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I love remembering how dope the intro to masters of horror was whenever these ones come up
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Feb 15, 2023 22:24
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poo poo, time flies, I still need to watch Mad Love and rewatch Nekromantik. Mad Love Update: I love that they printed the credits on a pane of glass and had a dude punch it. Fun touches like that in the credits are always appreciated. Basebf555 fucked around with this message at 16:19 on Feb 17, 2023 |
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Feb 17, 2023 15:10
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I'm going mad love and can't decide on the other
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Feb 17, 2023 17:06
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Yep, time flies. Its Friday. Whether you have two films to watch like some or 5 plus writeups for 6 movies next week like some OTHER people you've still got some time. Roughly 46 1/2 hours? Then that's the end of the Kermit's Kreepy Conference until the summer and we move into Fozzie's Freaky Conference. So I gotta find a bear image too... drat it... You can vote in this round until 12 noon EST Feb 19th (or when I get to it)
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Feb 17, 2023 19:38
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STAC Goat posted:So I gotta find a bear image too... drat it...  
Class3KillStorm fucked around with this message at 20:24 on Feb 17, 2023 |
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Feb 17, 2023 20:18
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I snuck most of the movies in. Mad Love was fun enough and its flaws were mostly of the type from that era where its clear they're still learning filmmaking so there's awkward cuts and extended shots and stuff. Peter Lorre's fun though and its got a strong finish. I like Best Friends Forever. Obviously. I put it on my team. I dig the whole vibe of people working through their troubles as poo poo hits the fan. I think the two lead actresss/writers/directors do a great job. I do grant that the film is obviously limited in its indie budget and can never really go full on apocalypse or anything. The comic book illustrations clearly show a film they probably would have liked to make if they could. Still I liked it and the ending didn't whimper quite as much as I remembered. So I dunno, I might be the only vote for it but I think BFF pulls it out for me. I just really did enjoy it more, but I'm not gonna be mad when Mad Love wins. Its a solid film. I watched Yoga Class too and I dunno. Its alright. Spooky and well acted and good scenes and effects I thing but it definitely kind of drags. I don't think they do a good enough job establishing the supporting characters and it just doesn't feel like there's a super linking glue there. It feels longer than it is. I didn't hate it or anything and I'm not quite sure I was bored. But I wasn't into it either. I'm probably gonna rewatch Dreams in the Witch House tonight but I'm leaning that way. I'm probably not gonna watch Nekromantik. Just don't see a lot of upside there especially considering my general state. Maybe I'll abstain to be fair but I dunno. I have a soft spot for Masters of Horror and am more positive on that one than most and its the closest Mick Garris will get to a win anytime soon.
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Feb 19, 2023 04:57
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For me, it's down to Yoga Class vs. Dreams in the Witch House on that matchup, as Necromantik isn't even in the picture. I did like Yoga Class but it left merely, to borrow Darthemed's phrase, superficial impressions. It was like watching a movie with the sound off or the subtitles missing. I kind of understood everything but also it seemed like the detail and texture were not there. As for Dreams in the Witch House, yes, Stuart Gordon has done better, and yes, it's not a very 'faithful' adaptation in that it doesn't quite feel like Lovecraft. But taken on its own merits, it's still pretty good. I enjoyed it throughout; it is decently creepy and the ending isn't great but it was fun. I think I'm leaning Gordon here because basing solely on these samples, I think I'd trust him more to produce something of better quality. I think I wanted to like Yoga Class more than I actually did.
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Feb 19, 2023 08:36
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I'll be voting Nekromantik, and not because it's my own team. It's gross and grimy but it has an identity, and I didn't find that in either of the others. The only good parts of Witch House were the rat man (and he was really good) and the overly-sensitive librarian but the rest was so bland. Same with Yoga, I just found nothing to pay attention to.
