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I love this idea. At the end of the month I'm moving so I'll take it easy on myself and go for 13.
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Apr 30, 2022 22:05
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| # ¿ May 18, 2024 00:32 |
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1. Noroi: The Curse (Challenge 1: Folk Horror) I was really excited to watch this for Bracketology, and then Koji Shiraishi's team got the boot. That just meant I could watch it whenever I wanted! Aside from the most classic of found-footage issues where the characters are way too invested in the camera in the midst of peril, it was very successful. I prefer supernatural horror because it generally doesn't have to follow pre-set rules about silver bullets or headshots. Noroi gives the audience enough to sketch out the mystery of what is happening, why, and how to deal with it while hardly ever giving the answers outright. That's really all I need for something like this. Samfucius fucked around with this message at 12:04 on May 19, 2022 |
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May 1, 2022 09:27
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Both of these are for Bracketology 2. Night of the Living Dead (1990)  Everything that Savini changed for this remake was a major step down, especially the ending. The special effects were also a huge disappointment: you'd expect this to be a practical showcase if nothing else and I stead everything is grey and floppy. Tony Todd worked his rear end off while every other actor confused screaming with acting. I was not impressed. There were still good parts, but that's because they were the same as the original. 3. Strait-Jacket  A real joy of a schlock-fest. The twist is so predictable it's almost insulting, but you won't have time to care because Joan Crawford puts the film on her back and aims for the stars. That woman made a career out of having the craziest eyes in Hollywood. I didn't mention this in my original post but outside of Bracketology (which I have no control over) all of the films will be new to me. Samfucius fucked around with this message at 12:10 on May 19, 2022 |
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May 2, 2022 15:44
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4. 12 Hour Shift (Challenge 9: Franchescanado's Letterboxd list of Horror Film Hidden Gems) Most hidden gems are hidden because they have at least one major flaw. Obviously not enough of a flaw to ruin the show, but a flaw nevertheless. 12 Hour Shift's just so happens to be the final act. The first two are basically perfect. The sarcastic, over-this-bullshit tone of the story perfectly matches the shift worker characters. The casting director deserves a gigantic prize for absolutely nailing exactly what small city hospital workers actually look like. The hair and makeup are particularly great: we've all known these people. When the characters break out into song (this only happens once) it doesn't feel whimsical, it feels like "it's 3am and I'm mildly delirious, gently caress it." Unfortunately, the final part of the movie can't carry this energy all the way. As soon as the tension lets up a little it's like the director can't hold the line anymore, and it all rips through her hands. I think that's a huge shame. Samfucius fucked around with this message at 12:12 on May 19, 2022 |
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May 3, 2022 23:14
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5. Choose or Die Just to get this out of the way, this movie is absolute garbage. It wears its "influences" on its sleeve, and that's my nice way of saying it rips a lot of stuff off blatantly and poorly. Imagine the trap-puzzles of Saw, but reimagined as video game levels that our leads must navigate. There's a cursed media angle that comes straight from last year's indie video game hit Inscryption, and an 80's obsession from Ready Player One. Add a dash of terrible special effects and a geriatric's vision of what video games are like and you've gotten the bones of this one. It fails on every level. Samfucius fucked around with this message at 12:13 on May 19, 2022 |
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May 7, 2022 12:12
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People were talking about The People Under the Stairs and covered most everything important about it, except for my favorite fact: Wes Craven cast the villain couple (after seeing them also play a married couple in Twin Peaks) because he thought they looked like Ronald and Nancy Reagan, and he hated the Reagans. It's also obviously thematic, but the hate was important too. Always knew he was a good dude.
