the director of Krampus, this horror comedy anthology follows several storylines taking place on Halloween night in a small Midwestern town. The format is a little different for an anthology film--instead of discrete chapters, there is a little bit of cross-cutting and jumping back and forth in time. At a brisk 82 minutes, his one is pretty light and full of actual Halloween atmosphere, with colorful costumes, kids trick-or-treating, and holiday parties. This is, surprisingly, R-rated, but honestly it's a pretty light R. The gore isn't too much, and I have a feeling without some brief shots of topless women and one or two F-bombs this would easily pass for PG-13. I grew up on harder stuff than this, as I am sure many of us haunting this thread did, so it could be a nice gateway for younger horror fans. I can certainly imagine this would have been in rotation around Halloween when I was a kid. SPOOKY Bingo: This one checks off "Tales of Terror." 45. The Funhouse (1981) (first viewing) This was Tobe Hooper's film released the year before Poltergeist. The carnival is in town, and two young couples decide to sneak around the funhouse for a little exploration/hanky panky. Through a bizarre set of circumstances I'll spoiler momentarily, they find themselves locked in the funhouse overnight, on the run from a killer. The impetus for the killing spree is just off-the-wall. The couples accidentally witness a deformed carnival employee dressed like Frankenstein's monster purchasing a handjob from the fortune teller. He prematurely ejaculates and, when unable to get a refund, murders the fortune teller in a fit of buyer's remorse. They are discovered, and the killer hunts them down to protect his secret. This one takes awhile to get rolling, with an awful lot of roaming around the carnival before the horror plot even kicks off. We see all the ride and a games, a fortune teller, a magician, an animal freak show, even a strip show (do they have those at carnivals?). Decently made, with a spook atmosphere if you like the carnival vibe, but nothing to write home about. SPOOKY Bingo: This one checks off "Something Wicked This Way Comes." 46. Smiley (2012) (first viewing) So far the "fear dot com" Bingo square has attracted endless trash. And I can see why--every list I pulled up, for Internet movies in particular, was like a litany of the worst movies imaginable. I decided to roll with the punches and watch something that promised to be awful. In this flop, the titular "Smiley" is an urban legend serial killer that haunts Fake Chatroulette. You summon Smiley by typing the phrase "I did it for the lulz" three times, which causes him to manifest on the other side of the screen and stab the person you're chatting with. Our protagonist is a naive college freshman. Within five minutes of the opening credits, her roommate is getting her high and explaining what 4chan and Anonymous are. Our hero foolishly summons Smiley, sees an online stranger get killed, then later believes she is being stalked herself. The main entertainment value comes from watching various line readings of the phrase "I did it for the lulz." I wish I had a supercut to share. Keith David also has an amusing turn as an incredulous cop who has no time to listen to bullshit reports about Smiley. Anyway there's a stupid twist ending in which everyone else in the movie was in on it as a way to prank the protagonist, which is impossible to reconcile with scenes in which they murder random people they found on Fake Chatroulette with no connection to the campus group. I watched it for the lulz. SPOOKY Bingo: This one checks off "feat dot com." Next up: I am three SPOOKY Bingo squares away from completing the border! Crescent Wrench fucked around with this message at 07:18 on Oct 22, 2021 |
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Oct 22, 2021 06:51
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 50 (85). Untitled Horror Movie (2021) Written and directed by Nick Simon; co-written by Luke Baines Watched on Amazon Prime Fran’s SPOOKY BINGO: fear dot com A bunch of moron actors workshop a horror movie over Zoom and screw up and find a real demon conjuring spell on Reddit. How’s that for the dangers of the internet? That was a fun little horror comedy. It’s one of those quarantine productions that everyone shot on their own and then put together. Its a fun little gimmick taken from the real world hell given its own little twist by getting pretty meta with actors playing up what self absorbed, crystal wearing, functioning alcoholic morons they all are. Its probably a little too in joke and meta for its own good. Like I had to google who Lesly Kahn was. A lot of it definitely had the vibe of jokes they were all making to make each other laugh rather than the audience. But hey, whom of us didn’t get a little self indulgent and lose some perspective during quarantine? The format being what it is its obviously very heavily reliant on the actors and they’re all playing it pretty broad and over the top. Its charming if maybe gets a little long in the tooth when the charm starts to wear off and the horror doesn’t totally pick up. There is a decent amount of actual horror and for DIY home shoots its a pretty solid if simple set of effects and editing. And while of course this had a real director and crew with horror experience and these are all solidly successful actors most of whom I recognize from here or there its still pretty impressive how they all managed to work together well and get good chemistry going just like a cast of bickering tv siblings despite not actually knowing each other or having a chance to actually interact with each other. Its got some clunky elements and all but given the circumstances and all I was pretty impressed. It feels like everyone was having a good time and making something neat. And most importantly, I had a good time and had quite a few laughs. A cool experiment executed pretty solidly well. ”loving actors, man.”  51 (86). Island of the Fishmen aka ‘L'isola degli uomini pesce’ (1979) Written and directed by Sergio Martino; co-written by Sergio Donati and Cesare Frugoni Watched on Youtube HalloweeNIT 18/31 Hooptober Ocho 26/39: 5/6 countries (Italy) Absolutely nothing happens in this movie for like the first hour. I mean people walk around and say cryptic things and some extra characters get picked off by Fishmen in the dark. But we just plod along completely dully as the shipwrecked doctor asks politely if he can leave and the bad guy politely says no. And then all of a sudden the bad guy just takes the doctor on a walking tour of all the secrets of the island and his insidious plot. Its literally a 10 minute exposition dump as the entire plot is explained for the first time that I noticed. And I’d like to say that things picked up after that but they really didn’t. The finale does appear to have been filmed on location in an underground cave and that’s kind of cool and interesting but its also shot poorly and looks bad. There’s these moments here and there and like decent monster suits and a submarine with some underwater scenes and the sunken city of Atlantis. On paper I was actually kind of excited for this movie. But I’m not sure there’s really much more than 30 minutes of stuff in this 100 minute film. Apparently it got that usual treatment in US distribution where it got chopped up, had 30 minutes removed, and a bunch more gore and action added in. And while usually I’m against such things… I dunno. Broken clocks and all.  52 (87). BloodRayne 2: Deliverance (2007) Directed by Uwe Boll; Written by Christopher Donaldson and Neil Every; Based on BloodRayne series by Majesco Entertainment and Terminal Reality Watched on TubiTV Hooptober Ocho 27/39: The worst Part 2 that you haven't seen and can access Fran’s SPOOKY BINGO: Video Games Cause Violence The movie that answered that age old question: what if Billy the Kid was a vampire? And also kind of