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 20) Razorback (1984)- As evidenced by my enjoyment of Of Unknown Origin, I'm a sucker for oddball man vs. beast movies in the Jaws tradition. Razorback didn't disappoint. It isn't as inherently humorous as Origin and because of this it almost steers into comedy territory simply by playing things straight. But the atmosphere is delicious, the sets are detailed and pretty, and the outback cretins are delightfully trashy and realized. And if you like your pigs big, well, this is a big pig. 4 out of 5 for upping the visual ante when it really didn't have to.  /5edit: Granted, it has one of the absolute most tasteless forced love interest angles I've ever seen. cthulusnewzulubbq fucked around with this message at 00:48 on Oct 23, 2014 |
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Oct 23, 2014 00:23
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October 18th: A Child's Game (2001) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0265932/ A ghost story (or is it? Yeah, it is.) about a family being driven mad by a couple of malicious spirits who were invited in by the wife. There's nothing particularly original or great here, but it manages to have some neat scenes. It's a perfectly serviceable movie. Damning with faint praise, indeed. October 19th: Satan's Princess (1990) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100550/ This was the last movie classic schlock-master Bert I. Gordon directed. But now that he's apparently making another one, it doesn't even get to have that distinction anymore. So what does that leave us with? A cheesy detective movie with lots of nudity, a bit of blood, and about two minutes' worth of a silly-looking monster. Nonetheless, I found it to be an amusing waste of time. October 20th: With Friends Like These... (1991) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0390627/ An extremely goofy and surprisingly tame anthology. The second story is the best by far. It involves a tuna casserole that's been left in a fridge for six months turning into a sentient being, which tries to help its "creator" before things turn sour. The other two stories, involving a talking car and a computer dating service, are unfortunately quite forgettable. October 21st: Jugular Wine (1994) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0165840/ An anthropologist meets a vampire in Alaska, gets bitten, and winds up the target of a high-up vamp. At least, I'm pretty sure that's what happened. It can be a bit muddled, goes off on tangents, and has a soundtrack that drowns out the dialogue at times. Despite this, and some stilted acting, I didn't think it was that bad. It also features Stan Lee and Frank Miller in minor roles, plus a cameo from Henry Rollins (and Werner Herzog in Burden of Dreams playing on a TV).
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Oct 23, 2014 01:24
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Jugular Wine is a fantastic title.
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Oct 23, 2014 01:35
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Oh yeah, I knew I had to see it from that title alone.
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Oct 23, 2014 01:54
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12. I've got nothing really to say about Doc of the Dead. It's alright. I could've done with some more in-depth stuff on movies instead of interviews with entrepreneurs. /5 13. The Nightmare Factory is pretty entertaining! It's fun to see so many behind the scenes practical FX shots, and it's an interesting overview of the past ~30 years of the industry. Elijah Wood excitedly geeking out over the various effects was fun. /514. I hadn't heard of Jug Face, but I was quite pleasantly surprised! A backwoods community worships a pit whose waters heal the sick, but in return it demands occasional human sacrifice. The protagonist's strange ambiguity toward this system, even when the pointy end is aimed at her, makes it much more interesting than you'd expect a movie with a setup like that to be. /5
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Oct 23, 2014 02:31
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Day 22 - Night of the Creeps Oh my god, I loved this movie so much. How had I never heard of this before? It was so goddamn ridiculous and fun and chock full of the 80s. This is going on my list of things I am going to force people to watch whether they want to or not. Full review behind the link, as usual.
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Oct 23, 2014 03:07
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Day 22: Bruce McDonald's Pontypool (2008) This is the best zombie movie I've seen since 28 Days Later... Completely fuckin' floored me. It's like Dawn of the Dead meets 12:08 East of Bucharest. Highly recommended.
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Oct 23, 2014 03:07
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Grnegsnspm posted:Day 22 - Night of the Creeps Any movie that credits Dick Miller as "Special appearance by" is alright by me.
