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13. Grimcutty Hulu  Parents being terrified of a self-harm-inspiring creepypasta end up bringing the creature to life and causing harm to their own kids in the process. A cheaper-looking, less-scary poor man's Slender Man that got the marketing it deserved, being randomly dropped without even a trailer/tweet announcement to Hulu on a Monday morning * 14. Smile (2022) Theaters  A doctor is traumatized after seeing a patient commit suicide with a smile on her face minutes after describing the terror of being stalked by a presence with a lingering smile. Overreliance on jumpscares doesn't negatively impact this for me, I loved the performances, the cinematography, and most of the scares (even if the second-best one was spoiled in the trailers). The last half hour is really good, albeit with too many fakeouts to get to the result; if I have a complaint, it's that this could have been 90 minutes instead of nearly 2 hours and not suffered for it at all ***** 15. Stalker (2022) DVD  A horror film actress and a cameraman who each claim to not really know each other are stuck on a malfunctioning elevator. It's not a spoiler to say their claims are lies. The film starts with three sentences popping up onscreen. By the end of the second one you'll have guessed the twist (if you haven't already seen the poster either on the DVD cover or on the Letterboxd page). Have fun with the remaining 89 minutes; you feel most of it! ** 16. Halloween Ends Peacock  It's 4 years after Halloween Kills. Haddonfield the community and Laurie Strode the person each try to move on. It's not easy. A whole lot of people are going to hate this. The most divisive film in the franchise since Halloween 3: Season of the Witch, and it's very difficult having just finished to say that seemed completely unintentional; I consider that among my fav of the series, and I know people have grown to change their minds on it in the decades since its release. For better and worse, I think this will have the same effect. I loved it, and I can't say any more without getting heavily into spoilers ***** Watched so far: Missing (2022), Everyone Will Burn, Dark Glasses, Lynch/Oz, Give Me An A, Flowing, Mr. Harrigan's Phone, Deadstream, Hellraiser (2022), Werewolf by Night, Old People, Jeepers Creepers Reborn, Grimcutty, Smile (2022), Stalker (2022), Halloween Ends
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Oct 14, 2022 03:40
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23. Halloween Ends Where to watch? In Theaters and on Peacock  Well first off I am big fan of Halloween 2018 and Halloween Kills. I know I may be in the minority of the viewers on Kill though. Overall this is a decent enough send off for Halloween Trilogy. It ends satisfactorily and well its hard to talk about it without spoiling it Well if your reading this you don't give a poo poo about spoilers. The decision to make the film focus on another person taking over the Michael persona was a loving swing for the fences move. It does not totally pay off. I guess you can say that the encounter with Michael infects the kid but who the gently caress knows. Maybe its the town treating him like poo poo that makes him go off his rocker. I just did not buy Michael Myers having a apprentice. However the kills were good. The film is competently made and the ending fight between Laurie and Michael is a knock down slobberknocker. Its a satisfying end to their saga. Even if it has some bumps in the road on the way. Overall I'd say I liked it. Not what I expected but it was still good.
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Oct 14, 2022 03:42
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 23. Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977) I was flummoxed as to why this has such a negative reputation until I realized it's been over a decade since I saw The Exorcist, plenty of time for me to lose any expectations of tone or focus for the sequel. Taken on its own Exorcist II: The Heretic is a good eerie dream ramble. Little in the way of outright scares but lots of uneasiness, a sense of blurred boundaries from the sci-fi shared hypnosis sequences and the excellent use of fade-ins and superpositions. And another vein that emerges as the story pushes past its strange strobing recap of the first film: a fascination with the exotic, where spaced-out flights across supernaturally charged African scenes of cities, chasms and plains become a visual metaphor for how Richard Burton is succumbing to admiration for the power and entrancing strangeness of evil. The writing gets stupid by the end. It doesn't make much sense why the house from the first movie would matter to the demon Pazuzu, two characters are weirdly dropped, it's goofy watching Burton physically grappling with a possessed Linda Blair while everyone yells random poo poo. But the effects work on the house tearing apart is hella cool, and the building dread of the parallel journeys to the location for the finale is great, a whole universe of evil out to delay Louise Fletcher while a raspy-voiced, agitated Burton, in the thrall of the demon, is able to bark out orders and have them obeyed. The big picture of Exorcist II is maybe a bit wonky but I really like the details and points of interest along the way.  .5 / 5  Dead and Buried: R.I.P. Louise Fletcher. 
Vanilla Bison fucked around with this message at 05:31 on Oct 14, 2022 |
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Oct 14, 2022 03:42
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 17) Halloween Kills (2021) Did a rewatch before catching the new movie tonight. I know this one isn’t a horror thread fave, but I like it better than a lot of folks seem to. The idea of the survivors rushing back out to try to stop this force that’s haunted their lives is a good one, and I love all the little callbacks and references. Setting it right after the first reboot allowed for some cool bits like including the memorable doctor and nurse that escaped Michael’s house-to-house rampage. I also loved the scene where we saw Michael setting up one of his typical victim tableaus. Laurie is sidelined a little too much, but since I went in with the expectation of this being a middle chapter, that didn’t bother me as much as it might have. There are some really great kills, the firefighter scene was amazing, and I liked those moments that focused on the aftermath of Michael’s first batch of murders.  18) Deadline (1980)  Challenge: Paperbacks From HellA Stephen King-ish horror author best known for his movie adaptations deals with writer’s block while his family falls apart, he’s criticized for contributing to moral decay, and his agent pressures him to churn out another hit. I found this one on Arrow, and it is deeply loving weird. The main narrative is cut with short scenes from the author’s books or imagination, and many of those scenes are more compelling than the more mundane drama that surrounds them. I would happily watch a full 90-minute movie about that telekinetic murder goat. Others probably work best as snippets, including the bloody bathtub, the suicidal fetus, and the nazi new wave band murdering hobos with the brown note. Interestingly, the worst of these extra scenes are the ones that were actually made into movies in this world. The main character is an absolute rear end in a top hat. He neglects his family, abuses his wife, and casually insults half the people he encounters. He blows up at an actress for not wanting to mumble a bunch of latin and go through the motions for a story she doesn’t understand. That fight is pretty funny because he mocks her for caring about the quality of her performance at the same time he’s dealing with his own artistic crisis; this shitlord is so far up his own rear end that he can’t see the parallel between an actor wanting a comprehensible character and his need to feel something for the new script he’s supposed to be writing. The tragedy that shakes the writer (and the movie) out of its rut was a genuine shock, and everything that follows is a spiral into increasing instability. I loved the scene where he kicks off a coke-and-hookers orgy only to get annoyed when the women he’s hired won’t stop focusing on the coke long enough to watch the lovely movie that inspired his daughter’s death. If any of this sounds interesting, Deadline is worth checking out. It feels like a bit of a missed opportunity though; a more polished team could have done something amazing with this story.  19) Halloween Ends (2022) Challenge: Zombie HoneymoonI’m spoiling the challenge I counted this movie towards, and you really shouldn’t click on that before you see it because holy poo poo did I not expect the end of the current Halloween franchise to include a major romance arc about Laurie’s granddaughter, Allyson, falling for the new serial killer in town. It’s going to be really hard to review this one without a ton more spoilers. I went in with pretty low expectations, spent a good chunk of the movie distracted by how different it turned out to be, and barely restrained a fist-pump during the big confrontation. There was a drunk group in my theater that kept laughing at things that didn’t hit me as all that funny, so maybe my reaction isn’t going to line up with the average viewer. But I liked it, and I think the weirdness of it kind of suits the direction that the original series took later on. There are some prominent callbacks to those later parts of the series, but thankfully nothing as stupid as the cult or that bullshit they did to Jamie. A lot of fans are going to hate the poo poo out of this movie, but I was entertained, and I'll probably rewatch it once it sinks in a bit more.  1. The Wind (1986) | 2. Sole Survivor (1984) | 3. Blair Witch (2016) | 4. Horror in the High Desert (2021) | 5. The Lurking Fear (1994) | 6. The Chill Factor (1993) | 7. From Within (2008) After Dark | 8. Scalpel (1977) Origin of Evil | 9. Savageland (2015) V/H/S | 10. Dumplings (2004) To Serve Man | 11. Don’t Let Her In (2021) Full Moon | 12. The Spell (1977) TerrorVision | 13. Tremors (1990) | 14. City of the Living Dead (1980) | 15. Smile (2022) Goodnight, Mommy | 16. Hellraiser (2022) They Always Come Back
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Oct 14, 2022 03:54
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Movie #11 Punk Vacation -watch a film that heavily features punks. Psychomania, 1973  A biker gang rebels against authority by knocking groceries out of people's hands, stealing umbrellas, and slapping butts. Soon their leader, Tom, learns that his family is part of a toad -worshipping undead cult and the secret of cheating death. There's zero blood on screen and the punk hijinks are almost all played for laughs, even when there's an extensive montage of suicides when Tom teaches his gang that as long as you actually want to die, suicide makes you come back invincible and super strong. Yeah, these are nominally the bad guys of this film, but it's repulsive in a way the film doesn't seem fully aware of. All of this is accompanied accompanied by sweet romantic rock or mild funk. Tom lives in a mansion with his own butler but rages against The Man while assaulting regular people. We're told these are grimy dudes but they're all wearing such clean, proper turtlenecks. An utterly bizarre film. 
