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I <3 CHOCOLATE CHIP CHARLIE
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Sep 30, 2023 22:17
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 10) The Pope's Exorcist - 2023 - Netflix I had originally planned on seeing this one at the show. Considering my theater was also showing Nefarious at the time, I was looking forward to comparing the two. Unfortunately timing was my enemy with being scheduled to work during our showtimes and it getting rotated out when I did have the time to see it. Decided to rectify that when I saw it was on streaming. In short, I should've prioritized this over Nefarious. It's just so much better in every way. Storyline's pretty standard for the genre, but it does manage to make it not feel same ol' same ol'. Actors all did a great job and the effects were nicely done. Franco Nero was a delight to see again. Ending does leave off for a sequel which apparently is in the works. I'm definitely all for Exorcist Crowe riding around on his vespa fighting evil on orders from Pope Django. Basebf555 posted:INDIVIDUAL BONUS CHALLENGES(13 TOTAL)
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Sep 30, 2023 22:21
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Gyro Zeppeli posted:6. The Stuff Michael Moriarty's Mo is one of my all-time favorite horror characters. Hell yeah.
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Sep 30, 2023 22:30
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2. Onibaba (1964) Stunning in deeply atmospheric black and white, the movie feels more like a claustrophobic nightmare than an actual horror movie. Still, the performances are intriguing, and the last few minutes are memorable and incredibly creepy. Absolutely bitchin' early entry into the Japanese Horror canon. Rating: 7.7/10 Giant Black Holes Alongside my first watch, that ticks off a one of my Bingo squares, and half of two others. 
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Sep 30, 2023 22:31
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 Meta Challenge #1: History Lesson (1 / 5)2. The Toxic Avenger (1984)  Watched On: Troma Now! I asked in the horror thread if this one counts and was given the thumbs-up so here I am. Troma is known for making dark exploitation movies with a dark and self-aware sense of humor and their punk-rock attitude towards filmmaking. The Toxic Avenger is easily their biggest success crossing over into the mainstream and becoming their flagship franchise. The movie is about a nerd named Melvin who works at a fitness centre just mopping floors and has zero respect from literally everyone around him. After being humiliated and exposed to toxic waste he becomes the superhero Toxie. From there the movie just goes absolutely batshit crazy insane and “so bad it’s good and holy poo poo is it offensive”. Like when a kid gets run over by a car and his head then literally crushed underneath a tire while the film almost cackles at such a thing. That’s what I love about Troma is that, yeah, it’s crass and gross but it’s so self-aware and done in a punk-rock “gently caress the system” attitude that it becomes a ride. drat I love this film.  /4Total: 1. The Samhain Challenge, 2. The Toxic Avenger (1984) Spooky Bingo Card  Bonus Challenge The Samhain Challenge: The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror III (1992), The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror VI (1995). The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror VIII (1997) Meta Challenge History Lesson (1 / 5): (1980s - Toxic Avenger)
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Sep 30, 2023 22:32
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 2. Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943) Set four years after The Wolf Man, grave robbers open Talbot's coffin during a full moon and toss the wolfsbane inside it, and now the Wolf Man is back, jack. The movie is essentially Talbot trying to find a way to die, which leads him to the research of Dr. Frankenstein. It's not much of a movie really, not a lot happens, Bela Lugosi kind of sucks as the monster (he mostly exists to get Encino Man'd), but Lon Chaney Jr. carries the whole thing. His Wolf Man has a sort of tragic resignation that I think is really compelling, even if there isn't much else here.  3/5This completes Freddy vs Jason 20th Anniversary Challenge (it counts under the Monster Mash clause) 3. Terrified (2017) I'm always happy to see a focused, well paced ghost story. This is centered on a neighborhood in Buenos Aires where spooky things are happening and people are dying. Lots of scary moments without being overly reliant on jump scares, which is great - I also liked that Funes, the police commissioner, doesn't waste time with a lot of "you must be mistaken" style bullshit - he calls a paranormal investigator and they get to work. Last act brings it all home with a slightly goofy ending, but this is one I would recommend for sure. This counts for South America towards the Around the World challenge. 4/5Total Watched: 3/31 Thread Challenges: CineD Horror Thread (Basket Case), FvJ Monster Mash (Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man) New To You: 2/6 (Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, Terrified) History Lesson: 3/5 (1980s, 1940s, 2010s) Around the World: 1/4 (Terrified - South America)
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Sep 30, 2023 23:04
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 #10.) Siren (2004; digital; dir. Satoshi Torao) On their way back from a bank robbery, some criminals accidentally expose their loot to a woman, so they kidnap and bring her back to their hideout. As they wait out the heat, the criminals turn against each other, their friction exacerbated by the woman's presence. There's some amusement in each of the robbers having a horror villain for a code name. That includes Lector, Jason, Freddy, Chucky, and... Jaws. AV star Sora Aoi plays the kidnapped woman, eventually revealed to be a ghost who feeds on men's greed, occasionally going nude as she seduces members of the group, more often just staring at the robbers from a distance with a calculating expression. The group's existing inner tensions boiling over is reminiscent of Reservoir Dogs or City on Fire, but with most of the interesting bumps in the road removed. It's easy to see how things are going to turn out (even discounting the flash-forward at the start of the movie), and while the movie is shot well enough, the events of the movie just don't have enough complexity or intensity to make for a compelling watch. Too bad, since the idea of introducing a supernatural wild card into a heist film has plenty of potential. “There's something more important between us.” Rating: 5/10
