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Samfucius posted: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 16:34
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Its Friday! I completely forgot. Its some tough choices this week, although maybe not for the good reasons. Its also been more movies than usual and not the easiest watches so you probably haven't gotten to all of them yet. I mean I've tried and watched 4 movies for the first time in like a month and I still got 2 to go. But there's time. Roughly 44 1/2 hours? Something like that? Technically enough time for me to watch two films and do writeups. We'll see. And you got your time before I have to get next week's movies together. And remember. Its Puppet Week! 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
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Feb 24, 2023 21:12
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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 I thought that Evil Town was somewhat less crappy than the others in this matchup so it gets my vote. It's a Weapon X sweep!
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Feb 25, 2023 02:26
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Due to traveling, I won’t be able to watch all this week’s movies, so I’ll have to go with my gut on voting. What a shame, one line-up where Eegah could imaginably have won.
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Feb 25, 2023 02:45
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i did it! I watched all 6! Evil Town is bad. The best thing I can say about it is that you can't totally tell its a piecemeal film so they did a decent job piecing the parts together. That being said its probably that way because there's no real meaty narrative to it and its basically just a bunch of stuff happening in parallel with each other. Like if you didn't know the movie's background you might just chalk it up to a bad, listless movie. But you can kind of see how this is a bunch of stuff thrown together. And its great that on the last round of additions the best they could come up for was a bunch of scumbags raping a bunch of women who just get naked and say sexual stuff in some of the most casually gross handling of women I've seen in a film in awhile. Unlucky Charms isn't that much better although it is at least one coherent narrative and movie. It was actually better than I expected but that was probably a low bar of production hell movies it was up against and my own brain's association with 1313 Cougar Cult from earlier in the tournament. It was more of a film than that. The acting was even at like porn level. But its bad on most levels and is pretty gross towards women in its own right. And also kind of homophobic. But hey, someone spent 30 minutes reading Wikipedia on irish folklore and that's honestly more effort than I expected. The Creeping Terror is weird and bad and there's apparently a lot of reasons for that that all come back to Vic Savage being a scumbag. I haven't gotten to that doc but I intend to watch it tomorrow while working on writeups. What we do get from his movie seems like a fairly standard sci fi of the time and I do have a soft spot for them. The monster is bad but almost charmingly so. I might have puppets on the brain but it kind of reminded me of Mr. Snuffleupagus. The voiceover is terrible. I guess I don't know what else they could have done there. I mean they COULD have dubbed stuff but I guess this was quick and dirty after the mess of production. But its a real choice to make the narrator have to interpret the psychological state of the characters. It almost became interesting to just see how they felt like they could convey all the story and character work in narration. Not good. But mildly interesting? So I might be voting for Creeping Terror? Its not totally fair because I was doing writeups during it so I wasn't asking to give my attention fully. But I dunno. At least its not misogynistic. On the other side of things I'll keep it simple. I don't like Jean Rollin or 70s Euro stuff. I don't like that mood people like. It just comes off like bad acting and directing to me. I find Rollin gross. And I was just plain bored. Its basically The Crazies with a bunch of boobs and sexual assault and the Crazies wasn't that great. Blood also sucked. It just came off like a bad Dark Shadows/Munsters knockoff to me. There's an interesting idea in there for sure but Milligan seems to think its more clever than it is and is coy about it instead of running with it. And the whole thing's just poorly made, written, and acted. Also for no reason at all there's an incest scene. Milligan seems gross too. Which takes us to Dangerous Game which I thought was fine? Not at all what I was expecting from a slasher or "ozploitation." I never expected this would be the film in this matchup that didn't skeeze me out or get the word "gross" used for it. I don't think its anything great and I found some of the elements cheesy. But I appreciate the attention spent to the characters including the killer, the aspect of the killer being just a disturbed dude who goes too far and snaps, and the juxtaposition of the kids who are doing stupid poo poo that goes too far and gets them into this mess. Its a little more clever than I expected. Not great or overly memorable. But definitely more than I expected. So i think that's an easy vote for Dangerous Game for me. Probably the only film of the week I actually sorta enjoyed.
