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SALT CURES HAM posted:Most of those movies are pretty fun. Like I said, I like Tokyo Gore Police but Zombie rear end shits all over a line I arbitrarily drew in the sand.
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Oct 13, 2014 09:20
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Zombie rear end is garbo but it's sorta unique in that weird little subgenre for being garbo.
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The trailer is way better than the movie. That voice over guy is loving hilarious. DEY COM...IN DA TOILET! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uE4iKPq2XU
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Oct 13, 2014 09:35
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1st: Nightmare Factory 2nd: The Town that Dreaded Sundown 3rd: Shivers 4th: ABC's of Death 5th: Re-Animator 6th: Creepshow 2 7th: Nosferatu (bonus movie: Virgin Witch) 8th: The Stuff 9th: A Nightmare on Elm Street 10th: Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy October 11th: Eraserhead One of my all-time favorite movies from one of my all-time favorite directors. After work, my friend came over to hang out. He had never seen Eraserhead. He's open-minded enough to put up with my weirder movie tangents, and I wanted to  freak him out.There's a documentary that used to air on IFC late at night about famous midnight movies and their histories (Pink Flamingos, Night of the Living Dead, Eraserhead, etc.) and then would play one of the midnight movies. This is how I was introduced to Eraserhead and David Lynch, and fell in love with his work. Every time I watch Eraserhead, I think I've got it figured out, and then the ending hits and I question all of my interpretations. It doesn't help that David Lynch has been listening to fan interpretations for decades and says he hasn't heard an interpretation that was close to his intention (which he's totally happy with). This movie seems to be a happy little mistake. It took 4 years to make. Lynch was working as a roofer. Lynch was editing the movie hours before its first preview at a film festival. Lynch's marriage was on the rocks, and he was still a new parent. He often slept in the bedroom set. Jack Nance had to keep his hair in the crazy style for four years. Production was so slow and troubled that Lynch wanted to give up, until he opened a Bible and saw a Bible verse that seemed to answer all of his questions and quiet his doubt. To this day, he has never mentioned the Bible verse, and I think (sadly) he'll take it to the grave with him. Again, people guess (Psalms 23:4 is a popular one), but no one will really know for sure. That's the whole movie in a nutshell: it is full of absurd symbols and surreal imagery. No one really knows how the baby was made (again, Lynch's secrecy), no one knows how they made all of the sound effects; it's a movie made from secrets. There is no right way or wrong way to interpret the film. The atmosphere is amazing: the dialogue is sparse, the sound design is nightmare fuel, the imagery is beautiful, and the emotions are conflicting (the dinner scene, for instance, mixes black comedy, horror, and sci-fi to make a date from hell that would fit in a nightmare rom-com). It has made it's lasting impression. It has it's spot in the Criterion Collection, it inspired Stanley Kubrick during the production of The Shining, it's style is imitated and referenced often. It's a movie that, to this day, still baffles and amazes new viewers. And it's not even Lynch's best. I love this movie.  /5 because why don't we have a David Lynch thread?October 12th: Tales from the Crypt Double Feature: Demon Knight/Bordello of Blood Despite being a fan of the show, I have never seen either of these movies. It was mentioned here, and I wanted something fun and new, so I started with Demon Knight. It did not disappoint. Billy Zane is amazing. The whole movie was a fun "where have I seen them before?" game. The action is insane, the gore is cringe-worthy, and the story was an over-the-top blast. Loved every minute of it. So I had to watch Bordello of Blood. The references to the first movie were fun, and it's a good story, but it's just not as good. I still loved every minute, the gratuitous nudity was fun, and Corey Feldman was great. The main character's personality got on my nerves a bit, though. For fun horror movies, they can't be beat. /514 movies so far. I'll probably exceed 31 by the time Halloween rolls by. I'm starting to mix favorites and classics with new movies at this point since we're almost half-way through. Rocky Horror will be playing at a theater near me soon, so that's going to make the list as well.
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Oct 13, 2014 15:01
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Franchescanado posted:So I had to watch Bordello of Blood. It's not surprising that he'd grate a bit since Dennis Miller was essentially playing himself.
