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How the hell do people not see Creep as a horror black comedy? So many people I am reading bash it aren't seeing any of the humor at all.. I thought that movie was loving great.
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Oct 12, 2015 23:44
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#20 Spontaneous Combustion (1990) In 1955, the government performs tests on a young couple, having them stay in a bomb shelter and take anti-radiation medicine while near an A-Bomb test. They end up getting pregnant during their stay and have a baby. The day he is born, some sort of horrible freak accident occurs and both parents burst into flames, dying. 35 years later, that baby is all grown up into Sam, a school teacher with migranes and a terribly stressed out environment, with many people that drive him crazy. Soon, several people he fights with end up combusting later too. It doesn't take long to figure out that Sam's accidentally doing it with his mind. Then, he starts uncovering facts that most of his life has been orchestrated, and the experiments never ended... This film pretty much only fits in that tight window of very late 80s and very early 90s. There's something about that period, before the 90s really found its own voice with grunge and gangsta rap cultures where everything is kinda ridiculous, and every movie seemed to have a nouveau riche style to it. The special effects are corny, and director Tobe Hooper gets pretty much everyone to chew the scenery with his crowded mess of a script, especially rare lead Brad Douriff, but it's just the right kind of cheesy film to be my comfort food.  /5#21. Cellar Dweller (1988) In 1955, in his cellar apartment, horror comics artist Colin Childress is putting the finishing touches on the newest issue of the titular comic book, using some evil tome as reference. Unfortunately that reference source means what he drew comes to life in the form of a hulking satanic beast, killing other people within the artist's commune he lives in. So he desperately sets fire to the work and the monster, and the room, and uh, himself. Cut to 35 years later, and we meet the newest resident of the still operating commune, Whitney. She's a horror junkie that idolizes Childress' work, and aims to start her own retro horror comic. Also at the commune are the matron, Miss Briggs, who is not shy about her dislike for commercial/pop art; Amanda, who had a harsh rivalry with Whitney in art school and specializes in video art; Phillip, a rough street-art style painter who immediately strikes up a flirty friendship with Whitney; Lisa, a kind of spacey interpretive dancer; and Norman, an ex-PI and aspiring screenwriter. Soon, Whitney cajoles her way into moving into the basement where Childress worked, and finds much of his old stuff, including the evil tome. I suspect you can guess what starts happening next. This was a fun 80s movie from Empire Pictures, possibly one of their last. It's not well known but I liked it. The cast is pretty well stocked, with Yvonne De Carlo and Vince Edwards doing their best, as well as Jeffery Combs as Childress in the intro. It being Empire (aka the prequel to Full Moon) you can guess what the effects are like, though the gore is surprisingly high at moments. I'm a sucker for all the films circling around the Band family of companies, so of course I enjoyed it. /5
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Oct 13, 2015 03:08
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Day 12 - You know, Vic. While it's possible that the brain got damaged while you were fighting with your pal, maybe you shouldn't have killed that guy by dropping him on his head in the first place if you wanted it to be in good condition. Curse of Frankenstein was Hammer's first horror film, and while it shows a bit of the low budget that I saw in Horror of Dracula, they really stretch those Here's a question for you: who played Frankenstein in the 1931 Universal movie? While I doubt anyone reading this would have said Boris Karloff, I also think that only a few of you would be able to answer "Colin Clive" to that question. The thing is that in many adaptations of Frankenstein it's the monster who's the real star of the movie. Dr. Frankenstein is a secondary character in the narrative. That's not the case in Curse of Frankenstein, this is Peter Cushing's show and Christopher Lee's monster just doesn't get that much to do. While watching the film I was reminded a lot of Kenneth Branagh's version of Frankenstein which was a bad film that had terrific production design. Hammer's isn't by any stretch a bad movie, but I feel that Branagh took a lot of design elements from it and incorporated them into his. Over all, very cool movie, though I think I liked Dracula better.
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Oct 13, 2015 04:28
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14: The Conjuring (2013): When I saw this in the theater a few year back this was a movie I felt was genuinely scary. Last night while I was watching it a wind gust blew over a broom on my front steps, and a light flickered during a key-scare scene. I was pretty freaked out again. This movie is about a family that moves into a rural Connecticut home, which of course turns out to be haunted. They turn to the notoriously fraudulent paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren for help. The movie doesn't focus on the Warren's reputation, nor does it question them. That really wouldn't add anything to the tone of the movie, and would hurt it on a thematic level though. What the movie is effective in is building up scares. Yes, there are jump scares, but there's also a wonderful amount of tension and traditional scares to complement this. Some sceptics met with the Warrens and seem to think that they are sincere in their beliefs. http://www.skepticblog.org/2009/06/22/hunting-the-ghost-hunters/
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Oct 13, 2015 04:54
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#70.Rocktober Blood (1984). A singer of a band is killed and comes back later to kill the new singers friends. I don't even know where to start. People disappear and no one seems to give a poo poo. The acting is sub-par. The narrative is bland. On the good side the kills are a little bit fun, and the music is really good. Too bad probably 20 minutes of the movie is the band playing. #71House of Death (1982). After a couple is killed while doing it, a killer targets a bunch of teens(?), I don't know, they could be early college. Someone needs to learn pacing. I'll give you a clue, it's either the director or writer. They put a 20 minute fair scene where nothing happens. Then a girl get shot with an arrow, runs for awhile, finds an abandoned merry-go-round, decided to take a rest while bleeding and someone is chasing her, then is surprised when the person is chasing her shows up . The soundtrack is completely out of place. At points it seems like it would belong in a late 80's Japanese RPG, at other times if would fit on Dynasty or some other 80's drama. The big reveal was confusing and almost nonsensical. #72.The Brood (1979). Disfigured children kill people in a town. I love me some Cronenberg. This isn't an exception. I do really want to say much about this, as its really best seen blind. #73.Freakshow (1989). An anthology with a tour through a freak show as the wrap around. This wasn't the best anthology. It's pretty low budget. It tries to weave in comedy, but none of it is funny. The segments aren't scary in the least. The shortest one is the best. It's ten minutes at most and it doesn't overstay like the others. #74.Hellraiser (1987). A puzzle box releases fetishistic demons who want to experience your flesh. At this point everyone here should know Hellraiser. It doesn't get old.  Edit: Sorry if my reviews aren't super concise. I'm phone posting, which I hate doing. And I trying to watch as many movies as I can at this point. Reviews cut into viewing time.
