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Basket Case 3: The Progeny - 1991 Directed by Frank Henenlotter The Basket Case Trilogy  They definitely weren't going to let all of these masks go to waste so here's another Basket Case movie and this time I'm pretty sure Frank Henenlotter never stopped to second guess any of the ideas he had. It's a nonsensical movie full of great surreal moments and definitely more entertaining than Basket Case 2, but still not on the level of the first one. 💀💀.5/5 Spooky May Spring Cleaning 2/13 * Basket Case 2 * Basket Case 3: The Progeny - 1991 Collections * The Basket Case Trilogy 🧺🧺🧺/🧺🧺🧺
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Apr 29, 2023 19:08
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Lol I scraped all my previous lists for movies I didnt watch and compiled them into this new one... https://letterboxd.com/dorium/list/halfway-to-spookums/ 263 This will at least make it easier to just clone the list in October, remove what I've watched and just continue where I'll leave off at the end of May in October.
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Apr 29, 2023 20:08
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Ok I’ll try 13
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Apr 30, 2023 00:06
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CelticPredator posted:Ok I’ll try 13 
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Apr 30, 2023 00:36
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CelticPredator posted:Ok I’ll try 13 you can do it! and I’ll do it too, gently caress it, 13. very rainy weekend in New York, it’s horror weather
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Apr 30, 2023 01:29
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Setting my own goal at 13 but I will almost definitely exceed that (depends on how sucked in I get to the new Zelda game) 1. Lokis, a Manuscript of Professor Wittembach (1970) (dir. Janusz Majewski) blu-ray  Geography Lesson: Europe (Poland)History Lesson: 1970sWhile traveling across Lithuania studying customs and folklore, pastor and ethnographer Professor Wittembach is invited to stay at the estate of a local Count named Michał Szemiot, an odd and kind of unsettling man. Also living at the estate are the Count’s mother, who lost her sanity when she was attacked by a bear when pregnant with Michał, and the awful Dr. Froeber who is supposedly treating her. Wittembach finds that Count’s behavior is erratic and oddly bestial, and through his studies learns that the local peasants believe he is a “Lokis” - basically, a were-bear. This has a fantastic gothic vibe. The 19th-century costuming and sets look great, and the production values are high all around. The horror elements are fairly light throughout most of the film, but I like the folklore and there are some eerie moments here and there. I really liked the music too, which includes some folk songs, some chamber pieces, and a demented-sounding church organ. Vibes aside though, I thought this wasn’t all that exciting. Wittembach isn’t much more than an audience surrogate with no character arc or personality of his own, and most of the film is just loosely connected events happening around him. There’s hardly even a story. I feel like this could’ve been a really excellent 45 minute short, but at nearly 100 minutes there just isn’t enough plot to keep things interesting. Overall I thought this was just ok - the gothic tone and high production values go a long way in making up for the lack of narrative thrust, but it’s not enough to save this from being mostly on the dull side. 3  out of 5Total: 1 Watched: Lokis, a Manuscript of Professor Wittembach gey muckle mowser fucked around with this message at 18:00 on May 3, 2023 |
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Apr 30, 2023 01:39
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I'm in. (Graphic coming in future post) The Offering (2022) What do a "crib notes" The Autopsy of Jane Doe, Rosemary’s Baby, and The Exorcist look like in a Hasidic community? The Good: Well-acted support cast; nice to see Judaism and Jewish culture as the backdrop (instead of the usual Catholicism). The Bad: Scares are familiar for horror fans; plot/logic holes are too blatant. The Ugly: The movie can’t decide if it’s family drama or horror. Ninety-four minutes is too short to do both, and too long to be both. Movie count: 1
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Apr 30, 2023 01:50
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3 from Hell - 2019 Directed by Rob Zombie The Firefly Collection  I was definitely not onboard at the beginning because it was taking way too long to get to the fireworks factory. Eventually, things settle into place and it's decently entertaining even if it's more like a jumble of Firefly family skits than a cohesive movie. 💀💀💀/5 Spooky May Spring Cleaning 3/13 * Basket Case 2 - 1990 * Basket Case 3: The Progeny - 1991 * 3 from Hell - 2019 Collections * The Basket Case Trilogy 🧺🧺🧺/🧺🧺🧺 * The Firefly Collection 🤡🤡🤡/🤡🤡🤡
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Apr 30, 2023 02:34