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Feb 25, 2023 10:05
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Whoops. Sorry I'm late. Someone slept in on a lazy Sunday.  Evil Town picks up the win in this… provocative matchup? A win’s a win, I guess. Even if some of the votes self professed as not even knowing why they were voting for it the weird blend of movies and rapey stuff from nearly half a dozen directors pulls out the win and advances Acolytes of Corman’s into the Field of 64. I guess there’s actually something really appropriate of a Corman inspired team advancing in such a slipshod D sort of way. But you can’t argue with a win and Evil Town picks it upin the three way fashion by getting just enough votes to beat out the others. That sends Darth’s Drive In team back to obscurity until the season rolls around again next year and hands Charles Band his second loss in two goes. Maybe next year he can go for the 0-3 Club. But that’s it for him this year. But Weapon X’s Corman inspired team advances to a matchup in a few weeks with Servoret’s Classic One Offs.  Jean Rollin pretty much dominates this thing. Which I guess is no real surprise but as a Rollin hater is a bit disappointing. But that’s democracy. Dangerous Game had its support and gathered a respectable number of votes but still gets doubled up in the votes and sends Weapon X’s Freddy’s Nightmares back to dreamland. And Andy Milligan… well not a great first outing for him as he garners 0 votes. Rough break but that’s how it goes sometimes. He’ll have to try and make a second run next year. But for Rollin its his first Bracketology win and after missing the tourney last year and competing in the HalloweeNIT advances officially into this year’s tourney for a matchup with with the ’22 HalloweeNIT winner Darth’s Sumptuously Stupid. Ok folks… its the week you’ve all been waiting for. Well its the week I’ve been waiting for. Its Puppet Week! 5. (Goat’s The Magical Muppet Wizardry of Jim Henson and Friends) Walter Murch’s Return to Oz vs. 12. Ishiro Honda’s Space Amoeba  My puppet team is back! And while last year it went down in one go with the not great puppet slasher Head that inspired the team this year its a little stronger and could maybe make a run. If you question this movie’s place on my Henson team I’d point out something you might not have ever realized even if you’ve seen and loved this film. Jack Pumpkinhead is played by Brian Henson. Mind blown? Well that’s just a fraction of what the average 80s viewer probably felt the first time they saw this sequel to Wizard of Oz and had a lifetime of nightmares to follow. I stand strongly by the fact that this is heavily horror and its even got Fairuza Balk and what’s probably the inspiration for Nightmare Before Christmas. Still is it gonna be enough to win or is this all just childhood blurry memories imagining something more than is actually there? Its opponent is of course no slouch in the legendary Ishiro Honda who makes his 7th appearance in Bracketology raising him into the Top 10 all time. This one’s not one of those classic Godzilla or big name kauji films, nor is it one of those wackier followups so many grew up loving. But while Space Amoeba (or Yog: Monster From Space) is maybe a lesser known entry for Honda its one that seems really well liked on Letterboxd in reviews. Now maybe that’s just a result of big fans seeking out deep cuts Honda was good at what he did and a legend for a reason. On the flip side Honda’s on a three movie losing streak and hasn’t advanced past the first round since the “no cherry picking” rule came into place. Still I think at any level its a tough fight whether or not my puppet memories of the creepiness of Oz live up to expectations here or not. Its a pretty interesting matchup and pretty similarly themed while completely different from each other. Should be fun to see how people react and who comes out on top. Sequel Alert: Return to Oz is of course a sequel to the seminal classic Wizard of Oz. But you’ve seen that, right? Like everyone’s seen Wizard of Oz, right? Or read the book? Or seen a cartoon? Or one of the like 50 adaptions that exists? Or just observed the thousand of references in the zeitgeist? Or something? Like you know who Dorothy is, right? You’ve heard “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” right? Or am I just older than I realize? Regardless its an unofficial sequel so you probably don’t HAVE to see the original film. Its not like a direct continuation although there are carry over elements and references. There’s actually like a dozen Oz books and this is mostly taken from one of the ones Dorothy’s not in but the movie puts her in. Its kid fantasy stuff so its not like you’re missing core canon. But its Wizard of Oz so like… maybe watch that if you haven’t? I dunno. Its your life. Return to Oz is available for streaming on Disney+. Space Amoeba is available for streaming on the Criterion Channel and the Internet Archive in the original Japanese with English subtitles and dubbed into English. 