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Oct 13, 2015 05:02
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doodlebugs posted:14: The Conjuring (2013): When I saw this in the theater a few year back this was a movie I felt was genuinely scary. Last night while I was watching it a wind gust blew over a broom on my front steps, and a light flickered during a key-scare scene. I was pretty freaked out again. This movie is about a family that moves into a rural Connecticut home, which of course turns out to be haunted. They turn to the notoriously fraudulent paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren for help. The movie doesn't focus on the Warren's reputation, nor does it question them. That really wouldn't add anything to the tone of the movie, and would hurt it on a thematic level though. What the movie is effective in is building up scares. Yes, there are jump scares, but there's also a wonderful amount of tension and traditional scares to complement this. Did you mean to quote me?
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Oct 13, 2015 06:01
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CopywrightMMXI posted:Did you mean to quote me? yeah
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Oct 13, 2015 06:39
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:I'm just going from memory here but specifically about the two things you mentioned: the sex tape. Thanks for the explanation. Your memory is correct. I liked the cyclical nature of it, with Alice's flash forward being the mom's flashback and as you said it did create the emotional leftovers that are at the core of a haunting. That is why I mentioned the ending being nicely done, it was a very neat wrap up. The thing that bugged me most was the psychic. His role in the above was obvious, but his introduction, the radio show, the tapes of Alice and her mother, him coming over for dinner, befriending the family, the seance, the falling out, Alice's brother going on tour with him, the reunion half a year later, it was a lot of material that took forever and didn't lead anywhere except for that one connection. He was being portrayed as a much more important character than he was and for me that really showed. I'm having a hard time seeing what would be lost if he was just a psychic the mother went to and afterwards realizes he saw the daughter too, telling them and the movie showing us the connection. None of the dancing around. It dragged down such an awesome start and just didn't live up to the other parts of the movie. #12 Ginger Snaps This was really good. It spends a lot of time as a comine-of-age kinda teenage drama, making you care about the characters and their relationships, keeping you invested in them till the end. I love werewolf movies, but it is hard to deny that a lot of them focus on a gruesome transformation followed by violence and gore. Ginger Snaps does a great job to not just show you what is happening, but who it is happening to and how that affects them. Very happy I saw this.
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Oct 13, 2015 08:43
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Without the psychic, you don't have as oblique a reference to Twin Peaks.
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Oct 13, 2015 12:34
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1. Psycho 2. Black Christmas 3. Deep Red 4. Wicker Man 5.The Mummy 6.The Curse of Frankenstein 7. Drag Me to Hell 8.Candyma 9.Child’s Play 10.Lords of Salem 11.Suspiria 12.Hellraiser 13. From Beyond 14.Evil Dead 15. Evil Dead II 16. Re-Animator I love the opening credits to this movie, its probably the one thing I think it has over From Beyond. This movie is gorier than From Beyond, but its not quite as fun in my opinion. It might be funnier though(in the haha sense), the movie has the craziest combination of gore and comedy I've ever seen(Braindead being its only competition). The scene where Dr. Hill's decapitated body comes up behind West and slams his head against the table is so funny in part because of how gory and disturbing the entire scene is leading up to it. I think its probably Combs performance that allows the tone of the movie to flip so drastically so often. He's a master of delivering over-the-top lines with absolute sincerity and intensity. Comb's West laughs at inappropriate times, and doesn't seem to take the horrific results of his experiments seriously. The only thing he's deadly serious about is the end goal, and that dichotomy makes for an endlessly watchable character. They made a few sequels just based on the strength of Comb's West, and they are enjoyable because of his presence alone. 17. Necronomicon This isn't the best anthology I'll be watching this year, but I love it because it doesn't just nibble around the edges of Lovecraft, it dives right in and fully commits to including as much elements of Lovecraft that it possibly can. There are flashbacks, diary readings, blood rituals, subterranean monsters, seaside mansions, and plenty of slime and tentacles. The wrap-around is good too, it features Jeffrey Combs as Lovecraft himself and its a fun little story about how he got the material for his stories.
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Oct 13, 2015 17:30
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Oct 13, 2015 18:31
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Darthemed posted:
That all sounds amazing.