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Feb 19, 2023 09:47
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Oh no, only managed to watch 3 movies! Yoga wastes an interesting premise on a generic plot that I’d call a fairy-tale style morality tale if there was any moral to be gleaned from it. But like, you took a shower when you were told not to, now die? It’s competent enough on the technical side, but overall doesn’t it for me. Dreams in the Witch House was pretty fun! Highlights were, as pointed out before, the rat man and the librarian. Nothing about it is really impressive or outstanding but it’s goofy and funny and short enough to never wear out its welcome. As far as adaptations go it’s miles above the terrible GdT anthology one (although that also had a wicked rat man. Make a rat man movie already!). Nice! Nekromantik I expected to absolutely hate or at best see no value in it at all, like Schramm. Instead I got a quite funny gross out comedy juxtaposed with what I’d almost call artistically justified animal death. I can’t indict an entire movie for filming the routine act of butchering an animal for meat and fur (the morality of that in itself is of course debatable). I think the movie would genuinely be lessened without the bunny scenes, especially in the end – the absolutely ridiculous blood cum sepukku interlaced with the bunny being made whole again (sadly just for the film), that made me feel something! Plus overall, you can feel the absolute joy of making a gross film throughout its runtime, so overall it comes off as far less bad-filthy as movies like Henry. I’d recommend this to some people. Voting Necromantik cause I keep thinking about it.
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Feb 19, 2023 18:03
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First off, thanks to all the kind words and thoughts the last couple of weeks. Things have gotten better and the crisis seems to have passed. Fingers crossed and knock on wood. But I’m definitely feeling more myself and less a complete mess. So I’ll try and do a little better here. Although this one kind of had to get rushed together quickly so maybe I’ll do better next week. But hey, enough about me. Lets see who our winners are!  Its a dominant win for Freund and Mad Love, to no real surprise. Brea Grant’s Best Friends Forever didn’t get shutout at least and my Enemies of Horror did make it to the second round for the first time. But that’s it for them this year and Brea falls to 1-1 in Bracketology. But Serv’s Universal Horror Classics moves into the Sweet Sixteen and a marquee matchup against John Carpenter. Should be a fun one. Meanwhile Stuart Gordon manages to pull out a true majority of the votes in a threeway and Dreams in the Witch House gets the clean win over Nekromantik and Yoga Class. That makes Jorg Buttgereit the first of his kind with an 0-1-1 record and bounces Sam’s TaBOO from the tourney having only shared Jorg’s german flavor with us in two rounds. twernt’s K-Horror With A Long Name fought through three rounds and two threeways resulting in 5 opponents but their struggle comes to an end here. But Gordon picks up his 6th Bracketology win tying him for 3rd all time with Tobe Hooper and George Romero. And it sends Basebf’s Tales from The Necronomicom into the Sweet Sixteen to a very thematically appropriate matchup with GdT’s Cabinet of Curiosities. Not bad. So after 7 weeks. 20 nominees, and 34 films Kermit’s Kreepy Conference is now down to 4 names - John Carpenter, Tales from the Neconomicom, Universal Horror Classics, and Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities. A pretty drat impressive field but we’ll have to wait until the summer to see what they have in store for us next. Now its time to see what Fozzie’s Freaky Conference deals us. Fozzie's 15 Seed: (Weapon X’s Acolytes of Corman) Curtis Hanson, Mardi Rustam, Larry Spiegel and Peter S. Traynor’s Evil Town vs. (Darth’s Team Back to the Drive-In) Vic Savage’s The Creeping Terror vs. Charles Band’s Unlucky Charms  Well Fozzie’s first round of movies are coming up and in proper form its a questionable routine of jokes. Maybe I’m being harsh? I dunno. It took four directors 3 years and multiple films to cut together Evil Town into whatever it is. A hodgepodge of footage from what it sounds like. Still that’s nothing compared to Creeping Terror. A cliff notes summary is its almost entirely without dialogue because the director didn’t know how to record sound properly, has a makeshift monster because the original one was stolen by the special effects guy after not getting paid, and the Savage eventually went on the run from the law before finishing the film and was never heard from again. If it sounds like a documentary of this film might be more interesting than the film itself, good news. There’s one of those and its got better ratings. And then there’s Charles Band with a horny Leprechaun/Ghoulies knockoff? Honestly it feels like that might be the favorite in this and Band might have drawn a nice little mix to get into the tournament. But maybe I’m giving that one too much credit just because its a single director and production? This one is a real grab bag of stuff but hey, sometime that happens here with Bracketology. There’s a reason none of these guys got into the Field of 64 straight away, I guess. Evil Town is out there and available