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May 11, 2022 17:05
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I've been watching a lot of horror films and not posting them, let's fix that. More to come when I can be bothered to do the short writeups for them. 6. Ghosts of Mars  John Carpenter has always been great for light and shadow, so it baffles me that this film (set at night in the martian desert) is entirely brightly lit. It's incredibly cheap looking, so why not turn off the spotlights and add some mystery back in? It really feels entirely like a TV movie. The punches don't connect, some costumes don't allow the actors to raise their arms, and the villain literally yells "Ra! Ra raaa!" the whole time. 7. Frankenstein Created Woman  It's creative to use the idea that Frankenstein did not just create life but merged flesh to spirit to tell a story like this: young lovers treated unfairly and cruelly and take their revenge after dying and being merged into one entity by the eponymous doctor. It's a pity that the only interesting characters are the incredibly selfish Dr. Frankenstein and the horrible rich louts. 8. Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness  (Challenge 3: Rated PG) There's a five-star Sam Raimi horror movie here held back by about 75 minutes of interminable, MCU-building, contractually-obligated dialogue where two actors stand in front of a green screen and nothing happens. I'm begging you to shut the gently caress up. When Sam Raimi has fun, he has fun, and I do too. He has a wonderfully hammy Bruce Campbell cameo. He reuses the iconic shaky-cam perspective from Evil Dead. He goes to town with drips and goops. He blends horrific imagery with Three Stooges comedy. This mostly happens in the last act of the movie, and I couldn't blame anyone for checking out long before then. If the end feels fully Raimi, the beginning seems more Sorkin, in all the worst ways. In summary, one and a half stars for the beginning and four and a half stars for the best of the ending. I think we are all tired of the Marvel movie factory approach to action-comedy. When you ask the biggest fans for their favorite movie, a lot of them will name one of the genre films instead, one of the times that we actually got to see what the director wanted to make. Winter Soldier was a spy film, Guardians and Ragnarok were straight comedies, and Wandavision a drama. This could have easily joined that list. If I could go back in time and speak directly to the studio, I'd beg them to let them make the movie Sam wanted to make. If you'll allow me a bit of what-if fanfic, I think he could have killed an adaptation of House of Leaves' Navidson Record as a Doctor Strange vehicle. It's already a story about a deeply arrogant man with relationship issues making things worse for himself and those around him as the laws of physics break down, but it's set in the kind of haunted environment Raimi was made for. I was totally fine watching the spaghettification of John Krasinski, though. Samfucius fucked around with this message at 15:31 on May 24, 2022 |
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May 11, 2022 23:35
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Yeah, good call. Wasn't thinking because it actually doesn't matter in the story. Even with spoiler tags I'd never put something important in this close to release.
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May 12, 2022 00:52
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9. Phantom of the Paradise (Challenge 4: Music of the Night) If Rocky Horror Picture Show is a horny time on psychedelics, Phantom of the Paradise is a cocaine fever dream. It cribs from sources far and wide, from The Picture of Dorian Gray to KISS. Strangely, the one thing it doesn't borrow from is Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera, seeing that this came out a full twelve years before. When all is said, done, and blended you have a campy rock opera where Warren Zevon gets screwed over by Mark Hamill and Phillip Seymour Hoffman's diminutive love child. I can see why it isn't remembered in the same way as other de Palma classics, because honestly it's a total mess. It has so much fun with itself that it forgets to keep us in the loop. On the other hand, the gayest man on earth yells "dry up, tubbo!" with complete earnestness. 10. Pulgasari  (Challenge 8: A Perfect Getaway - North Korea) Last year I went on a kick to fill in my entire world map on Letterboxd. I'm nowhere close, but it does mean that the remaining countries have made hardly any movies. This made this challenge an absolute doozy. My first idea was to watch Blood Quantum as a sovereign territory loophole, but then I remembered that I downloaded this ages ago. Anyways, if I told you Kim Jong-il kidnapped a director and forced him to make North Korean propaganda films, about the last thing you'd expect was the cutest lil Godzilla you ever did see. It's unexpectedly competently made. The director was a professional obviously, but he even seemed to have a bit of a budget. Hespite Plex giving "Horror" top genre billing, Pulgasari is actually a historical action film with a big monster and only a touch of horror. It's also blatant propaganda. The main characters have no arcs and no growth because they must all embody the pinnacle of North Korean Civic Duty from frame one. They give everything to the elderly first, they remain stoic through starvation and violence, and they never stop fighting for what is right. When that's how they start and they're not allowed to fall from grace, all you can do with them in a script is kill them. Sure enough, one by one they bite the big one. It's ok though because Pulgasari starts spitting cannon balls and avenges them.
