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Spring reveals once again how much of a sucker for wholesome horror I am. Sure, the lady is out of the doofus American’s league but who amongst us hasn’t dreamed of dating a beautiful Lovecraftian monster? A bit of wish fulfillment, come on Dead Silence is much better than Malignant because it’s just as silly but also serious, yet only 90 minutes. Neat monster, not very scary, respecting the style of it all – no surprise Wan went on to make the Fast and the Furious movies. If all of Wan’s movies were like thtat I’d give it a consideration, but overall I’d rather see Enemies of Horror. Old Dark House, frankly, is a bit boring. The actors are charming of course, but there’s just not much interesting stuff happening The Undead is glorious nonsense, time travel, ye fake olde timey speeche, both sexy and warty witches, plenty of cackling, imps, cats, bats, toads, Satan with a pitchfork – I was fully entertained throughout! No undeads though, that part was a bit confusing. Easy vote for Undead.
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Feb 5, 2023 16:33
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 Dead Silence fails to deliver the same crowd pleasing energy as Malignant as James Wan picks up only a handful of votes this round and Spring wins 13-3. That’s a strong debut for Moorehead and Benson picking up their first win in Bracketology and giving the Enemies of Horror their second overall victory and sending them to the second round for the first time. For Wan its a 2-2 record overall with only 4 films left in his pool so he’s either team bound next year or might have to wait to rack up a few more films to make another run.  Roger Corman’s B… or D production Undead did charm a few voters after all but ultimately James Whale’s Old Dark House cruises to a 12-4 victory. That moves Whale to 2-1 in Bracketology with one big movie left in the tank as Serv’s team of Universal Horror Classics advances to the second round. For Corman he falls to 2-4 but he’s got tons of films left so I’m sure we’ll see him again next year. But next week it will Enemies of Horror vs Universal Horror Classics. That’s right, we’re moving into the second round of Kermit’s Kreepy Conference now. And that means a return of 4 winners. 5. John Carpenter’s Vampires vs. 13. (mbd’s Czech This Out) Jan Švankmajer’s Lunacy  Carpenter snuck past the first round thanks to a less than competitive opponent but he’s fallen in the second round twice in the last three years so he’d like to change that here. But he’ll have to do it with another not exactly big gun as he draws Vampires. Now, this is a tough call I think. Its not as flawed as some of Carpenter’s other later films and I think people do tend to have a lot of appreciation fo the world setup, the cinematography, and the grungy gnarly feel of everything. At the same time its pretty clear that there are elements of the film that date it safely in the late 90s/early 2000s when it comes to treatment of women and just HOW slimy this feels. Now that kind of thing works fine for films from the 80s but it feels like people go back and forth on Vampires. And not helping the matter is that he draws against Jan Svankmajer and another bug gently caress crazy absurdist weird rear end Czech New Wave thing. Now personally I think I found Lunacy to be the least of the Jan films I watched and a bit bloated and uneven, but I’m also clearly not the audience of his thing. Jan’s only drawn one film before this but he’s 1-0 and looks to keep the perfect record going with an upset of one of the Masters. But Carpenter hopes to break the trend and have one last big run. But its not gonna be all Halloweens so its another round fight to see who advances. Vampires is out there and available upon request. Lunacy is out there and available upon request. 3. (Serv’s Nifty Fifties) Irvin S. Yeaworth Jr.’s The Blob vs. 11. (Goat’s Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities) J. A. Bayona’s The Orphanage  These two teams took very different paths here as Invasion of the Body Snatchers dominated Goodnight Mommy and propelled Nifty Fifties into the second round while Scary Stories to Tell In The Dark just barely snuck by Tobe Hooper’s Spontaneous Combustion to get here. Now Serv’s team dolls up another classic B film that might be more familiar to the Bracketology audience by its remake while GdT’s Cabinet of Curiosities deals up another moody Spanish ghost story. GdT’s and his teams’ run has been mixed but the Orphanage is actually one of the films I really wanted on this team. An effective and atmospheric ghost story that is probably more likely to make someone cry than jump in fright, but that’s really my thing. Or is when I’m not dealing with my own personal poo poo that makes it a little too heavy. But The Blob is fun. Its got Steve McQueen kind of trailblazing the teen brigade against the monster while the stupid adults don’t listen. I mean, McQueen’s like 30 but you know. The relative lack of gore and effects in 50s sci fi might work against The Blob as its remake is known for being so hardcore (and actually won TWICE in the first year of our tourney). And the 50s thing didn’t hurt Invasion last round so will The Blob repeat the pattern and keep this trailblazing team going? Or can GdT’s crew sneak another upset out of this matchup and head back to the Sweet Sixteen after missing it last year? The Blob is available for streaming on Crackle, Criterion, and HBOMax. The Orphanage is out there and available