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Weirdly that is the second of three sets sitting beneath my tv. The third is a Vincent Price one. Edit: And of course here's to your health and happiness, Timby. STAC Goat fucked around with this message at 20:31 on Apr 29, 2019 |
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Apr 29, 2019 20:23
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I'm going to do 13 movies. One from each year beginning with 1986 and ending with the year of the Dreamcast, 1999.
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Apr 29, 2019 21:15
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So we're going? Sweet, I didn't watch the entire Final Destination franchise yesterday in vain 1) Final Destination (2000) A young lad has a premonition of impending doom; by acting on it, he is able to prevent the deaths of himself and several bystanders. It seems that something in the universe is displeased by this turn of events and looks to rectify the group's fortuitous escape... A little sluggish, a little brilliant, and containing the seeds for almost every good and bad idea the franchise would eventually use. I can see why James Wong had a career after this but I can also see why, film-wise, it didn't go terribly far. While ultimately passable and worth seeing once the film comes together less like a cohesive whole and more like a fruit salad suspended in jello. There's a particular effort to portray the character's reaction to the unfolding situation (both before and after the Death train starts rolling after them) as a frustration with God and/or Fate at large. While this pops up a few more times in the other movies most of the total runtime devoted to the concept is here in the first film. The problem is that it's stuck in a strange limbo where it's far more than a passing comment or viewpoint of a singular character but there's not enough to have it come together in any form of a thesis. I would say there isn't even enough for a more agnostic, "whelp, who knows?" stance to be intentional. Another subplot that makes a ton of sense on paper but doesn't amount to a whole heck of a lot in practice is the FBI. Naturally the Bureau is involved in the investigation of the plane crash. Naturally they'd stare long and hard at the kid who correctly predicted the explosion. Naturally they'd start to circle harder when the body count began to rise. Doesn't really go much of anywhere though. It helps push the scenes where the community is trying to cope with tragedy but that aspect of the story also doesn't coalesce into a whole heck of a lot. The movie only moves when it's dealing with the teens. As a result a film with both quality entertainment hooks and quality existential horror hooks mostly forgoes the latter despite poking at the premise a fair few times. So despite ostensibly being a film about the inevitability of death it more comes across as a film about the inevitability of bizarre, goofy pseudo-slasher death that's more confusing than unnerving. This leaves a feeling a wasted opportunity that remains largely unfulfilled throughout the remainder of the series. Regardless it's not a bad time. I had seen the movie back in high school after it came out and hadn't revisited until now. Despite seeing it once, almost twenty years prior, I still could've described to you every single death scene albeit not all for good reasons. On revisiting it I was a little sad that it wasn't quite as good as I remembered but it certainly wasn't a bad way to kick off my afternoon.  2) Final Destination 2 (2003) A young lass has a premonition of impending doom; by acting on it, she is able to prevent the deaths of herself and several bystanders. It seems that something in the universe is displeased by this turn of events and looks to rectify the group's fortuitous escape... Directed by David Ellis of Homeward Bound 2 and Snakes on a Plane fame, this movie is both just as bad as you fear and so much better than it deserves to be. The beginning is fantastic. The ending is fantastic. The nougat center is good enough with occasional spikes of high trashy quality. The entire presentation is thrown off by looking and sounding like a surprisingly violent TV Movie. I saw this once, a decade ago, and remembered liking it more than the first for both genuinely expanding on the story of the first film in a meaningful way and embracing the inherent stupidity of the premise is an entertaining fashion. It's a strange tightrope to walk but I'm glad at least one of the films in the franchise knows how to do it. Whereas the first film tries to create menace from puddles of water and vodka chasing unwary ankles across the floor the second film has an elevator open to reveal an old man carrying a wire basket full of prosthetic limbs while the director is practically staring at you, hands on hips, saying "Guess what's gonna happen!" As I was watching the beginning of the Dead Teenager documentary linked in the horror thread I was thrown a bit by James Wong criticizing this movie for being too contrived in how it brought its cast together. This is after the first movie, which he directed, constantly brought the characters together for no stated reason other than Fate Demands and maybe they didn't want to pay more actors for bit speaking roles, I dunno. The reason the cast of this movie is together, they're all people who would have died had it not been for the initial survivors of the first film somehow interfering in their lives, and now Death is rounding them up, is a great sequel hook! Who cares if it's contrived? The whole franchise is, by admission, Contrivance Kills Us All: The Movies! Just run with it! This movie is much more a sequel to the events of the first movie as opposed to a sequel to its ideas. Considering the ideas, tantalizing as they were, didn't actualize I count it as a positive. What this one chooses to focus on it succeeds at even if it has a clearly different aim than its predecessor. Overall recommend. Fun movie, especially if you're patient with lower quality presentation.  3) Final Destination 3 (2006) A young lass has a premonition of impending doom; by acting on it, she is able to prevent the deaths of herself and several bystanders. It seems that something in the universe is displeased by this turn of events and looks to rectify the group's fortuitous escape... From this point forward I'm watching movies I've never seen before. Mapping new personal territory. Spoiler alert: overall I don't regret it, it was a fun day. James Wong returns to direct and it shows. The movie has an actual theme in control and the loss of it, everything looks better, the acting's better, and it's much tighter and mostly better presented than his other entry, the first film. But like the first film it also doesn't know how to turn a thematic core into a satisfying horror movie. Overall it's simultaneously both much better and much worse than 2. All of the technical details jump back up in quality and story is better written. It also starts being very earnest again while also indulging in ridiculous sequences we're evidently meant to take seriously. Despite the presence of an actual factual prepared and executed theme I couldn't shake the feeling that this movie is almost entirely gratuitous and not in a fun way. The franchise's own structure makes it difficult to create meaningful tension at this point in the series and while this movie does have a couple neat moments it's ultimately flat. It has a few welcome surprises but the overall thrust, as much as it plays into the theme of a loss of control, is a tension-killing setup of identifying the next victim and then watching them die. I realize that this is not a film franchise made to challenge the audience's collective intellect and I understand why characters would feel this way