4. (deety’s 80s Ladies) Carol Frank’s Sorority House Massacre vs. 13. (Class3KillStorm’s Chucky and His Pals) Don Mancini’s Curse of Chucky  80s Ladies vs Chucky is a pretty familiar pairing that tends to work out well. But this is of course a competition so its gotta work out better for one of them. Sorority House Massacre is a tough one to figure out as someone who’s never seen any of these “Massacre” films. At first glance I’ve always assumed they were your typical trashy 80s slashers and many of the reviews aren’t favorable to it making it sound derivative and forgettable. But there’s a whole other spin on these films when you see they were made by women. There’s a lot of people who seem to think these are pretty impressive under the radar feminist movies from a time where… well lets be real. 80s horror is not kind to women. So a reevaluated trailblazer or a generic knockoff? I don’t know. Curse of Chucky has a bit of a similar issue though. For some its considered a pretty great reinvention of the franchise and throwback to the original film’s straight faced seriousness. Others seem to think its a pretty big miss to squeeze Chucky into a gothic haunted house film. So this one could go either way with each viewer. Don Mancini is actually making his Bracketology debut, which surprised me at first but probably shouldn’t since he only made some Chucky sequels. But he’s a good guy to kick this team off since he IS the brains and vision behind Chucky. And the Massacre Franchise seems to be at the core of the 80s Ladies team so it seems like a representative draw. And its a fun thematic matchup for sure. An 80s slasher might be a nice respite from a puppet heavy week but Chucky is right on theme. But one of them has to win this and move on to the next round. Sequel Alert: Curse of Chucky is the 6th Chucky movie after Child’s Play, Child’s Play 2, Child’s Play 3, Bride of Chucky, and Seed of Chucky. And despite what you may thing if you haven’t seen them and judge it by most horror franchises of this nature there actually is a TON of continuity from movie to movie. Its what makes the Chucky stuff so unique since Don Mancini has been behind them from the beginning and with every entry including the current tv series. That being said Curse of Chucky is in many was a bit of a reboot so its pretty accessible even if you know nothing else about Chucky. There will be stuff that might confuse you and you won’t get but 95% of the movie is stuff you’re gonna get and will be pretty self contained. So you can go either way here really. If you’re somehow completely ignorant of Chucky it might be worth checking out the original Child’s Play just to get the basic intro and idea down and take this as a sequel to that. If you really feel like binging them all I’d say that’s a good fun time you probably won’t regret if you’ve got the time. But your call. Sorority House Massacre is available for streaming on AMC+, Arrow, DirectTV, Plex, Redbox, Shudder, and Tubi. Curse of Chucky is available for streaming on SyFy. That’s our week. PUPPET WEEK! 3 out fo 4, if you count Honda. I’m sure there’s a puppet in there somewhere with all those tentacles. And I didn’t do this intentionally. The RNG made it happen. But man do I welcome it after a rough few weeks. I’m excited, and I hope everyone else is too. And hey, if its not your thing there’s always next week. And an 80s slasher in there. So the RNG always keeps it interesting. 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 Mar 5th (or when I get to it) Next Week! 3. 100% Found Footage vs. 14. Final Girls 6. Ladies Night vs. 11. Team Bless The Visual Artists Spreadsheet Letterboxd List
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Feb 26, 2023 20:33
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I'm really excited to check out Return to Oz. Not sure why I haven't before now, I grew up watching Wizard of Oz like once a year.
