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A Tuesday two-fer!Basebf555 posted:
 #15. Hocus Pocus (Theatrical) After accidentally reviving a trio of witches who have been dead for 300 years on Halloween night, a group of kids (and their magical immortal talking cat) must stop the witches from sucking the life force out of the children of Salem. Wasn't expecting to use this movie for this challenge - wasn't even expecting to watch this movie at all this year - but the theater has been doing 30th anniversary screenings, and my sister asked if I wanted to tag along with her and my nephew. So I figured, what the hell? (For what it's worth, the Halloween element is noticeably present after the preamble throughout the first half or so, but ceases to be a factor in the last third of the movie. Basically, after Bette Midler's big song number, the movie could have been set whenever and not much would have needed to change at all. But I did have fun in the theater reveling in all of the very early-90s Halloween accoutrements that were popping up on screen; it wouldn't be until Wreck-It Ralph almost 20 years later that you'd see Sonic the Hedgehog in a Disney movie, after all.) As for the movie proper, it's fine. I'm slightly too old to be truly nostalgic for this film, as I'd skipped it in theaters and I think we only rented it once or twice on VHS, so it wasn't a big deal to us at the time. It also wasn't treated as a Disney Channel ubiquity in the 90s/early 2000s, so there were far fewer instances of being able to stumble across it unintentionally. So, this film doesn't have a place of reverence for me personally, so I'm less forgiving of its overall flaws. It's FINE, but it's also something that is obviously pitched at younger audiences; it speeds past character moments and interpersonal conflicts are brought up and resolved in the span of seconds. So, as a non-Disney adult watching this movie back 30 years later, it just feels like there's not enough meat on its bones to be truly satisfying, overall. But it got my sub-5 year old nephew to cackle with laughter or jump in fright at the appropriate moments, so it must have been doing something right.  /5Basebf555 posted:
 #16. A Bucket of Blood (Amazon Prime) A nebbishy busboy at a local art cafe becomes a sensation when he unveils his first art piece: a lifelike dead cat that he covered in clay. The adoration goes to his head... and so does the pressure to keep producing similar pieces. Had some more time to kill last night after getting back from the theater, so I threw this on while riding my exercise bike. Mainly because it was a) short enough and b) fit this challenge to a T. The whole thing is another instance of being just fine - it's small stakes, but it's admirable in terms of how to utilize resources. They obviously had free access to that restaurant set and one apartment set, so they set the majority of the movie bouncing between those two locations. They also put resources into the statue props, which is needed to make the story work - everything else is down to basic film costs and the actors. And those were things that Roger Corman knew how to put to great use. As for the actors, this is very obviously Dick Miller's movie. He plays that sort of insular, wounded hope so well here, it becomes totally believable that this sort of person would go to excessive lengths to secure the admiration of the people around him. He has fun taking Walter to his heights of inflated ego when he gets a bit of success, but there's always an obvious depth of torment underneath that. It's a great tightrope walk of a performance, keeping from dipping too far into one or the other once he gets established, and Miller handles it with aplomb. The rest of the cast is pretty good, but most of the characters are thinly drawn caricatures so there's not much for them to draw on. (Outside of that one blowhard poet character, who gets to attack the most ridiculous dialogue with relish, of course; that dude was fun.) All of that said, what keeps the movie from being a minor classic is the ending, which is a bit too rushed and ill defined to really work. It's not surprising that poor Walter seems to have some kind of undiagnosed schizophrenia or other mental illness - especially since they subtly bring up the idea that he may have spent time in jail when the cops begin hanging around at the halfway mark of the film - but the reveal feels a bit clumsy. Especially coming right at the big climax as it does. The other thing is that the ending a) feels too abrupt - Walter just hangs himself off screen, and after the small group of people chasing him bursts in, they just kind of go "huh, oh well" and credits pop up. The end. - and b) doesn't feel thematically relevant with the rest of the movie. Why does Walter hang himself, especially when muttering stuff like "I'll hide where they'll never find me", as opposed to covering himself in clay and suffocating inside of a fake statue? If they intended to do both, it doesn't come across well on screen, and it means that you're going out on a confusing note more than anything else. It's a shame that the ending is so weak; I was having a lot of fun throughout the first half, but I can't in good conscience rate it much higher due to that disappointing ending. /5 Hey, look at that! Two more challenges down leads to two more Bingo rows completed! First column and fourth row. Watched so far: As Above So Below, The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster, Saw IV, The Exorcist, One Cut of the Dead, Slugs, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Saw X, The Return of the Living Dead, Tales of Halloween, No One Will Save You, Destroy All Monsters, Cujo, Dracula: Prince of Darkness, Hocus Pocus, A Bucket of Blood Individual Challenges = 11/13 NEW-TO-YOU = 6/6 HISTORY LESSON = 5/5 AROUND THE WORLD = 2/4 HORROR IS FOR EVERYONE = 1/3
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Oct 11, 2023 16:51
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smitster posted:
I watched Petey Wheatstraw last night and yea it's pretty wild. Not necessarily something I'd call great but it's definitely one of those movies that operates on it's own set of rules.
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Oct 11, 2023 16:53
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Glad to see more people using it for their challenges after it was recommended to me. It's great fun, wildly original, and the devil and hell are both amazingly portrayed. The jokes and energy are just plain fun and the last act is some super fun comedy-action-horror with a perfect horror ending. If you have a soft spot for blaxploitation and guerilla filmmaking you can do so much worse.
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Oct 11, 2023 17:01
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Deadite posted:12. The Stuff - 1985 Fun fact! Garrett Morris' character is based on then-celebrity cookie king Wally Amos, of Famous Amos cookies. 
