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A True Jar Jar Fan
Nov 3, 2003

Primadonna

Going with 13 or more and starting with a rewatch of a favorite that I just picked up on blu-ray:


Lair of the White Worm, 1988

An absolute classic, one of the all-time best horror comedies.

Any movie where the first line is YEEHAW while a scientist digs up a monster skull is going to be good, and the very next scene is an electro-folk performance while a worm puppet parties as a means of explaining the mythology to the audience. I love it.

Amanda Donohoe is a campy delight, Sammi Davis is adorable, and young Hugh Grant and Peter Capaldi are great bros. Lady Sylvia Marsh is one of my favorite horror villains and also one of the most fashionable, every outfit is iconic. Probably the highest innuendo-per-line rate of any spooky movie that doesn't have Elvira in it, the dialogue gets better every time!

The trippy nightmare scenes are infamous but there's a lot of quieter humor too, from the casual banter to the numerous white worm-like objects that pop up (white garden hoses, vacuum cleaners, etc.) The worm puppet itself is always funny!

A brave young archeologist attacks the home of a vampire snake queen armed with bagpipes in one hand and a mongoose in the other. What other movie would possibly feature a bagpipes vs. Snake Vampires battle?

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A True Jar Jar Fan
Nov 3, 2003

Primadonna

VROOM VROOM posted:

e: gonna go ahead and list some of my unseens here for my own notes and so everyone can see my shame
Psycho
The Exorcist
The Blair Witch Project
Paranormal Activity (any)
really anything before, say, 1964
The Silence of the Lambs
Rosemary's Baby
Carrie
Re-Animator

Perfect opportunity to watch a whole bunch of Universal Monsters classics

A True Jar Jar Fan
Nov 3, 2003

Primadonna

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.

A True Jar Jar Fan
Nov 3, 2003

Primadonna

Highly recommend Jigoku for the Holy Terror challenge if you haven't seen it!!

I apologize in advance for anyone who gets upset by this review.

Evil Dead 2013 - Challenge: Horror High



The 2013 take on Evil Dead sure is gross.

I appreciate that this isn't just a straight up remake, the setting is basically the same but the characters and their reason for coming out to a remote, decrepit house is very different. Mia and David, a pair of siblings mourning their mother's death, visit an old family cabin to help Mia get sober, along with a pack of bitter friends. The rotting family home gives the film a good gothic vibe and makes the house itself feel personally antagonistic.

Right off the bat we get into withdrawal as a form of possession in its own way. Jane Levy's performance as Mia is solid; this kind of concept could very easily derail with a weaker actor but she really sells it. I get why it's there and yeah no one is actually going to be surprised that demons are real in an Evil Dead movie but the opening scene kind of gives it all away in a way that felt cheap to me. The question of what's real and what's not is answered immediately.

I'm aware of how elderly this makes me sound but some of the violence here is just too much for me. And funny enough, the same was said about the original film back when it came out, and that one never bothered me! This is an extremely well-paced film, excellent effects work, and I absolutely appreciate the craft behind it (and the insane ending) but it's really not my kind of movie in the end.

A True Jar Jar Fan fucked around with this message at 04:37 on May 2, 2023

A True Jar Jar Fan
Nov 3, 2003

Primadonna

That's a great write up (and great screen cap of Norman's eyes) and I'd like to add that the sequels to Psycho (that I didn't even know existed until this year) are surprisingly good too, each in their own ways, even if it's hard to top the original.

A True Jar Jar Fan
Nov 3, 2003

Primadonna

The cryptid challenge got me to cross off one that's been on my list for a while!

The Abominable Snowman (1957) - Challenge #2 - Tales From the Cryptids



"A snowed-in group slowly loses their minds" is a classic setup that always works for me, and this one has psychic yeti-induced trauma on top of that!

An early Hammer Horror where Peter Cushing plays a scientist who leads an expedition to find the yeti. He's the gentle foil to Forrest Tucker's profit-driven hunter, a brash American on board to make some cash.

