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Excited to start this tonight! Probably going to watch one of the Corman/Price Poe movies I haven't seen yet to get things started. I'll be shooting for 20 this year.
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Sep 29, 2023 16:49
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1. The Pit and the Pendulum A man shows up to a spooky castle to investigate the mysterious death of his sister and finds much more than he bargained for. This is one of Roger Corman's Poe films and is pretty good. Corman made the most out of every set he had while making these and it's fun to see the same sets and props keep showing up in these movies. The castle set and various matte paintings are great, especially during the finale. It goes without saying but Vincent Price is excellent. His role in this is one that plays to all of his strengths, showing his ability to play both morose and gleefully maniacal. He carries the movie and fortunately he has a lot of screentime. It's a little slow in the middle, but the third act more than makes up for it with a strong finale. Not the best of the Poe Cycle that I've seen, but still pretty good.  Bonus Challenge: Picnic At Hanging Rock
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Sep 30, 2023 03:53
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2. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1982) This is a professional recording of a performance of the Sondheim musical about a murderous barber and the meat pie shop owner who helps him with body disposal. It's a classic for a reason and this is a lot of fun while also being well-filmed and edited. George Hearn is fun to watch as Todd, displaying wild mood swings and an overall gloomy demeanor while still belting out the songs but Angela Lansbury as Mrs. Lovett is the real reason to watch this. She steals every scene she's in and bounces around the stage and adds a ton of life to the entire production. The music itself is good and the recurring "Ballad of Sweeney Todd" is welcome every time it reprises. It's very well paced and the two and half hour runtime flew by. Bonus Challenge: Horror-Adjacent This plus my last movie also satisfies one of the New To You squares!
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Oct 1, 2023 04:56
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gey muckle mowser posted:That sounds rad, I was considering checking them out already but now I’ll bump them up the reading list. I'd recommend giving the 1985 movie a shot as well. It's a messier movie than Bloodlust in that it was made on a cheaper budget and the pacing is a little weird but at the same time there's just something about the style that is super cool.
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Oct 1, 2023 19:53
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3. Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter This is a neat action/adventure movie by way of Hammer vampire horror. When young women in a remote English village start turning up drained of their youth, the mysterious and brooding Captain Kronos and his professor friend are called in to investigate. The professor is the vampire expert, displaying a knowledge of all sorts of vampires beyond just the blood drinking types and employs different folk story methods of identifying them in some of the more memorable moments of the movie. Kronos on the other hand is a prototypical mysterious swordsman with a dark past who spends most of his time brooding and sleeping with women who can't help but throw themselves at him. He fits the mold so well that I was actually a little surprised to see it in a 1974 Hammer production. He even has a katana and does the "unsheathe really fast and kill his opponent before they know they've been hit" move! That being said the movie doesn't quite manage to hold all of these different elements together. It's a little repetitive up until the third act and unfortunately the guy playing Kronos just isn't quite charismatic enough to pull off the character. The approach to vampires, that being that every type of vampire in folklore is real, is cool idea that was obviously meant to be a hook for future movies. It's a shame that Hammer started going under shortly after this and there weren't any sequels as it strikes me as the kind of movie that would have likely found it's footing with another go at it. Even so it's a pretty entertaining pulp adventure horror and has a decent sword fight at the end and I still recommend it.
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Oct 2, 2023 21:32
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4. The Pope's Exorcist This was stupid but it was stupid in the way that I like. Russell Crowe is having a good time marching (and scootering) around in his outrageous accent and he carries the first 2/3 of the movie, which is the portion of the movie that is unfortunately bogged down by a pretty standard exorcist movie plot. The last act of the movie picked up quite a bit and I enjoyed the finale, but it was the only part of the movie that felt like it fully matched Crowe's weird energy. Hopefully the planned sequel will lean into the more overt wackiness of the finale for more of the runtime. It's a solid movie and I'd recommend it if you are looking for something lighter to watch. Bonus Challenge: The Exorcist at 50 This and Captain Kronos also fill out another new to me space on the bingo card!
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Oct 4, 2023 04:50
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5. Frankenstein (1931) It's crazy that this came out the same year as Dracula because this feels several years apart from it in terms of pacing, editing, and cinematography. For some reason I've only ever seen Bride and not the original and I'm glad I've finally gotten around to it. Karloff brings so much to the creature through just his movements that it remains impressive even to this day. Colin Clive is also an all time great mad scientist during the first portion of the movie when he gets to be really manic. A great, atmospheric movie that led to an even better sequel. It's well deserving of its status. Bonus Challenge: HIFE (LGBTQ+)Also with this that's 5 movies each from different decades, completing the History Lesson challenge as well!