a creepy kid predator. See, that’s why he’s called Billy the Kid. Because he preys on kids. That makes sense, right? Also he’s got a bad indecipherable accent of some kind of Transylvanian kind. And an ugly wig. I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen a good vampire western. I’m not entirely sure why I’d expect Uwe Boll to change that. Still part of me was like “oh, this was is set in the wild west? That might be good.” I don’t know why. I think I’m just itching to play some Dead Red Redemption. And really, there’s more going on in the average “wandering aimlessly through the dessert” games session than there is in this aggressively dull film. Apparently Uwe was filming a second film on the same set at the time, some trash filled with holocaust and fat jokes, so I guess he just had all his creative energy focused over there. This couldn’t feel more like a lazy churned out DTV sequel to cash in on a brand and fans with less than picky selection criteria. Of course I’m watching it and I don’t even like the game, so what does that say about me? Half way through Michael Eklund shows up to play a scumbag over the top preacher not that dissimilar to a bunch of other over the top Eklund roles I’ve seen like in Wynonna Earp. That actually marks the first time it felt like anyone was really trying in this thing. Occasionally the new Bloodrayne is kind of charming and playful but it feels in complete contrast with what the character is? I mean I don’t have a great sense of Bloodrayne as a character and I actually think Natassia Malthe is a marginally better actress than Kristanna Loken. But I don’t get what her character is supposed to be here. Its almost like no one was directing or giving notes of what this thing is supposed to be. Late in the film there’s one of those Boll really poorly done over the top slow motion montages for a gunfight, and there’s this super tight zoom in on the preacher’s mouth as he eats what I assume is meant to be an Eucharist wafer but is very clearly a Saltine cracker. That’s when this really felt like a Uwe Boll film. I bet he spent most of his energy on that scene. Its possible there were worse Part 2 films I could have watched here but most of the ones I saw would have required me watching another bad first film I hadn’t seen. Or well, “required” because I’m a weirdo who can’t skip stuff. But really, its hard to be much worse than this without just being aggressively amateurish or offensive. And of course Uwe can be both of those things. But this is just cheap and lazy and completely uninspired and a complete and utter waste of time with virtually nothing redeeming or interesting about it.  🎃Halloween 2021: Hooptober Ocho and Spook-a-Doodle HalloweeNIT ’21🎃 Hooptober Ocho: 26/39; HalloweeNIT: 18/31; Svengoolie: 9/26; Fran’s SPOOKY BINGO: 18/36; Watched - New (Total) 1. The Funhouse (1981); 2. Elvira, Mistress of the Dark (1988); 3. Eden Lake (2008); - (4). Halloween (1978); - (5). The Purge (2013); 4 (6). The Company of Wolves (1984); 5 (7). Kiss of the Damned (2012); - (8). Halloween II (1981); 6 (9). Malignant (2021); 7 (10). The Vatican Tapes (2015); 8 (11). Hard Labor aka Trabalhar Cansa (2011); 9 (12). Alice aka Něco z Alenky (1988); - (13). Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982); - (14). Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988); - (15). Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989); 10 (16). Room 237 (2012); 11 (17). Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (Producer’s Cut) (1995); - (18). Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998); - (19). Halloween: Resurrection (2002); 12 (20). From Hell It Came (1957); 13 (21). Fiend Without a Face (1958); - (22). Hostel (2005); 14 (23). Sea Fever (2019); 15 (24). Tales from the Crypt (1972); - (25). The Shining (1980); - (26). V/H/S (2012); - (27). The Mummy (1999); - (28). 30 Days of Night (2007); 16 (29). Blood Moon (2021); - (30). V/H/S/2 (2013); 16 (31). Jakob’s Wife (2021); 17 (32). Terror Train (1980); - Muppets Haunted Mansion (2021); 18 (33). King Kong Escapes (1967); - (34). V/H/S: Viral (2014); 19 (35). Horror Express aka Pánico en el Transiberiano (1972); - (36). 28 Days Later (2002); - (37). Arachnophobia (1990); 20 (38). Spiral: From the Book of Saw (2021); - (39). It Stains the Sands Red (2016); 21 (40). V/H/S/94 (2021); - (41). The Mist (2007); 22 (42). Humanoids from the Deep (1980); 23 (43). Hell Night (1981); 24 (44). Head (2015); 25 (45). Black as Night (2021); 26 (46). Madres (2021); 27 (47). The Manor (2021); - (48). 28 Weeks Later (2007); 28 (49). The Frozen Ghost (1945); 29 (50). Cult of the Cobra (1955); - (51). Friday the 13th Part III (1982); - (52). Child’s Play (1988); (53). Village of the Damned (1995); - (54). The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988); - (55). Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007); - (56). Halloween (2018); - (57). Child's Play 2 (1990); 30 (58). The Wolfman (2010); - (59). Child's Play 3 (1991); - (60). Bride of Chucky (1998); - (61). Seed of Chucky (2004); 31 (62). Halloween Kills (2021); - (63). Curse of Chucky (2013); - (64). Van Helsing (2004); 32 (65). You Should Have Left (2020); 33 (66). How to Make a Monster (1958); 34 (67). The Vampire Lovers (1970); - (68). Cult of Chucky (2017); 35 (69). The Boneyard Collection (2008); 36 (70). Black Box (2020); 37 (71). Curse of the Undead (1959); 38 (72). Time Walker (1982); 39 (73). The Ward (2010); 40 (74). Versus aka ‘ヴァーサス’ (2000); 41 (75). Cult Following (2021); 42 (76). Fran’s SPOOKY BINGO Short Cuts DIY Anthology - Suckablood (2012)/The Tunnel aka ‘Tunnelen’ (2016)/Night Swim (2014)/The Captured Bird (2012)/Conventional (2015)/Doña Lupe (1985)/The Scooby-Doo Project (1999)[/b]); 43 (77). The Block Island Sound (2020); 44 (78). Things Heard & Seen (2021); 45 (79). She-Wolf of London (1946); 46 (80). The Vault of Horror (1973); 47 (81). Relaxer (2018); 48 (82). Nocturne (2020); - (83). No One Lives (2012); 49 (84). Faust aka ‘Lekce Faust’ (1994); 50 (85). Untitled Horror Movie (2021); 51 (86). Island of the Fishmen aka ‘L'isola degli uomini pesce’ (1979); 52 (87). BloodRayne 2: Deliverance (2007); STAC Goat fucked around with this message at 12:53 on Oct 22, 2021 |
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Oct 22, 2021 07:11
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21) Def By Temptation [The Devil Made Me Do It] I adore this as a time capsule of 1990. The bedroom fantasy that devolves into a weird saxophone music video is incredible.The bloody shower is fun but the other murders are tame and repetitive until the super fun third act. The effects are solid for a Troma release and the technical work, headlined by Ernest Dickerson, suggests better films to come. It looks very much like a period HBO Movie/Tales From The Crypt with strong colors and foggy sets and is a fun contrast with the contemporary New York sleaze of Henenlotter et al. Kadeem is good as always and writer/director James Bond III is more than fine as the good Christian boy. Always fun to see SLJ for a minute. 22) Cannibal Ferox [To Serve Man] The score is incredible. I don't have the highest opinion of Lenzi but this movie is clearly beneath his talents. A bit of a snooze that loops around to pretty drat funny. I love the horrendous overacting from the leads and underacting from the indigenous people. There is one perfect bad child acting job of pretending to be be shot and keeling over. The flashback rampage is a farce and the piranha editing is hilarious. The animal abuse is sad and adds nothing but I love the cuts to random monkeys in trees.  23) April Fool's Day [Holiday Massacre] There's a solid 80s sex comedy buried in this unsatisfying slasher. The gags are fun but the rest is awful. Super weird tone and pace in between kills. The resolution comes at 75 minutes and the movie shambles on for another 10 minutes when I just want to be done with it. 