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Sep 30, 2023 23:31
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2. Murder Weapon Yea so its got Linnea Quigley in it and I haven't seen it before. Well first off its totally off the wall insane. There are so many loving dream sequences and flashbacks I stopped counting at 3. Its got a very high ration of boobs to graphic violence as well. Its real important for 80s movie to keep up this ratio. The film delivers in some excellent loving gore. The story who loving cares. I'm here for the nudity and gore. I really enjoyed this. /5
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Oct 1, 2023 00:23
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Hollismason posted:2. Murder Weapon A+ tagline there
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Oct 1, 2023 00:29
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 #11.) The Females (1970; digital; dir. Zbyněk Brynych) A high-end resort turns out to be a haven for cannibal feminists. Very stylish (unsurprising, since it's from a Czech film-maker), with wild performances, costuming, and sets. Is that enough to make up for the patchy narrative, with its causal leaps and tendency to avoid having anyone address each other by name for tens of minutes at a time? Eh, it's a close thing. If the film stock were crisper, the colors more saturated, and the tone more sinister instead of the sardonic whimsy it carries, this could easily be in Suspiria territory. There's some wonderfully kinetic camera-work, beautiful landscapes, amusing juxtaposition of a brutish gardener with the sophisticated women, and something about a desperate heroine fighting off fears of paranoia while running through streets of women all dressed in mod clothing strikes a truly unique chord. Touches like a police commissar preoccupied with building a house of cards in his office, the gardener being named Adam while the protagonist is Eve, and men who would rather continue enjoying their vacation than risk drawing the attention of their wives by calling to find out if their friend is dead or not add to the overall air of delirium, while near-psychedelic music-driven scenes exhilarate in it. It's easiest to read the film as a playful amplification of the fearful reactionism to feminism, as the whole affair is just too light-hearted to seem like it carries any of that fear in genuine form itself. But beneath the delighted bra-burning and overt praying mantis metaphors, it does make contact with some grounded considerations, particularly the worries that commitment to a cause can lead to detachment and harm for the ones that cause was originally intended to aid. “None of us were important to him.” Rating: 7/10 AROUND THE WORLD (Europe) 2/4HORROR IS FOR EVERYONE (women) 2/3
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Oct 1, 2023 01:14
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I'm gonna get into the new stuff at midnight tonight, but for now: Friday the 13th: Part 2 Freddy Vs. JasonIt's been a few years since I last watched this, but in a lot of ways I think it's the best F13 movie. The first one was okay, but having the killer be Jason's mother never sat right with me. I always felt like they didn't take enough time to establish her before revealing that she's the killer. The second movie builds off her death though, and makes it integral to the series, which I loved, but they largely abandoned. I also like that Jason is just a deformed dude in this. The whole thing is just a really basic but fun slasher. 4/5 Biff Rockgroin fucked around with this message at 02:01 on Oct 1, 2023 |
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Oct 1, 2023 01:21
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 Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI, 1986 It is midnight, it is officially October in my time zone. The marathon can begin. And I'm starting off with where the Friday the 13th movies really began. It took six movies for the Friday the 13th movies to become what they are famous for. This is where we get the undead Jason that is an unstoppable killing machine. All movies up until now, he either wasn't the killer or he was just this tough guy that paramedics failed to check if he was dead or not. In this movie he quite literally rises from the grave and just murders people. He murders so many that the movie just has to keep introducing new characters for him to murder as it runs out of people to kill. It is glorious. This is a truly banger start for this month-long run of movies leading up to Halloween.
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Oct 1, 2023 01:21
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 5. Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein quote:This is a twinned pair with Duck Soup in my mind, a movie so completely of its time that its characters needed no introduction - so they didn't introduce anyone. We are meant to sympathize with the main characters because they are played by two unparalleled stand-up comics, but they aren't doing a stand-up routine, they're acting. / 5, and that's generous1. [•Rec] 2. Attack the Block 3. The Wolf House 4. Bird with the Crystal Plumage 5. Abbot & Costello Meet Frankenstein  Challenges: Freddy v Jason Meta Challenges: new-to-you, History Lesson (40s) Meta Progress: NTY: 5/6, HL: 4/5 ATW: 2/4, HIFE: 0/3
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Oct 1, 2023 01:25
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3. Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things (1972) Good by the 'let's make a movie with our friends' standard, bad by the regular movie standard. Then again, less than a decade later Sam Raimi did the 'let's make a movie with our friends' thing masterfully, so who's to say. I appreciate a cast full of unattractive, ordinary people, but there's no real amazing performances here to stand out, just a lot of camp. Screenwriter and actor Alan Ormsby understands the premise by just chewing on every line of dialogue like a Big Hunk bar, but the rest of the movie isn't particularly engaging, and it takes entirely too long for the zombies to show up. The premise is great, though, I wish somebody would tackle it with a better budget and a more serious cast. Rating: 3.7/10 Bushy Mustaches This knocks out a zombie movie, another decade, and it's new to me, baby! 
