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 Oof. This was my first time seeing Tesis, and it flew past my expectations. The basic premise is that a young woman (Angela) at Spain's college of communications is doing her thesis on audio-visual violence; when she asks her advising professor to help her locate some extreme materials for research purposes, she becomes caught up in the subject matter. Ana Torrent played Angela as a gentle and sympathetic character, repulsed but fascinated by the things she studies, and by her own reactions to it. Fele Martinez balances out her passivity as Chema, a gore-hound with an extensive video collection, who helps Ana with her research. The friction between them kept things moving along without too many spots that felt forced or overly slow (and the set decoration for Chema's home was just great). Also respectable was the use of the setting, which did a better job of evoking a 'scholarly' atmosphere than any other horror film set at a school that I can remember at the moment. But the most impressive part for me was the tension of the film. The characters' journey takes them through so many hopeless situations, but instead of their continued survival making things seem more hopeful, the film generally doesn't ease off on the rising dread. The things they learn only make their situation worse. Tesis has pretty much jumped into the top slot of my watched films for the month so far.
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Oct 15, 2014 07:51
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You people that are making GBS threads on From Beyond are nuts. Inferno: I decided I need to get into more Italian horror, and this seemed like an obvious choice since I've already seen Suspiria. Visually its amazing, as expected, but I didn't enjoy the story or the characters as much as Suspiria. Also the dance school in Suspiria kind of became a character of its own, and there wasn't any setting in Inferno that was as memorable as that. Still, it had its moments and I'm finding I really do enjoy Argento's style, I'll have to track down Deep Red at some point soon. The one thing this movie has over Suspiria is it goes even further with the ending and you have a giant grim reaper chasing after the protagonist. Gotta love that. List so far: Creepshow, Creepshow 2, Chillerama, Necronomicon, Body Bags, Trick r Treat, Horror of Dracula, Dracula has Risen from the Grave, Taste the Blood of Dracula, Dracula A.D. 1972, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Nosferatu The Vampyre, Dracula(1931), Oculus, Inferno Basebf555 fucked around with this message at 14:43 on Oct 15, 2014 |
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Oct 15, 2014 14:41
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Trip Daddy X posted: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. Just went back and rewatched it to make sure but the room with the front door is just a different one from the one where the bodies were. So nothing weird going on there.
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Oct 15, 2014 18:38
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Day 15 - The Haunting of Whaley House Being that I live in San Diego where the actual Whaley House is; when I saw that there was a Whaley House movie, I knew I wanted to review it. Then as I started the film and the credits told me it was made by The Asylum, I immediately regretted every decision that had led me to this point. Having seen and reviewed several Asylum films before, including this month’s Blood Lake, I knew my chances of getting anything decent were fairly slim. Thankfully, while not exactly good, the movie was at least watchably amusing. Full review behind the link still.
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Oct 15, 2014 19:25
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Basebf555 posted:You people that are making GBS threads on From Beyond are nuts. They're such easy prey.  Also any movie with Barbara Crampton in leather gear is instantly at least "good".
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Oct 15, 2014 19:29
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Basebf555 posted:Inferno: I decided I need to get into more Italian horror, and this seemed like an obvious choice since I've already seen Suspiria. Visually its amazing, as expected, but I didn't enjoy the story or the characters as much as Suspiria. Also the dance school in Suspiria kind of became a character of its own, and there wasn't any setting in Inferno that was as memorable as that. Still, it had its moments and I'm finding I really do enjoy Argento's style, I'll have to track down Deep Red at some point soon. The one thing this movie has over Suspiria is it goes even further with the ending and you have a giant grim reaper chasing after the protagonist. Gotta love that. Well I would argue that the tenement building is most certainly supposed to have the sort of character that the school does in Susperia. But yes, this is a bit of a letdown compared to the first movie. If you think that's bad though, you'll be extra disappointed by Mother of Tears the third film in the trilogy.
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Oct 15, 2014 20:37
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Choco1980 posted:Well I would argue that the tenement building is most certainly supposed to have the sort of character that the school does in Susperia. But yes, this is a bit of a letdown compared to the first movie. If you think that's bad though, you'll be extra disappointed by Mother of Tears the third film in the trilogy. I have plenty to go through before I'm reduced to watching Argento's more recent stuff. I need to see most of Fulci, Bava, and several more Argento films including Deep Red and The Bird With The Crystal Plummage.