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Oct 23, 2014 03:34
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Random Stranger posted:Day 22 - The take away lesson of Japanese horror films is that ghosts are assholes. They're less like the vengeance seeking ghosts of western media where they're usually after someone and a bunch of unfortunate people get caught up in the wake, and more like petulant Greek gods who once they notice you will gently caress with you until they're bored and kill you. Ju-On 2 is a pretty standard Japanese horror film from the early 2000's. It hits all the notes that you expect, does them well enough, and doesn't really bring anything new to the table. This is why I think the series reached an early zenith with the second TV movie, and it and the movie Kairo someone else viewed this thread are probably the best J-ghost films, as that concept of becoming a target under the smallest of associations gets taken to its logical extreme. Both of these movies are worth watching imho. Meanwhile, tonight I watched movie #25: Would You Rather (2012): All Iris has is her brother, who is dying and needs a marrow transplant. She's unemployed, their parents have passed and left a mountain of debt, and she's got nowhere to turn. Then she's introduced to philanthropist Shepard Lambrick, who invites her to come to a dinner he's hosting, where the guests all need his help. The catch is they have to play a game, and the winner will receive all the help they need. He apparently puts these dinners on regularly. The game however, is a rather nasty version of they title childhood game, involving much darker dares than you would find on the school playground, with very dire consequences for not following through on your choices. While this isn't the most original concept, indeed it's something that sounds akin to an EC comic, and has been made many times over, most notably in the Japanese Red Room films, I still found the film to be rewarding. It asks the question of how far would you be willing to go to solve your life's struggles? Would you injure a friend? Kill? Maim yourself? More? I also think what makes this film work is the little details, like character ticks that are shown not told (When Lambrick first is first seen, he's sitting on a couch in an office eating pistachios. He just leaves the shells on the cushion. A less subtle director would have had to zoom in on them or had another character remark about them. But this one doesn't, and it tells us much about the character right off). Also, the actors all get their chance to chew the scenery marvelously, but special mention must be made of our hosts, the Lambricks, played by Jeff Combs and Robin Lord Taylor (recently more well known thanks to Gotham). They come across as the slimiest, most spoiled, hate-ably believably rich snobs I've seen in some time. Combs owns this movie and carries it with his condescension and cruelty. It's not going to win any awards, but you won't feel like you wasted your time on this one. /5
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Oct 23, 2014 05:10
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Choco1980 posted:This is why I think the series reached an early zenith with the second TV movie, and it and the movie Kairo someone else viewed this thread are probably the best J-ghost films, as that concept of becoming a target under the smallest of associations gets taken to its logical extreme. Both of these movies are worth watching imho. I always considered Pulse to be the logical end of the Japanese ghost genre. Eventually there's just too many ghosts and everybody dies. Edit: And looking it up, Kairo was the original title of Pulse. So I guess we agree!
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Oct 23, 2014 05:12
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Random Stranger posted:I always considered Pulse to be the logical end of the Japanese ghost genre. Eventually there's just too many ghosts and everybody dies. We sure do, ghost buddy!   Unless of course you mean the American remake and its sequels that came out like, less than a year later. In which case you can go sleep on the couch.
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Oct 23, 2014 05:56
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Pm me your post info. I ended up with an extra surprise dvd to mail out.
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Oct 23, 2014 06:59
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Shoot, I don't have PMs. Is there a different way to get a hold of you?