Less of a monster movie than I expected, focused more on paranoia, cultural exploitation (with some truly awful American and British guys insulting their Tibetan hosts at every turn), and the pursuit of knowledge vs. profit. The main danger is elemental, in desolate mountains, and the loneliness and fear that comes with it.

There isn't a ton of yeti action here but I like how they're handled! Seeing a living yeti has a transformative effect; those who experience it can then feel a traumatic, psychological drive when they're near. They're depicted less as Bigfeet and more a kind of elevated being, spiritual and not actively hostile but rather something that's just beyond our understanding. How much of what happens is actually real is left to interpretation.

The first half drags, but once we get into the depths of Snow Madness this is a really solid one. Cushing is always great, though this is a more subdued role than he usually plays.

A True Jar Jar Fan
Nov 3, 2003

Primadonna

Class3KillStorm posted:

How did you find this one? The premise looks interesting, and I'll never say no to a Peter Cushing performance, but it doesn't look like it's available anywhere for streaming in the US.
It's streaming free on a Tubi-like network called Fawsome, not the best way to watch it (it has more commercials than Tubi) but it's currently the only way other than buying a disc.

A True Jar Jar Fan
Nov 3, 2003

Primadonna

Return of Daimajin (1966) - Challenge #3 - Holy Terror



The second of three Daimajin films released in '66, this one follows a lot of the same beats with a new cast: An oppressive regime conquers an isolated community who turn to the Old Gods for salvation.

There's no continuity so you can watch these in any order. It's a fun concept as a production: Take three different directors, give them access to a lot of the same crew, and see how each interprets the story. This one replaces the first film's emphasis on dirt and stone with water and wind.

As in the first film, the heroes are purely good and the villains are cackling evil do-ers. There's a heavy focus on the faith of the innocent characters, a combination of Buddhist ritual and belief and a worship of an older elemental god, trapped in a statue until his strength is needed.

It's a period-piece kaiju film in feudal Japan with a giant stone golem that gets pissed off and stomps the hell out of the unjust, of course I'm on board! The monster action is heavily back loaded again, but the swords and warlords stuff leading up to it is more exciting than it was in the first film. This installment also features Daimajin parting the seas like a hundred foot tall vengeful Moses to stop a crucifixion so the religious imagery is kind of all over the place! His rampage doesn't come until late in the film but when it does it rules. The big guy loves his poetic kills.

Each of these films is scored by Akira Ifukube, best known for his Godzilla scores, and the music gives the film a sense of horror and incoming disaster even in its smaller scenes. It's not always used appropriately but it always sounds good!

A True Jar Jar Fan
Nov 3, 2003

Primadonna

STAC Goat posted:

I really just don't get it. Like at all. I also thought it looked kind of ugly which is weird since everyone loves its look. I dunno. I don't get it. Completely. Don't get it at all.
Me, every time I watch a Ben Wheatley film

A True Jar Jar Fan
Nov 3, 2003

Primadonna

Suddenly in the Dark - 1981, Korea - Challenge #10 - Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things (Could also count for #7)



This was the best older, new to me movie I've watched in a long time!

Mi-ok, a mysterious young girl with a spooky doll, is taken in to be a live-in maid for the family of a wealthy butterfly researcher. We follow Seon-hee, a lonely woman in a large house worrying about her husband's potential for infidelity while trying to set aside her own attraction to/fear of Mi-ok.

Sexual shame, inescapable guilt, and constant anxiety: Seon-hee is on the verge of a breakdown and refuses help, spiraling deeper into paranoia and further isolating herself from her husband and daughter. Her obsession with Mi-ok eventually shifts to an obsession with her weird doll. Is it haunted? What does haunted even mean?

There's some fun use of color lighting and weird cameras that, along with the score and witchiness, gave me Suspiria vibes. This movie is all Seon-hee's perspective, and when she gets disoriented, so do we. When she leers and then feels awful about taking a peek, that comes back on the audience too. One of those psychological horrors that's going to feel very different from person to person, but if you're like me and every moment is driven by guilt and anxiety this one will get under your skin!