upon request. NOTE: This week’s films are a bit tougher to find than recent weeks but I have all of them. I am however going through a lot of stuff right now and don’t know how available I’ll be. So if you ask me for a movie and I don’t respond quickly ask in the thread and someone else may be able to help with a link I already provided them. As always the goal is to just have fun and watch what you want. We try and make sure every film is reasonably available, some are a little harder to find than others and not everyone has the right streaming services so if you need help ask and help might be right around the corner. You can vote in this round until 12 noon EST Feb 12th (or when I get to it) Next Week! 1. The Enemies of Horror vs. 8. Universal Horror Classics 2. TaBOO! vs. 7. Tales From the Necronomicon vs. 15. K-Horror not directed by Bong Joon-ho or Park Chan-wook Spreadsheet Letterboxd List STAC Goat fucked around with this message at 22:15 on Feb 7, 2023 |
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Feb 5, 2023 18:00
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I'm voting for Lunacy and The Blob, two movies that I don't love but I enjoyed (although the Blob is an all-time great monster). My memory of Vampires is Sheryl Lee acting her heart out in a movie that doesn't deserve her. And I know The Orphanage is well-regarded but I just got bored with it.
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Feb 5, 2023 22:51
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Looking to find Lunacy, which I've never seen, and The Orphanage, which I don't remember well enough to compare it. Unfortunately nothing will make me vote for Vampires, which is a movie that I hate so much more than some of the Carpenter movies that are probably objectively worse. So in that round I'll have to decide if Lunacy is worth voting for or if I'm just gonna sit out.
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Feb 5, 2023 23:17
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We just watched The Blob in October, and I found it charming. Especially the dynamic between our hero and the boys set up to be stereotypical bully-ruffian antagonists. After just a bit of back and forth and joshing they become integral helpers, in a complete reversal of expectations.
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Feb 5, 2023 23:33
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I've seen 3 out of 4 films this week, and not been all that impressed with any of them. The one holdout (Lunacy) just isn't going to be my cup of tea, I can already tell from the trailer. So, I think this week I'll be voting for Vampires and The Orphanage, not out of any positive appreciation of these particular films themselves, but as a way to get more Carpenter and del Toro films to revisit in later rounds.
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Feb 6, 2023 16:49
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I don’t want to revisit any of his films here (especially since I have the feeling that what he’s got left in the tank is not good), but you’ve inspired me to order Elvis and The Ward from the library so I can finally say I’ve seen every John Carpenter film.
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Feb 7, 2023 05:43
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Servoret posted:I don’t want to revisit any of his films here (especially since I have the feeling that what he’s got left in the tank is not good), but you’ve inspired me to order Elvis and The Ward from the library so I can finally say I’ve seen every John Carpenter film. According to GOAT's spreadsheet, it looks like Carpenter still has Halloween, They Live and Assault on Precinct 13 still in reserve (along with Village of the Damned, The Ward, and Someone's Watching Me), so he still has some pretty big hitters left to play. The only thing left on the "Czech This Out" team to play that's of interest to me, personally, is The Cremator. And while I've heard that movie is incredible, I don't think that one film is gonna be able to match all 3 of the films Carpenter could still play, so if we wanna play the long game here, Carpenter should still get the vote.
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Feb 7, 2023 15:47
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Probably two easy decisions this week for me, although a bit of help finding Lunacy would be appreciated. But it's always tough to imagine voting against Carpenter under any circumstances, and I really do love that Sheryl Lee performance in Vampires. She's the only thing keeping that movie from becoming completely goofy and laughable. And as much as I'd hate to see the GDT team go, I gotta go with The Blob on that one. I'm just a sucker for blobs and blob-like effects, and anything with a blobesque creature is gonna easily beat out run of the mill spooky ghosts.
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Feb 7, 2023 21:11
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I had a feeling that Vampires was going to something I'd find worse on a rewatch, and that certainly turned out to be true. It really has not held up well at all. There's a lot that could be chalked up to the style of the time (the extreme color filtering that feels cheap and amateurish now, the treatment of women as disposable to highlight how terrible the I haven't seen Lunacy yet and the Czech team has been extremely hit-or-miss with me. If I do end up voting for Carpenter it won't be on the strength of this film.