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Oct 15, 2014 20:50
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Movie 15: The Creature from the Black Lagoon I really don't have much to say about the movie itself. It's one of the all time great classic horror/sci-fi movies, and a showcase for the last of the classic Universal Monsters. If you haven't seen it, get on that poo poo now. What I do want to focus on is the presentation of this movie. I have seen this one on tv and VHS, but I had never seen it in 3D before. This movie is one of the more famous 3D presentations of the 1950s. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the blu ray edition included in the Universal Monster boxset offered a 3d option. It almost made watching this seem like a first time viewing. This is one of the nicest 3D films I've ever seen. It doesn't rely on things popping out too often, and instead focuses on creating a layered world. If you have the option to watch this in 3D, I highly recommend that you do so.
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Oct 15, 2014 20:54
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CopywrightMMXI posted:Movie 15: The Creature from the Black Lagoon I live in Jacksonville, FL. A bit of fun history is that Jacksonville was originally considered to be the home of the film industry before Hollywood, CA. The weather is good most of the time, it's easy to ship to and travel to (major naval city), and the cost of living is much lower. However, the city decided to vote against it, as they were afraid it would cause a boom in crime, and we missed out. (Now we bounce on and off "top crime/murder capitals of the country" list.) One of the most famous movies filmed in and around Jacksonville, FL is actually The Creature from the Black Lagoon and it's sequel (the sequel was mostly filmed in Marineland, about 45 miles south, between us and Daytona). A lot of the smaller indie theaters do homages to this fact and have memorabilia from the movies. My favorite being Sun-Ray Cinema in Riverside. They usually do a special 3D screening once a year.
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Oct 15, 2014 21:05
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Day 15 - I had completely forgotten that Romero directed Monkey Shines when I picked it as my next movie. Now I'm thinking I should watch the third movie in my pool of options he directed tomorrow just for the sake of a mini-Romero film festival. I mentioned yesterday that I've got a real phobia in films like this. The thing is that as a small child I was mauled by a pack of wild dogs and it left me really nervous around animals. And once you have that you become very aware of all the horrible things that even domesticated animals and pets can do to people. You want to be grossed out? Do a google image search for survivors of monkey attacks. For an added bit of fun, work out the noses to face ratio, it'll be significantly less than the nearly 1:1 you find in the general population. In Monkey Shines a quadriplegic man gets a lab animal as his helper monkey. They bond and the monkey goes on a murder spree. So the obvious question here is how do the animal attacks stand up. And it's not as freaky as it could be just because the behavior in this movie is so unnatural. A friendly monkey turning on me to tear my face off freaks me out, a monkey setting my house on fire doesn't. Give the monkey a knife and I get nervous. Have it cut the phone lines and I'm chill. There's good moments, and the monkey actor works relatively well in most scenes (though it's goofy when it suddenly becomes a stuffed doll). I was going to try Shivers again from a different streaming service, but since I did two Romero movies in a row I think I'm going to go for three and watch Season of the Witch tomorrow. I got lucky on the podcast front again. Right after I finished watching Monkey Shines I listed to this week's How Did This Get Made and they announced that their next full episode is Monkey Shines. Random Stranger fucked around with this message at 02:26 on Oct 16, 2014 |
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Oct 16, 2014 02:19
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Basebf555 posted:I have plenty to go through before I'm reduced to watching Argento's more recent stuff. I need to see most of Fulci, Bava, and several more Argento films including Deep Red and The Bird With The Crystal Plummage. Deep Red is excellent and easily in my top 5 giallo's, I hope you get to see it soon. Goke, The Body Snatcher From Hell was something else. I'm not sure what that something else is, but it's not what I would consider good. It seemed like it had a lot to say, but any message beside 'war is bad' was lost on me. It did have some cool special effects.  /5Deliver Us From Evil- The cover art having "Inspired by the actual accounts of an NYPD sergeant" in a larger font that the actual title should have been enough of a hint that this was going to blow. The first 30 minutes seemed promising enough, despite the annoying tough-guy bro's, but things deteriorated quickly from there. I get the feeling the director was trying to make possession represent anti-westernism that was born out of the Iraq War. /5
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Oct 16, 2014 03:03
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 Tonight was my first time watching the 30th anniversary edition of Night of the Living Dead, and I imagine it will be the last time I watch it. I don't feel the new scenes or music added anything of merit to the film, aside from some sub-Corman-level acting. I would be interested in how someone who'd never seen the original would feel about this one, though.  I decided to wash out the after-taste of the 30th edition with Night of the Living Dead: Reanimated, which took a few hundred visual recreations of scenes and moments from the 1968 film and stitched them around the original audio track. Claymation, stop-motion, Flash animation, puppets, paintings, comic book art, and some other methods of adapting the visuals all come together in an uneven but very ambitious collage of styles. The commentary track makes it clear that this was a labor of love for the main editing team, and while some of the included pieces are rough at best (e.g., some nail-bitingly bad video-game machinima), I felt it had both more respect for the original film and more creativity than the 30th anniversary edition.
