|
Gunning for 31! Tremors (1990)  The floor is lava! Perfect goofy, goopy creature feature fun to kick off a month-long horror marathon. Refreshingly well crafted in the progression of its "setting up the worms/outsmarting the worms/ worms outsmart us/ explosions" narrative, and the pacing's relentless while still giving us time to hang out with the characters. Also, has there been a better original monster design since? Feels weird to say "they don't make 'em like this anymore" about a movie about killer worm monsters, but what's the last new movie that was this unpretentiously fun? Fury Road? 4.5/5  The Company of Wolves (1984)  Heavily stylized "stories-within-stories" gothic take on the Riding Hood story. With werewolf transformations. Multiple, gory, creative werewolf transformations that are absolutely a highlight along with the weird, elaborate artificial sets. Leans heavily into the original tale's overtones of sexual predation and transgression, but the stories-with-stories framework allows us it to delve into its themes from number of angles and with your sympathy shifting from the townsfolk, to the wolves, to the uncomfortable place between we're left on. Possibly the only film ever made in which Angela Lansbury's head explodes into dust after being punched by a werewolf, and you know you want to see that. 4/5 
|
#
¿
Oct 2, 2019 20:10
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 18, 2024 20:12 |
|
|
3. One Cut of the Dead (2019) Echoing what others have said about going in blind. Just want to make a note that this movie takes a lot of stuff that should feel extremely played out by now (one long take shot, big twists, zombies themselves) and won me over through sheer charm and pluck. Clearly made by people who love movies 3.5/5  4. Roadgames (1981)  "I'm talking about sex!" Stacy Keach! Languid but fun Aussie reimagining of Rear Window about a dingo-owning truck driver convinced that another car on the highway is driven by a murderer. Lots of the fun of this movie comes from seeing Keach's rapidly declining mental state as he attempts to hunt a killer while looking and sounding like the most obviously guilty man alive, threatening the wrong people, failing to hijack a motorcycle, and raving about sex murderers to people he just met a minute ago. Also features gorgeous views of the Australian Outback and a fun turn by Jaime Lee Curtis as a hitchhiker. 3.5/5 
|
|
#
¿
Oct 3, 2019 22:45
|
|
|
5. City of the Living Dead (1980) God bless Fulci. Most horror directors, when asked to realize the image of a woman vomiting her own guts out, would have the actress just vomit out a bloody string of store brand Blood Chunkz™. But Fulci? Fulci makes sure we spend an entire minute watching her foam and hack up the entirety of her small and large intestines, culminating with her entire stomach! It's the details that make art sing. Anyway, while there are some other standout setpieces, such as a notable one where a woman is buried alive and a fun late film one involving a power drill, nothing of note really happens pre-vomit and everything else is kind of a comedown post-vomit, making this kind of like a boring night of binge drinking. And a lot of the zombie stuff here is shockingly generic for the man who gave us zombie vs. shark. Like all of his films except Don't Torture a Duckling, I expect I'll like this more the further I get from it and the more the images linger in my mind, but for now? 2.5/5  but 5/5 for the scene itself6. Island of Lost Souls (1932)  Now we're talking! Gnarly 30s science fiction horror in the vein of Universal, and on par with just about anything that studio was doing around this time. The makeup effects are phenomenal, especially for the day, and the seventy minute runtime means that even the boring 1930s romantic leads can't slow this down much. Charles Laughton's campy but sinister portrayal of Moreau is an instant horror favorite, with his mixture of scientific detachment, mad gloating, and "I'm a bad widdle boy" giddiness towards his creations. I'm particularly fond of him telling a castaway to his island to note an interesting limestone formation immediately after chasing off a pack of man-dogs with a whip. The scene where the Panther Woman breaks down and weeps while Moreau's responds with childlike glee that his creatures can have emotions is a bit of horror melodrama worthy of Bride fo Frankenstein. If the documentary on Richard Stanley made you depressed, this is about as good an adaptation of Dr. Moreau as you could hope for from the time period. Dog Face Bella Lugosi is a Comrade. 4.5/5 
Dr. Puppykicker fucked around with this message at 17:13 on Oct 8, 2019 |
|
#
¿
Oct 6, 2019 04:38
|
|
|