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Oct 11, 2023 17:02
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26. Chillerama (2011) Crass, tasteless, and juvenile. Every joke is aimed squarely at ten year old boys, and is more than likely about cum or farts. Obviously, I have a soft spot for a horror anthology like this. It ain't high art, but it is a helluva lot of fun. Hitler screaming 'BOBA FETT KALI MA GOLDIE HAWN CHIPOTLE CHILI' in faux-German while a Jewish Frankenstein ruins his puppy puzzle is adequately silly, and I'm just dumb enough that it works for me. If you're ten years old at heart, this is probably a good fit for you. Rating: 6/10 Teenage Were-Bears
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Oct 11, 2023 17:14
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13. The Exorcist  Childhood TraumaEveryone knows what The Exorcist is, so I'll skip the synopsis. So the reason I'm using this for Childhood Trauma is the same reason I didn't get into horror until I was in my mid 20's. Like, thirty years ago when I was 8, my mom met what would become her current husband. The problem was, for whatever reason, the dude really wanted to impress my older brother and sister, so he'd constantly try to make fun of me and generally gently caress with me. One night, he thought it'd be fun to try to scar me by having us all sit down and watch The Exorcist, which he didn't mention to me was a horror movie. I was a timid kid, so I only got to the point where Linda Blair started getting sick and I bailed and went to my room to watch cartoons. It's hard to explain, but I wasn't scared of the demon stuff, but was deeply depressed by the concept that I could become sick one day and no one would be able to help me and I'd just die. Adding to that was the fact that the movie was super dreary and "boring" to 8 year old me, so for whatever reason, it was seared into my brain that horror movies were just these super adult and boring things that weren't for me, so horror just always had a negative feeling for me. Eventually around the age of 25, after getting deep into movies as an adult, I decided to give horror a fair shot and got deep into it, but I always avoided watching The Exorcist because I assumed it was just really boring. A few years ago however, I watched Sorcerer and loved it, so Friedkin and The Exorcist came back on my radar. The biggest surprise to me was that the demon stuff is the least scary stuff in the movie. All the medical procedures were really disturbing, and the whole feeling of both Father Karas and Chris MacNeil both losing their faith in their lives and getting beaten down by things they couldn't control definitely hit me in a specific spot. Jason Miller was the stand out for me and I really bought him as a guy who's at the end of his rope but still has to keep going. Ellen Burstyn also obviously did a great job, and Max Von Sydow is always excellent. 5/5 challenges: Freddy Vs. Jason Horror Adjancent Birth of Horror Box Art Exorcist at 50 Bite Sized Horror Picnic At Hanging Rock... in Space Rob Zombie That Guy Dick Samhain Childhood Trauma New-to-You 6/6 History Lesson 5/5 (60's, 70's, 80's, 90's, 2020's) Around the World (Europe) HIFE: Women HIFE: POC 
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Oct 11, 2023 17:29
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CRAYON posted:Seeing this film get constant praise from horror thread and october challenge write-ups makes me think I need to give it another chance. Maybe I was just in a mood during my first viewing a couple years ago but man I hated it then. A good wine to pair it off with is Q: The Winged Serpent, a similarly baffling movie.
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Oct 11, 2023 17:35
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Name Change posted:A good wine to pair it off with is Q: The Winged Serpent, a similarly baffling movie. Yeah I wouldn't call either movie objectively good, they're both very strange and seem to take place in an alternate reality to ours. That's exactly why I like them though, if you just accept that the people on screen are going to act in unusual ways then they're both a fun ride
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Oct 11, 2023 17:42
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Biff Rockgroin posted:13. The Exorcist The medical horror was what really hit me about The Exorcist myself when I first watched it, as well as the crisis of faith. It's amazing how little attention the first act gets when that entire throughline is the scariest stuff. The famous possession scenes are good and all but those shots and medical charts are what give me the shivers whenever I think about it.
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Oct 11, 2023 18:04
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Erin M. Fiasco posted:Glad to see more people using [Petey Wheatstraw] for their challenges ... the devil and hell are both amazingly portrayed. I loved the portrayal of the Devil, especially when he goes out for a jog
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Oct 11, 2023 18:07
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Erin M. Fiasco posted:The medical horror was what really hit me about The Exorcist myself when I first watched it, as well as the crisis of faith. It's amazing how little attention the first act gets when that entire throughline is the scariest stuff. The famous possession scenes are good and all but those shots and medical charts are what give me the shivers whenever I think about it. The mind blowing thing was that I looked it up afterwards, and everything in the movie is accurate, if not actually toned down a bit. Like, that machine that kept moving around also involves draining the cerebral fluid in the brain and pumping air in instead, but they thankfully didn't show that part of the procedure.
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Oct 11, 2023 18:15
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9. The Nun NEW TO YOU (5/6) EXORCIST AT 50 I like the first two Conjuring films (I was always more of an Insidious guy altho I know they don’t have to be compared, it just feels like they always are) but I’ve been no fan of these spin offs. I saw the Annabelle ones and I kinda hated them. The Nun makes a lot of the same mistakes as those Annabelle films. First being the assumption that a 5 minute, effective, spooky scene in a larger narrative frame can sustain a whole film. The Nun scenes in the Conjuring 2 were great but shoe horning it into a feature just doesn’t work. This one is boring and predictable. I mean every trope in the book from the exorcist with a haunted past to flipping open dusty tomes to “V” for “Valak” so the main character can read exposition aloud as if his internal monologue is broken. Now one thing The Nun has over Annabelle is that a dark, creepy, abbey out in old world Europe is gonna give spooky vibes no matter what. And there is some nice imagery. Taissa Farmiga is a real natural talent and does an admirable job with very little. The other thing I will give credit for is just how self-serious it is. I’m not surprised certain religious groups actually responded well to how much this film posits that gold is real, Jesus’ blood is magic, and through prayer demons can be kept at bay. There’s very little sarcastic winking here, I can at least appreciate that. But ultimately it commits the cardinal sin of just not being particularly scary. It’s on rails and every jumpscare is heavily choreographed. So much of the same cgi Gumby face with little tension building. Makes me long for the scares of the Conjuring, the hands, that ghoul up on the dresser. It’s lacking a lot of creativity. And I think it’s really meant for a theater experience. I couldn’t get over just how dark, literally, it was and how every scare is predicated on a big sound blaring through theater speakers. There were so many original and creepy directions it could have gone but you are just left with something that feels like a cynical product in this larger corporate vision of a “Conjuringverse”. So will I watch The Nun II? I’m a loving idiot so probably! 1.5/5  4/5- V/H/S 2* (2013), V/H/S 94* (2021), Night of the Demons* (1988) 3.5/5- V/H/S* (2012) 3/5- The Munsters (2022), Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors (1965) 2.5/5- Scare Package II: Rad Chad’s Revenge (2022), The Haunted World of El Superbeasto (2009) 1.5/5 - The Nun (2018) *=rewatch WeaponX fucked around with this message at 23:09 on Oct 11, 2023 |
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Oct 11, 2023 18:19
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Still watching movies for the full challenge but I wanted to present my grading system. Everything is rated out of 5. Cats - Were there cats? How prominent were the cats. Alien would be 5/5 cats. Blood and gore - papercuts vs gorefests Jumpscares - were they tasteful, infrequent, and adding anything? Or were they spammy and poo poo? Spooky - Self explanitory Goosebump Factor - Also self explanitory. Cheese Factor - was it campy or gritty? Writing/acting - I think we all know what generic modern films are like. Everyone is a comedian with one liners, etc. Overall - a complete average with no weights of all these factors to determine if a movie is Grey Cat approved. I'm opting to watch only new horror movies I haven't seen from 2010 onward. I've seen pretty much every classical horror movie from the 1890s to the 1990s. (probably not all but at least 150+ movies) So I'm going for something different as a self imposed challenge. Also because every time I've seen a recent horror movie in theater or otherwise it sucked poop. Maybe I'll find something good in the 31 I've chosen.