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Oct 16, 2014 03:22
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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) 15) The Legend of Hell House (1973) Great haunted house movie to watch coming off of House on Haunted Hill. I loved the twist that the ghost had a Napoleon complex.
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Oct 16, 2014 03:28
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Movie #16: Trick R Treat (2007) In a town that puts on a huge halloween celebration each year, we follow several different people on their various adventures of the holiday: A school principle is fed up with a troublemaking student, five students pay tribute to a busload of special ed children that had a terrible accident in years past; a group of girls try to set out to ensure their youngest's first time with a man is special; and a mean older man learns the true meaning of the holiday's rituals at the hands of a special Trick or Treater. I finally decided to watch this film after meaning to for years. I liked it, but I think it was hyped up a little much for me. Don't get me wrong, it was a good, fun film that really captures the mood of this time of year, but it was hardly fantastic. If I had to complain, it's that all the stories had fairly predictable twists in them, even if it was only foreseeable a few minutes earlier. I did kind of like Sam's design, and I can see why he's become a horror icon since the film came out amongst the horror greats, but his scariness does diminish once the mask is off. Anyways, if you haven't seen it, you really should. /5
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Oct 16, 2014 04:05
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Can I enter the funhouse late? Maybe I'll watch a few per day and play catch-up. *10/15* 1) The Monster Club (1980)- This was a rather odd duck of an anthology. It's a Vincent Price vehicle from Amicus productions (I think), and it was pretty similar to their Asylum anthology except each of the three vignettes were rather tame and between each a British band would take stage and play a pop song to a bunch of folks in rubber masks who were supposed to be monsters. It's unoffensive, gothic fun and Price is nice like always but the crowning finale is the induction of a human to the "monster club" where Price makes the case for "Man is the real monster!" in one of the most groan-worthy speeches of recent memory. /52) Of Unknown Origin (1983)- Peter Weller of Robocop fame battles a menacing rat in this Canadian thriller directed by the guy who did the Stallone action-flick, Cobra. Wow. This movie is a test of endurance that really pays off. There's no twist. No surprise. Just Weller and the most evil rat to the grace the screen. It continually changes sizes, speeds, and tactics and our protagonist goes nuts and nearly tears his penthouse down around his ears. I was caught up there with him. I was invested. Its the best live-action version of Tom and Jerry I've ever seen. /53) Night of the Demons (1988)- Well I put off Mindwarp to watch one of my favorites tonight. I love just about everything in Night of the Demons. It has the frolicking fun of Return of the Living Dead, the creepy possession sequences of Evil Dead, and some loving rad music from the opening animated synthesizer-ized credits to a very memorable scene with Bauhaus's "Stigmata Martyr". The acting is equal parts schlock and actually quite competent as some of the young stars have some great delivery of the material. Hands down Halloween Fave every year. /54) Mindwarp (1992)- watching this now! stay tuned! *on the slab* 5) The Manitou 6) The Horror of Party Beach 7) Frankenhooker 8) Q: The Winged Serpent 9) The Old Dark House cthulusnewzulubbq fucked around with this message at 07:45 on Oct 16, 2014 |
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Oct 16, 2014 04:13
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I decided to refer to the general horror thread, and I showed Lake Mungo to a bunch of friends tonight. Maybe we're all plebs, but guys, that movie was boring as gently caress. It was well acted and had a couple good scares, and I liked the sinister ideas lurking beneath, but there was just no payoff to this movie. We were all disappointed despite high expectations.