but if you've seen either of the previous movies you know that after the festival Wendy has in no way cheated death; she's just skipped herself for another 'go round down the list. This reflects the problem the film has in trying to "perfect" the formula instead of innovate it. Once the ball starts rolling you know who is going to die, in what order, and that nothing is being done by the franchise's own rules to do anything about it. The movie's strengths are not enough to overcome this. Perhaps if the movie was trying to wed the notion of loss of control to something more atmospheric, or thrilling, or a little grounded or perhaps ponderous then I think it would work much better. As it is pairing it with a splattery slashery shell does neither aspect of the script any favors. The drama is overwhelmed by the blood. The blood looks ludicrous next to the drama. Eh/10. It's prettier but it's not spectacular. Only one of the deaths the drive-thru, for its misdirection is worth noting. The movie consciously avoids mixing it up in order to play into a stronger narrative theme and makes an unremarkable movie as a result. If this were the first, or only, movie in the franchise it would be great. But it isn't, so it's not.  4) The Final Destination (2009) A young lad has a premonition of impending doom; by acting on it, he is able to prevent the deaths of himself and several bystanders. It seems that something in the universe is displeased by this turn of events and looks to rectify the group's fortuitous escape... Woof. This one is actively bad. The director of the second entry, David Ellis, returns and personally disappoints me. I believed in you, sir A lot of the same basic elements return; a higher mix of comedy, leaning into the absurd, and trying to have more fun than be dour. The more I sit and think about this the more I realize how well some of those things come together in the abstract but the total package of performance, special effects, deaths, and tone really misfire in my eyes. First, I would be remiss if I did not highlight the best part of the movie: the opening credits. This is not a joke and is not meant to be a backhanded compliment; the credits are depicted alongside kinetic x-ray animations of deaths from the previous movies and it's very fun. It also promises way more interest than what the remainder of the film can deliver. The special effects, at least to modern eyes, are absolutely dire. After how great the opening sequence was to part 2 I'm in awe of how terrible the opener to this one is. I thought stunt coordination was supposed to be Ellis' wheelhouse but here it's mostly just disappointing computer graphics. This movie really oozes the feeling that it doesn't care. It doesn't care to make the characters interesting or meaningfully conflicted or compelling. It doesn't care to make the deaths dynamic or tense. One death is a little funny, and one death has some neat effects, but the overall package is lackluster. I'm not normally one to judge a film harshly for lack of creative death, even a slasher or slasher derivative, but this movie didn't give me much else to chew on. There's none of Wong's thematic effort; it's all splash and color all the way down. And the spectacle isn't enough. I'd like to talk about the ending a bit over in spoiler town. So either Death is capable of providing visions to get what it wants and simply hasn't until now, which is a little suss, or Death is the one who has sent every vision so far, which is a lot suss. It's a not-unreasonable guess to say that only some of the portents in this movie were from Death, as it seems the coffee spilling on the newspaper was also meant to lead them down the wrong path. You might also guess that the premonitions about the individual deaths of those on the list could be like leading the main character down the path to trust his new power in order to set the remainders up for death at the end. But that still doesn't explain why anyone ever has their initial visions. I just chalk up this movie's ending to the writer and/or director just wanting a twist without thinking about what it does to the film's already wafer-thin plot. I'm not sure if there's anything of real consequence to be missed if a viewer were to skip this movie.  5) Final Destination 5 (2011) A young lad has a premonition of impending doom; by acting on it, he is able to prevent the deaths of himself and several bystanders. It seems that something in the universe is displeased by this turn of events and looks to rectify the group's fortuitous escape... There's setups, payoffs, expansions, storytelling; it's like it's an actual movie and everything! If the third movie only stands alone if you actively ignore all other films in the franchise this one actually stands alone by virtue of knowing what to keep from the other movies and what to ignore. The first and third movies try real hard to ruminate on death and loss and coping with surviving a tragedy but mostly don't know how to make that click with the idea that Death is a present entity in the universe that will stalk kool-aid filled victims like they're unwittingly playing an especially messy game of Mousetrap. This movie, in contrast, succeeds in balancing the inherently bananas premise with the big ideas that Wong wanted his movies to have by reeling in both sides of the equation. There are characters who go through coping mechanisms and change their approach to life, yes, but it's less a theme and more character arcs than anything. I wouldn't call them especially robust or impressive, but they're present. On the other hand there are still splashy death scenes but they're, well I hesitate to say grounded, more straightforward without sacrificing the premise. The result is about as close to peanut butter and chocolate as the franchise gets. Now having said that, the contrast it has with the second movie is pretty interesting, because that film exists way further out there and is still a great time. Both have great beginnings and endings. Both have some pretty memorable death scenes. Both know what they want to be and execute it well. The second movie is more goofy and fun but the fifth is much better at being a movie. Absolutely recommend, once you've seen the other films and maybe skipped part 4. A great capstone to a worthwhile if not spectacular franchise. ~~ tl;dr 2>5>>3>1>>>4
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Apr 29, 2019 21:47
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In for 13 movies that I haven't seen before. Going to try for a lot of older black and whites I haven't seen, or at least can't remember enough of to count as seen.
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Apr 29, 2019 21:55
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Adlai Stevenson posted:... Only one of the deaths the drive-thru, for its misdirection is worth noting. I dunno man, the hard edit from the burning tanning beds to the matching coffins had me loving dying the first time I saw FD3, so I'd have to give it points for that alone.
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Apr 29, 2019 22:33
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Adlai Stevenson posted:Final Destination chat hell yeah, I just rewatched all of these a month or so ago, super fun series. Agreed on all except I think 1 is better than 3.
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Apr 29, 2019 22:49
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Final Destination is one of my favorite horror series and it's just the perfect thing to pair with some drinks, bad food, and friends. Totally watched the last two in theatres opening weekend -- In fact, I tested out a Dbox implementation for FD4 at the Chinese Theatres multiplex. Oh, and *spoiler for FD5* totally marked out at the ending since the reveal was so well done.