Bonus points for a good grocery store scene, always appreciate grocery moments in horror movies.

A True Jar Jar Fan
Nov 3, 2003

Primadonna

Poison for the Fairies - 1986, Mexico - No challenge, but this would be eligible for Children Shouldn't Play... if I hadn't already used that one



A coming of age story with a witchcraft backdrop. 12 year old Flavia (Elsa Maria Gutierrez) moves to a new school and befriends the narcissistic Veronica (Ana Patricia Rojo), a lonely girl obsessed with witch stories. She draws Flavia into her world with lies and manipulation and things quickly get out of hand. My first film by Mexican director Carlos Enrique Taboada and I'll definitely check out his others!

The two girls make up most of the film's on-screen cast. The adults we see are, with very few exceptions, obscured or just out of view. It lends the film a dreamlike atmosphere, along with the natural blurriness of childhood memory where the most awful moments burn into your brain the strongest. Thankfully, both actresses are excellent!

It's VERY RELATABLE watching a friendship build between two kids with one of them lying about absolutely everything. Rather than witchcraft, one of my earliest friends tried his best to convince me he was an alien and threw the worst fits when I'd argue. I always got in trouble. That same friend also blackmailed me and conned me out of some of my favorite toys when we were 10 so drat do I feel for Flavia here!

Childhood itself as a fairytale/horror story is always an effective setting for me, this one reminds me a lot of Ann Turner's excellent 1989 film Celia. Outside of the first and the final moments of the film, this one's light on horror, with witchcraft standing in for any kind of topic a bully might take interest in. It's almost a PG movie aside from those two shocking scenes, but as a parent I still felt a sense of dread throughout.

A True Jar Jar Fan
Nov 3, 2003

Primadonna

Bloody Muscle Body Builder in Hell - Japan, 1995, completing challenge 12 - History Lesson



A journalist, a psychic, and a muscleman explore a haunted house. This is an Evil Dead tribute (Shinichi Fukazawa looks a lot like Bruce Campbell's Ash in the opening scene and by the end he's quoting his Evil Dead lines) mixed with Japanese haunting iconography. I would personally love to see more American films remade like this, infused with a different sensibility even when it wears its influences on its sleeve.

The grainy VHS aesthetic here will make this one more appealing to some viewers; for me, it's a look I can't stand, I'm sorry! I watched an absolute ton of grainy horror on tapes and even back then it was difficult. Of course here it's an economical choice, the film was made by a tiny crew with Fukazawa writing, directing, editing, and playing multiple roles. I can't hold the quality against it, just saying that for some, it will add an additional layer of appeal.

The homemade special effects, on the other hand, are absolutely charming, and I love that our idiot hero's power comes from his ability to punch, lift, and swing incredibly hard! It's gross, dumb, and a lot of fun. The big difference between Ash and Shinji is that Shinji can flex so hard it sends a ghost-zombie flying. Where Ash had a chainsaw, all Shinji needs are weights.

Note: The version I watched on Shudder had weirdly mistimed subtitles; I tried a couple different devices and the text was displaying a good couple of seconds before any spoken dialogue in the second half of the film. I switched to Tubi and that version was fine.

A True Jar Jar Fan
Nov 3, 2003

Primadonna

Next of Kin - 1982, Australia



There are a ton of movies with this title! This one's the 1982 Australian horror film. I'd heard it called an Australian take on The Shining and hey I was all-in on the Canadian Shining, Ghostkeeper, so I had to check this out!

Turns out they're not much alike besides a few superficial similarities (funny enough, I thought it had more in common with the early sections of Doctor Sleep, so there is still a King vibe.) It's not a film about isolation or giving into your worst impulses or watching a loved one change, it's a sleepless, anxious story about how you can never really go home again, dread coming from realizing that you never really knew the people you grew up with. So no, I wouldn't call it an Australian Shining but that's fine: It's still good!