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It's pouring rain in the woods, I feel obligated to watch horror movies. 15 Things You Didn't Know About Bigfoot (#1 Will Blow Your Mind) (2019) ; Zach Lamplugh The title is awful. Which is a shame because this is a pretty cute little horror comedy, and that title really is a good one for this. It just also makes you never want to watch it. Clickbait video journalists go into the woods to document Bigfoot, but it's mostly just a very internet-tinged framing device for a surprisingly functional story. The jokes weren't amazing but they were mostly well delivered ; there's a little too much paprika on the sandwich here or there from Jeff our main bigfoot researcher, but he also is asked to say some pretty ridiculous poo poo so I don't know how much better he could've made it cohere. Not actually that much 'squatch time, but the whole movie doesn't overstay its welcome so it feels like it's enough. 3 out of ????????? I'm not going to look up if there's a CBD cryptocurrency because I'm afraid
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Apr 30, 2023 03:19
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I think I can manage 13 this month. I fact, I've got an idea. I'm going to watch 13 new-to-me horror/horror-adjacent movies this month via Youtube. Further stipulation: they have to be free to watch. No buying, no renting. As chance would have it, I started things off on the easy side last night with children's fantasy movie The Dark Crystal. I think it qualifies as Horror-adjacent because all the villains and even a few of the good guys are sufficiently hideous to probably scare most little kids who would be the movie's target audience. It's a Jim Henson movie, so it's all puppets of course. And the puppetry on display here is incredibly goddamn impressive. Everything onscreen either seems to be a puppet or set dressing that looks indistinguishable from the puppets. A lot of work clearly went into this and I'd recommend watching it just to see the technical brilliance on display. Unfortunately, that's really all it has going for it. The plot is a thoroughly pedestrian, bog-standard hero's journey and none of the characters have a whit of original personality or charm to them (Except Fizzgig, who is amazing). For all the visual inventiveness, I wish it were in service of a better story. 2.5/5 based on the visuals alone.
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Apr 30, 2023 04:04
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1. X (2022) Yeah, this is fine. I’ve never seen a Texas Instruments West joint I liked so I don’t know why I picked this as the first thing to watch for Half-o-Ween but whatever. It feels like it wants to be seen as smart and/or saying something but while it’s a well-made movie I don’t think it effectively communicated anything more than “some women like to have sex” and “old people look weird naked”, which, c’mon son. With that said, when Maxine ran over Pearl’s head that was cool. Also there’s a tiny twist (??) that will probably become more meaningful once the third one comes out but is otherwise just sort of like, “Oh, that’s interesting.” Because I’ve heard so much good about Pearl I figured I would check out this guy, but unless it’s very very important to contextualize Pearl and unless I really really dig Pearl (very possible!) I’d prolly consider it skippable.
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Apr 30, 2023 04:49
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If anything I think Pearl retroactively makes X better! They're very very different movies so it's easy to imagine liking one and not the other, Pearl is way more character-driven.
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Apr 30, 2023 05:40
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3. Evil Dead 2 Yup same great song n dance. Bonus this time was seeing it in a theater with an amped crowd. Loved hearing the audience pop at "Groovy" 4.5/5
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Apr 30, 2023 05:46
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1. ScreaVI Pretty dope flick. I liked it a decent amount! I like the core four, and think they’re an interesting group of characters. All the actors range from great to fine. Really loved ghostface in this one. Just really went for it in the coolness and I’m down for it. The duel ghostface knife slide was so loving sick. Good death scenes. Twist was fine. But at this point you can either go out of the box or what they did so idk. Loved the opening.
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Apr 30, 2023 06:29
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Idle Hands (1999) -- Sorry about your bush. A stoner teen horror/comedy that starts off with heavy Scream vibes before transitioning into full on Evil Dead sillyness. Took me a long time to get to this one as it has one of the least horror-y posters I can think of. A demon possessed hand and they made it his right instead of his left?? SMDH It's dumb as hell, but they lean into it so much it wraps around to being pretty good, 3/5 spooks or whatever. Also features The Offspring as a high school dance band and one of the most obvious Female Lead Shirt Rips since Natalie Portman in Episode II   Paging Kvlt! to the thread https://i.imgur.com/2gVLBkb.mp4 ~*Progress Tracker*~ 1. Idle Hands A True Jar Jar Fan posted:Perfect opportunity to watch a whole bunch of Universal Monsters classics Also a big part of my list. I watched The Invisible Man a while ago, but still have the other big ones on deck. They also tend to be on the short side so good for an emergency afternoon watch if you're getting behind schedule. Gyro Zeppeli posted:After I put off watching it for so long, I'm evangelical about people watching The Invisible Man (1933) which might be a perfect movie. 