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Oct 13, 2014 15:29
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This weekend I finished up my run of Dracula films with four very different versions of the story. After watching a bunch of Hammer in a row it was fun to jump around a little bit. Dracula(1931): Several people have posted about this just in the last few pages and I don't have much more to add, but when you watch it you can see why its a classic. The lighting really stands out, there are a lot of pretty amazing shots of Lugosi that are lit perfectly. And I agree with what others have said about the Renfield character, he's more creepy here than in any other adaptation I can think of. Nosferatu The Vampyre: I saw this for the first time only three of four months ago but I just had to watch it again for October. I'd never be able to choose one favorite Dracula film but this one would certainly be up there. Kinski is the most inhuman Dracula ever, I really don't understand how the guy did what he did in this movie. Knowing Kinski I'm sure he made some people uncomfortable on the set with this character. Every shot is beautiful, which is to be expected from Herzog, and there are a few moments in this that are flat-out scarier to me than any other Dracula. I can't come up with any criticism, as far as I'm concerned Nosferatu The Vampyre is perfect. Dracula(1979): I find this version to be underrated, for the most part it seems to be ignored. You can tell a decent amount of money was put into it, the sets and costumes are great. Langella is more romantic style Dracula, which I think works here because of how over-the-top everything about the production is. Of course it doesn't hurt that you have Donald Pleasance as Dr. Seward and Lawrence Olivier as Van Helsing. As a horror fan is was somewhat satisfying to watch Pleasance overwhelm Olivier's presence in the film; to me the Dr. Seward character was much more memorable than Olivier's Van Helsing. This isn't the best but is far from the worst and probably deserves more praise than it gets. Bram Stoker's Dracula: People often make fun of this movie, most often because of the presence of Keanu Reeves, but in the early 90's when I was growing up it made a big impression on me. The makeup effects used on Gary Oldman are unbelievable; he is an unnaturally old man, a young man, a man-sized bat, and a wolfman at different points. The first portion of the story when Harker meets Dracula for the first time while staying in his castle are as good as any version of those scenes, and Oldman's performance carries the whole movie from start to finish. Its also pretty drat scary, and has its fair share of blood and gore. I only find Keanu's accent to be noticeably bad in a few specific scenes, and overall it never bothered me. I've always felt that this movies faults are vastly outweighed by all the great stuff in it. List so far: Creepshow, Creepshow 2, Chillerama, Body Bags, Necronomicon, Trick R Treat, Horror of Dracula, Dracula Has Risen From the Grave, Taste the Blood of Dracula, Dracula A.D. 1972, Dracula(1931), Nosferatu The Vampyre, Dracula(1979), Bram Stoker's Dracula. So far I'm on pace to finish this thing.
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Oct 13, 2014 15:36
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Last night was The Cube, it's been an age since I watched these, there were incredibly my poo poo back in college. I'm not sure there exists a movie with such a disparity between dialog quality and everything else in the film. Basically every line of dialog is delivered the exact same way from each character (nerdy girl's lines are all delivered nerdy girl style, angry dude is angry, etc), the lines themselves are generally pretty awful ("All you do is freak out, you murderer!") but the atmosphere of the film, the set designs and some of the traps are just a LOT of fun. I remember Hypercube being more of the same but weirder, maybe I should watch that, but today we're back on slasher flicks, either Halloween or Scream.
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Oct 13, 2014 17:10
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Day 13 - Grave Encounters 2 The first Grave Encounters was one of my favorite random finds from last year. It was an atmospheric horror movie that dealt with more psychological and unexplainable terror than just straight up scares. Unfortunately, the end of the movie turned around from that completely and made the entire thing about spooky ghosts with creepy faces. I was really hoping that Grave Encounters 2 would learn something from the original film. Unfortunately, what it learned is that it is way easier to CGI up some faces than it is to create something original. The rest of the review behind the link.
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Oct 13, 2014 19:53
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 Not too bad, as horror anthologies go. The examination of attitudes towards women in horror is an interesting aspect linking the stories, but after getting used to the novelty of the presentation, I'm not that hot on the overall film. The individual segments have been gone over pretty thoroughly in the horror mega-thread, but my favorite moments are when the film tries more for horror than being clever or quirky (specifically the arms in the tunnel of "10/31/98" and the demoness of "Amateur Night"). On a pure nerd note, it's disappointing how even by the first entry in the series, they couldn't be bothered to make the tape corruption analog. I need to get around to watching the sequel one of these days, I guess.