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Oct 1, 2023 01:52
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 2) Army of Darkness (1992) CineD HORROR THREAD POLL CHALLENGEHail to the king I saw this once on TV as a kid and have never gone back to it until now. Fantastic movie, but how the hell was THIS the concept for a sequel to Evil Dead 1 and 2, right? Anyway, Raimi will strap a camera to anything and it rocks. There's so much about this one that could easily overstay it's welcome but it just...doesn't. There's just too much charm. It's definitely not as spooky as the first two but when it opts for scares they are always wildly inventive and gross. Absolutely love the over the top gore fountain out of the pit right at the start. I was wondering why Bridget Fonda of all people is in this for, like, a single shot, and apparently she was a huge fan of the series and asked Raimi if she could be in the new one but they had already cast Sheila so he gave her a cameo. That rules! I can't decide whether I like the theatrical ending or the original Ash Is A loving Dumbass Again ending more, they're both great tbqh  On this watch I'm struck by just how much it owes to Harryhausen. Huge shoutout to the skeleton marching band.
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Oct 1, 2023 02:31
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4. Halloween: Resurrection 2002 Directed by Rick Rosenthal NEW-TO-YOU You need to get the hell out of here. Get out! Scoot! Skedaddle! Get the gently caress out of dodge! This is the one with Busta Rhymes. 👻/5
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Oct 1, 2023 03:16
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twernt posted:4. Halloween: Resurrection https://i.imgur.com/HHxo88Z.mp4
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Oct 1, 2023 03:20
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I don't know if I ever realized that Rick Rosenthal directed Halloween Resurrection. I'm someone that has always been a big Halloween 2 supporter but I really hate Resurrection.
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Oct 1, 2023 03:35
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 #12.) The Deadly Mantis (1957; digital; dir. Nathan H. Juran) A gigantic praying mantis is released from an iceberg, and the world loses its poo poo over this occurrence. After the opening credits, the film starts with a glowing depiction of how America began actively destroying the northern polar ice cap in the name of the Cold War. Talky and dry, in that typical American '50s sci-fi/horror way, even though it's pulling multiple pages from the kaiju handbook. Instead of panicked Japanese people rushing through Tokyo streets, we get undercranked footage of First Nations fisherman deploying their boats to escape the mantis. Such a scene lasts maybe a minute, then it's back to the scientists safe in their military laboratories theorizing about how to handle the threat. Plus an actress, Alix Talton, anticipating Joan Crawford's latter-day eyebrow style. And the praying mantis is capable of roaring, somehow? Setting a precedent for the screaming snake in Anaconda, I guess. Decent effects (respect to the flamethrower), formulaic story, forgettable characters, the only notable female character treated like a joke or kissing object by everyone else, and the difficulty of empathizing with a monster whose only motivation is to go somewhere warm. "I only know what I read in the papers!" Rating: 5/10
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Oct 1, 2023 03:39
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 Alice Sweet Alice, 1976 The second movie of the night. While 80s slashers were all about kills and body count, the 70s movies that paved the way for them were all about the atmosphere and build up. Alice Sweet Alice is a movie I've been meaning to watch for ages and it didn't disappoint. It is pure 70s in look and feel. The kills are few and far between, but there's not a single boring moment between them. It is all about the setting in this one. Catholicism is creepy as gently caress, Christianity and religion at large is creepy as gently caress, so murders happening in that community is going to add to that horror. I'm not going to go into details about the plot as the look and feel is what the whole movie is about. The creepy mask of the killer, the predatory feel towards children vibe you get from the priest, and more than a feel from the fat landlord, the seemingly sociopathy of Alice, just everything of this film got creepiness going for it. And it is the kind that feels natural and real. I really get why some people see this as a masterpiece.
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Oct 1, 2023 03:49
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 6. Perfect Blue quote:Having to sit through a "in english, please?" scene about launching a web browser feels so hilariously archaic, I have to point it out. ½ / 5, I wish I connected with it.1. [•Rec] 2. Attack the Block 3. The Wolf House 4. Bird with the Crystal Plumage 5. Abbot & Costello Meet Frankenstein 6. Perfect Blue  Challenges: HIFE (Female) Meta Challenges: new-to-you, History Lesson (90s), ATW (Asia) Meta Progress: NTY: 6/6, HL: 4/5 ATW: 3/4, HIFE: 1/3
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Oct 1, 2023 04:06
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No idea how many I'll do or if I'll even keep this up but here we go with some crap reviews! 1. Hellraiser-1987: B- (Tubi) (Rewatch) Everyone knows it, it's a classic etc etc I'm not a big fan, never have been. It's fine and everything, Andrew Robinson does play scummy pieces of poo poo pretty well though.  2. Hellraiser-2022: B (Hulu) I tried watching this when it first popped up on Hulu and I fell asleep. Same thing nearly happened tonight but I stuck with it and I'm glad I did, once it got me hooked it was drat good and I think, at least for now, I prefer it over the original. Wilhelm Scream fucked around with this message at 04:36 on Oct 1, 2023 |
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Oct 1, 2023 04:33
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Shrecknet fucked around with this message at 03:25 on Oct 9, 2023 |
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Oct 1, 2023 04:43