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Oct 11, 2023 18:19
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16. The Wicker Man - 1973 Rewatch. What else needs to be said that's hasn't already been said, it's a classic. 17. The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster - 2023  I have mixed feelings about this movie. It feels like separate scripts/ideas that were mushed together and one worked better than the other, but as a whole it just doesn't gel. It's nominally a retelling of Frankenstein, but really it feels like a remake of Re-Animator except this time you're supposed to root for Herbert West. The parts with the gang and her family were great, but most of the monster stuff didn't feel like it had a clear idea of what it wanted to say. It was beautifully shot though, there were some long takes that were fantastic. 18. No One Will Save You - 2023  Very fun. I really liked the gimmick of having an almost dialog-free movie when so many movies just lean on an exposition dumps instead of communicating through visuals. 19. American Gothic - 1988  I found this while browsing through Amazon Prime and wondered why I hadn't heard of it before. There's a good reason it's forgotten. Remote location, stranded young adults, creepy family, you can probably fill in the plot with just those elements. There were some good performances from the older actors but it's ultimately a forgettable slasher. 20. The Sadness - 2021  This movie goes so hard. Super gorey and violent, there are some scenes so off-putting that I had to pause the movie and take a break. It's super tight and has no time for subplots. This is very much in my wheelhouse and I wish I had watched it sooner. Total: 20 Watched: Dagon, Hagazussa, The Being, Infinity Pool, Possessor, Spiral, Brain Dead,Jeruzalem,Spirit Halloween: The Movie,Next of Kin,Tales from the Hood,The Stuff,Underwater,May,House 2: The Second Story,The Wicker Man,The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster,No One Will Save You,No One Will Save You,American Gothic,The Sadness History Lesson: 5/5 (1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, 2020s) New to You: 6/6 (Dagon, Hagazussa, The Being, Infinity Pool, Possessor, Spiral) Around the World: 3/4 (Europe [Hagazussa], Australia [Next of Kin], Asia [The Sadness]) Horror is for Everyone: 2/3 (Female Director [The Being], POC Director [Tales from the Hood]) Birth of Horror 1/1 The Being The Samhain Challenge 1/1 Spirit Halloween: The Movie CineD Horror Thread Poll Challenge 1/1 Possessor
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Oct 11, 2023 20:37
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Deadite posted:17. The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster - 2023 Wait, you're not supposed to root for Herbert West in those movies?
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Oct 11, 2023 20:40
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Class3KillStorm posted:Wait, you're not supposed to root for Herbert West in those movies? I don't know, it's never been clear to me in that movie whether he killed the pet cat
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Oct 11, 2023 20:49
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1. Hereditary 2018 ----- Spoilers! I'm going to write these as just live play by plays of things I found interesting. ----- Hope you like listening to a kid make mouth noises because it was the most anxiety inducing part of the entire movie. Grandma dies and family has weird dynamics. Rich white people live in massive house that creaks more than a 7,000 year old barn. This movie has everything, good ol fashion ableism, teenagers who totally smoke the Mary J. Big bro peter takes what appears to be a 12 yo charlie to a party, mom made him do it. Sister has allergic reaction to... "something"? so he drives to the hospital but accidentally blasts her head clean off with a utility pole. He doesn't even tell anyone, just brings mom's car back with the headless body and goes to bed. Mom goes to take the car in the morning and goes about as you'd expect. Pan to a shot of the kid's head being eaten by ants. Kids smoking the WEED under bleachers, heh, hey bro you facebook bro? Weed lol. "I'm having a reaction to the weeeeeeed aaaaaah!" Mouth noises mouth noises mouth noises, horrible. Mom is a loving weirdo, recreating the scene of the accident of her headless child in miniature form. Very normal coping behavior. Mom pulling out the "I know you are but what am I wah wah wah" attitude. Earlier in the movie mom's saying everything horrible in her life was her fault and instead of taking fault for her daughter dying she just jumps the gun that everyone else is at fault even though she made her go to the party. Ok? Seance time! Hope nobody slides a magnet under this chalkboard~ ANTS! Hope you liked kingdom of the crystal skull. "I never wanted to be your mother" "I tried to miscarry you", drat okay... take your problems to counceling not your kid, assole. SIKE! It was all a dream, I never said those bad things to my kid so it's okay. Seance II: Charlie boogaloo. "what language even is that?" you old white people need to see more culture, you'd notice all the random words being dropped throughout the movie are from multiple languages. Hebrew, Greek, etc. Schools in session, the class? Mouth noises 101. Mom gets a call from dad, dad hangs up on her, she dials back, "don't you ever hang up on me!" then hangs up on him. What a psycho. She goes apeshit on some weirdo model she's working on. Stop making mouth noises I'm trying to sleep! Upside down school camera shot was actually cool. Oops, what if we've been conjuring a random dark god's spirit and not actually our dead child? Would be a shame if Peter had that one school freakout everyone saw growing up. What was that smell earlier? Oh it was grandma's corpse rotting in the attic. Throw the book into the fire, oops husband is on fire now. That's a level 20 curse at least. That's a penis. Nice penis ya got there, champ. You sure look real proud of it. Yes... go into the attic, totally not cornered in there. "mommy" bunch of naked old white people hanging out in the attic, leaving nothing to the imagination. Fall out the window and go into the treehouse, MORE NAKED OLD WHITE PEOPLE, like 20 of them. I'm starting to think they have an infestation at this point. ----- Cats - 0/5 not a single cat Blood and gore - 3/5 Jumpscares - 1/5 loving mouth noises! Spooky - 2/5 Goosebump Factor - 3/5 Cheese Factor - 2/5 Writing/acting - 3/5 Overall - 2/5 It was okay, it's a really slow burn that only picks up in the last quarter of the movie. If it weren't for the mouth noises being such a huge focal point I'd give it a 3. So if you don't have any auditory processing issues maybe you'll not care as much as I did. The acting and writing were pretty okay. The twist wasn't a huge shock considering they set it up at the very beginning that grandma was weird and culty. Full exposure nudity was a lol.