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Apr 30, 2023 06:31
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Takes No Damage posted:Idle Hands (1999) It's explicitly stated that only Devon Sawa's right hand was possessed because the left one wasn't idle. It's his wanking hand.
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Apr 30, 2023 10:17
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I'm in for 15. Missed the last one so I'm quite excited this time around
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Apr 30, 2023 14:57
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Attack of the Blind Dead - 1973 El ataque de los muertos sin ojos Directed by Amando de Ossorio The Blind Dead Collection  It's a little bit of a rehash of the first Blind Dead movie and not quite as good, at least until the Blind Dead actually attack. Early on, I was convinced that it was a mistake to try to add so much contrived human drama to a story about zombie Templars who return from the dead to terrorize a small Portuguese town during their festival that commemorates the townsfolk blinding those very Templars before burning them alive, but scheming and self-serving behavior are zombie movie staples. Just like the first one, I really liked the Blind Dead's theme music and sound effects. 💀💀💀/5 Spooky May Spring Cleaning 4/13 * Basket Case 2 - 1990 * Basket Case 3: The Progeny - 1991 * 3 from Hell - 2019 * Attack of the Blind Dead - 1973 Collections * The Basket Case Trilogy 🧺🧺🧺/🧺🧺🧺 * The Firefly Collection 🤡🤡🤡/🤡🤡🤡 * The Blind Dead Collection ⛪⛪/⛪⛪⛪⛪
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Apr 30, 2023 15:50
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 1. The Last Broadcast [1998] FW This was a real struggle to push through. I loathed the narrators voice so there's like 70% of the entire movie right there. Then the story felt so cobbled together and unfocused I kept wanting something to hold onto, but it never came and never got anymore interesting than "oh yeah I guess this came out before The Blair Witch Project" but there's a reason why it gets passed over in discussion usually about found footage films. It's boring as hell and worth forgetting. One and a Half  's 2. Scare Package II: Rad Chad's Revenge [2022] FW Looking back at my previous rating for the first one last year I only gave it 1 and a half ghosts. This one has Harry from Mad Men and like a couple more chuckles than the lame duck first one so I gave this one two guillotines this time. Still just as tedious and unfunny as the first, but occasionally there was something there. Everyone's a comedian, but not everyone is funny. This is proof of that. Should've been a 30 minute Youtube short. Two 's 3. Naked Lunch [1991] FW I got the go ahead that this does indeed count as a spookums, so I watched Naked Lunch. What a picture! I had no idea what was going on sometimes, but I was enthralled. It definitely has this sub-surface level of dread and palpable mania that is crawling under your skin scratching at your muscle and bone. What should've been unfilmable still largely is, but when you adapt something like this Cronenberg made the right call in bringing in these other elements of profound real life moments that create this foundation for some hard fantasy / drug induced mania, but all the while reminding you that inside of this is the need to create and find your voice in the murkiness of your life. It's a fever dream you need to let sweep you away. Four 's 4. Sorority House Massacre [1986] RW One I've wanted to add to my physical media collection for awhile and I'm glad I finally did. I really love this movie. It's a Corman production so so many things could be fleshed out both in the script and in the general production, but it does so much with so little that's available and does it with panache! The psionic-twin aspect is a lot of fun, the shallow but interesting play in trauma and facing your demons is worth a lot in this movie and helps build a solid foundation that brings up its quality quite a bit. Just a very interesting little time capsule and a good buddy to Slumber Party Massacre / House on Sorority Row. A real trifecta of co-ed slashers. Three and a Half 's 5. Knife + Heart [2018] FW What a rad little movie. Glad I ended up blind-buying it back during the last VS sale because i would've kicked myself if I didnt now. Just exceptionally well made and structured. Looks crazy good, has great atmosphere and a razor sharp tension to it that you absolutely need in a giallo experience that if it isnt there you're left with a flaccid mess of a movie. Great picture! Four 's 6. Evil Dead Rise [2023] FW This really ended up being a lot of fun and mean. The right amount of those two in an Evil Dead movie is tough to get right and even if I were to have minor quibbles with it here and there (not enough time with the family, lack of cool catch phrases, let me see that hallway scene outside of a peep hole please) it still hit all the right creepy notes, but also that acidicly dark humor was just pitch perfect. Looking forward to revisiting this one in the future in a big marathon of the ED movies. Four 's 7. Shaun of the Dead [2004] RW It's a classic and it had been a minute since I put it on, but its always nice catching up with the chum's from the Winchester. Still such great big beats of excitement, creepiness and drama. It's a real perfect example of how the zombie genre has now lost its way. There's a real nice through line of filmmakers and show runners missing so many big beats on what makes and could make a zombie picture hit more than just maudlin drama or gore-fests. there is a balance and flow in combining these elements in very human ways that have been sorely lacking in all the zombie content to come since 2004. We're left to float in the morass of the terrible Walking Dead's or The Last of Us' when we could be doing so much better than that. So much better. Five 's
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Apr 30, 2023 16:39
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 Shortcut (2020) ; Alessio Liguori This is cute. A bunch of very British Italian kids* are on an unspecified bus trip that gets high-jacked by a tongue-eating serial killer, but when the bus breaks down in a tunnel they're all attacked by a gribbly bug-vampire monster. That's more premise than most 87 minute-long movies have and I'm glossing over the abandoned military fort and them sleuthing out the records of a now-dead gribbly hunter : none of this stuff is particularly well-explored, but it's fun business at least. It's amusing and kind of endearing but probably not substantial enough for most horror fans. This might work for some younger viewers though (or it could be awful and I'm just an old). 4 down out of ???? There's a lunar eclipse too Unclear how that fits in *It's not 100% clear where these kids are from but at one point they read aloud in English something that you can see is written in Italian.