UltimoDragonQuest fucked around with this message at 09:27 on Oct 22, 2021 |
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Oct 22, 2021 07:49
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#25. Knife + Heart Spooky Bingo Challenge: Behind the Screams Paris, 1979- The performers for a gay porn studio are being killed off one by one in fetishistic ways. Anne, the director (played by Vanessa Paradis) eventually is the only one willing to try and find the killer, but she's got her own issues too, notably an increasingly unhealthy attitude to her ex-girlfriend, Lois the editor (Kate Moran.) This is clearly an homage to classic giallo films, though there's also a couple of nods to Friedkin's Cruising in here. It's all played fairly straight (no pun intended), offering a reasonably sympathetic portrait of this slice of the gay community at a time before things really got bad; everyone's very flawed but there's a kind of camaraderie and a sense that at least in this disreputable business they're all together. But there's also some satire; we cut from Anne being interrogated by the police to a gay porn version of the scene being played out in her current film, as she's happy to exploit the tragedy. The filmmakers aren't afraid of Anne being downright unsympathetic, and there's a scene of her confronting Lois that clearly crosses several boundaries. It's not so much that we like her (though Paradis gives a great performance) as we want someone to figure this out. The film's full of surreal imagery and bits that almost defy reality, but it circles around to a sad acknowledgement of the victims of homophobia and intolerance on both personal and societal levels; there's legitimate tragedy by the end, and given the lurid things we see on screen, it's surprising how non-exploitative it feels overall. Now, you may be wondering why I picked this film for this specific challenge, and it's because of the next one: #26. Elvira, Mistress of the Dark Spooky Bingo Challenge: Scream, Queen! Cassandra Peterson's coming out was a nice, heartwarming little story this year and I wanted to acknowledge that. Elvira (herself, nee Peterson) is a TV horror hostess who is planning a big act in Vegas, but suddenly needs a lot of money for an advance. At the same time she discovers her Great Aunt Morgana has died, and she heads to the small town of Falwell, Massachusetts for the reading of the will. She doesn't get any money, but she gets a great old house that might be worth something, and also her aunt's dog and book of recipes. Getting all kinds of attention both good and bad in this conservative community, Elvira struggles with the local moralists while also discovering a bit more about herself and her aunt's true power- and what that book of recipes really is. The surprising thing is how well Elvira's act (developed in small segments between horror films) translates to a feature film. Her combination of beauty, cornball humor, and Valley Girl "cool" actually ends up endearing; she's always positioned as basically good natured, and I kinda get why the gay community embraced her too, there's that "cool aunt" quality. She's fun to watch and not just in that way. And it is nice to see an 80s film cast the Religious Right as bad guys (with Edie McClurg leading the charge), even if they aren't strictly the main villains of the piece. The film drags a little until Elvira starts digging into her aunt's book and we start getting more magic and witchery and craziness; I suspect keeping the budget down was a concern here. But it's consistently fun and often amusing and Elvira spends much of the time cracking the kind of bad jokes I'll always love. There have been hundreds of movies which try to turn crazy gimmick characters into movie stars, but this one works well enough that it's a shame we didn't see much more. I'm glad she's still out there, and long may she reign. 
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Oct 22, 2021 09:22
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26: Titane Femme Fatale: female director Raw was one of my favourite horrors of recent years so I was eagerly anticipating this new film by Julia Ducournau and I'm glad to say it didn't disappoint. It's weirder and more surreal than Raw, but Ducournau brings the same visual style and empathy to the main character in spite of their nature. I was not expecting it to go the direction it did after the first act, which was spent establishing Alexia as a monster, where it takes a sharp swing to tenderness. The body horror is shocking but not overdone. I'd heard the basic concept and was picturing Tetsuo the Iron Man and it's nothing like that. Great performance by Agathe Roussell, who put a lot into the character with very little dialogue. The relationship between Alexia/Adrien and Vincent was sweet, tragic and messed up in equal measure. This is a must-watch Total: 26 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; Titane 
bitterandtwisted fucked around with this message at 11:57 on Oct 22, 2021 |
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Oct 22, 2021 11:54
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 9. Malignant: C Oh. So that's what that is.  Look, I'm all for a Basket Case riff. Those ideas were cool and good. I just wish it were in a radically different and much better movie. And it's probably because I was looking for some sort of a twist, but that possibility came up in my mind early in the runtime and was more or less confirmed when Officer USA Drama was chasing the killer down the hallway who was clearly running backwards well before the reveal. So when it came I felt pretty let down after all the buildup. Now I'm typically a gore and monsters guy, and don't get me wrong—the effects were cool. But despite really not liking the sort of early 2000s horror that the first 3/4 of this movie was riffing on, I actually enjoyed all of that a lot more than the last 1/4 which seemed to turn into some Paul WS Anderson action-horror bullshit complete with parkour and over-the-top camerawork. Had it been the same story but with a deformed serial killer conjoined twin instead of a superpowered nu-metal monster I could have really enjoyed this a lot more. That being said, I did like the psychic and electricity stuff and the whole thing would have been better served by leaning much harder into being a supernatural-tinged giallo riff instead of, like, The Grudge. Overall I wish the film had shown a whole lot more restraint. It's a neat idea that I wish someone with different instincts had made. Supplemental Material: None of this Counts Creepshow — Time Out: C Okay, so I have to come to terms with the fact that despite a strong start, this season is a dud. Including both segments this episode, we've had 10 stories and I'd say 3 of them are varying shades of good. This was not one of those. A man inherits a time-freezing wardrobe and uses it to get the success in his life that his father was unable to achieve. The story itself is actually quite good and it's an ideal EC Comics-style morality tale, but execution is quite poor. Especially the main character's "old age" makeup which consisted of a very fake beard and some community theatre-level gray hair. Like many Creepshow episodes, this segment had one cool visual moment couched in a lot of mediocre story business. Creepshow — The Things In Oakwood's Past: C I groaned when it became clear this whole segment was going to be animated. Some moments of the animation are quite nice, like the black and white segment. Most of it, however, looks terrible. I'm also going to have to be the grumpy old man who grumbles about the fact that they could very easily have gone with a style that resembles horror art of the 40s, but instead went with an anime-inspired style. That plus the unevenness of the animation and the terrible gradient coloring that pops up all over the place in it means that I just had a tough time watching this. It's not like the wraparound segments are much closer to the EC vibes and also feel amateurish, and the animated segments from last year also looked like garbage, but gosh does it bother me when it's an art direction choice rather than a budget choice. The story was okay and would have worked much better in live-action (though the ending would've been impossible on their budget), and once again I like the nods to the original movie while not repeating anything from it. But the story was needlessly messy and complicated. Another pass on the script that simplified it down and focused on how to pull it off in live action would've really served this. At least it featured Andy Daly doing a handful of voices. feedmyleg fucked around with this message at 12:59 on Oct 22, 2021 |
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Oct 22, 2021 12:49
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MOVIE 13: URBAN LEGEND Starring Brad Dourif  "Okay listen up guys, cause this is how the story really goes!" Maaaaaaan, Urban Legend should've been awesome. The premise is amazing: you know all those spooky urban legends about stuff that nobody remembers anymore because turns out even urban legends change in 23 years? Well, they're true. Or if not true, at least some psycho is using them as his guide to kill the poo poo out of people. That's rad! Think of the possibilities, all the weird urban legends you heard that would make for some cool horror movie material if used literally! And yeah, that's the premise, and yeah, the movie DOES lean somewhat on this stuff because the kills are themed around urban legends. But it feels like they a) picked some really boring urban legends to use for the most part and b) the good ones they DO have, they didn't really do much with. So it's not so much a case of terrible movie, but a decent slasher that took an amazing premise and then didn't come close to making the most of it. The worst part, though? Oh my loving lord the acting. I don't expect amazing performances from horror movies in the year 2021, but I had forgotten just how godawful this late 90s crop of teen heart-throb super idols were. We've got Jared Leto and loving Tara Reid in the same movie, and this is very much not Blade Runner 2049 Jared Leto. Even Alicia Witt comes off poorly, largely because her character is just a big fat nothing. And of course Brad Dourif as a gas station attendant in a very minor but still real and credited scene, so I'm gonna claim "Starring Brad Dourif" for this one because he's definitely featured in the movie and it's not a Chucky movie. I'm normally someone who gets way into movies and as a result has to watch a lot of horror through his fingers, but with Urban Legend I actually dozed off halfway through and had to go back to rewatch a bunch of the movie. I would honestly have taken a hilariously bad movie over one that's just ... boring. SCORE: 2/5 My October 2021 Movies: 1. Fear Street 1994, 2. His House, 3. Willy's Wonderland, 4. Halloween III, 5. Demons, 6. Werewolves Within, 7. No One Makes It Out Alive, 8. Shaun of the Dead, 9. Call of Cthulhu (Based on the Novel), 10. Friday the 13th 2009 (They Always Come Back), 11. Suspiria 1977 (Video Nasty), 12. Birdemic (Wild Beasts), 13. Urban Legend (Starring Brad Dourif) E: Forgot the bingo board 
Shaman Tank Spec fucked around with this message at 15:02 on Oct 22, 2021 |
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Oct 22, 2021 13:12
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placeholder while I find my last posts...