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Feb 8, 2023 08:35
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The Blob vs. The Orphanage This is one of those fun ones where I actually liked both movies. The Blob is charming while The Orphanage is bittersweet, but they both succeed by being unironic and authentic in their emotional pursuits. The Orphanage touches so many "what if grief is the real horror story" cliches but unlike so many peers it respects the audience. The callbacks in particular are wonderful, it seems like every throwaway character beat and line at the beginning comes back in a meaningful way by the end. It's an avatar of the idea that not every ghost story is a horror story. The Blob, on the other hand, tries to show by example that bad situations are no place for cynicism, no matter how well deserved. At the end of the day I liked The Orphanage better, but it wasn't a blowout decision.
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Feb 8, 2023 13:42
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Haven't checked out Lunacy yet, but I like Vampires. It's like Carpenter doing a spaghetti western. Katrina getting out alive is really the only thing I rooted for, everyone else is some shade of despicable. Even the good guy priest eventually gives in to reveling in the violence with Woods lovely character. A Baldwin turns in a half way decent performance too! It's for from Carpenters best and it's front loaded with its two best set pieces so I don't fault anyone for hating it. It's a rough grimy movie.
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Feb 8, 2023 19:30
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Yea as far as my nostalgia for Vampires, those two early scenes are carrying most of the weight. Especially the opener where they go into the den and start pulling the vamps out, I was like 12 years old and hadn't seen vampires done in such a violent and intense way before.
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Feb 8, 2023 19:54
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Yeah I like Vampires, I get that it’s not a pleasant film but it’s still Carpenter. It’s trashy but I’m not opposed to that. I think it does poorly in retrospect partly because a lot of the vampire tropes it presents (grimy, drug addict-esque vampires, anti-hero vampire slayers, hypocritical Catholic Church politics) have become well-worn territory in that genre. It also has a incessantly quipy James Woods which used to be more charming to watch instead of incredibly depressing in 2023. Also it’s just an incredible shame Sheryl Lee didn’t get the career she deserved. But I still enjoy the film even if it’s not quite that Western he always wanted to make and I always wanted to see. Class3KillStorm posted:According to GOAT's spreadsheet, it looks like Carpenter still has Halloween, They Live and Assault on Precinct 13 still in reserve (along with Village of the Damned, The Ward, and Someone's Watching Me), so he still has some pretty big hitters left to play. Yeah I think he has a very solid shot at the whole thing. IMO, two stone-cold masterpieces (Halloween, They Live), one great film (Assault), and some poorly received films that I think will benefit from some retrospective distance. As far as the other matchup, I’ll have to watch The Blob but I’m most likely still going with The Orphanage. I’m a sucker for that brand of heartstring-pulling-ghost-films about grief, it’s got a beautiful atmosphere and while it’s a very, sometimes almost incessantly, sad film, I found it rather touching. WeaponX fucked around with this message at 20:23 on Feb 8, 2023 |
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Feb 8, 2023 20:12
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You can certainly see Lee's potential in Vampires but obviously the material only allows her to do so much. The feeling of wasted potential is even stronger when you watch Fire Walk With Me though, where you're seeing her dominate a David Lynch film just knocking scene after scene out of the park and you're like "so....why did she not go on to win multiple Oscars again??"
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Feb 8, 2023 20:21
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Basebf555 posted:You can certainly see Lee's potential in Vampires but obviously the material only allows her to do so much. Her performance in Fire Walk With Me is once in a lifetime good. It’s ferocious. Make you check out all the deleted scenes if you never have!
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Feb 8, 2023 20:25
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WeaponX posted:Her performance in Fire Walk With Me is once in a lifetime good. It’s ferocious. Make you check out all the deleted scenes if you never have! I really need to do that especially because I have the Criterion blu ray sitting right there on my shelf! I've watched it several times of course, but never fully explored the special features.
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Feb 8, 2023 20:37
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I saw Vampires in the theater when it came out, and I remember enjoying that opening scene too. Then the plot got into that gross mistreatment of the female lead. Maybe the point was supposed to be that these guys had become pieces of poo poo in order to do their jobs and survive. But if so, the movie botched that by playing up their cool factor and having the vampire lady go off for a happy ending with that Baldwin for no understandable reason.