One of those films set in a small community where you can't trust anyone. Julia inherits her mother's rural estate, a giant mansion that's been converted into a retirement home. A soft synth score, a rotting mansion introduced in the middle of a thunderstorm, a dark family history coming to light: 100% my style.

Great use of sound and camera work to really get you inside a panic attack! Linda slowly getting more miserable and paranoid with each night with no sleep? I've been there. I loved that we get to see the techniques she used to calm down, too; Linda finds calm in balancing objects, whether it be a house of cards, a pair of forks, or a giant sugar cube structure. She's also remarkably capable of defending herself.

This one takes a wild turn in the last act that's way more 70s giallo than anything else and drat does Linda have some good moves to protect herself, got to give props to any horror movie where a lady smashes a chair on a villain's back. I also dug the subtle humor; yeah I'm going to laugh at a FIRE DANGER HIGH sign in the background following a gigantic explosion.

A True Jar Jar Fan
Nov 3, 2003

Primadonna

History of the Occult - Argentina, 2020 - Finishes up Challenge 13, Geography Lesson



When I first heard about this one I assumed was a documentary, whoops! It's actually an Argentinian horror film about witchcraft and conspiracy centered on the final broadcast of a national news program. OR IS IT?

A popular news program in 1980's Argentina prepares to air its final broadcast, the conclusion of a year long investigation into a murder, disappearance, and coverup connected to the president. Everything plays out in real time, with our perspective split between the TV program and the drama and paranoia behind the scenes.

A very convincing portrayal of a late night news/talk show from another era, one that's both familiar and hard to place. Simulates the feeling of listening to a ghost story late at night when you're half asleep. There's dread here, but it's a sleepy, detached sort of dread where you're not quite sure if you should be feeling anything or not. I dig it. I'm always into playing with aspect ratios too! There are some very fun visual tricks at play here. I also loved the subtle way the temperature displayed on screen during the program continued to rise in a way it really shouldn't, without anyone calling attention to it.

I'll have to watch this one a second time because there's a lot to dig into. Time and space get weird for both us and the crew; at times I swore this was a lost 90s indie film from its direction, contrast, and composition, even if I know it's actually from 2020. Capitalism and politics as a cult is certainly the most relatable topic at hand, but there's a whole lot more going on and I almost want to call this a sci-fi film rather than horror.

The ending packs a punch and I'd love to see the story continued in a parallel, separate way ala Resolution/The Endless.

A True Jar Jar Fan fucked around with this message at 05:12 on May 18, 2023

A True Jar Jar Fan
Nov 3, 2003

Primadonna

Blacker Than the Night - 1975, Mexico



A very straightforward ghost story that's two parts style, one part sleaze.

The mysterious, world-traveling Susana dies and leaves her giant estate to her last living relative on one condition: Take good care of her cat. Her niece, Ofelia, moves in right away along with her posse of fashionable friends. The cat dies shortly after and a haunting begins.

The costumes and hairdos are gorgeous and while it's not stated I'm pretty sure this group of four women are actually two couples, even with an awkward ex-husband hanging around and a chemistry-free boyfriend. Ofelia meets one of them for the first time after coming home from a trip and seeing her naked in her bed while her roommate showers, it seems a little bit more than "she needs a place to crash!" Sofia, a servant who has lived in this mansion for decades, was also very clearly in love with the departed Susana. Just two nice old ladies living with a cute cat for years until the hardship of old age started catching up with them.

I hate that these ladies suck so horribly at taking care of pets, but otherwise I love that Ofelia's reaction to inheriting a mansion isn't worry or anxiety or even sorrow, she just immediately goes "hell yeah I'm moving in and taking all of my hot friends with me, plus that girl I just met."

The lush costuming, colorful mansion, and classical horror storytelling really gives this a Hammer vibe with the occasional splash of giallo in the second half. This is my second Carlos Enrique Taboada film and I absolutely love his style; this isn't a film that tries to break new ground, but one that embraces long-standing traditions and does so exceptionally well.