upon request. The Creeping Terror is out there and available upon request. Unlucky Charms is available for streaming on Freevee, Roku, and Tubi. Fozzie's 16 Seed: (Weapon X’s Freddy's Nightmares) Stephen Hopkins’s Dangerous Game vs. Andy Milligan’s Blood vs Jean Rollins’ The Grapes of Death  This one feels like a stronger field? Its a couple of bigger names although there’s a lot of exploitation amongst the lot of them. Still its three directors you’ve probably heard of and all three films have some kind of solid set of reviews and apparent appeal. Hopkins is making his Bracketology debut but the other two have 1 loss under their belt. So someone’s gonna break in this time. It also somehow sounds like Jean Rollin made the LEAST exploitative film of this bunch? And Dangerous Game has been called a “non slasher slasher”? I’m kind of half asking this one and I’m sorry for that. Its been a tough few weeks and all and I’m kind of throwing this together last minute and don’t know what to think about these films. But it does sound like a matchup that might really surprise and possibly come away with some heated competition of films people like. Maybe not me but people. I guess we’ll see. Dangerous Games is out there and available upon request. Blood is available for streaming on Tubi. The Grapes of Death is available for streaming on Arrow, Hoopla, and Kanopy. That’s our week. Its another 6 week haul and some of these are questionable, but they’re all kind of unique and notable I guess. Bracketology does that sometimes and these are the Play In seeds. But you know what, ignore me. Its just been a tough couple of weeks. And I’m really looking forward to next week’s Puppet Week. But I don’t wanna shortchange anyone and I promise I’m gonna try and get back fully into the swing of things this week. I hope everyone else has a good time too of course. 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 26th (or when I get to it) Next Week! 5. The Magical Muppet Wizardry of Jim Henson and Friends vs. 12. Ishiro Honda 4. 80s Ladies vs. 13. Chucky and His Pals Spreadsheet Letterboxd List STAC Goat fucked around with this message at 19:28 on Feb 19, 2023 |
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Feb 19, 2023 18:09
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That's a wild bunch of obscure movies lol
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Feb 19, 2023 18:15
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Oh wow I can't believe my team won. Genuinely surprised there.
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Feb 19, 2023 18:40
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If anyone cares Cumulative Directors and Movies are now updated on the spreadsheet. Will work on season stats through the week and try to tackle the Cumulative Team mess. Also some of those other tweaks that were asked for like the opponents and sponsors.
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Feb 19, 2023 19:30
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I knew that Jorg was a longshot and I appreciate that he made it this far.
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Feb 20, 2023 04:39
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The Creeping Terror is endearingly incompetent and The Grapes of Death is Jean Rollin, so they get my vote. I have no feel for what actually stands a chance of winning this week.
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Feb 20, 2023 17:31
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Evil Town is a disaster, but so is Creeping Terror... guess I'll have to check out Unlucky Charms, but that's a tough choice. Grapes of Death is awesome, I can see it waltzing past the other two pretty easily.
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Feb 21, 2023 15:51
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Evil Town is so bad lol, it's also a real example of two movies being edited into one with some minor reshoots to bridge them lol
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Feb 21, 2023 17:20
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Unlucky Charms is insanely trashy lol
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Feb 21, 2023 19:43
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It is however a competent whole movie which seems like it might give it an edge over its competitors. I mean I can't see me voting for it. Its straight trash. But it doesn't sound like i'm gonna vote for those other ones either. And gun to my head at least Unlucky Charms is... finished?
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Feb 21, 2023 19:47
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I suppose you could look at it either way though. Like, if it's a finished product and it's bad, maybe that's worse? Like, they completed the movie and you're watching it as it was intended to be and it's bad. As opposed to something that clearly wasn't finished where maybe you can sort of use your imagination to fill in the cracks of what could've been something good.
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Feb 21, 2023 19:50
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A full and complete film, directed by someone with decades of experience in the industry, with his own studio and nobody telling him what he can or can't include in the film... and Unlucky Charms is the end product.
