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My Bloody Valentine was pretty good. Taken just as a horror movie, it's gory enough, the pacing sags during the center but it wasn't a slow build by any measure. There is a lack of variety in the killing which is unfortunate because the original managed quite a bit. It should be said that this is technically gorier than the original because we all saw the R-rated cut for all these years and it was only until I saw the uncut version that I saw what they were going for. The remake also carries a lot of touches from the original. On a 3D front, this movie was really pretty solid. I've been catching most of the recent digital 3D releases and the 3D nature of the camerawork here is better than the rest I'd seen. It still has those "rear end in a top hat" moments where they shamelessly stick poo poo in your face just to do it (like the loving yoyo in Friday Part 3) but those are largely restricted to killing and other action. In the rest of the film they demonstrated a few good ideas in using 3D for other uses, with some nice parallax effects as the background moved around and some really nice unaggressive shots showing off depth of field. Given that they have some venues for 3D stuff now I'd be interested in seeing what some talented filmmakers could do with it. Overall, the movie won't make anyone's best of lists but it's a solid 3/5 and a good time in 3D.
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Jan 16, 2009 08:04
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weekly font posted:How closely to the original does it follow plot-wise. Feel free to use spoilers to the full extent to answer this one. It's somewhat close. The fundamental structure, where a mine collapse some years ago leads to a mentally unstable survivor who several years later escapes for revenge, is intact. The basic idea that the killer in the bulk of the story is not that survivor is also intact. What's different is that the background story isn't delivered through an old man but rather played out present time and through an intro newspaper footage. There isn't an annual valentine's festival or rebellious kids having a stand-in party either. In a lot of ways the Valentine's angle is downplayed a bit. And unfortunately, the ending isn't quite as cool as biting off his own arm to escape.
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Jan 16, 2009 09:35
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Slasherfan posted:What where the screenings like you guyswent to? How full? How did audience react to movie? I think they generally had a 10pm showing in a lot of theaters on Thursday in lieu of a midnight showing. Audience was modest but it's friggin cold here and the day before advertised. Good reactions like you'd expect from a first showing crowd like that.
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Jan 16, 2009 15:10
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Because both of those are high profile enough to be not need a 3D crutch or deal with the hassle of using one, especially considering the limited number of Digital 3D venues that exist. They'll bring in crowds based on name recognition in ways that My Bloody Valentine simply can't.
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Jan 17, 2009 20:29
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The Remote Viewer posted:Not only is it not a good film, it's not even a good slasher. What was wrong with it, slasher-film-wise?
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Jan 18, 2009 03:46
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Vilos Cohaagen posted:Question - even though I should probably just accept the gaping holes in the plot of this movie and take it for what its worth. I enjoyed it nonetheless... Could have done it himself or received it when the miner fought back. It's really an inconsequential wound so it could have happened any way or been self inflicted from many different tools.
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Jan 20, 2009 22:11
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I was a little disappointed in this one. The film basically has an identical visual style to the Bay/Nispel TCM remake, right down to the creepy Americana in a ramshackle house. I think it would have been a good idea to give it a unique look instead of another dark blue experience. The kills are quick, which is both good and bad. It gives the film a different feel from other F13 movies but you also don't get much gory squeamishness from it all. It's pretty dumb to criticize character choices or continuity but a main character seems to spontaneously have a giant claw hammer and then a knife from nowhere and for some inexplicable reason they decide once they are on the run from Jason to run towards the place they know he's been at. But boobs, high body count, a few legitimately funny stoners made it all okay but dismissable. Although with F13 the expectations weren't anywhere near where they were with TCM so...3/5
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Feb 13, 2009 21:11
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qbert posted:I've seen all of the Friday the 13th movies and the kills are generally always quick, no? I think they often gave opportunities for their gore effects to be appreciated (well, earlier in the series anyway), like arrows coming through the throat or through the chest. When I think F13, what always comes to me is Kevin Bacon getting killed.
