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I've got my to-watch stack ready to go Bit small of a stack, but enough to satisfy the New-To-You challenge. I'm also going to be working off bingo card #6, which I picked at random.
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Sep 29, 2023 23:07
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Basebf555 posted:All of this is correct. Can I bank my challenges for double points next year?
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Sep 30, 2023 02:06
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 #1: Body Melt  HORROR ADJACENT it definitely styles itself a horror comedyNEW-TO-YOU I'd never seen it beforeHISTORY LESSON the 1990sAROUND THE WORLD AustraliaGross-out body horror about a health supplement that makes people melt? Alright, I was on board, I was expecting something in the vein of The Stuff. Body Melt certainly has The Stuff like elements, at times, but also has a long part that's like a low-budge Nothing But Trouble, and also more scenes where nothing very interesting happens. It drags in parts, and 80 minute movies have no excuse to ever drag. It does have some good goopy gore, but most of it concentrated at the end. In the Horror thread Stryer told me it was originally supposed to be an anthology, and you can really feel that. The characters are paper thin and exist to die horribly, which is fine in an anthology but since they decided to blend it all together and lump most of the deaths at the end, you're left with dull characters puttering around for a while. Can't recommend Body Melt, I'm afraid. I'm not one to be like, "oh this movie does it better therefore that other movie has no value" but really, just watch The Stuff. Switch over to Nothing But Trouble for 15 confusing minutes in the first act and then switch back to Body Melt, and you'll have a much better version of everything Body Melt did. ----------------
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Oct 2, 2023 02:29
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yo what the gently caress why does the thread look so scary?
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Oct 2, 2023 02:34
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 #2: Satanic Panic BIRTH OF HORROR internet says filmed in Dallas and I'm from Texas so I'm counting it because I want to get everything I can out of this turdNEW TO YOU I hadn't seen it before and god willing never will againHISTORY LESSON the 2010s. It sucks! This is a weird first criticism but it was the first big problem I noticed and it's persistent, the BGM is awful. Like, it's not good musically at all, but the choice of what music to put in what scene is always wrong. The music is bad and it's always slightly not the right mood or tempo for the scene it's playing over. You add on to that very low energy direction and editing, and even parts that could have been good end up just not working. There's a couple scenes of supernatural monster stuff, but the bad music and low energy presentation make them very dull. There are shots that are trying to show a little flair, a snap-zoom, an extreme closeup on an item, tilting camera, but most of them are wrong too. There's a running thing of tight closeups on items, but they're all unmotivated and pointless. The worst is when our heroes come under magic attack and are frantically trying to erect magical defenses, but we get an extreme closeup of a match lighting a candle which takes like a solid second and kills the momentum. I swear to god, you could use this movie as a teaching aid. "Why was this the wrong shot to use here?" "Why doesn't this monster feel menacing?" The script is very bad. The dialogue is consistently bad, but when they introduce a character who talks exclusively in sassy millennial Chuck Wendig style, the movie becomes almost unwatchable. There's a super rapey scene early on for no real reason. This is supposed to be a fun campy horror comedy, released in 2019 for god's sake, why did they decide to put an attempted rape at gunpoint in the first act?! What were they thinking?! There's a serious attempt at class commentary, but it's so incredibly malformed and poorly done it completely sucks. What especially galled me is we get a couple shots of Baphomet, and it's a really cool design and a great suit. But it's done in full lighting, shot so shittily, before I even recognized how good the suit was and how cool the design was, my brain immediately was like, "is that a guy in a suit just kinda wandering around?" the movie ends with our hero escaping, quitting her job, and announcing that she's finally following her dream and moving to Australia. Immediately after that we get the final shot of the movie, which is our hero riding her scooter southbound out of the city. Not at the airport, not packing a bag, riding her scooter in the direction of Australia. I gotta be honest, folks. I can't recommend Satanic Panic. ----------------
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Oct 3, 2023 02:54
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#3: Prisoners of Ghostland NEW TO YOU I hadn't seen it beforeHISTORY LESSON the 2020sI'm not sure why this is listed as a horror movie? Maybe because it's weird? Because it's not a horror movie. But Wikipedia lists it as a horror movie so I'm counting it. Don't like it, take it up with Wikipedia. The production design is fantastic. Most of the movie takes place on two sets; Ghostland, which is a kind of bombed out industrial site turned into a little garbage city, and Samurai Town, a combination of Samurai pleasure district and old west town covered in Neon lights. Both sets were fantastic, Samurai Town especially so. There was also a bunch of thought put into the costumes, with the weird makeup on the geishas in Samurai Town who the Governor treats as set dressing, the people in Ghostland who disguise themselves as mannequins to hide themselves from evil, the scrapyard Ratmen, it's all great. I love a movie that creates places and fills them with stuff that's just fun to explore. The wise old man of Ghostland has an entire reading room that's built on top of a cart so he can be pulled from place to place to give readings of Wuthering Heights. While the setting aspect is great, the story is a bit of a letdown. For a movie that pitches itself on zaniness, the events plod along at a pretty low energy pace. There's very little action. What I find a little bit unforgiveable is that they've got Nicholas Cage and Tak Sakaguchi, but they barely ever interact! The couple times they do its clear they have good chemistry, you could absolutely rest a whole movie on these two psychos bouncing off each other! What a waste! Overall I'd say Prisoners of Ghostland is a solid watch just for the visuals and the presentation of the world, but it's not something you'd ever feel compelled to go back to. Also, definitely not a horror movie but as stated, I am counting it because forces higher than me have deemed it so. ----------------
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Oct 3, 2023 22:54