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4. Night of the Demons THE SAMHAIN CHALLENGE HISTORY LESSONS (80s) Ahhh that’s some comfort food right there. I love this movie and I’ve seen it a bunch. Is it still accurate to call it underrated? Not sure, but it seems to be getting the love it deserves. It’s the perfect spooky season movie for me, dumb, gothic, schlocky, chock full of latex….it’s big vibes for me. It isn’t exactly bringing a lot of new ideas to the table and it’s not winning any screenwriting awards but with lines like “eat a bowl of gently caress” and “I live in a nice house with plastic slip covers on the furniture”, you can’t go wrong. And on a serious note, some really wonderful effects! I don’t need to mention the Bauhaus dance scene because if you know, you know, and if you don’t- go watch Night of the Demons.4/5  4/5 - V/H/S 2* (2013), V/H/S 94* (2021), Night of the Demons* (1988) 3.5/5 - V/H/S* (2012) *=rewatch WeaponX fucked around with this message at 04:51 on Oct 1, 2023 |
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Oct 1, 2023 04:44
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2. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1982) This is a professional recording of a performance of the Sondheim musical about a murderous barber and the meat pie shop owner who helps him with body disposal. It's a classic for a reason and this is a lot of fun while also being well-filmed and edited. George Hearn is fun to watch as Todd, displaying wild mood swings and an overall gloomy demeanor while still belting out the songs but Angela Lansbury as Mrs. Lovett is the real reason to watch this. She steals every scene she's in and bounces around the stage and adds a ton of life to the entire production. The music itself is good and the recurring "Ballad of Sweeney Todd" is welcome every time it reprises. It's very well paced and the two and half hour runtime flew by. Bonus Challenge: Horror-Adjacent This plus my last movie also satisfies one of the New To You squares!
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Oct 1, 2023 04:56
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 #13.) Exposé (1976; Tubi; dir. James Kenelm Clarke) An author having panic attacks hires a new assistant, one who seems oddly familiar. Starring a shockingly young (and appallingly dubbed) Udo Kier, this has something of an Italian feel thanks to its hallucinatory sequences, despite being a UK production. And even with the dubbing, Kier's intensity and affected pomposity come through strongly, all the more a relief because his performance really carries the picture. The countryside setting is put to nice use, with some wonderful open, sprawling shots of fields stretching to the horizon. The plot is more knotted than twisting, with the delusion sequences giving hints as to what's so unsettled the author, while the assistant's true identity slots into the clues given, but still feels somewhat unearned. And then the ending made me question what the hell was going on with my sense of time in the movie. Odd that it was one of the main video nasties, as the violence is rather tame compared to their standard. Parts of this might linger in my memory, but not the whole thing. “Where are you going?” Rating: 6/10
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Oct 1, 2023 05:10
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1. Elvira: Mistress of the Dark (1988) The first film to be served up to me was a beloved one and a rewatch. I have only seen it once before, but just like the first time it surprised me with laughs and charmed my socks off  I couldn't have picked a better horror-comedy to kick off the season, and it was fun noticing a few things the second time around now that I've seen Elvira's Haunted Hills and a few other films. Namely, the climax...it's clear how much Cassandra Peterson clearly loves Corman and Hammer films, and it was nice to understand that inspiration a little more. The potluck scene is still funny, the jokes-a-minute are still funny, Elvira being unrepentantly horny and outrageous in a deeply bland conservative town is still funny. Not only is it funny, you also get a giant sludge beast! This is a movie that so far has never failed to put a smile on my face. Dumb joke after dumb joke, lots of good, and it's also really interesting when you look at UHF and later Wayne's World and realize how cut-from-that-cloth a lot of comedies of the time were, though all of them are wonderful. Lovely atmosphere, perfect to make my night feel gothic and grim and always super, super funny. Unpleasant dreams!4/5 Erin M. Fiasco fucked around with this message at 01:44 on Oct 17, 2023 |
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Oct 1, 2023 05:59
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 11) Psycho - 1960 - Peacock Without question, this is one of the 'mandatory to watch' foundation films for the horror genre, and a critical entry in film history. Its story, along with what for then was a shocking twist ending has been incorporated into modern culture. So much has been said about this film, there's not much I can really add. It was controversial for a wide range of reasons. To start, Paramount didn't want Hitchcock to make the picture, even rejecting Hitchcock's suggestions he'd be using the crew from his TV show and filming in black and white. It took him offering to finance the film himself, dropping his director's fee in lieu of a stake in the negative, filming on different sound stages as long as Paramount distributed for the film to happen. The book the film is adapted from was considered unfilmable because of it's content. There was even controversy over showing a toilet in the bathroom. The legendary shower scene was mad controversial, and does suffer from the same misremembering another influenced by the Ed Gein case film, Texas Chainsaw Massacre does of people insist there's full nudity or you see the knife enter skin when neither happens. The censor board insisted they saw boobs and wanted an edit. Hitchock just sat on the footage for a few days, and resubmitted where the board now reversed on who saw boobs or not. They also had issues with the opening where Hitchcock told them if they stop fussing over the shower scene, he'd reshoot the opening with them on set. Guess who didn't bother showing up. The 2020 blu ray release is the full film with whatever minor edited footage from over the years restored and is gorgeous. Psycho has also been added to the Library of Congress's archive for it's cultural significance. When I was showing my son how movie effects were done, we recreated the blood down the drain scene with some chocolate syrup. Started his interest in what it takes to create movies. Basebf555 posted:GENERAL/META BONUS CHALLENGES(18 TOTAL)  12) Alien - 1979 - Hulu Just from the trailer alone, you knew this was going to be a hell of a ride. Just give it a watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjLamj-b0I8 drat, they don't make trailers like that anymore. It's got it