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Apr 30, 2023 17:28
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Jedit posted:It's explicitly stated that only Devon Sawa's right hand was possessed because the left one wasn't idle. It's his wanking hand. drat that's true  I still would have flipped it to explain why his right hand was still ok, but props to the writers covering bases like that.
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Apr 30, 2023 22:33
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 Legion (2010) ; Scott Stewart Paul Bettany is an angel protecting a pregnant woman during an angel-centric apocalypse. And it's fine if you're into that sort of thing, I guess? I don't really care about Christian mythology, especially not the bland angels-as-winged-dudes kind, and I've always been much more interested in the post-apocalyptic than the messy entropy adjustment step. Paul Bettany is charming as always ; the cop from Mimic is in this and I always liked that guy, plus he gets some surprisingly light business with his prosthetic hand ; Doug Jones, you can never get enough of that beautiful, scrawny weirdo. But outside the cast I didn't really have much to hang my hat on. It's not bad, just thoroughly fine and not really my taste. 5 down out of yeah this is gonna be more than 13 It's very hard to take anyone named "Jeep" seriously
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Apr 30, 2023 22:53
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2. Scream (1996) I had literally never seen this, in part because I’m a fairly new horror fan (didn’t tackle anything until my mid-20s and thought I wasn’t “a movie guy” for most of the intervening years) and in part because I wanted to get a bunch of slashers under my belt first. Mission accomplished, so I checked it out. I somehow had not been spoiled in 27 years (!) and it was a lot of fun! Holds up. Fun and thematic new wave covers on the soundtrack. I don’t think it’s plausible I could say anything that hasn’t already been said in all that time, but ya gotta blurb or it doesn’t count.
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May 1, 2023 00:40
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ok I'm in for 13
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May 1, 2023 02:23
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The Ghost Galleon - 1974 El buque maldito Directed by Amando de Ossorio The Blind Dead Collection  This entry in the series, with most of the action taking place on a magical ghost ship, is definitely more atmospheric and traditionally spooky than the previous one. It also really drags in parts. There just isn't as much tension as there should be, with everyone facing what they think is inevitable death in a confined area. Somehow, the movie just doesn't do a very good job of conveying a sense of space and the action is mostly just really slow. Love that bleak ending though. 💀💀.5/5 Spooky May Spring Cleaning 5/13 1. Basket Case 2; 2. Basket Case 3: The Progeny; 3. 3 from Hell; 4. Attack of the Blind Dead; 5. The Ghost Galleon Collections * The Basket Case Trilogy 🧺🧺🧺/🧺🧺🧺 * The Firefly Collection 🤡🤡🤡/🤡🤡🤡 * The Blind Dead Collection ⛪⛪⛪/⛪⛪⛪⛪ twernt fucked around with this message at 02:58 on May 1, 2023 |
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May 1, 2023 02:52
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Ok, its May… and I got impatient before it was. So lets get started.  - (1). Scream (1996)[ Directed by Wes Craven; Written by Kevin Williamson Watched on Paramount+ I could spell out the tortured step by step of what leads me from "Wanna watch the new Scream" to "I'm gonna rewatch all the Screams" but really I can just simplify it as any good excuse to rewatch one of my favorites. I couldn't tell you how many times I've seen Scream. Its one of those films that you're so familiar with that you can sometimes find yourself too comfortable with so you're maybe not paying 100% attention. Its like an old comfy sweater. You're so relaxed you might doze off. And that's a wonderful feeling. But then sometimes you also notice something you forgot because no matter how many times you've seen it you're still an old person who forgets stuff and can be surprised by stuff you remember but forgot were there. Scream is such a well made film for all those reasons. I actually watched it with someone who had no idea who the killer was and they spent the entire time guessing and following red herrings and it was a lot of fun to watch. Scream is filled with those clues and red herrings so as rewarding as it is for me to watch to see the killer's true sinister meaning early in the film someone else can sit there following all the the threads and being genuinely surprised by the reveal. But even without that stuff its just a very clever, great film. And honestly there's so much to say about it and I told myself I wasn't going to write my usual rambly review and instead just do some bullet points. But here I am. From the iconic Drew Barrymore opening with Wes taking the trick he pulled in Nightmare on Elm Street to a new level. To Matthew Lillard's iconically whacked out performance and all the other memorable young actors managing to bring real character and personality into slasher victims. To the meta stuff from the known by everyone now "rules" stuff to the more subtle little gags and nods to what Wes thought might have been tired about the genre by then, even when he himself had done it. To of course the great finale of