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Oct 14, 2022 04:02
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20: Superhost Perfect Getaway A travel blogger couple stays at a house, with deadly results. I liked it, it's 80 min and doesn't waste any of of it, the couple is likable enough that you want them to live but annoying enough that you're ok of they aren't, Grace Phipps is terrific as the slightly off kilter host and I hope to see more of her, and Barbara Crampton shows up for a little bit which is always nice. Nothing groundbreaking but solidly made
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Oct 14, 2022 05:07
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 #67.) Ura Horror (2008; digital) An anthology of 'cursed video' pieces, presented as being pulled from unaired TV shows and video archives. The film is loaded with warnings about how the viewer assumes any responsibility for choosing to view the material, along with plenty of variety show devices like the slow replay to highlight details. The videos are presented laconically; as soon as the point is made, the segment is over, and it's on to the next one. Even though things are done in a serious tone, Shiraishi sneaks in some humor, or at least some ridiculous occurrences which made me burst out laughing. Then again, one or two of the segments gave me real goosebumps. There's a wide spread of weird stuff, from cryptids to ectoplasm, and... bees. OK, the bees segment is probably the low point. But they get an appearance from Ju-On director Takashi Shimizu, so that's pretty cool. Fun as a tour through oddities, but the refusal to dwell on any of it past the shock point takes away a lot of the strength that these usually have. “This is said to be the first appearance of a miracle man on TV.” Rating: 6/10
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Oct 14, 2022 06:04
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 24. Coma (1978) "Who knows better about murder than a pathologist?" "It sure keeps my wife in line." A medical conspiracy thriller with a sizzle of that classic "Oh honey, you're being hysterical" misogyny to magnify the paranoia. I'm squeamish about medical stuff so this movie's high level of plausible detail in its hospital setting and medical writing really magnified the intensity for me, but I think objectively this is a cracker of a suspense film. Geneviève Bujold makes a terrific terrified-but-resourceful protagonist, and the script gives her a bunch of cunning moves to stay one step ahead of an assassin and security enforcers at a sinister medical institute. Michael Crichton directed this and he claims he held back to avoid scaring people off of medical care, but I dunno, man! A dude taking brain sections by running someone's head through what looks like a deli slicer!? The "real" morgue with its hanging bagged cadavers is freakier than the made-up sci-fi body storage that shows up! Unsurprisingly for a story written by a doctor and adapted by another doctor, Coma isn't directly anti-technology but it's afraid of what technology enables. There is always going to be a grody side to the practice of medicine that the public would prefer not to know or see. But the automation and reduction of the human element leads to that hideous purple room where comatose bodies are just meat slabs managed at scale by computers, and critically, where there aren't any doctors like Bujold on site to advocate for these patients and prevent them from being used for grotesque ends by whoever has their hands on the controls. The worst flaw of Coma is simply its predictability. Modern viewers will probably suss out most of the plot reveals long before they land. But it's executed well, and it still has some entertaining surprises and quirks. The bored banter of doctors is A+, and I laughed when the mere sight of brutalist architecture was enough to get the spooky discordant piano notes a-janglin'.  / 5 For Spooky Bingo, there's just enough fear about the dangers of technology in Coma to qualify for Glitches. 
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Oct 14, 2022 06:18
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13. Trick 'r Treat (2007), bluray It's been a long time since I watched this one, but I'm glad I rewatched it because it's a hoot. I like how the different stories intertwine in interesting ways, although the nerd in me wonders just how accurate some of the intertwining is - for example, in the serial killer story, we have a time frame from when Mr. Kreeg is out on his back porch yelling at his (serial killer) neighbor to when he's standing at the window shouting for help and gets jumped by Samhain, and I wonder if the timing actually does line up when we see the same events from Kreeg's perspective later in the movie. I'd be pretty impressed if it actually matched, but it's not a dealbreaker if it doesn't. I think the movie has a great balance of genuinely funny moments and generally light-hearted spooks, making the movie a pretty ideal "annual tradition" kind of Halloween movie, which is fitting since the movie is itself all about traditions. It's rated-R, but it's the kind of rated-R I'd be okay with showing someone under 18 (with supervision) because it's got enough envelope-pushing material to keep younger audiences spooked and feeling like they're getting away with something by watching a rated-R movie, but it's not mean-spirited or dark, or excessive gore, violence, or sex/nudity. 1. 'Tales from the Crypt' (1972) 2. 'Trilogy of Terror' (1975) 3. 'Southbound' (2015) 4. 'The Vault of Horror' (1973) BONUS: 'Smile' (2022) 5. 'Creepshow' (1982) 6. 'The House That Dripped Blood' (1971) 7. 'All Hallow's Eve' (2013) BONUS: 'Deadstream' (2022) 8. 'Cat's Eye' (1985) 9. ' The Monster Club' (1981) 10. 'Body Bags' (1993) 11. 'The Field Guide to Evil' (2018) BONUS: 'Hellraiser' (2022) 12. 'The Dark Tapes' (2017) 13. 'Trick 'r Treat' (2007)
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Oct 14, 2022 06:27
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#10: We're All Going to the World's Fair (2021) A teenager, Casey, watches way too much Youtube, and starts to develop a parasocial relationship with this middle-aged man. I watched this one on my laptop; it felt appropriate somehow. A very minimalist, filmed-during-COVID feel; aside from the Youtube videos, only two human beings appear on camera, and never at the same time. Anyway the movie follows both Casey and the guy "JLB", who are both fixated on a (in-universe) creepypasta focused on this sort of demonic World's Fair which, appropriately, sucks in people who get too interested in it. Casey both consumes and produces the content, while JLB is purely a watcher. I almost used the word "voyeur", but it doesn't feel like the best fit. I mean it's debatable, but I just didn't read the character that way. You mostly see Casey through her videos, with a lot of uncertainty about what's genuine and what's performance. These people are hurting, and their weird, not-really-a-friendship is the best they can do. There's this line that stuck with me, I swear, someday soon, I'm just gonna disappear, and you won't have any idea what happened to me - I mean that says it all, it's all just so fragile and insubstantial. The movie is honestly a bit of a downer, but hey, maybe you're in the mood for that. The director Jane Schoenbrun is NB and so I'm counting it for Scream, Queen! Some people have read the movie as an allegory for dysphoria; I'm gonna be honest, I couldn't see it, but I'm willing to believe there's something there. You could also watch this for Glitches. Connection to #9 Ghostwatch: children pretending to be possessed. #11: In the Earth (2021)  A pair of scientists get stranded in the woods while investigating fungus. This movie has many excellent parts, though it doesn't quite come together like some of Wheatley's others. I liked how small-stakes it was; for all the supernatural weirdness, what you really have here are just a couple of weirdos, who are only really dangerous because they're out in the woods. Even the mystical side of things seems like it just wants to chill out in its forest, and maybe accept a new vessel if they're giving them away, but it's not urgent or anything. I didn't find the protagonists Martin and Alma to be all that compelling; they're good when they're trying to get away from Zach, the obvious psycho, but then they just sort of settle down and go with the flow, which is very frustrating. There're some lovely Thingesque flare-lit shots, some eerie scenes, some majorly nasty gore, but the ending just felt unsatisfyingly vague. On the back of Kill List and A Field in England I feel confident in saying Ben Wheatley has that highbrow sheen on him, so Highbrow Horror it is. Tragically there's no killer-plants category this time around; it would fit that too. Connective tissue with #10: COVID-rear end movie. Spooky Bingo status: 
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Oct 14, 2022 06:57