Accidental thematically similar double feature from Japan! 7. Audition (1999)  More than just providing an all-timer twist, Miike's strong character focus turns what could have been a Fatal Attraction style lady-psycho movie into something with genuine tragic weight. The first act portrait of Japan's systematic misogyny hits harder because our protagonist is more lonely than "bad", thoughtlessly playing along with a weird, unfair, rigged system his buddy laid out for him. Meanwhile, the reveal of Asami's true nature increases our sympathy and pity for her, even as she commits some of the most disturbing acts in horror movie history. I appreciate how the finale totally denies us any catharsis from her defeat, the overwhelming mood from the moment she first disappears is one of tragedy. Also, thanks to apps, the audition scenes are basically what modern dating is for everyone!!! At least no one's pretending you'll get a job off of this poo poo. 5/5  8. Perfect Blue (1997)  Challenge #1: The Best Month It ain't subtle, but it works. Satoshi Kon-directed 1997 anime is the story of a pop idol in the midst of a career transition to being a "serious" (read: naked and fake-murdered) actress. Over the course of the film she's subject to strange and paranoid hallucinations related to her public perception and past life. Meanwhile, she's pursued by a strange stalker while some of the industry men who have exploited her are turning up dead. Not every choice in this works but I absolutely love the multiple DePalma-style perspective shifts and the way this uses transitions and effects that would only be possible in animation. And while the critiques of systemic misogyny and the entertainment industry are very in-your-face they're also not only not wrong but prescient, anticipating everything from Weinstein to online hate campaigns. A justly legendary scene towards the middle of the film depicts the process of filming a scene containing graphic sexual violence is probably one of the smartest and most complicated ways I've seen the subject handled in a film and a showcase for how professionalism can be a veneer on exploitation. At the same time, the film is also critical of the hypocritical "purity" standards women in the public eye are held to and the impossibility of satisfying omnipresent, contradictory demands. A messy, weird, fascinating film. 4/5 
|
|
#
¿
Oct 8, 2019 17:12
|
|
|
9. Deathdream (1974) From the director of Black Christmas comes this reworking of the Monkey's Paw story about a family whose wish for their dead son to return from Vietnam to return goes inevitably wrong. This movie's greatest virtues are the willingness to stick to its guns on a powerful metaphor and the centering of some very strong performances. Richard Backus is compelling and genuinely frightening as the son, his face and voice drained of emotion but with a terrifying simmering rage underneath. His deeply conflicted and half in denial parents are played John Marley and Lynn Carlin, who had already played a married couple in John Cassavetes' legendary Faces. Their realistic pain and their conflict over what to do with their son remains engaging throughout. Unfortunately, I can't love this film as much as I would like to because the horror elements are relatively weak compared to the drama: I liked the film more when I thought that the killings stemmed from the main character's emotional damage from returning from the dead rather than a vampire-like first for blood, and the film ends just as the horror elements are starting to come to the fore. Quibbles aside, this is a bold and uncompromising movie, and another great example of the storied tradition of horror as a vehicle for social commentary. 4/5  <- wow how much did I luck out finding this one10. Blacula (1972) Challenge #3: Horror Noire Been putting this one off way too long as a fan of both horror and blacksploitation. This is at once lots of silly fun and at times surprisingly thoughtful. The team behind this one clearly put thought into how a vampire would interact with 70s African-American culture, from original flavor Dracula's condescending racism in the opener to the police response to the vampire being hampered by racism (one cop theorizes that the murderer draining people's blood through their necks might be a Black Panther). But of course the main attraction here is Shakespearean actor William Marshall's commanding performance as Mamuwalde, the cursed vampire prince from Africa. He's a regal, commanding, and even tragically romantic figure, while also throwing himself into the snarling and biting with gusto. My favorite scene in the movie basically plays like a vampire version of the diner scene from Heat with Blacula discussing the possible existence of the "black arts" with the detective tasked with hunting him. Glad I finally got to it. 3.5/5 
Dr. Puppykicker fucked around with this message at 03:14 on Oct 10, 2019 |
|
#
¿
Oct 10, 2019 03:10
|
|
|
11. Puppet Master III: Toulon's Revenge (1991) How do you make us root for the slashers in a slasher movie? Make the victims Nazis. Pretty delightful and well-made prequel that goes all out on making the puppets the good guys, which considering how cute and gimmicky they are is probably for the best. The stop motion work is great, though I wish there were more of it, and most of the human drama actually works, with a late game-revelation about the true nature of the puppets that kind of floored me for its sincerity and weirdness. A gem of the direct-to-video era, and a treat for anyone who enjoys watching nazis get theirs, which should be everyone. 3.5/5  12. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)  Probably my biggest horror blindspot. This has most of the shortcomings you expect from sci-fi of this era (hello female lead running in heels for four feet before collapsing), but it's 88 minutes of pure, relentless paranoia. This thing moves from the moment the pods are first discovered all the way to that incredible scene on the freeway that, if not for studio interference, should have ended the movie on a hauntingly unresolved note. Easy to see why this has been remade so many times, it's an irresistible, endlessly adaptable metaphor while still functioning on the level of a nightmare. 4/5 