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Alright, I was three movies deep into the month and hadn't had a banger yet. Body Melt was a dud, Satanic Panic was garbage, and Prisoners of the Ghostland was a mixed bag. I needed a solid win, I needed a guaranteed banger to put on the board. It was time to break out the big guns.   #4: Senritsu Kaiki File Kowasugi: The Most Terrifying Movie in History (Senritsu Kaiki File Kowasugi File part 6) THE EXORCIST 50TH ANNIVERSERY CHALLENGE these are like the most possessed people in historyNEW-TO-YOU I hadn't seen it beforeAROUND THE WORLD AsiaThis was the first Senritsu Kaiki File Kowasugi File to get a theatrical release, so I was interested to see how it would go. AT first, it seems pretty safe, Kudo and crew and a celebrity guest go to investigate a village that makes you crazy. Classic Senritsu Kaiki File Kowasugi File stuff occurs. It felt a bit like it was playing the hits, albeit a bit more intense since it's the sixth part of the series and a theatrical movie. But I love the hits, I was on board for just a regular Senritsu Kaiki File Kowasugi File but a bit bigger. But then, around the halfway mark, we get a classic Senritsu Kaiki File Kowasugi File swerve; it is revealed that Kudo owns a baseball bat. From that point on I was enraptured. This is a perfect culmination of the series so far. We find out a lot without being told too much to make it lose the classic cosmic horror unknowableness, stuff set up in earlier episodes shows up again, and we get an absolute banger ending. It is extremely intense, the story goes places the series hadn't before but make perfect sense, it's fantastic. Man, if you aren't on the Senritsu Kaiki File Kowasugi File train already, get on board. This is a series that goes from strength to strength. Name another horror series that will have you spellbound in the sixth installment. ----------------
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Oct 4, 2023 03:13
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 #5: Def By Temptation NEW-TO-YOU I hadn't seen it beforeHORROR IS FOR EVERYONE - BLACK yupI'm gonna give this one a solid not bad. There's a lot of good stuff in it, but it's held back by the first act being somewhat meandering (honestly we don't need that many back to back seduction scenes) and the good parts not being quite as well executed as they could have been. Honestly it's a little frustrating because you can see the makings of an absolutely top tier horror director here. James Bond III clearly had good ideas and great instincts, he just needed more experience to really polish the delivery. If he had kept making horror movies I think he absolutely would have been able to take on Craven as king of 90s horror. edit: also worth noting; there's an extremely good case to be made that this movie takes place in the same universe as Sister Act, and shares a character ---------------- Gripweed fucked around with this message at 00:03 on Oct 7, 2023 |
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Oct 7, 2023 00:00
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 #6: The Vast of Night NEW-TO-YOU And with that, I have watched 6 NEW-TO-ME moviesHoly poo poo that's good. OK so it's about this switchboard operator and school radio DJ who notice some weird sounds on the wire and slowly start to think they've got an alien out there. Visually, it is extremely show-offy, lots of long tracking single shot takes. Which works super well at drawing you in to the movie and imparting a sense of movement and momentum to a movie that's mostly dialogue. But even when the camera isn't doing fancy stuff it's still crazy engrossing. There's this one insanely long single shot scene, I think the camera slowly pulls in and that's the only motion, of the girl sitting at a switchboard calling up different people to ask if they know anything about a weird sound. And I'm just sitting there, totally in it. I complained about Satanic Panic having distractingly bad BGM, The Vast of Night has enchancingly good BGM. It's excellent music as music, and it just makes these long shots and conversation scenes loving sing. It's so good. There are a couple small quibbles I have. The old lady monologue I think slows down the movie a little too much at that point in the story and provides slightly too much information. And there's this completely dogshit framing device where the movie starts with a just barely legally distinct Twilight Zone intro and occasionally cuts back to showing you the movie on an old timey TV screen. Which doesn't work on any level at all. I told you this movie is all crazy impressive single take panning shots, also entirely at night, it doesn't look anything at all like The Twilight Zone. That bugged me a lot, but I'm the kinda person who gets bugged a lot by that kinda thing. But even with those complaints, holy poo poo did this own. I straight up assumed that I would be able to take off another Challenge with this movie because surely it was on the list of great recent horror. But it's not? What's wrong with you people? It came out in 2019, and your list of great 2019 horror includes that dolorous snoozefest Midsommar but not The Vast of Night? Do better, people. Do better by watching The Vast of Night! Now! ----------------
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Oct 7, 2023 02:22
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Basebf555 posted:
quick quizzle about this challenge. Do the animals have to be normal with the only unique thing about them being their giant size? Or can it be an animal which has it's giant size as it's first characteristic, but also is otherwise abnormal regardless of size? ----------------
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Oct 8, 2023 03:36
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Xiahou Dun posted:No, no one will complain if the giant weasel or whatever also spits acid. That’d be rad and it is a contest to help you watch rad stuff. Good. ----------------
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Oct 8, 2023 03:44
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 Have you truly become so fond of humans, Ultraman? #7: Shin Ultraman WHEN ANIMALS OF UNUSUAL SIZE ATTACK! this film features multiple biological organisms distinguished first by their unusual size.I loved the first half, largely enjoyed the second half, didn't like the ending This movie starts out insanely fast paced. We get a super quick summary of the first appearances of kaiju, leading to the creation of the SSSP, which them immediately deposits us into an SSSP mission, the multiple schemes they come up with to try to stop the Neronga, and then Ultraman appears, and then a quick overview of political reactions to Ultraman, then the next mission, then Alien Zarab shows up. I wouldn't call it rushed, more like vacuum sealed. They took all the air out and concentrated it down as tight as possible. Which I fully enjoyed. Lots of people in military tents talking about the latest energy readings, extremely my poo poo. It does start to slow down in the Alien Zarab part, or at least that's when it stays on one thing for awhile. It definitely slows down with Alien Mefilas, and the final part with