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Oct 16, 2014 05:01
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Random Stranger posted:Day 15 - I had completely forgotten that Romero directed Monkey Shines when I picked it as my next movie. Now I'm thinking I should watch the third movie in my pool of options he directed tomorrow just for the sake of a mini-Romero film festival. I'd recommend (with reservations) watching Shakma. The movie is subpar, but an angry baboon on the rampage I found loving terrifying, and I thankfully had the benefit of not being mauled by wild animals in my past. Edit: A baboon is like a dog with hands. Wizchine fucked around with this message at 05:20 on Oct 16, 2014 |
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Oct 16, 2014 05:15
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13. Poltergeist 2 (1986) The first Poltergeist movie remains one of my favorite horror movies of all time. It was one of the first horror movies I ever watched and enjoyed, and really I believe it's what woke up the horror fan in me. This was the very first time I had seen the second however and ... I dunno, the whole thing sort of fell flat for me. I didn't find it scary or creepy at all, the whole thing was very "meh" to me. It brought another element to the table of Indian magic and clairvoyance and crap that I didn't feel really fit in with the first movie at all. I was disappointed. I liked the whole "disturbing the dead" angle of the first, not this cult leader cave crap.
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Oct 16, 2014 13:49
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Night of the Creeps: I've been watching stuff I've never seen before this week, and Night of the Creeps has been on my Netflix queue for like 6 months. I had my hopes up because this movie starts out with a bang. You have midget-sized aliens running around their spaceship and a black and white sequence set in the 50's. But then once the main portion of the movie got going it never really went anywhere. Tom Atkins was good as always, but the alien slugs were kind of boring and things just kind of plodded along for a while. The effects were nothing special, there was nothing that really pushed the envelope like some of the stuff in The Blob remake or Slither or a Stuart Gordon movie. All in all I was disappointed. Edit: Oh yea and it got kind of stupid how every single character was a reference to a horror director. They even ran out of characters and had to make a guy's last name "Carpenter-Hooper". Its funny at first but they went to far with it. Basebf555 fucked around with this message at 15:29 on Oct 16, 2014 |
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Oct 16, 2014 15:20
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Finished off Slasher week with Scream and Halloween(the remake). Both were, well, ok. Scream hasn't aged super well, and a lot of the jokes seem retroactively really played and tame, and the reveal of the killers isn't really very logical in the end (I guess that's sort of the point). The Halloween remake is a solid 2.5/5, distinctly average, though I did like a couple parts a lot (The origin story and Malcolm McDowell, who was just perfect god drat). Started off ZOMBIE WEEK last night with Pontypool, which I still love after this, my millionth watch. It really goes downhill fast as soon as the doctor shows up, and the ending is weak as all heck, but up until about the half way point, it's an incredibly effective film. The sense of wrongness and growing unease in the studio just trickles through the screen. Tonight is probably going to be either Dead Snow 2, or Return of the Living Dead, or maybe Night. So far the one of us has never watched a horror movie up until now has been mostly freaked out during Slasher Week. She drat near broke my fingers during Scream and had to physically leave the room during Halloween. It was kinda awesome actually - I remember being that scared by these things way back when, and wish I could get that feeling back again.
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Oct 16, 2014 16:50
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Basebf555 posted:Night of the Creeps Remember to check out the alternate ending too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAwJAe_uh8U I disagree with you about the film itself, but that's fine. I think "Night of the Creeps" is one of the best examples of horror in the 80s. I've watched it many times and will hopefully do so many more times. Also, saying that "Slither" is better is only fair when you consider that "Slither" would not exist without "Night of the Creeps". It's a fair claim if you feel that way.
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Oct 16, 2014 16:51
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InfiniteZero posted:Remember to check out the alternate ending too: Wait whoa. This is the ending on Netflix. What is the actual ending?