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Oct 23, 2014 07:17
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Choco1980 posted:Shoot, I don't have PMs. Is there a different way to get a hold of you? kramdargemstone@gmail.com
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Oct 23, 2014 07:18
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Three movies tonight. Just had nothing to do, wasn't tired, and as I get closer to Halloween I'm all about horror after horror instead of my usual stuff to watch like sports, news, other tv shows, whatever. 25) Torment (2013)  Well, I started the night thinking I was going to watch a couple of Katharine Isabelle movies and do a Scream Queen themed night. But the other movie (13 Eerie) sucked so I just bailed on it and skipped to this one. Its a basic home invasion/crazy family/slasher film. Nothing earth shatteringly new or interesting and the silly little twist at the end is nothing. Still, it moved very crisply and had some genuine tension to it. I think it was solid for what it was. I could have stood to have the family's motivations explained a little bit, especially why the neighbor girl was so devoted to them so quickly. I mean, I'm sure the answer is just Stockholm Syndrome and torture but I just would have liked a small nod there especially when they were teasing that the son might have been getting into it too. I mean, I'm sure its traumatic to hear you father tell you he doesn't want you anymore that's a quick turn to "my new family." Ah well, still a decent little film and Isabelle does a solid job in the usual role in these films. For as many horror films as I've seen her in she doesn't do the usual woman fighting for survival role too often. Different change of pace for her was kind of nice. 26) Paranormal Activity 4: Unrated Edition (2012)  I decided to just finish up these movies tonight while I was still high on the franchise after 3 scared me shitless last night. And I decided to give the Unrated version a shot even though when I watched PA2 I determined that the extended version only added more slow build. From what I can tell the same is the case here, just adding a few eery things and a few curses. Nothing that could elevate this film out of the mediocre place it sat in. Way more like PA2 than 1 or 3, this one didn't scare me much at all. I think the girl, Kathryn Newton, was good in her role and I was genuinely surprised when they threw the swerve that Wyatt was Hunter, not Robbie.. Then again that was kind of a cheat, wasn't it? I don't remember them mentioning Wyatt was adopted before the third act when they dropped that bomb. But I don't know. I've been saying all along that it was a mistake to expand on this story instead of just doing different ghosts in different houses, and while I was cool with the coven of witches twist at the end of PA3 I thought it was kind of hokey here. And I found it more interesting when I thought something had happened to Katie and I wondered what instead of when we find out that it was all a setup to get Robbie in the house to groom Hunter. And it feels like a bunch of unanswered questions, I really don't want to watch a fifth movie to find out. Who the gently caress is Robbie? Some other witch's kid? And how the gently caress did Hunter go from Demon Katie's grasp to an adoption agency? Once again it felt like twists and expansion to try and retcon a story that just makes the overall story a jumbled mess. But I liked some of the webcam and Kinect tricks they played with the found footage thing to justify more recorded scares. And genuinely the Kinect thing had a few eery moments. And like I said, I enjoyed the lead. But in the end it was just more of the same devoid of scares. Although I wonder if I did it a disservice watching it right after PA3. PA1 scared the poo poo out of me so I watched the second one a few days later and it didn't do much for me. Then over a week passed before PA3 and it scared me again. So I wonder how much of it is the films and how much is my pacing. I'm sure next Halloween I'll be in here watching PA5. I'm just a sucker for completing stuff and in fairness this franchise hasn't yet as of PA4 gone into utter crap like most horror franchises. PA3 genuinely scared me and PA4 was just mediocre. So as long as 5 doesn't drop off too much I guess its fine. 27) Ghoulies (1985)  I randomly turned this on figuring I had seen it before but was surprised that I didn't recognize any of it. Somehow despite the fact that I know the cover art well and was sure I had seen this somewhere along the line it managed to escape my viewing all these years. So I guess I'm glad I watched it so its in the bank. I can't say I got much else from it. It played a lot straighter than I expected it to and the comedy wasn't really that strong or overt to call it a comedy. It was just an odd, schlocky, 80s as gently caress trash fest complete with silly looking puppets. But you know, that's not the worst thing in the world. I willingly watched The Coed and the Zombie Stoner yesterday. I never really felt the urge to turn this off (although I did take the time to read some emails and catch up on Simpsons Tapped Out) so there's that. And its always fun to spot a "Before They Were Stars" in these old movies. Hey there, background Mariska Hargitay with next to no lines. I bet this role haunts you a little today. 