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Not sure if this is relevant here, but they just announced the Midnight Madness lineup for the Toronto International Film Festival. It's not all horror, but here's the horror selections: The Incident Alexandre Courtes, France World Premiere George, Max and Ricky are in a rock band and waiting for their big breakthrough. Between small gigs and rehearsals they work in the kitchen of a high-security asylum for good pay at minimum risk – they have no physical contact with the inmates. One night just before dinnertime, a big storm shuts down the security system, the doors open and the lunatics break loose. Help is on its way and should soon arrive... they just have to survive until it does. Kill List Ben Wheatley, United Kingdom Canadian Premiere Eight months after a disastrous job in Kiev left him physically and mentally scarred, ex-soldier-turned-contract-killer Jay is pressured by his partner Gal into taking a new assignment. As they track their prey, they descend into a disturbing world that is darker and more depraved than anything they experienced on the battlefield. Livid Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo, France World Premiere The directors of 2007’s Midnight Madness hit A L’Interieur (Inside) return with a twisted gothic nightmare. A young woman and her friends break into a decrepit mansion looking for treasure, only to unlock a dark secret of unspeakable horror ready to dish out bloody punishment for their greed. Lovely Molly Eduardo Sanchez, USA (synopsis needed) World Premiere When newlywed Molly Reynolds returns to her long-abandoned family home, frightful reminders of a nightmarish childhood begin seeping into her new life. She soon begins an inexorable descent into evil that blurs the lines between psychosis and possession. From the director of The Blair Witch Project. You’re Next Adam Wingard, USA World Premiere From the director-writer team that brought TIFF audiences A Horrible Way To Die in 2010 comes a new experiment in tension. A family comes under a terrifying and sadistic attack during a reunion getaway. Barricaded in their secluded country home, they have to fight off a barrage of axes, crossbows and machetes from both inside and outside the house. Unfortunately for the killers, one of the victims proves to have a talent for fighting back.
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Aug 3, 2011 16:55
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gopperhopper posted:Have you guys talked about Stakeland yet? Basically a post-vampire apocalypse road movie with a dash of the Karate Kid, all made on no budget but you sure as hell can't tell. It's by the same team that did Mulberry Street (the rat one) if you remember. We presented that last year at the Toronto Film Festival and it won the Best of Midnight Madness Award. It's really good and features Michael Cerveris (the Observer from Fringe) in a really cool role. It's a little Zombielandish but played totally straight. Great flick.
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Aug 5, 2011 17:03
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Please stop watching the Quarantine movies. Just go watch the [rec] flicks. Please.
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Aug 8, 2011 19:36
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Whispering Machines posted:I've seen [rec] a bunch of times. I've owned [rec] for quite a while. Quarantine wasn't bad, just ... unnecessary and didn't really need to exist. Q2 was unnecessary in a burn all copies of the movie way I just think people should stop supporting the Quarantine movies entirely because they are literal wastes of film. We had Paco Plaza and Jaume Balaguero up here in Toronto for the premiere of [rec2] and they basically said that the Quarantine movies are the american film industry making GBS threads on their work. gently caress an audience that can't handle subtitles. BisonDollah posted:I also thought it was a good haunting film for a while, but I ended up watching it all. In my opinion after the photographs scene the film turns to mush (I liked the astral projection stuff but didn't think the film pulled it off really well). If you've seen the photographs then just find out the ending word-of-mouth and get your next film a day early or whatever. That sums it up for me. Really good 2/3 of a movie with some genuinely creepy elements but when it gets into the astral projection stuff it was so poorly executed I thought I was watching a cartoon. Do not want. flashy_mcflash fucked around with this message at 15:28 on Aug 9, 2011 |
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Aug 9, 2011 15:24
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I don't have whatever upgrade is required to search this thread but have you guys seen The Loved Ones? It's a pretty good, if not great, Australian horror with one of the best female villains since Kathy Bates in Misery. Don't sleep. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1316536/ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cb5BFm4qIow
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Aug 9, 2011 17:00
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Hollis posted:I'm really getting tired of the played out "found footage" genre. I mean it has merits and is generally a good solid subgenre I just haven't seen anything other than [REC] that was a solid film. Sure, Blair Witch did it but overall I think that was just a testament to a small group of filmmakers creating something that went viral before viral became a word. [REC] I will say is my top one so far. Although the Poughkeepsie tapes is a disturbing one, either you love it or hate it. Last Exorcism wasn't terrible and was sort of in that style, though I'm not sure if you're making a distinction between documentary style and 'found footage', where there's no interviews and things.