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Oct 14, 2014 02:14
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The Pit - A really weird story about a slighty schizophrenic kid, Jamie, who finds a deep pit behind his house. Oh, and this deep pit has 'Tra-la-logs', prehistoric creatures which have some how survived in this tiny pit. I'm not sure what the point of this movie was, or who was the intended audience. It did have some pretty funny dark humor at times, but the rest is a mess that doesn't make up for it/5 StageFright: Aquarius - This is a very good movie has much more of a Canadian or American feel than one coming out of 80s Italy. The shots of the killer with his owl mask brandishing a weapon are awesome and surreal. What really irritated me about this film is how helpless the victims are. People have broken out of prison, but you cannot manage to find a way to escape an old movie theatre?! poo poo! /5
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Oct 14, 2014 02:36
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Day 13 - Well, I started watching Shivers but the video on Netflix had some absurdly bad interlacing problems. The worst I've ever seen. So I could watch people who were 50% there anytime they moved and cut into huge ribbons in the process, or I could pick something else. So I went to another film I was looking forward to mainly because I heard it was insane: The Visitor. It's The Omen by way of Scientology. God and the devil were space aliens and the devil has a lot of descendants walking the earth. God goes around dealing with them while other people seek to exploit them. I thought going in that this would be more scifi than horror which made me hesitant to watch it as a horror movie. I shouldn't have worried. Once there very long backstory monologue at the beginning is over with, you're into devil child tormenting and killing everyone around her territory and the film does much better with those scenes than it does with the Space Jesus stuff. The editing in this film is weird. The way the reaction shots are cut in is just incongruous. Not-Damian's mother is fighting for her life, cutting back and forth between the operating table and a gymnastics class that apparently takes place months later. Not-Damian's birthday party goes awry; cut to her smirking and shrugging. One issue I had with the video streaming on Amazon Prime (my day for streaming issues I guess) is the sound mix was super-quiet. I was watching on a portable device and with the volume cranked all the way up I could barely hear the dialog. The Visitor is gloriously over the top. It's not a good movie, but it's one of those movies where things just go crazy and you don't know where it's going to end. The film opens with people using the antichrist to fix basketball games. There's a scene where God plays pong with the Antichrist (sadly, the fate of the world is not at stake). There's an amazing bird attack scene where a raptor rips out the eyes of a guy driving a car. I can't say the film does a lot of things well, but it's really ambitious. Also, the little girl playing the Space Antichrist is suitably creepy. I can believe that she'd push someone down a flight of steps. I think I'll watch Day of the Dead tomorrow. I always heard that it was really weak compared to Night and Dawn so I hadn't bothered checking it out...
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Oct 14, 2014 04:21
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Day of the Dead is the best of the trilogy by a wide margin actually
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Oct 14, 2014 04:49
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Week 1 1) Re-Animator (1985) 2) Isle of the Dead (1945) 3) Full Moon High (1981) 4) The Innkeepers (2011) Week 2 5) The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986) 6) Galaxy of Terror (1981) 7) Lair of the White Worm (1988) 8) Nosferatu (1922) / Shadow of the Vampire (2000) 9) The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976) 10) The Asphyx (1973) 11) Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) Week 3 12) Carrie (2013) 13) Shivers (1975) I'm actually not a fan of most of Cronenberg's work before Videodrome, except for Fast Company. I thought The Brood and Rabid were both bores. But Shivers was surprisingly good considering how uneven a lot of Cronenberg's early work is.
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Oct 14, 2014 06:17
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SALT CURES HAM posted:Day of the Dead is the best of the trilogy by a wide margin actually I disagree completely but i can see why someone might say that. It seems like the most straight forward slash and gore zombie film of the Romero series so I imagine fans of that stuff would prefer it over the slower Night and Dawn that deal more with the human reaction. Day has that and the usual Romero judgment of society but also loads it with a tone of Savini gore and effects and Bub. I've never thought it was on par with Night and Dawn but I think its a totally serviceable and enjoyable zombie flick (as I also feel about Land). If it was just another zombie film without the comparison to Night and Dawn I think it would be seen as fine. Comparing it the two you're going to have people who love the first two judging it more harshly. But I can totally see why some fans would prefer Day if they really weren't that hight on Night and Dawn (or their favorite parts of Dawn were the hack and slash sequences). And is it really a "trilogy"? Aren't there at least 5 movies? Land of the Dead (which I thought was ok in the same way as Day) and Diary of the Dead (which I thought was crap trying to merge the franchise with the found footage craze). And then I even thing the terrible Survival of the Dead is part of the canon series. Night of the Living Dead is one of my favorite of all time and the franchise suffers from some serious diminishing returns. Speaking of diminishing return sequels... 