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Feb 21, 2023 20:25
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Well I haven't seen Creeping Terror or Evil Town yet so I can't fairly say. I'm only going based off of what I've read. So we'll see. But I dunno. Unlucky Charms is a bad movie. But to me it at least felt like a movie. The acting was at least at porn levels. There's a coherent script and story. Someone spent at least half an hour on wikipedia looking up Irish folklore while writing the script. The effects are... there. Its not too long. I dunno. I guess I was expecting 1313 Cougar Cult or Corona Zombies and it wasn't that. It was just a bad movie. If the other two are incomplete production disasters as they sound like they are then I doubt I can enjoy that or justify voting for it. Everyone is gonna be different and obviously I have different tastes than many here especially when it comes to like clear, coherent story vs experimental, messy imagination fodder. But I mean, as I said I really can't see myself voting for Unlucky Charms either. Its not in any way good. Its just not as bad as I expected it to be.
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Feb 21, 2023 20:30
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I gave evil town and unlucky charms the same rating, but I own evil town on bluray soooooo
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Feb 21, 2023 20:46
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Fozzie's 16 Seed: (Weapon X’s Freddy's Nightmares) Stephen Hopkins’s Dangerous Game vs. Andy Milligan’s Blood vs Jean Rollins’ The Grapes of Death For me this is really Dangerous Game vs. The Grapes of Death. I didn't think any of these were good, with Blood definitely on lower tier than the other two. I may be the only one who votes for Dangerous Game, but I'll take a movie I'm likely to forget over one that I'd like to forget. The Grapes of Death is still the only Jean Rollin I've seen and it doesn't make me want to see any of his other stuff.
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Feb 21, 2023 22:04
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I watched Grapes of Death last night and it was the rare film that bored me so completely that I was restless the whole time, moved to exercise, and had to eventually just take an intermission. Like if you’re into that Rollin/70s euro thing of weird stilted dialogue and story, some vaguely relevant gore, and women being treated as nothing but an excuse to strip them naked and assault them as you give long glaring shots of their breasts then it might be your thing.
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Feb 21, 2023 22:32
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STAC Goat posted:women being treated as nothing but an excuse to strip them naked and assault them as you give long glaring shots of their breasts then it might be your thing. Nah, whatever Rollin is doing with his female characters in his films is more interesting than that. They’re his dream logic avatars or something; I’m not an expert so I can’t really explain it. Grapes of Death is hardly his best work either.
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Feb 21, 2023 23:44
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Dangerous Game wasn't good but it gave the bad guy way more of an arc than I expected from a movie like this. He's a psycho cop in a teen slasher, but rather than going straight to multiple homicides his attempt at CPR after stabbing the kid was unexpectedly nuanced. If the opposition is as bad as it has been implied here I might very well vote for Dangerous Game on that scene alone.
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Feb 22, 2023 02:58
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"Bachelor buddies for life" might be one of my favorite new phrases
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Feb 22, 2023 19:23
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Lol creeping terror was real bad! So I'll probably coinflip on evil town vs unlucky charms. Bleh
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Feb 22, 2023 20:17
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Dangerous game ain't great but it's a decently entertaining slice of Aussie horror
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Feb 22, 2023 21:53
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All good Basebf555 fucked around with this message at 19:21 on Feb 23, 2023 |
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Feb 23, 2023 16:28
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"If you wanted to you could take the rays of the sun and turn them into a liquid... if you loved me" is quite the expectation. Blood shaping up to be more interesting than expected.