all, just gives you a taste of the tension and the intensity. Of course, I was worried for Jones at first trailer watch. Story is the basic trapped on a space ship with a dangerous alien, but the execution of that story is absolutely compelling. The actors completely sell the tense desperation of the situation. The alien looks genuinely alien compared to clearly dude in a suit thanks to the design from H. R. Giger. Many comparisons have been made between Alien and It! The Terror from beyond Space, and they're not exactly wrong. O'Bannion borrowed elements from many sci-fi/horror B movies, but how the film handles them, nothing feels tired or cliche. Because of the still ongoing hype from Star Wars, there were some interesting merchandising aimed for younger audiences for a rated R film. I had the 18" alien doll, the egg puzzle, and the graphic novel adaptation. I do remember a board game also being available. It has also been included in the Library of Congress's archive for cultural significance which does make me smile because I remember Siskel and Ebert originally calling the film a disappointment compared to Star Wars and 2001: A Space Odyssey for being a 'haunted house thriller on a spaceship'. Granted, Ebert would finally get on the bandwagon for realizing how incredible the film was decades later, but yet again, another case of official critics are idiots. Basebf555 posted:GENERAL/META BONUS CHALLENGES(18 TOTAL)
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Oct 1, 2023 06:06
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October Motm is up
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Oct 1, 2023 06:11
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Basebf555 posted:INDIVIDUAL BONUS CHALLENGES(13 TOTAL) 13.1) Mukbang (5:25) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9DW-tHrQB8 How far will you go for likes? 13.2) Mukbang 2 (5:17) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvVlmYxVxeo Are the likes worth it? 13.3) Netflix and Chill ( 4:38) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dgejSjVnsU Lies have consequences. 13.4) OnlyFans (7:37) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dgejSjVnsU Desperation is a horrifying thing. 13.5) OnlyFans 2 (10:19) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUIFJhy9-_k Desperation is a dangerous thing. 13.6) Kalley's Last Review (9:17) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ma6HhbxnI2M The lengths some will go for internet fame. 13.7) Karen (2:51) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LIT75jXVXA How far will a karen go when there are no witnesses? 13.8) Love Potion (3:54) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-lW-IILa0M When will they learn these things never pan out? 13.9) Magic 8 Ball (6.23) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OWCVKQ6aGQ Don't ask what you fear the answer will be. 13.10) Lost in the Woods (2:33) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJzndGdoqGw Danger takes many forms, even in the daylight. 13.11) Mime (7:02) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ch9whsqtUb4 They're unsettling for a reason.
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Oct 1, 2023 09:04
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First off, count me in for As Many As I Can. Second, I've grabbed Bingo Card 20 if nobody else has. 
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Oct 1, 2023 09:07
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Basebf555 posted:
 2.) Eat Brains Love Rodman Flender| 2019 | Blu-ray So I picked this one up from a Vinegar Syndrome sale a couple of months ago because the premise sounded kinda neat and I was in the mood for more horror comedies. It has some pretty interesting ideas on zombification and some good gore effects. The humor is a little all over with some funny stuff mixed with some stuff just does not land. The leads are pretty solid, though their characters sometimes verve into being annoying assholes. The film unfortunately ends pretty pathetically, possibly to set up a sequel? Overall, it was pretty dece, and I guess I’m in a generous mood. Rating: ½ Basebf555 posted:
New: 2 Rewatches: 0 Individual Bonus Challenges: 2/13 General/Meta Bonus Challenges: 5/18 or 0/4 My Letterboxd list (in progress)
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Oct 1, 2023 09:25
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It's officially after midnight on October 1st, so I'm in for 31 using Card 5. One a day shouldn't be too hard right??? Kicking off with #1: Freddy Vs Jason (Ronny Yu, 2003) Not amazing, but better than I would have expected! Jason as a Godzilla-esque antihero rules.  / 5[Anniversary Challenge, New 1/6, Decade 1/5(2000s] Also watched Attack of the Helping Hand (1979, Scott Spiegel) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVdn6Kf3-8E Starring Bruce Campbell's hand!  / 5[Bite-Size 6/60) 
Jeremiah Flintwick fucked around with this message at 02:42 on Oct 5, 2023 |
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Oct 1, 2023 09:34
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Planning for 31 movies. All mine are blind unless otherwise indicated. 1. Underwater (2020) Drillers on a mining station on the bottom of the Marianas Trench have a bad time. I think if the Titanic Submersible incident didn't bring the dangers of deep-sea pressure to everyones attention I would have an easier time suspending my disbelief with some of the stuff that happens. The movie on the whole is... fine? Good CGI, neat monsters, likeable characters and a couple fancy deaths but ultimately very forgettable. A very 2.5 / 5 movie but half-points are for cowards. / 5 2. The Hidden (1987) Kyle MacLachlan chasing a body-jumping Tommy Vercetti around L.A. The movie starts with a solo bank robbery followed by a high-speed, pedestrian-maiming chase through downtown L.A. that ends with an exploding Ferrari and a bad guy stumbling around with more holes in him than a cheese grater. I was having an awesome time, but could I really call this a horror movie? Am I casting too wide a net? All fears were assuaged moments later when the bullet-riddled badly burned baddy rolls out of his hospital bed and vomits a gigantic cockroach into the mouth of the coma patient next door. Oh hell yeah. Movie owns in a way that only a late-80's action movie can own. Plenty of gunfights, explosions and expensive cars. And the squibs! So many squibs! A part of me still feels that it might be a mistake to call this a horror film, and is better describes as an Action / Sci-Fi film with Horror elements. Wikipedia however assures me it's a Horror film and they know better than me. / 5!