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Feb 13, 2009 21:32
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McSpanky posted:Don't horror movies usually experience a pretty sharp drop after the first weekend? It's one of the most impressive drops in film history. It sort of makes sense given the rather unique position it is in for a particular day tie-in. To give some perspective, it has the 6th biggest drop in history, beaten only by Gigli and four films that grossed under $2m total. Edit: http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/weekends/drops.htm Ape Agitator fucked around with this message at 04:41 on Feb 23, 2009 |
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Feb 23, 2009 04:38
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If we're extremely lucky, it will have the same kind of skill progression he showed when making the Devil's Rejects. Knowing what worked and what didn't, I hope he'll deliver a hell of a movie. It's very odd how ambivalent I am about LHOTL coming out. I would have thought that I'd be kind of enthused to see what they do with it but for some reason when I saw how TMC-remake-ish the Friday the 13th remake was, I started to notice those same cues in this remake too. I'm having a hard time expressing what I think I want to see to get enthused and I'm struggling. Maybe it's just because it's being staged as a neatly packaged revenge picture so it loses some bite to it. Ape Agitator fucked around with this message at 05:29 on Feb 27, 2009 |
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Feb 27, 2009 05:18
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BrandNew posted:Wait so why the gently caress does that guy stab her with the tire iron after thinking shes dead? He thought he was in a zombie movie?
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Mar 20, 2009 15:07
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I think it quasi counts but I caught the UK film The Children last night and it wasn't bad at all. A bit gory and slasher-y enough to be mentioned in this thread and will certainly justify goony opinion that children are the spawn of satan. http://us.imdb.com/title/tt1172571/
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Mar 31, 2009 01:52
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Yeah, that's going to be interesting to see what tone they take. My intial reaction was that it was a basic interpretation of Agatha Christie's Indians but maybe they'll go with a darker slashy route.
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Apr 4, 2009 16:00
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I'm not sure if it was more backstory or ongoing internal motivation. To the degree it might be the latter I'm cautiously optimistic. The bad choice on Zombie's part would be to follow explicitly in Haloween 2's footsteps because, even if I think it's pretty good, it feels like a shallow extended deleted scene from the first movie. Making this movie interesting in its own right would be a move in the right direction.
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Apr 24, 2009 22:12
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Darko posted:Him being "true evil for no reason" is what differentiated him from Jason, the dude from The Burning, etc. That's personal opinion. For me, the reason Halloween stood out was that it occurred in the suburbs surrounded by what you'd expect would be safety. They weren't in the woods, they weren't isolated, they were right down the street. And the killer could br right there in the car watching them walk home from school and nobody knew. People could be murdered right on the phone and you couldn't tell. The killer could literally be standing at your doorway while you're vulnerable and you couldn't tell. And the whole time you're in the heart of civilized safety. For some it's that the killer had no origin. For others it's about how the killer presents himself. There's no objective answer and I don't personally think he's lost the appeal of Halloween by giving him backstory. It's different but it's also a remake and differences and reinterpretations aren't bad in my book. Edit: I'm sure we've had this conversation before in the Halloween thread.
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Apr 26, 2009 19:23
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Darko posted:This is what sets the tone - that evil can be completely random and happen for no reason to people who don't bring it on themselves. A normal kid in a normal family kills his sister for no reason, and then he kills people in the town for no reason. This makes it scary because it's saying it can happen to YOU. I've heard the "no reason" idea before but it always seemed to be subverted by the established idea that Michael was punishing sin and vice. Michael kills his sister because she just had sex with some kid. He doesn't kill his parents. For me it isn't that there's no reason or that he's a normal kid. It's that, within the theme of Halloween, there was a mask that evil could wear and you couldn't see it coming. He's brazenly walking the street, driving in a car, even standing in a doorway and nobody sees him for the evil he is. Loomis is the only one who sees that they aren't safe and nobody can see past that mask. But why should they, they're in a safe cradle. Even when Michael slowly approaches them in a car, they feel safe as houses and jeer at him.