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Feb 23, 2023 17:41
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I liked Dangerous Game a lot actually. The acting was surprisingly good and one of the big advantages of this kind of simple one location scenario is you get a real sense of place. The department store had a ton of atmosphere with the way it was shot. Also like Samfucius said the killer is pretty drat unique and just a very interesting layered character for what reads as a basic slasher villain if you read the blurb for the movie. Because of that, everything that happens has a bit more drama to it, you don't know how he's going to act or what he's going to do in a given situation. Maybe not as scary as a traditional Jason/Michael slasher where you know they're coming after you for one reason, but the uncertainty makes him compelling in a different way than most of the slashers we're accustomed to. Basebf555 fucked around with this message at 21:47 on Feb 23, 2023 |
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Feb 23, 2023 21:34
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The killer in dangerous game was the stand out for me, and the hairstyles
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Feb 23, 2023 21:38
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Did a bunch of Creeping Terror go missing during production or something? I'm trying to explain why the narrator randomly pops in and describes what the characters are saying to each other, rather than let us hear it. Also, the low-res version Moomin Dreams was able to find gave the monster more than a passing resemblance to Lisa Simpson in her Florida costume.
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Feb 23, 2023 23:09
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Samfucius posted:Did a bunch of Creeping Terror go missing during production or something? I'm trying to explain why the narrator randomly pops in and describes what the characters are saying to each other, rather than let us hear it. I'm gonna watch the doc about the making of the film with the film but from what I gathered from Wikipedia: 1) The director didn't pay people on set so a lot of them bolted, including the effects guy who stole the original monster so they had to rush one together. 2) The director hosed up the sound recording and it was largely unusable which is why there's a bunch of voiceovers. 3) The director was sued and faced indictment for fraud before finishing it and went into hiding and was "never heard from again". 4) The financer hired someone to finish it to try and make back some of his losses but because of missing footage and sound and a general lack of clear narration they had trouble making sense of it. I have the doc as well as the movie if anyone wants it. I intend to watch that tomorrow night if I can get Blood and Dangerous Game in tonight.
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Feb 24, 2023 00:17
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That doc sounds rad, but I'm in greater need of Unlucky Charms. We can't find it anywhere.
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Feb 24, 2023 03:27
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Also, the overly expository narration really makes the whole thing feel like one of those PSAs they used to run before films, which ends up working in Creeping Terror's favor. It's a dead boring film, but the tone mismatch gives it a spark of life. I think it would make for a cool horror short to have a scary story told through the medium of PSAs. It would be difficult avoid making it trite in the wrong way, though.
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Feb 24, 2023 03:32
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Well I can’t help but feel responsible for this strange lineup of films! It’s ironic since my Acolytes of Corman group is rather populist, Aliens, Terminator, Dracula...and we land on Evil Town. Hanson has a powerful filmography outside of horror and is another important part of Corman’s legacy, but this film isn’t exactly his shining accomplishment. And with Band, much like schlock kings DeCoteau or Kaufman, the odds are you will land on their very numerous later, embarrassing, films. Creeping Terror is one of the most fascinating watches on a pure technical disaster level, just absolute bottom of the barrel and there is entertainment value there in my opinion. But I will vote Evil Town, it’s a mess but it’s competition here is uh, not strong. My Freddy’s Nightmares team came from me trying to get every remaining Freddy film in the tournament. Jack Sholder and Renny Harlin has enough films to be nominated individually and I combined Hopkins and Talalay. I was surprised the team made it, maybe it’s a lot of Predator 2 love out there! And I adore Andy Milligan, as much as you can adore someone so personally and professionally unpleasant. I like seeing Milligan do gothic although I like his utterly sleazy contemporary NYC stuff more. I’m going to give the edge to Dangerous Games. It’s a solid slasher with a good concept. WeaponX fucked around with this message at 15:55 on Feb 24, 2023 |
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Feb 24, 2023 15:41
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| # ? Jun 6, 2024 23:49 |
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Unlike last week when we ran out of time, we actually watched all six. Unlucky Charms was tone deaf and awful. It had an entire plot predicated on this idea that the world was better when it was kinder and gentler, but the same writers are beyond excited to put misogynistic poo poo in their script. Not to prove a point, the kind of stuff that men who don't know any women think they say to each other. The Grapes of Death was, dare I say it, good. It had a real vision, real drive, a cameraman who knew and loved light, shadow, and angles, and some real unnerving stuff with the stoic zombies. It's not a hidden masterpiece but still a genuine little bit of cinema. I'm voting for Evil Town (for no reason at all) and Grapes of Death. I also liked Dangerous Game.
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Feb 24, 2023 16:28
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