14) Paranormal Activity 2 (2010)  Super, super, super disappointing sequel. The first one scared the poo poo out of me and I thought took my run into the next level. Since then I haven't had a good scare in five movies (granted, two were comedies) and I decided to give the sequel a watch tonight after briefly scanning the "Critical Reception" section on Wikipedia and getting the sense people thought it held up. I don't. This one had a few really good jump scares and some good tense setting like the first but really terrible pacing and some writing choices I really hate. I'm sure some people found the first one slow and were annoyed by the lack of action for the first half of the film but I loved it. I thought that it built tension well and sucked us into the mental state of the couple and let us watch their gradual, understandable breakdown. But the first film starts with the couple already investigating their haunting and clued in and reacting. The sequel spends like 45 minutes with nothing but minor haunting things happening and basically no one noticing. When poo poo starts to kick into high gear its scary but its basically the very beginning of the family noticing and being scared. There's like three days separating everyone in the house freaking out because they've seen/experienced some major poo poo and the day before they were cool as a cucumber. The first movie was an emotional and psychological journey, but the second is just "subtle weird thing, subtle weird thing, strange thing, strange thing, slightly spooky thing, HOLY MOTHERFUCKING poo poo!!!!, the end." The gradual build from the first is completely absent as is the empathetic journey with the victims. Of course I watched the Extended Version and after looking up the differences it seems that its just like 10 minutes of completely minor "haunting" stuff that no one really reacted to. So many the movie isn't QUITE so slow without that stuff. Good cuts, director/studio. That poo poo was silly and unnecessary, especially Ali's random rant about creepy dreams and being haunted the same way Katie and Kristy were, which doesn't really make much sense with the background story provided of this demon haunting Kristy and Katie's family because of a family deal with the demon. Speaking of, gently caress that poo poo. I hate when a good horror movie explains itself too much and when a sequel feels the need to throw background and exposition on a story that worked just fine on its own. I was fully expecting this film to just be a new couple in a now home with a new haunting. I was shocked as hell when Katie showed up and spent the whole time wondering how none of this came up in the first film (of course, that's explained once again by the men of this series being loving assholes making things worse). And the totally tacked on and spurious exposition that Katie and Kristy's great grandma made a deal with a demon was just completely unnecessary and added nothing except over complicating the plot (like me wondering why Ali is being haunted specifically since she isn't part of the blood line). Its just super, unnecessary and when Demon Katie showed up I almost threw my hands up because it just felt so wrong. Man, I'm just getting more and more annoyed the more I type. It wasn't a BAD film, I don't think. I definitely jumped a few times and never really got bored. But it could have been like 30 minutes shorter (but to their credit they did cut 10 minutes of stuff I watched) or the poo poo could have happened way sooner and I was left deeply unsatisfied and feeling like i just watched a companion piece for the first film. A companion piece I didn't want or ask for. I guess I can't blame a sequel for expanding on the story of the original but I really think the franchise would have been better off just telling scary stories in the same style as the original but with new people and new stuff. Instead I suspect this franchise is just another example of a horror series that starts with a great film and just spends sequel after sequel bogging it down with unnecessary baggage. And of course I fully intend to watch Paranormal Activity 3 and 4 later this month. Because I have them and I'm a completist. But boy is my interest down. I didn't watch a movie on the 12th. I watched the Walking Dead premiere and then Talking Dead and just decided to skip a movie since I was ahead of the pace with my count and got my horror kick from TWD. But I intend to do another double billing or two the next few nights to get back ahead of the pace because I always end up failing in this challenge because I get busy at the end of the month and can't watch one every night. I need to frontload my schedule if I want to pull this off, especially if I want to keep it to new movies instead of my favorites that I'll want to watch as Halloween approaches. The Tally Only first time films watched in October count to the challenge. Any repeat viewings are Ineligible (I). Pre-October Warm Up V/H/S (2012) / V/H/S 2 (2013) / Sinister (2012) / Quarantine 2: Terminal (2011) / State Of Emergency (2011) / We Are What We Are (2013) Week 1: Oct 1st to 7th 1) Insidious (2010) / 2) Insidious: Chapter 2 (2013) / 3) Enter Nowhere (2011) / 4) The Nurse (2013) / 5) American Mary (2012) / (I) Tales From the Crypt: Demon Knight (1995) / 6) Re-Animator (1985) / 7) The Lords of Salem (2013) Week 2: Oct 8th to 14th 8) Paranormal Activity (2007) / 9) Trollhunter (2010) / 10) The Woman in Black (2012) / 11) 1408 (2007) /12) Dead Before Dawn (2012) / 13) ParaNorman (2012) / 14) Paranormal Activity 2 (2010)
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Oct 14, 2014 06:19