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Apr 27, 2009 13:38
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Laurie may be virginial but she's not innocent despite what the thesis says. She shares marijuana with her friend while they're riding around in the red car. At the time they're being pursued by Myers in his stolen wagon. It's after this that he goes on killing.
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Apr 27, 2009 15:57
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The Remote Viewer posted:I always wondered why the gently caress they did fake Jason, Jason in NYC, Jason without Jason, Jason in space, and Jason versus Freddy before doing one in the loving winter. I know Crystal Lake is a summer camp and all, but drat. Bikinis and subsequent lack of bikinis!
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Apr 29, 2009 21:58
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Frontalot posted:I'm watching April Fool's Day and honestly I don't know if I can bear to watch the last hour. Why is this a cult classic? Watch the entire thing.
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Apr 30, 2009 01:59
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Frontalot posted:Is there any way I can find a version of My Bloody Valentine that's been composited? My eyes don't work right for 3-D. Unless I'm mistaken, and glancing at the disc reviews I'm not, both the Bluray and DVD offer both the 3D and 2D versions.
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May 5, 2009 20:09
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Pet Rock Band posted:How do you watch the 3D version at home? It's been formatted in the old red/blue standard and comes with, I think, four pairs of fold out glasses. So it won't be the nifty new shutter system used in the new 3D theaters but it's workable.
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May 5, 2009 21:05
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Frontalot posted:I thought it was my eyes, but my wife also says she can't see the 3-D effect on the DVD release. Then again, we were using the Intel Super Bowl glasses and they look a little different from your standard 3-D glasses. Yeah, those were custom glasses and I think I recall that attempts to use standard 3D glasses to watch those specials also failed.
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May 5, 2009 22:10
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Rageaholic Monkey posted:This is something I'd been wondering about for a while and sorta on topic: A few weeks after MBV3D came out, I saw that a cam version (of 3D, not 2D) had been released on some torrent site. I still have my glasses from when I saw MBV3D in theaters, so if I were to watch something like that on my computer with the glasses on, would it have all the 3D effects that I saw in the theater? I don't think it would. The capture would be at best 24 fps and the newer 3D systems run much higher than that, like 6 times the regular frame rate so that they can show the image for each eye individual fast enough to be smooth. It's different from the old 3D methods that were two projections overlaid on each other, which I think translate through typical encoding just fine. Running at 24fps, I'd kind of assume that they'd be capturing both eye frames over the duration the camera's shutter was open and would blend them together, making it a mess that even the same glasses couldn't correct. And I don't even have a clue if you could capture circular polarization anyway. So I'm pretty sure that the answer is no chance for many reasons. Old 3D, probably. Newer 3D, highly unlikely.
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May 5, 2009 23:56
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Pet Rock Band posted:Eh. This isn't what the studios want to hear, but I have no plans on ever buying a Blu-Ray of a movie released in 3D that I saw in theaters. Actually, this is the logic of 3d movies from the beginning. Basically, the effect is only really workable on a big screen so it will drive people who want to experience it into theaters instead of waiting for the home release. If I remember right, the 3D theaters outsold the 2D theaters for MBV like 5 or 6 to 1. Of course, that's also why they're releasing the 3D movies as combo DVDs/BRs so you've got the 2D version to let people enjoy it traditionally.
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May 6, 2009 16:35
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timeandtide posted:What does everyone think of The Stepfather poster, though: http://www.ioncinema.com/movie/id/4680/the_stepfather I don't think the original has the kind of cultural awareness to warrant a comedic take. It's a pretty solid premise for suspense because of how creepy it is when you mom is screwing a killer under your family roof.
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Jun 17, 2009 23:57
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Frontalot posted:Yes. It's one of the creepiest, crawliest thrillers of the 1980s. I wouldn't go so far as to call it horror (certainly not as much as its sequels) but it's pretty disturbing. The sequels are pretty trashy but not entirely unwatchable as well. The Stepfather kicked off the "what if ___, who you trust, is going to kill you" movies (which eventually mainstreamed with movies like "Hand that Rocks the Cradle"). Terry is very creepy but it's still very much 80s B movie in a lot of other ways.