twists and bluffs and misdirections and snark and lots and lots of blood. Scream is great. It was great 27 years ago. Its great today. No regrets at all turning my "spring cleaning/movies I've been meaning to get to" marathon into a Scream rewatch marathon to start. Totally worth it.  1 (2). The Invisible Man’s Revenge (1944) Directed by Ford Beebe; Screenplay by Bertram Millhauser[1] Watched on Internet Archive "Almost Complete" Letterboxd Collections: 1/13 This is not just the last Invisible Man film I haven't seen but I think its the last of the classic Universal Monsters I haven't seen. This is a bit of an odd bird by Invisible Man standards but fairly common for Universal standards. The IM franchise is pretty unique in that each film really does something very different and stands out in some way. From an early starring role from Vincent Price to a wacky feminist rom com to a spy film they generally avoid the problem some Universal sequels have of just repeating the same idea in competent but unspectacular fashion. At least until this one. Its actually a bit of an odd bird. The main character is Robert Griffin the same guy as from the original film and they supposedly had tried to get Claude Rains to come back. Instead they cast John Hall who played Griffin's grandson in the Invisible Agent but now playing his grandpa. And he even throws a meta gag early on losing his poo poo at the implication that he might be a spy saying he's tired of that. In the end this is basically just a reboot or remake I guess with just a new story with the original character where he was never an Invisible Man before this. But it feels like maybe that was a choice they made late since this thing makes more sense if Griffin is just coming back for some blackmail revenge and psychotic crime antics. And that's kind of how it shapes out it just feels a little odd and clumsily set up instead. Still the end result is a pretty basic story of the Invisible Man ramping up petty crime and wacky antics to violence psycho behavior to full on madness. And considering how drat good the original film is this one pales pretty hard in comparison and without the unique takes the other sequels have. Its fine. Perfectly fine acting and production, some more very good invisible camera work tricks, and a steadily enough paced story that wraps up under the 80 minute mark like most Universals. Its entirely fine. But its nothing special at all and really just a slightly odd mish mash of the better or more interesting Invisible Man films that came before it.  2 (3). Viral (2016) Directed by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman; Written by Christopher Landon and Barbara Marshall Watched on Tubi Return of the Fallen III: 1/13 Ok I won't make some cute Covid joke. You;ve heard them all before. But its definitely interesting wondering what it must have been like for people who made pandemic movies in the years before 2020 and how they felt about them after. This is another one on the pile and it doesn't really do anything especially interesting. Its fine. Its a bit different as it never actually turns into the big zombie film you expect it to. Its a much smaller, more focused story about some kids who get isolated as the terrible zombie pandemic starts and have to survive it alone. That's not necessarily an entirely original twist on the sub genre either but it does feel a bit different. Probably just the look and approach to it. Sofia Black-D'Elia and Lio Tipton are both talented young actresses and the movie relies very heavily on them in a very closed up performance and they do a very good job. And there's definitely something very unnerving and different about the abandoned, half built up suburb setting for this. It looks like one of those "towns" that is built by a realitor making a hundred identical houses next to a factory or something. There's an uncomfortable distance and isolation at the best of times. Things get quiet. But then in a situation like this it becomes a ghost town easily. And that's interesting. The film doesn't necessarily do a lot with these ideas. There's a bit of an angle with the "parasite" bug infection angle they go and what that means for their options. But none of it feels THAT meaty. And the movie just sort of ends. I didn't dislike this at all. Its basically a character study with some good actors and some solid icky effects. But it never really goes the action/zombie route to get exciting and as much as the core story is sad I didn't feel it ever really shifted into the last gear. Its not a bad film and its definitely a little different form the common zombie stuff. But its not different or good enough to be really worth recommending you check out unless you're a fan of the leads or creative behind it. Which is why I checked it out and I don't regret that or anything. But it didn't change my world either. 🌼💀Spook-a-Doodle Half-Way-to-Halloween ’23: Spring Cleaning💀🌼 Return of the Fallen III: 1/13 💀 "Almost Complete" Letterboxd Collections: 1/13 Watched - New (Total) - (1). Scream (1996); 1 (2). The Invisible Man’s Revenge (1944); 2 (3). Viral (2016);
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May 1, 2023 07:31
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Takes No Damage posted:drat that's true More than you'd think. It's a high school sexual myth that wanking with your non-dominant hand feels better because it's more like someone else is doing it. It's not true, but both the character and the target audience would get the joke.