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Movie #13: The House Where Evil Dwells (1982) Flashback, 1800's Japan. A man and a woman get to canoodling, followed by her husband walking in on them. He kills them both and then himself. Back in 1982, an American family of three moves into the old house as the husband is a folklore writer looking for inspiration. They're rented the house by their also white family friend who does indeed make it clear the house is haunted. On cue, weird stuff starts happening, and the the ghosts of past look to possess the three adults to slowly force them to reenact the events of the past. Well. I can't say I enjoyed this film. It was boring and poorly acted. Doug McClure spends all of his scenes looking about as comfortable as a wet cat, and he's probably the best actor in the bunch. The production values are such that if it weren't for the (surprisingly) graphic sex and violence, I'd think this film was made for 1982 television, not theaters. Throughout the film the ghosts are seen as lame superimpositions on screen, and 95% of their appearances would have been better without their heavy handed appearances added. It's funny how the same effect is done so, well, effectively in The Stone Tape made a decade before and seen earlier in my watching pattern. Also, I have a nagging suspicion that someone with creative power was hoping they were making a Japanese-flavored version of The Shining with the way certain beats and themes were cribbed from the other recent haunted house film, including obsessive typewriting, strained family, and even a similar opening flyover shot on the way to the new, secluded real estate for the happy family. It doesn't help that this is from the period where to America Japan was all kimonos and electronics, and it really shows. The only real positive moment I can mention is a sequence in the middle of the film where the young daughter is suddenly menaced by a plague of crabs that is remarkably creepy and worth a jump if you're already unnerved by things like spiders and the like. Other than that, this is a middling, unremarkable piece. /5Previous films out of 31 for the month--all new to me: 1. Half-Caste (2004) 2. Grim (1995) 3. The Host (2006) 4. Para-Norman (2012) 5. Maniac Cop II (1995) 6. The Vampire Journals (1997) 7. Alien 2: Sulla Terra (1980) 8. The Stone Tape (1972) 9. Flesh Eating Mothers (1988) 10. Two Thousand Maniacs! (1967) 11. The Church (1989) 12. Subspecies IV: Bloodstorm (1998)
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Oct 14, 2014 07:09
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STAC Goat posted:I disagree completely but i can see why someone might say that. It seems like the most straight forward slash and gore zombie film of the Romero series so I imagine fans of that stuff would prefer it over the slower Night and Dawn that deal more with the human reaction. Day has that and the usual Romero judgment of society but also loads it with a tone of Savini gore and effects and Bub. I've never thought it was on par with Night and Dawn but I think its a totally serviceable and enjoyable zombie flick (as I also feel about Land). If it was just another zombie film without the comparison to Night and Dawn I think it would be seen as fine. Comparing it the two you're going to have people who love the first two judging it more harshly. But I can totally see why some fans would prefer Day if they really weren't that hight on Night and Dawn (or their favorite parts of Dawn were the hack and slash sequences). It's not a straightforward gore film, though? I'd actually go as far as to say it has less gore than Dawn; what's there is far more disgusting, but it's almost all packed into the end. The reason I like it best is because it feels like the culmination of Romero's growth as a writer and director; the themes are less heavy-handed and more nuanced, the characters are better developed than in Night or Dawn, the pacing is perfect (Night and Dawn both drag a little at times, whereas Day never does), and it's beautifully shot. I'm also a huge sucker for apocalyptic movies that are actually apocalyptic. Day of the Dead isn't about civilization plugging along in the face of catastrophe like so many others in the post-apocalyptic subgenre, it's about the last few living humans on Earth coming to terms with their inevitable extinction and choosing to go out with a bang, not a whimper. quote:And is it really a "trilogy"? Aren't there at least 5 movies? There were only three. 
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Oct 14, 2014 07:23
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It's really mean to put Day of the Dead and Land of the Dead on the same level.
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Oct 14, 2014 07:24
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Progress: PA Marked Ones (7/10)) / Children of the Corn (2/10) / The Town that Dreaded Sundown (5/10) / The Burning (7/10) / Murder Party (7/10) / Last Ride (4/10) / Body Parts (4/10) / Christine 7/10) / Crazies (6/10) / Shivers (6/10) / Bad Taste (4/10) / Invasion of the Body Snatchers (8/10) / Deadly Spawn (5/10) / The Visitor (5/10) / Zombie rear end (1/10) 10/13/14: Evil Dead Trap This started out as kind of a snuff film thing. Was totally expecting it to be something like the good parts of Hostel. It turns quickly into a Japanese Giallo film complete with rad recurring soundtrack that reminds me both of something Goblin would do and the Halloween theme. Strangely enough, it morphs into something more like Akira / Tetsuo at the end. It's got a dingy, nasty warehouse aesthetic but it's actually quite nice to look at throughout. Like most of the films I randomly chose for HORROR OCTORBOR this year, I wouldn't recommend it to most people but it was enjoyable because it's wholly unpredictable and rather drat baffling. After this and Zombie rear end, it's good to say that I'm taking a break from anything Japanese for a good long while. None of the movies have been very good besides PA 5 and Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but it's been great fun watching movies that I vaguely know something about yet have never seen before because I can never predict what's going to happen in 75% of these films. Next up: Wishmaster / Anaconda / Monster Squad / Willow Creek / In My Skin / We Are What We Are. Hoping these are a little less mindbreaking than the last 3 because it's been extremely rough. Jigoku fucked around with this message at 07:51 on Oct 14, 2014 |
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Oct 14, 2014 07:48
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SALT CURES HAM posted:There were only three. It was four. Land of the Dead is part and parcel with the other three. Diary of the Dead restarts things new, but you can't say the reset button was hit before that, sorry. Though honestly they all follow the same theme of addressing the major issues of their time, even the NotLD remake counts for that much.
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Oct 14, 2014 08:04
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Land owns.
