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Same! I really should have given Castle more credit, I was very confident in my guess because it was the most obvious "twist" and I didn't expect much more.
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Sep 14, 2022 16:03
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Herk Harvey’s Carnival of Souls vs. William Castle’s The Night Walker Carnival of Souls isn't something I really loved but it has such an intriguing visual style, and just feels so unsettling that it nearly worked for me. I think it drags out the premise a bit too long (it does feel like an extended episode of something like The Twilight Zone). But The Night Walker sort of drags out a bit too long itself, if only in the sense that I wasn't all that interested in having the mystery overexplained. Kind of a close one, but Carnival of Souls wins. Masaki Kobayashi’s Kwaidan vs. William Castle’s 13 Ghosts 13 Ghosts is maybe more consistent, and it's entertaining throughout. But Kwaidan hits much higher highs and goes beyond anything that 13 Ghosts is doing. Easy vote for Kwaidan. Brunello Rondi’s The Demon vs. William Castle’s Homicidal As good as the lead performance is in Il Demonio, I found the rather detached approach the film takes to its characters to be a weakness. I could never really feel anything on either side, and it wasn't interesting as a social commentary or quasi-realist documentary either. Homicidal took a while to get going but by the halfway point I found myself thoroughly engaged. The reveal at the end I found unnecessary; something more plot-critical should have been done with that. It's obviously distasteful as well, yet with some misgivings I end up going with Castle here.
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Sep 15, 2022 04:56
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My wife has been here every step of the way for this tournament, but she doesn't have an account and doesn't vote. I decided to rectify the second part: for this final week I made my choices and she made hers. If we agreed on a matchup, that's the vote. If we disagreed, I flipped a coin. So: Carnival of Souls vs. The Night Walker: Disagree, Carnival wins the toss Kwaidan vs. 13 Ghosts: Agree, Kwaidan wins The Demon vs. Homicidal: Agree, Homicidal wins
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Sep 15, 2022 11:25
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Its Thursday! For the last time in 2022! Well... you know what I mean. There will still be Thursdays. But we're at the end. There's just about 50 hours left of this tournament and for you to go and vote for who the 2022 Spook-A-Doodle Bracketology Tournament & Movie Club Champion will be. I'm under the weather right now so I probably won't manage to get some of the flourishes I had planned (stats, video, HalloweeNIT) done by Saturday unless I have a burst of energy or bout of insomnia. But we will have a champion by then so don't forget to make your vote and have your voice heard. Vote or change your vote until 12 noon EST September 17th (or when I get to the computer)
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Sep 15, 2022 14:51
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The Night Walker is one of Castle’s stronger entries – the intro, while missing Castle in person, is fantastically campy-creepy, the dream scenes within the movie are very effective, the score is great and the scooby-doo mystery is fun too. I didn’t guess who it was with all the misdirection, even though in retrospect it was obvious. Carnival of Souls is sadly not a movie I can vote against. It’s one of those movie that you might go in expecting to understand the historical relevance but overall expecting to feel like it’d be a bit dated. But no, absolutely not, the historical relevance is that contemporary artists are still using pretty much the exact same scares because they work so drat well in that movie. So voting Carnival, and all the other entries of twernt’s team. Sorry Castle, you’ve had a good run, and I enjoyed your movies, but you’re just up againt an insanely good lineup here.
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Sep 17, 2022 15:58
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Congratulations to the 2022 Spook-A-Doodle Bracketology Tournament & Movie Club Champion twernt’s Spooky Swinging Sixties!    It was a clean sweep, although very nearly not so. Carnival of Souls and Kwaidan crushed The Night Walker and 13 Ghosts but Castle very nearly did steal win with Homicidal only for Demons to win 6-5. As close as it comes really so Castle maintains some respectability in the fight but its still really no doubt that twernt’s “Criterion Team” just rolled over this one decisively. And in doing so it becomes the first team to post a perfect record in the tournament and matches Ken Russell’s 2020 8-0 record. I don’t know if it was twernt’s intent to build a Criterion team but it plays out more or less how you’d expect that to do. And for Castle it was a hell of a run. A well known name of horror I think he’s probably one of those guys who largely falls through the cracks with people and is mostly dismissed as a silly gimmick guy. And he basically is that but he proved this year that silly and charming can go a long way when someone just wants to be entertained. Castle probably won’t be back unless he’s on a team or we throw a ton of thrillers on his card but he can proudly boast he unplayed a lot of the other Masters of Horror and made his mark. But ultimately this win goes to the critical darlings and with folks like Ingmar Bergman on the team how surprising can that be? But hindsight is 20/20 and while twernt and Deb (who gave the team its nomination bye) may have seen the brilliance of this team from the start for us it was a journey of being impressed and wowed (and maybe sometimes confused). And I’d hope to say another successful Bracketology tournament. Now I had a bunch of extras planned. The wrap-up video, stats breakdowns, and HalloweeNIT but I was sick all week and just could never get any of it down. I still plan to do that stuff though so don’t unbookmark the thread. Hopefully I’ll have treats for people through this next week. And barring any change of life I’ll be doing HalloweeNIT again. Quick breakdown its the 16 teams that didn’t make the tourney competing through October drawing 31 films. I’ll watch them all and put up voting polls and anyone who wants to watch and review them too can win a bye in next year’s tourney. I’m gonna put the first round movies up early so if you want to play you can have a chance to start early and actually get them in. There’s also the poll questions.      There’s nothing shocking in there. People seem mostly good with the way we’ve done things. “No Cherry Picking” seems to have won out although there’s definitely room there to discuss a “veto” or “some cherry picking”. We can think on it for the next couple of months. An idea was also suggested that we make the tourney smaller to make it more appealing. I think the large pool and year long thing is kind of the appeal but maybe I could restructure it into effective 5 mini tourneys? That might make for a more short term excitement at times if its certain teams/directors speeding through a tourney in a 4-6 weeks instead of like “we watched that 4 months ago”? I dunno. Something to think on. I want to thank you all for participating and being patient when I messed up, got extra, or let my self doubt get the best of me. I just want to do something fun for all of us so hopefully this was a nice little thing to help you get through 2022 and keep us all involved together. I plan to be back in December with the new one and as I said, more stats and videos and stuff this week. But as always I’m humbly your servant.