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Oct 5, 2023 21:03
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The Hausu Usher posted:
I had no idea this existed and I'll have to add it to my watch list. I watched the 1970 Count Dracula and it was unfortunately a huge waste of a great cast and pretty dull. This sounds much more interesting than the movie itself!
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Oct 6, 2023 00:11
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6. Captain Clegg (aka Night Creatures) This is very light on the horror elements (though they are there) and is more of an adventure movie, but it's still pretty good. A group of soldiers in 1792 arrive at a coastal village to investigate a smuggling operation being run by the local vicar (Peter Cushing). Surrounding this are stories of ghostly riders haunting the nearby marshes. Cushing is great and he gets a lot to work with. His character is much more wily than other roles I've seen him play and it's a lot of fun to watch him outwit the soldiers as they investigate his operation. He switches between "kindly vicar" and "commanding crime boss" with ease. The "marsh ghosts" have a great design and the biggest downside of the movie is that they weren't better integrated into the film, showing up only twice. Once again this is only barely a horror movie but it's still pretty entertaining and worth a watch. Bonus Challenge: Box ArtAlso this completes all six new to me! Edit: I hadn't noticed until after I posted but that's a  BINGO!
Flying Zamboni fucked around with this message at 00:15 on Oct 7, 2023 |
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Oct 7, 2023 00:06
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7. The Seventh Curse The second best Action Doctor in the world is afflicted by a horrible curse and must travel to Thailand to fight the cult of the worm god to reverse it along with the help of his mentor, the best Action Doctor in the world. This is an incredibly fun and gory Hong Kong action horror hybrid. The plot moves at a breakneck speed and seems to have been written to make sure that no more than five minutes ever pass before it's time for the next bizarre set piece. This is in no way a complaint and the movie is a blast. There is an all-time great living skeleton, a cool little puppet monster, and lots of action. Strong recommend. 
Flying Zamboni fucked around with this message at 12:16 on Oct 9, 2023 |
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Oct 9, 2023 12:13
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8. Deadstream This was a very fun movie about a disgraced live streamer spending the night at a haunted house. Things go about as well for him as you'd expect. Most of the humor landed for me on this and I thought that Shawn was a pretty good central character. You don't feel bad for him at all and he's believable as an annoying streamer/influencer guy. The stream chat was well utilized and I liked the video responses people kept sending him with advice. The ghosts themselves were very cool and very Deadite-esque which I always appreciate. At 90 minutes it doesn't overstay it's welcome and is a good time.
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Oct 10, 2023 19:44
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9. Dracula (1979) This is a second adaptation by Universal of the 1924 stage adaptation of the original novel. At times it also feels like an attempt at remaking some bits of the first adaptation of the stage play, the 1931 film with Lugosi. To start with this looks great, with some good sets and a moody gothic atmosphere throughout. The version available on streaming is a recolour done by the director and differs from the theatrical. I haven't seen the original version but I liked the coloration here, with many of the scenes at night or in Carfax Abbey having a much more washed out look to the point of being near black and white. Langella is also great as this version of Dracula, the character here at perhaps his most seductive. He spends a lot more time in this version of the story pretending to be a charming nobleman and Langella pulls that off very well while still giving off an air of danger. The biggest problem is his extremely 70's hair that is at times very distracting. The finale fell a little flat for me even if the ultimate method of killing Dracula was cool. It's not great but it is a very solid Dracula movie.
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Oct 12, 2023 04:30
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M_Sinistrari posted:
If you haven't seen it already I'd recommend Taste of Fear (aka Scream of Fear). It's another early Hammer thriller that's very good.
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Oct 12, 2023 16:16
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10. Nothing but the Night Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing investigate a string of murders of wealthy trustees and discover a connection to a girl and her estranged mother. I don't want to say too much about the plot of this movie beyond the setup because this has an incredibly strong ending and I don't want to spoil it at all. The big problem is that the movie isn't too interesting for the first sixty minutes of its runtime. It's not bad, but it could definitely lose about 20 minutes of its runtime and be stronger for it. That being said I still recommend seeing this for the great ending.