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Oct 1, 2023 10:01
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Flying Zamboni posted:2. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1982) I haven't seen this production of it, but when I was little my older sister was in a local production of this and 5 year old me became obsessed with the musical.
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Oct 1, 2023 12:19
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5) The Brotherhood (2001) David DeCoteau has been a director for hire at Full Moon Pictures for 4 decades but with The Brotherhood he launched his own production company, Rapid Heart Pictures. They are mostly known for their "homoerotic horror movies" with series like The Brotherhood and 1313 and there's something counterintuitively interesting I find with his movies. Firstly, the horror isn't scary nor particulalry dangerous, it's there to lure you in, like a siren's song. Secondly, there's seldomly or never any homoerotic story themes in them. The gay themes comes instead from how the movies are directed and shot. The stories are really just frameworks for having long drawn out scenes with attractive college-aged men stripping down to their boxers and doing chores or taking showers in their swimming trunks. The interesting thing to note about these scenes is that there's essentially no gaze in them. It's may be flat shot of a guy taking a shower, eventually shampooing his hair and rinsing it off. No close-ups of butts, crotches or pecs or leaning sensually against the wall, just a 5 minute scene of what a shower looks like. With The Brotherhood, DeCoteau apparently tried to make a real movie with a lot of focus on character development. The story is pretty simple, a college fraternity of essentially vampires, there's a slight twist to them to make them not traditional ones, wants to the draw the new guy on campus into their group, because "He's beautiful, he's innocent, he's perfect". It's not as trashy as a lot of his later films, there's a certain sensuality to one scene and a bit of slow-burn buildup, but otherwise quite forgettable. Maybe watch it if you haven't seen any of his other gay themed movies, just to get a feel what they are about, but I'd rather recommend Leeches! if you want to watch one. I'll reward this one an extra Sopkiw, just because it spawned so many other movies.  HORROR IS FOR EVERYONE 1/3NEW-TO-YOU 2/6
Lamanda fucked around with this message at 15:44 on Oct 31, 2023 |
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Oct 1, 2023 12:40
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 14) Texas Chainsaw Massacre - 1974 - DVD This one's on my 'I was probably too young to see this when I did' film list. I first saw it on a bootleg a friend of my Mom's brought over. We ordered pizza. As we watched the movie, I was the only one who didn't lose their appetite. Not sure what that says about me. The plot is the quintessential group runs afoul of others out in the boonies, but how it'd depicted is real and gritty. The intensity ramps up and doesn't ease once it really gets going. By the time the ending hits, you feel like you've been through the same wringer Sally Ann has. For as much as many have insisted this film is insanely gory, it really isn't. I've talked with some who swear the infamous meathook scene is gore drenched when it isn't at all. Her screams are horrifying as they go on and it's easy to envision a bloody struggle on the hook. The initial appearance of Leatherface is one of the finest on film. That slow build tension of Jerry in the house and BOOM door open, there's Leatherface with the hammer is simply memorable. This was influenced by the real case of Ed Gein, leaning more towards the horrific dressing in human skin and furnishings from corpses than Psycho's leaning more towards the domineering mother angle. Having seen some of the crime photos from the investigation, the film's pretty on point with that. A film this memorable was naturally going to spawn sequels, which after the third become a very mixed bag of quality and competency. This one's one of my longtime faves to the point I have a reprint of the poster hanging in my kitchen.  15) The Thing - 1982 - DVD I will always remember when I went to see this at the show. It was at the Niles theater where The Thing was playing in auditorium 1 and ET playing across the hallway in auditorium 2. Pretty much love the alien in one theater, fear it in another. We all know the story on this one. It's closer to the original story than the Howard Hawkes adaptation. I really can't add much to say about this one because it's absolute perfection. I can't imagine this film with any other cast, director or effects guru. The score is Morricone perfection. The kennel scene's still rough for me. One of the times I watched this and my wolf/husky hybrid was very upset with that scene. I do still chuckle over my fiance's first time watch and early on with the surviving Norwegian confrontation, my fiance looked at me and said 'it's not a dog?'. Didn't know he knew enough of the language to catch that and the then hidden to me forewarning was a delightful reveal. I can't recommend this movie enough. It was also one of my Mom's favorite movies we always would watch together after the first snowfall. Basebf555 posted:GENERAL/META BONUS CHALLENGES(18 TOTAL) Challenge complete-1990s, 2020s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s
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Oct 1, 2023 13:11
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2. The Lift (1983 - The Netherlands) When this movie is about an evil elevator killing people it's a blast. There's a silly decapitation, a blind guy falling down the elevator shaft, and cops all earnestly saying things like "I don't trust the lift; I always take the stairs". There's a whole aside about how they're making microchips that are allowing computers to think now, and even revolt and have intelligence, and it's ridiculous even by contemporary standards. Very fun! The movie falters by trying to have too much of a plot and not enough deadly elevator action. I just could not connect to the main character and his being accused of cheating on his wife with the journalist at all. It feels like the movie wanted to make a point about how obsession with your work can destroy your personal life but it just isn't strongly-scripted enough to do it and the Killer Lift overshadows it all. The climax is hilarious, though, so all is forgiven. The evil demon slime chip, the lightning, the ridiculous ending, top notch stuff. Rating: 2/5, but an affectionate one.