Grey Cat fucked around with this message at 20:53 on Oct 11, 2023 |
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Oct 11, 2023 20:50
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Deadite posted:I don't know, it's never been clear to me in that movie whether he killed the pet cat He absolutely did and he's a complete sociopath. That being said I don't think I saw Reanimator in Angry Black Girl besides the obvious Frankenstein parallels. Vicaria is a mad scientist but so was Frankenstein. Frankenstein and Vicaria also share some core early motivation of having lost their mothers setting them on their path to try and conquer death. Herbert West is just a sociopath.
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Oct 11, 2023 21:00
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 #39.) Hellinger (1997; Tubi; dir. Massimiliano Cerchi) A creature of legend, Hellinger, escapes from his sentence of eternal wandering in search of damned souls. Imbued with strange powers, no earthly force can stop him... except perhaps the daughter of one of his victims. With an SOV look, the attitude of an edgy '90s comic, and plenty of evident issues (like the mic picking up gust after gust of wind in a bridge-set scene, and background hum in virtually every other one), this is obviously not a film made on a big budget. But there's signs of effort put into its creation; dialogue scenes get a variety of shots to mix things up, there's original music, shots get fun framing, lighting is used well, the actors' performances seem enthusiastic without gawking at the camera, practical effects are convincing (usually), and a wide range of locations are used. If the story were more polished, it might tip over into an overall positive. But we get a tease of Hellinger at the start, then what's effectively a cameo from him after a time-jump, and then over half an hour of characters just dealing with things on the periphery of his actions. Going from the main character's boyfriend canvassing the city and punching a pimp in search of information, to chats about her mental state, to one of a few sex scenes, it's hard to keep interest, especially since Hellinger himself is easily the most interesting part of the whole affair. His voice is kind of goofy, and his deliveries are hammy, but the de-pinned Pinhead look he's sporting works well in the dark rooms he inhabits, and he has nicely creepy musical accompaniment for his scenes. If he had more presence in the film, I'd be much happier, and not just because he's what the movie (via poster) sells itself on. As is, despite some respectable effort, it ends up being a pretty boring slog. “What we're dealing with here is basically the black hole of the subconscious. Frightening, isn't it?” Rating: 4/10
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Oct 11, 2023 21:03
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STAC Goat posted:That being said I don't think I saw Reanimator in Angry Black Girl besides the obvious Frankenstein parallels. Vicaria is a mad scientist but so was Frankenstein. Frankenstein and Vicaria also share some core early motivation of having lost their mothers setting them on their path to try and conquer death. Herbert West is just a sociopath. This is where I have mixed feelings about the movie. We're told Vicaria is motivated by the death of her brother but we don't spend any time with that character prior to his death or see the relationship they had. Then the scene of her in school arguing with her teacher feels like it was lifted directly out of Re-Animator, so maybe that's informing my view of Vicaria. To me it felt like reversing death was her real goal and bringing back her brother was secondary. I feel like the movie would have been better if there was more preamble before her brother's death, because at least to me their relationship was never really established.
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Oct 11, 2023 21:09
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STAC Goat posted:He absolutely did and he's a complete sociopath. Say what you will about Herbert West : he has zero tolerance for plagiarism.