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Feb 27, 2023 03:39
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Basebf555 posted:I'm really excited to check out Return to Oz. Not sure why I haven't before now, I grew up watching Wizard of Oz like once a year. I used to love Return to Oz when I was a kid, far more than the original Wizard of Oz. I haven't rewatched it in years, so I'm curious if it still holds up. I'm also curious what everyone's reactions to Curse of Chucky will be - I enjoyed it a lot, but I also found it funny that, even if you don't think that re-centering the franchise as a haunted house film works, it's not like it forgets that "hey, we're actually the big 25th anniversary special" either. If anything, I'm interested if people are taken aback by that hard swerve away from what felt like a standalone story back into something that is so intrinsically tied into a quarter century's worth of lore for the series.
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Feb 27, 2023 18:27
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I saw Return to Oz in the theater as a kid, and those big scenes everyone talked about at school after it came out did get to me a little. But the only part that freaked me out enough to give me some nightmares was Dorothy getting institutionalized and set up for shock treatments because she had imaginary friends.
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Feb 27, 2023 19:03
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Return to Oz is great. It's scary but whimsical, and the effects are really neat. I never saw it as a kid, but watching it as an adult made me sad, seeing this crumbling world that was part of my childhood. Melancholy. On the flip side, I watched Space Amoeba today. It was fun, I liked the monsters, but it isn't getting my vote. It was not very memorable. The other match-up is a real easy choice. Curse of Chucky is a fun new direction for the series and Fiona Dourif is great. Sorority House Massacre is a big loving snooze, nothing happens for the first two thirds and it has no memorable kills or anything going for it. Chucky all the way.
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Feb 28, 2023 03:50
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i have similar thoughts. I really had a great time with Space Amoeba. The monsters are a lot of fun and really good and the idea behind the film is actually really fun and interesting. But all the human stuff is dull and they really don't pay off the interesting ideas. Its still a very fun watch but its a clearly flawed film. Return to Oz meanwhile was just a delight. I hadn't seen it in 25 years so I wasn't entirely sure it would hold up but remarkably I found myself just reciting all the lines of the film. Its funny the way stuff sticks with you like that. And its just a very great piece of whimsical dark fantasy that really walks the line between dark and scary and still fantastical and hopeful enough for kids. A lot of it is just how sincerely nice and loving Dorothy is. Its almost weird watching something and someone so unjaded these days. And the set and costume design and puppet work is just remarkable. I mean I don't even understand how they did a lot of the things they did. Its just wonderful. So its an easy vote for Oz for me but its a tough break for Honda because I absolutely would have voted for Amoeba against a ton of films. Sorority House Massacre was... fine. I'm not a slasher fan so it being a less bloody slasher or being a Halloween knockoff didn't bother me. I love Halloween. But its not like it has good deep characters or story or anything. I liked it more than a lot of 80s slashers and its nice to see one with a bunch of women who are just like characters for something other than sex. But its still just kind of forgettable Halloween knockoff/quasi feminist generic 80s slasher. I can see why it might be notable in the see of films to enthusiasts of that stuff but its nothing notable in a vacuum. I haven't rewatched Curse of Chucky yet but I really can't see not voting for it. I've seen it a couple of times so unless it really falls apart on me its got my vote.