Zetton almost approached the pacing of a normal fast paced movie. Which ironically means that the part with the actual ticking clock is also the slowest paced part of the whole movie. And to be honest, I didn't like the conclusion of the Zetton stuff, which is the climax and conclusion of the whole movie. Like, they have the whole of humanity's knowledge come together and the solution is "press the button twice". They didn't even build a gizmo! They definitely should have built a gizmo. What makes it especially stand out as bad is that this movie takes so much from the original show and either does it basically faithfully or puts a new and interesting twist on it. But the Zetton is just strictly worse than how it happened in the show. In the show, humanity defeated Zetton. Ultraman straight up couldn't, he wasn't strong enough, but humanity's ingenuity could. It was important because it showed humanity wasn't reliant on Ultraman forever, we were growing and becoming stronger and nearing the point where we could stand on our own feet. So to have Ultraman defeat Zetton using his own drat Beta Capsule based on advice from humanity that frankly I doubt Ultraman couldn't have figured out on his own, is a strict downgrade. It's tough because as I said, I loved this movie early on when it's just ripping through SSSP adventures. But the ending didn't work for me at all. ---------------- Gripweed fucked around with this message at 03:16 on Oct 9, 2023 |
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Oct 9, 2023 03:13
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 #8: Night Creatures PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK…..IN SPACE!!! it takes place in 1792, pirate times...HISTORY LESSON the 1960sAROUND THE WORLD EuropePretty good! A cadre of British sailor tax collectors in very silly outfits come to investigate an accusation of smuggling in a small coastal village. They are received warmly by the town's parson, but there may be more to him than meets the eye. And what connection does this town have to the infamous pirate Captain Clegg, beyond being his final resting place after he was hung for his crimes? There's no loving reason for this to be called Night Creatures. I actually looked up why it was called that after I watched it because it's such a not apposite title, and it turns out Hammer sold Universal a movie called Night Creatures, which they intended to be an adaptation of I Am Legend, but then realized that there was a good chance any adaptation of I Am Legend they would do would get banned in England, so they were just like, gently caress it we've got this pirate movie in the can, it's got skeletons at night, let's just say this is Night Creatures. Peter Cushing is, of course, excellent as the town's too-good-to-be-true Parson, and he pivots between his actual ministry, his all-business crime mode, and his exaggerated performance for the government with ease. If you like Cushing, and who doesn't, this whole movie is a great time. The titular Night Creatures, guys dressed as skeletons, look really cool. They do some kinda olde timey SFX trickery to make them look ghostly and luminous and the result is great. This is what I like about Hammer, it's just a good time. Excellent performances from top notch actors, a solid plot, a bit of gore and blood, a couple insanely hot babes, it's got everything you need. ----------------
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Oct 9, 2023 21:49
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 #9: Tales From The Crypt BITE-SIZED HORRORHISTORY LESSON the 70s. And with that, I have completed this challenge and watched films from 5 decadesI'm generally not fond of anthologies. But there was a British one I quite liked, the one where most of the stories were about men falling in love with vaguely woman-shaped inanimate objects. So I was willing to give this one a shot. I didn't like it. Very simple EC Comics style stories where somebody does something wrong and gets cosmically punished for it. The presentation does little to enhance the material, although the performances are pretty good. With this kind of simple morality tale horror, there's a particular story I don't care for. The one where someone in a position of power is unrelentingly awful to some poor person or people, until eventually at the end they get some kind of supernatural comeuppance. I don't enjoy those stories at all. This movie has two of them. Even if you did like that kind of story, two of them is simply too many in a single anthology that only have five stories. You need more variety than that. Our Cryptkeeper in this movie is Ralph Richardson in a robe. Don't get me wrong, you could certainly do worse. But he's hardly the character the Cryptkeeper would become in later adaptations. So yeah, I didn't like Tales From the Crypt but I think even more anthology-inclined people wouldn't be very impressed. ----------------
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Oct 10, 2023 02:39
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 #10: Split Second In the dystopian future of 2008, an inexplicably American cop with psychic powers is on the hunt for the man who killed his partner. As this ruthless murderer stalks the flooded city of London, and the bodies pile up every high tide, it starts to seem like this killer might not be human at all... Holy poo poo this owned. At first I thought this was a so bad it's good movie, but very quickly I realized they knew exactly what they were doing. This is a very intentionally unintentionally goofy movie. All the buddy cop cliches are turned up just a couple notches too high. Rutger Hauer's apartment is filthy because he only cares about the case, but it's so filthy that there are pigeons living in it. His emotional reunion with the widow of his dead partner is undercut by constant pigeon sounds. We get the standard thing where rough and tumble cop gets a new partner who's all book smart, and the partner learns to appreciate the non-nonsense ways of the cop and the cop learns to appreciate the partner's smarts. But it comes to a head in this movie after they raid the police weapons locker and are both striding confidently through the station with laser miniguns slung over their shoulders, puffing hard on a single cigar they pass back and forth, as the partner uses all his fancy book learning to deduce that the killer is Satan. Everyone in this movie wears a leather trench coat. In the first scene Hauer gets menaced by a big guard dog, but then Huaer shows the dog a badge and the dog goes quiet. It is later confirmed that Hauer can psychically communicate with dogs. This is never explained, and is completely separate from his other psychic powers. I don't understand how Split Second isn't a cult classic. It is extremely entertaining, it is fun in an extremely self aware way that never goes too far, it's just an absolute blast. Watch Split Second! ----------------
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Oct 11, 2023 04:01
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at least now you'll know why those drat enchiladas come up so much in the horror thread.