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Oct 11, 2023 21:24
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27. Scream For Help (1984) First half of the movie is The Stepfather but with less blood, and the second half is Home Alone but with less comedy. It's an OK movie in general, but some of the performances are REALLY bad. The occasional moments of brilliance at the end of the movie (the aforementioned Home Alone poo poo) is pretty entertaining, but you're already halfway through the movie before it gets there, so it's just meh. Shout-out to the horny teenage boy love interest in this movie who has on, quite literally, the dirtiest looking underwear I've ever seen in a movie, Jesus. Rating: 4.3/10 Dropped Polaroids
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Oct 11, 2023 21:32
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Deadite posted:This is where I have mixed feelings about the movie. We're told Vicaria is motivated by the death of her brother but we don't spend any time with that character prior to his death or see the relationship they had. Then the scene of her in school arguing with her teacher feels like it was lifted directly out of Re-Animator, so maybe that's informing my view of Vicaria. To me it felt like reversing death was her real goal and bringing back her brother was secondary. I do agree that she was less motivated about specifically bringing back her brother than she was “curing death”. But that’s true of Frankenstein too. He’s motivated by loss but he’s driven by ego and a god complex. And the movie does show Vicaria has a bit of that. I think the clear difference between her West is West is purely motivated by his ego and scientific curiosity. Vicaria is motivated by the world she’s living in where she fears losing his father like she did her brother and mother and where death comes so easy. She really is trying to conquer death but not for her own ego but to save the lives of the people she loves. West would never concern himself with such things. And the school scene feels less about her and more about the reality that she lives in a society that doesn’t understand or care about the needs of her or her community. That goes to her sister in law teaching her siblings about black history, Vicaria arguing with her and calling her a hotep, her father sticking up for her with the teacher, etc. I’d argue the movie takes more from Boyz N the Hood than ReAnimator. STAC Goat fucked around with this message at 22:11 on Oct 11, 2023 |
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Oct 11, 2023 22:07
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 19. Pet Sematary (1989) (Rewatch) Haven't watched this in many years. I saw this too young and was afraid that our family's cat was going to turn evil as a result, so I think it qualifies for the challenge, though my wife picked this as she is on a Stephen King kick this month. Onto the movie - the way Dale Midkiff reacts in every scene (with harrowing horrible poo poo going down) is so bland and tepid, it's like how I react to getting an annoying email at work. He brings the movie down, tbh. Gage is an adorable little psycho though, and Fred Gwynne is the backbone of the whole thing, ayuh. From what I am hearing about Pet Sematary Bloodlines that just came out, it's clear that sometimes a dead franchise is bettah.  3.5/5This covers the Childhood Trauma challenge 20. World War Z (2013) I remembered liking the book, and hearing that the movie was very different, so maybe that's why I avoided this for so long? It's fine, though. Brad Pitt is some sort of nebulous U.N. problem solver guy and is tasked with solving the zombie outbreak. The opening chunk with the world falling into chaos is nothing we haven't seen in a dozen other movies but it's still tense and enjoyable. The middle is a bit of a drag - Pitt travels around the world, finds another dead end, zombies arrive and kill everyone, he gets away and repeat - but they pull it together for a silly final act involving a disease heist. That said, I like the "solution" to the zombie outbreak they come up with, it's a neat idea and overall this is a perfectly cromulent zombie movie. 3/5This covers the Rob Zombie Challenge challengeTotal Watched: 20/31 Completed Challenges: CineD Horror Thread (Basket Case), FvJ Monster Mash (Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man), Samhain (Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers), Back of the Video Store (Destroyer), Birth of Horror (Silver Bullet), HIFE POC (Scream Blacula Scream), Bite-Size Horror (V/H/S/85), HIFE Women (Totally Killer), That Guy Dick Miller (A Bucket of Blood), Horror Adjacent (Life), Childhood Trauma (Pet Sematary), Rob Zombie (World War Z) Outstanding Challenges: Picnic in Space, Exorcist Anniversary, Animals Attack, HIFE LGBTQ New To You: 13/6 (Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, Terrified, Hour of the Wolf, Destroyer, Gaia, Scream Blacula Scream, American Gothic, VHS 85, Shin Godzilla, Totally Killer, A Bucket of Blood, Life, World War Z) History Lesson: 8/5 (1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2010s, 2020s) Around the World: 4/4 (South America: Terrified, Europe: Hour of the Wolf, Africa: Gaia, Asia: Shin Godzilla)
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Oct 11, 2023 22:10
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 7. Q (1982) An oddball daylight monster flick that's more on the King Kong kaiju wavelength of municipal menace than beastie horror. There's a real off-kilter rhythm to the editing here in particular. We get quick skit-like introductions to Manhattanites on building roofs for various reasons, then the flying Harryhausen-like lizard monster swoops in to attack them in quick spasms of violence, then cut to cops running down a murder case or Michael Moriarty as a whiny lowlife (who looks and sounds a little like a young Bill Burr when he's bitchin' up a storm?) making disastrous life choices. The vibe is kind of that New York is too busy with too much going on to make too big a thing about an ancient quetzalcoatl on the loose. The real core of the story is Moriarty, after being involved in a jewel heist gone wrong, trying to use his accidental knowledge of the lizard's nest to lever himself into the first Big Man moment of his life and get to dictate terms to the cops. When he gets his chance to puff himself up and make screechy demands to the police commissioner for a "Nixon-style pardon" and a million bucks and the book rights too, it's a fantastic scene. Moriarty kills it as a dude who's not a very good person and not very bright but maybe isn't being entirely foolish either, to seize his one chance to play hardball with the cops like Richard Roundtree who otherwise slap him around and treat him like slime. Everyone comes off as a chump or a shithead except for Candy Clark in a warm, emotive role as Moriarty's long-suffering gal who can accept him being an unsuccessful schnook and endure his jazz scatting but not tolerate him being callous about letting people die when his info could save lives. Uh wasn't there a monster in this story?? You never forget it's there but it's just part of the weird energy and budget-skimping nature of Q that it gobbling up sunbathers and construction workers is merely a piece in Moriarty's story. Lovers of stop motion critters will feast on the climax though, with some gloriously ropey VFX work as it battles the cops atop the Chrysler building and hurls them to their deaths amidst flurries of machinegun fire. It's all a kooky uneven ramble but if you pressed me for a binary response I'd say thumbs up over thumbs down!   / 5Challenges: When Animals of Unusual Size Attack  8. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) A bleak howl of brutality. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre remains fresh and arresting nearly 50 years later, through a simplicity that seems to have escaped even the most minimalist imitators. None of the genre games about victims creeping around in the dark listening to noises, or coy hiding of the killer's faces. No suspense. Just the unleashing, the fully dehuman cruelty of the slaughterhouse, and Marilyn Burns' bring-down-the-house performance of screaming terror so visceral that it makes the many decades of fainting damsels preceding her feel like operatic nonce.   / 5