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) / 17) Ravenous (1999) / 18) All The Boys Love Mandy Lane (2006) / 19) John Carpenter's The Ward (2011) / 20) The Devil's Pass (2013) / 21) Blood Glacier (2013) / 22) You're Next (2011) / 23) The Coed and The Zombie Stoner (2014) / 24) Paranormal Activity 3 (2011) Week 4: Oct 22nd to 28th 25) Torment (2013) / 26) Paranormal Activity 4: Unrated Edition (2012) / 27) Ghoulies (1985)
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Oct 23, 2014 08:31
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15. I've always associated The Ring with the Call of Cthulhu RPG. It's an investigative horror that ends not with a big showdown but with a way of diverting the creature's wrath, and it's clear that nobody can destroy the evil- we can only evade it, or appease it. /5 16. The Mist is maybe my favorite Stephen King story ever, and I'm mostly happy with Frank Darabont's adaptation, right up until that loving ending. I like a brutal downer ending as much as the next guy, but it's senseless and completely upends the source material for no particular loving reason. It's not Near Dark levels of suddenly lovely ending, but it's still annoying and reduces a really excellent adaptation to something more formulaic than it should be. /5
Pope Guilty fucked around with this message at 12:46 on Oct 24, 2014 |
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Oct 23, 2014 10:33
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Dawn of the Dead: Of course this is a classic, however I think I'd have to rank it as my least favorite of the main three "Dead" films. I love the opening, where the racist SWAT guy is rampaging through the project housing indiscriminately gunning people down. That may just be the scariest scene in the whole movie. Anyway, the main draw of the movie for me is the novelty of being in a mall during a zombie apocalypse. As a kid I thought that idea was just awesome, so for some years Dawn was my favorite of the series. The characters are alright, but I found them to be not as likeable as some of the characters in Night of the Living Dead or Day of the Dead. Because of that the portion of the movie where one of the SWAT guys is infected and the other has to wait for him to come back before putting him down falls kinda flat for me. The story never really goes anywhere, the main group of protagonists never have a clear goal beyond defend themselves and maybe at some point leave the mall. Overall its still great though, the zombie effects are a big leap forward from Night of the Living Dead and at the very least nostalgia keeps me coming back to this year after year. Day of the Dead: For whatever reason I've seen Night and Dawn about 50 times each, but only ever watched this one maybe two or three times. Over the past few years I've come around to the opinion that this is the best of the series. I root for the good guys much harder in this one, and it has a great villain, something Dawn of the Dead was missing. The helicopter pilot and his alcoholic buddy are two of my all-time favorite horror characters, and the whole dynamic between the science team and the military guys really carries the whole movie. There is so much tension built up even without the presence of any zombies, the idea of being down there with those people is very scary all on its own. The "Dr. Frankenstein" character is great too, he steals every scene he's in, and his experiments are grotesque. Then of course there's Bub. Bub's storyline may be one of the most satisfying in horror history; from when Rhodes first refuses to salute him, to Bub giving him one final sarcastic salute, its a real fist pumping moment. So there is more to this movie than just splattering some zombies, which for me makes it probably the best thing Romero has ever done. I need to see Martin though in order to cement that opinion.
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Oct 23, 2014 14:26
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I think you may have missed some of the subtext of Dawn of the Dead if that's all you have to say about it.
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Oct 23, 2014 14:50
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I like that Dawn of the Dead has no clearly denied villain.