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Oct 13, 2023 20:49
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11. Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter I figured a Friday the 13th in October was as good of an excuse as any to finally get around to watching a Friday the 13th movie for the first time and I'm glad I chose this one! It's a movie that knows what it wants to be and executes it well. Jason stomps around a couple of cabins and kills a lot of people for the crime of being in his line of sight. It's exactly what I was expecting and that's in no way a bad thing! I've always heard that the series doesn't quite feel like itself until at least part 3 and it seems like it found its footing in this entry. At one point Crispin Glover said "God I'm horny" and then there was a smash cut to a graveyard, so the movie definitely had a solid grasp on what this series was about at this point. Speaking of, Crispin Glover is a big highlight and he was present for much more of the runtime than I was expecting. It's good to see that he was a professional weirdo even this early on in his career. As someone who has never seen any other F13 movies, I'd recommend this one for sure. It even starts with a helpful recap of the previous films so that you know all the important details going in. Bonus Challenge:FREDDY VS. JASON 20TH ANNIVERSERY CHALLENGE
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Oct 14, 2023 04:05
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12. The Bride of Frankenstein This was a rewatch but it's been at least a decade since I last saw it so I felt like I was overdue. Still a great movie with fantastic performances, cinematography, and editing. Pretorius is an iconic villain and seeing Karloff develop the character of the creature is a lot of fun. Still one of the best sequels ever made.
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Oct 16, 2023 03:57
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13. Sweet Home A small documentary film team visits an abandoned mansion to search for an artist's last murals only to discover that the mansion is now home to a mysterious evil force. This was a Japanese film directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa and produced in conjunction with an interesting Famicom horror RPG of the same name. Famously an attempted remake of the game would be abandoned and instead turn into the first Resident Evil game. The movie is a good haunted house story that takes some necessary time to establish its characters before going all out with the haunting, but once things get moving it's pretty exciting. There are some very gnarly effects and an incredible puppet show off during the finale. The mansion set is appropriately spooky and there are some excellent uses of shadow to provide scares. A decent quality subtitled version of this is available on YouTube and to my knowledge is the only way to see this in English. I'd recommend seeking it out if you are in the mood for a good ghost story.
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Oct 17, 2023 17:22
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14. Carnival of Souls A woman miraculously survives a car crash and then faces a series of bizarre occurrences while trying to start a new job in a new city. I liked this a lot! There is a fantastic atmosphere of dread and loneliness even in scenes where Mary is surrounded by other people. She is an isolated person going through a bizarre experience most people don't want to even bother trying to help her with and every frame of the movie reinforces Mary's increasing loneliness and distance from those around her. Overall this is an eerie movie that mixes aspects of supernatural and psychological horror very well and is a strong recommendation from me.
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Oct 19, 2023 18:36
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15. Magic A deeply unwell magician manifests the darkest parts of himself through his ventriloquist dummy. Despite what you might think from the poster this isn't a "killer doll" movie but instead a psychological horror about a man with a severe psychosis. The whole cast in this is great and I'm surprised this hasn't ever seemed to have gotten out of the cult classic realm of recognition into something that's more widely known, especially after Anthony Hopkins made it big. Hopkins is fantastic as both Corky and Fats and I liked that he didn't play Corky on his own as particularly "normal." He's on a bit of a hair trigger even when Fats isn't around and it's easy to see that there's something off about him. The plot takes a little time to get going but I found it engaging even with a slower start. This is a strong recommend.
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Oct 20, 2023 15:14
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16. From Beyond This movie hits the ground running and doesn't stop until it's over. There's goop and monsters and weird BDSM diversions with a fantastic cast. I can see why this is considered such a classic, to the point that I'm not sure there's much I can add that hasn't been said countless times. Great movie.
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Oct 21, 2023 03:42
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17. The Evil of Frankenstein This is one of the few Hammer Frankenstein's I hadn't seen yet and it's definitely the weakest of the series from what I've seen. That being said it's still not bad. Cushing is still great in the role and the first half of the movie is interesting with Frankenstein trying and failing to lay low when he returns to the town from the first movie. Cushing gets a few scenes where he just gets to yell at people and it's very entertaining. The biggest issue is that this has to be one of the worst looking Frankenstein's Monsters ever put to film. Universal helped Hammer finance this and therefore allowed them to model the monster after the one in the Universal series but they did an awful job of it and it looks really slapdash. The plot is also unfortunately a pretty generic Frankenstein story with the hypnotism elements not adding much. The other entries in the series do more to add interesting spins on the story but this one falls pretty flat. Despite all of that it is still entertaining enough, just not as good as the other films in the series.