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Oct 11, 2023 22:23
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In for 20 this year. Woohoo! 1. Joy Ride - 2001  Thought this one was a rewatch but upon watching I think I just remembered the previews for it. Co-Written by JJ Abrams, which surprised me in the opening credits. This movie pulls a "and then things were fine" like halfway into the movie and it's actually pretty funny. Like, it'd honestly be surprising if the villain just decided to leave the two alone halfway into the movie and the second half was just a fun roadtrip while the brothers catch up. Paul Walker and Steve Zahn are a fun pairing here. Ted Levine voices the villain but doesn't portray him physically. I'm a slut for imdb trivia so here's an interesting bit: Filming for this took place over 3 years and they couldn't decide on the ending. Zahn had to come back for reshoots of the ending and wear a wig to match his hair in the movie. 3/5 2. The Strangers - 2008  Rewatch. This one spooked me when I watched it for the first time years ago and it still creeped me out this time. It's very effective. That ending is goddamn bleak and loving rough. Scott Speedman having his marriage proposal rejected, accidentally blowing his best friend's head off and then being stabbed to death is an all-timer BAD DAY. This one reminds me of Funny Games in that the movie ends and I thought "Welp, that was all terrible, I feel bad." I "enjoyed" this one. 4/5 3. The Strangers: Prey at Night - 2018     I wasn't sure what to expect with this one. Would this movie follow a similar progression to the original movie? It starts with a similar setup of a tense personal situation between people. The setting is different, a mobile home rather than a single house, which opens the movie up to a bit more variety than the first. There's a scene at a neon lit pool that is absolutely gorgeous. You owe it to yourself to check out the scene even if you don't want to watch the entire movie. Did the sequel surpass the original? It's hard to say without talking a bit more about the first also, full spoilers for both: Seeing the three killers get their comeuppance was loving cathartic. I literally pumped my fist when the lead actress blasts one of the killers with a shotgun twice. I think that I enjoyed seeing them get dispatched even more because of how bleak the first movie's ending was. I enjoyed it. 4/5 4. Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives - 1986  I've seen this one several times and it delivers every time. Lots of fun. The opening scene is great. The Alice Cooper music is great. It's great. 4/5 5. P2 - 2007  A lady gets stuck in the parking garage at her office building and there's a baddie in there. I love to see what a writer/director does with a simple premise like this. I usually like "person trapped in a scary situation" movies but this one did nothing for me. It's kinda boring. The actor playing the villain somehow isn't menacing even after you've seen him kill some people. It was a total miss for me. 1/5 6. Copycat - 1995  I thought this one might be a Silence of the Lambs knockoff, but I was glad to be proven wrong. Copycat sets itself apart. About halfway into the movie I thought "alright, I've seen enough horror thrillers to make an educated guess that this character must be the killer" and then the movie actually surprised me instead. I also liked seeing Sigourney Weaver's three monitor, online game on one monitor, chat on another, fish tank on the third setup. She's way way ahead of the game by 1995 standards. I appreciated this movie's attention to detail: When the killer is revealed, my first thought was "oh, it's a totally random guy we haven't seen before" but actually he shows up in the opening scene and later on in the police station and he literally says hi to one of the characters. That's a huge benefit to casting someone that isn't as well known for this role. If an easily recognized actor was in those scenes it definitely would've grabbed my attention. It's good. Incredibly tense ending. 4/5 7. The Hidden - 1987  Kyle McLachlan plays an FBI Agent years before Twin Peaks and it fits him well here too. Lots of fast cars, shoot outs, and a pretty bat poo poo storyline. It's Jason Goes to Hell before Jason Goes to Hell. 3/5 8. Valentine - 2001  I saw this one around the release even though I was not a horror or slasher watcher back then. Not sure how I ended up seeing it, but I remember it creeping me out. Rewatching it, I figured it wouldn't be very good. I actually enjoyed it quite a bit. Valentine is jam packed with unlikable characters. Bullies, Grifters, Sex Pests, etc. From the start it feels so obvious who the killer must be because so many of the other characters are so awful that it'd be unsatisfying for any of them to also be the killer. There's a whole sequence in a weird art/music exhibit thing where the walls are made of tvs with closeups of eyes and mouths. The kills are pretty gruesome/inventive too. Someone gets shot with arrows by a killer in a cupid mask. Someone gets trapped in a hot tub with a glass lid on top and then attacked with a drill and then electrocuted. Another person gets their neck pushed down into jagged glass. It's pretty gnarly. Much better than I expected but still not what I'd call a great movie. 3/5
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Oct 11, 2023 22:34
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Vanilla Bison posted:
Moriarty rules in Q. He is so magnetic on screen. He tends to be the best, or a worst, most interesting thing in a lot of the stuff he was in. He also seems to be a bit of a crazy person which tracks.
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Oct 11, 2023 22:48
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2. The Lighthouse 2019 ----- Spoilers! ----- Black and white, love it, visually very striking. 1890s Maritime Misadventure? Opening with a fat piss into a bedpan and a fart... make that farts. Willem Dafoe is old! And suspiciously obsessed with the light. More farts. This is what you get when you leave the lads alone for too many weeks I see. The last keeper was driven mad to his own death? Hmm, I'm sure that's nothin to do with the light. The doldrum! $600 a year, living large. Willem Dafoe masterbates and cums to the light. Or maybe it's the tentacles? The water is coming in black. Winslow absolutely pulps a bird with his bare hands. I didn't know birds had so much blood in them. A good lol at the sudden cut after throwing poo poo off a cliff and winslow screaming. Winslow is starting to halucinate, gets a handfull of fish titty. Freaky screaming. The boat didn't show up. Big storm. Tensions are high. wot wot wot wot wot "If I had a steak... I would gently caress it!" lol Fart. Winslow masterbates to visions of him loving a mermaid. cums and screams "screeeeeeeeeeeeEeEEEeee!" 10/10 They almost drunkenly kiss, but that'd be gay so they fist fight instead. Naked Dafoe. Winslow, if that is your real name! Getting hard to tell who the crazy one is and how long they've been on the island. More pissing. "you smell like jizzum" Making him walk around and bark like a dog on a leash, certified, "that's my fetish" moment. So I married an axe murderer. Prometheus. ----- Cats - 0/5 Blood and gore - 4/5 Jumpscares - -/5 Spooky - 4/5 Goosebump Factor - 3/5 Cheese Factor - -/5 Writing/acting - 5/5 Overall - 3.25/5 clearly much better if it had cats. Jokes aside probably a 4/5. Definitely an interesting watch if you like this sort of thing. I know I do. Feels like a movie you could watch more than once but not like an every year thing. Psychological horror and nobody is happy in the end. Leaves you wondering what the gently caress was up with the light. Definitely some funny dialog mixed together with the absolute babbling of two crazed men. LOTS of making GBS threads and cumming.
