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CopywrightMMXI posted: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. Anyone seen Cube Zero the third made film that's a prequel? I've been curious but lazy about it after part 2 (subtitled: The Tesseract) was such a different film than the first one. The second one has a similar plot to the first: Seemingly random group of people wake up in a cube maze. Only this is a different one--all the walls are white, and most of the maze uses timefuckery instead of the more traditional booby traps of the first maze. It was during the early 00s when SyFy would put up a small amount of money in high profile yet low budget films to get the rights to world premier them. (Beyond Re-Animator was another one they did). It's very so so and not near as good as the first. Considering Zero seems to be in reaction to that, claiming to be going back to what made the first good, I'm curious.
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Oct 14, 2015 23:23
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Choco1980 posted:Anyone seen Cube Zero the third made film that's a prequel? I've been curious but lazy about it after part 2 (subtitled: The Tesseract) was such a different film than the first one. The second one has a similar plot to the first: Seemingly random group of people wake up in a cube maze. Only this is a different one--all the walls are white, and most of the maze uses timefuckery instead of the more traditional booby traps of the first maze. It was during the early 00s when SyFy would put up a small amount of money in high profile yet low budget films to get the rights to world premier them. (Beyond Re-Animator was another one they did). It's very so so and not near as good as the first. Considering Zero seems to be in reaction to that, claiming to be going back to what made the first good, I'm curious. I have. It's better than 2 (which I didn't like). It's a prequel and tries to explain and show a lot of what's going on behind the scenes, which hurts it. It's goes back to the first in the sense that there are rooms with traps, but that's really it. Basically a dude who works for the Cube program breaks into the Cube to save a woman he has fallen in love with..
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Oct 14, 2015 23:34
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I thought Zero was worse than 2, but it's a close call. The first is the only one you should bother watching.
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Oct 15, 2015 00:09
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I'm still unsure to this day of how I feel about 2 or 0.
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Oct 15, 2015 00:12
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22. Red Eye (2005) This movie is fine. Wes Craven has certainly done worse. I wasn't excited about it or on the edge of my seat, but I wasn't offended by how awful it was either. 23. Cooties (2014) This was a very fun, very gory flick. It was pretty much exactly what I expected it to be, but somehow better. Leigh Whannell's character is one of the greatest characters I've seen in recent films. Very funny. 24. Deadly Friend (1986) Surprise, surprise. Wes Craven made another piece of poo poo movie. This time it's about a kid who was smart enough to create a robot with artificial intelligence, but could not get it to speak (instead, it just wanders around mumbling in a throaty, raspy tone like Stitch from Lilo & Stitch). No worries, though. Soon the robot dies. Also, the really smart kid makes friends with the daughter of the alcoholic next-door neighbor. They do things like put shaving cream on a car and enjoy Thanksgiving dinner together. It's all very sweet. No worries, though. Soon the girl dies. Naturally, the kid combines his dead robot and his dead friend to create the titular DEADLY FRIEND! First he cons another friend into helping, then he drugs his mom, then he plays God (that should have been the poster tag line). This movie is part Frankenstein, part Robocop, and part Fright Night. Unfortunately, it's all the worst parts of those movies. Even worse, it's directed by Wes Craven. Deadly Friend is at least better than Deadly Blessing (also should have been the poster tag line). 25. Zombeavers (2014) I first saw the poster with a friend of mine and we laughed about it for, like, 2 solid days. When it popped up on Netflix, I promptly added it to my queue without any concrete plans to actually watch it. Finally, I caved and gave it a shot (it's a short movie and I didn't have much time to kill). Glad I did! This is a comedy, first and foremost. A pretty funny comedy, at that. And I was really glad to see some real puppetry for a change without an overbearing amount of CGI. To top it off, it has one of the best ending credits songs ever. You haven't lived until you've seen a man yell "Suck a bag of dicks!" at a beaver dam. 26. Knock Knock (2015) I don't even know what to say. I'm not sure Eli Roth knew what he was trying to say. What a confused little movie. Topper Harley fucked around with this message at 05:11 on Oct 15, 2015 |