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Sep 17, 2022 17:01
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I think the real winner and king of horror is Goat - you've really done a hell of a job running this thing, and I for one am super grateful! I think letting especially you take a bit of a break would be great. I have barely gotten around to watching anything other than Bracketology for a long time, so I'd love to have some freedom to see something that's not already on someone's radar (gotta get new team material!) or, god forbid, watch a non horror movie.
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Sep 17, 2022 17:15
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Congratulations Twernt! A well deserved win! I knew you deserved that top seed 🥰 As for Bracketology, I notice things slow down in the summer, so perhaps one 32 seed tournament? Honestly though I'm fine with things as they are
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Sep 17, 2022 17:29
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Thank you everybody! I think the real Spook-A-Doodles were all the goops and scares we enjoyed along the way.
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Sep 17, 2022 17:42
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Thanks for welcoming me into this kinda late. You don't know how many well-meaning friends and family have regretted asking what I've been up to when I started explaining this really fun horror movie tournament I've been doing with internet strangers.
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Sep 17, 2022 18:24
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Great job as always by Goat. This was the first time I really nominated any teams so that was a new and fun aspect that I enjoyed a lot, and there are definitely at least one of my teams that I'd love to see get another shot. And it was cool to see a great classic director make it all the way to the finals against one or our curated teams.
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Sep 17, 2022 20:39
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Thanks again for doing this GOAT. It's always fun and fascinating to see the various stats and all. Congrats to twernt, I can't put together a team to save my rear so I celebrate your skill.Samfucius posted:
Since I'm now my friends and co-workers all being into movies to varying degrees, they think this and the October Challenge/Scream Stream sound awesome. As my family goes with how insane we are with movies, I'm called a slacker for not watching more.
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Sep 19, 2022 08:03
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I'm sure Goat has his own recaps planned, but I thought it would be fun to do a quick rundown of my personal highs and lows based on my Letterboxd review scores. At the top I had Whatever Happened to Baby Jane with a perfect five stars, followed by Psycho and The Great Yokai War with four and a half apiece. Yeah, I'm well aware there is a lot of personal taste at play for that last one. At the bottom we have The Swarm and Final Exam with a single star each, and Tom Holland's Twisted Tales with a sad half-star. You wouldn't know it from above but Castle actually dominated the upper ranks with a lot of four star reviews. I really like the guy.
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Sep 19, 2022 08:15
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My favourite was Rocky Horror Picture Show, which I'd amazingly never seen in full. Such a fun movie! Other standouts were A Record of Sweet Murder (2014), Witches' Hammer (1970) and Cosmos (2015). My least favourites were Head (2015), Il cav. Costante Nicosia demoniaco, ovvero: Dracula in Brianza (1975), Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966) and Mad Monster Party? (1967). All because they were so inexcusably boring.
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Sep 19, 2022 15:34
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Its Thursday! Or it was when I wrote this but then forgot to post it. That would have been slightly funnier. I'm still working on stats and the video. Slowly. Just busy and not feeling good. But there is progress. I hope to have them both done before October. But I also want to start this now to give people some extra time. I meant to start it at the start of the week but just so slow. https://boxd.it/fOOzG I’m bringing back the HalloweeNIT this year. I enjoyed it last year. Mostly. Here’s the basic deal. I took the 16 nominees that just missed the tournament and I’m gonna run them through a quick tournament in October that will draw 31 films. My personal challenge is to watch and review all 31 by the end of October, and if anyone else does it they get an extra bye in next year’s tourney to assign to any nominee they want. This year’s winner was a bye so they can definitely matter. Also whatever director/team wins this will be the first entry into next year’s tourney. I’ll put up votes for each round and anyone can vote whether they’re watching the movies or not, and the winners will advance and I’ll draw new films. Same thing as the big one, just a lot faster and crazier. I’m starting it a little early so people have a little extra time if they want to try and watch too. You can do your reviews in here or the October challenge thread when it goes up. Just make sure I’m aware you’re doing it. You can see the full thing on the spreadsheet or its own Letterboxd list but here's a look at the first round matchups and the films I'm gonna be opening my October up with.  1. (Goat’s ¡Viva España!) Jaume Balagueró’s Muse vs 16. (twernt’s The Return of the Bride of the Remake's Ghost!) Glen Morgan’s Black Christmas twernt won the big tourney this year and they’ve got 5 teams in the NIT so that’s a real good chance to win this one too. Unfortunately its a rough start with a not terribly well regarded remake of a very well regarded cult favorite. Its also out of season which bothers the poo poo out of me. But we do what we must. Working in their favor though is the fact that its me on the other end. And we all know what my teams do. And this team in particular is one I’ve failed to get nominated two years in a row but that I actually think could maybe do some stuff if I could just figure out how to market them as anything more than “the guys who made Rec”. But maybe if they can win this thing that’s their path in? We’ll see. Muse is out there and available upon request. Black Christmas is streaming on DirectTV, Plex, Pluto, Redbox, Starz, Tubi, and Vudu.  2. (Goat’s As Seen on V/H/S) David Bruckner’s The Night House vs. 15. (Deb’s Team Quite Fun Directors That I Enjoy) Steve Rudzinski’s A Meowy Halloween I’ve amazingly only got two teams in this but this is another I actually think could do some real damage if it made the tourney. Built off the many directors who contributed to the V/H/S anthologies its also got some recent solo outings of well regard including the Night House. The teams theory is that VHS is a good source of talent and this is its first test of that. On the flip side is the always crowd favorite and