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Oct 22, 2021 14:12
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 53 (88). Evilspeak (1981) Written and directed by Eric Weston; co-written by Joseph Garofalo Watched on Youtube Hooptober Ocho 28/39: 2/4 films from 1981 Fran’s SPOOKY BINGO: Video Nasty Coopersmith is such an odd sounding name that I’ve never heard before that after like the 50th time someone yelled it I became convinced it was some kind of joke I wasn’t getting. My apologies to any Coopersmiths out there. This isn’t really a bad film but it takes forever to really get into second gear. The setup and circumstances are all very familiar and easy. Clint Howard is a weak kid getting cruelly bullied and tormented by both his classmates and the school faculty, he stumbles on this Satanic bible and gets curious, and in his desperation and pain makes the mistake of giving into Satan’s seduction for revenge. Its straight forward but it takes well over an hour to really get there. The preceding hour isn’t bad or anything but it definitely didn’t need to be an hour. It was clear were we were going, it was clear what we were all waiting for, and the film drags in the middle when it feels like its really spinning its wheels a bit to pad this thing out. Now once the inevitable happens it definitely delivers a show. For most that will be worth the price of admission and its good enough to justify the whole for me. But truthfully I just don’t think its a very well put together film. Its paced poorly, it spends too long establishing the premise well after its been set, despite all that time its characters never feel like they have more than one dimension, it does that 80s thing of having women in it only for their boobs, there’s these sympathetic characters you expect to factor into the finale but never do, and then its just over. One of the reviews I saw compared it to Carrie and… yeah. That’s what it is. This is a Carrie ripoff. Its pretty clear now that someone said it. Its got all the same structure right down to the one sympathetic friend, one sympathetic faculty member, and big bloody finale. But Clint Howard is no Sissy Spacek and there’s not the emotional and dramatic core and buildup here that there is in that story. Again, the finale is probably worth it and the whole idea of conjuring Satan through an 80s computer translation program is ridiculous enough to entertain. And while Clint Howard might not be a great actor, he’s always a charming guy. The problem with Video Nasties isn’t necessarily the material that got them banned by that law, but that most of the films on that list really were trash that just did shocking and outrageous stuff and nothing more. I hoped this would be something better and it largely was. You could take the uncharitable interpretation that its a cheap Carrie ripoff that throws in boobs, gore, and satan to shock and cover up for the lack of quality. But there is a movie here. Not a great one, but a trashy one that will definitely entertain many. Its not gonna become a favorite of mine but I definitely could have done a lot worse on that list.  54 (89). Howling Village aka 犬鳴村 (2019) Written and directed by Takashi Shimizu, co-written by Daisuke Hosaka HalloweeNIT 19/31 Hooptober Ocho 29/39: 1/3 Asian horror films Fran’s SPOOKY BINGO: It's Only A Myth This had some very solid spooky moody ghost stuff… and then it got weird… and then it got long… Is apparently based on a popular Japanese urban legend of Inunaki Village, a ghost village that may or may not have once existed, may have been drowned or abandoned or still there as inbred recluses, could be a lot of things but definitely are spooky sounds in the woods and shadows in dark tunnels. I guess its origins are “creepy pasta” or reddit or something. I don’t have a ton of familiarity with creepy pasta but my impression is it tends to be pretty loose and not super well written with a lot of ideas and not great structure. And that definitely feels like this. There’s a good mood, some spooky stuff, but the lore is confusing and feels like more than it has to be. I think that works against it, not just because it makes the movie longer than it feels it needs to be but also less focused. When the last act begins and the stuff starts to come together it doesn’t really fully come together. Its weird. And then like even after the natural conclusion there’s this whole other 15 minutes of multiple confusing conclusions of more stuff. Its not really bad or anything, but I dunno. I feel like it would have been a lot better if it had just been a spooky story about a ghost village and not some of that other stuff. Just tightened up, probably 10-20 minutes shorter, and a little less head scratching stuff. Like I really and truly don’t understand the finale at all. Like at all. The more I think about it the less I understand it. And its ok to have an ambiguous spooky ending if you wish. Especially in a ghost story. But it didn’t have that haunting element to it. I was just very confused. And the fact that the movie had like 5 endings didn’t help at all. I dunno… it was this perfectly fine ghost story… and then… I don’t get it. I looked up the urban legend to see if that would help but… I do not understand the last 30 minutes of this film at all.  55 (90). Deadly Blessing (1981) Written and directed by Wes Craven; Story by Glenn M. Benest and Matthew Barr Watched on Roku Hooptober Ocho 30/39: 3/4 films from 1981 Fran’s SPOOKY BINGO: Masters of Horror Say what you will about Wes Craven, he gave you different ideas. You don’t see a lot of Amish slashers. Its not a great film, but its sorta interesting in the context of Craven’s career. Wes is no stranger to duds. You could argue he has as many misses as hits but I don’t think I’ve ever seen him really phone it in. This one feels at times like it could be that. Much of it feels like a TV movie if it wasn’t for some nudity. The layout is pretty familiar and there’s not a ton of tension or fire under the general story. A widowed woman and her friends terrorized by an unknown force, but maybe those rude religious folks around town. And if that’s all it was then it would be pretty forgettable and arguably Craven’s worst. But there’s a whole lot of Wes plugged in here by surprise. Like the obvious stuff are just Craven staples like Michael Berryman or him doing a first run of that classic Nightmare on Elm Street bathtub scene. But there’s a lot of other random little doses of weirdness in here from crazy nightmare scenarios, or dropping a live spider in a young Sharon Stone’s mouth, or a daring borderline exploitative late film twist that would make another movie infamous and a cult classic a couple of years later. Or that absolutely insane last scene that probably would have made a better movie but sure as hell made a final impression. And seriously, that twist is SO similar to the cult classic film that I don’t even want to name it because it would just give it away. But its SO close that I almost am tempted to suggest Craven got ripped off. Its all very odd because all of that stuff feels like it belongs to a different film all together, or at least a different vision of the film. This is only Craven’s third film after Last House on the Left and the Hills Have Eyes and it couldn’t be less similar in general tone. That begs the question for me whether Craven was trying to go more mainstream and just hadn’t quite adjusted yet or if he was simply doing his first profile job and pushing against studio expectations and someone else’s script. Craven is listed as a screenwriter but the story is credited to two other guys. So to me this feels like a job he got that wasn’t much more than a glorified TV film that he punched up in a not terribly successful, scattershot way. It definitely doesn’t work, and I’m not making a claim that the Master of Horror Wes Craven salvaged garbage by sheer will and skill. But this does feel like an early career work in process where he’s working through some ideas he’s gonna use in the future, sanding off some of those rough edges from his exploitation start, and figuring out this mainstream/studio thing. So its not a good film, and to be totally honest like 75% of it is a pretty boring one. But there is a helping of interesting in here, at least for a Craven fan like myself. A lesser director probably would have just made a bland little thriller/slasher, but a future horror legend definitely instilled some of his flavor and workshopped a few ideas. That’s not enough to salvage this film - nor is the novelty of Sharon Stone’s first speaking role - but it was enough to get me through this and kind of appreciate it as a novelty watch if nothing else. 