|
|
#
¿
Oct 12, 2019 18:02
|
|
|
13. Alligator (1980)Challenge #2: Dead & Buried Alligator! Robert Forster and the world's sexiest herpetologist hunt an alligator that has grown to supermassive size from eating dead dogs injected with mad science hormones after being flushed down a New York City toilet. You know, that old plot. This is a very, very silly movie that's kept aloft in between scenes by a perfectly pitched performance from Forster. He knows exactly what kind of movie he's in, never taking things too seriously or overplaying the schtick, just exuding the same low-key cool he brought to Jackie Brown or the Twin Peaks revival. The gator itself is pure B-movie, crashing through sidewalks and chomping on people who are very obviously holding themselves in the puppet's jaws, as God and Ed Wood intended. I had a pretty good time with this. RIP Robert Forster: sometimes being a great actor means playing Tarantino's most soulfully written role to the hilt, and sometimes it means being a fun goof in a big ol' alligator movie. 3/5 
|
|
#
¿
Oct 13, 2019 05:55
|
|
|
Just popping in to say this is one of the greatest posters I've ever seen.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 14, 2019 17:15
|
|
|
14. Green Room (2015)Challenge #4: Inktober (punk rock is an art form and so is violence) Just don't look at it. Raw, uncompromising, and real-feeling even as it goes into full on action movie mode. One worst-case scenario piles up on top of another, and each one is presented in the most unflinching, matter-of-fact way. Loved how much of this was a genuine battle of wits, with both parties strategizing, miscalculating, and improvising on the fly. I think this loses a little steam towards the end and would have liked to have seen the tight setting kept up throughout the entirety of the film, but I still loved this. Great overdue first watch. gently caress nazis and ban boxcutters imo 4.5/5  15. Blood and Black Lace  As a work of cinematography, this looks great. As a murder mystery...this looks great. Not a lot to say about this one I'm afraid, just my typical reaction to Italian horrror where I love the dreaminess and style and zone out during the dubbing. I will say I do love how the murder sequences alternate between brutality and oafish clumsiness on the part of the killer, sort of reminds me of Scream. 3/5 
|
|
#
¿
Oct 15, 2019 04:05
|
|
|
16. Don't Let the Riverbeast Get You! (2012) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxZU97MYPg4 Available on youtube! Oddball, no-budget community filmmaking. The easiest way to describe it is as a monster movie spoof, but while it's clearly funny on purpose, there's a goofy, earnest vibe that sometimes makes you wonder how much of the weirdness is on purpose. I get the vibe that writer/star Matt Farley genuinely wanted to make an old-fashioned monster movie but at the same time...not a lot of monster! Mostly it's a very dry comedy about "the finest tutor this town has ever seen" who returns to rivertown USA on a quest to reestablish his good name after being smeared in the local paper for claiming to see the legendary Riverbeast. Not to mention endless subplots including a sicko professor who hides in trees attempting to spy on fully-clothed "picnic babes", the redemption of legendary former athlete Frank Stone who appears to play every kind of sport, and Farley's violent guitarist best friend falling in love with a popping and locking vagabond lady. All of this is expressed through unusually formal melodramatic dialogue like "but how can she love a man with such outlandish tales and many public humiliations!" or "Why, I ought to break your poetry-loving face!". There's also a nice bit of William Castle gimmickry in which the film is presented with "Riverbeast Alerts", allowing sensitive audience members to avert their eyes from the majestic terror of the star attraction. I had a lot of fun throwing this on and while it's not to every taste, I recommend it to anyone interested in community filmmaking and who can be charmed by the sight of someone who is obviously the creator's dad being introduced as "Ito Hootkins...that's right Ito Hootkins, the legendary big game hunter!" 3.5/5 
|
|
#
¿
Oct 16, 2019 18:41
|
|
|