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May 1, 2023 08:49
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We shot for 11 hours straight on that alien horror shirt movie I’m working on. Good times were had.  We short a little bit more goop
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May 1, 2023 09:32
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The Bigfoot/Sasquatch/Yeti/Yowie/Yeren/Skunk Ape/Grassman has always been a subject that fascinated me from an early age. I grew up with various Bigfoot "documentaries" playing on cable in regular rotation, and as a kid I probably never went more than a month without seeing that Patterson-Gimlin film in some form. It was a world before Ancient Aliens dominated, and cryptids like Bigfoot and Nessie ruled the Earth. As I got older I had no choice but to accept that even though Bigfoot was 100% totally real, Hollywood was never going to treat him properly. It's been a never ending parade of zero budget amateur filmmakers who think "if Patterson and Gimlin could do it, why can't I?" But it turns out that putting a convincing Bigfoot on screen is harder than it sounds, and the subgenre is mostly a wasteland. But that's what we do right? We dig through the garbage dump that is low budget horror because we just never know what may be in there. We find valuable stuff in that dump almost every day. So in that spirit, I will be going through a selection of various Bigfoot movies that are mostly just obscure Amazon Video footnotes to see if any hidden gems may be out there. The answer is almost certainly no. But I'm doing it anyway.  American Bigfoot The Bigfoot: There are some fleeting moments where the Bigfoot is effective here, including the opening scene. They do some good sound design for the heavy steps and heavy breathing, and then they shoot it from a low angle to make it seem a lot bigger than it actually is. You could cherry pick 4 or 5 stills from the movie and think it was made by someone who knows how to portray a Bigfoot on a low budget without it becoming goofy. Unfortunately as it goes on you see a LOT of the Bigfoot in full daylight and any amount of close up detail does this particular Bigfoot costume no favors. In several shots you can see the camo gloves of the performer in the suit, like the actual neoprene type material of the gloves is shown in excruciating close up. That says it all I guess, they just didn't have the money for a legit Bigfoot suit and they decided to brazenly show the Bigfoot anyway. Score: 3/10 Everything Else: Well the biggest thing to notice is that they somehow roped Zach Galligan(of Gremlins and Waxwork) into the project, so you might think that gives them a leg up against some of the other crappy Bigfoot movies out there. But ehhh, Galligan is not really doing anything special to elevate this. Clint Howard also makes a quick appearance but if you go to the fridge to grab a beer at the wrong time you might miss him. The story is theoretically ok but in a perfect world it's the sort of thing that would require the Bigfoot being able to display some actual emotion, as this is basically a revenge story, and like I mentioned above this Bigfoot wasn't up to that. There are some kills but no real competent special effects work to speak of. The setting(which can save a movie like this) is fairly generic woods shot in a boring flat way. The actors who play all of the side characters are mostly atrocious, which is no surprise. Score: 4/10(probably a bit generous but hey they were able to cast Zach Galligan so points for that I guess) So a total score of 7/20, we'll see how that stacks up in the end. I expect I'm in for a lot worse, to be honest. 1. American Bigfoot(7/20)
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May 1, 2023 15:21
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hell yes. btw if you start to run out of Bigfeet at any point—though I know the idea is preposterous—the legend pd187 has been making a list on Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/pd187/list/bigfoot-ranked/
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May 1, 2023 15:45
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 #3. The Visitor (2022) (Paramount+) After moving to the rural South with his wife, a man discovers a series of strange old paintings that seem to feature himself, which shouldn't be possible. The strange behavior of the townsfolk, and some occasional violent incidents, have him questioning his sanity. I picked this while bored on Saturday night because the trailer seemed to hint to more interesting conclusions than the film can provide. It's far too inert and meandering to really feel any growing sense of dread or tension throughout - the whole middle seems far more interested in setting up sunny days of bright happy impending parenthood than anything else. I get the intent behind that decision, but the film never earns the ability to use that to knock your feet out from under you, the way something like Rosemary's Baby or The Omen or any other "I spawned the son of Satan" type film would. There's also next to no gore or violence, so there's little in the way of things to hold your interest throughout the protracted middle section, so it's far too easy to just give up and start scrolling on your phone instead, and making it seem like that's what you should have chosen to do in the first place. Oh, put this as one more notch in the "Finn Jones can't act for poo poo" board, because as the lead he was pretty much awful. I mean, no one was good in this whole thing, and he still stood out like a sore thumb. Not recommended.  /5Watched so far: The Seed, Witchboard, The Visitor And the cold streak continues. Gonna need to find something worthwhile to watch here and soon.