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Oct 11, 2023 04:52
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 #11: Brides of Dracula There ain't no Dracula in this film! Overall, I'd say a pretty low tier Hammer. it's got Cushing do a manful job with a weak script, an insanely hot French lady, great sets, but it doesn't have the level of polish of the better Hammer outings. The vampire (who is not, in any way, Dracula) really doesn't have that "it" factor you need from a lead monster. The brides don't get much focus either. So the title has three words, one of them is a flat out lie and another is misleading. I can't find any fault with "of" though, so it gets 33% right The part where Van Helsing has to burn the... evil? out of his vampire puncture wounds is pretty great. But there ain't no Dracula! ----------------
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Oct 15, 2023 03:01
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Shrecknet posted:
After Paranormal Activity came out somebody made a quick, I think semi-official(?) sequel called Paranormal Activity 2: Tokyo Night and it's pretty great how after literally the first weird thing happens the guy is like, "I think we've got a ghost" and the sister is like, "oh I know someone from college who could talk to ghosts, I'll see if she's free" That movie also features the most disturbing moment from the Paranormal Activity franchise, when the sister who broke both of her legs in a car accident and is in casts gets possessed by a demon and awkwardly stands up and starts walking on her broken legs ----------------
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Oct 15, 2023 04:08
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 #12: Curse of the Werewolf It's fine This movie goes on for so long without any werewolf poo poo in it, 20 minutes in I was convinced it was going to be another lying title and the titular "werewolf" was actually going to be a Castle Freak scenario. But then five minutes after that, all the characters we'd met so far are loving dead. And then the rest of the movie is pretty blatantly Hammer's remake of The Wolfman. The main difference being that the werewolf lore is different, in this one sometimes a demon tries to possess people, and if you've got a strong soul you can fight it off but if you've got a weak soul it will fight back and take over at the full moon. And the strength of your soul is apparently based on the circumstances of your birth, so that entire first act is just setting up that the circumstances of this kid's conception was hosed up. Honestly the first act was my favorite part, it had a real fairy tale thing going on, if the story had just continued on in that vein I probably would've enjoyed it more. As it is, the Wolfman remake is fine. They try to replicated the iconic transformation shot with the guy's hands, but the hands are obviously fake so it looks bad and isn't even technically impressive either. IIRC Curse of the Werewolf is kinda important in werewolf movie history, it was the first big werewolf movie after the end of the Universal cycle and brought werewolfs back into culture a bit. Which is neat. But I wasn't super blown away by the movie. It's fine. ----------------
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Oct 16, 2023 02:43
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 #13 & 14: Grindhouse: Planet Terror & Death Proof ROB ZOMBIE 20TH ANNIVERSARY CHALLENGE Planet Terror has lots of goopy zombiesHORROR IS FOR EVERYONE SUBSECTION: WOMEN I'm counting Death Proof for this oneI'm not sure why but I'd never seen these movies. They seemed like their own weird thing, I dunno. But no time like the present to fix that. first off, Planet Terror Not bad. Fun goopy time with lots of gross gore and such. Lots of good action. A bit too much CGI for the aesthetic they're going for, you can't have the scratched up film and CGI blood. But it's a fine schlocky movie. I think I had more to say but then I watched Death Proof Holy poo poo what a good movie. That whole first segment, I started to actively wish that the rest of the movie was just going to be these characters in that bar. I loved it, the ambiance, the 70s aesthetic, the characters bouncing around and off each other. Even small parts like Marcy and the sleazy guy I thought was Eli Roth at first. It is so clearly a prototype for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, just creating this world and letting you inhabit it. Kurt Russel is so good, he nails this roiling anger covered up by a thin layer of charm. Him just being there builds this dread, where you aren't sure if something bad will happen but you know he absolutely could hurt someone at any moment. And oh man, that final chase sequence. So loving amazing. It has drat every cool thing you can do with a car in a movie, short of driving one through a mall. It goes on so long but never drags, it stays in one setting as long as it possibly can before switching the dynamic of the situation, with a handful of real short breather moments sprinkled in, it's a goddamn masterclass in how to do a very long action sequence. When they decide they're going to chase him back, I literally fist pumped. After all this dread, the sudden reversal where Russel is crying and scared and the girls are having the time of their lives trying to kill him is so cathartic and fun. And then the very end, where it looks like they just beat the poo poo out of him but then Rosario Dawson drops her heel on him and it clearly goes into his skull and then cut to credits, the last loving second of the movie being "oh no they absolutely killed that mother fucker" is so loving fantastic. I feel bad for Planet Terror. Like, you were a fun time, but I ain't thinking about you no more. Rose McGowan is fantastic in both. So overall, Planet Terror is fun, Death Proof is a must watch. ---------------- Gripweed fucked around with this message at 23:11 on Oct 20, 2023 |
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Oct 17, 2023 03:13
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 #15: Phantom of the Opera Not bad. Like the previous Hammer movie I watched, Curse of the Werewolf, I liked it best early on when it's all that classic Hammer atmosphere, less later on when it got into plot and the titular monster. The first act of this movie has a ton of British people doing exaggerated British accents, it's great. I think I'm generally not a fan of the Phantom of the Opera story. Oh no it's an evil singing coach whose really mean but the girl likes him anyway because women are dumb. Whatever. Give me more British people doing crazy cockney accents. ----------------
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Oct 20, 2023 23:10
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 #16: Dual Goat's G.O.A.T.S: YOU WILL NOT LEAVE THIS HOUSE ALIVE - it's on the listPretty good! It's a made-for-TV movie written by Richard Matheson, so would it shock you if I said it feels very strongly like an episode of The Twilight Zone? It do. Especially the scene where the guy's in a diner going mad with paranoia, that's pure Twilight Zone. There is a bit of a pacing issue, the whole school bus sequence could be cut and you wouldn't miss it, for example. But overall a fun tense time And with that, I have a BINGO! 