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Oct 13, 2015 19:21
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Day 13 - Love in the Time of Monsters I tend to enjoy the horror comedy genre because I think that horror lends itself well to being laughed at. Even in a standard horror movie, the release of tension with a fake out scare or innocuous encounter can elicit laughs from an audience. In addition, I feel horror is a genre that has had more attention paid to the meta-textual rules by its fans such that deviations or themes that play off of those rules are more readily appreciated. In the case of Love in the Time of Monsters, those themes are understood and even toyed with well at times but it seemed to want to cram as many in as it could without really regarding how it would fit into the film as a whole. Full Review 3 out of 5
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Oct 13, 2015 21:30
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Interview with the Vampire OK movie. Lots and lots of very thinly veiled homosexuality. There is a point at which Cruise's character is a thinly veiled AIDS patient. Tom Cruise is pretty good in this, Antonio Banderas is meh, Brad Pitt is probably the worst I've seen him in any film. Well OK, he's supposed to be acting lifeless and alien. .5 /5
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Oct 13, 2015 23:39
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This entry is going to be a little different. #22-#26 Guinea Pig series. (I have seen part 2: A Flower of Flesh And Blood years ago so it will not count for the challenge talley) (1985-1988) In the 80s, horror manga creator Hideshi Hino decided to create a series of experimental straight to video short films (running from 40-60 minutes each) as a sort of filmed version of his anthology horror style. The trademark of the series is out and out gore to the extreme, and has raised many a hackle over the years. In 1991 actor Charlie Sheen watched the second film in the series and believed he was watching a real snuff film. He notified the FBI, and an international investigation was put on, creating great controversy for the series. I personally don't think the effects are that great (especially in that particular chapter) to create such a reaction. They're crass, shot on video affairs that feel almost like college student made experiments at times. I'm glad I can say I've seen them now, but I have no desire to revisit them. All ratings are out of five. 1. The Guinea Pig. A text narration from an anonymous narrator explains they somehow discovered this video which labeled itself a test of human pain endurance. What commences is a woman tied up and tortured by three men systematically while a fourth videotapes it. They beat her, pull out her fingernails, do other forms of torture and it just goes on and on. During the down times she's kept in a net hanging from a tree in a forest. That's it. The whole thing. The effects are mostly stage combat, with a few pretty good skin breaking moments. There's very little else to say about it. 2. A Flower of Flesh and Blood. This one is more interesting. It starts off with some random tv footage before the tape switches, as if it's being taped over for home use. Then we see a view from inside a car at night quietly following a woman who gets more and more nervous until the driver gets out and snatches her. Next we cut to her unconscious on a table somewhere, and a man in a samurai suit (Hino himself) then proceeds to slowly dismember her before showing off his room full of organs in jars. The end. This one has a lot more elaborate special effects, but they really don't look very realistic to me. Again, there's not really a narration. Following this film the series takes a tonal shift and starts adding stories to the events instead of masking things as faux snuff. 0.5 3. He Never Dies. Our protagonist is a depressed salary man. He gets no respect at work, and lives a slovenly nerdish lifestyle. Succumbing to his feelings, one day at home he slits his wrist. Then he notices the blood stop flowing and that he really doesn't hurt. Experimenting with further self harm, he realizes he can't die, and starts getting absurd. He calls over a friend who comes with his girlfriend, and he purposefully uses his newfound super-powers to freak them out, throwing his own organs at them, and dismembering himself further, until he is just a head on a table. The girlfriend, less amused, orders the boyfriend to clean up the place, and scolds the man for making a mess. This one's silly, basically having half of it amount to a goofy gory prank. The humor quickly by-passes the gross factor, and it just gets funny. During the end they even do a little bit of a blooper reel. Definitely a different tone than the first two. 4. Devil Woman Doctor. Our narrator, the Devil Woman Doctor (played by a drag queen) shows us vignettes of the bizarre medical cases she has treated, such as a family whose heads blow up when they get over stressed, or a man who has grown a second face on his stomach. There's no real narrative beyond the individual skits. This one, as well as the second film, were actively directed by Hino. This one is pure comedy, and my favorite in the set. If you laughed at the scene in Monty Python and The Meaning of Life where the fat man explodes from eating too much, you'll like this entry. The violence is cartoony and silly, and there's not a whole lot of gore to it. Though the end credits have a sizzle reel of the cast getting in a pie fight with "iron pies" which are just pie shaped boards with nails in them that gush out blood when colliding wherever on the people. This entry just seemed like good fun for everyone. 5. The Android of Notre Dame. Having a more actual plot, this film follows a dwarf scientist as he tries to use computer parts to bring people back from the dead in order to save his dying sister's life. First he rather graphically works on a corpse, cutting it up and whatnot. After that fails he frustratedly hacks it to pieces. Then his mysterious benefactors become the next test subjects for his work. This one wasn't bad, it had a straight forward narrative that even could have been stretched out to feature length, and some pretty cool visual flair, with machines filled with cords and pistons interwoven with blood and guts and flesh everywhere, reminiscint of the sort of aesthetic of say, Tetsuo The Iron Man. At one point we even have a re-animated head on a table with a grid of wires across it reminiscent of Pinhead. While not the least bloody, the plot does make it an easier to stomach narrative. .56. Mermaid in a Manhole. A recently widowed artist finds his inspiration going into the local sewer that used to be a river in his childhood. One day he finds a real life mermaid there he remembers encountering as a small boy in the river. She's now trapped. As he gets to know her and draw/paint her, she suddenly develops a nasty infection with tumors and boils growing and bleeding on her stomach. He takes her back to his apartment to take care of her and continue to capture her essence, but she gets worse and worse. At one point she has him drain the tumors of different colors to make new paints for him. Eventually she dies and he goes a little crazy. His nosy gossiping neighbors eventually discover him, and the "Mermaid" turns out to be his dead wife, who was 8 months pregnant and had stomach cancer. This one I didn't care for too much. It was very long on lurid images of the mermaid's diseased body, and very light on plot. It just seemed to drag. At one point she becomes covered in worms, and it just lingers on them for forever. I'm not frightened by worms, but they are disgusting to me. I didn't really like this final piece. It's like they tried to hard to combine the elements of all the other films.