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Oct 23, 2014 14:58
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Lurdiak posted:I think you may have missed some of the subtext of Dawn of the Dead if that's all you have to say about it. Of course I didn't miss all the consumerism stuff(this was far from my first viewing after all), but I'm watching the stone-cold classics so I figured those kind of comments are redundant. I thought the few criticisms I do have would be more interesting. Its hard not to notice when a guy is in a full-on apocalypse situation, but he runs around a department store like a giddy schoolgirl just because finally he can take whatever he wants. Its barely subtext. Basebf555 fucked around with this message at 15:07 on Oct 23, 2014 |
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Oct 23, 2014 15:04
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Basebf555 posted:Of course I didn't miss all the consumerism stuff(this was far from my first viewing after all), but I'm watching the stone-cold classics so I figured those kind of comments are redundant. I thought the few criticisms I do have would be more interesting. I thought that stuff was so omnipresent and well-executed that it really overtook the film's theme of "being a zombie movie". I had a friend in the stream who's seen it a bunch of times and had all these interesting observations about it. Shopping malls were a recent thing back when this was filmed, and it's really clear that the movie goes out of its way to present them as grotesque entities. There's so many little things, like when Roger's being wheeled around like a baby in a carriage, making the group look like a nuclear family, or when Peter gives up that gun he liked so much right before escaping the death trap the mall has become. CopywrightMMXI posted:I like that Dawn of the Dead has no clearly denied villain. I like that the main characters aren't really good or bad. They're selfishly trying to survive the situation, something Peter points out early on. Roger becomes pretty unlikeable by the time he dies, but he starts out as a very humane officer in a bad situation. I also really like that unlike almost EVERY zombie movie made after it, the film shows some the slow breakdown of society as the outbreak occurs. It's not suddenly poo poo city like in Night, nor is there a lazy 28 days later/Walking Dead time skip. Nobody shows that stuff because it's really hard to do right, but to me it's a lot more interesting than the part where everyone's used to the new status quo.
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Oct 23, 2014 15:30
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Choco1980 posted:We sure do, ghost buddy! Ugh. No. Ick. It's just my Kairo DVD has the title Pulse on it.
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Oct 23, 2014 15:48
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Lurdiak posted:I also really like that unlike almost EVERY zombie movie made after it, the film shows some the slow breakdown of society as the outbreak occurs. It's not suddenly poo poo city like in Night, nor is there a lazy 28 days later/Walking Dead time skip. Nobody shows that stuff because it's really hard to do right, but to me it's a lot more interesting than the part where everyone's used to the new status quo. Yea maybe that's why I react so strongly to the opening scenes. Its something you rarely see in zombie movies.
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Oct 23, 2014 15:48
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"Looks like one of those big indoor shopping malls."
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Oct 23, 2014 15:53
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Yeesh, I'm running so far behind. Time to play catch up tonight. 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 11th: Eraserhead 12th: Demon Knight & Bordello of Blood 13th: Sorority House Massacre 14th: ABC's of Death 2 15th: House on Haunted Hill 16th: Evil Dead 2 October 17th: Stitches This movie is silly: a gypsy clown, who may or may not be part of a cult of clowns, slips and falls at a child's birthday and impales his head on a kitchen knife, dying, until many years later he returns as a legion of the undead to a birthday party to brutally murder the now-teenage kids that (accidentally) caused his death. This movie doesn't sit well with me. It it's trying to be another U.K. horror comedy/send-up, but it's not as effective as its peers (Attack the Block, Shaun of the Dead, Grabbers). It's not a bad movie--the gore and special effects are very good, I liked a few of the one-dimensional characters--but it's not good. The movie doesn't take itself seriously (but who could), which works in its favor. The sense of humor wasn't lost on me, but it wasn't funny. Here's an example of a joke I liked: our protagonist, who as a child was drenched in blood as he witnessed a clowns death, now on heavy psyche meds, isolated from his parents, sits in a tree-house which he is much too old for, to spy on a girl he has a crush on in university get undressed in her room. As he zooms in--closer, closer--the focus tube grows almost twelve inches before, ah, the drapes are drawn on the window. A simple phallic joke to a perverse scene of adolescent voyeurism. That, to me, was the most clever joke amidst many other phallic jokes: a mix of castration and