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Jun 18, 2009 16:06
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I'm liking what I'm seeing. Looks to incorporate some of Halloween 2 but not missing the holiday itself. And he looks really imposing in his hobo gear as compared to being in a mask. Very intimidating. I hope he's got some strong ideas to use in this one rather than bizarrely reusing the same imagery of a woman crawling away prostrate over...and over...and over...
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Jun 22, 2009 23:52
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Slasherfan posted:Someone should make a movie about a goon meet where the goons meet up and go camping together. Only someone picks them off one by one. There is a potential movie in here if some filmmaker gets extremely spiteful at his fanbase. You could twist the conventions and have the whole cast range from DJ Qualls to Jorge Garcia with the fat guys tripping and falling in the woods, or slipping on their hot pockets, or pissing themselves with fear. It'd take a real ego maniac to do it, like Lady in the Water levels of ego only pointed at fans instead of critics. Totally self destructive and hilarious.
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Jul 11, 2009 16:17
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spixxor posted:I guess I'm just impatient and don't know dick about marketing, but still. I figure they're trying to take a franchise view. Reboots right now are big in that they allow for really profitable sequels. And finding a good time to release it is going to be key. The fall is a little thick with horror stuff so I'd wager they padded this with tons and tons of time so that they can to tests and (if necessary) reshoots and deal with any shooting delays. That way, if all goes well, they're on pace to have the brand new Nightmare pumping out well attended sequels for years and years.
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Jul 21, 2009 02:16
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Saw posters have always been pretty creative. Also Slasherfan, you should probably thumbnail that bigass table breaker.
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Jul 23, 2009 00:47
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I'm (cautiously) excited for Halloween 2 for the reason that The Devil's Rejects was so much head and shoulders better than its predecessor. If for no other reason than Zombie has the first under his belt and where his work on an exploitation film failed in several ways he was able to learn from it and be better. Perhaps the same thing can happen with his slasher film. Or at least I cling to that hope. Maybe he only has one truly great film in him (well, 1 and 1/4 if you count the Captain Spaulding sections in the beginning of Ho1KC). We'll have to wait and see.
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Jul 28, 2009 19:16
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I quite liked Zombie's Halloween 2 and it was an improvement over the original. It's nowhere near the delta that separated HO1KC and The Devil's Rejects and it isn't as accomplished as the latter film, but it's still quite strong with some good choices (and some fair faults). The number one best choice in my opinion was remolding Myers as a hillbilly hobo. I know there is some friction about Zombie's hillbilly obsession but it is as least a comprehensive perspective and somewhat unique. The first thing that I think that remaking him almost in his own image was that it gave him a unique and imposing silhouette. I don't think Zombie's first remake really nailed an iconic image of the stalking horror but in this one I felt like he really captured that special something that made it his own. It wasn't just an aged mask but it was a whole package and played well into the level of violence he was after. Seeing him crossing fields and standing in profile it was unmistakable and wallpaper-worthy. Building the movie around post traumatic characters was also strong, especially if this is essentially a closed two-movie experiment. The film is a little incongruous at the beginning (I didn't buy Dourif as having just left his brutalized daughter's side and I don't even know what's up with the Loomis retconn) but his previous two-movie set was also a bit disjointed and this one settled in eventually. The intro sequence, essentially a self contained remake of Carpenter's sequel, is really good in my opinion from start to finish. He sets the expectations squarely where the rest of the film follows and makes it clear that it's about violence and not just varied kill sequences. The sequel's Myers is stabbing the ground beneath the people and their bones and hearts are just in the way. It's very effective in my opinion. For the most part, I think he worked out of his system whatever was driving the repeated sequence of women crawling away prostrate from Myers. Here it's just anger with the exception of one where he gets a little cruel repeating the past. The cast is okay, Dourif is a goddamn B-movie star and is much better