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Aug 9, 2011 17:19
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Well PA is a pretty bad metric for anything horror in general, haha. Blair Witch, even, is a better POV horror, and of course the [REC] flicks. I think it's probably just a hard thing to make, and if it's not done well it's very very bad. Probably not something a whole lot of studios are lining up to finance.
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Aug 9, 2011 18:51
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Seriously, you won't regret it. There's so many weird left turns and it does get pretty gory at times (though the gore is largely earned). One of the best horrors I've seen, actually.
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Aug 9, 2011 19:27
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Hollis posted:I think the Apollo 18 has a 5 million dollar budget. Point taken. I just can't think of any other reason why more films like that aren't made. I mean, you could do a 'Blair Witch' with minimal crew and cast. Something like Paranormal might require a little more. But I don't remember a rash of horrors that tried to recapture Blair Witch's lightning in a bottle (unless you count Blair Witch 2, hahaha) after that movie was successful either.
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Aug 9, 2011 19:48
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Can anyone recommend some good 'environmental horror' for me, where the setting is also the antagonist? Something like Frozen, but good. Open Water would be another example (I kinda liked Open Water).
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Aug 10, 2011 19:38
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justlikedunkirk posted:The Last Winter Oh, RAYD has been on my list for a while. That's the one about the contagion right? Any others would be great.
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Aug 10, 2011 20:23
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BisonDollah posted:Pontypool? "Whatever is said instead of being shown is lost upon the viewer" - Truffaut was right. Pontypool is a great flick. Don't ever, ever read the book though. It is one of the worst things I've ever read and there's a postscript from Burgess basically saying "I was young when I wrote this and it is terrible". There is some room for at least one or two sequels though. If Bruce McDonald feels like retooling the story again, I'd be down for that. There is some truly horrific, potentially awesome stuff in the book but it's written so, so poorly.
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Aug 12, 2011 14:39
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BisonDollah posted:I can't find any real discussion going on about it in CD, can you tell me why you thought it was great? I was really bored with it, even when the revelation about how the virus spreads was being revealed I appreciated it for it's originality but just pined for something interesting to happen on the screen. It's funny you mention the book because I started thinking part of the problem was that film was the wrong medium for the story, I didn't realise it was based on a book - I think the story would work very well as a Radio Play. I'd agree it'd work well as a radio play but I love it here too. Interesting things happen throughout and there is a fun, totally surreal aspect to it with the doctor and those singers. There are a few scenes that stand out, like the producer's face on the glass of the booth, and I was interested throughout. Not sure why you thought it was boring unless you were expecting a bombastic scene with the army and stuff. I thought it showed incredible restraint on Macdonald's part NOT to show those things. Also, a horror movie that takes place in Northern Ontario is always going to get a pop from me.
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Aug 12, 2011 18:24
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Bonk posted:I keep seeing ads for the remake, and I guess I just don't get why remaking controversial 70s rape-and-violence films is the thing lately (Straw Dogs, I Spit On Your Grave, Last House on the Left, etc). In the 70s, these films were made against a sociopolitical backdrop of women's liberation, and the concept of extreme violence portrayed in cinema (especially against women) being a backlash of the more conservative decades before it. I can only speak on "I Spit" but I find that the remake is simultaneously a much more nuanced, careful handling of the source material while being far more brutal. The original "I Spit" is a terrible commentary on women, and the main character does things that no woman would ever consider doing with someone that's just violated her. The remake definitely goes into torture porn territory but the main character's performance is much better, and the rape itself is sufficiently brutal without being exploitative. Of the recent batch of remakes, I think it's one of the only ones that improves on the original, if only because the original is a pretty terrible film when you look at it objectively.