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Oct 21, 2023 02:12
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Hollismason posted:Posting to check my movie count. I guess, make the post, and then ninja edit if I was wrong ----------------
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Oct 21, 2023 02:14
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 #17: Hell House LLC THE SAMHAIN CHALLENGE - even though the poo poo goes down on October 9th, multiple people in the horror thread says it counts. And I'm not one to argue with multiple peoplePretty good. It's kind of annoying because I didn't dislike the movie, but all I have is criticisms. It starts off as a talking heads documentary but then most of the run time is just playing long unedited sections of footage with no commentary. So the whole conceit that this is a produced documentary falls apart. Especially with the stinger, where it's like, OK you can have that as a last scary thing in a fictional movie but if this poo poo happened in real life people would know about that part. You wouldn't be able to save that for the end. Hell House also really only has two scares. The first is something that shouldn't move moves when it's off camera. I hope you like that because that's 90% of the scares in the movie. They do it, a lot. The second scare just makes it so blatant this was created in the wake of Paranormal Activity; a lady is creepily still and silent to let you know she's already in the thrall of a demon. If your friend vanished for a day and then came back and never said a word, was completely nonresponsive, and just lay in bed for days on end, wouldn't you consider that he may have a health problem? Instead they're just like, "That Paul is so unreliable! He's been in bed for 48 hours straight, what a jerk!". Like, no, you need to take him to the loving hospital. The source of the scary stuff is implied to be a portal to hell, but at the end all that happens is dudes in robes show up, and they don't even do anything, they're just scary dudes in robes! And somehow this resulted in 15 people dying. C'mon man, I know this was low budget but at least have a CGI portal or demon arm or something! You're already doing extreme shaky cam and fake distortion by that point, even cheap CGI would have looked of if you just show it for a second. Also, this whole movie takes place in a town named after this dude, and it's treated as, like, basically normal. Just a fun bit of local color that, apropos of nothing, this town is named after the drat Despoiler.  So yeah, not a bad watch. I'm not upset, I'm disappointed. and now I have two bingos! a ha ha, two bingos! 
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Oct 23, 2023 02:46
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 #18: Jeepers Creepers Pretty good! Honestly a weird coincidence that I watched this so soon after Duel, since the opening takes a ton from Duel. I liked that it has some action movie elements, maybe the monster does a bit too much wire-fu but otherwise I thought the action was well integrated into the horror setup. I don't know about the ending. I'm genuinely surprised they went with that. I don't know if I like it more than the standard kind of ending you'd expect from this sort of movie. It felt a bit abrupt when the credits rolled. Could've done without the literal magic black lady. Let the cat lady deliver exposition before she dies, we don't need an unrelated psychic woman showing up. But overall a good time, good monster design, good actiony horror. ---------------- Gripweed fucked around with this message at 00:11 on Oct 24, 2023 |
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Oct 23, 2023 04:55
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 #19: The Banshee Chapter "MK Ultra experiments also included the From Beyond drugs" is such a great premise for a movie. Unfortunately, The Banshee Chapter mainly uses that to explain why there's a cliche "normal guy but his eyes are black and his face is slightly CGI distorted" monster. They do nothing with that idea. If that's your premise, I want to know how that has effected American history. At the minimum you need to then go on to establish that the American government has been under control by space monsters or space monster collaborators. Ideally you would build a whole new structure of 20th century American history out of it. School shootings are caused by the space monsters. 9/11 was secretly an attempt to destroy the space monster portal hidden under the WTC. Do something with it, don't just use it as justification for the same lazy monster I've seen in a dozen other movies! I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed. ---------------- Gripweed fucked around with this message at 00:11 on Oct 24, 2023 |
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Oct 23, 2023 20:37
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 #20: Rigor Mortis FREDDY VS. JASON 20TH ANNIVERSERY CHALLENGE - Vampire and ghosts, and the interactions between them.There's a lot of cool poo poo in this movie. The martial arts fights with ghosts and vampires are insanely cool. I really liked the sort of professional respect between the retired vampire hunter and the necromancer. Strong performances across the board. There's a strong theme and pretty much everything is in service of it. I'd never seen a Jiangshi movie before, and Rigor Mortis makes it seem super creepy and hosed up. Like, this isn't some funny hopping vampire, this thing is a goddamn abomination. But, unfortunately, the movie is also insanely depressing! The theme is acceptance of death, and not in a optimistic, "life well-lived" kind of way. All the characters are tormented by death. Pure, senseless, brutal death. There's a brutal rape scene and a child getting insanely murdered and neither of them felt out of place or exploitative, this movie sustains such a consistent dour tone. And in case the super cool marital arts fights threatened to impart some kind of heroism to the situation, it turns out to all be an Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge scenario Rigor Mortis is in no way a bad movie, but fuckin hell I am in no mood for that kinda poo poo. ----------------
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Oct 24, 2023 00:09