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May 1, 2023 15:58
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Movie #1: Black Friday! (2021) "Attention, shoppers. Black Friday is over!" Black Friday is an incompetent movie, even though you might not think so at first glance. If you just saw some random stills or GIFs from it, you'd think it was a competent movie, because it certainly looks like one. The lighting, camera work and practical effects are shockingly good compared to every other aspect of the film. The last part isn't surprising, because the effects were made by Bob Kurtzman, who also did the effects on Evil Dead II. I didn't know that going in, but it became extremely obvious about halfway through because many of the monsters really could be lost Deadites. The script is both clichéd as hell and confusing as gently caress. It's Black Friday, and a group of bored workers are preparing to open a toy store for the night's shopping madness, when it turns out that all the shoppers are zombies. Bet you never heard that one before! Until about 2/3 of the way through our entire cast of characters have so little characterization that they are basically one or two superficial traits. This is a gay guy, this is an old guy, this guy's a germophobe, this guy is the supposedly cool tough middle-aged divorcee sniffing around a girl young enough to be his daughter, this girl's the love interest of a guy twice her age, this is the old lady who says racist things, this is the tough black guy. Oh by the way, did you figure out which of the characters is our main character? Then, all of a sudden, the movie remembers that we're kinda supposed to care about our characters and settles down for 15 minutes of character building and interpersonal drama that comes out of loving nowhere and lands with a wet thud. The whole script is a mess. Aside from the very strange pacing, it feels like there are whole scenes missing, because characters keep kinda referring to dialogue and things that sure as hell didn't happen on my screen, and the plot frequently jumps from point A to point D, without bothering to even touch on points B and C. Many of the jokes just miss the mark by a loving mile and feel like they were written by a bad AI jumbling together parts of jokes randomly. Ken: "We've got to separate that [infected] kid from the rest of the shoppers." Ruth: "You know, the first time I worked Black Friday, they separated shoppers by race." Chris: "Oh, great time for that story, Ruth!" Like... did they originally have Ruth say something else? Was the biggest problem with confused honkey grandma saying something racist really that this was not the best moment for that remark? Slap on a bunch of very fresh jokes about PC culture run amock ("Management decided Black Friday was racist, so we have to call it Green Friday now") and you've covered about 80% of the film's humour. Honestly, the only jokes that work are from Bruce Campbell, because they're actual jokes. They're not comedy gold either, but at least they made me smile. The acting is all over the place. Half the time it feels like you're watching a movie some YouTube influencers with two acting lessons under their belts made, but occasionally there are scenes from the same actors that actually work. The overall effect is just bad, but not in a fun or interesting way. Instead the whole thing feels like a direct to Prime Video knockoff of an actually decent horror comedy, where the filmmakers didn't know how to make a good comedy or a good horror movie, and didn't understand what made the original work, so instead everyone just did the minimum and went home. The best part: Man, Bruce Campbell and it isn't even close. Unlike everyone else in the movie, he manages to nail the balance between horror and comedy pretty well, and does a good job of being the sad and lonely toy store manager, who kinda turns into an elderly version of Ash from Evil Dead when poo poo really hits the road. I'm not saying he makes the movie worth watching, but I will say that 9/10 when I got entertainment out of the film, it was due to Bruce. Rating: / 5My May 2023 Movies: 1: Black Friday!