inflatable balloons, obsession with fellatio, umbrellas penetrating bodies,...The second best joke was one of sound design: a cat is playing with the killer clown's red nose that has fallen on the ground, and the evil clown is going to stab it to death, but before the knife makes contact, we cut to teenagers running across a lawn, the grass under their feet crunching loudly. Oh, that's clever! But not funny. The killer, Stitches, an undead Gypsy clown who's weakness seems to be an egg with a clown face painted on it that must be crushed/destroyed/cracked/penetrated (more sexual imagery?), is a Freddy Kruger wanna-be. You know the type: appears out of nowhere, throws around a few sarcastic insults to his victims, kills with a murder-weapon pun; and it doesn't work. He's not charming, memorable, and the guy behind the make-up, stand-up comedian Ross Noble, didn't live up to his reputation as Channel 4's 11th Greatest Stand-Up Comic of 2010 (I googled him). The rest of the characters are the usual trope for a slasher film: late-20-somethings acting like teenagers with a penchant for beers, baked goods with marijuana, public make-outs, getting laid, awkwardly dancing to music from the 80's. My favorite character was an overweight effeminate homosexual, who loves planning parties and texting instead of playing basketball. The fact that he's blatantly gay is never brought up, but fat jokes get thrown quite often. He's a snarky arrogant poo poo-talker. Why is he my favorite? Because I can describe him with several adjectives and the actor actually had fun in the role. In a movie where a killer clown stabs a girl with an umbrella and quips "Taking it from behind!", the actors have to have a sense of humor and have fun. I didn't feel it. The end credits are bloopers to show We had fun!, but alas, making funny faces to the camera, dropping props, and hitting a boom mic accidentally aren't fun, they're accidents or displays of boredom. Maybe I'm jaded, or wasn't in the right state of mind to enjoy it (though I was stoned, so...), but I didn't really care for the movie. It's a shame, because I know they were trying to make a movie that fits my interests. The gore, however, really is a fantastic use of physical effects. Edit: Now that I think about it, here's a bit about the movie's pre-credits twist (it's sorta spoilers, but it's not important): Stitches is in an afterlife (limbo? clown hell? underground?) quivering while working on something (the macguffin, it isn't important). Then, an attractive normal girl (angel? afterlife whore? girlfriend? clown groupie?) is revealed to have been giving him a blowjob. She swallows, cleans her lip--Stitches places a hand on top of her hand and pushes her down for another blowjob. That's how they end the movie. What? /5 overall, the gore and special effects get /5Tonight I'm watching classics, or something. I need something good, great, new, amongst these average offerings. Franchescanado fucked around with this message at 17:31 on Oct 23, 2014 |
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Oct 23, 2014 17:22
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Franchescanado posted:Tonight I'm watching classics, or something. I need something good, great, new, amongst these average offerings. Do you have a means of acquiring House/Hausu (1977)? That movie is like an enema. Or Santa Sangre (1989). cthulusnewzulubbq fucked around with this message at 17:57 on Oct 23, 2014 |
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Oct 23, 2014 17:40
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cthulusnewzulubbq posted:Do you have a means of acquiring House/Hausu (1977)? That movie is like an enema. FWIW, this movie is available on Hulu Plus as part of their Criterion collection. I showed it my brother and his wife last year and prefaced it with, "This is going to be either brilliant or horrible, but either way you will remember this movie forever."
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Oct 23, 2014 18:07
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Random Stranger posted:FWIW, this movie is available on Hulu Plus as part of their Criterion collection. I showed it my brother and his wife last year and prefaced it with, "This is going to be either brilliant or horrible, but either way you will remember this movie forever." That movie is the gif holy grail. I swear.
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Oct 23, 2014 18:57
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Day 23 - Contracted This movie has been sitting in my queue since I first saw it but I had yet to get to a point where I actually wanted to watch it. The idea of what was quite obviously going to be a zombie plague being made out as an STD seemed really interesting and yet unappealing at the same time. I didn’t think that the makers of the movie might have originally started out trying to have some sort of message but it feels like it gets lost along the way. If nothing else, it does at least do a good job of making you definitely want to practice safe sex.
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Oct 23, 2014 20:51
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10/22: Shadow of the Vampire Extremely fun. Willem Dafoe plays Nosferatu during the filming of the original movie. Malkovich Malkovich Malkovich plays Herzog as the director of the original. Dafoe does a drat good job.