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Oct 14, 2015 00:02
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1: Thou Wast Mild and Lovely - 4/5 ||||| 2: Queen of Earth - 5/5 ||||| 3: The Pact - 3/5 ||||| 4: Wes Craven's New Nightmare - 4/5 ||||| 5: The Green Inferno - 2/5 ||||| 6: Creep - 4/5 ||||| 7: A Christmas Horror Story - 3/5 8: Dark Touch Wasn't into it. A child abuse avenger with Carrie powers is a cool concept and all but it felt really disjointed and just abandons plot threads entirely. Like the guidance counselor. Or I guess her story was over once Neve sensed they wouldn't be abusive parents? idk. It also felt a little preachy in a misplaced way, like "This girl was abused, but, LOOK at what she's doing to this innocent family, what a MONSTER, don't let your abuse history turn you into a MONSTER." A couple of gnarly gore things but generally not very scary. To its credit three out of four of our party had nightmares that night, though. 2/5 9: Tales from the Darkside: The Movie Pretty okay! The gargoyle one was surprisingly poignant and I somehow didn't see the twist coming. I figured the gargoyle would swoop in and murder everyone I guess. The cat one was very silly and funny but the hard boiled killer talking to himself was really too much and cringey. Pretty neat seeing the stacked cast of the Mummy one in something so silly. 3/5 Time to make up some ground!
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Oct 14, 2015 00:46
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24. Last Days on Mars - Time on Mars is going swimmingly until the crew discover life and the life turns out to not be very human-friendly. Eh. Zombies on Mars. (2/5) 25. Ghosthouse - A group of kids are drawn to a house with creepy goings-on. I enjoyed it a lot, though there are a a number of scenes in the middle where scary stuff happens to someone and then they don't tell other people about it. (4/5) 26. The Final Girls - A girl and her friends get trapped inside a classic slasher movie. I think it's a great premise, and I was disappointed with what they accomplished with it. It had too much sappy heart for what should have just been a goofy slasher parody. Maybe this would have worked if it had been better acted. I still enjoyed it, but it is definitely flawed. (4/5) 27. Knock Knock - A father home alone for the weekend answers the door and is nice to drifters. Too nice. I thought this was all right, although at times it borders on completely absurd. Creepy and yet completely unrealistic. (3/5) 28. Hardware - In a post-apocalyptic future, a space scavenger brings back more than he bargained for. Terminator, if Terminator took place in an apartment. I like my post-apocalypses, but other than setting this has nothing to offer. Terrible janky robot villain with an incredibly discombobulated plot. There are at least two scenes where the heroine is quite obviously dead, or filmed as if she was dead. It's very weird, slow panning camera work, and it's very confusing. But the entire last act doesn't make any sense, so I guess it's par for the course. (1/5) 29. The Monster Squad - A gang of kids obsessed with monsters forms a squad to fight them, coincidentally shortly before monsters come to town searching for an ancient book. Totally and completely Goonies with classic monsters. I've never seen it before, but it would have been fantastic to see as a kid. Though, lots of swearing for kids, and more homophobic content than is necessary. (3/5) 30. Society - A high school kid starts to see things that can't possibly be real. Or can they? PS they're real. Creepy and effective body horror, but...uh... not a very subtle metaphor. Really solid dad joke. I'm not really all that sure how he got to be this old without noticing anything weird. (4/5)
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Oct 14, 2015 01:26
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1. The Horror of Party Beach (1964) 3.5/5 2. Ghoulies 2 (1988) 2/5 3. The Clown Murders (1976) 3/5 4. Sundown (1989) 2.5/5 5. The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971) 4.5/5 6. At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul (1963) 5/5 7. Sledgehammer (1983) 3/5 8. Blue Sunshine (1977) 4/5 9. A Nightmare on Elm Street 5 (1989) 3/5 10. Rock N' Roll Nightmare (1987) 3.5/5 11. Intercessor: Another Rock N' Roll Nightmare (2005) 2/5 12. The Crater Lake Monster (1977) 2/5 13. Critters 3 (1991) 3/5 14. The Monster Squad (1987) 5/5 15. Revenge of the Creature (1955) 3.5/5 16. The Creature Walks Among Us (1956) 2/5 17. X: The Man With the X-Ray Eyes (1963) 4/5 The most visually interesting Corman film I've seen outside of Masque of the Red Death. It's a fun, simple science-gone-horribly-wrong premise. Very pulpy combination of Lovecraft and The Invisible Man.
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Oct 14, 2015 01:52
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Re: Tales From The Darkside. For years I felt the same way, with the gargoyle story was really cool and original that resembled nothing else out there... ...and then I saw Kwaidan. 
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Oct 14, 2015 02:40
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Day 13 - My biggest takeaway from Brides of Dracula is Doctor Van Helsing is loving hard core. Well that and vampires in these movies sometimes have really stupid deaths. Despite the title, Dracula does not appear in this picture. Instead, there's a new noble vampire that goes around picking up chicks to be the titular brides. Unfortunately David Peel (no, not that David Peel) doesn't even have one-tenth the charisma that Christopher Lee has (one deciLee of charisma is still a dangerously high level; have your doctor check this regularly). And the bulk of the film rests on the incapable shoulders of Yvonne Monlaur playing a French boarding school girl. Once Peter Cushing shows up as Van Helsing things pick up but that's half way through the film. I did notice that after the success of their previous films, Hammer seems to be putting a lot more money into the movies. Curse of Frankenstein and Horror of Dracula weren't cheap looking, but the seams in the production were visible. This time out there's lots more locations, there's lots more actors, and the details look much richer. If you're watching the Hammer Dracula movies I feel like this is one you can safely skip over. It's okay (especially the second half), but the lack of Dracula brings the film down.