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Oct 22, 2021 14:14
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23) Willy's Wonderland (2021) This is a rewatch that was put on at a party I went to. It's a fine movie, like, it's entertaining, it's fun, it does the job. Other than that it's kind of forgettable. 3/5 24) Blood & Flesh: The Reel Life & Ghastly Death of Al Adamson BINGO: Behind the Screams Completely average documentary about a guy whose life was slightly above average. It didn't really make me want to seek out any of Al's movies, but I respect the guy for what he did. 2.5/5 25) Nothing Bad Can Happen (2013) This was an incredibly powerful film about faith and religion, and I'm shocked by how much it hit me. I'm so used to seeing Christian characters act the martyr while being victimized, that it's disarming to see one act so ... I don't know, real? Like he's genuinely suffering because he cares. Obviously there's a lot of allusion to all the temptations of Christ here but... wow, really powerful film. I feel like it's make a fascinating double feature with Saint Maud. 4/5 26) Ms. 45 (1981) BINGO: Femme Fatale Another reviewer said "if you can make it through the first 6 minutes, you're in for a wild ride" and I think that sums it up better than I can. 4/5 27) Malignant (2021) What is this movie supposed to be? Is it a comedy? I legitimately can't tell 1/5 as a normal movie, 3/5 as a comedy  Total: 27 The Shining (1980) / The Devil's Rejects (2005) / Raw (2016) / Disturbing Behavior (1998) / Killer Klowns From Outer Space (1988) / Pumpkinhead (1988) / Videodrome (1983) / Candyman (2021) / Children of the Corn (1984) / The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) / V/H/S/94 (2021) / The Mutilator (1984) / Woe (2020) / Angel (1984) / The Blair Witch Project (1999) / Maniac (2012) / The Devil's Advocate (1997) / Night of the Demons (1988) / Resident Evil (2002) / Let's Scare Jessica to Death (1971) / Razorback (1984) / The Halloween Tree (1993) / Willy's Wonderland (2021) / Blood & Flesh [...] (2019) / Nothing Bad Can Happen (2013) / Ms. 45 (1981) / Malignant (2021)
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Oct 22, 2021 14:21
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17.  SPOOKY BINGO: Hausu Crimson Peak (2015)  Aspiring novelist and heiress Edith Cushing marries a charismatic English noble and moves into his decaying ancestral home which is haunted by the spirits of the past. A solid little gothic haunted house story about love, death, and Dark Family Secrets™. If this was a novel it would have Edith on the front in a nightgown running from the manison with one window lit as is customary for these sorts of stories. This has some of the best looking ghosts ever and they don't really look like any ghosts I've seen in anything else. They're all these red skeletal ethereal beings that seem to have a very casual relationship with the laws of gravity and they're not just red purely for the sake if it looking cool but also because they're all buried in vats of clay under the house and according to an early bit of exposition the clay around the house is particularly mineral rich and thus bright red . I'm pretty sure they're mostly CGI with a few being a mix of practical and CGI with actors in heavy make-up with digital enhancements. The CG actually works pretty well in this instance because it allows them to do a lot of stuff that would be almost impossible, or at least very tricky, to pull off with practical ghosts. The story might not be the most original and anyone who is paying any attention can see any twists coming. If they can really be called twists as they're all telegraphed or outright stated from very early on so we the audiance usually known what was going on for a bit before the characters figure it out. Not as good as Del Toro's previous ghost film The Devil's Backbone but still worth a look for all fans of the gothic. 
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Oct 22, 2021 14:53
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 50. The New Kids (1985) "You want crazy? Well, I'll show you crazy." This movie opens with Tom Atkins asking his son if he stayed up all night 'whackin' off' and then they do some fun military training drills together. Eventually this becomes a movie about two teenagers who move to live with their aunt and uncle, at their Santa-themed amusement park/gas station in rural Florida (???), learning to navigate their new high school. Except the new high school has a gang of incels led by James Spader who are mad when the sister (Lori Laughlin) won't date him. This leads to some typical teenage movie fare at first - fights at school, keying their uncle's Cadillac - but eventually escalates to James' gang abducting Lori, planning to rape her and set her on fire, which leads to a showdown between the siblings and the gang at the amusement park with shotguns and flamethrowers and all kinds of chaos. This is a really wild ride because it starts off so mundane and not at all like a horror or thriller, but cranks the dial past 11 and snaps it off for the last act to such a degree that I couldn't help but love it. However, I will warn that this does have the Sean S Cunningham special (animal cruelty on screen) for those who are wary of it. 3.5/5 -- Spooky Bingo: Origin of Evil 51. The Midnight Meat Train (2008) "I've got a train to catch." I was on board (get it?) at first. Vinnie Jones is a serial killer smacking people on the subway with a meat mallet, Bradley Cooper is a photographer who starts following him trying to gather evidence so that the cops will get off their asses and do something to stop him. I was still on board when I realized this was going to be a bad CGI-fest (Ted Raimi shows up for 2 minutes to get whacked with a hammer and his eyeballs pop out like he's a cartoon wolf who saw a pretty lady). But the story is so silly with side plots that mean nothing, the ending so out of nowhere and nonsensical, and the escalation in character behavior so unearned that I wanted to pull the emergency brake and bail. Alternate review: Wow, and to think the worst thing that happened to me on the subway was seeing a dude bite into an unpeeled orange as if it were an apple. 1/5 52. Bliss (2019) "What the gently caress did you do to me?" Dora Madison is extremely game as an artist named Dezzy, who parties hard and ends up trying a new drug that has her blacking out and painting, feeling a lot of withdrawal... until she starts taking big bites out of anyone in her way. This was a loud, dark, grimy mess of blood and drugs. I enjoyed it quite a bit but wish I had an edible before I turned it on. Always nice to see Jeremy Gardner too. 3.5/5 -- Spooky Bingo: To Serve ManTotal Watched: 52 // 'New to Me' Total: 43/40 Years Remaining: 1994, 2000, 2016
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Oct 22, 2021 15:02
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16. Spiral: From the Book of Saw I gotta be honest, I don't understand why this has gotten such poor reviews. Is it a cinematic masterpiece? No. Is it about as good a movie as you'll get from the Saw universe? I say yes. Admittedly, I've only seen the first 2, and I would watch Chris Rock monologue about anything, but I doubt either of those things would change my opinion. Other than more Sam Jackson, I'm unsure what more someone could want from this film. It's got some gruesome traps/kills, corrupt cops eating poo poo left and right, and Chris Rock! I guess the "twist" was a little obvious but otherwise a good time. 17. Raw I feel like once a challenge I finally watch something I've considered but flipped past numerous times. It seems that every time I really love whatever film that is and this one is no different. A very strange coming of age tale that masquerades as a "cannibalism" movie but is reveled to be more about a family curse. In a film where a girl consumes a part of her own sister, the most shocking thing is probably the sex scene. Raw is funnier than you would expect and features some striking camera work and visuals. Garance Mariller brilliantly captures Justine's transformation from prey to predator as she grows into her new form. If you've been sleeping on this one you should check it out right away. 18. His House As I recall, the horror thread was pretty positive on this early but then kinda of evaporated before gaining much traction. Well that is a shame! When I first put it on I thought I was in for a boring Haunting of Connecticut haunted house situation but boy was I wrong! The "haunts" are generally really well done (but not over done!) and at times creepy as hell. Unlike my review for No One Gets Out Alive, His House is able to pull off both the scares from the supernatural as well as the harrowing way immigrants are treated around the world. The most painful example being our protagonists being told to go back to Africa by some young black British boys. Adding the finishing touch to an already interesting film is the explanation/reveal of why exactly this family is being haunted and it is heartbreaking. His House is able to create feelings of anger, sadness, and fear all for entirely unrelated reasons and I give it a hearty recommendation.