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#17 - Skull: the Mask An archeological dig unearths an ancient mask and after some rituals it possesses a man and starts a sacrificial killing spree. Plenty to like, but a lot of flaws as well. The story is messy, the camerawork is bad and it undermines a lot of the better scenes. On the other hand it has a ton of gore, the Mask has a Halloween-like sluggish-but-unstoppable vibe that really works, you get a non-CGI undead Aztec (?) god flying through space, a priest fighting with a sword drawn from a Jesus statue and it just delivers on entertainment. Counted for "Osteology" #18 - The Devil's Backbone  A remote orphanage during the Spanish Civil War is haunted by its past and something else. This was excellent. A beautiful story, superbly shot and holding me spellbound from start to finish. I am usually not that wild about Del Toro, while he always aims for something I want to admire he hardly ever reaches it, but this was just great. I love how it all works even without the supernatural elements, it is just one more tragedy at a sad place, with broken people during the worst of times. Counted for "Highbrow Horror" #19.1 - Werewolf by Night  What a disappointment. It lasts almost an hour and yet there isn't a single, decent shot in there. The black-and-white can't hide the fact that there is nothing interesting going on camera- or storywise and when the werewolf, who looks disappointingly bad, finally shows up he jumps around like a monkey and does parkour martial arts. Just awful. #19.2 - The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror (season 2, episode 3)  I've never watched The Simpsons, but it kept coming up this thread and I saw over a dozen of these Halloween specials available, so decided to give it a go. It was okay, I guess. The disclaimer at the start was nice, but I thought the stories were very tame. Guess that was to be expected from a family show, but after the disclaimer I did expect them to be a bit scarier. Decent execution, the one with the aliens was definitely the best and funniest, but I think they failed to really underline the conclusion of the first one. Really enjoyed the Twilight Zone-like vibe of these, but the execution could have been better. Counted for "Halloween is Special" 
BioTech fucked around with this message at 08:12 on Oct 17, 2022 |
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Oct 14, 2022 08:03
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13. The Company of Wolves Spooky Bingo: Dead and Buried (Sadly doubly qualified, as this features both David Warner AND Angela Lansbury.) A young adolescent girl (Sarah Patterson) gets yelled at by her sister so she dreams that her sister is killed by a wolf, and she goes on to envision herself and her mother (Tusse Silberg) and father (David Warner) moving on with life in a pseudo-medieval fairytale village nestled in the woods. There are still wolves about, mind you, and her granny (Angela Lansbury) warns her about the kinds of wolves who are "hairy on the inside", the ones you really have to watch out for. And it's not just a metaphor, as there appear to be actual werewolves about, just as the girl is coming of age and starting to be courted by one of the boys of the village. We get stories within stories and gradually draw towards a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood, with plenty of twists in store. This is as much fantasy or adult fairy tale as it is horror; there's gore and violence but it's pretty stylized, as is, well, everything else. Postmodernist writer Angela Carter (who was pretty drat good) co-wrote the screenplay based on her own short story, and it's full of uncertain realities and unreliable narratives. Neil Jordan manages to make everything look pretty remarkable on a budget of only $2 million, with gorgeous sets and at least one solid werewolf transformation sequence. George Fenton's score is pretty effective too. It's interesting to contrast this with Ginger Snaps, both use wolves and lycanthropy to examine girls' maturation, but here the focus is on the fear of male sexuality and predation. The metaphor ain't exactly subtle, but things are left ambiguous- the girl's mother hints that women have a beast of their own to fight back with, and the girl either retells or comes up with her own story of how the wolves came to be that casts them as revenge from a spurned woman. There's a lot to unpack but it's never dry or too metaphorical for its own good, even when it starts going heavy into the Red Riding Hood stuff. The performances are solid, and there are a lot of familiar faces in small roles. Lansbury gets the most to do, but Warner really makes the most of his time as the father. I'm actually kind of surprised that a film like this even got made, eschewing so much of traditional narrative in favor of something that's more purely dream-like. The drawback to this is that the climax doesn't hit terribly hard since it's all sort of gossamer anyway, but it's a very pleasant experience. I recommend it as a break from the harder scares. 
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Oct 14, 2022 08:34
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14. The Reef: Stalked (2002) A group of girls are stalked by stock footage of sharks. The Reef: Stalked is perfectly okay shark movie on a budget. It adds nothing to the shark movie genre, which we all know was perfected by the movie Jersey Shore Shark Attack. (Kind of not kidding about that) Not really recommended. Available on @shudder Putting this down for H2O 
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Oct 14, 2022 09:23
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14. Rock ‘n’ Roll Nightmare (1987) - 2/5 The four padded minutes of driving in the beginning served to remind me that I have a driving phobia now. That was much scarier than anything in the film. There’s an earnest semi-competence here though that keeps it out of so-bad-it’s-good territory, except for the last five minutes with Jon-Mikl Thor as an angel in studded leather briefs wrestling Satan. The cheap creature effects are charming, but otherwise it’s just kind of there, the sort of thing you might watch on cable in the Eighties if you were ten years old with no taste and nothing better to do. Maybe it beats watching another episode of Silver Spoons. The manager’s Archie fan club jacket was neat in a very uncool way and by far my favorite thing in the film. Why in the world is this on the They Shoot Zombies, Don’t They? best of horror list?
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Oct 14, 2022 10:31
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Servoret posted:14. Rock ‘n’ Roll Nightmare (1987) - 2/5 I have to say that as awful as the movie it, I kinda like the "We accept the challenge" song that plays when Jon-Mikl Thor battles Satan in a leather thong. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70hmmKa9r2Y
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Oct 14, 2022 10:44
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20: Mad God (2021) A Shudder original stop motion horror. There's no dialogue and the narrative is vague. A soldier-like traveler traverses hellish environments where creatures devour each other and humanoid figures are killed off frequently. He was trying to set off a bomb, but fails and things get weirder from there. I absolutely love the stop motion and the aesthetics of the world. Much of it is a futuristic WW2 look, heavily mechanized and metallic. The musical score is great and adds a lot to the atmosphere. There are sections where it's miniature live action and others where there were actors in front of green screens. These bits are well done, especially the early live action bits which were heavily stylized, but it did make the look inconsistent and idk I just find stop motion more conducive to inspiring a hell-like atmosphere than watching a doll in an RC Jeep scoot about in real time. On occasion it pushes the gross stuff just a little too far. It's great when it furthers the nightmarish vibe, less when it's about the spectacle of grossness. Those are minor complaints really though. I had a good time with this, and strongly recommend. Total: 20 Scream 4; Scream 5; Burke & Hare; Pet Semetary (1989); Lake Mungo; Season of the Witch; Childsplay 3; Boris Karloff: the Man Behind the Monster; Piranha (2010); Dead and Buried; Black Sabbath; The Curse of the Cat People; The Company of Wolves; Halloween Specials; The Cremator; Hack-O-Lantern; Goosebumps; Strip Nude for your Killer; Vampire in Brooklyn; Mad God 
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Oct 14, 2022 12:22
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Servoret posted:14. Rock ‘n’ Roll Nightmare (1987) - 2/5 It's an awful movie on an objective level but it's Plan 9 level of entertainingly bad movie. Poorly done, but has so much energy and  factor that it's still very watchable. If you love accidental cheese from people who probably shouldn't have made a movie, Rock n Roll Nightmare is one of the best.