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Oct 16, 2014 17:10
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InfiniteZero posted:
Absolutely, I can definitely see that after watching Creeps. But for me it feels like the people who did Slither saw Night of the Creeps and set out to go even further(they had more money and better technology), and they did. When the movie is about alien slugs I want there to be some gooey disgusting scenes and I didn't think Night of the Creeps delivered that.
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Oct 16, 2014 18:09
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10/14/14: Wishmaster This felt like a Tales from the Crypt episode from the way it was shot, the terrible acting, and the extreme corniness of everything. That being said, I enjoyed it. The times where the Djinn cuts loose with his powers contain some great practical effects. 10/15/14: Anaconda This movie sucks. Voight was pretty terrible in this with his stupid accent and I bet the writers thought they were so smart for the Voight / Anaconda mirror stuff. JLo is a terrible actress. The snake sucks. Ice Cube is just Ice Cube. He even plays a Mack-10 song at some point. I'd rather listen to that song on repeat than watch Anaconda. http://youtu.be/AK-WNMFBV68
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Oct 16, 2014 18:13
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Basebf555 posted:Absolutely, I can definitely see that after watching Creeps. But for me it feels like the people who did Slither saw Night of the Creeps and set out to go even further(they had more money and better technology), and they did. When the movie is about alien slugs I want there to be some gooey disgusting scenes and I didn't think Night of the Creeps delivered that. James Gunn has actually gone on record to say that he had never seen Night of the Creeps before making SLiTHER and was confused by all the people saying he was copying it/ripping it off/remaking it. I think he waited for SLiTHER to get out of the theaters before he watched it. I don't remember if he said this on the SLiTHER commentary, or behind the scenes feature on the DVD.
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Oct 16, 2014 18:20
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^^^ and Ridley Scott said he had never seen Planet of the Vampires before he made Alien but I'm not sure if I believe him either.weekly font posted:Wait whoa. This is the ending on Netflix. What is the actual ending? The original ending has them watching the burning house and then the dog comes back and a slug hops out of its mouth. The alternate ending is the one with the spaceship returning. I wouldn't normally spoiler a movie from 1986 but people are actively discovering these films in this thread so I think it applies this time. InfiniteZero fucked around with this message at 18:57 on Oct 16, 2014 |
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Oct 16, 2014 18:54
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weekly font posted:Wait whoa. This is the ending on Netflix. What is the actual ending? Huh, that's the ending my brother told me about way back when it was new on broadcast TV and I didn't stay up late enough. The version I would see every time later had, after they start kissing, the infected poodle zombie walk up and scare everyone. But I've also had people tell me it has a "happy ending" edit where it cuts right after they kiss. Anyways, onto my checking in with movie #17 Aberration (1997) Amy has stolen a large amount of money from her Russian gangster boyfriend, and decided to hide out in her parent's summer cabin up in the mountains. After getting snowed in with a Marshall, a scientific researcher doing surveys in the area, they discover her cabin is infested with a mutant strain of lizards with a taste for meat. Now the two have to figure out how to survive and to keep the killer species from spreading. This movie was alright. I'm surprised I haven't heard of it before actually. Your first question on hearing that description is of course wondering what size the lizards are. They're actually relatively "normal", about the size of iguanas. Instead, the movie takes a biological tract, giving them bacteria-infused bites and scratches ala komodos, and blinding spit ala the dinosaurs from Jurassic Park, and then having them work in large groups. Despite the sci-fi bent to their origin, this is totally a "wild animals run amok" style flick. This lizards themselves are a combination of puppet effects that are alright, and cgi that's surprisingly good for 1997--and no wonder, as this was an early film involvement for WETA. One thing that's interesting about this film is how three dimensional the leads feel. Throughout the action, Marshall keeps acting like he thinks he's some action movie star, and he's terrible at it, usually making things worse. It really made the very bare bones film much more enjoyable. This is the kind of movie perfect for a lazy Sunday afternoon. /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) 13. The House Where Evil Dwells (1982) 14. Don't Look Up (2009) 15. Giallo (2009) 16. Trick R Treat (2007)
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Oct 16, 2014 19:02
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InfiniteZero posted:I wouldn't normally spoiler a movie from 1986 but people are actively discovering these films in this thread so I think it applies this time. Now that we're halfway through October I'm looking to watch really good poo poo, and I'm 0-3 now with this run of first time viewings. I was hoping to at least discover one new favorite but now I'm down to just The Conjuring and the Carrie remake so my hopes aren't very high. I really wish I agreed with you about Night of the Creeps because I normally can't get enough of 80's horror and at this point I've seen the majority of it.