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Oct 22, 2021 16:03
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Franchescanado posted:Wild Beasts  #24. Razorback (Shudder) An old man, his young friend and an American hunt a giant razorback boar in the Australian outback after it kills and eats people close to them. Last year I watched Boar for a similar challenge, and called it the "...best "killer monster pig" movie out there". Well, folks, I have finally seen Razorback and can safely say that the previous King of Monster Pig Movie has been dethroned. Razorback is not without its flaws, and some of them similar to the ones that Boar contended with, but it ones up that film in a couple of key ways. Number one, it better learned the crucial lesson from Jaws: less is more when it comes to animatronic animal monsters. The two giant pig monsters share the same problem - that the head animatronic is surprisingly effective, but that the body can't do much on its own - but Razorback is better about keeping the title monster off-screen or in shadows or in close ups as much as possible, to better hide the limitations of their effects. And number two, director Russell Mulchay created a much more stylized film, with a lot of inventive screen transitions, over-saturated colors and some bizarre, almost impressionistic imagery. It definitely helps add momentum and energy to a fairly simplistic script and scenario. In that way, it far surpasses Boar by aspiring to be more than just "the movie where a Big Pig eats people." That said, there's a few things pushing against Razorback and holding it back from greatness. Number one is that there's an unnecessary almost rape sequence in the film, meant to establish that the human villains are bad guys, but I don't think that it was necessary. Right after this, the sexual assault victim gets eaten by the Razorback pretty much immediately, which feeds into element two: this film can be pretty mean about its characters. Most of the named characters get killed off in various ways, but since almost all of them are suffering from previous grief about the monster boar in some capacity, it feels like they're here to suffer for a while and not be able to overcome their traumas when they finally come face-to-snout with them again, which feels like a twisting of the knife. Couple that with our main human villains being a pair of shrill and highly annoying caricatures, and there come some long sections where the film feels more aggravating than anything. I think that the style and better planning help make Razorback a decent watch, but the meanness and shrillness can also be pretty tough obstacles to surmount. How much you can contend with either of those elements may make a good experience into a great one; I just wasn't able to get over those. But in the Battle of Monster Pig Mountain, I will give the edge to a film that aspires to be more than just what it is; at the end of the day, that was the real lesson that the filmmakers of Boar should have taken away from this. /5 Watched so far: The Hunt, The Fog (1980), The Howling, Venom 2, Curse of the Demon, The Mummy's Tomb, The Stepfather (1987), Maniac Cop, The City of the Dead, Halloween (2018), Killer Klowns From Outer Space, DeepStar Six, Dracula's Daughter, Tremors, Friday the 13th Part 8, The Voices, Werewolves Within, It!, Ghost in the Machine, Halloween Kills, Near Dark, Actress Wanted, Def by Temptation, Razorback
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Oct 22, 2021 16:12
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 99) The Jitters - 1988 - Youtube Since I liked Rock n' Roll Nightmare and absolutely LOVED Black Roses from this director, I was eager to see this one I'd never seen before. Well, it's not as good as those two. The story involves an outbreak of jiangshi in New York by way of Canada's Chinatown. Film's a bit of a mess, not sure to be serious or campy-silly. It is fairly entertaining. Quality of effects varies, but we do get James Hong who's clearly having fun with it. This was okay enough.  100) Mass Hysteria - 2019 - Shudder I wasn't sure what to expect when I read the synopsis. Historical re-enactors get caught in a modern day witch hunt in Salem. I was kinda cringing when I was thinking how they could set this up, but thankfully I was wrong. Pretty much the tourists are already drunk when they arrive and are poisoned by tainted hand stamp ink. I'd have to say this worked. It's listed as a horror-comedy but it's kinda soft on both. Thankfully it's just over an hour long so it doesn't have to stretch out the plot for filler and gets things accomplished in its timeframe. Overall, this was okay. M_Sinistrari fucked around with this message at 22:23 on Oct 22, 2021 |
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Oct 22, 2021 16:27
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 (39) The Howling (1981) dir. Joe Dante Dead & Buried DP John Hora, February 9, 2021 A TV reporter has been receiving calls from a local serial killer so the police set up a sting. It goes very poorly resulting in the police shooting the killer dead as he’s attacking the reporter. Clearly suffering from PTSD, the station’s psychologist recommends she spend some time at his resort upstate called “The Colony”. The odd howling and random cattle mutilations turn into an animal attack on her husband which lets people who didn’t see the poster know this is a werewolf film. The werewolf transformation effect is pretty neat, but everyone pauses to let it slowly happen. A pretty fun Joe Dante movie. https://twitter.com/joe_dante/status/1362209201095729153 I picked this one for D&B because the DP John Hora was clearly someone Joe Dante thought added a lot to his movies as he hired him as his DP for 8 of his other movies and even brought him on for the episode of Eerie, Indiana he directed. In this movie in particular, a lot of the action takes place at night in the woods yet it never devolves into a black mess so often seen on lesser movies. It’s a well shot film. Total: (1) Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021) (2) The Addams Family 2 (2021) (3) Addams Family Reunion (1998) (4) Scooby-Doo! and the Goblin King (2008) (5) Titane (2021) (6) The Raven (1935) (7) Scooby-Doo! and the Samurai Sword (2009) (8) The Black Cat (1934) (9) Doctor X (1932) (10) Island of Lost Souls (1932) (11) The Lost Boys (1987) (12) The Ape Man (1943) (13) Night of the Living Dead (1968) (14) The Ape (1940) (15) Howard Lovecraft & the Frozen Kingdom (2016) (16) Student Bodies (1981) (17) Varan (1958) (18) The War of the Gargantuas (1966) (19) Scooby-Doo! Abracadabra-Doo (2010) (20) Terror Train (1980) (21) Scary Movie (2000) (22) The New Mutants (2020) (23) Deep Rising (1998) (24) The Creeping Flesh (1973) (25) Count Dracula (1970) (26) Demons (1985) (27) The Beast Must Die (1974) (28) Scooby-Doo! The Mystery Begins (2009) (29) The Exorcist III (1990) (30) Halloween Kills (2021) (31) Stay Alive (2006) (32) Scooby-Doo! Camp Scare (2010) (33) Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror (2019) (34) The Coed and the Zombie Stoner (2014) (35) House of Usher (1960) (36) Possession (1981) (37) The Killer Shrews (1959) (38) Christmas Evil (1980) (39) The Howling (1981) 
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Oct 22, 2021 16:43
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 I picked Rogue 2007 as my Wild Beasts prompt, and discovered that while it's a fine film, I'm just not excited by watching survival scenarios. The whole "we're trapped on a tiny island and the water is rising and there's a predator in the water" is fine but I was just... bored. None of the characters were interesting, the dog goddamn died, and this was not for me. To the movie's credit it did everything fine: the actors were fine, the crocodile looked great in motion, etc etc. It's just that I'm not the audience and I kind of wish I'd picked another movie for this prompt. Oh well. This kind of goes with how I don't like Jaws - not into this genre at all! I need my horror to be interesting, to excite me, and apparently I'm picky. 3/5, would rec if you want to watch a competent survival movie.
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Oct 22, 2021 16:48
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SPOOKY Challenge: Masters of Horror #68) Chiller (1985; Youtube) A cryogenically frozen man thaws out unexpectedly, and now dogs don't like him! Once he returns to his boardroom position, we're also shown that he doesn't care for charity! This was a mixed bag, to put it mildly. Almost all of the horror action not involving someone being in cryo-suspension takes place off-screen, and what does happen on-screen tends to just be Miles, the revived man, being cruel or immoral to people. Outside of that, we get some dull medical drama in the first act, and corporate drama in the following acts. Jill Schoelen, Paul Sorvino, and Beatrice Straight do what they can, but there's just not enough life to the script for their efforts to lift it above tolerable. Michael Beck plays Miles with an enjoyable sliminess, but without the commitment to bring it to the level that the dialogue suggests he should have. Watchable as a curiosity, but not much more draw to it than that these days. Could be ripe for a remake, though. “Cognac. Keeps you warm.” Rating: 5/10 
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Oct 22, 2021 17:11
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Prom Night II: Hello Mary Louquote:This movie whips all kinds of rear end!  1) One Cut of the Dead 2,3)Freddy's Return, Never Fall Asleep 4,5,6) Fear Street(s) 7) Debug 8) Astro Loco 09,10)Flesh, TX & Black Christmas (2019) 11) GOG 12) It Came from the Desert!13, 14) Happy Death Day 2 U & The Perfection 15) Train 16) 15/05/11 17) The Brain 18) EAP's Requiem for the Damned 19, 20) Rogue & Spawn 21) Horror Effects 22, 23, 24) Slumber Party Massacre II, Elvira- Mistress of the Dark, Color Out of Space 25) Sequence Break 26) Cannibal Holocaust 27) Prom Night II Shrecknet fucked around with this message at 17:33 on Oct 22, 2021 |
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Oct 22, 2021 17:29
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HalloweeNIT #29 Little Otik - 4/5 I read a review that complained about subplots, but everything tied together neatly, I thought. Although it is a little weird that the parents fade out of view for a while when custody of Otik transfers over to the little girl. I didn’t find the length a problem, either. There aren’t any real dead spots; there’s always a bit of comedy playing out. Otik is terrifying, and it’s mostly in the sound design, which seems recognizably Švankmajer’s, all scrabbling sounds and staccato baby cries. This made me hungry while watching it, which might be a weird response to a film about a cannibal baby, but all the characters in the film seem ruled by their appetites, one way or another.