tournament powerhouse Deb and what’s basically a sister team to her wildly successful Final Four Team Quite Good Directors That I enjoy. Also an adorable kitty that is actually on the right season. Its actually one of my most anticipated watches of this tourney. So we’ll see how it shapes out. A well regarded movie on one my teams or Deb lining up cute kitties? You’d be a fool to bet on me. The Night House is available on DirectTV and HBOMax. A Meowy Halloween is available on Freebee, Hoopla, Tubi, and Plex.  3. Bruno Mattei’s Night of the Zombies vs. 14. (Deb’s Team Easy, Sleazy, Japanesey) Gen Sekiguchi’s Survive Style 5+ Bruno Mattai is one of those bubble names that keeps missing the tourney but might have a better chance next year with a reduced field of big names and some more newcomer friendly nomination setups. And boy we know how Bracketology loves those Italian directors who… let me check Wikipedia… “who directed exploitation films in many genres, including women in prison, nunsploitation, zombie, mondo, cannibal, and Nazisploitation films.” Oh god. What have I done again? I doubt the other side is gonna be any friendlier to me as Deb serves up the sleaze in what sounds like a real wild intentional mess of a film. hosed up Japanese Sleaze and Italian video nasties. What could possibly go wrong for Good Ole’ Goat? Night of the Zombies is available on Tubi. Survive Style 5+ is out there and available upon request.  4. (twernt’s I don't know whether to laugh or die) Eli Craig’s Little Evil vs. 13. (Deb’s Team Debbie Does Damnation) Chester Novell Turner’s Tales from the Quadead Zone twernt’s second team and Deb’s 3rd as the two of them make up 50% of the field. But these feel about as far apart to me as I can imagine. Little Evil is a surprisingly Goat friendly mainstream horror comedy that I’ve actually been half mindedly been meaning to get around to. While Tales from the Quadead Zone is not only something I’ve seen a couple of times and absolutely loath but I’m the one who introduced it to Deb! Its just self inflicted wounds on top of self inflicted wounds here. But this thing is a public vote so how I feel only counts for a little. Its up to the voters if laughter or damnation is in my future. Little Evil is available on Netflix. Tales from the Quadead Zone is available on Tubi.  5. (twernt’s It's the End of the World as We Know It) Ruben Fleischer’s Zombieland vs. 12. (Darthemed’s Working for the Weekend) Norman Apstein’s Ice Cream Man Its a pair of pretty noteworthy horror comedies although not exactly the same sort of ones. Zombieland was a mainstream success and while maybe time, a sequel, and some general zombie fatigue has dulled its reception and reputation with most horror fans its still probably gonna be a nice and easy rewatch. On the flip side is a B movie cult… favorite? I’ve always known of this movie but I’ve never actually heard anyone say anything good about it. Its mostly just the film that stars Clint Howard and is quite possibly unintentional funny. Which hey, at least I can finally say I watched it, right? Zombieland is available on DirectTV, TBS, TNT, and TrueTV. Ice Cream Man is available on AMC+, Plex, Shudder, Pluto, Roku, and Tubi.  6. Jean Rollin’s The Night of the Hunted vs. 11. (Darthemed’s Sumptuously Stupid) Jan de Bont’s The Haunting Jean Rollin made the tournament in 2021 but missed it this year, although just barely. Another name that will probably benefit from the likely more open field next year and one I absolutely dread seeing more from. And you know its a Rollin movie because there’s a naked lady on the poster. On the flip side is Darthmed’s second team of questionable quality films and the equally questionable Haunting remake. A truly classic original and a… not classic remake. This one might be tough but I guess everything deserves a second chance? Its not a challenge without matchups like this I guess. The Night of the Hunted is available on Kanopy. The Haunting is on Amazon Prime, DirectTV, Epix, and Paramount+.  7. (Tarnop’s Lost & Found) Christopher MacBride’s The Conspiracy vs. 10. Sergio Martino’s The Scorpion with Two Tails Tarnop’s Lost and Found team was in the ’21 tournament but didn’t make the cut this year. Actually it was a play in team so its never technically made a Field of 64 but third time’s the charm. Sergio Martino meanwhile makes his second straight NIT appearance and he even drew this film last year. And I hated it. So that’s fun. But he’s yet another borderline guy who two years in a row now has JUST missed the cut so you gotta think he’s gonna be on the bubble again next year. Or he could win his way in here right now if the voters love them some giallo. Last year Martino taught me that the sound of italian dialogue puts me to sleep. I do enjoy found footage though so this is a cup half full kind of matchup for me. Lets see how it goes. The Conspiracy is available on AMC+, Shudder, and Tubi. The Scorpion with Two Tails is available on Tubi.  8. (twernt’s Romantic Comedy-Horror with Occasional Music) David Gebroe’s Zombie Honeymoon vs. 9. (twernt’s Scandi Scares) Jonas Åkerlund’s Horsemen twernt’s last two teams face off against each other, and this happened in the main tournament too. Terrible luck or the price of having so many successful teams? It worked out for twernt in the big tourney though since it was ACTUALLY the eventual tourney winner Sweet Swinging Sixties that won that twernt vs twernt matchup. So is the NIT winner destined to come from this matchup? Zombie Honeymoon is actually a film I really loved when I saw years ago and have been meaning to revisit, although as I recall it is neither a comedy nor a musical. Horseman is less enticing to me but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Scandinavian film? Even if it was made in Canada? Could be worse and twernt is keeping it interesting and diverse. Lets see which of his teams pulls out this one. Wait, produced by Michael Bay? Oh gently caress! Zombie Honeymoon is out there and available upon request Horsemen is available on DirectTV, HBOMax, Indieflix, and Vix. Those are the matchups. Watch and review them here or in the October challenge thread (when it goes up) if you want. If you do all 31 films you’ll get a bye in the next tourney. If you don’t want you can still vote for the winners and help determine what I watch next and which of these 16 nominees becomes the first entry into next year’s tourney. Second round of movies will come up soon. First round voting stays open until 12 noon EST Oct 5th.
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Sep 23, 2022 15:24
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My wife and I watched Survive Style 5+ on a whim a few weeks ago and it wasn't at all the movie I expected from a Japanese horror anthology. It ended up being one of our favorite movies of the whole year. If anyone here is planning on only watching some of the films, make this one of em.
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Sep 24, 2022 04:48
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Night of the Hunted might be my favorite Rollin that I've seen. It's a really interesting film, deserves a look.