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Feb 8, 2023 20:44
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Lunacy has some neat stop motion animation, that's always a nice surprise.
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Feb 9, 2023 21:39
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Lunacy vs. Vampires I really like Svankmajer most of the time but he literally opens this one up with a monologue about how he's a miserable old man now and art is dead, so this will be a miserable old man movie. Then it is. The stop-motion that uses meat is really creative and even more disgusting (massive apologies to Moomin Dreams, who has been a vegetarian for more than half her life and had to watch real severed cow tongues gently caress each other). Unfortunately, the live action is even grosser and takes up the vast majority of the movie. Then we have Vampires. The vampire hunters couldn't even pull off being badass, because they're so dumb. The opening sequence would have been so cool, had I not been thinking the whole time "you have basically military equipment and your plan is to harpoon vamps and drag them into the sun. They're in a rickety old farmhouse and it's noon. Just take all of your expensive equipment and knock it down, the sun will get em and it will be quicker and less dangerous." Also who on earth believes James Woods as a stone cold badass. Every time he opened his mouth and Hades came out I got pulled right out of it. I actually have the two the same score but I voted for Svankmajer. At least it's creative, and I'd rather see weird in the future.
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Feb 10, 2023 15:36
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Oh gently caress, its Friday again. My brain is mush. But I still have time to do writeups and you still have time to watch movies. This week's voting stays open another 46 hours or so and then new round on Superbowl Sunday. And I guess one good thing is everything going on has killed my big game plans so I guess I won't be rushing to do Bracketology on Sunday for the same reason I thought I would. But hey, maybe I'll even sneak a movie or two in before then. We'll see. You can vote in this round until 12 noon EST Feb 12th (or when I get to it)
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Feb 10, 2023 20:11
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Vampires (1998) A vampire hunter fights on after the loss of his team. Talk about bad timing. Releasing an edgy, violent modernized take on vampires two months after <i>Blade</i> hit theaters? Oof. It doesn't help that this was right towards the end of Carpenter's Hollywood efforts, coming right after the flop of <i>Escape from L.A.</i>, and that the film feels so constrained. We're told there's a cross-continental quest going on, but it feels like they're just motoring around in a fifty-mile patch of Texas or New Mexico. It also doesn't help that the vampire action is almost entirely front-loaded, before being swapped out for an under-baked adventure with low-charisma characters. Sheryl Lee is here, given few lines and looking like Jenna Elfman with her blown-out hairdo, as is James Woods, getting to stretch his acting chops by playing an rear end in a top hat with violent tendencies and a compulsion to call people slurs. And Daniel Baldwin rounds out our group of protagonists, getting to play the cool-headed one to Woods' irritable slayer. There's a priest with them, but he leaves even less of an impression than the main villain, who mainly skulks around in shadows while sporting long dark hair and a trenchcoat to match, only to go out in an astoundingly anticlimactic finale. The bones of a functional war against vampires story are here, but there's so many choices in the film working against it rising to excitement or escaping from formula. From the chain of events, to the dialogue, to the inertia and lack of agency for almost everyone but Woods' character, it's a real drag. On the upside, Carpenter's score incorporates some nice western music elements, and the brown, earth-scrubbed color palette works to the setting and general vibes. Maybe more of a budget could have salvaged this, but probably not. At least it came out better than <i>Ghosts of Mars</i>. Rating: 6/10 Lunacy (2005) A young man navigates a world of bizarre adversity. This basically reminded me of <i>Candide</i> by way of Peter Greenaway, if Candide had a more focused antagonist, rather than the world at large. Or maybe <i>Twelve Monkeys</i>, if Gilliam had decided to spend the majority of the film at the asylum. The most French piece of Czech cinema I've seen. And then there's the stop-motion inserts, which seem to be where most of the whimsy ended up quarantined. A lot to digest, though it's presented in largely unpalatable form. Rating: 8/10 Lunacy felt ambitious, if a bit... preachy? Vampires felt like Carpenter was tired of Hollywood and tired of the film-making process. And he was uninvolved with the script, which isn't a hard rule for his films being good (The Thing being a prime example), but it does add to the sense of him being checked out. Lunacy gets my vote.