used in this film than the last. Compton is given a lot to work with as a damaged Laurie and I think she was solid. Even Sheri Moon Zombie has moments reimagined as a virgin queen in the bizarre geometrical shape formed by old Myers, young Myers, Laurie, and herself. Loomis is given a bold remake as a glory hound and is probably too cartoonish for the film around him and doesn't earn his turn of perspective at the end. It's got problems. There's essentially no story and basically nothing stringing together who gets killed despite all of them being connected to Laurie in one way or another. Myers just knows where to go to kill someone close to Laurie with the exception of some random violence to keep the pace going. The final shot would have been something if it had a story and more development building toward it (like Halloween 4) but it's more an afterthought than it should have been. I think if he'd invested more into building a corruption of Laurie and transformed the final conflict area (which was actually an interesting scenario, where only the key players are trapped and surrounded but essentially cut off) into something that just focused on Laurie it would have been excellent. Instead, Loomis gets dragged in to the finale in a silly way, and then things go out in such a mundane way. Just imagining a finale that was staged like that twisted Lewis Carroll pumpkin headed feast makes me a little sad at how they ended things. I will say, there are similarities between this and his previous two films. In both cases, his first films had sequences that I thought were absolute genius and almost make me buy the DVD just for them (the entire Captain Spaulding section being a masterpiece of barely masked menace and grimy humor and the amazing climax of the first remake with the focus on Laurie as she finishes the nightmare). And the sequels seem to be lacking in those elements to the degree that I'd like to find a way to shoehorn the scenes in. All in all, I'm thinking this one is a 4/5 owing its recommended status due to the reimagined Myers and the step up in violence giving it the kind of unique feel that good remakes should have but hamstrung by a weak conclusion and essential plotlessness. On that note, I saw the 3D Final Destination. It's got a weak original catastrophe (possibly nothing will beat FD2's amazing intro), the lead actor has a perma-grin that ruins everything, it's got an incredibly douchey fratboy brah, and they don't even try and toss in a story or evolve the mythos. But death's revenge kills are pretty varied and gory and I appreciated that and the 3D isn't bad. Don't see it 2D because I don't think it stands up to even #3 on its own two feet (needs three feet). 3/5 prob 2/5 if you see it in 2D.
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Aug 31, 2009 01:45
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pantsfish posted:I'm not trying to troll or be a dick or anything but are you loving kidding me? I went into this expecting a mediocre slasher with decent gore and the whole Rob Zombie twisted-grimy-seventies-redneck motif and - keep in mind that I got pretty much what I expected - I was entirely disappointed. I thought the imagery was hit or miss. I actually dug pretty much any scene with the mother and son because I felt it was an imaginative and effective way to give Myers speech without damaging the silent hulk icon. And I feel very strongly that all of the effort given to the surreal imagery would have had a payoff had the climax been Laurie alone in the shack killing Loomis. It would have given purpose to them sharing those dreams, to Laurie being forced to say the same things as Michael, all of that. In the end, there's not exactly some big transformative act in stabbing Michael given she shot him in the head just a year ago. It really should have been one big payoff to the corruption of Laurie into her brother. Really, there's only two good stories in slasher films: the survivor girl versus the unstoppable evil and the corruption of the survivor into a killer. It really feels like he setup the ball to slam it down in exactly that spot and then he just whiffs it. The opening screed even talks about how the white horse was a release of rage which would have been a useful concept if it was about Laurie really becoming a Myers. Instead, I don't think the horse even has a chance to be useful and it's a difficult enough thing to pull off. I'll admit, the horse had me scratching my head until I saw the trappings of Halloween 4 and filed it away as foundation for the switch up. When that didn't come, I have to say it doesn't work. So, no, not kidding. But I know where you're coming from. I think if the movie went in a different direction, the surreal stuff would have been earned. As it stands, some of it is great and some of it isn't so hot. All told, the horse belongs in the latter category. And I said in my review that there's no thread tying how Myers finds the victims who are close to Laurie. It's essentially a non-story movie so I don't really think it hurts it that bad. If it were story driven, those plot holes would matter to me.