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 #21: Paranoiac The eldest scion of a wealthy family throws himself off a cliff. He is presumed dead but the body is never found. Years later, with the family on the verge of collapse and the family fortune mere days away from being put in the hands of the dissolute younger brother who will fritter it all away on drugs and cars, the elder brother returns. But is this man truly who he claims to be? And what is the source of the madness that has settled on the family in his absence? Paranoiac is good! Classic parlor drama, with shades of that old "they're gaslighting a woman into insanity" genre. Excellent acting, albeit in that fancy olde timey way, across the board. The movie also looks really nice, a couple times I noticed some camera movements and setups you don't expect from an olde black and white fancy people in a house type movie, and it turns out that's because it's directed by Freddie Francis. Better known as the cinematographer who regularly collaborated with David Lynch and Martin Scorcese! Paranoiac is a classic people in a house being snippy at each other type horror/drama, check it out. ----------------
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Oct 24, 2023 14:29
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 #22: Kiss of the Vampire Not bad! Our opening scene is a funeral, a striking looking older gentleman with a grey stripe in his beard is given a shovel to throw some dirt of the coffin, but instead he flings the shovel directly through the it! A piercing shriek is heard as blood bubbles up through the hole in the wooden lid! Roll credits! Fuckin hell, you can't beat that for an opening of a vampire movie. After the credits we are introduced to our heroes, a doofy newlywed couple that I am convinced are what is being parodied by the couple in Rocky Horror Picture Show. i will do no research to find out if that's true, but I'm convinced. I do like how gormless our hero husband stays throughout the movie. He gets a couple moments to do something cool, but is largely shown as being completely out of his depth. Luckily that striking looking older gentleman from the opening is our van Helsing stand-in, and he eventually solves the crisis. The ending is great, and something I'd never seen before in a vampire movie. Our not Van Helsing kills all the vampires by trapping them in their castle with garlic oil, and then summons a flock of demonic bats which descend on the castle and drain all the vampires of their blood. That's great! The opening and the ending are the real strong points, there are some kinda dull parts around the middle, but overall a pretty good vampire time. I'd definitely rate it higher than Brides of Dracula, but perhaps a bit lower than any of the Hammer Draculas that actually feature Dracula ----------------
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Oct 25, 2023 01:08
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 #23: It Follows CineD HORROR THREAD POLL CHALLENGE - Goat's G.O.A.T.s (Tapes)This was great! I had heard a lot about this movie, but mainly people talking about ~the metaphor~ and "dream like" and their interpretation, and so on. So you can imagine how pleasantly surprised I was to find out it's just a spooky monster movie! And a great spooky monster movie at that! I gotta be honest, I was going all "don't go up there!" at times. Like, once she's got the team, and they've established that people who have been followed can still see it even if it's not following them, the next step is pretty clear. She sleeps with Paul, Paul sleeps with the friend, the friend sleeps with long hair guy, long hair guy sleeps with the sister. Boom, now they can all see it and they'll be way better equipped to fight it. But I guess they are dumb teens, and as we see from their final scheme they're pretty bad at planning stuff. Real good movie. I know I'm probably the last person to have not seen it, but if you haven't seen It Follows yet, check it out! Don't be scared off by people talking about metaphors it's a regular spooky monster movie. and another bingo has been bingoed! 
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Oct 25, 2023 01:15
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 #24: Nightmare It's your standard movie where a woman thinks she's going crazy but she's being intentionally driven crazy by people close to her but with a twist! They successfully driver her crazy halfway through the movie. At which point it switches to being about one of the people who drover her crazy, who starts going crazy but she's actually intentionally being driven crazy by people close to her. I like the idea, I don't think it succeeds in execution. If that's the structure they're going with, then the first half is simply too long. We spend so long with this girl, this 16 year old girl being played by the most 24 year old woman I've ever seen, only for her to be removed from the story at the halfway point. And then the second half, which feels like it should be the real meat of the thing, has very little meat on it's bones. Like, there is absolutely zero ambiguity at any point that she's being driven crazy by other people because no other argument for what's going on is provided. And we just saw a story about a woman being driven crazy so I'm primed to expect that. And there's no b plots or side characters or anything, it's just this woman being driven crazy, and then at the end twist she was being driven crazy. Yeah no poo poo. It's not a bad watch, honestly. But it's by far the weakest Hammer film I've seen so far. I can easily imagine revisiting Brides of Dracula or Curse of the Werewolf at some point in the future, even though I wasn't particularly impressed by either. But I can't imagine a scenario where I ever watch Nightmare again. Unless I do a marathon of women being driven crazy movies. ----------------
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Oct 25, 2023 04:41
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 #25: Evil of Frankenstein This was my first Hammer Frankenstein and it was pretty dang disappointing. Instead of trying to do it's own thing and create a unique feel, it's exactly like a later Universal Frankenstein. But worse. It even ends with Frankenstein Castle exploding. But despite decades of advancements in movie technology, it's is by far the least impressive Frankenstein Castle explosion. A lot of the problem is the monster. It's the worst drat monster I've ever seen. They were clearly trying to recreate the look of the Universal monster, but instead of makeup they used caulk. The actor is tall, I guess. But he's reedy. He's not shot at all to emphasize his height, and he doesn't seem tall at all. And the inch thick layer of caulk on his face makes emoting impossible. So it's just this extremely lovely guy. This is the first Frankenstein movie I've ever seen that makes Frankenstein's achievement seem genuinely unimpressive. Which is especially bad because this takes place years after he made the thing and he's still like, "my beautiful creation, destroyed by the ignorance of man!" and it's like, dude. That thing loving sucked. I do not understand why you were so impressed with yourself. And then a second guy wants the monster! He says you could make a fortune exhibiting it in freak shows. As what, "A guy who looks like poo poo"? It's not totally terrible, Peter Cushing manfully shoulders a weak script. And to be honest if the Burgermaster's wife had twice as much screentime as she gets I'd probably be singing the movies praises. But as it is, a safe pass. ----------------