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Oct 23, 2014 21:59
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I couldn't sleep last night so I pulled up a random movie on one of my on demand apps. 28) The Day (2011)  Incorrectly labeled as a zombie movie* on the app its actually a dreary The Road ripoff that replaces heartwrenching drama with really bad CGI action. How dreary is this movie? The sole survivor is the cannibal. And the final scene is of her decapitating a little girl. Yeah. I'm ok with dark and depressing but this didn't have any kind of message or anything worth telling. It was almost entirely about the action and that was really laughable to look at it. Its also does that silly, tired thing a lot of horrors do these days where they kill off the main character/actor first for shock value. I'm sure its meant to surprise us but really it just wastes the character they spent the most time developing to that point. *I'm not actually sure if the app incorrectly labeled it as a zombie film or if the movie tries to psych you out and make you think its zombies for the first act. They don't mention who or what they're avoiding for the first third of the film so it might have been them being coy. I debated spoiler tagging that but I never saw them purposely pushing the zombie trick in the stuff I looked up and its really not a swerve worth preserving. My apologies to anyone who disagrees. I did enjoy Ashley Bell in it. I don't think I've seen her in anything before but The Last Exorcism was one of the "Feature Attractions" I was saving for the end of the month run. Also, I noticed it was a WWE Films movie. As a wrestling fan that's funny to me since I'm planning on watching the See No Evil movies later since I found out Katharine Isabelle AND Danielle Harris are in the second one directed by the Twisted Twins who intrigued me a bit with American Mary. Somehow I'm making a theme of watching these bad B movies from this bad B movie studio. 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) / 17) Ravenous (1999) / 18) All The Boys Love Mandy Lane (2006) / 19) John Carpenter's The Ward (2011) / 20) The Devil's Pass (2013) / 21) Blood Glacier (2013) / 22) You're Next (2011) / 23) The Coed and The Zombie Stoner (2014) / 24) Paranormal Activity 3 (2011) Week 4: Oct 22nd to 28th 25) Torment (2013) / 26) Paranormal Activity 4: Unrated Edition (2012) / 27) Ghoulies (1985) / 28) The Day (2011)
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Oct 23, 2014 22:25
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Speaking of House, I noticed that Hulu has a short film by the same director about vampies called Emotion. I'm trying to stick to feature length movies but I might have to make an exception for that one. Day 23 - The Asphyx felt a lot like a stage play to me. It's a very low budget film that if you told me it was originally made a television movie for the BBC I'd believe it. I think you've got about six sets and five actors total. While I don't think they ever really exceeded their limitations, The Asphyx winds up being a pretty respectable little picture. A Victorian scientist has noticed an odd smear when he takes pictures of dying people with specially prepared film. With more experimentation he finds that this smear is a specter of death and he is able to trap it. Tragedy ensues. The effects are bad, the acting weak, the story alternating between obvious and ludicrous, but I still wound up enjoying the theatricality of this film. It reminds me of a cross between H. P. Lovecraft (there's these things hidden among us and you can only see them with this special light) and those early SF stories where it's all about figuring out the phenomenon that the scientist has run into. The scene where he kills his daughter throws me for a loop because everything he did there was exactly wrong. He's going to trap her death which means that he has to actually take the action to kill her; no half steps or take backs. So the method of death he chooses if a guillotine? He doesn't see the minor problem where even if he succeeds, she has to lose her head since the death won't come unless she's actually going to die? The Asphyx is a different kind of horror movie and given how similar a lot of these are I appreciated it just for that. Tomorrow I'm watching Kuroneko, a film I've been wanting to watch forever but I always get it mixed up with Onibaba...
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Oct 24, 2014 00:12
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 I'm glad I slotted this one in relatively late in the month, since some discussion of it cropped back up in the horror megathread and gave me some new ways of looking at the film. Got to watch it with a friend who wasn't familiar with the movie, which added a lot, since we were actively trying to catch all of the references (this was my first time noticing which frame is on the TV when it's dropped on Stu's head). As fond as I am of Scream, it really lends itself to being riffed on the way Halloween is treated at the party. Stuff like Casey forgetting how to clap, the killers not bothering to confirm kills after having one person surprise them, the garage-door kill, and Dewie's lines make it so that you can take Scream as a serious slasher or a full comedy, or anywhere between. Not enough Liev Schreiber, but that's remedied in the sequel.