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Oct 14, 2022 14:36
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#16: Deadstream (2022)Glitches A YouTuber tries to livestream his night in a haunted house and gets cancelled by ghouls. I'm so glad the horror thread introduced me to this one, it was great. These ghosts aren't the "appear behind you in the mirror" kind, they're the "bite you in the dick and jam their fingers up your nose" type. They're more like Deadites from Evil Dead, and I loved that. The main character manages to be obnoxious and ingratiating at the same time, and the movie really felt like an authentic representation of that type of YouTube personality. It's a real good time.  out of 5#17: Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989) Whispers in the DarkJason Voorhees slaughters a boat full of teens before running aground in the Big Apple. Thursday the 13th is close enough, right? I watched this with the commentary from writer/director Rob Hedden hoping to glean some insights into how this movie got to be the way it is. Unfortunately, Hedden comes from the Schwarzenegger School of Audio Commentary. That is, he talks about the movie like the listener is seeing it for the first time, which is extremely annoying. He doesn't share anything that wasn't already covered in the "Trivia" section on iMDB, and it made for a very dull experience. I'm sure he's a nice guy, but Shout Factory should have given him a little more coaching before he sat down to record this. The movie, as everyone here knows, is not great even by Friday the 13th standards. out of 5 for the movie, out of 5 for the commentary. 1. Dracula (Spanish)(1931) 2. Trick r Treat (2007) 3. Ghost Ship (2002) H20 4. The Devil Within Her (1975) Goodnight, Mommy 5. Ghost Story (1981) Paperbacks From Hell 6. Nomads (1986) Punk Vacation 7. Mad Doctor of Blood Island (1969) Thrilla in Manila 8. Skeleton Man (2004) Osteology 9. Muppets Haunted Mansion/Simpsons Treehouse of Horror XXXI Halloween is Special 10. Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf (1985) 11. Werewolf of London (1935) 12. Cat People (1942) Golden Years 13. Mortuary (1983) 14. Unmasked Part 25 (1988) Zombie Honeymoon 15. The Alien Factor (1978) Spaced Invaders 16. Deadstream (2022) Glitches 17. Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989)Whispers in the Dark 
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Oct 14, 2022 14:47
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 15. Senritsu Kaiki File Kowasugi! File 02: Shivering Ghost (2012) (dir. Kōji Shiraishi) YouTube The second in Kōji Shiraishi's series of "mockumentary" found footage films about paranormal investigators. This time they receive a recording made by a group of young people of a ghost encounter in an abandoned building. When they go to the site of the incident, they become involved with a strange and complex mystery. In a lot of ways I thought this was better than the first film - it gets to the scary stuff faster and contains much fewer scenes of the characters spinning their wheels waiting for something to happen. The central mystery is maybe less scary, but it's also super loving weird and I can't help but appreciate that. It reminded me of what I enjoyed about some of Shiraishi's other found footage films, especially Noroi and Cult. A bit undercooked compared to those films, but it's in the same ballpark. This series is pretty niche but if you like Kōji Shiraishi's found footage films then I recommend it. This one still feels like it hasn't quite hit its stride, but I liked it slightly more than the first and I'm looking forward to the others. 3.5 ringing bells out of 5  16. I Was a Teenage Zombie (1987) (dir. John Elias Michalakis) HBO Max SPOOKY BINGO: Highbrow Horror (terrible choice for this but I picked it because it's on the Criterion Channel, so technically it counts) After accidentally killing a local drug dealer, a group of teens throw the body in the river. At the same time, a nuclear spill leaves the river contaminated, and the body returns to life... as a zombie! Sort of. He's got face paint on but doesn't really act like a zombie otherwise. In fact the zombies in this (all two of them) are barely zombies at all, as they retain all of their personality and just look kinda blue. This is a very low-budget Troma-style horror/comedy (it's not actually a Troma film, but Lloyd Kaufman is namedropped and it has a very irreverent sophomoric sense of humor). I do appreciate the scrappy indie film spirit, but with the exception of some fun practical effects it's mostly a pretty shoddily made film. The dialogue is often so low in the mix that I could barely make out what the characters were saying, although the writing is bad so I don't think I missed much. It also features my least favorite thing in this type of film - a graphic rape scene played for laughs. Enjoying old comedies or horror movies often involves pushing past some casual misogyny, but this is just mean-spirited and uncomfortable, to say the least. Get that poo poo outta here. I give it credit for a couple good effects but otherwise this sucks. 1.5 absurd Italian stereotypes out of 5 Total: 16 Watched: The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane | Extraordinary Tales | You Won't Be Alone | Eyes of Fire | The Munsters | The Snake Girl and the SIlver-Haired Witch | TV Specials | Senritsu Kaiki File Kowasugi! File 01 - Operation Capture the Slit-Mouthed Woman | Deadstream | The Black Phone | Hellraiser (2022) | Smile | Mystery of the Wax Museum | Petey Wheatstraw | Senritsu Kaiki File Kowasugi! File 02: Shivering Ghost | I Was a Teenage Zombie 
gey muckle mowser fucked around with this message at 03:04 on Oct 15, 2022 |
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Oct 14, 2022 14:59
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Didn't want the 13th of October to slip by without at least one Friday the 13th film. #18. Friday the 13th (2009) (Vudu purchase) A group of teenagers visit a lake house in the woods, not knowing that it borders the old Camp Crystal Lake ruins... or that Jason, still alive and living there, is very protective of his property. As a remake of the original film(s), this one is oddly lacking, since it crams all of the material from this first three films more or less into the opening 2 minutes and then goes off and creates its own take out of whole cloth. As a sequel to the long running, un-venerable franchise, it mostly works as a slick, big budget reimagining of the only things people ever remembered the series for: goofy characters, gnarly kills and copious sex and nudity. Probably far more of the latter two than was ever really present in the originals, even. Redesigning Jason not as a shambling unkillable zombie or an overly enthusiastic burly muscle guy, the film instead makes him a clever trapper and survivalist, living on his own in the woods, moving silently and swiftly through a series of underground tunnels. More than half of his kills also seem to involve some kind of survivalist tool or weapon, from bows to axes to the tried-and-true machete. And to that end, the film knows what the audience wants, and seeks to deliver on that. With gusto. A friend of mine pointed out that the batch of characters this time around aren't targeted by the film because they're dumb and obnoxious (though they are) or that they have too much sex (the film is too prurient to get away with that take). No, this time they get targeted because they're far too coddled and safely ensconced in their rich privilege bubble, not understanding how to meet Jason on his own terms. (One kid goes out to defend himself with a wok and a fire poker; it's not a surprise that he ends up dead.) It's therefore not a surprise that the two lower-class characters, in terms of coding, end up being the ones that survive the whole ordeal... or at least until the pointless ending stinger. I'd say there's some irony in that take, coming from the series' highest budgeted, most slickly put-together take, but I don't know if that would ever land with the filmmakers. Or the audience, either, considering that the film shows up to give them everything that they were supposedly asking for and little else. I don't know if I can blame either side, in that case, that the film ends up like it does: checking boxes only gets you so far, after all. /5 Watched so far: The Empty Man, Hocus Pocus 2, Smile (2022), It Came From Outer Space, Watcher, The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb, Bats, Choose or Die, The Curse of the Werewolf, "Werewolf By Night"/various Halloween episodes, The Thing From Another World, Hellraiser (2022), Knife + Heart, A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 5, The Innocents (1961), The Bone Snatcher, The Blob (1958), Friday the 13th (2009)
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Oct 14, 2022 14:59
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Shaman Tank Spec posted:I have to say that as awful as the movie it, I kinda like the "We accept the challenge" song that plays when Jon-Mikl Thor battles Satan in a leather thong. Thor rules. I Am Thor is like the Anvil documentary without all the faux reverence, about someone who's much less of an rear end in a top hat.