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Oct 14, 2015 03:33
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Choco1980 posted:Re: Tales From The Darkside. For years I felt the same way, with the gargoyle story was really cool and original that resembled nothing else out there... Ha, I don't think it's revolutionary or anything, just that it's a surprisingly thoughtful piece in a pretty silly anthology. The Babadook does a similar thing much better too.
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Oct 14, 2015 04:06
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#75.The Spell of 13 (2003). 23 years after a massacre at a movie theater, three guys are trapped inside with a bunch of ghouls. This is low budget, but that doesn't mean it's bad. Shot on video, it gives that low budget feel. The acting gives that feel too. The cinematography is pretty good. Whoever was in charge of it cared. The effects were pretty good too, given with what was probably a shoestring budget they put effort in. #76.Eternal Evil (1985). People who are close to a man who can astral project begin to die in peculiar ways. This movie was the equivalent of saltine crackers. It's serviceable, with a little bit of flavor. There really isn't much to this, it's just middle of the road, amazingly so. Karen Black is in it, but she can only do so much. #77. The Blob (1958). A blob like alien falls to earth where it absorbs humans to grow larger. Steve McQueen plays the suave lead who tries to save everyone. A lot of the film rests on him. Given that this is the late 50's, some logic doesn't seem to make sense, but works anyway. I hate his girlfriend's little brother too, I wanted that kid to get eaten. The blob looked like if you removed the covering from a gel stress ball. It looked good for what it was and when it came out. #78. Witchouse (1999). A group of ugly people go to a party held by a girl. People turn into demons and turn others into demons. The cast looks like they fell out of a ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down. The characters were borderline stupid. A character was working on her dissertation which focused on left handed people and how they're supposedly evil. Which brings me to another problem with the dialogue - it was mostly exposition. Nothing was left for the viewer to figure out on their own, not a single thing. The characters were one dimensional too. The Jerk was a jerk, the stoners only cared about drugs, the nerds were full of information. This was a painful watch. #79. Motel Hell (1980). A brother and sister capture people and raise them as cattle for their meat. This was a blast. It felt like a parody of the torture/revenge movies that were popular in the 70's. The acting was great. The characters were weird. The process by which they raise their cattle was fun, as they slowly reveal it.
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Oct 14, 2015 05:25
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14. The Gallows 3/10 Bog standard found footage movie with intensely unlikable characters. The concept of the school play and it's history aren't bad ideas, but it just wasn't very interesting. 15. Knock Knock 6/10 It's just so dumb and I loved it. It's stupid, far-fetched and Keanu Reeves is hamming it up and seems like he's having a blast. I've never enjoyed Eli Roth's movies, but this one managed to have a few disturbing moments and was juuuust awful enough be fun to watch.
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Oct 14, 2015 06:03
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#27. Warlock: Armageddon Every several hundred years or so, there's a confluence of a lunar eclipse followed by a solar eclipse 6 days later. This is when God's apparently at his least influential, so the Son of Satan, the Warlock can come to earth to gather six rocks that are totally not the Infinity Stones, and do a ceremony to bring Satan himself to earth during the second eclipse when the sun's light is its darkest. The only defense we have are Druids who can use the stones to seal away the devil instead. Guess what astronomical events are happening? After a full-grown-man birth scene still not as impressive as the one in Xtro, Julian Sands returns as the title evil character to hop across the country collecting the stones from an assortment of characters. Guarding the last two are a tiny group of Druids in a small conservative town who just assume they're Satanists. Two of their teenaged children are destined to be warriors and fight the Warlock, but first they have to be killed and then brought back to life, then given a jedi training montage where they learn psychic powers and how to talk to trees and stuff. It's only 6 days til the Warlock comes calling though, so they better learn quick! Okay, this is pure uncut 90s cheese from the director of the Waxworks films and Hellraiser 3. The special effects are absolutely DREADFUL and half-assed, and the acting is TV caliber, but the film is ambitious at least, with lots of fun setpieces and creative uses of magic. I totally go for this kind of thing. If you do too, check this one out. .5/5#28. Warlock 3: The End of Innocence (1999) After we're asked to believe that mid-30s Ashley Laurence (from Hellraiser) is a 20 year old college student, she gets a message that she's been tracked down to have inherited an old abandoned mansion from the 1600s and she should come check it out to see if there's anything for her to take to give her a clue to her (pre-orphaned) past. Her and her group of college friends go crash there during a rough storm of a weekend. Then suddenly the Warlock shows up (now no longer Julian Sands) posing as an architect interested in the house's history, and seeks shelter with them. As the night goes on, he ends up working his magic one by one on her friends, torturing them into willingly giving her up to him. Apparently she's got blood in her belonging to some powerful witches or something, and he wants to use it to resurrect the devil. This film wasn't quite as good as the predecessor. The end of the decade was an odd time for horror, and culture in general. There's plenty of clever kills in the film, but it's done with terrible effects, and really inappropriate techno music that was in everything at the time. It's silly. There are some pretty liberal views of the friends' lifestyles though, one's a wiccan/witch who actually knows a bit about the culture, and provides exposition for us, and there's also a couple with healthy BDSM habits instead of showing them to be weirdos for it. There's also a surprise cameo by a ridiculous monster costume at the end. I love 90's cheese, but this isn't at the top of anyone's list. /5.