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Aug 31, 2009 04:00
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Darko posted:All slashers are story driven to a degree. You're making survival movies, so you have to explain why people get killed or else it ceases to be a slasher and just becomes "death scenes: the movie." Wow, do I ever disagree. I'll easily concede that there are some examples of story driven slasher films but by and large they really are "death scenes: the movie" with flimsy connective tissue. Consistent plots are total luxuries and attention is paid not to character or logic but to visceral emotion (anxiety, arousal, fear, revulsion, excitement) and release. I'm actually a little surprised you'd make such an assertion, really. :/ Edit: pantsfish posted:Edit: And Zombie's voice hasn't evolved at all since Rejects. His refusal to lay off on the stylization just a little bit really hampered that movie. I'm just not sure if he's giving the fans what they want or he just lacks the vision to do anything else. I think there's some good evidence of progression from the first to this one, in the realm of the non-literal display. He tried (and failed miserably) to introduce surrealism and reinforcing imagery into HO1KC and backed off from doing so in TDR but I think he had some good ideas that could have been put to good use here. I was leaning forward in my seat during the pumpkin head feast and while some of it didn't work, it was both striking and creatively tied to the titular event. Further, he was leaps and bounds better at creating iconic images of Myers this time around, using close and tight rooms and strong shooting angles to emphasize the size and power of Michael. Where before he was working through one hell of a domination fetish in his scripting and shooting he instead went with power and rage and I think that fit much better. His shooting also supported that quite well, with focus on movement and force in smart ways here and there. I would say that I was very positive on the film until the car flipped over and it lost its way. But the filmmaking up to that point impressed me. Again, not as cohesively good as TDR but good ingredients and solid results here and there. Ape Agitator fucked around with this message at 05:12 on Aug 31, 2009 |
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Aug 31, 2009 05:01
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bad movie knight posted:Y'know, Ape, you really should've submitted a bullet review for the review contest. I was going to write one but I was so busy pulling The Final Destination together... Unfortunately I can't get to the movies on Fridays or Saturdays for the foreseeable future. S'all good though because I get to see scary movies alongside the bluehairs and soccer moms.
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Aug 31, 2009 11:57
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I don't think that's right. Jason blatantly teleports and not only isn't the series faulted for it, it's essentially canonized and considered a "trait". Freddy is given free reign to ignore the basic trappings of logic because he exists as dream. Bodies in slasher movies are always found by the fleeing victim in a charnel house when there's no reasonable way for the villain to put them all there or be omniscient enough to know the hero was going to flee that way. The great mockumentary Behind the Mask goes to amazing lengths to attempt to explain away the logical failings of the slasher genre in the form of ridiculous preparation, planning, and psychological prognostication of victim behavior. Slasher films may derive some semblance of motivation for the title villain but the emphasis on episodic sequels eventually pares all of that down. The most recent Final Destination doesn't even try and build on the mythology and instead just behaves like a late game slasher sequel - "here's another cast of young nubiles we'll be dismembering for the next 90 minutes". I do agree with you that the appeal of slasher films is to get the audience to connect with the victim and share in their fear and anxiety. But that feeling is a visceral and emotional connection, not a logical connection. Knowing that Myers hopped in a car and drove to a far off country house doesn't affect the audience emotionally. Him standing in a mirror observing a prior victim does and the intermediate really doesn't matter. Nobody cared that people would run away from Jason only to find him standing in their way when they turned around, it elicited an emotional response from the audience and created a culture around it. Let's face it, Jason can crush anyone he wants at about any time. Do you really need to know that he's been sitting in the bushes for hours waiting for people to be alone? Why would he even bother when he could get a two-fer? Why can Michael Myers withstand all punishment levied against him? The logic of it doesn't matter, just the scenario it presents. The killer is there behind you, you can't stop him, and he's going to kill you. Logical consistency have their place in films, and there are slasher movies that have a strong logical core, but it's on the same shelf as good acting and dialogue in terms of hallmarks. It's great when they're there but it really isn't all that critical. Edit: Whoa, some of my post got slashed! Ape Agitator fucked around with this message at 17:04 on Aug 31, 2009 |