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Feb 11, 2023 05:32
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The Blob (1958) An alien organism lands near a small town, which it begins to terrorize. I love the truly alien vibes of the blob, even though it's basically just an amoeba. Just wobbling and bobbling its way around rooms, until it gets big enough to engulf buildings. While the blob is a little too familiar to be an object of fear for me, it does a solid job of being a menace, and continuously so. Part of that is thanks to the way the script handles it, getting good mileage out of hints about its off-screen conquering progress through the town. I'm fond of how willing to support each other most of the characters are, and not just in a flat way, but in ways that show that they're listening to each other to make their decisions. And, for the most part, when someone is obstinate, they're eventually revealed to have a character-based reason for being that way. It's those little character moments (like the old man woken in the middle of the night by multiple sirens, who can't decide whether to wear his fireman or civil defense helmet) that add so much to the film's memorability. Plus the touch of having the monster attack a theater full of people watching a horror movie, but I'm always a sucker for that. I also appreciate how many things the characters try against the blob before accidentally hitting on the one valid means of attack... and the ending that's only become more sinister as the years have advanced. Let's hear it for the teen-agers! Rating: 8/10 The Orphanage (2007) A mother returns to her childhood orphanage, with plans to restore it to use, but strange things start to occur. The elephant in the room is that this is a Guillermo del Toro production; I've known a few people who thought he was the director, as well. It does evoke his characteristic wistful marriage of cruel reality with the open potential of fantasy, while drawing strongly from the influence of early Gothic horror. While the content of the story could easily tip over into overwrought schmaltz, there's a resolute heartfelt sincerity through the film, grounding the permeating sorrow and ache in an essential manner. On top of that, the script is tight, with little content that's unnecessary or going to waste. Hard to believe Hollywood thought this director was a fit for the bluster of a <i>Jurassic Park</i> sequel. Rating: 9/10 The Blob is groundbreaking for its time, and signals a shift in the attitudes of mainstream American media towards youths of a certain age range. The Orphanage, on the other hand, is a tears-inducing ghost story told intelligently and excellently. On emotional content alone, it would win the match, but it's also strong on all of its technical fronts, and the sheer visual impact is something the nearly-70-year-old competitor just can't handle. The Orphanage gets my vote.
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Feb 11, 2023 05:37
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What a week, no time to do anything! The Blob is quite cute, but it’s really too talky. Didn’t play the theme song in the end. Someone should remake it to meet its true potential. The Orphanage: is the Spanish speaking world just making the same movie over and over again and conning GDT into presenting it? Or is he in on the scam? More tired of these movies than zombie movies at this point.
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Feb 12, 2023 16:55
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 While Vampires has long had its criticism it would seem it still had enough of Carpenter’s skill to get him another win. This is the second round in a row he may have advanced due to a lucky draw but that’s the sort of luck Carpenter hasn’t had over the last three tournaments and which could help him get to the end. It always takes a little luck to win one of these things. Unfortunately for mbd’s Czech This Out Lunacy was a bad draw as while there’s a lot of fans of Jan Svankmajer here it would seem many felt this wasn’t his best film. It was close but Jan falls to 1-1 and we’ll have to wait till next year for the next Czech New Wave weirdness. But John Carpenter advances to the Sweet Sixteen for the second time in four years and 1st since 2021. He’s never made it any farther though and with this win he officially runs out of enough films to come back next year on his own. So he’ll have to wait until the summer to see if he can make this one last memorable run.  