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Sep 25, 2022 21:02
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I watched (or partially watched) all 16 movies already. Tell me if this is good enough for the bye— I have so little to say about any of them individually that I wasn’t going to bother chasing it until I started writing this post and included remarks on some of them anyway. Black Christmas - DNF. I love the original and this was shaping up to be a pale shadow. I thought giving Billy a backstory and more of a physical presence in the film was a mistake, pulling him away from the elemental masculine evil that he represented in the original. And the phone calls weren’t even remotely as scary as the ones in the original. Muse - 2 stars. I was on board until things started getting seriously expository and then I checked out, basically waiting for the second half of the film for it to end. And I thought the film wasted its premise— the muses were pretty much just Argento witches, each with their own fancy title, but not really differentiated in what they actually did. The Night House - 3 stars. OK, I didn’t actually rewatch this one because I was giving up on the bye. I caught it in the theater last year. And it’s about grief and coming to terms with a suicide? Or something? I dunno, all I remember is the scare with the negative space man and that the ending felt unsatisfactory to me. Rebecca Hall was pretty good I guess— I’m looking forward to catching Resurrection when it streams on Shudder later this month. A Meowy Halloween - 1/2 star. I’ve only ever given one other movie a 1/2 star on Letterboxd and it’s Student Bodies, for the same reason— a sense of humor that I found grating in the extreme. Just could not get behind the twee good-natured self-conscious thing at all. I started to really hate it after fifteen minutes, and only finished it because I thought I was going to do long write-ups and wanted to be fair to the movie. A mistake as it turns out. Night of the Zombies - 2 1/2 stars. Some enjoyable sleaze and they certainly gave value for money with the quantity of zombies and gore effects, even if the effects weren’t great. But all the Dawn of the Dead needle drops made me wish I was watching that instead. Survive Style 5+ - 4 stars. Actually my third time watching the film, and the second watching it with subtitles. Not understanding the dialogue hardly mattered for me the first time I watched the film, as so much of the comedy is physical and easily intuited. I noticed that my level of enjoyment of the 5 subplots roughly correlated to how much screen time each had, so the Tadanobu Asano resurrecting wife segment came first, the bird dad second, assassin third, robbers fourth, and bad ad lady fifth. Little Evil - DNF. Humor so understated it’s barely there, and doing riffs on The Omen, Poltergeist, and The Amityville Horror seemed kind of stale for a 2017 movie. Tales from the Quadead Zone - 2 1/2 stars. Rather charming— a film that’s both laugh-at and laugh-with, the opposite of A Meowy Halloween in that it plays it cool and doesn’t get self-conscious at all. The downside is that all the segments feel padded even at twenty minutes each. I love the lady who says, “Tales from the Quadead Zone? That sounds good.” Zombieland - 3 stars. Another cheat, as I didn’t rewatch this either for HalloweeNIT. Jesse Eisenberg’s shtick is amusing enough (or at least it was in 2009,) but the film is hurt for me in retrospect by being followed by its bloated sequel. Joe Bob Briggs said in his review of Halloween III that if you’re going to make a sequel, the right way to do it is to make the exact same movie over again, but I think the relative modern-day fan evaluations of Halloween II and III have proved him wrong. Although I have watched all five Final Destination movies and enjoyed them all, so maybe he had a point in there somewhere. Ice Cream Man - 2 stars. Speaking of Joe Bob, I watched the Last Drive-In version of this figuring that the interstitials would be more interesting than the movie itself, and I was right, even though the interstitials in this case were really boring telethon bits for his charity auction. The grossness of Ice Cream Man was at least a little amusing, but the lack of scares and the kids’ movie hijinks were a turn-off. I was shocked that it was in widescreen— I felt sure that it was a direct-to-video mid-Nineties cheapie. It certainly has that vibe. The Night of the Hunted - 3 stars. So I’ve watched this twice now and intermittently fallen asleep both times. But it kind of works for me anyway— Rollin is all about mood and theme over story, and not having full recall of the plot is a funny mirror of the degenerative memory condition suffered by the protagonists. The Haunting - DNF. Another case where I pressed eject because it wasn’t living up to the excellent original. Everything brightly lit and in color, no mood at all. On the other hand, the house set with all the different environmental rooms is neat, Lili Taylor is a good actress, and remaking Catherine Zeta-Jones’s character to not be a predatory lesbian stereotype like in the original is a good move. The Conspiracy - 2 stars. The conspiracy theorists were straight spitting facts in the beginning— the IMF *is* bad! Funny how benign all that stuff from 2012 is— no secret Muslim presidents, vaccination scares, or election theft projecting here. Sort of lost me when the film switched gears and moved on to the mock Bohemian Grove sequence, although it did have me sweating at the end as the moment when the filmmakers’ ruse would inevitably be exposed got closer and closer. The Scorpion with Two Tails - 2 1/2 stars. I had previously watched the film just a year previously and had absolutely no memory of it at all— not a great testimonial. The neck snapping was fun (everybody wearing their suit jackets backwards was really cute). On the other hand, the whodunnit lost me like it does me in most giallos, which is what this really is, a few neck snappings and piles of maggots aside. I’ve probably seen a couple dozen giallos and wouldn’t rate any of them very highly, except maybe Blood and Black Lace. People keep putting them on lists of gotta-see horror movies so I keep watching them anyway. Zombie Honeymoon - 3 stars. Not bad, I thought— certainly better than the campfest I thought I was getting into from the title and the title sequence with the gut-munching overdubs. I liked the focus on the wife character. The big drawback is that the plot has absolutely no surprises at all once the base scenario is established. Also that ending is bullshit— the wife is certainly going away for a long time as an accessory to about eight murders. Horsemen - DNF. Too slick for me by half, and I don’t like police procedurals or serial killer poo poo unless we’re talking something as good as Manhunter, and this is not that. Seemed like a too late attempt to ride on the coattails of Se7en?
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Sep 30, 2022 23:02
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Looks good. I'll draw the second round of films the 5th.