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Oct 14, 2015 06:25
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Waxwork feels like Halloween City had a blowout sale and somebody made a movie because of it.
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Oct 14, 2015 06:50
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October Tally - New (Total) - (1). Scream (1996) / 1 (2). Shocker (1989) / - (3). Grave Encounters (2011) / 2 (4). The Babadook (2014) / - (5). Beetlejuice (1989) / - (6). House on Haunted Hill (1999) / - (7). The Leprechaun (1993) / 3 (8). As Above, So Below (2014) / 4 (9). The Possession of Michael King (2014) / 5 (10). The Unborn (2009) / 6 (11). They (2002) / 7 (12). Devil's Due (2014) / 8 (13). Ouija (2014) / 9. (14) Oculus (2013) 10 (15). Return to House on Haunted Hill (2007) - A bunch of people go to the haunted hospital from the first film (one of them related to a person from the first film but it doesn't really matter so ignore it) for a flimsy reason to die for no apparent reason.  Why watch a straight to DVD sequel to a subpar remake? Its not like I actually thought this would be any good going in but I guess there's that weird part of me as a horror fan that always does this a few times during the marathon. I don't know why. I'm just a sucker. The plot is paper thin. The characters are even thinner. They craft a whole new premise from the first film solely as an excuse to make this movie and it does nothing worth noting. One of those movies that introduces a bunch of characters who then get killed off so quickly you don't even get a chance to learn their names. And the ones who do hang around you don't remember their names anyway because they're just there. Its bad. Don't watch it, if you have that same stupid instinct that I have. 1/5 Apparently this movie had some weird "Choose Your Own Narration" gimmick on the DVD that allowed you to pick different directions the movie went in or something? Wiki seems to suggest none of them were substantive plot differences just extra scenes/nudity/something. I'm guessing maybe that explains the weird part of the film where 3 barely there thugs go in different directions and die quick deaths to ghosts in a repetitive and weird sequence of the movie? Maybe you picked which redshirt you saw get offed on the DVD and I got to sit through all three? Lucky me. 11 (16). Haunter (2013) - Lisa has been re-living the same day in her house with her family for sometime before she realizes its because they're all dead. But now that she's "awake" she wants desperately to reach out to "the other side" only to discover there's something else in the house that doesn't want her to.  REALLY interesting premise. The first act of this film has a really good sense of dread and haunted house atmosphere. The "twist" isn't very surprising but the movie doesn't pretend it is and while they take awhile to say it that's built more on how tough it is to accept that they're dead then to fool the audience. If you're at all clued in you'll pick up on it just as Lisa does as well as the other elements like everything in the house being a little dated, the house seeming TOO spooky in atmosphere, and the subtle play that the rest of her family is just denying it to themselves on some level. The dread and kind of existential horror of it all really sinks in and plays well. Death is being trapped reliving the same disappointing day (the day before her 16th birthday) over and over with no one else to even complain about it too. Thanks for making me think about my own mortality, horror movie. As the second act kicks it I think it gets a little more up and down. Abigail Breslin (also of Zombieland) does a good job capturing first her desperate need to escape from this hell and then her panicked sorrow when she thinks her family has been taken from her, even if they were annoying the poo poo out of her. Stephen McHattie is to no real surprise a sufficiently creepy monster to terrorize a ghost, which on paper seems like a bit of a challenge. Like Oculus I enjoyed that there were almost two stories/movies in here, with us seeing very little of the second (the Haunting of Olivia's Family) but I thought it interesting how the two played together. I think I would have enjoyed the film more if - like Oculus - the interweaving had been done more and we had met Olivia a little earlier. But that may just be comparing the film I enjoyed so much that I just watched. Still, I really enjoyed this. Even if some of the story elements were a little flimsy the whole movies has a very dreamlike atmosphere that makes it feel ok. The rules, nature, or even identification of where Lisa is is unclear and it makes everything she does or goes through kind of understandably vague and very unsettling in that way. And I felt for Lisa all the way through including to her sacrifice in letting her family "move on" without her so she can try and save Olivia's family, her uncertainty and sadness that she may be cursed to "oblivion" as Edgar said, and the joy of waking up to her birthday and discovering her family and the chance to "move on." Its rare that I love a sappy, overly happy ending to a horror movie but it really felt satisfying to me here. A very good flick, IMO, that I picked up at random on Netflix with no real expectations going in. 3.5/5 STAC Goat fucked around with this message at 07:01 on Oct 14, 2015 |
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Oct 14, 2015 06:58
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#13 A Nightmare on Elm Street This was fun. I very much enjoyed the subtle things that made the dream-scenes feel surreal and the effects were wonderful as well. At first I was a bit baffled by Freddy being such a non-threatening, blundering idiot getting Home Alowned all over the place in the last act, but it kind of made sense that someone who only picked on helpless little kids isn't a tough case when his powers disappear because he was tricked to leave his domain. I had a good time with this movie.