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May 19, 2022 13:13
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11. Eating Raoul (Challenge 2. Scream, Queen!) Eating Raoul is a zippy little movie about transgression. The main couple derides the world as decadent, then proceeds to insincerely engage themselves in sex, gluttony, lies, and violence while they very sincerely pursue their moral blindspot, the most decadent of all the vices: profit. It's deeply cynical and deeply fun. 12. The Masque of Red Death  (Challenge 10: The Price is Right) Yes, the rich are bestial, decadent blobs of abject cruelty. Yes, Vincent Price was the most fun actor of the 60's. Yes, Roger Corman was a genius for putting the two together. (Bonus shoutout to the Roeg cinematography and the set design, particularly the colored rooms that reflect the robes of the avatars of sickness) 13. Freaks  (Challenge 13: Sins of the Past) I read up on the so-called controversy surrounding this film and I genuinely have to wonder how drunk these critics were when they came up with these ideas. This is a deeply compassionate film. It's not subtext, it's loving text. The "freaks" moniker is sarcastic from the first frame: physical appearance and ability have nothing to do with a drat thing. The villains are those who allow themselves to be morally compromised, not a single scene passes the screen that demonizes , fetishizes, or pokes fun at the physical structures of the actors. It's there for the audience to notice, but it never factors into their moral bedrock. I'm honestly blown away that people think otherwise. 14. Hell House LLC II: The Abaddon Hotel  The pitch for this one was really just "Spirit Halloween blood packs and a black hoodie... Oh and we're gonna take a dig at Grave Encounters." The first one was bog-standard found footage but kinda fun, this one is like a student film from people who don't even want to be film students. Half star out of five.
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May 23, 2022 11:07
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Jedit posted:Freaks was a reflection on and of America, showing up the callousness behind the mask of neighbourliness. And you'd better believe that there is nothing the self-righteous hate more than being shown themselves. I totally agree, but I wasn't only talking about 1932, or even the limited scope of America. The BBC re-reviewed and re-rejected the film in 1952, and in 1963 reviewed it for a third time and allowed it... with an X rating for exploitation. I'm not so naive to not expect these kinds of reactions, but they're puzzling. Samfucius fucked around with this message at 12:18 on May 23, 2022 |
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May 23, 2022 12:14
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15. Shadow of the Vampire (Challenge 5: Behind the Screams) At this rate, my wife will have seen every single Nosferatu remake (or whatever you'd call this) before watching a single minute of the original. I'm pretty sure the setup went something like this: Nicolas Cage hired the director of the weirdest art film of the late 80's to round up the weirdest actors of the late 90's (who weren't named Cage) to make a film about how weird auteurs have always been. 16. Christine  (Challenge 12: All Hail the King) Gorgeous nighttime shots? Unparalleled practical effects? A script that isn't afraid to be silly? Yep, this is a classic Carpenter movie alright. 17. Deep Red  (Challenge 6: The King in Yellow) I've seen the scene with the dummy more than a few times and I really thought the whole movie would feature that weird lil guy. Instead we have to get our weirdness from the Goblin soundtrack, which never quite matches the tone. Why does every dark investigation scene have a score that implies we are about to either break out a bong or see a Scooby-Doo chase? Man, I hate modern fake blood. Using red acrylic paint is more fun in every aspect.
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May 26, 2022 22:17
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18.Challenge 7: Short Cuts I got some of these from y'all and found others on my own. 1. The End of All Things (14:23) I couldn't focus on this one, but it's my own problem. It's an enigmatic witch story that might have done a few interesting things (apparently it's based on a book), but I have always had this hyper-specific misophonia for the sound of knives and teeth scraping on hard toast. It makes my skin crawl. It turns out this composes 70% of the noises here, and I wanted to tear my headphones off. I finished it but I'll be damned if I can tell you any specific details. 2.5/5 2. Peephole (3:43) There are a dragon's hoard of these exact types of shorts on YouTube, and as far as I can go they're the modern way to put a flashlight under your chin and scare your friends at a sleepover. They're bloodless so your parents won't complain, they're short enough for terrible attention spans, and they always end with the exact same screaming-face jumpscare. This one gets a few bonus points for having the protagonist have fun with the admittedly silly monster for a few moments, which is exactly what any sane person would do with a something that mirrors your movements. 