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Oct 1, 2022 06:29
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Last call for voting in the first round of the HalloweeNIT! The results will decide what I draw/watch next. And anyone else playing along. First round voting stays open until 12 noon EST Oct 5th. For my part? I've been posting reviews in the challenge thread but here's a quick breakdown of my votes. 1. (Goat’s ¡Viva España!) Jaume Balagueró’s Muse vs 16. (twernt’s The Return of the Bride of the Remake's Ghost!) Glen Morgan’s Black Christmas I haven't gotten around to Muse yet but hate Black Christmas so a vote for my team feels easy if not entirely fair. 2. (Goat’s As Seen on V/H/S) David Bruckner’s The Night House vs. 15. (Deb’s Team Quite Fun Directors That I Enjoy) Steve Rudzinski’s A Meowy Halloween I thought Meowy Halloween was cute and I haven't gotten to Night House either. I'll watch one of those today probably. But again, I'm probably defaulting to my team. Its not fair but its my list. 3. Bruno Mattei’s Night of the Zombies vs. 14. (Deb’s Team Easy, Sleazy, Japanesey) Gen Sekiguchi’s Survive Style 5+ I haven't seen either of these so I have no idea. I'm gonna try and get them in tonight. I abstain as of now. 4. (twernt’s I don't know whether to laugh or die) Eli Craig’s Little Evil vs. 13. (Deb’s Team Debbie Does Damnation) Chester Novell Turner’s Tales from the Quadead Zone I hate Quadead and I enjoyed Little Evil. It wasn't great but it wasn't Quadead. So easy for me. 5. (twernt’s It's the End of the World as We Know It) Ruben Fleischer’s Zombieland vs. 12. (Darthemed’s Working for the Weekend) Norman Apstein’s Ice Cream Man If I'm really ambituous I'll try and get Ice Cream Man in tonight too, but Zombieland is one I've always enjoyed. I'm abstaining until I can see the latter though. 6. Jean Rollin’s The Night of the Hunted vs. 11. (Darthemed’s Sumptuously Stupid) Jan de Bont’s The Haunting I hate Jean Rollin so much. Haunting is bad but at least no one gets raped. 7. (Tarnop’s Lost & Found) Christopher MacBride’s The Conspiracy vs. 10. Sergio Martino’s The Scorpion with Two Tails The Conspiracy wasn't great but it had its strengths. I watched Scorpion last year and while I will rewatch it this year I haven't gotten there yet and am in no rush. 8. (twernt’s Romantic Comedy-Horror with Occasional Music) David Gebroe’s Zombie Honeymoon vs. 9. (twernt’s Scandi Scares) Jonas Åkerlund’s Horsemen Zombie Honeymoon is a movie I saw awhile back and loved and really want to rewatch. Just haven't gotten to it yet. Horsemen kind of annoyed me. I don't want to watch it again. So ZH takes it for me.
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Oct 4, 2022 19:11
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Voted. Couldn't pass up a chance to vote for Ice Cream Man!
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Oct 4, 2022 19:12
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The First round is over! The HalloweeNIT is down to 8 teams and I have 8 more movies on my anxiety inducing ever growing October list. Lets see what they are, and hope some of them can fill Fran’s Bingo. https://boxd.it/fOOzG As the rules state ties were decided by a coin toss. I'm watching 31 films here. Ain't doing no three ways.          1. (Goat’s ¡Viva España!) Paco Plaza’s A Christmas Tale vs. 8. (twernt’s Romantic Comedy-Horror with Occasional Music) Jonathan Levine’s Warm Bodies One of my teams actually won something, so of course it then drew a Christmas movie. drat it. On the flip side the first of twernt’s three teams to advance actually pulls one that I almost re-watched right before October. Its actually nice to see a film I kind fo wanted to watch come up in this. So what’s gonna win out? twernt’s zombie rom com or will an out of season tv movie from Spain get my one remaining team into the Final Four? A Christmas Tale is out there and available upon request. Warm Bodies is out there and available upon request.  4. (twernt’s I don't know whether to laugh or die) Josh Ruben’s Scare Me vs. 5. (twernt’s It's the End of the World as We Know It) Tom Hammock’s The Last Survivors twernt once again has the success fo advancing multiple teams and once again the misfortune of them matching up against each other. The RNG is cruel. Although in this case it was the RNG’s brother the Coin Toss that advanced twernt’s apocalypse team and draws on what appears to be some kind of Walking Dead/Fury Road knockoff staring a Disney Channel actress? That’s… interesting. On the flip side is a comedy starring Aya Cash so hey, I’m already in there. Its a curious matchup for sure but either way it goes twernts gonna make the Final Four. Just a question fo which team. Scare Me is available to stream on AMC+, Shudder, and DirectTV. The Last Survivors is out there and available upon request.  10. Sergio Martino’s The Suspicious Death of a Minor vs. 15. (Deb’s Team Quite Fun Directors That I Enjoy) Zach Gayne’s Homewrecker drat Martino advances for the second year in a row, and I’m just gonna end up watching his entire drat filmography if I keep doing this. Its a giallo with kids so I’m sure I’ll hate it. Deb’s team gave me a cute little cat Halloween special that ended up starting a conversation between me and the director, so now I don’t know what to expect from Homewrecker. Hopefully another good time? And maybe that Fran Bingo Yuppie spot? At least its not a giallo. The Suspicious Death of a Minor is available to stream on AMC+, Shudder, Arrow, and TubiTV. Homewrecker is available to stream on AMC+, Dark Matter, DirectTV, Freevee, Tubi, Vudu, and Shudder.  11. (Darthemed’s Sumptuously Stupid) Michael Rymer’s Queen of the Damned vs. 14. (Deb’s Team Easy, Sleazy, Japanesey) Mika Ninagawa’s Helter Skelter Darth’s team advances and delivers yet another memorable but terrible expensive movie from the early 2000s that I know I’ve seen and didn’t like but don’t remember well enough to write off. Sexy vampire Aaliyah here I come. Deb’s sleazy Japan team advances by coin toss and pulls up a sleazy film from Japan. Makes sense. I read a bunch of reviews for this and have absolutely no idea what its about but am deeply scared. Sounds like one of those line pushing Japanese films we all know and lo… well I hate them. But we’ll see. You never know and its Deb so you know she’s gonna win. Queen of the Damned is available to stream on AMC+ and Fubo. Helter Skelter is out there and available upon request. That’s the Elite Eight. We have a chance of twernt vs twernt and Deb vs Deb Final Four to no real surprise. The idea remains the same. I’m gonna watch them all sometime this month. Anyone who wants to do the same if you watch all 31 movies eventually drawn you’ll get a bye in next year’s tourney. Everyone can vote on who they think should advance regardless. If you need access to a movie ask and it may be available. Have fun. Have a spooky October. Vote until 12 noon EST on October 12th (or when I get to it)
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Oct 5, 2022 18:32