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Apr 29, 2019 22:50
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Class3KillStorm posted:I dunno man, the hard edit from the burning tanning beds to the matching coffins had me loving dying the first time I saw FD3, so I'd have to give it points for that alone. Okay, the edit is great but I found the deaths themselves really blah so lemme check with the ref The ref says NO POINTS
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Apr 29, 2019 22:50
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 3) The Dead hate the Living - 1999 - Prime Video First time watching and I'm embarrassed to admit that for a long while I kept getting this one mixed up with Dead Next Door. Story's the classic indie filmmakers shooting in a warehouse stumble across a hidden lab with a real corpse in it and decide using the corpse in thier movie is just the special angle they need. While not top notch cinema, this one's got Heart. There's loads of little nods and references any of us in the Horror thread's going to get. Considering what budget this probably had, they definitely make the most of it. What CGI's used is a bit woeful but the practical effects are nice. Overall, this was a nice little gem with some interesting ideas rolled around. Wish I could find a Fulci Lives bumpersticker again like the PA has on her car though.  4) Shrieker - 1998 - TubiTV Overall a pretty solid low budget monster movie. Premise is a group of college kids decide to squat in an abandoned hospital to save money. Of course the reason the hospital's abandoned is due to a series of unsolved murders which of course start up again. I liked the monster design on this one. Going in, I was worried that it wouldn't live up to the poster but for the majority of the movie you only see glimpses of it. The summoning sigils had a nice distinctive look. Too many films tend to go the route of cribbing off the Solomanic Keys or either of the Furtharks that it's a bit old and tired at this point. And for a bonus, here's a link to Lowtax's frontpage review of the movie. https://www.somethingawful.com/movie-reviews/shrieker/1/
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Apr 30, 2019 01:12
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Starting out my Gaillo May (should have been June) in April, with this one: Premise: Murders happen in a Scottish castle inhabited by a quarreling aristocratic family, their maids, servants and mistresses, an indeterminate amount of vampires, several species of bats, flesh-eating rats, a sasquatch, and the titular cat. I gotta say, despite the crazy set up this ended up as a far more conventional whodunnit than I'd hoped for. Pretty much every interesting aspect ends up as a red herring, to a nonsensical degree. One character who floats in front of the protagonist's window, Salem's Lot style, is just a normal person, and definitely not a vampire. Similarly, the Sasquatch is just someone's pet and gets unceremoniously murdered. When the true identity of the murderer is revealed, it is the least interesting option, and you're left wondering what most of the movie was even about. Now, the cat is excellent, as all cats are. As you can see from the screenshot, he is a chunky, grumpy boy. His introduction at the start of the movie is suitably dramatic: Ominous music plays as the camera zooms over a razor blade and various religious objects, and when a screen is removed to display the boy, the music reaches a dramatic crescendo. Now I'm afraid his acting abilities are sub-par, even for cat actors, being limited to walking short distances. He definitely can't be assed to jump onto anything. Yet, since he is required to do so multiple times, this feat is performed with the quite obvious assistance of a cat handler who hoists him onto various objects. Sometimes the cat handler is visible in plain sight, which somehow hurts the illusion of a fully functional cat. Overall, the movie has a cat in it, which is good, but the rest is not so good. A movie of contrasts.
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Apr 30, 2019 01:33
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oh right I forgot about some things and missed a few others:STAC Goat posted:1) World War Z (2013) Once I change the name of the film and eliminate any hopes or expectations the words World War Z conjure in my head the film changes from a dragging disappointment to a strange but not unwelcome disappointment. To me it's like Sahara: not great, not even good, but if it's raining out and I need background noise I won't turn it off. A positive I'll give the movie is that for all the complaints I could make about the zombie scenes generally not moving the needle for me I was at times captivated at how the zombies had absolutely no sense of self preservation at times. Like the one who takes a header off a building in Israel and tries to flesh missile its way through the roof of a wire enclosure: that was a neat moment. The movie's awfully long and doesn't have enough of those moments though. STAC Goat posted:2) As Above, So Below (2014) What's up, fellow spooked-by-tourist-caves-as-a-kid-and-grew-up-to-love-As-Above-So-Below goon gey muckle mowser posted:hell yeah, I just rewatched all of these a month or so ago, super fun series. Agreed on all except I think 1 is better than 3. What about 1 made it better for you than 3? In my mind 3 is mostly a cleaner effort from Wong although he does trade in a lot of the questions about fate and God for notions of control and photographs. FilthyImp posted:Final Destination is one of my favorite horror series and it's just the perfect thing to pair with some drinks, bad food, and friends. FD is 100% a spectator sport kind of franchise. Except for maybe 4 I can see myself rewatching these with a group pretty easily, even if the beats are still fresh in my mind. I also agree that FD5 100% sticks the landing, it's a pretty close to perfect ending for the series M_Sinistrari posted:
Nevermind that it's from the late 90's; that's an absolute classic VHS cover for me. Every time I went to the local store it was there, waiting for me to walk past it in the horror section. Never moved. Apparently never got rented. I always wondered what the thing on the cover was. What's up with its mouth? Is it a ghoul? A merman? Even more than old 80s and early 90s classics this movie screams Brick and Mortar Store to me because once it came out it was there every single week, imploring me to take it home. Never did.
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Apr 30, 2019 01:41
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I can't talk about World War Z without talking about the fact that there are three big zombie-action set pieces kicked off by women being too loud. 1: When Brad Pitt is sneaking out of that army base and his wife calls him, the ringtone alerting the zombies. Which makes zero sense because Brad Pitt's job before the events of the movie was investigating warcrimes in active war zones. So, really, "when I'm at work don't call me, I'll call you" was a rule she should've internalized by that point 2: The singing of the grateful Palestinian women being graciously let in past the Apartheid wall by the charitable Israelis incites the zombies into a fervor so they build a human pile and overrun the walls. 3: When Brad Pitt is sneaking around that medical facility to find the cure for being alive, that Israeli girl bumps into a tray of medical instruments, alerting the zombies in the building. It literally happens once per act.