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Oct 1, 2023 13:26
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Flying Zamboni posted:2. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1982) I watched this version last year for the challenge and, yeah, Angela Lansbury was amazing. The recording is on the Internet Archive if anyone wants to see it, and you probably should because it really is that good.
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Oct 1, 2023 13:27
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 2) Burnt Offerings (1976) Trailer Seen on: Youtube BIRTH OF HORRORwas shot in and/or set in your place of birth OR watch a movie that was made the year you were born HISTORY LESSON 2/5Watch a movie from 5 different decades - the 1970s (already done: the 2020s) NEW-TO-YOU 2/6Watch 6 movies that you have never seen before - 2nd new watch of the challenge A family rents a big mansion (the exterior is the funeral home from Phantasm!) for their summer retreat. At first, it seems like a fixer-upper, and the odd caretakers ask only that someone care for their elderly mother, who never leaves her room on the upper floor of the mansion. Slowly, though, a force begins to turn them against each other, and with each bit of pain or injury, the house begins to restore itself. I had high hopes for this one, seeing Dan Curtis (Dark Shadows, The Night Stalker, Trilogy of Terror, etc.) as the director of this adaptation of a novel that came out a few years before. The cast is stacked too - Oliver Reed as the dad, Karen Black as the mother, Bette Davis as Reed's mother and Burgess Meredith in a loopy bit role at the start - the kid actor playing their son (Lee Montgomery of the rat movie Ben) is also pretty good. As it stands though, there are a few creepy and unsettling parts, but it's a very slow burn and very soap opera-y. The house feeds off the pain and negative energy of its occupants, slowly rebuilding itself and turning the dad violent, the mom obsessed with the house and the care of the elderly lady (who we never see), and Davis' grandma senile. Many wondered if Stephen King took notes from this novel, as it resembles The Shining in a few ways, but they're mostly superficial. Reed and Black chew the scenery like there's no tomorrow - as far as his performances go, this one is actually pretty great, and one of the scariest parts of the film is when some horseplay between he and his son in the house's pool turns violent. He's also haunted by dreams of a great creepy grinning hearse driver. This one settles more for an unsettling mood than any shock moments, at least until the very end, and even though I saw it coming, it's done pretty well. Apparently Davis detested Reed and Black while working on the film, so that's a fun little undercurrent to everything as well.  3) Warp Speed (1981) Trailer Seen on: Youtube HORROR ADJACENTWatch a thriller OR a horror/comedy OR a horror/musical OR a horror/action movie OR a horror/scifi movie. HISTORY LESSON 3/5Watch a movie from 5 different decades - the 1980s (already done: the 1970s and 2020s) NEW-TO-YOU 3/6Watch 6 movies that you have never seen before - 3rd new watch of the challenge The first long-range spaceship launched by humanity, the Titan, sets out on a 5 and a half year mission to boldy go - well, it's going to Saturn. Anyway, Earth loses contact with the Titan about 9 months into the trip, but it eventually returns without a trace of life, and Starfleet (no, not that Starfleet) sends out a ship with a psychic to figure out what happened to the crew. It's very funny, for a movie called "Warp Speed," there's no warp speed in it. This is made by the production team of Allan Sandler and Robert Emenegger, who produced about a dozen or so cheapo sci-fi flicks between 1980 and 1983 - here, Sandler directs and Steven Spielberg's sister produces! Adam West is the only big name here, but Sandler and Emenegger also used to work with Cameron Mitchell (!) and here, the lead actor and actress are his son and daughter (!!). This one popped up on my radar about a year ago when I was looking for made-for-tv-horror movies for one of the challenges - a lot of people remembered seeing it on TV, but I couldn't find anything showing it was specifically made for it. It's essentially a feature-length Twilight Zone episode made on a shoestring budget, a sci-fi thriller film with some horror elements, including the spooky abandoned haunted house...I mean, spaceship, lots of spooky synth music, offscreen rape and murder. The central mystery is pretty standard - the ship suffers an explosive accident a la Apollo 13 and the crew falls apart trying to deal with the fact they won't make it back home while jettisoning weight and each other, a la The Cold Equations, which has also been remade a bunch. The psychic is scoffed at by the rescuing ship's commander ("Forgive me, Captain, but I place my faith in my God, my ships, and my men, not witchcraft"), and she wanders the Titan and watches scenarios from the past play out. The crew was addicted to the holodec- er, "pleasure center", and these scenes are every unintentionally funny (the crew basically fantasizes about murdering each other). Crew members are walking out of airlocks and murdering each other with ray guns when they're not playing poker as a means of who's drawing the short straw to get spaced. Some marketing descriptions for this film online mention an "alien force," but there's no evidence of that at all in the movie, which makes the incredibly abrupt ending even more of a mystery, because when it happens, there's literally zero explanation for the why of it. An odd little time waster.  