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Oct 14, 2022 15:44
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 #68.) Tomie: Revenge (2005; digital) A woman accidentally runs over a Tomie on a misty mountain road. The Tomie heads to a secluded house nearby, with the motorist following. The motorist's disappearance leads to an investigation of the house, which primes Tomie to wreck some more lives. Finding out that Tomie incidents are common enough by this point in the series for investigative agencies to have a full folder on reports of such makes sense, but also makes her feel less mysterious. The story takes something of a non-linear approach, with video footage informing characters about what happened at the house before the motorist arrived there. As such, it plays more like a look into a Tomie incident that has already happened than one which is unfolding. That's an interesting way to freshen things up this deep into the series, but it leads to the story spinning its wheels rather than making progress for a lot of its run-time. On top of that, virtually any sense of the weird fiction roots with which this series began is absent, leaving just a few moments that could stand apart from a mundane murder story. One of the series' lesser entries, despite the laudable attempts to change up the formula. “You don't recall the name Tomie?” Rating: 5/10
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Oct 14, 2022 17:47
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31. Twice-Told Tales USA, 1963. Dir. Sidney Salkow Tales of Terror An anthology of three stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne, all starring Vincent Price. The first, about an old man who discovers his long-dead fiancee's corpse has been miraculously preserved by a strange fluid. The second, wherein a woman is kept alive by her father through infusions of a deadly poisonous plant. The third, in which a young woman visits her family home, where every one of her male relatives has died in the exact same way. It was moody, atmospheric, and gothic as all hell. Well-acted, wonderfully shot, with beautiful set design. Unfortunately, it was also dreadfully slow and honestly terribly boring. The movie was a sumptuous feast for the eyes, when I managed to keep them open. Would recommend you give it a shot, provided you brew a strong pot of coffee first. 5/10. Stray thoughts: There are two portraits in this movie that look very cheap, and stick out like sore thumbs. Their inclusion makes you wonder, did the production designer owe someone's untalented nephew a favor?  With this, I have successfully completed my originally pledged 31 new-to-me horror movies for the month. Now to finish up this bingo sheet!
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Oct 14, 2022 18:01
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33. Halloween Ends I can't say too much about it, for fear of spoilers, but man, I did not enjoy that movie very much, and I have a very strong feeling now that Halloween 2018 being that good was a total fluke. 2 out of 5! 33/31, watched: Scary Movie, Final Destination 4, Happy Death Day, Final Destination, No One Gets Out Alive, Smile, Freaky, Body Bags, Alien Psychosis, The Invisible Man, The Last Exorcism, Final Destination 2, Werewolves of the Third Reich, Unfriended, Final Destination 3, Hellraiser (2022), Deadstream, Final Destination 5, Village of the Damned, Piranha 3D, The Awakening, The Ruins, Sissy, Happy Death Day 2 U, Crush The Skull, Hell Fest, Diary of the Dead, Trick 'r Treat, Swimfan, Slumber Party Massacre (1982), The Ranger, Evil Dead (2013)
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Oct 14, 2022 18:09
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14. Penny Dreadful (2006) (first viewing) This is a feature from the inaugural After Dark HorrorFest festival. The title has nothing to do with the old British serials, nor the Showtime program. No, this movie is about a girl named Penny who is afraid of cars. Yes, you might say that Penny is... full of dread. I wish I were kidding. That's the level we're operating on here. I haven't seen a movie title this literal since the Janet Jackson vehicle Poetic Justice, in which she stars as a poet named Justice. Anyway... Penny has amaxophobia, or fear of cars, after losing both her parents in a fatal wreck from which only she escaped. Now she's on some kind of restorative road trip with her therapist (Mimi Rogers, a/k/a the mom in Ginger Snaps) meant to help her conquer her fear. They hit a hitchhiker, and give her* a ride to make up for it. (*The hitchhiker hides behind a hooded jacket for almost the entire movie, and is "revealed" to be a woman at the end. I say "revealed" because it serves no narrative purpose, and the hitchhiker is so mangy and the scene so poorly lit and confusing that I didn't realize I was supposed to pick up on this until reading about the movie afterwards.) The hitchhiker ends up luring them to an abandoned campground, slashing their tires and attacking them. Penny is knocked out, and wakes up trapped in the car, which is now wedged shut between two trees, with the therapist dead in the driver's seat next to her. Now, normally I can appreciate one of these single-location, problem-solving type scenarios, but there's some major problems. First, the movie doesn't commit to the single-location bit. The movie tries to have it both ways, so just enough of the movie is set in the car to make it tedious, but not enough to make it a bold formal choice to have the action truly locked down. Also, part of the fun of a movie like this to me is putting myself in the situation. How would I prepare for a zombie siege in Night of the Living Dead? How would I navigate the rooms in Cube? Etc. But here, while we're obviously meant to sympathize with Penny being quite literally trapped in the object of her phobia, she comes across as SO whimpering and irrational that it's just pathetic. She doesn't do a single smart thing for the entire film. Instead, she repeatedly tries to kick down a tree. One-legged. After spraining her ankle. There's a general laziness to the movie in the sense that, although it's a pretty stupid script, it's largely competent in terms of the filmmaking. But I do want to point out some incredibly awful lighting. There's a part where Penny falls asleep, and wakes up to find the hitchhiker has covered the car windows in blood. How is this depicted on-screen? By bathing Penny in red fluorescent light for the entire third act of the movie. Because if you were in a car with no power in the thick of the woods in the middle of the night and the windows were slathered in congealed blood, it would look like a cheap wannabe giallo, and not, you know, pitch black. I swear, Penny had better lighting at that car than I did in my living room watching the movie. She was reading the text off a driver's license and a prescription bottle from the pharmacy, for gently caress's sake! I guess Mimi Rogers at least turns in a professional performance, and there's a Michael Berryman cameo. He's plays the gas station attendant who meets our characters on their unwitting trip to their doom, but he doesn't even get to do anything fun like warn them about an escaped mental patient on the loose or anything like that. I knew this category was going to be rough when I saw the only qualifying film I'd ever heard of was Lake Mungo, but this wasn't even particularly fun to watch for one of my "tear a trash movie apart" slots. Avoid. SPOOKY Bingo: This one checks off "After Dark." 