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Mar 1, 2023 21:41
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The first matchup is interesting, in that both films are kind of a mess, but I feel like Return to Oz gets a lot more mileage out of the images and ideas its putting out there. Too much of Space Amoeba feels like a rough first draft, and I feel like Toho's ambitions with the various creature designs were higher than their ability to execute, so they all feel really clunky and unwieldy. Plus the fight scene at the end feels super perfunctory, like the studio was expected to include a fight scene where the script wouldn't otherwise support it, so they just threw it in and did the bare minimum to make it appear interesting. Couple that with the dreadfully boring human element, and it's not a good enough showing for Honda to justify a vote. On the second matchup, Sorority House Massacre is similarly unwieldy, dull and not well executed. I liked the idea of the main character being psychically linked to the brother, but the actress was never good enough to pull anything from it, nor was that really anything that the film justified in its inclusion. It felt more like padding by the end then anything else. You could make an argument that Curse of Chucky was, by contrast, overstuffed in its second half, but that's at least partially justified by all of the series connections being brought back into play, since this is the 25th anniversary film. Even saying that, though, it at least is always interesting and fun, in a way that SHM simply is not. Voting for Oz and Chucky here, and neither were particularly hard calls.
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Mar 2, 2023 20:27
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The weirdest part of Curse of Chucky is that its a very good spooky story in and of itself that has a very good resolution. But then there's like 3 epilogues tagged on that take away that sense of resolution to tease you to watch the next film. They're fun and I'm gonna rewatch Cult. But it does take away from Curse as a stand alone entry. Still an easy vote for me.
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Mar 2, 2023 20:58
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I didn't like Curse of Chucky nearly as much as most people did when it came out, and my opinion hasn't really changed. It's certainly fine, there's nothing I can point to that is outright bad, but for me it seemed like they swung the pendulum too far in the other direction in an attempt to dial the craziness back from what Bride and Seed had done.
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Mar 2, 2023 21:10
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Its Friday! Weirdly not only have I watched all 4 movies and voted but I even did writeups. But my weird productivity aside you've still got time if you're behind. Roughly 45 and a half hours? Math is hard. But watching movies is easy. Just veg out and then drag your rear end over to the computer to vote. If you wanna. No pressure. You can vote in this round until 12 noon Mar 5th (or when I get to it)
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Mar 3, 2023 20:30
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I saved Return to Oz for tonight, looking forward to it.
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Mar 3, 2023 20:31
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4. (deety’s 80s Ladies) Carol Frank’s Sorority House Massacre vs. 13. (Class3KillStorm’s Chucky and His Pals) Don Mancini’s Curse of Chucky Voting for Chucky here in spite of its 47 epilogues.
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Mar 3, 2023 20:50
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I watched Cult of Chucky and Chucky S1 the last couple of days and really... someone has to talk to Don Mancini about the epilogues.
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Mar 3, 2023 20:54
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If Marvel can do it then Chucky can do it
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Mar 3, 2023 20:54
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Basebf555 posted:If Marvel can do it then Chucky can do it Chucky has more epilogues than Peter Jackson's Return of the King, and twice the lore of "The Silmarillion".
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Mar 3, 2023 21:01
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Class3KillStorm posted:Chucky has more epilogues than Peter Jackson's Return of the King, and twice the lore of "The Silmarillion". And better writing. And it's fun
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Mar 3, 2023 21:03
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Now I wanna see John Waters react to the name "Teleporno," though.
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Mar 3, 2023 21:05
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Tarnop posted:And better writing. And it's fun
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Mar 3, 2023 22:40
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Oh yeah, I voted for Oz and Chucky. It was a close match between Oz and Amoeba for me tho
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Mar 3, 2023 22:42
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deety posted:I saw Return to Oz in the theater as a kid, and those big scenes everyone talked about at school after it came out did get to me a little. But the only part that freaked me out enough to give me some nightmares was Dorothy getting institutionalized and set up for shock treatments because she had imaginary friends. This was definitely what stuck with me as well. The interesting thing I noticed, now seeing it as an adult, is that it works both on the level of the film making clear that this is wrong and terrifying, and in the context of the historical treatment of mental illness, especially with regard to women & girls. I'm likely to vote of Return to Oz, even though I think it loses a bit of steam towards the end. I also think that it muddles the plot by having Ozma just kind of there. I still like it quite a bit. Space Amoeba was also good. It feels like there isn't quite enough in it to really be great, though. It feels a little 'condensed' and I would have wanted a little more of everything it has to offer. Kangra fucked around with this message at 23:32 on Mar 3, 2023 |
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Mar 3, 2023 23:28
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There’s a clear parallel to the miserable state of life for Dorothy and her family in Kansas and the state of Oz in disarray and ruin. It’s a dark setting and Oz is the fantasy escape where she can actually save everyone.