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Apr 30, 2019 02:46
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Adlai Stevenson posted:What about 1 made it better for you than 3? In my mind 3 is mostly a cleaner effort from Wong although he does trade in a lot of the questions about fate and God for notions of control and photographs. The deaths in the first one are based around more mundane and therefore reasonable fears I think - slipping in the bathroom, getting hit by a bus, the whole series of household accidents that kill the teacher, etc, reminders that you are constantly surrounded by poo poo that can kill you. The second film is good about this too, especially the first death in the apartment. 3 is still fun but the kills are more ridiculous (tanning beds don’t work like that!) and less effective in my mind.
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Apr 30, 2019 02:46
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 I had fun with the first act, bored by the second, and was surprised in a couple of ways by the third. After some frustration with the reused footage, the previous girl finding momma Vorhees head in the fridge and immediately getting murked got me hyped up. The slutty camp attire was almost as ludicrous as how horny everyone was, which rubbed off on a goofy, doomsaying old man from town (Who also immediately got murked.) Moving into the second act, I got a good giggle at the hard cut to hot dogs after Muffin comes across Jason. This was the second to last thing I remember enjoying here. The kills were too clinical, usually just someone getting whacked with something sharp, with little to no cat-and-mouse. I didn't feel tension, nor was there was enough spectacle to keep my interest. Then Jason impaled two folks with a spear, displayed their corpses before the final kill and my mood turned around on a dime. Act 3 had a much different take on Jason than the one I'd been taught through pop-culture. This Jason is very human, very clumsy, and kind of inept. He wasn't an unstoppable flesh golem, he was a weird dude chasing a woman around with farm tools. It was a little offputting at first, but I pretty quickly got into it. I hope Jasons attachment to his mother is weaponized against him in surreal ways more in later movies. Overall it was solid, and I'm not going to hold parts of it feeling dated against a nearly 30 year old movie. "Axes, knives, lanterns, saws...they can all be trouble" should have been foreshadowing tho.
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Apr 30, 2019 05:03
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Huh. Didn't know the thread started already. For the record, I've pretty much burnt out on the forums, but I live for these challenge threads, so I'm in this one. I don't have a specific goal, but I'll do my usual watching as many as I can. I don't have as much free time set aside as I do in October, and I don't plan on coming anywhere close to those numbers, but I'm still sticking to my rule of New to me films, as many as I fit in. Should be fun watching new stuff, and seeing how M_Sinistrari smokes the crap out of all of us.
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Apr 30, 2019 07:53
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Does Thoroughbreds count as a horror movie? I started it last night but only got through 20 minutes or so before something came up, so I have to finish it another night.
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Apr 30, 2019 13:22
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 5) Evil Bong - 2006 - DVD I'll be honest, I'm really not too big on weed humor other than Up in Smoke. Blame it on the people I know who've made toking up thier complete identity and can't go a few seconds without making some sort of weed reference and smoke so much you probably can get a contact high off of them. With that said, I was a bit iffy on giving this one a watch as I was pretty sure I wasn't going to like it. I'm happy to say I was wrong. The weed humor wasn't obnoxious at all and I liked the concept of getting dragged off to an alternate realm and not realizing it because you're high. I was also pleasantly surprised by some of the cameos in the movie as well. Overall, I liked it and while I will be sitting through the rest of the films, I'm not sure if I'll be doing those for the Ironman. Funny story I have with this one was I got my copy of this for free at a convention. I'd planned in advance saving up, that I was going to go all out snapping up DVD box sets at the Full Moon because they weren't too easy to find elsewhere. My fiance jokes that I don't shop like a traditional woman but more descend upon a store/booth like some fusion of Navy SEAL/SAS commando. I earned stares for how much was snapping up. I did have to wait since Charles Band had to step away for a bit and he had the credit card machine but when he came back, again we ended up having a good hour long discussion of Lovecraft's works. He signed all my box sets and told me to go ahead and pick out a movie for free. I grabbed Evil Bong and he signed it.  6) Gingerdead Man - 2006 - TubiTV Considering the sheer volume of horror movies I've sat through in my life, I was pretty sure I've seen everything from a virus infecting words to possessed people and objects to cryptids and more. Here we have a first for me, a killer cookie. It's a pretty solid B-movie monster movie. Gary Busey does a good job as Gingerdead that I'm half wondering if they even bothered giving him a script and just told him to go wild with it. Overall, it's pure cheesy goodness and worth a watch. Lowtax also reviewed this one for the frontpage. https://www.somethingawful.com/movie-reviews/the-gingerdead-man/1/
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Apr 30, 2019 13:35
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gey muckle mowser posted:Does Thoroughbreds count as a horror movie? I started it last night but only got through 20 minutes or so before something came up, so I have to finish it another night. Absolutely yes.
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Apr 30, 2019 13:40
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I'm planning to watch at least 13 movies, but I don't have any real plan other than working through some of my Letterboxd watch list. There are a ton of horror thread recommendations on there that I keep not getting around to, so this is a good chance to do that. I'll also probably include some new releases.
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Apr 30, 2019 15:14
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I'll try for 13 at least as well. Mine might be more on the old side, since I'm a scaredy cat and don't like jumpscares.