A True Jar Jar Fan
Nov 3, 2003

Primadonna

Xiahou Dun posted:

Even though it's well executed, it didn't really have much staying power with me.

I feel like this after every Alex Garland movie, I wish I liked them more than I do.

A True Jar Jar Fan
Nov 3, 2003

Primadonna

The City of the Dead - 1960, UK - Challenge #9 - Challenge of the Dead



It's always funny seeing modern New England portrayed as this secretive place that's just barely out of colonial days. The whole region is just lost in a giant, woodsy mist like it's Silent Hill. Once we get to the town of Whitewood, it's actually appropriate at least!

Christopher Lee plays a professor of witchcraft studies at an unnamed university. I love listening to Lee lecture, jealous of all his students here! He sends his brightest student, Nan (a charming, adorable Venetia Stevenson,) to the town of Whitewood to learn more than she bargained for.

Released the same month and year as Psycho, this film has a very similar protagonist swap midway through. Unfortunately the secondary leads here are a lot less interesting and switching our attention to them kind of sabotages the film's momentum. It's still a fun ride, but the first half is definitely stronger than the second.

A very nicely shot film but the story doesn't do a whole lot to differentiate itself from other witch stories of the time. The tone is bizarre, showing pity for women accused of witchcraft and then shortly later jumping to "well on the other hand they were actually incredibly evil." Still, I'm always interested in films where God and Satan are absolutely real, but God remains the weaker of the two.

A True Jar Jar Fan fucked around with this message at 04:23 on May 22, 2023

A True Jar Jar Fan
Nov 3, 2003

Primadonna

The Other Side of the Underneath - 1972, UK - Challenge # 7 - Woke in Fright



A series of terrifying vignettes set within a failed group home for schizophrenic women. Emotional, sexual, religious shame, otherworldly and immediately familiar.

The sound design is such an absolute sensory assault, I can't even imagine how powerful it would be in a theater! Lots of cool visuals using projection upon projection as part of the picture. A film that feels way ahead of its time in multiple ways.

Surrealism punctuated by the occasional shard of sharp reality that just serves to make the nightmare that much worse. There's a ton of Christian imagery among the nightmares, hopeful, redemptive symbols immediately attached to suffering and societal failure. Surprisingly, the ending isn't crushing; outcast women find a common connection by reaching outside of the culture they've been placed in, into something elemental.

One of those "watch this one a dozen times and find something different each time" films. The abject horror and disorientation I felt was still grounded within recognizable issues of shame, health care and the treatment women receive, every moment is purposeful even when it's beyond me.

Relentless surrealism doesn't often connect with me (I'm sorry I can't find anything in Inland Empire, I've really tried) but this one absolutely got into me. There were a couple bits that lost me, but the rest is so strong that it all works out.

A True Jar Jar Fan
Nov 3, 2003

Primadonna

This is my 13th movie but I've still got a few outstanding challenges to get to

Black Sunday - 1960, Italy - Challenge #11 It's-a Me



The only Mario Bava film I'd seen was Planet of the Vampires, seems like a good idea to check out some of the more well-known ones!

Musty, cobweb drenched tombs. Thunder storms in foggy forests. A man attacked by a giant plush bat on visible wires. Absolutely my kind of vibe! More gruesome here but the mood and presentation feels very reminiscent of Universal's early horror films.

A loose adaptation of Gogol's Viy with a lot more Dracula to it than the Ershov/Kropachyov version from 1967. A pair of witches wake up two hundred years after their death and seek revenge. Barbara Steele is great in her double role as Princess Katia and Witch Asa, I can see why this made her a star! One of the male leads, Andrej, is a very boring character and John Richardson really can't compete with Steele's charisma, unfortunately.

I just love how shadowy and elemental everything is; fog and wind and rain everywhere. The story is straightforward but it's told with a ton of style. The score is a weak point; it's at times overwhelming and never particularly interesting. Could have used more silence.