17. The Gorgon (1964) Hammer! Cushing! Lee! Steele! Fisher! It's not very good! I was intrigued by this one because of the unique monster and the possibility of a Lee/Cushing team up like Horror Express. Unfortunately, neither of them are in the movie for very long, instead we're left with a series of boring disposable male leads investigating what's going on in the woods only to be Gorgon'd. The Gorgon is unfortunately not onscreen very much, which wouldn't be a problem except that neither the romance story with the eventual male lead or the mystery plot (Hey I wonder if the only woman in the entire movie is actually the Gorgon) really go anywhere. A good Cushing performance, a brief appearance by a swashbuckling Lee, and lush technicolor can't save this from being one of my less favorite Hammer films. Stronger writing for the characters we do follow, or a shift to Cushing or Lee's characters could have made this really strong. Do like the final shots and fatalism of the ending, just wished it'd felt set up properly. 2.5/5  18. The Sixth Sense (1999)  Shyamalan got a lot of comparisons to Spielberg with his debut and while the weird turns his career took may have scattered that, this is a sublimely directed movie. Lots of great compositions and camera moves, with a ton of really effective tracking shots locking us into the perspective of the characters, wandering these moody Philadelphia buildings with the possibility of something horrifying beyond every corner. But more than the ghosts or the fairly legendary final twist, this works very well for long stretches as an effective and empathetic portrait of hurt and traumatized people learning to reach out to each other for support past their fears. Before, what was shocking about this movie was the appearances of the ghosts and the big payoffs, now I was surprised by how effectively done the therapy scenes were and how emotionally pitch-perfect Osment's final scene with his mother was. A great film, one of the rare ones that works equally well as a tender but not overwrought melodrama and a genuinely shocking crowd pleaser. 5/5 
|
|
#
¿
Oct 18, 2019 17:09
|
|
|
19. El Santo and Blue Demon Against The Monsters (1970) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqWH474DnCc A friend streamed this. El Santo and Blue Demon fight all kinds of monsters and their own clones and drive around in cars the same color as their masks. 15/5       20. Three From Hell (2019)  Rob Zombie and Quentin Tarantino both watched that one Manson doc from the seventies lol For a while, this is a pretty direct follow up to Devil's Rejects despite uh, undoing the most memorable single scene from that film. The complicated empathy Zombie has for the protagonists and their both noble and deeply flawed victims, the blacker than pitch black humor, the unrelenting seventies dinginess. Then they go to Mexico and get in a gunfight with luchadors. A pretty wild, uneven mix of genuinely fascinating, repellent stuff and stupid bullshit, with the caveat that I also like the stupid bullshit. The key to Rob Zombie's style is that the gunslinging Mexican midget with an eyepatch turns out to be pretty sympathetic with some nice character shading. And who but Rob Zombie would include a scene where the characters watch Bella Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla? Danny Trejo is in this movie exactly long enough to get shot and he has his own character poster, I respect this more than I can tell you. 3.5/5 
|
|
#
¿
Oct 19, 2019 16:02
|
|
|
21. The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971) This horror spoof has the same quality that the Batman show from the sixties has where an adult can watch it and recognize all of the gags, but a kid could easily take it for the real thing. Vincent Price gives what will probably always be the most satisfying screen portrayal of a Dr. Doom figure, embracing all the ludicrous gusto of his baroque revenge, while playing it extremely straight and sinister. For the most part, Price is silent in the title role, leading him to sell his character largely through gestures and presence instead of his iconic voice. Of course, he nails it. One murder in particular made me laugh like a hyena, you'll know it when you see it. Weirdly, elements of this, like an ever-tightening piece of headgear and a key surgically embedded in someone's body, seem to foreshadow the Saw movies, if those movies were the exact opposite amount of fun. 4/5  22. End of the Wicked (1999) Challenge #5: Tourist Trap  Watched via Scream Stream. Nigerian evangelical propaganda film about the dangers of witchcraft and satanism in the vein of American Christian exploitation films like If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do?, but with more uh...stuff. Beelzebub on his throne in hell sends witches to do horrifying things like shapeshift into owls that shoot lasers or grow giant penises and marry their sons-in-law. I found this fairly vile in both content and worldview and largely has the vibe of a Tim & Eric skit run too long, but the craziness almost takes on a Fulci vibe at times, and if you're interested in weird outsider art from a genuinely different perspective, well, here you go. RIP to the goat that gets loving killed on camera. 0.5/5  (An aside: I urge anyone interested in low-budget African genre films like I am to check out the genuinely funny and playful action movies from Wakaliwood instead.)