Grey Cat fucked around with this message at 23:08 on Oct 11, 2023 |
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Oct 11, 2023 22:53
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 63) Happy Birthday to Me - 1981 - Prime This one's a fairly average entry from the Great Slasher Glut with some moments of standing out. I remember when it came out and we were a bit thrown off by Mary Ingalls from Little House on the Prairie being in a horror movie. Plot follows Ginny, a member of the Top Ten elite clique at the prestigious Crawford Academy. She suffers memory loss and blackouts from an accident where her mother died. When her friends in the Top Ten start turning up dead when she's having blackouts, she fears she's the worst. Overall, it's a pretty standard storyline for a slasher of the time. It makes it all the more a headscratcher in that the original concept had Ginny being possessed by her dead mother getting revenge during the blackouts, but the producers felt everyone was expecting that. With how the film progresses, angry possession ghost would've been a surprise. The film is a bit overlong. It could be trimmed by 15 minutes or so and still be fine. Most of the characters are unlikable, which is probably on par for rich assholes. As I don't know any, I have no basis for comparison. Ginny's kinda bland and just 'there'. In general, the film isn't forgettable or interchangeable with all the other slashers of the time. Some of the kills are pretty good, and the birthday party at the end is something to see. It's something I'd recommend to someone who's already seen the better offerings from that time like The Burning or Madman.  64) Ghostwatch - 1992 - Prime Premise is a live broadcast investigating the paranormal bites off more than it can chew. Ghostwatch shares the same tier as the radio broadcast of War of the Worlds in regards to public reaction. On the surface that sounds strange that people in the early 90s would be reacting like people in the late 30s, but there are some key points to keep in mind. At the time, the BBC had a reputation for serious documentaries, so presenting a mockumentary even with disclaimers (which could be missed) was unheard of. The call in number was the same one used on legitimate live broadcasts and while for those who did get through would get a message stating the show was fiction, the number was more often slammed by the number of calls so most would just get a busy signal. Another thing is Halloween was still more of an American holiday compared to today so most viewers didn't think anything different due to the October 31st air date. Also of note were a fair amount of respected/known British presenters were playing themselves in the broadcast which added to the sense of realism. There were 30,000 complaints made, pregnant women shocked into labor, children diagnosed with PTSD and or anxiety according to the British Medical Journal, and a tragic suicide that I've yet to find if there was a judicial review on or how or if anything came of it. One of the presenters, Sarah Greene had to make an appearance on Children's BBC to reassure children the show wasn't real. I first sat through this around 10 years ago and as 'horror jaded' as I am, I was impressed with how solid it still is. Everyone involved did an on point replication of a live broadcast of the time. The writer, Stephen Volk did write a sequel to this that's available as a free pdf on his website which is also quite good. It was pretty much treated as 'program non grata' by the BBC for around 10 years when an anniversary DVD was allowed. I highly recommend this one for multiple reasons. It's a good spooky watch and a significant part of Horror TV history. I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints.
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Oct 11, 2023 22:54
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 24. Clear Cut quote:Not sure what to make of this. Peter vacillates between sniveling toady and full kapo, and it's an incredibly annoying time. On the other hand, Graham Greene is electric as Walter, the righteous embodiment of First Nations justice. / 51. [•Rec] 2. Attack the Block 3. The Wolf House 4. Bird with the Crystal Plumage 5. Abbot & Costello Meet Frankenstein 6. Perfect Blue 7. Juju Stories 8. The Invisible Man 9. Tetsuo: The Iron Man 10. Ringu 11. Pearl 12. Exorcist III 13. A Bucket of Blood 14. Labirynth 15. Slotherhouse 16. Stoker 17. Lords of Salem 18. MAY 19. Wild Things 20. The Lost Boys 21. Possessor 22. I Saw The Devil 23. Retribution 24. Clearcut
Shrecknet fucked around with this message at 23:44 on Oct 11, 2023 |
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Oct 11, 2023 22:55
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Xiahou Dun posted:Say what you will about Herbert West : he has zero tolerance for plagiarism.
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Oct 11, 2023 22:57
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 11. Friday the 13th It's been probably 30 or more years since I've watched this. I've seen it multiple times as a kid, and thought it was just "ok" compared to the others, mostly because Jason hasn't surfaced yet. Watching it now, I absolutely loved it. Seeing a baby Kevin Bacon made me smile. Nothing was too corny. Nothing looked low budget. The shots were put together with purpose. The characters all had personalities. It sets a good baseline. And the freaking ending made me jump out of my goddamn seat even though I knew drat well what was coming. 4/5
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Oct 11, 2023 23:50
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 10)Def by Temptation challengesHIFE:POCWhat a fun movie. Soundtrack is a bop, it's got a bunch of funny one liners. Cinematography and effects are solid too. Loved the atmosphere and the relationship between the brothers. There's probably more room thematically to play with the film's politics, though ol' Ronnie does play a role in one of the film's better scenes. It's a little anti-sex and arguably anti-woman but no more puritanical than some slashers, and certainly no more religious than exorcism films. Nothing too egregious in there on that front. Mostly a fun vampire/demon (she acts like a vampire, but is called a demon, and sort of follow buffy vampires are demons in human bodies rules) romp with fun practical effects /5
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Oct 11, 2023 23:56
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15. Creepshow dir. George A. Romero (1982)  Lots of goofy fun, I enjoyed seeing Romero work in a slightly lighthearted tone than I'm used to. Also impressed with myself for correctly guessing which of the shorts he got primary credit for editing on because an especially good montage in Something To Tide You Over. That sense of rhythm Romero had with editing is really what sets him apart. That short was probably my second favorite, lots of fun seeing Leslie Neilsen be an evil fucker. All the segments are pretty good, though the one starring Stephen King maybe crosses a little too far over into goofiness for me and King doesn't quite have the physical comedy chops to carry it. The Crate is the best overall, the setup of both the horror element and the character conflicts build tension off of each other really naturally. Plus it has a Grade A Evil Beast in it. You always get bonus points for having a good creature. /5, and a couple bucks to go down to the comic shop when you finish your chores. This was my Bite Sized Horror challenge pick, I figured since I've never really bothered with anthologies I should really watch the classic choice. No meta.  Challenges Completed (9/13): CineD Horror thread poll GOAT Goats (REC from Tapes list, Ringu from House List), Horror Adjacent (Night of the Hunter), That Guy (Keith David in The Thing), Exorcist 50th anniversary (Exorcist III), The Birth of Horror (Trauma in Minneapolis), Animals of Unusual Size (Godzilla and Anguirus in Godzilla Rides Again), Rob Zombie (Dawn of the Dead's Zombies), Back of the Videostore (Sole Survivor), Picnic in Space (History of the Occult, period piece), Bite Sized Horror (Creepshow)  Meta Challenges (15/18): New to Me (6/6), Around the World (4/4, Europe/Asia/Australia/South America) History Lesson (5/5, 2000s/1950s/2010s/1980s/1990s) Horror's For Everyone (0/3) Bingo card 22  I have two choices lined up that'll give me some multi-bingos 
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Oct 12, 2023 00:23
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 10. Resolution Mike chains his meth addict friend Chris to the wall in a rundown house that Chris has been squatting in. Weird things start happening. Very low budget movie and it doesn't really show it IMHO. Strong performances from the two leads and no complaints about the couple other side characters.