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Oct 26, 2023 13:19
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 #26: The Haunting CHILDHOOD TRAUMA - explained at length in my review belowI saw this I think right when it came out on VHS. My family rented it from the video store even. A lot of the spooky stuff stuck with me. The lion, of course, everybody remembers the lion. But also the weird hall of moving mirrors and the snapped wire almost taking out the lady's eye. Specifically putting the glass over the eye to keep the blood out, for some reason that image seemed especially unnerving to child me. But what really stuck with me was Salma Hayek's character, the fact that she was bisexual. Queer characters showed up in movies and TV back in the day, but usually they were the butt of jokes. Or the story was about the straight main characters dealing with the fact of a gay. A character who just was queer and was taking part in the story? That was very rare. Child me was very struck by that for reasons I didn't understand back then. So I will admit, I did approach this rewatch with a bit of trepidation. Would what was so bold to my child eyes now appear problematic to my old man eyes? I am very happy to report, absolutely not. She is glamorous, confident, unashamed, hot as hell, perfect representation. Even beyond that, the movie's great. Since watching this film as a wee baby child, I have read the original book and didn't really like it. I have a newfound appreciation for how this takes the source material of "There's no haunting this chick is just sad" and turns it into "this is the most insanely haunted cgi nightmare house you've ever fuckin seen". Another thing I didn't pick up on as a child; every now and then you can hear Catherine Zeta-Jones's Wlesh accent slip out. It's only the occasional syllable, you've got to be listening for it, but it's there. A problem I've seen a few times this month is movies that don't have a lot of ideas for scares. That is not a problem The Haunting suffers from. There are so many gags! It's great fun. I've seen people talking about The Haunting like it's bad, and they're wrong. The Haunting is good. And another bingo achieved! 
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Oct 27, 2023 04:08
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 #27: Bucket of Blood ”THAT GUY” CHALLENGE FEATURING DICK MILLER AND KEITH DAVID - It's got Dick Miller in itThis seemed to be everyone's choice for the challenge, and who am I to blow against the wind? Pretty good. Finally somebody puts those loving beatniks in their place. I'm so sick and tired of beatniks, with their poetry and coffee and beards, so I was thrilled to see a movie that parodies them so hard. Just really lets those beatniks have it with both barrels. ----------------
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Oct 27, 2023 20:19
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 #28: An Unknown Encounter I was listening to a paranormal podcast earlier today and in the intro to the episode the host said "I first heard about this case from An Unknown Encounter, which depending on who you believe is either a documentary or a very early found footage movie" and I immediately paused the podcast because I knew I had to watch this movie. Luckily, it's on Tubi. There are filmmakers today who would kill to be able to make a movie that looks like this. It is so pitch perfect mid-90s it's almost a parody. The fashion, the overly dramatic narrator, the hair, the editing which can only be the result of an editor doing editing on a computer for the first time and going absolutely buck wild with transparent overlays and such because it's so easy now. It is a pitch perfect slightly heightened 90s throwback, but it's not a throwback it's an actual 90s artifact. I gotta be honest, I do get how it's possible I hadn't heard of this before. The podcast host was being generous, this is very clearly a documentary that was a little fluffed up. A little exaggerated for dramatic purposes. If it was full on or largely faked, it would've had a better arc. Instead, the creepiest thing happens almost immediately. The ghost hunter goes up in the attic and then goes quiet and when someone goes to check they find him sort of rapped around a support beam with a wire around his neck. It's creepy, and if the movie had continued on in that vein it would be a cult classic. But instead nothing anywhere near that creepy happens ever again. Instead the bulk of the movie from that point on focuses on orbs. I get that in the mid 90s, orbs were probably mind-blowing stuff. A ghost documentary dedicating most of it's run time to orbs would probably have kept people spellbound back then. But in 2023, you gotta bring something better than orbs to the table. An Unknown Encounter is great as a 90s artifact. But if you want a spooky good time in a documentary format, real or otherwise, there are way better options. ----------------
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Oct 28, 2023 01:16
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 #29: Death Drop Gorgeous HORROR IS FOR EVERYONE - LGBTQ+Knife+Heart it ain't. I will say, this movie does have some strong points. Despite how poorly the comedy was delivered, it still managed to get some laughs from me. And the gore is very good, especially for a movie so clearly low budget. It has a great slit neck, and even real movies struggle with that. And there's a half decent little ending twist. That being said, it's still bad. It's shot in an incredibly boring way. Every scene has just zero energy or emotion to it. Which is compounded by how the plot just meanders. There are three plotlines; a mysterious serial killer targeting young gay men, and aging drag queen fighting to keep her position, and a guy who had to move back to his home city after vague relationship/work trouble. At the halfway point it's revealed the drag queen is the killer, and it kinda pissed me off because there was no reason to make that a twist. Just make that the thing the movies about from the jump, and maybe this would have been more entertaining. And the guy, oh my god is his story boring. And it has shockingly little interaction with the other storylines. Man, I want to be on this movie's side but what should have been fun and glamorous is just dull and plodding. At least I got another bingo out of it 
---------------- Gripweed fucked around with this message at 21:12 on Oct 30, 2023 |