|
|
#
¿
Oct 21, 2019 05:23
|
|
|
Franchescanado posted:
My hint for this challenge is to look to Hong Kong horror, as there's usually a ghost or wizard thrown in somewhere with the main physical threat.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 21, 2019 17:59
|
|
|
Franchescanado posted:
Just wondering if something like 3 From Hell, which has a brief Halloween scene before a climax taking place during a Day of the Dead celebration, would count for this.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 22, 2019 16:01
|
|
Watch a horror film that you haven't seen that takes place on a holiday that isn't Halloween, All Hallow's Eve, Samhain, etc.
|
23. Q, The Winged Serpent (1982) Or Kaiju Day Afternoon. A seventies crime movie and a fifties monster movie, smashed together in a schlocky eighties movie, with Michael Moriarty giving one of the best performances of all time because why not. Saw this for the challenge last year and rewatched it twice since, RIP Larry Cohen. 5/5  24. A Chinese Ghost Story (1987) Challenge #7 Monster Mash-Up (ghosts, zombies, a big tongue tree demon witch?) This was hard to find, but as a fan of Hong Kong horror (who recently guested on the Sleazoids podcast talking about the topic! Shameless plug!) I'm really glad I finally tracked this one down, even though the english subs can best be described as "close enough". Still, you don't need to speak the language to appreciate this movie, a high-flying Hong Kong rom-com Evil Dead, packed with crazy 80s special effects, light sex farce, beautifully choreographed wu xia action, and a crazy climactic kung-fu raid on Hell itself. If you love Hong Kong horror or just want to see how much wild, fun imagination a movie can cram into 100 minutes, this is worth the effort to track down. 4.5/5  25. Return of the Living Dead III (1993) Challenge #6: Sometimes They Come Back Fun goth splatsploitation that gathers real emotional weight as it goes on thanks to taking its premise, and its implications seriously. Doing an intimate star-crossed lovers plot is not where you would naturally go from the first movie, but this commits, and that commitment sees it through some weird choices (hello 90s gang cholos) to a crazed and tragic ending. And shouts out to Melinda Clarke for being perhaps the most game actress of all time in a wild and demanding role. Still don't know how they made a second sequel to a movie that ends with the end of the world though, maybe 2 explains that one. 3.5/5 
|
|
#
¿
Oct 23, 2019 05:00
|
|
|
26. Nightmare Weekend (1986)Challenge #9: Hackers Woof. An evil computer that's also a puppet shoots pinballs that makes teens horny and die (they were already horny and dying). A girl plays a videogame with a car and it makes a real car crash and this is never mentioned again. Everyone's voices are dubbed over by different people. A woman makes out with a spider. A gratuitious rape scene that's never mentioned again involves a character who calls himself "pinball wizard". Nothing happens somehow. This was on Tubi, a little over an hour, and met the requirements of the challenge. Troma! 1/5  (If you haven't seen the original Pulse or The Den, use them for this, please.)
|
|
#
¿
Oct 24, 2019 00:16
|
|
|
gey muckle mowser posted:other than the rape part, your description makes it sound awesome I respect its purity.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 24, 2019 00:44
|
|
|
Basebf555 posted:The zombie horde from Return of the Living Dead but instead of "braaaains" they're saying "give me a wildcarrrrddd" The Seventh Curse (on amazon prime)!
|
|
#
¿
Oct 24, 2019 18:16
|
|
|
I want to recommend A Chinese Ghost Story to everyone in the thread, but unfortunately it took me about a year to get a hold of a legal copy with *good enough* subtitles that barely got here in time so :/. But if you can find it, it's really good!