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Oct 14, 2022 18:22
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Lol Lake Mungo is definitely my plan for that one—I was reading the After Dark Fest Wikipedia list and was NOT impressed
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Oct 14, 2022 18:28
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 61) Valley of the Dead - 2022 - Netflix Set during the Spanish Civil War, enemies have to come together to fight the undead. I liked this. It's based on a novel that I need to see if there's an English translation because I'm curious to give it a read. Movie starts with Nazis ruining a wedding because one of them got laughed at, then jumps into the meat and potatoes. Everything was paced well, actors did a great job, effects were pretty good. The film was delayed twice due to quarantine, but this was definitely worth the wait. It's a recommend from me.  62) Ouija - 2014 - HBOmax I think this came out around the time there was this trend to take classic boardgames and make a movie out of it. It's kind of a mixed bag since not everything's going to end up a Clue. You might end up having to stretch things and get Battleship. With this one, it's one of those 'what are you going to do that hasn't been in any other film with a ouija board?'. The answer to that, nothing. There's nothing here that hasn't already been done elsewhere and usually in a more compelling manner. This is the sort of thing a parent would rent for the kids sleepover party as something safe and scary. To me, it was just mediocre.  63) Ouija Origin of Evil - 2016 - Netflix Wow, what a difference a couple years make. This one's more a prequel to the original and I consider it better than the original. Story is involves a psychic medium scam ends up getting the real deal when a ouija board gets involved. One of the concerns with PG-13 horror is that it feels toned down compared to R rated horror. It is a valid point since too often PG-13 is just a trimmed down rated R. *looking at you Black Christmas '19* With this film, it all comes across organic. The jumpscares and all fit, the themes mesh, it even has that feel of the '70s. Everything here just worked. It's PG-13 done right. This is a recommend from me.  64) Army of the Dead - 2021 - Netflix I went in expecting big dumb fun and it delivered big dumb fun. Plot follows a casino heist happening in a zombie infested blocked off Las Vegas. Considering how often zombie films tend to stick to the outbreak and everything falling apart in record time, this one earns points with me for trying some different things. A zombie hierarchy, decoy zombies monitoring the zombies, having to barter with the zombies, possibility of zombies reproducing that isn't by infection. It's enough to have me curious on the eventual sequels and series. Only negative I have is it could've been a bit shorter. Everything else was fine. Actors good, setting excellent, gore was nice though I think it would've been nicer dialing back on the CGI. This is a recommend from me if you just want a fun zombie heist film.
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Oct 14, 2022 19:02
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 Hellraiser My hopes and expectations for this have been all over the map. When news first hits that there's going to be a new Hellraiser movie, of course I assumed it would be terrible. Why wouldn't I based on the history of the franchise? But then I heard who was directing it, and a trailer comes out and it actually doesn't look bad... I wanted to love it, I wanted this to be a Halloween 2018 situation where an iconic series is refreshed for a new generation. And maybe that will end up being the case, from what I've read the reactions to this movie have been pretty varied. So it's possible this will be popular enough in the end to spark new life for Hellraiser going forward. But for me personally it was a bit of a bummer because it just didn't deliver enough of what I want out of a Hellraiser movie. I didn't really click with any of the characters and the establishing scenes with them felt incredibly tedious. A two hour Hellraiser film really needs to work to justify that length and I didn't think it was able to do that, a shorter edit could've done wonders for the overall experience in my opinion. I also didn't really enjoy the look of the Cenobites, which is not necessarily a deal-breaker but this is Hellraiser after all and so a big part of why I'm here is those Cenobites. The design ideas behind them were solid, I liked the idea of what the different Cenobites were supposed to be. But in execution they come off as people wearing latex appliances, which I suppose is exactly what they are. Because of the artificial, plasticky look they aren't as gross and off-putting as the classic versions. The movie is well shot and looks better than any of the crappy third-rate sequels that we've had in recent years, which isn't unexpected considering that this is definitely a talented director. I just wish it was a bit more streamlined and also closer aesthetically to the original films. Current List: 1. The Munsters 2. The Addams Family 3. Alligator 4. Mosquito(Fran Challenge: Wild Beasts) 5. The Gorgon 6. Evil Dead 2 7. Army of Darkness 8. Amityville II: The Possession(Fran Challenge: The Devil Made Me Do It) 9. Black Sunday 10. Comedy of Terrors(Fran Challenge: Picnic at Hanging Rock) 11. Equinox(Fran Challenge: Highbrow Horror) 12. Hocus Pocus 13. Hocus Pocus 2(Fran Challenge: Children of the Damned) 14. Child's Play 15. Child's Play 2 16. Candyman 17. Hellraiser(2022)
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Oct 14, 2022 19:06
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6. Halloween Is Special Werewolf by Night (2022)  When master monster hunter Ulysses Bloodstone dies his colleagues gather at his compound to decide, through competitive ritual monster hunt, who should inherit The Bloodstone. A powerful magical artifact with strong anti-monster capabilities. A loving tribute to classical monster movies shot in black and white and opens with some very 1930s Universal style credits. It looks pretty good, especially for a Marvel streaming title, even if I think it could've done with a little more contrast and Chiaroscuro. For those not in the know this is based on the comic title Werewolf by Night, which are about the adventures of Jack Russel a young man who turns into a werewolf at night. In the 1970s the Comics Code, which regulated what comics could and couldn't show, was loosening and the previous hard blanket ban on anything monster or horror related was fading away. To test the waters Marvel came out with a Spiderman villain who was a living vampire and thus didn't violate the Comics Code ban on depicting the undead. When they got away with this they decided to go hog wild and published several different horror titles that were all still set in the same universe as the mainline Marvel stuff featuring, alongside Jack Russel, seperate titles for Dracula, Frankenstein, and a demonic Evil Knievel riff called Ghost Rider. All great stuff. I have no idea how faithful this is, I've only read a couple of issues of Werewolf by Night and I have no idea what if anything has happened to the characters since the 70s but I feel like this captures the tone of the 1970s Marvel horror titles pretty well. It's very goofy but not as quippy or aware of it's silliness as a lot of Marvel stuff. There is still some comedy mostly in the form of Ulysses himself whose will is delivered by his corpse which has been rigged with animatronics and makes some very bad (good) Crypt Keeper style puns . The main strength of this special is how well paced it is. It's only 53 minutes long and it doesn't waste any time. Some of the characters are barely archtypes but it doesn't really matter because we're not here for the ensemble of monster hunters we're here for the Werewolf and I do like that the Werewolf in question is an old fashioned Wolfman not one of the semi-humanoid wolves or even big CGI wolves we see a lot in the past decades. I hope this does well and they do Tomb of Dracula next year, which was by far the best of the 70s monster comics as it largely revolved around Dracula being evil and getting into lots of little adventures that sometimes involved fighting someone slightly more evil or comparatively evil but with differing goals to him but mostly involved him being really arrogant and petty. Almost every single issue has a few panels where they introduce some random civilian, give their full name and a little backstory, and then Dracula shows up and kills them and drinks their blood (obviously). Community S4E2 ""Paranormal Parentage"  The study group are on their way to a Halloween Party when they get a message from Pierce who has somehow managed to lock himself into his own panic room. While trying to find the code to open the room they begin to suspect that the mansion is haunted. Not as much to say about this one. I haven't actually seen any of season 4 of Community. I watched the first couple of seasons when they were new-ish and loved them but somehow never managed to muster up t he interest to watch anything beyond that. Especially when I started hearing that it was apparently not as good as previous seasons as showrunner and professional weirdo Dan Harmon had left the show. Truth be told I didn't notice that much of a difference. The characters felt a bit more Flanderized and cartoony than I remembered them being but I'm not sure. I chuckled a few times which for a sitcom is mission accomplished. It's mildly spooky but most of the scares are just shadows moving across doorways or windows in the background. The writhing wall was pretty effective and the video of the dark figure standing by Pierce's bed watching him sleep was genuinely creepy but both are immediately undercut by the reveal that there was no real haunting and the second reveal of Pierce's brother having been hiding in the house It's alright I guess I'm very busy right now so I'm not finding that much time to watch films but I'm going to get at least two bingos or die trying. 