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A Christmas Tale - 3.5/5 Hey, I used to have one of those Karate Kid headbands! Fun— I liked the energy of the Eighties kids’ movie trappings crossed with the Eighties horror novel premise. At the same time the cruelty of the situation really got under my skin. I started to hate those kids pretty quickly. Not caring about them being in peril did lower my investment in the stakes in act three. And I don’t think the ending really worked that well. I didn’t buy the shift to the supernatural or feel like it was a natural end cap to the plot. It felt like a dream rather than something that happened in the reality of the story. Warm Bodies - 2.5/5 I tried to watch this once before and punched out after twenty minutes. I think maybe the voiceover annoyed me, plus I just was writing it off as too Hollywood mainstream for me to be interested in. And yeah, this is formulaic, but I found it slightly more than tolerable this time, somewhat enjoyable for the first two acts when it was mostly about establishing and hanging out in the world. Act three was a harder watch because I didn’t really care about the stakes of the humanizing zombies plot, and I was ready to punch out again at that point, although I did finish it. Not bad, but I was only sitting through it so I could do a write-up to begin with. Scare Me - 1.5/5 I tried to watch this once before and punched out pretty quickly, even though I like Aya Cash, because it was too cringy for me. This watch too I found the humor really grating. And I don’t tend to like movies based on plays, and this 100 percent felt like one. I was spacing out by the third story and was in it just to complete this challenge, although I was interested to see if there would be any surprises at the end. There weren’t any really, but I did enjoy the last fifteen minutes anyway, I guess because they dropped the humor until the coda. The Last Survivors - DNF It really annoys me when people go wild adding genre tags on TMDb. That’s how we end up watching See China and Die for a horror movie tournament when it’s just a detective show. I don’t buy The Last Survivors as a horror movie or even a thriller. It’s a post-apocalyptic western. I was thinking about making a team out of Eastern European post-apocalyptic sci-fi movies that go heavy on the horrific content, but now I’m having doubts about that even though I think it would be a good slate of films that fits the tone of the tournament. Anyway, I wasn’t engaged with this movie at all and turned it off halfway through. I wanted to complete it for the challenge but it was just too dull to hold my attention. The Suspicious Death of a Minor - 3.5/5 My second viewing. This is good— the mystery is interesting and makes sense, maybe because it isn’t a whodunnit plot like so many gialli. Definitely not horror or even horror-adjacent really. It’s not a proto-slasher; it’s a crime flick. The score is great, but I got a little sick of hearing the same couple of cuts over and over, sometimes in places where it didn’t seem appropriate. Homewrecker - 3.5/5 For most of the runtime, this was refreshingly woman-centric. I liked that it was about female pathology (being overly deferential plus whatever the psycho’s needy deal was) without explicitly making it all about the patriarchy. So I was disappointed when the plot turned out to center around the husband. There are some reviews on Letterboxd that are really scathing about that but I didn’t think it totally invalidated the rest of the film. The violence at the end was rather shocking. The protagonist literally loses her voice in the process of metaphorically finding it— I don’t know if thematically that was the right call, but I enjoyed the irony. Queen of the Damned - 2/5 I enjoyed the Anne Rice Lestat novels when I was a teenager, so I was inevitably going to be disappointed by this. There’s way too much story to fit into an hour and forty minute movie, and it really only makes sense as part of a larger narrative to begin with. Not as painful to watch as I thought it would be, but still kind of embarrassingly bad and on the nose. Helter Skelter - 3/5 I really like the source material. This doesn’t reach the comic’s delirious expressionism. It’s too clean for one thing— putting a few patches of purple on an actress’s face doesn’t convey the sense of dissolution that the cartooning conjured up. This still has a pretty strong look with its art direction and use of color. Another virtue of the comic is that it’s short, whereas this felt overly long and too deliberate in its pacing. Not terrible, but didn’t live up to my hopes, especially considering its high rating on Letterboxd. Top 100 horror movie? I think not.
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Oct 7, 2022 14:00
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Last call to vote in the Elite Eight. I'll draw the Final Four tomorrow and we'll be drat close to having all 31 films and our HalloweeNIT 22 champion. So you can further torture me or push your favorite team into the main tourney or make sincere decisions. Your call. Fortune favors those willing to vote. Vote until 12 noon EST on October 12th (or when I get to it) My thoughts on the Elite Eight? 1. (Goat’s ¡Viva España!) Paco Plaza’s A Christmas Tale vs. 8. (twernt’s Romantic Comedy-Horror with Occasional Music) Jonathan Levine’s Warm Bodies Warm Bodies was cute and actually the exact nice message I needed on a really bad day. Its corny and dated but it knows its corny and I just got into it. I haven't gotten around to A Christmas Tale yet but I'm just gonna be unfair and vote my guys because I love this team and have been trying to get it into the tourney for years. But I'm good whichever way this one goes. 4. (twernt’s I don't know whether to laugh or die) Josh Ruben’s Scare Me vs. 5. (twernt’s It's the End of the World as We Know It) Tom Hammock’s The Last Survivors Scare Me amused me. It was a little uneven and had the feel of a skit stretched out into a movie with the ultimate horror plot a little tacked on, but I had a good time. Everyone was great in it and I laughed a bunch and I threw another Aya Cash horror comedy on my list because of it. The Last Survivors on the other hand was just dull, low budget, dystopian apocalypse whatever. Fury Road meets Hunger Games with none of the budget or stand out elements. So Scare Me gets my vote easy. 10. Sergio Martino’s The Suspicious Death of a Minor vs. 15. (Deb’s Team Quite Fun Directors That I Enjoy) Zach Gayne’s Homewrecker Homewrecker was uneven but ok. I think the director's limits held the film back from some clever ideas and good performances. It just didn't feel like anything was put into the right situation to really emphasize the jokes or dramatic moments. But there was enough good there to leave an impression. I haven't seen Martino yet. I will. I just hate him. So I'm voting against him. 11. (Darthemed’s Sumptuously Stupid) Michael Rymer’s Queen of the Damned vs. 14. (Deb’s Team Easy, Sleazy, Japanesey) Mika Ninagawa’s Helter Skelter Watched Helter Skelter last night and kind of hated it. There were elements I liked but the entire manga presentation and exploitative approach turned me off to the whole thing. A tighter film that focused more on the psychological trauma and decline of the main character would have probably done more for me. Instead the film gets distracted in shocking imagery, extended rape scenes, and really dull cop investigation that amounts to nothing except having an obnoxious narrator tell us the moral of the story. I haven't gotten around to Queen of the Damned yet but I have seen it more than once. And I never really hated it. Its uneven and I'm not sure there's much of a drive or point. But its style is way more appealing to me so I'm just gonna give it the vote. Stupid goes down easier for me than Sleazy.