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Oct 12, 2023 00:27
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 #40.) The Crawling Eye (1958; Pluto TV; dir. Quentin Lawrence) A set of unusual events and people converge on a Swiss mountain town. Thanks to tidy story-telling, likable and believable characters, a refreshing attitude towards the unknown for the time, and an uncommon setting that actually impacts the story, this left a great impression on me. There's quite a few characters bustling around, but their distinctly-established personalities keep them discrete and recognizable. There's also some fairly ghoulish subject matter (again, for the time), and an eventually grand scope of imagination to it all. Sure, violence is the solution to practically every conflict in which the human characters find themselves, but at least it tends to be a responsive violence, rather than proactive. And it's a chance to see the British air force in a time past WWII, which feels like a rarity in movies. Would have been nice if they'd managed to maintain the sense of dread into the last act, but having the monsters show up in person kind of defuses that. Still, it's a competent and enjoyable slice of '50s sci-fi horror that keeps its communism panic on the relative down-low. “She was remarkably sensitive to outside suggestion.” Rating: 7/10
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Oct 12, 2023 00:37
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Darthemed posted:
famously namedropped a bit in IT as the visualisation of one character's terrors
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Oct 12, 2023 00:51
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 12) A Dark Song You have two children. Two healthy loving children. I have a hole. I love Conan the Destroyer, in nearly all ways a worse film than Conan the Barbarian, for one simple reason: it has a weird loving wizard. Wizards are sickos. They're nasty little freaks. A Dark Song gets that. A beautifully shot bottle film that is variously grimy, sublime, pathetic, and tender, it weaves it all together well and manages to draw a ton of life of it's only two characters while still leaving the facts, all the human details of their life obscure and walled-off. Commits the grave sin of getting boring in the final stretch, with lots of shakycam and the seams of the budget showing through, interrupting the remarkable stillness and neurotic detail that had made the rest of the film striking. Absolutely redeems itself with an absolute banger of an ending. Serious money shot.
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Oct 12, 2023 01:29
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10. Unmasked Part 25 (Anders Palm, 1988) Forget horror, this might be in the running for one of my favorite movies period. Fifteen minutes in I had no idea where it was going, and it took me on the ride of my life. If you're a Jason fucker this is required reading to be sure. The only thing I was sold on was that this was a comedic parody, what I truly didn't anticipate was a Metafictional Shakespearean RomCom Slasher hybrid. I think it gets a little on the nose right at the end, but altogether just an enthralling piece of media. HORROR ADJACENT CLEARED (Comedy)
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Oct 12, 2023 01:40
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30. The Tripper (2006) "You ever hear of trickle-down economics? It's when one rear end in a top hat at the top goes crazy and the whole world goes to poo poo." David Arquette, you've done it again. Actually, you never did it before, but you've done it this time! An incomprehensibly-edited slasher with politics I can only describe as "non-euclidean" as a man in a Ronald Reagan mask murders hippies at a small-town festival. The thing that slays me is that this movie clearly hates Reagan and George W Bush, which kicks rear end for a movie made two years after Reagan's death, but it's also hilariously weird in how it treats the hippie main characters. David Arquette has absolutely done a ton of drugs in his life, so why does all the dialogue sound like it was written by someone who knew a lot of drug facts and had zero experience with drugs themselves? There are no likable characters in this movie, and no humans. The dialogue swings from weird archetypal cliches to something no one would actually say ever. Great stuff. None of this stops the movie from being utterly hilariously weird, and if anything it helps it stand out a lot. The editing, as mentioned, is wild, with ridiculous freeze frames and flashes of color and scenes backlit with rainbow schmaltz and title sequences that feel like they were done with the Sony Vegas default text options. Paul Reubens and Jason Mewes are here! Fishhook gets a musical sequence! And oddly, for as bizarre as it all is, there's some actually really good directing at points, particularly during the climax. The slasher deaths are splattery and fun, the gore can be really good at points, and Killer Ronald Reagan never stops being funny and bizarre. The eventual reveal of why the killer is how he is is similarly nonsensically strange. The whole thing felt like a Bill Lustig movie, particularly Uncle Sam, in that it may not have known what it wanted to say - if anything - but it's also a movie that doesn't feel like it's holding back at any point and is going as hard and as weird as the director wanted. I have to respect movies like that, even if they're not technically "good". It also earns bonus points for having possibly the weirdest end credits I've ever seen. Rating: 2.5 Booby Traps Out Of 5
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Oct 12, 2023 02:01
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