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Oct 23, 2023 12:33
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18. Horror Express This was a spur of the moment rewatch and it continues to be one of my favorite horror movies. The pacing, sets, cast, and story are all well executed and engaging and it's filled with a lot of simple effects work that is nonetheless memorable and at times striking. A great movie I'll likely continue to come back to every few years when I want to watch something I know I'm going to enjoy.
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Oct 24, 2023 04:18
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The Hausu Usher posted:I made a Letterboxd list of all the films people reviewed in the top tiers (4+/5, 8+/10) or used a bunch of superlatives and recommended in their reviews (a little difficult to determine their highest recommendations). This owns, thanks for putting it together!
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Oct 26, 2023 00:00
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19. Wishmaster 2: Evil Never Dies The clumsiest art thieves in the world steal The Djinn's fire opal and accidentally awaken him. The only surviving thief is forced to wrestle with her past misdeeds and faith as she feels to come to grips with what's happening but who gives a poo poo about that IT'S TIME FOR DIVOFF! You can zone out anytime Andrew Divoff isn't on screen but fortunately he gets as much if not more screentime than the very dull heroine and her blockhead priest love interest. Divoff as The Djinn is as entertaining as he was in the first movie and gets a lot of opportunities to be delightfully, comically, sinister. The effects work isn't quite there compared to the first movie but they do have a couple of creative and memorable sequences. The main character's plotline falls flat but there's a lot of evil genie fun to balance that out. If you enjoyed the first one then I'd recommend this as well.
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Oct 26, 2023 13:09
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20. The Night Flier A sleazy tabloid photojournalist follows the trail of a serial killer flying to small town airfields and draining people of their blood. This is a very underseen and underrated vampire movie. Miguel Ferrer is a fantastic lead playing a very unlikeable character who is nonetheless fun to watch be a piece of poo poo to everyone he meets. I liked how much is left to the audience to infer about how the vampire operates and what kind of powers he has. There are no big exposition scenes explaining how vampires work in this movie and it makes him feel much more mysterious and threatening, especially as we learn with Ferrer's character as he follows in the aftermath of the vampire's attacks. The vampire himself has an incredible and repulsive design. He's monstrous and also just very gross looking but with just enough human touches in his personality to accentuate how bizarre he is. My only complaint is that it beats you over the head a bit by the end with the parallels between vampirism and tabloid journalism. There's a bit too much dialogue spelling out the themes that isn't necessary. I strongly recommend this one.
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Oct 26, 2023 20:02
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Class3KillStorm posted:Was this streaming anywhere? I've been meaning to check it out but it never seems to pop up on current services. As far as I know there aren't any streaming services that have it, but you can find it on YouTube.
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Oct 26, 2023 21:06
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21. Ready Or Not A woman marrying into a rich family must participate in a strange tradition on her wedding night. This was a really fun horror-comedy and Samara Weaving is a great lead. I liked that she had an undercurrent of anger and frustration in her performance and it was fun the couple of times where she got more pissed off than scared at what was going on and just started yelling or cursing people out in frustration. The rich family was a lot of fun as well. They were all loathsome and all of them being pretty bad at hunting humans led to some of the best jokes and dialogue in the movie. My only complaint is that I think the movie would have benefited by having Grace have a couple more encounters with the family while she's trying to escape. As it is she mostly had to contend with the butler and it felt like a missed opportunity for some more variety and gags. The great finale mostly makes up for that though.
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Oct 28, 2023 13:24
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22. Tales of Terror This is an anthology of three Poe stories adapted by Richard Matheson, directed by Roger Corman, and starring Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, and Basil Rathbone. It's really good! I've now seen six of Corman's eight Poe films and enjoyed all of them a lot but they can have the issue of being a little slow in the middle while gearing up for their typically more exciting third acts. That's not an issue with this movie as each 20-30 minute story is able to cut to the chase much quicker and showcase the strengths of these movies, namely the atmosphere and strong central performances. Price in particular gets to show off a bit and play three very different roles between each story. I think that the first story, "Morella," might have been my favorite due to its gothic atmosphere and Price at his most disheveled and haunted, though the other two stories were also very strong with the wine tasting scene in "The Black Cat" being a highlight of the entire film. This is a strong recommendation from me, especially if you have any interest in Corman's Poe films. Bonus Challenge: Bite-Sized Horror
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Oct 30, 2023 16:13
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23. The Black Room (1935) Boris Karloff plays twin brothers, the younger of whom is prophesied to kill the older in the mysterious "Black Room" of their castle (they're the sons of a Baron). One twin of course is good and the other evil. Karloff is great in the dual role and believably plays both brothers as very different people. One of the things he was great at was incorporating body language into his acting and he utilized that very well here. He has very rigid, proper posture as the good twin but as the evil brother he sort of leers down at people and is frequently leaning on furniture and generally looking disheveled. It's pretty easy to see where the story is headed once it gets going and it's a little too slow paced but it's still engaging and definitely worth watching for Karloff's performance.