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Oct 11, 2022 20:37
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    I lose naturally. twernt beats twernt and goes on to another matchup vs twernt. Sergio Martino finally falls in HalloweeNIT and with him the last of the giallo. Darth overcomes one Deb team just to have to face another. Its Final Four time!  4. (twernt’s I don't know whether to laugh or die) Fred Dekker’s Monster Squad vs. 8. (twernt’s Romantic Comedy-Horror with Occasional Music) Michael Matthew’s Love and Monsters All this twernt on twernt violence. I guess that’s what happens when you have so many teams but my seeding sure didn’t do twernt any favors. Whoopsie. Its gonna be down to one team after this and its two pretty light hearted rewatches for me. Monster Squad is that 80s childhood cult classic I think we’re all a little afraid to revisit for fear of how badly it will age. I actually had it on my list anyway so score. Monster Squad is a nice little quirky rom com with monsters and goop. I can’t say I was thinking of rewatching it but I don’t mind. Winner might come down to how much that 80s sensibility resonates or offends. One way to find out but either way twernt’s in the Championships. The Monster Squad is available for streaming on Paramount+ and Pluto. Love and Monsters is available for streaming on Amazon Prime, DirectTV, Epix, and Paramount+.  11. (Darthemed’s Sumptuously Stupid) Steve Beck’s Ghost Ship vs 15. (Deb’s Team Quite Fun Directors That I Enjoy) Steve Rudzinski’s Everyone Must Die! Darth’s stupid team keeps rolling on and took out Deb’s Sleazy team. But now its Deb’s Fun team with its cinderella run of low budget and flawed by charming little flicks. And its Steve Rudzinski back after he was so nice to me on Letterboxd about the last film. I’m both excited to see another one of his films and worried I might not like it and hurt his feelings. Ghost Ship is a rewatch and… well… I can’t say I’m a fan. Even that opening that everyone falls all over doesn’t do a lot. But I don’t hate it or anything. It feels like this is Deb and Steve’s one to steal for me. Keep this cinderella run going or is Darth’s stupid team gonna magoo its way into the Championships? Everyone Must Die! is available for streaming on Plex, Roku, and TubiTV. Ghost Ship is available for streaming on Cinemax and DirectTV. That’s the Final Four. Its a lineup. If you’ve been watching or voting along so far, thanks! If you haven’t its ok, you can go ahead and vote now or try and squeeze in 31 films in half a month. Either way I’ll be here doing this thing. If you need help getting a movie ask and I might be able to help. If you wanna comment or have a question go ahead. I hope you’re having a good Halloween season and it keeps getting better as All Hallow’s Eve approaches. Vote until 12 noon EST on October 19th (or when I get to it)
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Oct 12, 2022 19:39
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The Monster Squad - 3.5/5 I saw this in the theater when it came out in 1987, and I’m not sure if I’ve seen it since. I remembered “Wolfman’s got nards!”, the reveal about the scary German guy, and the joke about who’s a virgin at the end, but not a ton else. On rewatch, I thought this was surprisingly vulgar for a kids’ movie, but then I checked and it was rated PG-13. I guess that’s why it tanked at the box office— why would teenagers and childless adults want to watch this? But I enjoyed it as an adult and not just out of Eighties nostalgia. It’s solidly constructed and features more monster action than a lot of the old Universal movies actually did. Love and Monsters - 3.5/5 This was cute. I’m not a big fan of the “schmucky white guy chases after his dream girlfriend” subgenre, but it was tolerable. Having him “earn” his girlfriend back wasn’t great, but whatever. I didn’t have high hopes for this going in, but the mix of creature stuff and good-natured humor was fun. Ghost Ship - 2/5 Pretty dull outside of the bonkers opening sequence. Young Emily Browning isn’t bad. A nice paycheck for Gabriel Byrne, I hope, as he sleepwalked through the thing. Everyone Must Die! - DNF Oh, god drat it. The A Meowy Halloween guy?! All this had to do was be more interesting than Ghost Ship, but this isn’t that even in a bad way. Not as grating as A Meowy Halloween, but still. No way was I going to sit through this whole thing after that experience. Stuck around long enough to appreciate how dumb it was and split.
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Oct 14, 2022 08:43
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I could've sworn that Monster Squad had a Corey in it, but no, it doesn't. It was still pretty enjoyable, and I didn't find it any more objectionable than most films of that time. It is puerile in its vulgarity, and yes, the female characters have practically no agency, but it doesn't feel mean-spirited. Those qualities seems as much a Shane Black thing as anything else. It's probably as good a revival of the Universal monsters as anything, with a decent action-adventure plot to it.
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Oct 18, 2022 18:31
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Hey, Final Four almost done! Tourney almost done. Last call to vote who goes into the championships and then its gonna be films 29 and 30 to see who ins all of this and the final victorious film 31. I've only watched half that so I have a lot of work left to do. But you can help shape that work as always and vote. Vote until 12 noon EST on October 19th (or when I get to it) For this week's matchups I've only managed to watch Love and Monsters and loved it. Gonna try and watch the other three today.