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Mar 3, 2023 23:33
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I don't know why I slide off of Kaiju movies but I always do. On paper they're made for me. I'm not sure I truly watched more than ten minutes of the second half of Space Amoeba. I hadn't seen return to oz since I read about how scary the wheelers were on i-mockery.com, and it was fun going back. It just looks so good. I actually think the story was as dull as could be, but the stop motion rocks saved the whole thing. Curse of Chucky was fine. I'm glad it has fans but I find the whole Chucky character uncomfortably mean spirited. Mean spirited is fine as a character choice, but there's so much pseudo-slapstick and we are clearly supposed to be laughing in an edgy way. There's a reason Spencer's Gifts used to sell full size Chucky dolls, after all. It just doesn't work for me. Sorority House Massacre was okay. That's all I really have to say. I wish it was a stealthy feminist manifesto, but it ain't.
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Mar 4, 2023 00:36
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5. (Goat’s The Magical Muppet Wizardry of Jim Henson and Friends) Walter Murch’s Return to Oz vs. 12. Ishiro Honda’s Space Amoeba I may be the only one, but I liked both of these and can't vote against Honda. It's Space Amoeba for me.
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Mar 4, 2023 19:28
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Aw, no time to vote or watch this week at all. Return to Oz sure is fun tho and I'm having a hard time seeing it lose.
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Mar 5, 2023 00:50
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married but discreet posted:Aw, no time to vote or watch this week at all. Return to Oz sure is fun tho and I'm having a hard time seeing it lose. I'm assuming Oz will win and I'm an outlier voting against it but we'll know soon enough.
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Mar 5, 2023 01:39
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Not strictly Bracketology related but holy crap Chucky S2 is wild.
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Mar 5, 2023 06:13
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As soon as I saw the matchups for this week, I knew my 80s Ladies were getting knocked out. Sorority House Massacre is probably one of the weaker entries on that team, but I didn't dislike it as much as some of y'all. Then again, I have a soft spot for moody slashers, even if they're slow. I like that the women have character traits beyond just "the good girl" or "the sexy one" and that their lives don't revolve around their boyfriends. They also act like a group of actual friends instead of having that weirdly competitive vibe you get between the female characters in some college movies. The nudity feels almost incidental, like the studio said there had to be some boobs so the writer/director threw in a silly fashion show. A lot of other movies would have put the sexy shower scene at that point and followed that up with the leads lounging around the house in their underwear. But dancing like goofballs while trying on clothes is the kind of thing my friends and I would do at that age—just with more bras on. While it makes sense that this gets poo poo on for the "escaped mental patient trying to kill his sister" plot, that doesn't bug me because it's not as if that was the only thing going on. The psychic link is a decent extra twist, and so is the fact that Beth has buried memories of that first attack. The family murder backstory reminded me of the real crime that inspired the Amityville hoax, and hiding in the basement of the sorority house felt a little Black Christmas-y. In a subgenre that often rewards following the formula, I'm not sure the line between influence and rip-off is that important. The movie definitely got more credit for being feminist than it would today, but as someone who was a young female horror nerd in the 90s, a lot of my rentals were, at best, male-gazey as gently caress. So at a time when most of the slashers I saw were clearly (and sometimes aggressively) not being made to appeal to fans like me, movies like this or Slumber Party Massacre felt like a step up because they weren't actively lovely about women. I always thought it was a shame that the Massacre movies, even if they weren't always great, had a different perspective on the slasher formula and then the series got handed over to a guy who turned the T&A dial in the opposite direction. I guess that's your Women's History Month fact for the day: the Cormans gave a 4-movie slasher franchise that had been entirely written and directed by women to the guy who directed Chopping Mall but also a ton of movies with titles like Bikini Drive-In and Busty Cops.
