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Hell yeah, thanks Lurd. I'm embarrassingly overdue for filling in the gaps in my horror knowledge. I'm not back at work til mid-Jan so really have no excuses. I can't really contribute to effort posts cuz I'm a moron, but I appreciate y'all who do. Hellraiser tonight it is!
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Jan 2, 2021 00:35
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| # ¿ May 22, 2024 06:23 |
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Trip report: Went into Hellraiser completely blind (except for having seen images of Pinhead around). I was worried because I haven't had good experiences with Barker- despite trying, I just hated Midnight Meat Train and Books of Blood. They felt too much like...Alice in Wonderland but horrific? Where nothing is explained or obeys logic? Literary nonsense, I think is the genre (I despised Alice in Wonderland as a kid and found it extremely upsetting; the "Pig and Pepper" chapter is some OG horror). But luckily, it turns out this movie was awesome. The opening was pretty drat shocking- I feel like most horror films do a slow ramp up of increasing creepiness to build tension, while here it's all blood, flesh, hooks, and penis totems by 4 minutes in. This movie was tight; I'm surprised it was actually 1.5hrs because it doesn't feel nearly that long and nothing is wasted. I loved that they devoted like, a single sentence to explaining everything, and that was all that was needed. The creatures and effects were FANTASTIC, just loving phenomenal work. It reminded me a bit of watching Baskin in the 2019 Scream Stream- some people were really disturbed by its visuals but it wasn't doing it for me; turns out that this is what I wanted that movie to look like. I'm surprised by how much I liked this. Maybe I need to revisit Midnight Meat Train; it's been a long time and I'm more familiar with horror now and more tolerant of the weirder sides. The only part of this movie I didn't like was when she ends up in the "hospital", because it felt unfinished- is she in a psych ward? Are the doctors agents of the cenobites? How does boyfriend show up? But the tunnel-monster is so cool that I can overlook it. Plus the ending was great, I always love when a final girl just starts screaming back at monsters. My only other issue is EXTREMELY PETTY: was Julia/Claire Higgins actually extremely attractive in the eyes of the 80s? I'm honestly curious, because I found her offputtingly unattractive- which is fine and she was great and I feel like a shallow rear end in a top hat- but it was weird to me that she was supposed to be gorgeous? Was there like...a shift in the cultural aesthetic zeitgeist between then and now? Was it just movie logic? Am I just blind and an rear end? (will accept "por que no los dos" as an answer) Final rating: disturbingly good, goodly disturbing, rad
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Jan 3, 2021 05:40
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STAC Goat posted:It feels like a gross conversation (and I think she's plenty attractive) but I don't think any part of the story relies on Julia being some kind of special beauty. She's seducing men but she's clearly kind of uncomfortable with it at first and they're clearly not the hardest targets in the world. And Frank is drawn to her because he's a scumbag who uses women and wants to gently caress his brother's wife, and then needs her to live. Yeah that's totally fair. Wait, is she in the sequel? Is the sequel worth watching?
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Jan 5, 2021 02:49
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I'd seen the original, so I watched Child's Play (2019) to compare. Making Chucky part of the Internet of Things was clever and worked really well. I wasn't sold on Aubrey Plaza initially, but she quickly grew on me. I'm not sure if the kid group was necessary- sometimes they were trying too hard to capitalize on the whole 80s Stranger Things trend and it felt forced and excessively twee, but other times it was hilarious and was worth it if only for the the watermelon-face part. rear end in a top hat boyfriend ladder + plow-machine (?? I don't own a lawn) murder was good poo poo. The weakest kill was definitely Doreen's- she was nice  and the "driverless car run amok" is cliched. I was genuinely upset when I thought they had killed Detective Mike too, that would have been too cruel. The rest of the store rampage scenes were great (also loved the detail of Andy tripping immediately after his dramatic final-battle entrance, I wonder if that was accidental).Bonus points for a mix of diverse characters. I'm glad the hearing aid was just a normal part of his life and not a Plot Point that miraculously saved the day. The first half was stronger than the second, but overall, a good mix of big laugh-out-loud humor with rather shocking levels of gore- I definitely cringed a few times. It balances and contrasts well with the sillier aspects though. I bet this would have been a great movie to watch in a theaterful of horror fans or at a halloween party. In conclusion, I'm as pleasantly surprised as when I saw the original.
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Jan 13, 2021 03:58
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