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Aug 16, 2011 14:35
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The Cameo posted:I've said it before, but I'll repeat it again: it's not the golden, perfect return that people wanted from John Carpenter, but it's a serviceable "girls in haunted asylum" movie with the sort of creeping dread that Carpenter can do in his sleep - that then falls apart with a terrible, terrible twist. But up to that last third or so of the movie, it's pretty enjoyable. Pretty much my take on it, though I didn't hate the twist quite as much as you did. An interesting aspect of the twist is that it's sort of surprising what they DON'T do.
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Aug 16, 2011 14:36
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Bonk posted:Ehh, maybe that's my problem. I feel like these belong back in the exploitation era. The culture's entirely different now, so you lose the intended purpose, even if the original purpose/message/commentary was terrible to begin with (which is even less reason to remake something). I'm not saying the originals were better or worse, just that they feel less like a director commenting on today's political/cultural landscape by creating something genuinely edgy and controversial, and more like a director being edgy and controversial by remaking something edgy and controversial. What I meant by 'not being exploitative' is that the rape itself isn't handled in a way where it could be considered titillating at all (unlike the original, which feels like a fetish film at times). While the original is and should be lauded as a groundbreaking IDEA, its execution leaves pretty much everything to be desired. The original intent and purpose are completely sound, and is the only thing that really comes through in both films. What they did with I Spit was take that movie, ostensibly about female empowerment, and tweaked the film so that it actually was about that rather than just paying lip service to that idea while having the main character actually allow one of the rapists to have intercourse with her again so that she can lure him into a trap. I just think that I Spit isn't the best example of what you're trying to say because it re-imagines the original into something that's not even really of the same genre. It's actually one of the few examples of a good horror remake that I can cite. I haven't seen the remake of Straw Dogs or Last House, though, so those might be better examples.
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Aug 16, 2011 21:47
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Wow, just saw Lovely Molly, from the director of Blair Witch. He's really matured since then and this has one of the strongest female leads I've den in a horror in a while. The ending is a little dicey but this is definitely one to watch for.
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Sep 15, 2011 22:23
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ZombieParts posted:Human Centipede is good stuff. I think it spoke for itself going from a very indy film to getting global recognition. I smiled when I walked into best buy and saw it on BluRay. It's not nearly as horrible as it made itself sound and Dr Heiter is a pretty classic villain. I completely agree. When it gets right down to it, Human Centipede is really about a man who'll stop at nothing to achieve his dreams. It's Rudy.
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Sep 21, 2011 14:39
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If you guys haven't seen it, Vinyan (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1029241/) is also super-creepy and would make a good double-feature with Antichrist, as both movies feature a batshit insane wife and do a good job of creating horror, largely in broad daylight, from natural elements like mud and rocks. Vinyan also has one of the most haunting last shots you'll see in any horror movie. The same director also did Calvaire (The Ordeal) which I didn't like as much but others seemed to enjooy (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0407621/) flashy_mcflash fucked around with this message at 15:25 on Sep 21, 2011 |
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Sep 21, 2011 15:23
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Cart posted:To its credit, Calvaire did have one of the best dance scenes ever. Haha, I remember that dance scene being a high point of Calvaire. Inside is one of my favourite horrors of all time. The two directors just came out with LIVID (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1727516/), which I just saw at the Toronto Film Fest and it is very good, but very very different (more supernatural and fairy-tale like than Inside, which was grounded firmly in reality). Martyrs is also good but you have to turn it off before the end because their explanation of what happened is so dog-rapingly dumb.
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Sep 21, 2011 19:19
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:Elaborate. Oh, there's no literal dog-rape. It's just as stupid as raping a dog. This isn't A Serbian Film. You guys really want me to tell you the ending? Okay so you have this secret society of people that are capturing and torturing girls but keeping them alive. The explanation for this is that they are trying to find a point where the 'martyrs' reach a point where they become numb to the violence and have some kind of transcendental experience where they learn the very meaning of life/existence/whatever. This is stupid, even by horror standards. Though if you liked the ending to Last Exorcism, it's not much stupider than that (I thought that was very stupid too, but liked the rest of the film, as is the case with Martyrs).
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Sep 21, 2011 20:35
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I put this in the spoiler tag but if you honestly didn't have a problem with the ending to Last Exorcism (I really did), the ending of Martyrs is no worse than that I suppose. Both LE and Martyrs are great movies up until that point though, and to be fair, neither has a stupider ending than High Tension.