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Mar 5, 2023 10:34
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Return to Oz was great, really enjoyed all the weirdness. A bit sad that I somehow missed out on it when I was a kid because it definitely would've made an impression. At a few points it felt like Wizard of Oz meets Mad Max, which is pretty wild. Easy vote. I was all ready to vote for Sorority House Massacre if it would've been a solid entertaining slasher but it wasn't able to clear that bar. Mostly it just bored me, not a whole lot going on and the psychic stuff wasn't original or interesting. So Chucky gets my vote there.
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Mar 5, 2023 16:02
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Puppet Week draws to an end, lets see who advanced. If there’s much of a surprise.  Its a shutout for Chucky! Poor deety’s 80s Ladies didn’t get a vote and that’s the end for them. Don Mancini certainly made a splash in his debut but he does fall one vote shy of the 100% unanimous marker. And we nearly had two shutouts as Return to Oz also falls one vote shy of the shutout but in that case the one vote goes to Space Amoeba and Honda to avoid the shutout. Still, end of the road for Honda and after making it to the Elite Eight in the first tourney Honda has now been eliminated in the first round for 3 years in a row. Tough break. But the winners here are Weapon X’s Chucky team and my Henson team who now head into the second round for a matchup in a couple of weeks. May the best puppet win. And now lets see what we have in store for this week. 3. (Weapon X’s 100% Found Footage) Stephen Cognetti’s Hell House LLC II: The Abbadon Hotel vs. 14. (Samfucius’ Final Girls) The Wachowskis’ The Matrix  I went into this thinking this was about as lopsided as we could get and that Hell House LLC II was hated but to my surprise the reviews were actually pretty split. I think its safe to say that the big takeaway and thing most everyone agrees on is that HHLLC2 basically does everything different than the original film does. What people disagree on is whether that’s a good or a bad thing. Where the first film goes for simple scares and tension with little explanation or show the sequel shows and tells a whole lot and really uses every trick in the book to do it. Some people really enjoy the campiness of that and some people are really disappointed by it. So its tough to say how this will go over here. But the real issue is its going against the motherfucking Matrix! That’s like the Star Wars for my generation or some poo poo. I honestly didn’t even feel right pulling real quotes because the film is spoken in such superlatives and with so much emotion that those quotes just felt right. Or maybe I was feeling lazy. I dunno. But the rub here is whether or not you think Matrix deserves to win a horror matchup. That seems like the real question. It would be the first time that a movie most wouldn’t expect to pop up in our tournament notched a win but it also wouldn’t be the first time a movie everyone agreed was good lost because enough people just didn’t feel right about that genre thing. So I guess we’ll have to see. Or maybe I’ve got it all wrong? What do I know? Sequel Alert: Hell House LLC II is naturally the sequel to Hell House LLC. And its a pretty direct sequel in like really serious ways. Mind you II does kind of really give you a ton of information including as best as I recall a pretty substantive recap of what happened in the first film. So you probably could watch II without ever watching I but I think its safe to say you’re not supposed to. Its a followup in a very literal sense and is clearly the creators wanting to continue the story. So if you ask me you probably should watch the first one. But its your call. Hell House LLC II: The Abbadon Hotel is available for streaming on Screambox, Roku, Tubi, and Vudu. The Matrix is available for streaming on HBOMax. 