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Apr 30, 2019 16:26
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Vincent posted:I'll try for 13 at least as well. Mine might be more on the old side, since I'm a scaredy cat and don't like jumpscares. there are plenty of great recent horror movies that don't use jump scares. The Blackcoat's Daughter or The Eyes of My Mother come to mind. that doesn't mean they aren't scary/disturbing though. edit: are != aren't gey muckle mowser fucked around with this message at 17:14 on Apr 30, 2019 |
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Apr 30, 2019 16:36
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Vincent posted:I'll try for 13 at least as well. Mine might be more on the old side, since I'm a scaredy cat and don't like jumpscares. I know you can just use the They Shoot Zombies master list(in the OP)and organize by release year, but I also put together some decade by decade lists this past October if you want individual lists that are a bit less overwhelming. Here's the one for the 60's, but the other decades are there too under my profile. https://www.letterboxd.com/basebf555/list/best-horror-of-the-60s/
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Apr 30, 2019 16:41
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I just need two more
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Apr 30, 2019 17:20
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1) Alice, Sweet Alice (first viewing) A series of murders surround a 12-year-old girl, starting with the killing of her younger sister in church on the day of her first Communion. The prevailing theme of this movie might as well be, "gently caress Catholicism." It's set in 1961, so not only is the Mass still in Latin but everyone's lives still seem to revolve around the church as well, with a good dose of judging people for perceived "sin". It's also got a very giallo feel as well, with the killer running around in a yellow raincoat and semi-transparent plastic mask - although it surprised me in revealing the killer's identity with half an hour still to go in the film. We're clearly supposed to feel some degree of sympathy for Alice, who's passed over, ostracised and blindly accused of being a killer for most of the movie... but at the same time, she kills or nearly kills a kitten at one point so gently caress her. In all honesty, the film goes to such great lengths to have everyone suspect her and have her behave oddly that it becomes pretty clear that she isn't the killer. The revelation of who is the killer is a relatively good surprise, but as I said, we then get another 30 minutes of watching the killer and wondering when the rest of the characters will catch up to us. Brooke Shields is also in this film playing a 9-year-old, which still didn't stop them from marketing the film on a re-release on the back of her appearance in Pretty Baby.
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Apr 30, 2019 23:16
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and awwwaaaaay we go! #1. Highway to Hell (1991) Charlie (Chad Lowe!) and Rachel (Kristie Swanson!) are a pair of young kids in love, breaking off to Vegas overnight to elope. Taking a back road, they find themselves instead on the titular highway to the underworld, and a sinister Hellcop kidnaps Rachel to bring her to the devil himself. Now Charlie has 24 hours to find and rescue her before she's trapped forever! I totally watched this one on a whim after seeing it on movie shelves for years, and was pleasantly surprised at how much effort was put into this. It's darkly humorous, sometimes getting gruesome with the special effects (good intentioned sinners getting graphically ground up to be made into pavement for the road) to sometimes getting just silly (such as Jerry Stiller's entire family having cameos, or Gilbert Godfrey popping up as Hitler) while still being full of inventiveness in special effects and in the writing of a modern version of the Orpheus myth. I was expecting something terrible, and I did not get that to my delight. More people should give this a go. 4 out of 5 pentagrams. #2. Accion Mutante (1993) In the far future, there is a terrorist group made out of handicapped/deformed people, rebelling against the beautiful people that run society. After they kidnap a bread heiress on her wedding day, the leader betrays the group and takes the woman (who gains stockholm syndrome) to a planet where there are no women, garnering far too much attention. This is a goofy, super dark and violent film, full of stupid jokes, high special effects, and lots of gun fire. I loved this wild film from Spain. 4 out of 5 conjoined twins. #3 964 Pinocchio (1991) The titular name refers to a guy that has had his memories wiped and turned into a sexbot of sorts. The rich woman who buys him throws him out because he can't uh, perform. Then he finds a woman who is mapping the city and also has memory issues, and she decides to help him. As they come together, it becomes clear that both have begun transforming in disturbing ways, both external and internal. Meanwhile, the company that made Pinocchio is hot on the trail of tracking him down and eliminating him. This is a weird one. Made in Japan, it reminded me in tone to Tetsuo the Iron Man, with the same sort of frenetic, dirty, punk rock style, only even more gushy and gross-out. Warning, there's an extended puking scene around the middle of the film. Yep, it's one of THOSE types of films. 3 out of 5 bowls of gooey cherries.
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May 1, 2019 01:30
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More mini reviews for my mini “I Wonder How This Holds Up” marathon to tide me over before “New To Me” in May starts. 8. Absentia (2011) Available on Amazon Prime, TubiTV, and Hoopla. Recovering addict Callie moves in with her pregnant sister Tricia to help her move on after 7 years of looking for her missing husband, but as Tricia is haunted by the guilt of declaring her husband dead “in absentia” and moving on with her life Callie begins to suspect that his disappearance may be connected to something sinister living under a nearby underpass. This is Mike Flanagan’s first film that I saw it years before I knew who he was or he became the figure he is now and it made an impression on me. Its low budget and rough around the edges but its got all the hallmarks that you either love or hate about Flanagan’s work. There’s tough female leads (who look remarkably similar to the other tough female leads in his films) fighting not to be victims. There’s a heavy theme of grief and loss and the struggles and dysfunction of family. Flanagan seems very polarizing and I sort of get why. He doesn’t make films looking to scare people or to entertain them with gore, he makes them to try and explore difficult life and death emotions. If you like what he does this is an interesting and effectively haunting piece that is definitely worth checking out. And the ending is really loving brutal for anyone who thinks he skimps out any gives "happy endings." If you don’t like what he does then this is just an unpolished version of that. So let your judgment be your guide but I liked it.  9. The Last Exorcism Part II (2013) Available on Amazon Prime. After the events of the first film Nell ends up at a half way house in New Orleans attempting to adjust to a new life while demons and cults stalk her. I remembered hating this film and thinking it was complete and total crap, but then a couple of posters said something positive about it in the main thread so I thought “what the hell?” and it fit into my little mini theme here. On second watch I can’t say I hate it, mainly because to have that strong a feeling about the film would be to give it too much credit. Its a boring, uninspired, waste of time. For the life of me the only positive I can take out of the film is one throwaway line (“I need your help, but I don’t have any money.”