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Oct 18, 2022 19:30
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We’ve reached the end!   8. (twernt’s Romantic Comedy-Horror with Occasional Music) Burr Steers’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies vs. 11. (Darthemed’s Sumptuously Stupid) Tarsem Singh’s The Cell Our illustrious tournament advances Love and Monsters and Ghost Ship to the prestigious finals. Sadly saying goodbye to Deb and Steve Radzinski but getting to our final matchup of the inevitable finalist twernt with their Romanti Comedy team and the clear destiny competitor Darth’s Sumptuously Stupid. And boy has it delivered on what its promised. I mean, these have been some drat stupid movies. I wonder if they would have advanced in a main tournament or if they were just perfect for something half a dozen people were haphazardly voting for without ever foolishly having to watch them. The Cell is actually the first of these films I’ve never seen so I have no idea how stupid it is. I have seen Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and I honestly think it might fit on the other team. So this is an interesting matchup. Its the natural one for this tourney it seems. We definitely had a presiding theme this time around. Of all my way too many challenges HalloweeNIT surprised me this year by not giving me challenging, difficult movies but just… silly ones. And that’s been a lot of fun. But its coming to an end and soon we’ll see who the 2022 HalloweeNIT champion is, the first entry in the 2023 Bracketology tournament, and the 31st film of this challenge. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is available for streaming on DirectTV and Start. The Cell is available for streaming on hoopla. If you’ve been watching or voting along so far, thanks! If you haven’t its ok, you can go ahead and vote now or try and squeeze in 31 films in half a month. Either way I’ll be here doing this thing. If you need help getting a movie ask and I might be able to help. If you wanna comment or have a question go ahead. I hope you’re having a good Halloween season and it keeps getting better as All Hallow’s Eve approaches. Vote until 12 noon EST on October 26th (or when I get to it)
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Oct 19, 2022 19:08
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Well I haven't been on SA for a while, here's my thoughts on the NIT finals: lol, just lmao
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Oct 19, 2022 23:50
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Question, if a film gets pulled in the NIT, can it be pulled again in the main tournament?
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Oct 20, 2022 00:02
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Yes. The HalloweeNIT is a separate tournament. All films remain eligible. A couple of films from last years NIT got drawn in this years tourney as I believe both NIT ‘21 finalists Andy Milligan and Jan Svankmejer made the big tourney. And actually The Scorpion With Two Tails has been drawn in both NITs.
STAC Goat fucked around with this message at 00:40 on Oct 20, 2022 |
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Oct 20, 2022 00:37
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Pride and Prejudice and Zombies - 2.5/5 Cuter than I was expecting. I’m not sure what the point was though? Just marketing, trying to reach people like me who’ll show up for kung fu movies but don’t like costume dramas, plus Austen fans who might show up for the novelty of it? I guess it has been awhile since the last straight adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. I read the original Jane Austen novel in high school but retained almost none of it, and I didn’t follow all the plot points of the social niceties this time through. The action scenes were enjoyable however. The Cell - 2/5 Urgh. I tried to watch this once before and bounced off it. On this watch I succeeded by not giving the screen my full attention. The serial killer stuff didn’t creep me out; it just made me roll my eyes. By coincidence I borrowed another film by Tarsem Singh from the library a couple days ago, but now I’m thinking I won’t bother watching it. This has its plusses, but I don’t think I’m into his style.
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Oct 20, 2022 15:24
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The best Singh film is Immortals. Definitely check out Immortals.
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Oct 20, 2022 15:27
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The one I borrowed was The Fall, because it showed at a theater near me recently. I tried watching it and didn’t finish it. Looks great, just didn’t grab me for whatever reason. Thanks for the recommendation on Immortals, but I guess I’ll pass.
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Oct 20, 2022 21:56
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I'll always have a soft spot for Singh visuals no matter what so it takes a good movie to make me vote against him. PPZ it aint.
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Oct 22, 2022 15:42
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Last Call! The HalloweeNIT '22 champion will be crowned tomorrow! Will it be Darth's Stupid team or twernt's Horney Zombie team?! You can decide! Vote until 12 noon EST on October 26th (or when I get to it)
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Oct 25, 2022 21:48
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Its over!  Congratulations to Darthemed and Sumptuously Stupid for becoming the second ever HalloweeNIT champions and the first entrants into the 2023 Spook-a-Doodle Bracketology and Movie Club tournament! And in something truly fitting to the team that won, the pattern of this tournament, and the place we post at the RNG has given us one last hilarious random draw of 2022 for our 31st film of the tourney.  https://boxd.it/fOOzG That kooky RNG. All the movies drawn in this tourney on Darth's team will reenter the pool for the real tourney. All teams, directors, and movies drawn in this tourney are still eligible for other teams or the tourney next year. I'll get a new thread and the nomination process going in December after a break. I'll hopefully get the stats and video up in here over the next couple of weeks. I've been slow and busy lately but I haven't given up on those yet and do have to do some work to clean up the spreadsheets for next year. Thank you to everyone who took part in HalloweeNIT and I hope you'll stick around for next year's Bracketology tournament. And I hope you all are having a great and spooky October and Halloween.
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Oct 26, 2022 21:07
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Slender Man - 2.5/5 I was expecting to be utterly bored by this but I warmed to it over time because I found the scares so amusing. I actually laughed out loud a few times. I spaced a little on the actual story, what little of it there was, but it seems to me to be in bad taste to have made it after the real life Slender Man stabbing in Wisconsin in 2014. Teen girls getting obsessed with and deranged by the meme, meeting it in the woods, at one point sacrificing one of their friends to appease it? Maybe I’m oversensitive about the case because it involves a mentally ill child and it was a local news item for me. Yeah yeah, horror movies and bad taste, whatever.
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Oct 26, 2022 23:21
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Oh my goodness, I didn’t have a speech prepared. Thank you to everyone who voted for my line-up, or watched films from it. I’m sorry. Big ups also to the RNG for the match selections. Thank you to Goat for running this, and enduring my film selections. I hope I won’t have anything in my line-up next year to give you as much of a bad time as Poor Pretty Eddie. San Dimas High School football rules!
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Oct 26, 2022 23:47
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