In what’s an upset on paper and a genuine surprise to me The Orphanage picks up the win over The Blob! It was a close one but this is a shock to me. I was a little skeptical the old 50s classics could hold up last round but with the success of Invasion of the Body Snatchers I looked past that with the Blob. And response seemed solid so I really never even gave this one a second though. But to my surprise JA Bayone’s sad ghost story pulls out the win over the Steve McQueen trailblazer. That’s a sad end for Serv’s Nifty Fifties but it sends GdT’s team back into the Sweet Sixteen for the third time in four tourneys after falling short last year. Ok its Super Bowl Sunday, I’m sick and tired, and headed back out to watch the game in a hospital. So lets get our movies up. 1. (Goat’s The Enemies of Horror) Brea Grant’s Best Friends Forever vs. 8. (Serv’s Universal Horror Classics) Karl Freund’s Mad Love  Until last round when Moorehead and Benson finally drew a film and won a round Brea Grant was the only member of the Enemies of Horror to get a win in Bracketology. And while she has no true connection to Moorhead and Benson and the core of this team I added her to the team in large part because her debut film Best Friends Forever felt so similar to me. So I suppose its appropriate that half of the reviews for this film are as dismissive and insulting as the ones that inspired the Enemies of Horror team name. Fitting the team vibe its a low budget character relationship film with writers and director starring while a horror/sci-fi movie happens off in the distance. Its definitely rough around the edges but its a film I enjoyed and was happy to put on this team so more people would see. Does it have a chance to win? Probably not. While Mad Love is one of the few Universal films I’m unfamiliar with its Peter Lorre led Universal remake of the Hands of Orlac with high reviews and ratings. And that sure seems like a recipe for the Enemies of Horror to go back to their losing ways and Universal Horror Classics to cruise into the Sweet Sixteen under the watchful eye of Servoret. Best Friends Forever is available for streaming on Roku, Kanopy, Plex, and Darkmatter. Mad Love is available for streaming on The Internet Archive 2. (Sam’s TaBOO!) Jörg Buttgereit’s Nekromantik vs. 7. (Basebf’s Tales From the Necronomicon) Stuart Gordon’s Dreams in the Witch House vs. 15. (twernt’s K-Horror not directed by Bong Joon-ho or Park Chan-wook) Yun Jae-yeon’s Yoga  Schramm and Rampant got the first tie in over a year in Bracketology a few weeks ago which means we get a bonus threeway to finish off this section of Kermit’s Kreepy Conference. For TaBOO! Jorg Buttgereit gets a second chance to try and get a win with his more… infamous film Nekromantik. A film I’m really not sure I’ll even be thinking about watching all things considered but I can’t tell if its gonna be the kind of trash that really scores points with voters or that really falls flat. For twernt’s K-Horror team we get a mixed bag as Yoga has under 500 views on Letterboxd and a pretty mixed spread of ratings. Generally I try and peruse the reviews to get a sense of what a film is without spoiling myself too much so I can do the same here but with some films like this the reviews are kind of a confusing mess of thoughts and reactions that leave me having no clue what to expect. More than one review compared it to Suspiria but most of those kind of compared it unfavorably so. Still, not being up to a classic isn’t necessarily a bad thing. And rounding out this matchup is Basebf’s Tales From the Neconomicon which was the only team to actually get a win last round with Cemetery Man and now its Stuart Gordon being called in to take this team into the Sweet Sixteen. Gordon is 5-3 overall in Bracketology but lost his last two matchups with a pari fo made for TV entries in Daughter of Darkness and the Fear Itself episode Eater. So it might be a bad sign that he’s drawing another made for TV entry with the Masters of Horror episode. Still Carpenter advanced in the first round with a Masters of Horror episode and Gordon doing Lovecraft tends to do well. Three ways are unpredictable and it feels like three very different vibes here and a tough one to call. Could Gordon and Lovecraft take this mixed back on the strength of their reps and built in stuff, can Jorg’s exploitative trash hit at full volume where it only drew a tie last round, or can Korean Horror pull out the under the radar win with the lesser known entry? Only one way to find out. Nekromantik is available for streaming on Night Flight Plus (edit:) and Shudder. Dreams in the Witch House is available for streaming on Roku, Vudu, Tubi, Screambox, Fandor, and Plex as Season 1, Episode 2 of Masters of Horror. Yoga is available for streaming on KoreaOnDemand and Tubi TV. That’s our week. Its also the end of Kermit’s Kreepy Conference for a bit. We’ll return to it for the Sweet Sixteen in the summer but for next week we’ll be moving on to Fozzie’s Freaky Conference and a new batch of directors and teams for the next 7 weeks. We have to find our last two Sweet Sixteen entries from Kermit’s first though and I gotta draw a whole bunch of new films and do spreadsheet updates. drat. I forgot all about that. As always the goal is to just have fun and watch what you want. We try and make sure every film is reasonably available, some are a little harder to find than others and not everyone has the right streaming services so if you need help ask and help might be right around the corner. You can vote in this round until 12 noon EST Feb 19th (or when I get to it) Next Week! Fozzie's 15 Seed: Acolytes of Corman vs. Team Back to the Drive-In vs. Charles Band Fozzie's 16 Seed: Freddy's Nightmares vs. Andy Milligan vs. Jean Rollins Spreadsheet Letterboxd List STAC Goat fucked around with this message at 22:05 on Feb 13, 2023 |
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Feb 12, 2023 18:05
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To make it clear for participants, Nekromantik features footage of a rabbit being killed and processed for fur n meat.