A True Jar Jar Fan fucked around with this message at 05:38 on May 25, 2023

A True Jar Jar Fan
Nov 3, 2003

Primadonna

Nosferatu - 1922, Germany - Challenge 5 - Shooting Zombies



I had seen plenty of clips of the original Nosferatu but never the actual movie straight through. For my first viewing, I went with a 2006 restoration and came away impressed!

I generally have a hard time with silent film, but I loved how ludicrously exaggerated everyone is here. Everyone's so wide-eyed and reacts so strongly to everything, it's a very staged production but I actually really like that and wish more modern films would have their actors go this big. 

A very abridged version of Stoker's Dracula, I appreciated that Nosferatu kept the concept of delivering much of its story through letters and journals. Characters get switched around a little as expected, but the biggest change is the Count himself.

Count Orlock is so grotesque, 100 years later his character design and mannerisms are still chilling. There's no gentleman monster angle here; unlike most Dracula adaptations, Count Orlock is plague itself. He's almost alien, with a rat-like design tying him to the other plague bearers around him. Just a great performance all around!

Also important to note is that Orlock has a phenomenal clock with a skeleton topper in his castle. I would buy that in a heartbeat.

A True Jar Jar Fan
Nov 3, 2003

Primadonna

Rewilding - 2023, UK - Challenge # 4 - Fresh Hell



A three-part British folk horror anthology by writer/director Ric Rawlins. I personally prefer anthologies with a single director, it makes the whole thing feel more cohesive.

Stone Mothers - A priest asks an old archeologist to look into a spooky cave, locals start to get upset. The two angles here (digging where you shouldn't dig and townie paranoia) are both fine but at such a short length I'd have preferred to focus on just one.

The Family Tree - A writer takes a trip out at the country to learn about a spooky tree and uncovers its connection to a mysterious death hundreds of years earlier. One really good unnerving shot! The final piece could have used more intensity.

The Writer's Enquiry - A journalist is going around a small town collecting ghost stories for the Big City Paper. This one has a great ending, the best piece of horror across all three shorts! The strongest act of the film for sure, with the best pacing and delivery.

A very light, mostly pleasant set of stories. There's a couple bits of distracting acting and some weirdly oversaturated color in a few shots, but the whole thing is comfortably low-key. The landscapes are pretty and the film is very genuine. At just an hour long, this is a very easy watch, but don't go in expecting anything too dark.

A True Jar Jar Fan
Nov 3, 2003

Primadonna

Agreed on Men and for me it suffered coming out at the same time as Watcher and Resurrection, both of which did a way more effective job at following an isolated woman menaced by a male world. I wish Garland had gone deeper with the Green Man myth stuff; I liked the atmosphere but it didn't feel magical enough to fully work, if that makes sense.

A True Jar Jar Fan
Nov 3, 2003

Primadonna

Perfect Blue - 1997, Japan - Challenge # 6 - Drawn and Quartered



A pop star leaves the music circuit behind to become an actress and her world begins to spiral out of control; there are some old standards here that fit within expectations of the psychological thriller genre, but it all comes together with a masterful blend of horror both surreal and ordinary.

One of those movies where a film within the film starts to influence and reflect reality, I'm always into that. The constant doubling, the blurred lines of dream, waking, and fiction, the menace mixed with melodrama; it all feels very Twin Peaks, and then in the other direction Mulholland Drive in 2001 feels like it owes a lot to this film. There's a lot of Hitchcock here too in the way we're introduced to some of the film's mysteries, it's great!

The jumps and match cuts are so good, the score is fantastic, and as a horror film it's absolutely haunting. Just spectacular filmmaking in every way!

It's always fun watching a 90s film where "what the heck's the internet?" is a plot point. The Internet horror here feels way ahead of its time; fan obsession quickly turning toxic, the obliteration of privacy, the casual objectification of women. Between this and Lain the following year, there's some really depressing prophetic imagery here.