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Oct 16, 2014 19:04
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The Conjuring's kind of a bore, but the Carrie remake is actually pretty good. It doesn't hold a candle to De Palma's movie, but it doesn't really try and is better for it.
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Oct 16, 2014 19:13
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1) The Monster Club (1980) /5 2) Of Unknown Origin (1983) /53) Night of the Demons (1988) /54) The Manitou (1977)- If you ever wanted to see Tony Curtis battle a syrupy, dripping midget in goofy, prosthetic American Indian makeup, here's your chance! Curtis portrays a huckster who plays psychic for rich old ladies but when his ex shows up with a mysterious growth on her back, he is plunged into a real (and totally insane) supernatural struggle. Luckily, a surgeon, tribal medicine man, and even Burgess Meredith as a doddering old scholar are on hand to determine that the lump is indeed not cancer but rather the reincarnated spirit of a malevolent old shaman. This is prime time cheese well worth the price of admission and it has a topless astral laser space battle to close out the show. Watch it! /5
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Oct 16, 2014 20:06
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Random Stranger posted:Day 6 - I didn't realize what I was getting into with Ravenous. I was expecting something like a more brutal version of Alive with a psuedo-Donner Party backstory. It turned out to be completely different, and constantly shifting in tone and threat. I wound up liking it a lot. Yeah, there's actually a lot going on in this movie and I love it. Sometimes the most layered films obscure a lot of this with genre trappings and come out all the stronger for it.
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Oct 16, 2014 20:37
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Movie 16: Sleepaway Camp This is a fairly straightforward slasher that is largely dependent on its shocking ending. There's really nothing to separate it from other slashers until those final shots. The kills aren't remarkable and it's very obvious who the killer is. It's what the killer is that makes this one stand out. This film is pretty by the numbers and doesn't have a lot of rematch value, but I would recommend it if you haven't seen it before and haven't had the ending spoiled in advance.
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Oct 16, 2014 20:42
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Basebf555 posted:I really wish I agreed with you about Night of the Creeps because I normally can't get enough of 80's horror and at this point I've seen the majority of it. I'm constantly finding new 80s stuff. I love that decade of horror too.  (Terrorvision) There's also lots of restorations happening, like a Bluray of The Prowler which is a great thing. The original meaning of pitchfork media I guess.
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Oct 16, 2014 21:04
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InfiniteZero posted:I'm constantly finding new 80s stuff. I love that decade of horror too. Speaking of Terrorvision, the blu release double-bill with The Video Dead is also gorgeous. Mindwarp (1992)- I wanted to like Mindwarp more, but sometimes movies feel a little flat and without sincerity. Specifically, Mindwarp felt like a movie made by Fangoria Magazine as fan service. The filmmakers cast Bruce Cambell and Angus Scrimm, gathered some mutants in trash armor, thought of a gimmick plot, and after that it didn't seem like they really knew what to do besides shoehorn in some pretty formulaic filler. It reminded me of Slipstream with Bill Paxton and Mark Hamill- a post-apocalyptic adventure that nobody really clamors for but is in a number of ways a far superior and more fun film. It wasn't a joyless experience though. Things pick up in the second half with some more inventive scenes and energetic moments. And gore (there's some fun splatter for sure). /5
cthulusnewzulubbq fucked around with this message at 22:10 on Oct 16, 2014 |
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Oct 16, 2014 21:28
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Day 16 - House I almost broke my rule about only watching movies I haven’t seen before with this one. House is the first horror movie I ever saw but never watched the whole thing. I think I was 5 when some family members were watching this and I got freaked out by it. Since I couldn’t remember more than a single scene from it, I figured I’d go back and give it an actual watch with an adult perspective on it. Turns out that things seem way scarier when you are a little kid. Also I had no idea what Vietnam was so I kind of missed out on that whole thing in the movie. Not mentioned in the full review but bears mentioning here - Dude rocks a v-neck sweater thing that reveals like half of his torso. It is amazing and I love it.