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Oct 14, 2014 14:13
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Survival of the Dead and Diary of the Dead are among the worst films I've ever seen. Do not even watch them for the curiosity factor! Speaking of bad movies... Movie 10: Poltergeist I know I had seen this one before, but the only scenes I could really remember were the clown scene and the face scene. Turns out the reason why this is all I could remember is because this is one of the most boring, unmemorable movies I've ever seen. This is regarded as a classic but I'm really not sure why it has that reputation. The build up is okay, but once Carol gets sucked into the TV the movie just stalls and never regains the momentum it had. It's not particularly scary, and it has some of the worst acting I've ever seen. Jobeth Williams is terrible and ruins every scene she's in (ie 90% of the movie). If I were Steven Spielberg I would not take credit for this movie either, mainly out of sheer embarrassment. I know this one is regarded as a classic, and I am open to opposing views on this one to see if there is anything I may have missed. Movie 11: The Amityville Horror (1979) This was okay. It helps set the standard for modern haunted house movies, in particular the works of James Wan. It drags a little at times, but the scares are quite good. It made an interesting double-feature with Poltergeist, as there's quite a bit of similarities between the two films. Amityville keeps things lower in scope in terms of effects and outlandishness, and succeeds as a result. Movie 12: The Lords of Salem This is the second time I've watched this one and I'm starting to really like it. It's a really simple and straightforward story and it happens to have one of the most bizarre and ambitious endings I've ever seen. Rob Zombie shows a lot of growth as a director with this one. In his previous works he has a tendency to throw everything against the wall. This one is much more restrained, and it helps. This one has a great atmosphere that helps build dread, and does not have a tendency to rely on jump scares. We still have a few of Zombie's trademark cutaway scenes though, and that's where the truly gory stuff awaits. This one does have a very bizarre ending though and it has a pretty hard tonal shift. This one's not for everyone, but I feel it should be watched.
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Oct 14, 2014 14:20
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I'm going to start watching my "ultimate Halloween movies" in about a week, so until then I'm going to watch some stuff I have never seen. Oculus: I'm a horror fan and a Dr. Who fan, so I've been interested to see how Gillan would do in a leading role with an American accent. She was fine, not particularly bad but didn't really carry the film either which is probably what was called for here. I think this could have been better if there was a more charismatic, frenetic actress in the part and Gillan is too subdued in my opinion. It has a lot of fun ideas but not really any scares, and you can kind of see the ending coming from a mile away(although maybe that was the point). I'm also not sure I really put together what, if anything, the film was trying to say about domestic violence. I thought it was just showing that its a cycle of violence that is very difficult to break out of, but the characters committing the violence are literally hallucinating, which would seem to place the blame for domestic violence on some outside force(society?), which doesn't make sense. I'm not good at reading movies though, so maybe I'm missing something. Overall it was a competently made film and was entertaining enough, but I wasn't overly impressed.
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Oct 14, 2014 15:26
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CopywrightMMXI posted:
I agree. These days my go to Poltergeist movie will always be part 2, if even just for the much funner creature effects. 
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Oct 14, 2014 15:43
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11. Oculus (2013) I really liked some aspects of Oculus, psychological horror has always been one of my favorites and I was beyond terrified of mirrors when I was a kid. This film has two different time lines playing out at once, which is really cool and effective at first, but eventually becomes confusing as the lines between them begin to get blurred. It definitely has some creepy moments, and watching their total fall into madness was fun, trying to figure out what was real or not. To be honest, I think my main problem with this whole movie was Karen Gillians character, Kaylie. I dislike her as an actress anyway (I dunno why, she just annoys me... maybe because I also hate Amy Pond - actually the whole plot has a very Dr. Who vibe to it) and her character was sometimes just frustrating to watch. Without revealing too much, she basically drags her brother back into the whole mess after he spent his entire adolescence trying to get over what happened, and it doesn't end well for him. The ending left me feeling upset and angry at her character as a whole. I think the general plot is actually very original for a horror movie these days, and the way you end up questioning everything that is happening is really effective. For that alone I definitely would recommend this movie. It's worth the watch, but don't expect to be totally blown away. 12. Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987) After only ever seeing the first and second Elm Street movies, I admit my hopes weren't particularly high for the third. Don't get me wrong, I LOVED the first, but the second had a dramatically different tone to it that I sort of expected the rest of them to have as well. I was REALLY surprised how good this movie was. Pretty scary and serious while still managing to put some humor in there as well. I'm eager to watch the others in the series now even though I heard this was the best one. On a totally different note.. I recently began reading House of Leaves, which I'm really enjoying. Why the hell hasn't anyone made The Navidson Record into a real film though?? it would be fantastic!
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Oct 14, 2014 15:55
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Amber Sweet posted:
Yea the Nightmare series doesn't really have a clear trajectory. They(multiple people involved in the production, you can get the full story in Never Sleep Again) hosed up the first sequel by making a few really boneheaded decisions. Then both 3 and 4 turned out much better, but after that the series goes downhill again until New Nightmare which most people agree is one of the best.
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Oct 14, 2014 16:17
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The good Nightmare movies are the ones with Heather Langenkamp.
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Oct 14, 2014 18:23
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As my friends just purchased Alien: Isolation, we thought it appropriate to watch Alien yesterday. It remains a classic, and I forgot just how scary it was. The scene in the vents with Dallas gets me every time. Also, what a cast! The whole thing is perfection, front to back.
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Oct 14, 2014 18:34
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:Land owns. I saw Land on opening night at a late show and I can't remember which one it was, I'm pretty sure it was the Jim Rose Circus Sideshow -- anyway they were all there. That added to the atmosphere, watching a new Romero zombie film literally with a freakshow sitting with you.