|
|
#
¿
Oct 24, 2019 18:18
|
|
|
27. Dead of Night (1945)Challenge #8: Happy Holidays (Christmas) This lulls you in by being a very gentle horror anthology at first, with that English "ghost story for Christmas" tone that's more spooky than scary, with the protagonists surviving every segment, and one story that's just out and out comedy. Then, *WHAM* an absolutely terrifying even by modern standards final segment leading into a frenetic, hallucinatory ending with a twist that still feels fresh even though it's been ripped off countless times. While I was enjoying it before, I didn't understand its reputation until I got to the last part. Devious little trick. 4/5  28. Razorback (1984) Challenge #10: Navel Gazing Jaws from Oz! Shockingly gorgeous and brutal movie about a giant killer pig, that makes room for Mad Max road chases, desert hallucinations, and a deadly showdown in a factory that makes pet food from kangaroos. For a film with such a straightforward premise, this movie feels genuinely surreal, keeping me guessing at where the hell this was going throughout. The final fight with the boar is both intense and oddly funny. Not every digression this goes down is as interesting as "giant killer pig, but I can't not enjoy any movie that constructs a giant pig puppet as lovingly as this one does. 3.5/5 
|
|
#
¿
Oct 24, 2019 23:36
|
|
|
I guess I feel guilty about Re-animator because it's technically got a scene of sexual assault in it but also I am nakedly manipulating the rules so I can watch Re-animator.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 25, 2019 20:45
|
|
|
29. The Addiction (1995) Abel Ferrara loves philosophy and hates drugs, but Abel Ferrara also loves drugs and hates philosophy. Typically, I find a film like this, with its very mannered, quotation-laden dialogue and twelve car pile up of metaphors (vampirism as addiction obviously, but also moral relativism, classism, contagion and disease academic satire, collective guilt, the loving Holocaust) at least as frustrating as rewarding, there are plenty of admirably ambitious films that fail to develop the fascinating ideas they lay out. But somehow this coheres, likely because all of them are tied to Lilli Taylor's remarkable performance, as she flits between various philosophies and perspectives while grappling with her newfound hunger. Her moral development (of a kind) is contrasted with great one-scene turns from two actors playing veteran vampires: Annabella Sciorra at the one who "inducts" the protagonist and espouses a philosophy of survival at any cost and Christopher Walken as a vampire who encourages a life of self-sacrifice and minimal exploitation (he is basically playing Ferrara here). Even more impressively, it manages all of this while being a drat effective horror film, with an incredibly shocking climax. A film that defies didacticism and easy solutions, and my favorite film I've seen during this challenge. And I'd like to share a little bit of what I've learned through these long, hard years of study... 5/5  30. The Pit and the Pendulum (1961) Challenge #11: All Hail The King Poe's The Pit and the Pendulum is not enough material for a complete feature film, which is probably why the pendulum doesn't show up until minute seventy of an eighty minute film. But luckily, Roger Corman had access to a castle, Barbara Steele, colored gel effects, and Vincent Price and that is definitely enough for a whole movie. Price is, as always, a joy to watch, here in full on camp-mode as a character who we're never quite sure will turn out to be more of a victim or a villain. And a surprising amount of this is devoted to a haunted castle mystery that works well enough, and delves into the legacy of atrocities the Spanish Inquisition on the families of the perpetrators. But this is all an appetizer to that final suspense sequence, which is just as much spooky fun as you want it to be. A stylish, short good time. 4/5 
|
|
#
¿
Oct 26, 2019 17:40
|
|
|
Retro Futurist posted:Purno you’re a goddamn hero. Unfortunately not, but either version of The Wicker Man would count for "W".