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Oct 14, 2015 09:52
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1.Psycho 2. Black Christmas 3. Deep Red 4. Wicker Man 5. The Mummy 6. The Curse of Frankenstein 7. Drag Me to Hell 8. Candyman 9. Child’s Play 10. Lords of Salem 11. Suspiria 12. Hellraiser 13. From Beyond 14. Evil Dead 15. Evil Dead II 16. Re-Animator 17. Necronomicon 18. The Wolfman I am not a Lon Chaney Jr. fan, so this will never be one of my favorite Universal monster movies. Still, it just feels wrong to watch a bunch of werewolf movies and leave this one out. I love Claude Rains though, and he has a pretty good part here, along with a fun cameo by Bela Lugosi. So far the Universal blu ray set looks great, I've now watched three of them and have been impressed by them all visually. The sharper image quality really heightens the impact of scenes that take place in a forest like in The Wolfman, or the underwater scenes in Creature from the Black Lagoon. The makeup and special effects in The Wolfman are not quite up to the level of Frankenstein or Creature from the Black Lagoon in my opinion. Still, the movie is enjoyable overall and its very short, so there's no real opportunity to get bored. The Howling I enjoyed this a lot last year when I saw it for the first time, and it was even better the second time. I still say its not quite as good as American Werewolf in London, but I don't think anyone could argue that The Howling isn't one of the best werewolf flicks of all time. What I like most about this movie is the werewolves themselves. These are legit monsters, not just overgrown wolves. Okay, so maybe they don't move very well, but they look fantastic in closeup which is how they are used 99% of the time. The idea of being in a car that won't start while a whole pack of these things are trying to get in is terrifying. The first half of the film has a Wicker Man quality to it, with nice looking scenery(albeit not quite as beautiful as Wicker Man) and a community that is clearly "off" in some way that the protagonist can't quite put her finger on. There's really only one significant death in the entire movie, but its built up to so perfectly that it becomes the centerpiece of the film. Just a very well-crafted movie in every way, and probably still not as well known as it deserves. Basebf555 fucked around with this message at 15:19 on Oct 14, 2015 |
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Oct 14, 2015 15:14
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 #12. Friday the 13th, Part III (1982). I liked this one more than Part 2. The first half was great with the campers getting some (light) development of their characters, but it started going down-hill once Jason got the mask, as fun as it was to see that moment. Couldn't find my 3D glasses until this morning, so I went with the regular version, but it was still cute seeing the pitchfork handles, baseball bats, and yo-yos COMING RIGHT AT ME. Weird stuff with the biker gang; it's a sleepy little town, but with a seedy enough side to support black-leather-sporting toughs who hang around the gas station? Also liked the shot of Jason cowering as books fell on him, and in general, the camera-work was the best part of the movie to me, with the glowing sunlight pushing into the screen before the kids head to camp, and the various wide shots of nature once they got there. The ending was a cheesy call-back to the first one, though it made less sense, since Pamela's suddenly undecapitated for that scene. I'm curious if they'll keep up the tradition of reusing footage to open the movie with Part IV. 6/10.  #13. I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998). Holy smokes, this was stupid. Stupid set-up and premise, stupid characters, stupid dialogue, stupid twist, stupid fake name, and Jack Black not bringing any of his funnier friends along. Even Jeffrey Combs didn't seem to want to bother giving a real effort, and I can't really blame him. I think I'm starting to like Freddie Prinze, Jr., though, and I don't know why, except that he was on screen for so little of this movie that it made him seem to give a less terrible performance than everyone else. The voodoo-using bellhop was probably the best in that regard, though. On the plus side, there was some nice camera-work and shots, though that should be something of a given when it's set at an island resort. I Know What You Did Last Summer isn't great, but it's better than this, especially in the soundtrack comparison. If anyone knows of a horror film where an extended karaoke scene fits in with the flow (and how did the killer hack the karaoke screen?), please speak up, because this is not it. Special shout-out to the six-shot revolver which held ten rounds. 4/10. Darthemed fucked around with this message at 18:52 on Oct 14, 2015 |
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Oct 14, 2015 18:49
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Week 1: Travel 1. Unaware [1/10] | 2. Vinyan [8.5/10] | 3. Borderland [4/10] | 4. Calvaire [8/10] | 5. The Forest [2/10] | 6. Dead and Buried [7/10] | 7. The Visit [8/10] Week 2: Creature 8. Altered [6/10] | 9. Aliens vs Predator [3/10] | 10. Aliens vs Predator: Requiem [4/10] | 11. The Cat (Lao Mao) 1992 [7/10] 12. Dog Soldiers Werewolves | Siege Werewolves attack some soldiers running training ops in a forest. This is a house siege-style action film where big rubber suit werewolves pop up outside of windows and British soldiers futilely dump ammo into them. Many people like this film and for what it is, it's 'aight and is probably all you're gonna get if what you want is Aliens with werewolves. 5/10 13. Prophecy Bear | Native Americans | Environmentalism A bear in a forest of stuff mutated by mercury poisoning attacks some environmentalists. Good message and some suspenseful scenes, but the whole thing ends up being kinda goofy. 5/10 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zLb9UtQhy8 14. Species HR Giger Alien & Ghost Train | Government Experiment Gone Wrong I liked this film quite a bit. I wasn't prepared for such a good cast (Kingsley, Madsen, Helgenberger, Molina, Whitaker??). The bits in the beginning where Henstridge is exploring the city and the crew are talking about the nature of the experiment were great, but when this film becomes a straight creature feature it falls apart. The CGI is way too dated. The design was also just too unfiltered Giger for me and Whitaker's empath powers were a bit much. 7/10
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Oct 14, 2015 18:50
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Skywalker OG posted:14. Species Ironically enough, that movie gets a lot worse once you get to the selling point (hot half-alien woman who needs to breed BRO). Everything leading up to that is genuinely creepy and intriguing, then it gets really stupid. Darthemed posted:#13. I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998). Hahahaha. I'm so sorry you had to watch that.