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Feb 12, 2023 18:16
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Note: I said Carpenter will face GdT's Cabinet of Curiosities in the Sweet Sixteen. That's not true. Carpenter will face the winner of Enemies of Horror/Universal Classics and GdT will face the three way winner. My bad. I staggered the seed matchups and blah blah blah. I'm tired. My bad. No harm done.
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Feb 12, 2023 18:23
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Aw, all my teams are dead due to bad draws, and I gotta watch Nekromantik. Oh well.
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Feb 12, 2023 18:48
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Cheer up. Its just one conference. We get a new Muppet and pool of teams next week. And in my experience that's a whole new chance to lose! 
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Feb 12, 2023 18:53
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Nekromantik’s on Shudder too as part of Joe Bob’s Vicious Vegas Valentine. You have to watch it with Joe Bob Briggs’s interstitials. I have no idea how people here feel about that, but for me it would make it go down easier at least.
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Feb 12, 2023 19:10
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Feb 12, 2023 23:19
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Holding out hope that Nekromantik and Yoga will split votes with each other and Dreams in the Witch House can eek out a victory. Dreams in the Witch House isn't that remarkable but it's decent, better I think than the Carpenter Masters of Horror episode we watched recently.
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Feb 13, 2023 16:35
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I remember dreams in the witch house as one of the worst masters of horror episodes
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Feb 13, 2023 17:15
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quiet you
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Feb 13, 2023 17:50
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Feb 13, 2023 17:53
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I remember liking Witch House. Like just weird and nightmarish. I keep confusing it in my head with the Mick Garris/Clive Barker episode Valerie on the Stairs. So guess I owe it a rewatch.
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Feb 13, 2023 18:48
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Yoga (2009) A woman whose career is dependent on her good looks finds it challenged by a younger woman, and turns to intensive training at a yoga clinic for a solution, where a number of other women with similar problems have gathered. An enjoyably creepy fable, picking through numerous angles on perceptions of beauty and aging. Really, the overt horror elements are some of the weakest parts of the film, as their execution often comes off as cheesy or clichéd, especially in the context of late-'00s Asian horror. The quieter, slower parts of the film, where the characters are free to simply discuss the challenges their aging has brought them, those portions feel much more effective in communicating the themes, and stronger in sustaining an atmosphere. There were parts of the plot that confused me (like the first film to utilize live audio recording on set not coming until 1978, and only one person in a group being able to unlock their kundalini), but these weren't big enough to disrupt the overall experience. Instead, the film's biggest failing (for my experience) was in the script foregoing detailed examination of the main characters' faults or lack of self-trust, and going for supernatural violence with minutely ironic twists instead. Instead of character studies, we get superficial impressions, leading to characters who might as well be called 'the hungry one,' 'the vain one,' 'the uptight one,' etc. Even the central protagonist largely remains a cipher, and while part of that could be chalked up to cultural distance, I don't think it's entirely due to that. It's a shame, because the film looks very good, with moody lighting and attentive texturing to the sets, and a consistently good use of sound. And it may be getting mad at the movie for what it's not, but the early part of it feels so fixated on presenting the characters as people with deep, defining flaws, that for it to just dismiss those points afterwards feels very strange. It may be a bit soon, but I'd like to see this get a remake that plays around with the focus. Rating: 6/10 Nekromantik (1988) A street-cleaner brings a corpse home to his girlfriend, upsetting the balance of their domestic sexual dynamic. Part of the notoriety of this film is due to the lo-fi look of it all, I would think. Even the film stock looks dirty (especially if you're watching a lower-quality copy), which makes the decay on display feel that much more authentic. The special effects deserve a big credit, too, with the fabricated corpse and its assorted oozes giving the film's central figure (despite its departure around the halfway mark) a believable presence. The low amount of dialogue pushes focus on the events, and though they're often seemingly pointless, in that stereotypical 'art film' way, the focus they receive makes it hard not to connect Buttgereit's blunt themes to them. The blurring during the love scene is simple, but effective in communicating the overwhelming sensations the participants are feeling, and the dream scene towards the end is suitably abstract while still obviously drawing from the same well as the rest of the film. The piano piece really pulls the whole film together, though. Rating: 7/10 Dreams in the Witch House (2005) (review from 2018) Expectations were low for this (a post-'80s Stuart Gordon Lovecraft adaptation without Combs or Crampton?), but it did the limbo right under them anyway. Took one of Lovecraft's more cosmic stories and stripped all of that right out to get it down to TV budget, hosed around with the chronology of the elements kept from the original climax, inserted a fistfight with a witch as a replacement climax, and had the protagonist being suspected of infanticide instead of having his geometrical lucidity disintegrate. Ezra Gooden did a fair job in the main role, and the lighting, sound, and other standard technical fronts were decent, but trying to update the setting to a semi-modern version brought more problems than benefits, especially with Gilman having a computer only when the scripting thought about it for a scene. Gordon's need to stick in some nudity was painfully at odds with the tone of the story, the effects for the familiar were embarrassingly bad, and there were moments when the cheapness of production would really show through. In the context of the chopped-down script, though, they got from start to finish with general clarity. Still a let-down all around, though. Rating: 5/10 Surprising myself with a vote for Nekromantik. I wasn't impressed by Schramm, so for Buttgereit to outperform two other films... not what I was expecting. Yoga started out interesting, but just kept losing steam, until the very underwhelming ending. Dreams in the Witch House is the second-worst thing I've seen from Stuart Gordon, so I knew it wouldn't be getting my vote. I am going to be rewatching it this week, though, so if my taste for it has changed dramatically in the last five years, I might switch my vote. Slim chance of that.