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Sep 21, 2011 20:38
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:So your problem with Martyrs is essentially the premise of the film. I'm not sure what the specific objection to it is - is it because the concept of suffering to experience ecstasy or enlightenment is just not plausible or whatever? Yeah, pretty much. Also it comes completely out of left-field and is in no way hinted at for the rest of the film. To me, it comes off as 'hey here's another loving French new wave director that doesn't know how to end his movie so herp derp mystical pseudo-philosophical nonsense'. The fact that it's the premise of the film but you can actually enjoy the film while ignoring it speaks volumes of its 'strength' as a tentpole of the script. I've watched Martyrs lots of times since my first viewing and enjoy it 100x more when I turn it off right before that explanation. It's better to imagine my own ending. Works either way.
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Sep 21, 2011 21:07
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VampireRobot posted:I think the deconstruction of horror movies was done much better in Funny Games. I agree completely. To me that did a far better job of making the violence meaningful while recognizing that it was meaningless. quote:the film really produces a profound level of empathy for its main character(s) I think that Laugier, while trying to numb us to the torture and violence using that slow-fade, EXTREME SCENE, slow-fade, repeat process, almost succeeds to a fault and, while this may mean nothing more than I'm a twisted gently caress, by the end I actually felt like I didn't care what happened to this person. To then go and tack on the explanation that this is what he intended after all and that the society, a proxy for Laugier himself, WANTS us to get to a point of numbness just took all the air out the sails for me. As frozenpeas says above, it's an awesome, ambitious concept that isn't, and for all I know never could, be executed particularly well. As far as what a better ending would be, perhaps leaving it open-ended and leaving the audience wondering why might be better (this sort of ending is often much scarier to me than anything else as long as it's not done in a lazy way), but I'd have to think on that some more.
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Sep 22, 2011 14:12
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weekly font posted:And that's why I don't like it. Cause I never asked for that poo poo. There's the difference. I think it's actually a pretty interesting, well made movie, but, personally, I loving hate it. This is a little reductive but I pretty much agree. It homogenizes horror fans as bloodthirsty bros and then talks down to them, ignoring those of us that enjoy a more nuanced horror story that doesn't rely on gore as a crutch, like Suspiria.
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Sep 22, 2011 14:15
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frozenpeas posted:your feelings are as valid as anyone's long as you try to express them in a less totalistic manner You're absolutely right, my initial post was a bad one that shouldn't presume that everyone had the same experience as I did. When I saw the film at its TIFF premiere though, that was the overwhelming majority of the audience's opinion, and this is a Midnight Madness crowd that has, in the past, eaten up films like Inside, Loved Ones, and most of the Miike ouvre. I think part of it was the fact that Laugier was in attendance for a Q&A session and did a very poor job of explaining his motivations and intent with the film, choosing instead to launch half-hearted barbs at Funny Games ("it's poo poo").
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Sep 22, 2011 16:40
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TCM2 is bad, but it's the only one of that series I can watch over and over again. I love the original but it's not something you just want to throw on when you're feeling low, whereas TCM2 is exactly that movie for me.
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Sep 22, 2011 20:14
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prahanormal posted:And this continues to look more stupid then it does scary. I dunno, as with the first one, I think it's scary in SMG's definition above - I'm scared of the depths to which it will sink. Considering that everything I've read about this movie suggests that it's very extreme and is everything the first film wasn't, I have no idea of what they're going to pull out here. The first film kept me at the edge of my seat because I expected it to resolve in some absurdly horrifying way and even if it doesn't completely deliver on that, it certainly works as a meditation on boundless ambition and despair.
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Sep 23, 2011 14:13
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So Nurse 3D is filming here in Toronto...It's about nurses doing things in 3D. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1913166/ The director just did 'The Day' but has been AD on quite a number of decent films including Dusk Till Dawn, Four Rooms, and Fear and Loathing.
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Sep 26, 2011 21:09
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Hakkesshu posted:That actually looks really interesting. A lot more than the first one did, anyway. I love weird, experimental meta-horror. Yeah, I like it. Will the whole thing be in black and white though? Put this trailer on mute and you have a pretty passable Guy Maddin film.