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Oct 14, 2014 20:53
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Choco1980 posted:It was four. Land of the Dead is part and parcel with the other three. Diary of the Dead restarts things new, but you can't say the reset button was hit before that, sorry. Though honestly they all follow the same theme of addressing the major issues of their time, even the NotLD remake counts for that much. Yeah I'm just being mean to Land, I don't think it's as good as Dawn or Day but it's about on the same level as Night. (I don't actually like the original Night very much, granted, but it's a fine movie.)
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Oct 14, 2014 20:56
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October 11th: Dungeon Girl (2008) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1173486/ What happened to Ulli Lommel? I mean, I guess he was never a "good" director, but he managed to put out some strange and engaging films in the 80s. Now it's all mind-numbing garbage. I don't even want to talk about this one, it's just depressing. October 12th: Down (2001) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0247303/ Dick Maas does an English-language remake of his 1983 film De Lift. Long story short, it's about a killer elevator powered by eeeeevil computer chips. It's really ridiculous and over-the-top, but I'm entirely certain that it was meant to be that way. I didn't enjoy it quite as much as the original, but I found it entertaining nonetheless. Plus Ron Perlman, Michael Ironside and Dan Hedaya are always welcome additions to a cast. October 13th: Angst (1983) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0165623/ A psychotic young man is released from a 10 year stint in prison and immediately returns to his murderous ways, going after an old woman and her two adult children in their secluded home. Alright, it had only been a couple years since I'd last seen this one, but it was Thanksgiving and I was feeling lazy, so I went with something familiar. This is a compelling watch, with the Snorricam shots giving it a nightmarish feel. There's very little dialogue. Rather, the movie is mostly narrated by its killer main character. It's quite brutal, and yet somehow not as graphic as it could have been, apart from one particular scene. I am, of course, referring to the truly disgusting sausage-eating. Seriously though, I highly recommend this one if you've got the stomach for it.
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Oct 14, 2014 21:41
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Day 14 - Silent House So this movie is a remake of a Uruguayan film called La Casa Muda which I had never heard of before. Which is fair since I also hadn’t ever heard of Silent House before either. It’s much better going in knowing literally nothing about the movie, though, since it makes the little twists and turns a lot more compelling than they otherwise would be. The movie has the gimmick of looking like one continuous shot, which is fun and it ends up being fairly good at what it tries to cover. The full review gets into some spoilery territory towards the end but I found myself really liking this for some reason. Mostly because it actually held my attention and had me interested in what was going on.
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Oct 14, 2014 21:44
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Day 14 - I didn't intend to start a debate when I mentioned Day of the Dead, but here we are. I watched it and though I thought it started strong and had a lot of good moments, I don't think it's as good of movie as Night or Dawn. The biggest problem for me is just how disconnected the scenario in the film is. The group here might as well have been the stock characters from a 1950's creature feature. I couldn't connect with the travails of scientists researching zombies while under the thumb of a ruthless military commandant and locked in a vast underground storage facility (in Florida? You don't build anything underground in Florida unless you want it to be an indoor pool within a week). Compare that to Night and Dawn where regardless of how you feel about the characters, you can place yourself in their situation. Yeah, I'll never have to fend off hoards of the walking dead, but if they were coming to get me then I could see myself hiding in a house or mall. And that brings up what makes zombie films effective (and overdone at this point). There's an empathy to the survivalist nature of them. My sister-in-law who about as far removed from your average horror buff as you can get likes zombie films for that exact reason. It's hard to empathize with these characters even on a basic human level. But like I said, there's good moments. The opening sequence is really nifty. I liked the end of Bub's arc, though I thought a lot of the material around him up to that point was really weak. It's got descent gore if that's what you're looking for, though since those effects are by Tom Savini that was a given. I'm not sorry I watched it. I'd just watch the first two films in the series and Return of the Living Dead before watching this one again. I think tomorrow I'm going to hit up Monkey Shines, from the subgenre of horror where I have a genuine phobia.
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Oct 15, 2014 00:11
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Movie 13: Friday the 13th 3 This is probably the entry that most encapsulates this series. Teenagers get killed for having sex, aging hippies get killed for smoking weed, and 80s gang members get killed for being 80s gang members. Plus, Jason finally gets his iconic mask. This is a straightforward entry. There's no bizarre resurrection or attempt to shake things up or add new elements. I feel this one benefits from that. Movie 14: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 People on these boards have been praising this one for a while and pointing out its influence on Rob Zombie. I used to have the VHS of this when I was younger but I only watched it once and didn't recall liking it. I was at Walmart earlier today and saw the blu Ray for $8 so I thought I'd give it another shot at that price. I enjoyed this one much more this time around. I did not find the characters as annoying, and I liked the manic pacing of this one.