6. (Goat’s Ladies Night) Natasha Kermani’s Lucky vs. 11. (Darth’s Team Bless The Visual Artists) Drew Goddard’s The Cabin in the Woods  This is actually the second film of the tourney starring and written by Brea Grant although she doesn’t direct this one obviously. Unfortunately for her I think its gonna be her second loss of the tourney. Now I like this film but its reviews are pretty polarizing. Its undeniably a film heavy on message and metaphor and not shy about what it has to say in the slightest. And many horror fans these days seem tired of that… or hostile to the messages being told. Its definitely a divided reaction in general and with this film in particular. But what seems to really be going against it is that to my surprise Cabin in the Woods seems just universally loved. I didn’t think that was the case. I thought it was a pretty polarizing film itself with many agreeing with me that its too smug and self satisfied example of its era and its co writer Joss Whedon. But when I do these pull quotes I try and be fair to the reviews I see. If they’re overwhelmingly negative I try and show that, if they’re split I try and show that. But it would have felt dishonest for me to pull negative reviews for this because jesus people seem to love this thing. Like LOVE. So it seems like a bad deal for my Ladies Night team and a good one for Darth’s Visual Artists team. I guess maybe you can judge a book by its cover? And I guess I’m gonna have to make peace with Joss Whedon taking down my ladies team. Gonna be a long week. Lucky is available for streaming on AMC+ and Shudder. The Cabin in the Woods is available for streaming on DirecTV and HBOMax. That’s our week. A week pretty soundly set in the 21st Century and with the generation we largely represent here. No 80s dives or 50s classics this week. Just a lot of horror you might have seen with your friends in the theater or on Shudder a couple of Halloweens ago. And fairly mainstream too. I mean it don’t get much more mainstream than Matrix. So a different change of pace than what we’ve been seeing but that’s how this goes. I’m sure next week will look all kinds of weirdly different. But I hope everyone enjoys this one first. 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 finding any of the films ask and help might be right around the corner. It will. I have the movies. Just ask. You can vote in this round until 12 noon March 12th (or when I get to it) Next Week! 2. Classic One-Offs vs. 15. Acolytes of Corman 7. #ThrowbackThursday vs. 10. Koreans Gone Global Spreadsheet Letterboxd List
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Mar 5, 2023 21:08
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STAC Goat posted:And now lets see what we have in store for this week. Lol well I had a good run!
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Mar 5, 2023 21:25
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I'm really torn on that one myself. On one hand I did not like Hell House 2. Matrix is objectively the better film and its not close. On the other hand I've never been a huge Matrix fan either and aside maybe from that one probe scene I never really got a horror vibe from it. So I don't know how I'm voting there. Might have to give them rewatches.
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Mar 5, 2023 21:30
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Lol of course the most divisive movie in the team gets drawn first. They're all more "traditional" horror from here. Doesn't matter to me though, I think The Matrix is horror. It's action horror, but so is Blade.
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Mar 5, 2023 23:06
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STAC Goat posted:I'm really torn on that one myself. On one hand I did not like Hell House 2. Matrix is objectively the better film and its not close. On the other hand I've never been a huge Matrix fan either and aside maybe from that one probe scene I never really got a horror vibe from it. So I don't know how I'm voting there. Might have to give them rewatches. Well the Hell House sequels and the Oren Peli film nobody has seen were the risky pulls in my all found footage team. But I just adore Hell House 1 and wanted to get that into the tourney. Hopefully the sequel rewatches well and I can lead the campaign against The Matrix not being a horror movie. Because it is not!
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Mar 5, 2023 23:33
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Hell House II, on the other hand, is one of four movies I have ever given a half star on Letterboxd I don't think I'm going to watch it again.
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Mar 5, 2023 23:35
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Samfucius posted:Hell House II, on the other hand, is one of four movies I have ever given a half star on Letterboxd 1. What are the other films 2. Give it another try and I think you will find it holds up great against one of the most influential films of all time
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Mar 5, 2023 23:38
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