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May 1, 2023 18:47
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Night of the Seagulls - 1975 La noche de las gaviotas Directed by Amando de Ossorio The Blind Dead Collection  The Blind Dead, or another very similar group of undead knights with undead horses, are terrorizing another coastal village. This time, the story borrows from The Shadow Over Innsmouth, except for all of the interbreeding. It's definitely the strongest story since the first movie and seemingly ties up all of the loose ends. 💀💀💀/5 Spooky May Spring Cleaning 6/13 1. Basket Case 2; 2. Basket Case 3: The Progeny; 3. 3 from Hell; 4. Attack of the Blind Dead; 5. The Ghost Galleon; 6. Night of the Seagulls Collections * The Basket Case Trilogy 🧺🧺🧺/🧺🧺🧺 * The Firefly Collection 🤡🤡🤡/🤡🤡🤡 * The Blind Dead Collection ⛪⛪⛪⛪/⛪⛪⛪⛪
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May 1, 2023 19:38
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#1: The Relic 12. History lesson 1990s 13. Geography Lesson North America The Relic is a fun time. It's not a horror comedy, but there is a persistent air of slight goofiness over the whole movie. It's the kind of movie where the museum has a display that's apparently just a bunch of spikes just so a decapitated corpse can be thrown on top of the spikes at one point. Excellent practical effects, some dodgy CGI. It's basically a perfect movie to catch on TV in the afternoon. Doesn't demand your whole attention but there's always something fun happening on screen. If you're tired of emotionally wrenching metaphorical explorations of trauma or whatever, just throw on The Relic while you're making dinner of sorting your laundry. You'll like it. Gripweed fucked around with this message at 02:56 on May 3, 2023 |
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May 1, 2023 20:20
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The Relic is also based on a novel that is excellent airport/beach reading. It was one of my favorite books when I was like 12 and the release of the movie was a BIG deal. Actually the book series is still ongoing, except it's centered on a character that somehow ended up being totally deleted from the movie version. Personally I think the ending of the book was better than the movie, but I can see how it would've been tough to translate to film. What happens is that over the course of the book, they learn things about the creature, and one thing they learn is that it's skull is super think like an elephant's. So they end up killing it because one of the characters is a dead-eye pistol shot, so he lets it charge him and then he puts a shot right in it's eye. The bullet then ricochets inside it's thick skull and kills it.
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May 1, 2023 20:28
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Basebf555 posted:The Relic is also based on a novel that is excellent airport/beach reading. It was one of my favorite books when I was like 12 and the release of the movie was a BIG deal. Actually the book series is still ongoing, except it's centered on a character that somehow ended up being totally deleted from the movie version. They could have pulled it off. The Relic did not seem like the kind of movie that would have been above putting a cartooney x-ray machine in the museum and then have the monster's head coincidentally line up with the x-ray machine just so you could see the bullet bouncing around in there Especially since so much of the movie about investigating mysterious objects that have arrived at the museum, that's a perfect excuse for them to have an x-ray machine!
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May 1, 2023 20:32
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Basebf555 posted:The Relic is also based on a novel that is excellent airport/beach reading. It was one of my favorite books when I was like 12 and the release of the movie was a BIG deal. Actually the book series is still ongoing, except it's centered on a character that somehow ended up being totally deleted from the movie version. Wait are The Relic books still on-going or do you just mean the continued of adventures of Agent Pendergast, Southern-fried albino Mary Sue? Relic and the direct sequel Reliquary loving ruled when I was 11. Preston and Child are generally primo airport fiction, but those were easily the best.
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May 1, 2023 20:52
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Xiahou Dun posted:Wait are The Relic books still on-going or do you just mean the continued of adventures of Agent Pendergast, Southern-fried albino Mary Sue? Yea sorry, not really a Relic series just the Pendergast series. Which I do think had some standouts not including Relic or Reliquary. Still Life With Crows and Cabinet of Curiosities were very good.
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May 1, 2023 21:59
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Basebf555 posted:Yea sorry, not really a Relic series just the Pendergast series. Nah I kind of figured. I have Cabinet and 3-4 other Pendergasts because I grabbed them for planes, but I just did it ad hoc so I totally could’ve missed one. They’re good, I just liked the creature feature aspects the best. Preston has a non-fiction(ish*) about the monster of Florence that also goes down smooth if you’re ever in the mood. *as in stuff really happened, there’s still some sensationalizing
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May 1, 2023 22:20
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Well I sure am glad I was a little generous with my rating of the first Bigfoot movie, because this one I'm watching now is so so much worse. I would've hated to give American Bigfoot a 0 and then had nowhere to go from there.
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May 1, 2023 22:50
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