FreudianSlippers fucked around with this message at 19:37 on Oct 14, 2022 |
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Oct 14, 2022 19:30
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Movie 11: Ghostwatch (Terrorvision) No creaking gates, no gothic towers, no shuttered windows. Yet for the past ten months this house has been the focus of an astonishing barrage of supernatural activity. Ghostwatch is a unique experience. It was aired on BBC1 on Halloween night in 1992. It was presented as a real life special investigation into the "most haunted house in Britain". They assembled a perfect cast, something you'd expect to see in a real TV special. Michael Parkinson, the studio host, is a legend of British broadcasting and has done countless hard hitting political talk shows, panels and documentaries. His presence alone gives the show a lot of credibility and gravitas, because he wasn't seen as the type to pop up in a mockumentary. Sarah Greene, the on-scene reporter, is also a veteran of British TV, and Craig Charles is the clown who's there to lighten things up. As with normal TV specials, Parkinson and co are hosting things from the studio, talking with experts, taking calls from "viewers" and keeping things moving. Live at scene we also get the typical shenanigans you'd expect from something like this: Craig Charles is doing bad comedy, Sarah Greene is introducing the (for the time) impressive technology, talking with the family who live in the haunted house and doing normal live show stuff. But how well does it hold up? Pretty well, for the most part. Once you know it's all a mockumentary, the show's tone does feel a bit off. If you're in on the secret, it feels like people acting like they're doing their normal jobs. Especially the paranormal expert in the studio with Parkinson feels like she's reading from the script of a bad horror movie. I did quite like that the show does a good job of ratcheting up the tension. Callers phone in to say they've spotted shadowy figures on the broadcast (and sure enough, if you're really paying attention, you can see them as well), but Parkinson and company keep explaining them away. Oh it's just how the curtains look in this light, quite a natural thing to see human forms where there are none. They discover proof that the people in the house have been faking some of the phenomena. So this is just a mildly spooky live Halloween special, the family were faking it, but of course they were because ghosts aren't real. And then poo poo gets truly freaky, and we see poo poo that you can't explain away. Holy loving poo poo, ghosts are loving real and the BBC managed to capture them live on camera. Yeah, I can see how this traumatized people back in 1992. Apparently the BBC received tens of thousands of calls from terrified and angry viewers, as well as tons of mail from people and there were even some deaths as a direct result of the show. That's pretty loving wild. Even though the illusion has been broken, Ghostwatch is definitely worth a watch. It's one of the coolest cultural artifacts in modern horror culture and something that couldn't probably really be replicated anymore. / 5My October 2022 Movies: 1. Nope, 2. Night at the Eagle Inn, 3. Day of the Mummy, 4. Freaky, 5. Choose or Die, 6. Dog Soldiers, 7. Shopping Tour, 8. Halloween Specials, 9. The Visit, 10. Lumberjack Man, 11. Ghostwatch 
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Oct 14, 2022 20:05
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#22: Arachnophobia Wild Beasts  Whoof. This was a disappointment. A late 80s/early 90s family horror starring Jeff Daniels, Julian Sands, and John Goodman? That's gotta be great! It's not. The number one problem is that it's so loving slow. The first 40 minutes of this movie could have easily been done in under 10 minutes. The scenes introducing Sands' and Goodman's characters are only there to let the audience know they exist because they don't actually enter the plot proper until a loving hour in. I know The Birds doesn't have any bird action until halfway through the movie. But this ain't The Birds. And once the birds show up in The Birds, it's all birds all the time until the end. In Arachnophobia, you never even get the whole town freaking out about spiders. Like four people in the whole town even know there's spiders. The lack of spider action really kills the movie. The few good spider scenes make excellent use of the fact that spiders can be loving anywhere. That should have been the bulk of the movie, spiders being in surprising places and then killing people! Hell, there's basically only one good sequence of a guy being afraid of the fact that spiders can be anywhere! What a complete waste of the whole premise! And to really suck a lot of tension out, it's established that if they just kill the General Spider, then all the other spiders will die. Jeff Daniels ends up fighting the General Spider, and it goes on for a very long time. The General Spider is like 8 inches wide, which is really big for a spider but a lot smaller than the biggest irl spiders. And small enough that the concept of an unusually but not exceptionally large spider really loses a lot of it's scare power. The fight is so bad. The climax of the movie is a fully grown adult human trying and having a great deal of trouble with killing a bug. It's not an actual fist fight of course because that would be silly, but it's as close to a fistfight as they could have made it. Which makes it sound more fun than it is, but it's important you understand how little this movie does with what makes spiders actually scary. And the stinger at the end makes no sense. Jeff Daniels and his family have moved out of country and back to the big city, but then, uh-oh! There's a small earthquake. What the gently caress? How does that make any sense as an alternate threat to deadly spiders? It should have been one spider lived and stowed away in their moving boxes. Or there's a different big deadly version of a regular animal. That would've worked. Not a loving minor earthquake. It's such a baffling note to end a movie on! Man, I didn't enjoy Arachnophobia while I watched it, but writing this all up made me realize I really didn't like it at all. Goodman is so great as the exterminator, and he's in such a small percentage of this interminably dull movie. 
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Oct 14, 2022 20:17
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Gripweed posted:And the stinger at the end makes no sense. Jeff Daniels and his family have moved out of country and back to the big city, but then, uh-oh! There's a small earthquake. What the gently caress? How does that make any sense as an alternate threat to deadly spiders? It should have been one spider lived and stowed away in their moving boxes. Or there's a different big deadly version of a regular animal. That would've worked. Not a loving minor earthquake. It's such a baffling note to end a movie on!  #69.) The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh (1971; Tubi) A mysterious killer in black gloves is making headlines, and socialite Julie Wardh begins receiving letters intended to blackmail her. Drenched in late-'60s Euro style, with fashions that change almost every scene, lushly decorated sets, lavish cinematography, and some powerful wallpaper choices. The plotting is fundamental to the story being told, which is very refreshing after some of the stuff I've watched this month, and it's complex enough to give the viewer something to guess at without it getting too tangled. There's a richly moody soundtrack, and also some attention to sound design that goes above and beyond, considering the average state of Italian dubs. It's also one of the more logically explicated gialli I've seen, which feels almost at odds with the genre, but it's pleasing to have a clear resolution to one of these for once. “Not many girls bother hitchhiking once they've been buried.” Rating: 7/10
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Oct 14, 2022 20:24
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Darthemed posted:It's a reminder that no matter where you live, nature can gently caress you up somehow. Might be as small as a spider, or as large as tectonic plates shifting. But these weren't natural spiders. They were the product of a single live spider from a species that exists only in a single unexplored Amazonian cave accidentally being transported to small-town America where it was able to mate with a local species to produce a new generation of super spiders with itself as the General Spider. The movie had no theme of anything like man's unimportance in the face of nature. Jeff Daniels solved the whole problem by shooting the General Spider once with a nail gun.