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Oct 16, 2014 22:42
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Dude, I adore The Manitou. It's so out there that I had to track down the novel, which is just as crazy. This is a movie that is totally due for a Hollywood remake with wild effects shots. Anyways, I've been busy today. Movie 18: Clive Barker's A Book of Blood (2009) Mary is a paranormal investigator and college professor. She gains access to an ordinary seeming house with an extraordinary preternatural history. She also gains a new student, Simon, whose psychic claims engages her academic interest, and whose dark, handsome looks engage other things in her. After she taps him to join her investigation, an upstairs room begins filling with writing of the dead. Is it the paranormal, or just a con? Or is it somewhere in-between? I caught the first 20 minutes of this years ago, but this still counts in my book. Clive Barker's style is usually an amazing melange of the sensual and the grotesque, hot sexuality, and brutal blood, blending to a point where the line between is vanished. And the films of Midnight Picture Show keep that flavor alive in ways that make me far too excited to discuss here. Needless to say, this is the sort of film I would make if I could. /five
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Oct 16, 2014 22:57
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CopywrightMMXI posted:Movie 16: Sleepaway Camp The movie's also noteworthy for being the main inspiration for this classic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWME4d1BRCk
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Oct 16, 2014 23:20
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House is the one with George Wendt and Nazi Demons, right? That's one of those movies i saw when I was a kid but never since and I debate whether re-watching them 20 years later counts as a "new movie" since I'm obviously watching with fresh eyes and perspective. Ok, busy couple of days but I managed to sneak in a couple of movies to stay in pace. 15) The Hole (2009)  Decent film from Joe Dante that is obviously targeted more towards a "family friendly" audience looking for a tame scare than horror enthusiasts looking for crazy frights. Still, I thought the first half of the movie was genuinely creepy with some very simple but effective ideas in the creepy one shoed girl and the clown doll that didn't break any new ground for horror but are classics because they work when done well. I also kind of enjoyed just the basic nature of kids captured well. "There's a gated hole in our basement with six padlocks on it? Lets open that bitch right away! Hi, I'm your new neighbor who met you five minutes ago... hey, is that a hole? I want in! It seems to have no bottom and poo poo we stick down it keeps getting grabbed or destroyed or poo poo? Cool! Oh poo poo, a demon child just crawled down the hole and then the gate slammed shut? Better not tell mom or go get new padlocks or some poo poo like that. Adults are icky. But I think the movie started to fall flat when they simplified the nature of what was in the hole and then just went about solving it. It seems like its a theme of my list for me complaining that a movie that was being very effectively creepy by being about "evil" ends up falling flat for me because it spent too much effort trying to explain and make sense of the evil. I get that this was probably a family film so it went for the ending of Dane overcoming his fear of his abusive father and standing up to him to save his brother, but it just didn't work for me. Still, decent little film that I wouldn't be afraid to show a kid who could take some scares but shouldn't be scarred. Side note I spent all month so far trying to figure out why I couldn't find any reference to The Hole being a remake when I distinctly remember watching an 80s movie called The Hole where two boys and a girl find a gateway to Hell in their backyard and all hell breaks loose. I finally realized I was thinking of The Gate which does have almost the exact same set up but takes the Hell thing a little further than The Hole did. That might have something to do with my disappointment because I think I was expecting a lot more "HELL" in part because of The Gate (and in part because of the Netflix description that called it a "gate to Hell") 16) The Den (2013)  A very different type of film with a very different intended audience but oddly I ended up feeling much the same way. I watched this because I saw it posted about repeatedly in these threads so I wanted to see what the fuss was about and while I see what people meant when they said this "got the internet" I'm not going to count myself a fan (of it or "the internet"), It was an interesting premise that I thought was fairly well executed the first half through. The viral pranks Elizabeth falls prey to serve as effective jump scares that give good reason to call into question the validity of the real thing she sees. Then the idea of some skilled and psychotic hacker just loving with her and making her his new target was kind of scary and plausible enough for my non-computer understanding mind. Unfortunately, again, I think it falls apart when it all but abandons the quirky found footage premise and just shifts into an over