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Oct 30, 2023 22:48
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24. Shadow of the Vampire This is a pretty fun movie that works off of the premise: what if Max Schreck was a vampire in real life and also what if F.W. Murnau was a lunatic who hired him to make Nosferatu more realistic? John Malkovich is unsurprisingly very good as a high on himself and tyrannical version of Murnau and the rest of the cast and crew of Nosferatu is also filled out with some good character actors, particularly Udo Kier and Cary Ewles. The main draw here though is Willem Defoe as Max Schreck. He is equal parts threatening and comical in how overtly creepy and weird he is, constantly making weird faces and dramatic hand movements while speaking. There's some good comedy throughout the film and in many ways it's a love letter to the original Nosferatu in how much time is spent on the characters actually filming the movie however I would have liked to see a bit more of Schreck menacing the crew. As it is it's clear that he's a threat and he does attack a couple of people but there's a sense that there's some scenes cut or missing where he goes after some of the crew before the third act. This is still a recommendation though, especially for the performances.
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Oct 31, 2023 13:28
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25. Asylum (1972) A few years ago I watched and enjoyed The House That Dripped Blood and felt like this year it was time to get around to another Amicus horror anthology. I'm glad I did, this was very solid and a good time overall! I thought all of the stories were pretty good and none of them felt too long, though the last one was I think sillier than they may have intended. I think I might have liked the first short the best as it was a nice, short, and effective EC comics kind of story. I also liked how much the frame narrative tied into everything, not feeling as superfluous as it can in other anthologies. I enjoyed this and am looking forward to watching another one next October!
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Oct 31, 2023 22:19
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26. Interview with the Vampire A vampire is interviewed by a reporter and chronicles his life, largely centered around his tumultuous relationship with the vampire who turned him. I'd never seen this before but I have distinct memories of hearing about it a lot when I was a kid when it first came out and then obviously it's had a long lasting cultural impact on vampire media, and I can see why! This is a good reminder of how fun Tom Cruise is when he plays villains and Kirsten Dunst does a great job as well. Brad Pitt is the weakest link in the cast, which surprised me until I remembered how early in his career this was. I don't think he did a terrible job but he is pretty flat in a lot of his delivery and doesn't keep up with the campier energy of the rest of the cast. The plot is most interesting when it's focused on Louis and Lestat's relationship troubles and unfortunately loses steam once Antonio Banderas and his theater troupe show up, though his plotline wraps up with a very over the top sequence that I liked a lot. I liked this movie and a vampire movie is always a good one to watch on Halloween. And that's my last movie for this year, wrap up post to follow!
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Nov 1, 2023 12:35
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Wrap Up Thanks so much for running things this year Basebf555, it was a lot of fun! I set a personal goal of 20 movies but ended up watching 26, which is a new record! I think every movie I watched was at least pretty good and there were several that I thought were great. It was overall just a really good crop of movies this year! And as always I've added a bunch of movies to my watchlist for next year after reading everyone else's reviews. I ended up getting one bingo and I liked the way the bonus challenges worked this year:  I won't list everything here but I'll post a link to my Letterboxd list for this year: https://boxd.it/pr9OO My top five new watches in no particular order: The Seventh Curse, From Beyond, Sweeney Todd (1982), Magic, and The Night Flier. Thanks again, looking forward to next year already!
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Nov 1, 2023 14:44
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| # ¿ May 22, 2024 18:38 |
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Yeah part of the fun of this challenge has been that it's also a great way to find recommendations on cool stuff I probably wouldn't have heard of otherwise. I think about half of what I watch every year is stuff I heard about through previous challenges.
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Nov 4, 2023 00:18
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