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Oct 28, 2023 04:18
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  #30 & #31: Count Yorga, Vampire and The Return of Count Yorga Reviewing these together because the main thing about both is Count Yorga Count Yorga is just straight up Dracula, and he's a fantastic Dracula. He's super charming, he's blatantly a vampire but totally owns it so people who make fun of him end up just looking rude and dumb. You actually understand how this fuckin guy claiming to be minor European nobility and wearing a fuckin blood red waistcoat manages to charm all the ladies and disarm all the men. And when he goes evil, especially in the first movie, that hint of social superiority turns into this total mocking derision, it's fantastic. Robert Quarry is the best Dracula since Bela Lugosi. That's right, he's better than even Christopher Lee. Luckily, the movies around him aren't too bad either. They drip with 70s charm. The heroes in the first one are a young professional couple who just happen to drive a VW microbus with a sex bed in the back as their main commuting vehicle. The second one is the weaker film but is still a lot of fun, with a strangely young Craig T. Nelson and the best quicksand scene in any movie ever. If you like any of the following >vampires >Draculas >70s vibes >70s babes You need to check out Count Yorga ----------------
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Oct 30, 2023 21:12
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 #32: Resident Evil: Death Island Starts with Leon S. Kennedy having a motorcycle gunkata fight with a woman in a backless red leather jumpsuit. That's enough to put it in my good books. There's a lot of fun action and the new monsters are pretty cool. The end boss, this kind of giant zombie manshark thing, is excellent. The action is very well done, it's all super clear what's going and there's some moments of neat camera movement following it. The only big weakness is the villain, who is extremely lame until he turns into a giant zombie manshark. Overall I'd say it's closer to something for Resident Evil fans than for general audiences. If you do like Resident EVil, absolutely check it out. If you're looking for a general action horror movie, watch Resident Evil Vendetta first. That's the one I recommend even to people who aren't already fans of the franchise. Death Island is a pretty direct sequel so you can watch it after Vendetta if you want more of that kind of thing. ---------------- Gripweed fucked around with this message at 16:48 on Nov 1, 2023 |
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Oct 31, 2023 03:02
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 #33: Digging up the Marrow A fake documentary about real life horror director Adam Green investigating the claims made by a strange fan that monsters are real and living underground. I hadn't heard of Adam Green before watching this movie, but as explained I guess he's a cult director with his own fanbase, and this definitely feels like something made for that existing audience. A lot of Adam Green, but also lots of footage at horror conventions, Kane Hodder shows up as himself, it feels like it's made for people for whom "horror fan" defines not just their taste but also their personality. The crazy fan with the theory about monsters is played by Ray Wise. Also known as Leland Palmer from Twin Peaks, Skip Reming from Newsreaders, and a billion other things. He's a Dick Miller level "that guy". Which is a double bladed lightsaber because on the one hand he's an excellent actor who brings a lot of gravitas to the role. But on the other hand it means at no point can your subconscious brain buy this as a real documentary even a little bit. And, similar to an issue I had with Hell House, it's structured like a movie with a last minute horror sting, but if this was a real documentary that's what the drat thing would be about. The movie finds itself in a catch 22 with the monsters. The monsters are cool, they look great. But it's important to the plot that they look better than any fake monsters Adam Green could have in one of his fiction movies. Which is, of course, impossible. So their solution was to only give you super quick glimpses of the monsters, in the hopes that you won't have enough time to make u your own judgement of how realistic they are. Which doesn't really work, only giving you occluded or distant or blurry sightings of them would have worked way better but the suits and puppets are too good so they really wanted to let you see them up close. which is a kind of worst of both worlds, you see them up close enough to not buy them as real, but they don't get enough screen time to really show off how nice they look as fake monsters in a movie. Digging up the Marrow is a reasonably fun time. If you're an Adam Green fan, which apparently is a thing that exists, definitely check it out. I would have to give it a tepid recommendation to everyone else though. Certainly not the worst fake documentary, but it never really hits that suspension of disbelief groove you want. ---------------- Gripweed fucked around with this message at 16:48 on Nov 1, 2023 |
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Oct 31, 2023 03:19
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| # ¿ May 22, 2024 18:13 |
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W-W-W-W-W-WRAP UP! 33 movies watched! BEST MOVIES OF THE MONTH Senritsu Kaiki File Kowasugi: The Most Terrifying Movie in History The Vast of Night Shin Ultraman Night Creatures Split Second Death Proof It Follows CineD HORROR THREAD POLL CHALLENGEDual FREDDY VS. JASON 20TH ANNIVERSERY CHALLENGERigor Mortis PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK…..IN SPACE!!!Night Creatures BIRTH OF HORRORSatanic Panic ROB ZOMBIE 20TH ANNIVERSARY CHALLENGEPlanet Terror ”THAT GUY” CHALLENGE FEATURING DICK MILLER AND KEITH DAVID Bucket of Blood THE EXORCIST 50TH ANNIVERSERY CHALLENGESenritsu Kaiki File Kowasugi: The Most Terrifying Movie in History HORROR ADJACENTBody Melt WHEN ANIMALS OF UNUSUAL SIZE ATTACK!Shin Ultraman CHILDHOOD TRAUMA The Haunting BITE-SIZED HORRORTales From The Crypt THE SAMHAIN CHALLENGEHell House LLC NEW-TO-YOUBody Melt, Satanic Panic, Prisoners of Ghostland, Senritsu Kaiki File Kowasugi: The Most Terrifying Movie in History, Def By Temptation, The Vast of Night HISTORY LESSONNight Creatures(1960s) Tales From The Crypt(1970) Body Melt(1990s) Satanic Panic(2010s) Prisoners of Ghostland(2020s) HORROR IS FOR EVERYONEDef By Temptation, Death Proof, Death Drop Gorgeous  UNCOMPLETE BACK OF THE VIDEO STORE CHALLENGEAROUND THE WORLD
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Nov 1, 2023 17:06
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