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Sep 27, 2011 18:38
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Slasherfan posted:Pretty much every review I've read for The Human Centipede 2 say it's really awful. Loaded with really nasy gore but not much else. Shame because I do think the plot is interesting. Where are those reviews from though? I wouldn't exactly trust Variety or Guardian.uk to 'get it'. It may well be a terrible movie but I'd consider the source.
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Sep 28, 2011 13:42
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Spraynard Kruger posted:Here's a spoilery one by Quint from Ain't It Cool News. Basically sounds as expected, though possibly a little worse. I find that AICN is pretty untrustworthy in their apparent love for just about everything, so when they have a very negative review it's usually close to the truth. That said, I'm still up for giving this a chance.
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Sep 29, 2011 20:27
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wormil posted:In other news, I watched half of The Ward last night and wanted to slash my wrists from boredom. Too bad because the movie is well made and the acting competent but it just doesn't go anywhere. There was little to nothing of Carpenter in it. Ward feels more like a good first try from an up-and-coming filmmaker than a project by a seasoned veteran. I'm going to try and finish it tonight and hopefully the end is better than the beginning. I thought it was surprisingly good. There is a twist at the end that's a tad predictable but I thought it worked well. It was definitely better than I expected, but I enjoyed the first half.
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Oct 25, 2011 14:04
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I put Inside far, far, FAR above Saw on every level. God, I love that movie. While Antichrist had some higher-minded aspirations, I think it's still very much a traditional horror movie. Guy in woods, terrorized by crazy wife, gore, gore, gore could be a 70's horror any day of the week.
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Oct 25, 2011 21:09
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trip9 posted:Definitely check out Funny Games, it gets a bit meta which is fun. Also the british horror The Loved Ones is pretty fun too. Oh and also Trick 'R Treat which has been mentioned is awesome. Loved Ones is Australian, but I can't recommend it enough. Funny Games might be too much of a downer for a party - at least Loved Ones has some fun tension-breaking moments.
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Oct 27, 2011 21:11
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Seconded on Ginger Snaps. Maybe The Grudge? I've only seen the original and not the remake though.
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Oct 28, 2011 14:04
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Blinky13 posted:The Grudge might be ok for them then, since they're not horror connoisseurs anyway. Somewhat in the same realm as The Ring, a bit goofier, the dead cat is briefly seen and obviously fake, and there's no other animal cruelty in the film. I know nobody's recommended it here because it's kind of bad, but it's not the worst and non-horror viewers might actually find it scary enough. Yeah I recommended it on that basis. For a casual horror fan I think it works well enough, with enough jump-scares and creepy stuff without being gory. Still though, Ginger Snaps would be my first choice.
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Oct 28, 2011 21:24
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EC posted:I'm not sure if I heard about the movie here or elsewhere (I've been actively trying to find new horror movies to watch lately), but we tried to watch Deadgirl last night and only made it about halfway through. We got to the point where the two little assholes are about to stick their dick in a bullet wound and then just killed it. Looking at the plot summary on Wikipedia it doesn't look like we missed a whole lot. Agree on all points. This is one of the worst horrors I've seen and the Q&A I saw after it when it premiered at the Toronto Film Festival made it worse. Sounded like the writing process was gathering a bunch of coked up kids and playing "you know what'd be cool/gross".
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Oct 31, 2011 14:48
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Agreed, though I wonder about some of the narrative decisions in the last few minutes. So much of the movie is backloaded into that last act that I was probably overwhelmed a bit. Curious though, why did they kill off the mother? Because she was enabling him? It seemed a little strange considering that she'd naturally have a bit of Stockholm Syndrome if she was a 'trainee' herself and probably couldn't 100% be held entirely responsible for her actions.
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Nov 1, 2011 17:15
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weekly font posted:They also changed the girl's motives quite a bit in subtle ways. She becomes a lot more evil in Let Me In. This is actually closer to how she is in the book. To get a whole picture of this story, you kind of have to see both movies as well as reading the book. There's stuff in Let Me In that LTROI omitted and de-emphasized and vice versa, and there are parts of the book that are omitted from both films. That said, the book would be very difficult to adapt fully because they delve into the back story of nearly every single character.
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Nov 2, 2011 16:08
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