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Aug 31, 2009 16:57
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Darko posted:You're taking it too far in your rebuttal; no, you don't have to show a Behind the Mask style "hiding in the bushes," but you do need to create a somewhat mappable situation and villain for the audience to wrap their heads around. Having the villain just appear wherever he needs to, inexplicably, tends to just cause complaints and annoyance from the audience. Scream plays with the well worn concepts of the slasher genre but they're hardly talismans of safety. They always check out the sound, trip over things, say "I'll be right back". To say there's a logic to it suggests that there are characters who don't do these things and that's a statement that can't be made. The survivor is the survivor for reasons of being the only girl who can act and won't take off her shirt because of that level of talent and notoriety. It isn't because she logically avoids the scenarios that Scream considers the "rules". But they're not rules, they're just tropes. It's a creative way to point them out to the audience as a proto-neckbeard uses them as a form of "this rock keeps tigers away". If nobody ever goes to investigate or never splits up they get scripted a death anyway, just like the proto-neckbeard does. I can't really fathom what level of improvement you'd feel the film would have showing Myers driving from house to house or peeping in the bushes to identify the victims. It's really superfluous when you get down to it. You ask what the audience is supposed to yell at the screen and I think what they're supposed to get is "RUN". It's not unlike The Strangers or Ils in that it distills all of the busywork away. Who cares about the accumulation of knowledge on the killer's part? Does anyone feel the need to establish a timeline for how the killer spends his time? Why were these people chosen? It's basically wrong place, wrong time. They were out in a field being dicks, or worked at a place that was important long ago, or were friends with the wrong girl, or stopped by the side of the road. Their crimes are being alive and the killer is a force of nature. Does it somehow make the film better if the screenwriter forces them to make the unwise choice of going alone into their own basement (only idiots go into their own basements alone). I don't think it's necessary and you're really reaching if you're saying that there was a logic to the massacres at Crystal Lake, Haddonfield, or bumfuck Texas.
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Aug 31, 2009 20:59
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Darko posted:I would wager that few remember or care that Michael carjacks a stationwagon in the original film to get to Haddonfield. It's commendable that Carpenter was keeping his killer conventional but when one thinks of the alien evil that faceless killer Michael Myers represents, few will wonder "does evil properly signal before making a lane change?". To be clear, I noted in my review the lack of any logical continuity between the scenes so I'm far from oblivious to them. But they're as meaningful to me as continuity in David Lynch's Inland Empire. What transpires onscreen isn't the logical but the emotional. Myers' is driven by a pagan holiday, nothing more. The apparitions that appear to him speak only of the day to come. It's no more flimsy or empty than most slasher films. As for why he kills who he kills, I don't think that's a mystery. Three girls were Laurie's closest friends. You wonder why he goes to an isolated house? It's got the one girl he left alive inside, why wouldn't he go there? Not only to finish things but because of the impact it would have on Laurie. Kills two people at a concert, one of which is Laurie's friend. You're acting like the who and the why are mysterious when they're pretty stock slasher motivations and hardly disguised. The only thing notable is that the intermediary steps are all stripped away. Chock it up to a shared dream state if you like or maybe a director's cut with hot hot phonebook checking action will be in the works. I don't think it would sway anyone's opinion on the film. As for the scenarios at play, they're really all the old good ones: he's gonna get you. It's essentially what they all distill down to for everyone but the survivor. I'm gonna go skinny dipping in the woods: he's gonna get ya. I'll check out that sound: he's gonna get ya. I'm going to make an impassioned speech by the window: he's gonna get ya. I'm gonna go paintballing: he's gonna get ya. There's nothing cheaty going on in Halloween 2's scenarios. Michael stops by his mom's place of work and locks the door, kills the people