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Oct 14, 2022 20:30
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25. Yulenka 2009 Evil kid movie #812  I tend to love a good evil kid movie, so I had to dig a little deep to find one I haven't seen. Yulenka is a Russian movie about an evil little girl that came out just a handful of months before the much more successful, much better Orphan, which is also about an evil little girl who tortures men. What Orphan DIDN'T have, though, was an entire elementary school class of little girls who are evil for... you know, reasons... In this one, a teacher moves his family to the countryside where an """innocent""" girl in his class takes an unhealthy interest in him. The movie itself is completely average, but what I love about it is that it keeps throwing plot elements at the wall in order to try and get one to stick, and it ends up this super convoluted thing that barely wraps up in the end. I'm going to spoiler the chain of events next: read the first one, and then try to guess where the plot element is going before jumping to the next one. Teacher takes a job at an all girls school -> where the former teacher was driven insane -> after a little girl threw herself out a window to kill herself -> because she was being tormented by an evil little girl -> who is only evil because she has a genetic disease where she's mentally aging too fast -> so she's trying to murder guys until she finds one her mom likes to be her new dad -> and she's poisoning them with drugs she stole from a surgeon -> who was the mom of the girl who jumped out the window -> who was actually pushed by the evil girl, it wasn't suicide -> so her mom went insane and tried to kill her former teacher -> but instead the evil little girl poses as the crazy lady's dead daughter and torments her at night -> to convince her to murder the NEW teacher -> but actually the little girl killed the new teacher by performing spinal surgery on him in the woods (?!) -> and then tricking the crazy lady into murdering someone and then killing herself so that she could take the blame for the murder -> BUT NOW SHE'S GONNA DO IT TO THE COP INVESTIGATING HER CASE??? Genuinely, plot twist after plot twist. Mediocre movie, absolutely hilariously weird storyline. Rating: 6.1/10 Evil Little Kids
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Oct 14, 2022 20:30
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Darthemed posted:It's a reminder that no matter where you live, nature can gently caress you up somehow. Might be as small as a spider, or as large as tectonic plates shifting. STAC Goat fucked around with this message at 20:50 on Oct 14, 2022 |
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Oct 14, 2022 20:40
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 26) Re-Animator (1985) Trailer Seen on: the movie's on Tubi and the commentary is on Youtube, I just ran them together Whispers in the Dark rewatch safe -watch a film with a commentary (filmmaker, fan, special features, podcast) I'm not going to recap the movie here because a) most of you reading this already know what it is and b), the focus here is on the commentary. I watched this for the first time (shamefully) a few years ago for a previous challenge and really enjoyed it, so while I almost went with something I'd heard before - I love the Evil Dead 2 commentary track - I decided to check this one out. This commentary includes actors Jeffrey Combs, Bruce Abbott, Barbara Crampton and Robert Sampson and the film's producer Brian Yuzna. I'm glad I actually picked this one because everyone sounds like they're having a blast and they sound amazed that they actually got the movie made. The actors all poke fun at themselves and riff on the movie as they watch; Combs and Abbott in particular are very funny. I love commentaries like this, where they point out the names of extras in the background, mention sets that were flimsy or broken so they couldn't touch them, and talk about the film's editing, alternate takes and other things that were cut. Highlights include Combs talking about how he helped David Gale smoke cigarettes while the latter was headless and trapped in the "head-in-the-pan" appliance for 11 hours; their commentary on the film (Combs mimicking a baseball announcer when West is about to kill Gale's character with the shovel: "It's a high tight one!"); and Crampton repeatedly commenting on the gory parts by saying things like "That's disgusting. I can't believe we did this movie!" and introducing the nude scene at the end as "my mom's favorite scene." (Apparently Gale felt "spiritually bereft" over the assault scene and his wife was allegedly not too happy about it, per their comments). Overall a really fun listen and I got to watch the movie again, so that's a bonus.  27) Sweetheart (2019) Trailer Seen on: Netflix H20 -watch a film that features a lot of water (the ocean counts) -watch a film about underwater creatures/monsters A young woman shipwrecked on a remote island not only has to figure out how to survive the elements, she has to figure out how to escape the claws and jaws of the resident humanoid aquatic predator that lives nearby. This is a really solid mid-budget thriller that looks like it premiered on the film festival circuit and then went straight to streaming. Directed by a former J.J. Abrams protege and with creature design and effects by Neville Page (Cloverfield, Super 8, Prometheus) and Weta Design, Sweetheart is a fun watch and held together admirably by leading lady Kiersey Clemons - there's no substantial dialogue until the movie is half over and I didn't mind. She portrays Jenn, the shipwreckee who seems very determined and resourceful, and once she figures out that something is out there on the island at night, she begins trying to bait it and study it for the fight ahead. The monster itself is a familiar design but very well done, and there's a beachside chase sequence between the two that is really neat. If there's a rough patch in the movie, it's at the halfway point, where additional survivors wash up on shore (Jenn's boyfriend and another acquaintance) to primarily dump exposition about Jenn that we didn't know (she has a reputation as a liar and as a needy person, but oh ho we've seen how determined and resourceful she is!) and to provide some fresh meat for the monster, who of course they don't believe exists until it's too late.. The cinematography is beautiful, save for the night scenes, which are very dark, likely to hide the creature a bit, and there some underwater elements that might trigger the more thalassophobic viewers out there (the suggestion of where the creature lives is a simple but eerie visual). When we do finally get a good look at the beast, it's pretty impressive (neat article here that interviews the designer about it); my only knock on it is that it makes noises just like a demogorgon from Stranger Things, but I can forgive that. If you ever wanted to see what happens if you mixed Castaway with Creature From the Black Lagoon, check this out.  PKMN Trainer Red posted:Teacher takes a job at an all girls school -> where the former teacher was driven insane -> after a little girl threw herself out a window to kill herself -> because she was being tormented by an evil little girl -> who is only evil because she has a genetic disease where she's mentally aging too fast -> so she's trying to murder guys until she finds one her mom likes to be her new dad -> and she's poisoning them with drugs she stole from a surgeon -> who was the mom of the girl who jumped out the window -> who was actually pushed by the evil girl, it wasn't suicide -> so her mom went insane and tried to kill her former teacher -> but instead the evil little girl poses as the crazy lady's dead daughter and torments her at night -> to convince her to murder the NEW teacher -> but actually the little girl killed the new teacher by performing spinal surgery on him in the woods (?!) -> and then tricking the crazy lady into murdering someone and then killing herself so that she could take the blame for the murder -> BUT NOW SHE'S GONNA DO IT TO THE COP INVESTIGATING HER CASE??? This was fun to mouse through. Bruteman fucked around with this message at 20:58 on Oct 14, 2022 |
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Oct 14, 2022 20:49
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 24. From Beyond (1986) (Rewatch) That will be quite enough of that! I love this movie. It's weird and goopy and full of great lines and spooky visuals. Crawford looks truly unhinged in the final act, when he starts sucking on the nurse's eye socket it's just so gross. Ken Foree brings the right incredulous energy to Bubba, with a fantastic death. Barbara Crampton is so great, you can tell from her first moments on screen that Katherine is too interested in the device and you know things are going to go sideways. Praetorius is a fantastic villain, too. "I'm going to kiss you!" 4.5/5 25. Society (1989) (Rewatch) Is it really that boring, being rich? One of the more memorable final acts in horror imho. It's a shame that it's ~90 minutes of mostly slow set-up, but boy oh boy the final 20 minutes of punchline are a hoot, butt-head. 3.5/5 26. Dawn of the Dead (1978) (Rewatch, kinda) I haven't seen this in over a decade, but so much of it is burned into my brain that it felt like putting on an old sweater. I love everything before the mall - the warnings, the small stories of chaos, the bits and pieces that give you enough to guess at what happened in some of the locations. Just building that hopeless dread in the pit of your stomach. Romero is good at that. And then the mall becomes this perfect zombie apocalypse paradise, full of everything you need... until it isn't. In terms of the challenge, I watched the extended cut, which I have never seen. When the movie was over, I had to look up the differences online, because there didn't seem to be much difference from the version I remember. The cut I watched seemed to have more societal collapse before the mall, and once we got to the mall there were more 'fun time' scenes, but the music seemed different, I could be mistaken. I liked spending the extra time with these characters but I wouldn't recommend this cut over the 'normal' one, or even the Argento one which I think is a more interesting variation. 5/5 -- Bingo Square: Whispers in the DarkTotal Watched: 26 // First Time: 20 
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Oct 14, 2022 21:02
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M_Sinistrari posted:63) Ouija Origin of Evil - 2016 - Netflix this one is still so crazy to me—it would be impossible to convince me it’s actually pretty good if I hadn’t seen it myself! and I put it on in the first place deliberately because it sounded like it would be really bad, so I was extra surprised
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Oct 14, 2022 21:15
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I hated the first Ouija so much and was so shocked the second was good. Of course years later the director would be one of my favorites so makes sense in hindsight.
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Oct 14, 2022 21:18
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| # ? Jun 9, 2024 13:26 |
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Annabelle Creation is the only other recent one I can think of where I loved a prequel wayyyyy more than I liked the original
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Oct 14, 2022 21:28
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