/“Girl, I haven’t asked you for one cent.”) that calls back to the conman preacher Nell has experience with who happily asked for a pile of cash. But those lines aren’t even said on camera so I half think they were just something they thought of in post and threw in. If someone can find something positive to take from this film then good for them and I’d love to hear it. I suppose the final sequence was cheesy enough to be funny. But for me this is just emblematic of everything boring and wrong with lazy horror sequels. You can’t convince me anyone (including screenplay writer Damien Chazelle who would go on to write 10 Cloverfield Lane, Whiplash and La La Land,) gave a single poo poo about this film except to cash in on the success of the original.  10. The Prophecy (1995) Available on Amazon Prime and Shudder. Christopher Walken is the archangel Gabriel come to Earth to find the most evil military strategist soul on the planet to help him fight his war in Heaven. Elias Koteas is the ex priest turned grizzled cop who has found himself between Gabriel and the innocents in his path. Eric Stolz, Virginia Madsen, and Viggo Mortenson as freakin Lucifer.  Ok, my expectations were high for this. On one hand its like the most 90est film right down to just a touch of bad 90s CGI. But I love this thing when I was kid and being raised Catholic is basically preparation to go hard for every demon exorcism or angel war movie that comes along. Admittedly its not a great film. The story’s kind of thin, the pacing is a little off, and the climactic ending scene is a little underwhelming. But Walken’s scene stealing Gabriel has always been iconic to me and all that distilled 90s cast really hit a nostalgic chord with me. I mean, they even snuck Adam Goldberg in. Its not the greatest film but you get what you paid for and I feel like everyone involved was really working hard to make this work. If you want to see Walken as a psychotic arch angel and Viggo slithering around as something between sexy and horrible then go for it. I’m looking at a DVD set of all the sure to be terrible sequels to fill some blank slots in May. Although I gotta admit, it’s not HUGELY horror. But there’s zombies and gory deaths and the basic premise is “angels are loving monsters”. So sue me. Also did you know The Prophecy was written and directed by the same guy who wrote Highlander? I didn’t but that totally makes sense. He also wrote Backdraft. Go figure.  11. Dawn of the Dead (1976) Watched on DVD. ”George A. Romero’s” cult classic follow up to his iconic Night of the Living Dead follows weeks later as society is beginning to lose its poo poo and a group of four survivors take off on their own and end up holing up in a shopping mall and going through all those psychological, emotional, and tactical problems we’ve all come to understand from 50 years world of films. I’ve actually only seen this film once or twice before, I think, due to how hard it is to find, despite the fact that I’ve seen Night and Day of the Dead probably a hundred times combined. I recently got my hand on a copy so I’ve just been waiting for the right time to sit down and focus. All in all it held up well but I’m still not sure I LOVE it. There’s definitely parts I love. The acting is great and Ken Foree is always a horror icon in my mind. The problems each character face as they all fight with the brink of losing it all work don’t really lose anything from it being done so many times since then. Its a long film with some down time, but that of course speaks to what the characters are experiencing. Probably the biggest roadblock for me is just that I’m not a gore guy, and while I appreciate the technical work and respect Tom Savini, Romero, and Dario Argento for what they’ve done and its place in horror history I just don’t get a lot from it. Still, a very good film that hits the now classic (and some would say tired) notes of how the zombie apocalypse is about the affect on humans. And its kind of kick to see Savini playing a doomed sleaze ball for what was probably the first time.  12. Mandy (2018) Available on Hoopla and Shudder. Nic Cage is a blue collar guy who just seems to want to live alone in the woods with his wife, so when a crazy hippie cult targets and takes her he reacts really badly to it and ends up on a blood soaked, psychedelic journey of demonic bikers and fantasy settings and lots and lots of drugs. I watched this back in November and I fell asleep a bunch during it and was a little scared to tell the horror thread that. Everyone was way cool and said it might not be for me, but also said I should give it another whirl when I was awake, and I agreed. So I decided I should just wait and give it enough time for me to lose my expectations and first impressions and revisit it sometime around May. I’m glad I did and I definitely received the film differently this time. I could follow it much more and the first half felt less like a drag to me and more purposeful and engaging. I also got the whole “Is it real, is it lots of drugs” vibe more. And weirdly the first time I had this idea that Mandy was like some supernatural force with a history with the cult and that the events set off some kind of apocalyptic event. I must have been REALLY out of it it that time because I don’t know what I was seeing on a second watch. I mean, I sort of see how I got there but yeah. I was out of it. That being said I still feel like it was paced all kind of weird with like 75 minutes of first act setup and then 20 minutes of insane action and then like a 30 minute epilogue. But you know, I do kind of see something there of that “epilogue” really being Red almost becoming a Black Skull after killing them and partaking in their poo poo and I again kind of get the point. I feel like it was a little over indulgent, but you know, who cares? There’s clearly a great deal of artistry in what Panos Cosmatos does and the same can be said for Cage, and I’m all for artists indulging in their art. Is it maybe a little too far towards the esoteric and psychedelic and away from more structure and pacing than my tastes would prefer? Yeah, probably. But if Cosmatos took 20% off the top he’d probably appeal to me more and be less true to himself. And there’s clearly a lot of people who love what he does. All in all, I’m glad I revisited it and while its still not a film I loved its a film I appreciated and enjoyed more. Next time Cosmatos does something I’ll go in knowing more what to expect. If you’re into style and artistry over substance or structure this is the stuff for you. I sort of wonder if I should revisit Beyond the Black Rainbow because I kind of hated that and couldn’t make sense of it, but I fell asleep during that too. Maybe someday. And with that I think I’m done with my pregaming. My team’s playing on the west coast so by the time I turn on another horror movie it should be May. And that means new stuff. All in all a fun little revisit to a bunch of movies I’ve been meaning to revisit to warm me up for all the new experiences. ”Wonder How This Holds Up” PreGaming in April 1. World War Z (2013); 2. As Above, So Below (2014); 3. The Cabin in the Woods (2011); 4. The Last Exorcism (2010); 5. Trollhunter (2010); 6. The Blair Witch Project (1999); 7. Unfriended (2014); 8. Absentia (2011); 9. The Last Exorcism Part II (2013); 10. The Prophecy (1995); 11. Dawn of the Dead (1976); 12. Mandy (2018)
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May 1, 2019 02:09
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It was hard to wait for this. I've had such a blast playing Assassin's Creed: Origins, that I'm going with 13 movies with some kind of Egyptian thing going on - I'm intentionally keeping the wrapping loose with this so I can both finally watch the Mummy movies from the universal boxed set and other mummy movies as well as leave room for stuff like Blood Feast or Egyptian-directed movies. https://letterboxd.com/smitster/list/egyptian-pick-list/
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May 1, 2019 02:11
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Put me down for 13 Fran!