the top and super generic slasher complete with an unending stream of psycho killers who seem utterly unphased by anything. And the "moral" at the end just made me roll my eyes. I don't know if it was just supposed to be a goofy thing or some kind of "look at yourself and what you're doing" thing but either way it missed completely for me and kind of made me realize how poor the director was and how his flaws were just kind of hidden by the found footage premise. But the premise worked well to keep the film moving briskly so I never got bored or lost any interest until things changed pace. I was genuinely surprised when I looked at the clock and realized I had been sitting there for an hour. But unfortunately I also think the FF premise made the film suffer for characterization. A lot of FF films let you get to know the character(s) by watching a lot of their interactions and conflict but by the end of the film when I was watching Elizabeth fight for her life I realized I didn't really know anything about her except that she spends too much time on the internet and is kind of an rear end to her friends. I guess, you know, "INTERNET", but it just meant I didn't really care all that much about her fate which the last half hour so desperately depends on. So yeah, interesting premise to start but an over extended idea that falls apart by the end of the film. I wouldn't recommend it unless you're really curious to see how they try to tell the story through the computer and "the internet." 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) Week 3: Oct 15th to 21st 15) The Hole (2009) / 16) The Den (2013) STAC Goat fucked around with this message at 23:26 on Oct 16, 2014 |
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Oct 16, 2014 23:21
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STAC Goat posted:House is the one with George Wendt and Nazi Demons, right? That's one of those movies i saw when I was a kid but never since and I debate whether re-watching them 20 years later counts as a "new movie" since I'm obviously watching with fresh eyes and perspective. George Wendt, yes. No Nazis though. I can't quite remember if House 2 had Nazis or not. I just remember that one had a lot of really goofy time travel type stuff in it. Also, thank you, I had been wondering why The Hole seemed so familiar to me. I had entirely forgotten about The Gate.
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Oct 16, 2014 23:38
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Basebf555 posted:I was hoping to at least discover one new favorite but now I'm down to just The Conjuring and the Carrie remake so my hopes aren't very high. The Carrie remake would be an okay film if it existed all by itself, but it is inherently tied to a movie that's one of the titans in the genre and it isn't as good as it. Day 16 - I suppose it was bound to happen with picking films out from the genre categories in streaming sites. I have hit a movie that was not even remotely in the genre that had been misfiled. Season of the Witch from the description sounds like a horror movie and it comes from George Romero so you'd expect a horror movie, but it's a really flat suburban drama about a housewife who takes up Wicca. To quote Wikipedia, "In 1973, Romero described the film as "not really" being a horror film, but as a film that deals with the occult peripherally." The reason I went to Wikipedia is that something feels really off with Season of the Witch so I went around looking up information on it. What I found makes me think that my suspicions from watching it are correct; I think that after a bad initial reception someone went back and edited in some not very well done "spooky" stuff to try to rebrand it as a horror film. From what I can find, the film was originally 130 minutes(!) long and then was recut after its initial release (which is now lost) to 89 minutes. I don't want to think about the 130 minute cut because this film is a slog at 89 minutes. Maybe Romero was trying to capture the boring life of the suburban housewife, but in the end it's just boring. I usually try to give a bit of plot summary as a hook for anyone interesting in watching the film, but there's really nothing to this film. It's meaningless incidents drawn out. I don't even want to get into the multiple dream sequences with their incredibly heavy-handed, spelled-out symbolism. Season of the Witch is the most 70's film I've ever seen. About the only thing it was missing was some kind of key party. At one point the main character's daughter runs away with a boy who drives "One of those new cars. A Pinto or something like that." So I guess those characters died in a fiery rear end collision somewhere off screen. The most interesting thing about Season of the Witch (and I'm really stretching the meaning of the word "interesting" here) is the somewhat realistic portray of Wicca. They don't have magic powers and they aren't evil haters of Christianity. The spells cast seem more suggestive and coincidental than actually supernatural. For tomorrow, I have confirmed that the copy of Shivers up for Amazon streaming doesn't have the problems the Netflix one had for me so I'll finally watch it.
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Oct 16, 2014 23:41
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