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Oct 22, 2021 18:36
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11. Trouble Every Day Spooky Spot: To Serve Man https://thumbs.gfycat.com/CourageousVacantGoldfinch-mobile.mp4 Special thanks to horror thread poster Kvlt! for suggesting this one when I went fishing for ideas. I felt it necessary to do that because a cannibal isn't really any more interesting to me (and maybe less) than a serial killer who wastes the meat, and I'm really tired of "the terrible secret is they eat people." Granted there's a surprisingly long list of very good movies that touch this premise, but I think what sets the good ones apart is that they never treat it like a secret from the audience - you either get it out there right up front so the story can move on to exploring whatever it's really interested in (Motel Hell) or it's never the focus at all, just a little detail in a much bigger story (Blood Diner, Titus). The only arguable exception I can think of is Ravenous, which is simultaneously more than a cannibal movie and so pure in its focus that it obsoletes anything else trying to occupy the same space. What a perfect movie. I want to watch it again now that I'm thinking about it. Anyway, right, Trouble Every Day - it's really good! It succeeds with the first approach; eating people is not a terrible secret to be revealed to the audience after 40 minutes, so we've got plenty of time to spend on the interpersonal stuff the movie cares about. And it really knocks that out of the park. I've never seen a more impressive suite of non-verbal character development and exposition. OK, backing up even farther, basic premise - stuff you'll learn right away. Alex Descas is taking care of a woman who eats people, Vincent Gallo is having a rough time on his honeymoon and thinks about bodies covered in blood. He does such a good hungry stare that, five minutes in, I am thinking he is definitely going to eat this lady and we're basically doing Natural Born Killers but with cannibalism and a slower vibe. Credit to the movie, almost none of the predictions I made at the outset played out the way I expected. I wasn't 100% wrong about any of them, but I'm not giving myself more than, like, 20% credit for most. It's also really visceral and gnarly in a way that makes me glad I hadn't seen it when I watched Raw, because I feel like this covers everything that was there better and then some. Strongest possible recommendation, this is up there right next to Ravenous. Pair with: Possession 
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Oct 22, 2021 18:42
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SPOOKY Challenge: Tales of the Grotesque #69) The Tell-Tale Heart (2016; digital) Modernized take on the Poe tale, with themes of war trauma, alcoholism, and identity worked into the story. Those additions may seem like good ideas (after all, you need some way to stretch the original short story out to feature length), but they end up cluttering the focus of the narrative. Instead of being a neighbor, the old man is now the caretaker of a mental institution to which the main character admits himself, with an attractive fellow resident further complicating things. The film features a few animated segments, usually during dreams and recollections, which add a nice stylistic touch to the film. Honestly, I would have preferred for the whole film to be done in this style, as the inconsistencies in design approach from set to set can be a little jarring. For instance, we've got a study room that looks like it was drawn from the 1930s, while the kitchen could have come from the past thirty years. There are some nicely imaginative sets devised for scenes of delirium, though. We've got some good actors (Rose McGowan and Peter Bogdanovich) given stiff, awkward dialogue; and I'm not talking about the lines drawn verbatim from the Poe story. On the contrary, this would have benefited from holding closer to Poe's verbiage, and paying attention to it as well. A plain example of how they pay lip service to the original story is when the main character creeps into the old man's room. Instead of using a shuttered lantern, he uses a regular bottle lamp, even while reciting the contradictory dialogue from the story. And with the old man's right eye already having been established as the blind one, he approaches with the light from the opposite side, making the whole bit of the light falling on the blind eye impossible. Unreliable narrator and all, but I can't buy it as intentional. Things like that make me wonder what story the movie is even interested in telling. The PTSD war angle is a possibility, but it gets so little screen time (and such ridiculous resolution) that it seems unlikely. Finding escape from troubles through romance is another angle, but again, there's not enough substance for it in the film to support that reading too far. For all the self-conscious dialogue deliveries, the film still feels like a jumble of underdeveloped ideas, rolled up around the barest bones of the namesake story. Frustrating. “Well, if you can't remember anything, how do you know you're not a crazy homeless guy?” Rating: 5/10 
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Oct 22, 2021 18:59
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And that's a SPOOKY bingo for me! I really liked this format for the challenges, I completed a bingo but also you're allowed to go on and do more challenges if you want to, but it's not required. 13 required challenges was actually a bit tough for me in past years because my October is usually packed with rewatches. Little Evil(THE DEVIL MADE ME DO IT) I remember the horror thread consensus on this was pretty lukewarm, and I would say that was mostly accurate. Now, if you're one of those people who hates Adam Scott, you've got no chance of enjoying this movie but luckily for me I think he's fine. The first half is fairly boring just because there aren't any real surprises. You know what's happening early on, the jokes are what you'd expect based on the scenario, and the movie isn't really attempting to be scary or anything close to a real horror movie so it's kinda stuck in no man's land. It's not all that funny and it's definitely not scary. I will say that it took a positive turn in the last act where all of the sudden Adam Scott's character decides he's not going to give up on this kid, even though he's the literal Anti-Christ. That does lead to some decent comedy where you have this absurd situation of like, a custody battle between a father and a step-father where one of them just happens to be the Prince of Darkness. I dunno, I just got a kick out of how everything resolved and how ridiculous that was. But all in all the movie is nothing remarkable and I wouldn't give it a strong recommendation.  Raw Meat aka Death Line(TO SERVE MAN) This is one that I took from the cannibal movie recommendations in the horror thread and I'd never heard of it before. I felt pretty optimistic about it early on, especially when I saw that Donald Pleasence was in it, and then also later Christopher Lee makes an appearance. The setting is also a fairly unique one, and the backstory of the killer is pretty neat as well. But I'm not sure if it ever really delivers on the promise of the cast and the setting, because the plot is meandering and it mostly stays in the same gear for the entire runtime, it never kicks into that extra gear you would hope a movie like this would have in the last act. Still, there's some creepy stuff and Pleasence is basically the main character, or one of them at least, so it's not bad. But it definitely goes into the "never quite lives up to it's potential" category, which is a shame.  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 24. Scream 25. Scream 2 26. Little Evil(THE DEVIL MADE ME DO IT) 27. Raw Meat(TO SERVE MAN)
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Oct 22, 2021 19:28
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 58. Unhinged [1982] This was pretty bad. The weird twist and all I just didnt really dig on and it was awfully slow for a pretty short movie (80 minutes). There's some cool death gags and plenty of blood. Maybe it would work better as a rowdy crowd midnite feature, but this one really didnt have anything to really dig in on and wasnt very compelling to watch. Cool poster though. 1 and a half  out of 5 59. Body Snatchers [1993] ~Spaced Invaders~ This was a nice re-work of the Body Snatchers premise. Cool setting that I dont think gets full utilized in an interesting way, but I dug all the actors and the performances, the snatcher effects were real nice and slimy looking and I think it kept in line with the previous two iterations of the same premise. I'm choosing to believe all three movies take place concurrently within the same world and its just the same incident being played out with various groups around the country and the same time. I dug it. 3 and a half out of 5 60. The Fly II [1989] This was a lot of fun! It felt like it's been forever since I've seen Daphne Zuniga in anything (even though going by her IMDB she is very active still), but this was a big fun picture. I'm kinda curious about getting into the rest of the series at this point now. The bug effects were sick, the deaths were the best (that elevator gag is probably one of my favorites of all of horror) and the plot while just treading the same water at least moved at a brisk pace and I never felt bored by anything going on screen. Good good guys and good bad guys all around. Ending was kinda soft, definitely a studio choice ending. 