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May 1, 2019 02:23
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1. Rest Stop (2006) Watched on Tubi I checked this out since I saw someone in the horror thread mention it and it conjured images of the Spring or Summer road trip in my head and also a weird anxiety I personally get at rest stops when I'm traveling. I would have to say this movie was really really boring. I felt every minute of it's run time. A lot of it didn't make sense and not in a fun dream logic way, just more whoever wrote it had cool ideas and no way to make them coherent and it hurts the whole presentation. At one point they show a scene of the killer in his converted school bus torture room drilling into people and carving on them and it was really intriguing, but the movie never really goes back to it. That was maybe my favorite part, made me think of the real life Toy Box killer. The place where the movie stumbles the most is when the cop comes into things. The cop is stupid for the sake of moving the story along to the set piece and situation they wanted. A woman tells him the man in the truck is trying to killer and the cop let's him drive off only to be ran down by the truck and have his legs hilariously run over. The cop is dragged away to safety and tells a really boring story that slows everything way way down while the killer comes back to fill their hiding spot with gasoline. The cop has zero faith in our final girl to use his pistol to shoot the killer that he begs her to mercy kill him instead of waste bullets trying. So after way too long convincing her she pulls the trigger, you get a moment of silence (during this time I admired the care to place bits of brain and a blown off ear next to the cop's head) then his eyes pop open and he starts screaming she screwed up and to shoot again. I had a belly laugh at just how absurd this was. The writer or director really thought this was going to blow people's minds and it seems more darkly comedic than horrific. The end is also just a soulless set up for a sequel. At best I can give this a 2/5 and after seeing he sequel is even longer even by a few minutes I couldn't make myself watch it.
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May 1, 2019 02:30
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 Jason developing some showmanship was a hella welcome development. I felt part 3 was more willing to take its time, and give its victims space to either feel fear or be a weird goofball before killing them, where part 2 felt largely rushed once people started dying. So far I'd say my ranking is 1>2>X>3
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May 1, 2019 03:10
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Of the Ghoulies films, I'll only be doing the first two since Band sold the rights after the second to try to bail out Empire Pictures 7) Ghoulies - 1984 - TubiTV I've loved this one since I saw it at the show. It's a good mix of silly and scary. Everything was nicely done with this one from the house and grounds to the ghoulie design and personalities. If it was possible, I'd certainly summon a few ghoulies to help with stuff around the house.  8) Ghoulies 2 - 1988 - TubiTV While I do like this one, I do feel it's a bit lacking in spots but other areas are done particularly well to make up for it. I felt the connection with the priest a bit weak, but the part with the ghoulies loose in the carnival was great.
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May 1, 2019 03:35
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Pomp posted:I felt part 3 was more willing to take its time, and give its victims space to either feel fear or be a weird goofball before killing them, where part 2 felt largely rushed once people started dying.
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May 1, 2019 03:37
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smitster posted:It was hard to wait for this. I've had such a blast playing Assassin's Creed: Origins, that I'm going with 13 movies with some kind of Egyptian thing going on - I'm intentionally keeping the wrapping loose with this so I can both finally watch the Mummy movies from the universal boxed set and other mummy movies as well as leave room for stuff like Blood Feast or Egyptian-directed movies. I'm a big fan of Blood From the Mummy's Tomb. I saw it as a kid, and it stuck with me enough that I looked for it for years based on a few vague memories.
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May 1, 2019 04:23
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Lets do this! #1. Demonoid: Messenger of Death  A miner frees a demonic hand buried in a satanic crypt and bad things happen. Not really sure how I ended up with this one. I can't remember it ever being mentioned on here and I don't really read about horror anywhere else. Probably the poster drew me in, who doesn't like sword-wielding heavy metal demons and bikini babe slaves? The movie itself is pretty forgettable. It has some ideas worth exploring, but doesn't really tie them together. There is a crypt, nudity, gambling in Vegas, a car chase, budget Father Karras getting punched in the face in slow-motion a few times in a row, but none of it feels really connected. The nudity is in the first minute and there is none int he rest of the movie, playing craps with a demonic hand that always wins is funny but never played for laughs, the boxing thing is either too much or not enough, the execution in general is just lacking. Face crushing was cool and the burned corpse trying to free itself looked pretty gnarly, so not a total loss. Still, pretty disappointing.
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May 1, 2019 08:25
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 9) Witchhouse - 1999 - TubiTV First time watch. For some reason each time I'd see this pop on my recommended lists, I kept confusing it with either Witchery or the Witchcraft films. All in all, this one's just blandly average. It's not so bad that you regret spending time out of your life watching it and it's not going to be something you recommend for being amazing. The effects are okay and we've got all the standard references for a witch/occult film with someone named Lillith, set either in or near Dunwich..etc... It's okay for something to have on for background noise and I counted at least 2 instances of the boom mic dropped in the shot.  10) Meridian - 1990 - TubiTV This one's a case of 'drat, this did not age well'. Pretty much pushing the same angles of the old Beauty and the Beast TV show with Ron Perlman, this film involves cursed twin brothers with one transforming into the beast from the coverbox. They can't be killed unless it's at the hands of a loved one. They've been carrying on under the pretext of a small traveling carnival and seducing women under questionable circumstances. Of course we've got the bad twin who wants to keep it going and other not-bad twin wanting to end it. Maybe if I sat through this back in the early 90s, I would've considered this romantic, but the 2019 me's like 'Holy poo poo this is messed up in the bad way'. We have date rape presented as romance and more surreal rape attempts than I care to count. We also have the twins switching partners without the partner's knowledge as well. I will say the usage of the location's nicely done, they really play it up for the dreamy-fantasy angle. About the only thing I can recommend on this one is if you like Sherilyn Fenn's boobs, you'll see them plenty in this.