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Oct 14, 2015 18:53
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1.10.2015 - Homicycle (2014) 2.10.2015 - A Christmas Horror Story (2015) 3.10.2015 - It Follows (2014) 4.10.2015 - Insidious (2010) 5.10.2015 - 13 Sins (2014) 6.10.2015 - Shaun Of The Dead (2004) 7.10.2015 - Always Watching - A Marble Hornets Story (2015) 8.10.2015 - The Hitcher (1986) 9.10.2015 - Into The Grizzly Maze (2015) 10.10.2015 - Let Us Prey (2014) 11.10.2015 - Last Shift (2014) 12.10.2015 - Backcountry (2014) People go into the woods, people get lost in the woods, people meet bear. Funny that this and Into The Grizzly Maze came out so close together. This has a smaller cast and works half as a horror film, half as a relationship drama. I liked the last act after the BF leaves the picture and it becomes mostly a dialogue-less affair. Better than Into The Grizzly Maze as far as bear thriller movies go. 13.10.2015 - Burnt Offerings (1976) A very nice family vacation/help run an old rundown mansion and meet its eccentric inhabitants. Hauntings happen, reality starts turning and people start acting weird. Had never even heard of this movie but was surprised most pleasantly. The scenery is great and the cast is good, I especially enjoyed Oliver Reed's performance as the head of the family. The pool scene was intense as gently caress. Def. two thumbs up. 14.10.2015 - FPS - First Person Shooter (2014) German low-budget zombie film that takes its title's gimmick to all new heights. I've previously seen Hotel Inferno which has a very similar POV-thing going for it, but FPS is even more into it. Fake game menus and a bit-graphic intro sets the stage for a lone wolf's crusade to rescue his fiance from a run-down hospital. The movie makes very little sense, is aggressively German in its humor and misses way more than it hits, but I found it a fascinating ride. Some of the nods to legendary FPS games were quite clever, and the effect work was p. impressive in parts as well.
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Oct 14, 2015 19:25
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Lurdiak posted:Hahahaha. I'm so sorry you had to watch that. Some of us went to theater to see it. Okay, the discount second run cinema so I only paid a dollar, but that's still too much for I Still Know What You Did Last Summer.
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Oct 14, 2015 19:28
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Random Stranger posted:Some of us went to theater to see it. Okay, the discount second run cinema so I only paid a dollar, but that's still too much for I Still Know What You Did Last Summer. While that does sound miserable, watching it in the actual late 90s is definitely less horrible than suffering through it today.
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Oct 14, 2015 19:29
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I paid full price for I Still Know What You Did Last Summer and didn't regret it. My taste in movies has....lets say evolved since then. Also for what its worth I had a major thing for Jennifer Love Hewitt at the time(who didn't?).
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Oct 14, 2015 19:32
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Day 14 - The Happiness of the Katakuris When I opened up the watch list to suggestions for this year’s horror movies, I was definitely expecting to get some strange ones. Mostly, I assumed I’d be getting some terrible C-grade horror just because everyone loves a chance to make someone watch a terrible movie. What I didn’t expect was a Japanese horror comedy musical that also randomly turns into Claymation puppets at times. I was also not expecting the light-hearted death musical to be directed by Takashi Miike. Full Review 4 out of 5
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Oct 14, 2015 20:06
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Grnegsnspm posted:Day 14 - The Happiness of the Katakuris Who...who did you expect to direct it if not Miike? 
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Oct 14, 2015 22:54
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Any time I hear about a movie and I don't know who directed it I assume its Miike because the dude makes like two movies a month.
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Oct 14, 2015 22:57
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17. Exeter (2015): There's been two recent movies with this title recently, and both have similar premises. I watched the one directed by Marcus Nispel, who also helmed the recent Friday the 13th remake. This one involves a group of kids who are partying in an abandoned mental asylum. It's very true to life, because like any party that you or I may have had in our teens, evil spirits become unleashed and people become possessed. This movie is competent enough I suppose, but it's not really anything that you should go out of your way to watch. It's quite a gory flick, much more than you would expect from a haunted house style film. The characters are all fairly distinct but none are particularly likeable. The plot itself is very predictable, and there's plenty of foreshadowing throughout that will confirm any early predictions you may make. I didn't feel this was a waste of time or anything, but it's just something that I feel I've seen a million times before. 18. Archivo 253 (2015): This Spanish language found footage film involves three paranormal investigators sneaking into an abandoned mental hospital where evil experiments were performed. This is very much like Grave Encounters, but the group dynamics are more reminiscent of The Blair Witch Project. I wasn't a big fan of this one. There were too many scenes involving people running down hallways and screaming. The overuse of night vision adds realism, but doe st make for an enjoyable cinematic experience. 19. Cube (1997): This ones been on my radar for years, and I now wish I had wad he'd this one when I first heard of it. I really enjoyed it. This story is about a group of 5 people who wake up and find themselves trapped in a large cube. There are exits to other cubes, and some of those cubes contain deadly booby traps. We get some gore early in the film, but this film does not rely on gore for its scares. Instead, it focuses on the paranoia and mistrust that the group has for each other. The characters are all well-defined, and each has different talents that are put to use as they wander through this maze. This is a really fast paced movie, and minimal information is provided as to why they are in this cube, or who built it. Highly recommended.
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Oct 14, 2015 23:14
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| # ? May 22, 2024 06:41 |
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CopywrightMMXI posted:
Cube is amazing. It's really a unique movie. Too bad the sequels are stinkers. Part 2 is just garbage, 0 isn't has bad as 2, but not nearly as good as the first.
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Oct 14, 2015 23:19
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