4) The Hunger (1983) Trailer Seen on: Youtube NEW-TO-YOU 4/6Watch 6 movies that you have never seen before - 4th new watch of the challenge The relationship between two immortal vampiric beings (Catherine Deneuve and David Bowie) goes awry when the latter begins aging uncontrollably overnight. They seek out the help of a gerontologist (Susan Sarandon) who's been working delaying the aging process, but Deneuve eventually decides to replace Bowie with Sarandon as her lover.  I read the Whitley Strieber book that this film is based on over 20 years ago and barely remembered anything from it. The film, Tony Scott's directorial debut, has a banger of an opening credit sequence, with Peter Murphy and Bauhaus in a cage performing "Bela Lugosi is Dead" while Deneuve and Bowie enter the club and select their victims for the night. Lots of blues and whites (a motif carried visually throughout the film to great effect), sharp cuts, freeze-frames, eventually intercut with scenes of violence (one monkey in Sarandon's lab gruesomely tearing another apart). The first of the movie is pretty compelling too, especially due to Bowie's character, John, who is simultaneously pitiful (Denevue's Miriam knows that her lovers eventually wither away into heaps of dried flesh but nightmarishly remain alive, locked away in coffins, but she didn't tell him...) as he ages 60 years in the space of a day or so, but is not above murdering innocents to try and stop it. Dick Smith is credited with "makeup illusions" and his work on aging Bowie's character is excellent and convincing and adds to Bowie's story. Eventually though, he's locked away and we're left with Denevue and Sarandon, including an influential lesbian love scene between them. I originally intended to watch this for the LGBTQ+ challenge, but the truth is I don't feel that it applies here - lots of essayists talk about how the movie is filmed and its influence on the LGBTQ+ community, but in and of itself, the movie makes no overt issue of Denevue's bisexuality and the only character who opposes any of it is Sarandon's boyfriend, played an aggressive Cliff De Young - the film is more interested about the fear of aging, relationships and addictions, if anything. The second half is a little too languid in comparison to the first and the whole thing is style over substance, but it's an interesting watch. So these next ones are a two-fer - I'd seen the 1999 remake of The Mummy but never the 1932 original, so this weekend my daughter and I remedied that:  5) The Mummy (1999) Trailer Seen on: Peacock Rewatch* This probably could have arguably gone for the Horror Adjacent challenge or Picnic at Hanging Rock, but I already did the former and have other things in mind for the latter, so this can just go for: HISTORY LESSON 4/5Watch a movie from 5 different decades - the 1990s (previous: the 1970s, 1980s and 2020s) In 1926, a group of adventurers in Egypt find Hamunaptra, the City of Dead, and inadvertently awaken the evil priest Imhotep, who will stop at nothing to bring his lover back to life and rule the world. I've only watched this one a handful of times since it came out, but it's always an enjoyable experience. Brendan Fraser was basically born to play adventurer Rick O'Connell, Rachel Weisz is fetching as his love interesting, and the supporting cast is just about perfect. Even though the CGI is middling in a lot of spots, the creature action is fun and scary, and I always liked Arnold Vosloo's portrayal as Imhotep. My daughter, who watched a couple of Universal monsters movies with me last year (Dracula, Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein and The Wolf Man), watch the trailers for this and the original, and she went with this because "I'm older this year and I want something scarier." She loves romance stuff in movies so Rick and Evie's relationship was her favorite part of the movie. Amusingly, she watched half of this with a blanket over her eyes - while the mummy stuff itself wasn't too scary for her, she is deathly afraid of bugs so the flesh-eating scarabs freaked her out, but the part that really bothered her was the poor American adventurer who has his eyes and tongue taken by Imhotep. Gotta love watching disturbing stuff when you're a kid. I think this one really holds up; it's funny, it's charming, it's scary and disturbing, but not too much.  6) The Mummy (1932) Trailer Seen on: Amazon HISTORY LESSON 5/5 - complete!Watch a movie from 5 different decades - the 1930s (previous: the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and 2020s) NEW-TO-YOU 5/6Watch 6 movies that you have never seen before - 5th new watch of the challenge A group of archaelogists in Egypt accidentally reawaken the priest Imhotep, who assimilates into society and seeks to reawaken his lover. Compared to the, well, everything of the 1999 version, I thought this was incredibly understated but still pretty effective. Although you only get to see Karloff in the mummy's makeup in the first scene, I liked how years pass and he bides his time (as Ardeth Bey) until Zita Johann's Helen shows up, and he recognizes her as the reincarnation of his love. I also liked that he's a much more subtle threat here, staying near his enemies and dispatching them with magic when needed. My daughter kept waiting for jump scares that never came, which was really funny, and she liked his "TV pool," where we get to watch the flashback sequence of how things played out in the past. Unfortunately, there was one thing about this movie that soured her on it, even for as fleeting and offscreen as it happens, when Helen's dog dies - my daughter hates watching movies where animals die, even if it's offscreen or otherwise, so she wasn't happy about that. Overall though I liked this just fine. 
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Oct 1, 2023 13:27
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