3 and a half out of 5 61. The Green Knight [2021] I love this movie. I dont think there really is a weak link in the cast, the cinematography, the music or the pacing (the most minor of quibbles is maybe not getting to stay in the castle just a bit longer and play around with the eroticism a bit more), but otherwise its a brilliant adventure deliberately paced and I enjoyed how the put these other side quests and really played up the fanciful nature of the adventure. Probably my most favorite of the Arthurian adaptations. 4 and a half out of 5 62. A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy's Revenge [1985] Still just as weird and queer and fanciful as it ever was. Maybe I still dont quite dig that they break the immersion of Freddy coming into the real world to attack the kids at the party, but its such a small issue in the overall quality of the rest of the movie. It's still a lot of fun and broad while also its own singular work divorced from the rest of the Freddy world. 3 and a half out of 5 63. Blair Witch [2016] I didnt quite think I'd hate this one as much as I did, but I did. I can say it was a movie at the end of the day and I guess it accomplished what it wanted to in its runtime, but was any of it really worth it? Did it just kinda sit there and take this movie and its stupid characters and this deeply unneeded exploration of the lore of the witch (and seeing the witch?!) zero tension, zero scares and no fun. What a waste of time for me and the production. 1 out of 5 64. The Sacrament [2016] This was alright. I wish it were a bit longer tbh, there's basically no build up to the cult. we just kinda have to take the characters at their word that this whole scenario is creepy. like we should know its creepy in general. its a cult, but they dont sell it at all in the movie. Zero tension in anything going on until the end, but even then its like I dont really care about the cult members, I dont get anything about dynamics going on in the cult. It really kinda wants you to know a lot about cults going in (which yea I do), but then it just drops the ball every which way. The only compelling figure is the cult leader, but that's more on the performance and not at all to do with the script. Just a poor attempt at building a fictional story around the Peoples Temple in the dryest, least frightening way possible. 2 and a half out of 5 65. Madhouse [1981] ~Wild Beasts~ This was pretty neat little movie. Just a very slow one that has a big flourish of an end that kinda made the ride worth it, but man, I just needed a bit more meat on the bones of this one. I dug the dog stuff and how silly that all ended, but that ending is the real kicker here you're waiting for. The rest of the movie is fine, empty, but fine. 2 and a half out of 5 66. A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors [1987] Now this one was still just as much fun as part is. I still laugh that all the kids get bodied basically despite their powers in the dreams they just didnt stand a chance. a goofy and fun movie that basically sets up how Freddy and the movies are going to be going forward. a dumb fun time with probably the best kills of the series I think. 3 and a half out of 5
dorium fucked around with this message at 18:55 on Nov 3, 2021 |
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Oct 22, 2021 19:33
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🎃 Don't Feed The Plants 🎃 The Ruins (2008) Directed by Carter Smith Watched on Amazon Prime  A German tourist experiences the American healthcare system. This is good, pulpy fun and does exactly what it set out to do — show us the consequences of really bad decisions. The four American characters are not especially likable, so it’s a paradox that the actors playing them do such a good job. I also have to say that I definitely need to see more movies with Joe Anderson. I just saw him in The Crazies earlier this month and didn’t even realize that it was the same actor.  My two favorite things about The Ruins are the fact that the monster is so unconventional and that there’s a nice twist when it comes to all of the brutality we actually see committed. It’s also a very pretty movie. The jungle, the beach, the titular runes — they’re all shot very well. 💀💀💀1/2 Spooky Bingo 16/? 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), 16. The Ruins (2008)  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 19:40
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twernt posted:The Ruins (2008) If you haven't read the book I highly recommend it. The movie is fine, but the book is on a whole different level. The sense of hopelessness is almost unbearable.
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Oct 22, 2021 20:41
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 Spooky Bingo • fear dot comDistorted • DVD • 1.5/5 I just don’t like flims like this. A character having delusions but “whoaaoao what if it’s real!11!” Hallucinations, delusions of persecution, falling into a conspiracy rabbithole and being slowly isolated from your friends and family isn’t your loving plot point. I don’t know what kind of statement this movie is trying to make, is it “would it be hosed up if conspiracy theories were true or what”? And I understand why conspiracy theories are attractive to people. It would be great if there was some grand overarching evil we could defeat by shooting like two dudes and then everything would be okie dokie. But it doesn’t work like that and fixing the multitude of problems in society is going to take some actual loving effort. Also, there is no government or company competent enough to pull something like this off. They’ve tried before and they failed hilariously. Spooky Bingo • Wild BeastsCujo • DVD • 4/5 I put off watching this for a while, because I figured it was just going to make me depressed. And it did (although there was some added anxiety I didn’t anticipate.) There’s not much of a supernatural element to Cujo to begin with, but the hint that was present in the book is totally gone in the movie. I don’t think this is a detractor though, as I can’t think of way that could really be conveyed in film. A couple of shots really stood out to me (like the establishing shot of the Pinto stuck in the Camber’s yard), and I really like the spinning shot between Donna and Tad when they’re initially stuck. While I appreciate that the film doesn’t end as sadly as the book, I don’t think Donna’s final showdown with Cujo hits as hard in the film. Moral of the story: the Pinto is a lovely car. Spooky Bingo • HausuBloody Muscle Body Builder in Hell • Rental • 4/5 This film really doesn’t take long to get up and running. In the first twenty minutes, somone has already turned into a possessed zombie. They’ve had the terrible luck of bringing an actual psychic with them, and the ghost is using his powers to keep everyone trapped. I like that it has such a simple setup - Naoto inherited a house which is haunted becauses his dad accidentally did a murder. They also only really have one zombie to deal with, it’s just ridiculously OP. (Severed hand attached to severed foot which can both kick and punch of its own volition.) It takes a while before our main character figures out his actual weapon: his extreme beefyness. (And a set of weights from the basement.) This has some nice animation through it, both stop motion and 2D. The gore fx are pretty good too, espcially for something so cheesy. The stop motion is also maintains its own creepiness, even though it stays relatively cartoony (and quite gooshy). It also has some pretty groovy music throughout. Fun to watch and probably fun to make as well. Spooky Bingo • A Perfect GetawayThe Place Where the Last Man Died • Plex • 2/5 (I watched this the same day I watched The Trilogy which I hated so this review is harsher than normal.) Well, he sure was the last person and he sure did die. I guess this film is trying to be a tragedy? Except classic tragedies gnerally have a bit of action, and likable characters. You don’t even really get to know any of these characters, and any action that could happen is explained in a voiceover instead of shown in any way. Even when Eveline is telling them her story, they don’t show any of the commune members or anything else on screen. She just wanders around for a bit. The washed out palette (and occasional super saturated and exposed palette) mildly fits the mood at least. The music really doesn’t sometimes though (there is some weird-rear end circus music when Eveline is alone and wandering.) If you’re looking for a extremely obscure film to watch, this is at least that. 
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Oct 22, 2021 20:52
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Spatulater bro! posted:If you haven't read the book I highly recommend it. The movie is fine, but the book is on a whole different level. The sense of hopelessness is almost unbearable. Thank you for the recommendation! I will definitely check it out.
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Oct 22, 2021 20:56
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shrimpwhiskers posted:
I like the part where the book was inspired in part from an incident where King was nearly attacked by a saint bernard and in part from King owning a lovely, broken Pinto.
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Oct 22, 2021 21:03
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