A True Jar Jar Fan
Nov 3, 2003

Primadonna

I finished the last of my challenges with this one! I'm going to see if I can fit in anything else in the next couple days before posting a summary.

The Blackcoat's Daughter - 2015, US - Challenge # 8 - Second Chance



I saw this one when it was released and didn't like it at all but so many people I respect hold it in high esteem that I wanted to give it a second chance. Turns out that was a good idea!

Two girls at boarding school are left behind during winter break and spooky stuff starts happening. Meanwhile in another place, a hitchhiker slowly makes her way to the school.

I love snowed-in settings and folksy horror but a twist in the third really made me frown last time! I thought it was unearned and didn't work at all on a visual level the first time around.

This whole story works a lot better knowing all the twists; motivations felt baffling the first time around but make more sense now. Honestly the film would be better if there was less mystery about what happened, and more about how it gets there. The structure is just odd, though the atmosphere is great throughout.

There's a lot here about feeling distant from your parents and it's a film full of family; directed by Oz Perkins, son of Anthony Perkins, with an excellent score by his brother Elvis Perkins. It's a bummer that this is the only film Elvis Perkins has scored, it really is a fantastic, eerie soundtrack.

A very different film from Psycho, but it is kind of cool seeing Anthony Perkins' son make his debut with a film that plays with expectations of structure and who's actually the lead character. The whole film is more effective to me now as a parent than it was when I first saw it; the idea of something being really wrong with a kid and absolutely no one knowing quite how to deal with it. That's much scarier than demons!

Maybe a weird thought but honestly I think it would have been better if this was two films, released years apart, Psycho/Psycho II style. Or maybe X/Pearl style, simultaneously filmed? You actually could edit these parts into a film and its sequel very easily!

I know I know, franchise film making is especially gruesome right now in 2023, but I kind of want to see The Further Adventures of Emma Roberts a decade later. More than any other genre horror lends itself to sequels, why not?

Anyway, yeah, this was a lot better than I remembered. Religious and sexual shame (both straight and gay!), the simultaneous fear of rejection and desire to reject family, finding family where you can (even if it's with a demon!), there's a lot of great stuff here.

A True Jar Jar Fan
Nov 3, 2003

Primadonna

SUMMARY POST - Title, Challenge (if applicable), decade, county.

I liked everything I watched! Two rewatches (one for the Second Chance challenge), 15 new to me watches. I finished all the challenges. I think my count was higher last time but I ended up having less time than expected this year.

Of my new watches, my favorites were Suddenly in the Dark, Perfect Blue, and History of the Occult.

Sorry for the sloppy formatting!!

Nosferatu Shooting Zombies 1920s, Germany

The Abominable Snowman Tales From the Cryptids 1950s, UK

Black Sunday It's A Me 1960s, Italy

City of the Dead Of the Dead 1960s, UK

Return of Daimajin Holy Terror 1960s, Japan

Blacker Than the Night 1970s, Mexico

The Other Side of the Underneath Woke in Fright 1970s, UK

Lair of the White Worm (Rewatch) 1980s, UK

Next of Kin 1980s, Australia

Poison for the Fairies 1980s, Mexico

Suddenly in the Dark Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things 1980s, Korea

Bloody Muscle Body Builder in Hell 1990s, Japan

Perfect Blue Drawn and Quartered 1990s, Japan

Evil Dead 2013 Horror High 2010s, US

The Blackcoat's Daughter (Rewatch) Second Chance 2010s, US

History of the Occult 2020s, Argentina

Rewilding Fresh Hell 2020s UK

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A True Jar Jar Fan
Nov 3, 2003

Primadonna

Basebf555 posted:

First, I like the idea you had of giving people a subset of challenges that can be applied to other challenges, i.e. you can watch one film and it can apply to multiple challenges. So I think it would be good to continue that.

I liked this a lot too and I always like decade specific challenges to get people out of their comfort zone.

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