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Feb 14, 2023 02:05
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So you can watch Nekromantik on Shudder without Joe Bob after all, which is good because his stuff is almost as long as the runtime of the movie. Yoga was a disappointment. The plot is a mess and it didn’t provide good enough scares to overlook that. And Dreams in the Witch House I saw years ago and didn’t like at all. So Nekromantik is the surprise winner for me. I don’t really like Jörg Buttgereit’s films, but at least he’s got an ethos. Best Friends Forever isn’t terrible, but it ain’t great. I’d vote for Mad Love even if it wasn’t on my own team.
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Feb 14, 2023 05:27
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Servoret posted:So you can watch Nekromantik on Shudder without Joe Bob after all, which is good because his stuff is almost as long as the runtime of the movie. Unless I’m mistaken, every film featured on his show is uploaded on its own to Shudder at least for a time.
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Feb 14, 2023 14:00
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Mad Love (1935) In this version of The Hands of Orlac, the base story of a pianist having his severed hands replaced with those of a criminal is retained, but spiced up with the addition of Peter Lorre's inimitable presence and some unrequited attraction plot-lines. Lorre is, of course, the big point of interest in this adaptation, and he acquits himself wonderfully. His performance virtually boils beneath the surface with intensity, and while most of his emotional resonance is negative, he remains a sympathetic figure, even at his worst moments. The surreal and expressionist imagery doesn't quite rise to the level of the 1924 version, but the more developed emphasis on the relationships make this an interesting alternative. It's a shame to lose the hallucinatory horror, and the strength of that near-singular narrative focus, but, as long as Lorre is to your taste, it's a close trade. It's just a shame that the rest of the leads aren't up to his level, and that the end is such an anti-climax. Rating: 7/10 Best Friends Forever (2013) Two friends who seem to have trouble tolerating each other go on a road trip as the apocalypse arrives. Kind of reminded me of Monsters (2010), in that it focused on the interpersonal drama of two people set against the backdrop of a much larger and more interesting event. And, like Monsters, it just wasn't that engaging to me. At least there's the apocalyptic environment to excuse some of the character choices made, though the protagonist's reaction to finding out about it is weirdly subdued. Sure, nobody can say for sure how they would react in that event, but to just quietly internalize it and keep moving without any sort of immediate freakout seems incredibly unlikely. The bigger sticking point of disbelief suspension for me was something else, though: who goes on a road trip without bringing their own music? Those complaints aside, I do like the premise. Maybe it would have landed better with me if I had a better sense of who the main characters were before things went sour for them. I also can't shake the feeling that this would have worked better as a comic book, amusingly enough. A medium where it could take more of its time with things. Thinking back, that might be my biggest fault with the script; it tries to cover both small events and sprawling, no end in sight events simultaneously, and ends up with a sort of middle distance focus that doesn't serve either one as fully as it could have. And maybe I just kept subconsciously comparing it to Night of the Comet, which takes the same basic premise, but does it with so much more life, excitement, and possibilities, and less white college student coffee-gazing. Mad Love takes my vote, but I feel like Best Friends Forever will hang in my memory longer. Maybe. But if it does, it'll be from me turning it over in my mind, trying to find ways they could have made it more interesting. Mad Love felt complete in a way that Best Friends Forever didn't.
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Feb 15, 2023 19:40
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