inside. Michael gets hassled by rednecks, beats em down and eats the dog. Michael goes to a party that Laurie is at and kills her friend and her friend's boyfriend while they're sexing. Michael goes to Laurie's new house and kills her BFFs and former survivor. None of it is unmotivated or outlandish, especially by slasher standards. It's all very familiar scenarios that harken back to Hitchcock's bomb under the table. They don't know it but they're about to die. That's the core scenario, not the minutae that comes out in Scream's list of tropes. It's just making the audience anxious and scared because the shape is watching Danielle Harris being vulnerable and oblivious. I don't feel I'm reaching when I say that the lack of logical threads tying scenes together is the lynchpin for you disliking the film. If those scenes exist in a future director's cut, I don't think it likely you'd sidle this up next to Kingdom of Heaven as a revelatory DC. That's because the scenarios presented are stock only lacking the busywork that helps eat into the running time of our beloved but cheaply made slashers. Some of them get great mileage out of those scenes (I find the car sequences in the original Halloween to be uber stranger-danger creepy) but by and large they're padding that can only be counted on giving one additional body count as the killer stabs someone for a car or something.
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Sep 1, 2009 02:33
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pantsfish posted:Edit: for reference my friend called me at work today, said "but seriously, gently caress Halloween 2" and hung up on me before I could get a word out. It's seriously awful. Regardless of our differing opinions, that's pretty funny. Darko posted:There was no way to put ourselves in the position of the victims because they weren't in a position to begin with. What exactly is missing that made you disconnect? That you didn't see how Michael got to the house? That really made you unable to connect emotionally with the scenario, a familiar horror scenario at that? The only cuts made are to the logical intermediate scenes. The emotional core of the horror experience is all there, all the beats are hit (and hit well I'd contend), and the scenarios are familiar enough that using shorthand isn't entirely out of bounds in my opinion. How did Michael find Sheri's place of work? How did Michael get to the concert Laurie was at? How did Michael find Laurie's house? While never addressed in the movie can you honestly say they aren't pretty mundane as far as plot holes go and easily guessed? It's not like magically knowing a locker combo or teleporting in front of someone in a maze. Even if the intention is that the connection is supposed to be psychic and Michael knows because Laurie knows it's all just detailing on a car: doesn't change how it runs. People don't go to horror movies for the logical plots. They go for Michael standing behind Danielle Harris for several seconds of menacing silence. I've been watching The Shield on DVD and the massive volume of deleted scenes are overwhelmingly connective tissue that is cut for time and because the audience doesn't need the explicit connections. The cuts here are obvious, both you and I notice them, but they don't really contribute to the horror of it all. quote:Final Destination... Ah well.
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Sep 1, 2009 17:07
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Darko posted:Halloween He kills one friend at the concert while Laurie stays there being blitzed. He goes to her house and maims her friend. She leaves the concert and drives home, finding her friend. She runs away from Michael to a road and stops a passerby. While he tries to calm her down, Michael catches up. Where is the supernatural in this that you're complaining about. Again, the only thing missing is the busywork that ties them together. If anything, Michael is less supernatural in this film than the Carpenter films. He takes fewer bullets, he doesn't take bullets in the loving eyes and still get going. He doesn't walk around while on fire before passing out. In this movie, he gets shot by a sniper and pinned to a wall before being stabbed by Laurie. Jamesman posted:FD Around the time of the second one I thought up that there was some sort of mischief god at work, like a Loki, that has been gumming up the works of the universe forever. He'd been limited to saving individual people from time to time but that was no biggie. With the industrial revolution and the transportation age, he figured out how to be a giant pain in the rear end by influencing one person to save a dozen and then laugh at the carnage as death works to fix it all. So he keeps sending vision as the humans run around trying to avoid fate while death ties to correct fate. And Ali Larter would be his greatest work as she lives in total safety for years until death finally gets her.
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Sep 2, 2009 18:03
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