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May 1, 2019 13:05
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 1. Hagazussa (2017) (digital) In 15th century Europe, a woman named Albrun lives a secluded life with her infant daughter. The nearby townspeople believe she is a witch, which may or may not be true. This was released in Germany in 2017 but only recently became available in the US. This is very similar to The VVitch but with even less action. It is incredibly slowly paced, and there are maybe 50 lines of dialogue in the whole film. I don't think the last 30 minute or so has ANY dialogue. It's all about the atmosphere and mood, and is often quite creepy. The cinematography is beautiful. The score is wonderful too, full of deep droning strings and chanting. It also contains some very disturbing moments, as well as an extended psychedelic/hallucinatory sequence that is both very cool and extremely horrifying. I can see lots of people disliking this due to the pacing and minimal plot, but if you enjoyed The VVitch or similar slow burn folk horror films I think you will enjoy this as well. I definitely loved it.
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May 1, 2019 13:53
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2. Evil Eye After a blow to the head, an American tourist in Rome witnesses an unsolved murder that happened ten years ago. A whodunnit movie by Mario Bava, made before giallos really became a thing - perhaps the reason why the protagonist is not particularly sexualized and nobody is misogynistically killed. This is good of course. A very enjoyable mystery that keeps you guessing until the end. I really liked the protagonist, who strikes me as a very Hitchcockian female character in that she's a bit dorky but not stupid, inquisitive and not just completely dependent on a man to lead her around. Liked the goofy, charming humour and the black and white cinematography. Did not like John Saxon. There were no Evil Eyes in the movie by the way. Thanks to Basebf555 for the recommendation. 3. Let's Scare Jessica to Death  Three refreshingly adult people movie into a house in Maine. Jessica, recently released from a mental hospital, starts hearing voices and seeing things again, but is it a relapse or is it real? Well, it took me 2 movies to interrrupt my giallo series, but I had to watch this one since I've been waiting for it to arrive on Prime Shudder for a while. Worth it. The strength of this movie comes from the main characters' convincing acting and the thick atmosphere. The protagonists talk and behave like normal people rather than folks in a horror movie, so I really liked everyone and didn't want bad things to happen to them. Unfortunately they do, and while the movie very slowly builds up a thick sense of dread (greatly helped by the amazing soundtrack), I don't think the last 15 minutes quite work for me. It is apparently Stephen Kings favourite horror movie, and it really is Maine as all hell (set in Connecticut).
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May 1, 2019 14:53
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From a few days ago, but here's (2) - Hereditary Amazon Prime I posted a quick impression about this in the movie thread, but Hereditary really gave me a sense of dread/anxiety I haven't felt since I chanced upon Mother! late last year. The visuals do a great job portraying this weird mundane disquiet and the droning soundtrack just gets to you on a primal level. The first half is all about dysfunction -- personal dysfunction, societal dysfunction, professional dysfunction -- and it does an amazing job selling the take that the family genetics (rife with depression, schizophrenia and a host of other maladies) are the driving force of all that is wrong with these family members. And to be honest, that's a take I really prefer to what the movie ends up going through. The idea that the horrors of life are kind of a Sins of the Father thing, that your genetic fate is pushing you towards being a total mess, is really engaging to me. It's a really great situation where 3/4 of the family members can be unreliable narrators and that all the weirdness of life is just being filtered through them. Making the last half of the movie a variation on Rosemary's Baby just didn't land with me, though the imagery remained unsettling. Have to also call out an excruciatingly torturous bit of horror/anxiety/dread where one of the main characters fucks up real, real bad and is so frozen by the magnitude of his actions that he shuts down, goes on autopilot and prolongs the reveal for what feels like ages. You can't help but identify with that feeling of wanting to make it go away, and then feeling like utter dogshite when the mother starts screaming uncontrollably with grief and disbelief. There's a just heartwrenching performance by Toni Colette when she is just doubled over howling saying "I want to die" that's chillingly effecting.
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May 1, 2019 17:25
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poo poo, you guys reminded me about Tubi.TV, now I have to revise my list.
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May 1, 2019 17:28
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 Today I watched The Prophecy. There's a lot of good stuff in this movie. Christopher Walken as an evil angel and Adam Goldberg as his long-suffering human servant are both fantastic. Viggo Mortenson as satan kicks rear end. The horror elements are really good. Unfortunately beyond that it's a bit of a mess. The first half is pretty boring. A big problem that never goes away but is most noticeable in the first half is the lack of stakes. It's never explained what it would mean for the bad angels to get the soul, or to win the second war in heaven. There's an implication that it's bad, because the bad angels are bad, but that's it. it's characters, including some who won't matter at all in the second half, just kinda doing poo poo and receiving exposition without any real danger or escalation. But, The Prophecy does pick up a lot in the latter half, when it decides to make some gestures towards being a horror movie. As I said, the horror elements are great. There's three different kinds; the cannibal soldier who brought a box of faces home from Vietnam whose soul is so evil angels are fighting over it, and it gets put in a little girl who has to deal with that evil being inside her. Christopher Walken as suave Terminator. And Angel-horror, with a field of dying angels and evil angels using their angel powers to do horrible poo poo to people. All of them are great and scary, but they're also given extremely short shrift by the movie. we're mostly just told about the evil soldier, the little girl got barely developed as a character, Christopher Walken is the Terminator for like a scene and a half, and the body-horror of being trapped in a dead body so you can serve an evil angel really does not get the amount of time it deserves. They could've made the whole movie just about that and I'd be happy Beyond that I got some minor criticism. The editing is weirdly bad, a lot of scenes just abruptly end by fading in to the next scene in a way that doesn't flow at all, the setting change from New York to Arizona just feels like a massive waste of time when they could've been in Arizona the whole time, the good angel gets way too much screen time for a character who dies and doesn't matter at all in the second half, and the ending monologue sucks. Bottoms line, The Prophecy isn't bad, but it's far less than the sum of it's parts.
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May 1, 2019 19:09
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