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Oct 15, 2014 02:53
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Week 1 1) Re-Animator (1985) 2) Isle of the Dead (1945) 3) Full Moon High (1981) 4) The Innkeepers (2011) Week 2 5) The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986) 6) Galaxy of Terror (1981) 7) Lair of the White Worm (1988) 8) Nosferatu (1922) / Shadow of the Vampire (2000) 9) The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976) 10) The Asphyx (1973) 11) Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) Week 3 12) Carrie (2013) 13) Shivers (1975) 14) House on Haunted Hill (1959) Finally saw this William Castle-Vincent Price classic. Not as good as its spiritual sequel The Tingler, but Jesus Christ are some of these jump scares still totally effective.
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Oct 15, 2014 03:04
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Pope Guilty posted:The good Nightmare movies are the ones with Heather Langenkamp. True, but Part 4 is also pretty cool. If only for the fact it's the most insane effects heavy one. The story is kinda garbage, but I would say the character group is probably the most likable in Part 4. They don't play up archetypes. They're just...teenagers. Only bad scene in the movie is where one guy falls asleep while pooping, and fights an invisible Freddy. It's dumbest thing. Everything else is good poo poo.
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Oct 15, 2014 03:05
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CelticPredator posted:
Apparently they ran out of money.
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Oct 15, 2014 03:09
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Tonight I watched Re-Animator for the first time. Holy poo poo. I found From Beyond to be pretty ho-hum, but this movie was loving nuts. Around the time that zombie-Halsey is crushing the disembodied head of Dr. Hill while his lumbering body fires its intestines as tentacles at West I was laughing my rear end off. This movie kind of perfectly encapsulates the pulpy ridiculousness of Lovecraft's story, without adhering to it too closely (thereby leaving out some truly odious racism, as well as some boring repetition). Jeffrey Combs is fantastic, and the guy who played Dr. Hill was a great villain/John Kerry lookalike. Overall, this has been one of the best surprises the whole month.
Franco Potente fucked around with this message at 03:52 on Oct 15, 2014 |
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Oct 15, 2014 03:41
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Franco Potente posted:Tonight I watched Re-Animator for the first time. Holy poo poo. I found The Beyond to be pretty ho-hum, but this movie was loving nuts. Do you mean From Beyond? I didn't think much of it either. Re-Animator gets talked about a lot, so I should probably give it a go sometime this month
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Oct 15, 2014 03:44
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Dr.Caligari posted:Do you mean From Beyond? I didn't think much of it either. Re-Animator gets talked about a lot, so I should probably give it a go sometime this month Oops, yeah, you're right. I've changed my post above to reflect that. The Beyond is pretty cool.
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Oct 15, 2014 03:51
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Grnegsnspm posted:Day 14 - Silent House Just watched this as well, based off of your review. I enjoyed it, the single shot for the whole movie was pretty neat, something I hadn't seen before. About an hour into the movie I realized what was going on with the story, and I ended up being correct. Even with knowing, it was cool to see how it all unfolded. Only thing I didn't understand, and maybe you could help, in the last minute of the film when she is walking out of the home the camera turns back into the dining room area, and the bodies of her father and uncle are nowhere to be found. I didn't get the significance of this. Overall, I'd give it /5 if for nothing more than the cool continuous shot feature.
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Oct 15, 2014 06:39
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Caught two today: Movie 14: Don't Look Up (2009) Some time in the past in Romania, there was some incident where a girl sold her first-born to the devil for her true love, and the daughter was to become the devil's bride but died. Now its ghost haunts places. In the silent age, a film crew tried to make a movie about the story. It didn't work out too well for them. Now today a new film crew, headed up by a director that is either psychic or psychotic, ships off to the old abandoned studio in order to try to make the movie again. I wonder if it will go well? While I was aware that Hideo Nakata's Joyû-rei existed, I did not realize this film that was sitting on my shelf for a year was an English Language remake of the film until I was already watching it. As I haven't seen the former film, I cannot comment on the latter's faithfulness. I can, however, claim that this film clearly wanted to be something, but was unfortunately not quite sure what that was. There are lots of wild and crazy images afoot here (especially with director Fruit Chan at the helm) and all sorts of gonzo J-Horror style ghost shots that are always a treat. But the plot unfortunately feels very jumpy and erratic, as if several key scenes are removed throughout the running time. I can only really recommend this film to the "have to watch everything" type crowd. .5 out of 5Movie 15: Giallo (2009) In Turin, Italy, A cab driver is kidnapping beautiful women and torturing them to death. After he takes a local supermodel, her sister teams up with a New York born cop to track him down. (That's it. What did you expect from a movie called Giallo? Vampires or something?) This film felt very much like a throwback for Argento to his earliest days, acting as a workhorse making other Gialli. It's overly simplistic with entirely unremarkable acting, yet it has all sorts of unusual camera angles and brutal violence. Actually, I'd say that "Unremarkable describes pretty much all of my feelings for this film. out of 5
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Oct 15, 2014 06:41
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