|
|
#
¿
Oct 26, 2019 17:43
|
|
|
31. 28 Days Later (2002) It makes for boring reviews, but sometimes the conventional wisdom is true, this has an amazing opening, works well as a zombie apocalypse movie, and then kinda looses me once they reach the military base. The ending is particularly frustrating because it turns into a rape/revenge movie where the ninety pound boyfriend who spent a month in a coma is the one enacting the revenge, while the hardened zombie killer lady stands there helpless, doing a disservice to both characters. Fascinating how choices that felt bracing and novel at the time (fast zombies, juttery editing, weird digital) now just make it immediately identifiable as early 2000s. Remember fast zombies? This didn't end up being the future of the genre after all, but rather a neat, sometimes misjudged little side corner, with something different to offer than most. 3.5/5  32. Body Bags (1993) Challenge #12: Cavalcade of Creepiness We all have Shudder, huh? Wild that the Showtime ripoff of Tales from the Crypt that never took off would also be the one with this much talent behind the camera. This is definitely a lark for pretty much everyone involved but it's pretty charming. Carpenter could do this kind of thing in his sleep, so I ended up pretty surprised when I enjoyed Hooper's story the most for a wild and committed turn by Mark Hamil. Not a lot to say about this, but it's definitely worth a watch if you like this kind of thing and if you don't, why are you reading this? 3/5  
|
|
#
¿
Oct 28, 2019 02:32
|
|
|
33. Alice, Sweet Alice (1976) Haunting little 70s melodrama about a disturbed young girl accused of the murder of her little sister. I feel like the most interesting slasher films are ones like this, Texas Chain Saw, or Black Christmas that were made before the "rules" of the genre were really codified. There's a genuine sense of unpredictability here in how the attacks will play out and who's responsible, as well as lot of attention devoted to characterization and development of theme (in this case, the reliable 70s standby theme that Catholicism Fucks You Up). We're suspicious of Alice even as the film makes clear the amount of neglect, suspicion, and unwanted attention that defines her adolesence. There are missed opportunities here (why do we cut away before we get to hear Alice's confession?) and not every narrative digression pans out but I do recommend this one to anyone interested in the overlap of naturalistic 70s domestic drama and proto-slasher horror. See-through masks, Catholic iconography, and the way kids run are all terrifying. 3.5/5  34. The Lighthouse (2019)  Basically, the prestige horror version of an episode of Tales from the Crypt. I don't know that this really has Something To Say like the remarkable ending of The Witch but Eggars's formal command and commitment to period detail remains admirable and watching these two actors ham it up is a delight. Maybe not as satisfying as I wanted but makes up for it by being crazier than I expected. 4/5 
|
|
#
¿
Oct 30, 2019 17:53
|
|
|
35. Haunt (2019) The "extreme haunt" environment has been the setting place for a lot of horror lately and it's easy to see why: you get an automatic great environment that you can build on the cheap, a number of twists you can fake towards, and the ability to throw a scary clown in there when the audience gets bored. I was dreading this a little when this hit two hack signifiers in the first five minutes (public domain Night of the Living Dead on tv plus a meek character covering a bruise with makeup) and the characters make the cast of something like Night of the Demons feel Shakespearean. But the beginning scenes, where you're not sure how far they're gonna go with this premise is genuinely pretty tense, with lots of blindly reaching into things and crawling through enclosed spaces. Unfortunately, the longer the slash and stab part goes, the further this goes into generic territory, but there are enough booby traps and clever setpieces to keep me engaged to the end. Not the best thing I've watched this month, but a nifty lil Halloween pregame. The choice of end credits song made me choke laughing. 2.5/5 
|
|
#
¿
Oct 31, 2019 04:51
|
|
|
36. Re-Animator (1985)Challenge #13: Maniac Goopy, icky, spooky, leery, silly, and oh so much fun. Benefits enormously from Combs' totally straight-faced performance as Herbert West, far funnier for his never cracking. And the special effects of course are kind of a miracle of gore, with pretty much every one of the goofier forms of dismemberment on display in the totally nuts finale. I feel a bit silly reviewing this in a horror thread because you all know this one and why it's good. Still giving this one the guilty pleasure category because...well, ew. But yeah, undeniable if you're open to the pleasures of juvenile transgression. 4.5/5 And that's Challenge Complete! Tonight is my annual re-watch of Night of the Living Dead, my favorite horror movie and the reason I became the kind of person to join in something like this. Happy Halloween all!
|
|
#
¿
Oct 31, 2019 18:05
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 18, 2024 20:12 |
|
|
mobby_6kl posted:What's the best communist horror movie? Wolf of Wall Street? Dawn of the Dead!
|
|
#
¿
Nov 4, 2019 02:49
|
|