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Oct 24, 2014 00:38
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 21) Video Violence (1987)- Help! I'm caught up in a VHS whirlwind of cruddy quality and baffling perversion! There's a video store in a little, sleepy town where everyone rents slasher films for the weekend. Turns out, it's a cottage snuff film industry. Considering my fondest memories of the rental store was happening upon the fresh, exotic world of weird (Plastic Utopia) and trash (The Brain), this home brew oddity hits all the right nostalgia chords. It's like a no budget homage to retro junk but it was made during the VHS heyday so it's far too endearing for how awful it is. Video Violence looks bad, sounds bad, and is pretty all-around bad. But I had a lot of fun watching it. /5
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Oct 24, 2014 00:42
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The Houses October Built - This movie has a promising description, but fell flat. It was very forgettable and plays out just like you think it would. Didn't do anything for me and I'm kind of mad for wasting my precious October movie time on it. /5 All The Colors of The Dark - This lesser known Italian movie is a mix of Polanski, giallo and a drop of acid. It's not too bad and the sets, visuals and music are trippy and mesmerizing. /5The Curse of Frankenstein - Shameful confessional time... I have never watched a Hammer film from start to finish until this month. After watching The Horror of Dracula last week, I wanted more and boy, did I get it. I think this movie is the stronger one and had me absorbed the entire time. These films use minimal sets and cast, but pack a tight package which carries on at a perfect pace. There is a strong possibility I am going to watch nothing else but Hammer films the rest of the week. /5
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Oct 24, 2014 00:57
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It's amazing how Hammer uses the atmosphere and tropes of classical cinema to hide their low budgets so drat well.
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Oct 24, 2014 01:01
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Pope Guilty posted:
Actually, the ending in the movie makes complete sense as it means the crazy religious lady in the store was right all along. A sacrifice had to be made.
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Oct 24, 2014 03:07
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Movie 23: Night of the Lepus On the surface, this appears to be a cautionary tale against controlling populations through genetic selection and manipulation. But if you dig a bit deeper, you'll notice that this tale of giant killer rabbits is an homage to the giant monster movies that were popular a few decades earlier. This was a fairly good movie. I liked that it played itself straight, and left the humor to the utter absurdity of the concept. This is something that everyone involved with Asylum and Syfy originals should watch and learn from.
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Oct 24, 2014 03:38
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Alrighty, thanks to Netflix I've been watching a lot these past couple of weeks. Insidious Chapter 2 This was pure unadulterated garbage, I can't believe this series has been getting so much love with critics. They went too far with the out of body schlock that they took away any horror or spookiness it could have had, and it takes itself far too seriously. The House of the Devil Better, sufficiently creepy and a slow burner that lulls you into getting comfy and then rips the rug out from under you and stabs you to death. VHS Uhh, what the gently caress did I just watch? I don't know if it was sleep deprivation or what but it felt like it wanted to be a modern Creep Show without any of the charm or coherence. It had some cool gore though. The Possession Also quite awful, I saw this last week and I don't remember a loving thing about it. Oh wait, moths. Lots of moths... and a terrible little girl actress. The Pact Creepy, I liked the twist a lot and also Caity Lotz. The bald killer guy was terrifying. Silent Hill Revelation Felt like a really terrible low budget sequel to what I felt was one of the better video game adaptations. Below This was really cool and different. Claustrophobic underwater spookiness in WW2. I'm not much for writing reviews as you can tell but I do love horror movies. My theme for this year has been mostly ghost/possession movies, it feels like it's been pretty hard to find any that genuinely left me spooked out by the time the credits roll. The scariest I've ever seen was probably Ju-on: The Grudge, the Japanese version but it has also been atleast 10 years since I've seen it so it might super corny now.
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Oct 24, 2014 04:07
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Deakul posted:My theme for this year has been mostly ghost/possession movies, it feels like it's been pretty hard to find any that genuinely left me spooked out by the time the credits roll. Carpenter's Prince of Darkness (1987) is a pretty drat creepy possession flick. At least I think so.
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Oct 24, 2014 04:20
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