1.5/5 3. Mr. Creak (3:35) I got this one and the last one off of the same recommendation list, and promptly abandoned it. I can appreciate a short that doesn't bother with a setup and cold opens directly into the climax, but I think this one was forced to by the fact that there is no conceivable explanation for why this woman would be in a completely dark house reading fortune cookie notes out of a dollhouse. The same jumpscare awaits her from the last short. I feel a bit uncomfortable saying these are bad and giving them low scores because they're so very clearly not designed for my demographic. I don't want to watch Peppa Pig either, but I'd sound insane if I docked it for not making episodes that I enjoy. 1/5 4. The World Over (15:33) There's a moment very early on where the characters find a keyhole that isn't seemingly connected to any door. They turn the key and nothing seems to happen. I got kinda excited, the possibilities were endless! Then they immediately revealed what the key did. That's really the primary issue with a lot of short horror films, they're written too densely to allow mysteries to breathe. Anyways this is basically the short youtube film version of Coherence, and if you're like me it'll just make you want to watch the feature length one. It's not terrible though, best so far. 3/5 5. Other Side of the Box (15:22) A couple receives a box from an estranged friend, along with some rules. Spooky things happen. This one is actually a well-done slow burn, with a script that knows how to properly drip-feed new information. The rules that the monster has to follow are simple, and despite this the characters manage to find themselves in peril without ever making insanely bad decisions. It's nice to see them get actually outsmarted or tricked, rather than manufacturing peril through lack of higher brain function. Finally, no dumb jumpscare! A YouTube horror triumph, really. 4/5 6. They Hear It (8:37) Where the hell are their parents? It's a bigger mystery than the actual mystery. Two children are in their house in the woods at night. They are the correct ages to at least have a babysitter, but there are no adults around and this is never remarked upon or explained. Quiet, high-pitched noises start happening in the woods which first draws the family dog and then the younger brother. Bushes rattle, faces emerge. I'll give this credit for lighting: a lot of youtube shorts are so dark that I can't see the screen unless I turn all the lights off, but this one is clearly visible even in the pitch-black woods. The filmmakers claim they're turning this one into a feature-length, but I don't see why. (2/5) Total runtime: 1:01:13 Samfucius fucked around with this message at 07:11 on Jun 1, 2022 |
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Jun 1, 2022 01:35
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A True Jar Jar Fan posted:One last minute watch for movie #21, X: I really liked this movie and I liked it even more when the credits rolled and I learned Mia Goth also played the old lady.
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Jun 1, 2022 05:36
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19. Tales From the Crypt: Demon Knight Challenge 11: Horror Noire It's 11:13 here so I'm getting this one in just under the wire. Challenges done! There's something fundamentally weird about a movie that has both Billy Zane at his Billy Zaniest and a relatively earnest depiction of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Ya know, except for the part where he bled on a demon and it exploded. I was too young for Tales From the Crypt when it was airing, so I don't have any nostalgia for it, but drat I sure understand the appeal. All the time the writers could have spent on nuance they spent on puns instead. I'm glad they did. The practical effects are just as goofy and gooey as you would hope, even if the digital effects are very much of their era. The story is fine too, reminding me nicely of From Dusk Till Dawn. Not that the story is the point here. When you're a child you want to be Billy Zane. When you're older you realize you're the Crypt Keeper.
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Jun 1, 2022 07:14
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In Summary: Total films: 19 + 6 shorts, all new to me Challenge films:  1. Woodlands Dark and Days BewitchedNoroi: The Curse  2. Scream, Queen! Eating Raoul  3. Rated PGDoctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness  4. Music of the NightPhantom of the Paradise  5. Behind the ScreamsShadow of the Vampire  6. The King in YellowDeep Red  7. Short CutsThe End of All Things Peephole Mr. Creak The World Over Other Side of the Box They Hear It  8. A Perfect GetawayPulgasari  9. Hidden Gems12 Hour Shift  10. The Price is RightThe Masque of Red Death  11. Horror NoireTales From the Crypt: Demon Knight  12. All Hail the KingChristine  13. Sins of the PastFreaks Plus these others: Night of the Living Dead (1990) Strait-Jacket Choose or Die Ghosts of Mars Frankenstein Created Woman Hell House LLC II: The Abaddon Hotel I actually watched several more horror movies this month and didn't log them due to laziness Best Film: Phantom of the Paradise Worst Film: Hell House LLC II
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Jun 2, 2022 02:20
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| # ¿ May 18, 2024 00:32 |
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Hell yeah. This was fun, thanks everyone
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Jun 8, 2022 06:40
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