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Oct 15, 2015 00:31
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Day 14 - So I was tied up for a while tonight and couldn't hit The Revenge of Frankenstein. But I could watch YouTube and so I went for a film that I was saving for when I was ready for something insanely stupid. And that's why I watched Dracula: Sovereign of the Damned. Dracula moved to Boston where he interrupts a Satanic ritual and steals their sacrifice as his bride. Meanwhile the wheelchair bound descendant of Van Helsing recruits the last descendant of Dracula to form a team. Satan pledges revenge, the hunters pursue Dracula, and Dracula snacks on other women than the one he stole but goes ahead and has a kid with her after a montage. So here's the thing: this is an anime. A mid-80's anime. An obviously super-cheap mid-80's anime complete with terrible, terrible dubbing. It's also hilariously awful. On top of that, this is a Marvel movie. It's based on the Tomb of Dracula comics. So this film is in continuity with The Avengers. I can't count the number of times I went, "Wait, what?!" during the film. Nothing in this film makes any sense from top to bottom and I've read the original comics. I'd say it was the translation, but the animation is just as absurd. It's the kind of thing that you really need to witness for yourself, though. Because telling you about the absolutely insane plot developments or the goofy cheap animation would take away from the shock, I'm not going to describe things too much. But here's an example from the first few minutes: some cultists show up late for their evil ceremony because of traffic and get chewed out by their boss. It's completely bizarre and that's where the film starts...
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Oct 15, 2015 03:47
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Grnegsnspm posted:Day 14 - The Happiness of the Katakuris I love this film.
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Oct 15, 2015 06:38
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Random Stranger posted:Day 14 - So I was tied up for a while tonight and couldn't hit The Revenge of Frankenstein. But I could watch YouTube and so I went for a film that I was saving for when I was ready for something insanely stupid. And that's why I watched Dracula: Sovereign of the Damned. This has inspired me to watch the other piece done at the time based on Marvel Horror, Monster Of Frankenstein. I'm finding not nearly as kookoo as the Dracula one sounds, but I'll have the writeup with the other movie I watched today in the morning.
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Oct 15, 2015 07:10
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18. Halloween 4 (1987) 3/5 Really goddamn stupid as the action unfolds without being quite stupid enough to be funny. Serviceable child actor, gruesome gore, and some pretty cool cinematography here and there. Donald Pleasance wanders in, at times presumably from another movie, to rant and rave before leaving again. A laughably silly ending that I wholeheartedly embraced. cthulusnewzulubbq fucked around with this message at 07:19 on Oct 16, 2015 |
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Oct 15, 2015 07:53
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An American Werewolf in London The humor here is mostly present to offset the moodiness: this one is unique in that I don't think it could be made today, as is, and if the 90s sequel/remake (?) is any proof that is true. While that film chooses to end with a MASSIVE CLIMATIC BATTLE of CGI werewolf vs. CGI werewolf in a CGI GOTHIC CATHEDRAL with CGI BATS, this one is content to focus solely on the protagonist and his consideration of suicide (!). How many films today made for mainstream release with a clearly decent budget would have a scene where the protagonist meets his dead friend and the people he killed in a porno theater and they discuss how he can off himself? There's no happy endings or clean outs in this one, as much as we might want him to track down the original werewolf and kick its rear end, only a sad inevitably. Also, part of me is noticing that there seems to be quite a few 70s/80s creature features that end like a tragedy, with the monster begging someone to kill it or someone who knows it tearfully letting it die.  /5Dark Waters (1994) Stumbling across Dark Waters in my local ma and pa video store was like finding a lost movie by Fulci. I had never heard of this one before and rented it solely based on the fact that it was Italian (I think?) and somehow received a 2-disc release, not to mention some interesting screenshots; apparently this was widely unavailable until recent years, circulated only as a bootleg VHS outside certain regions that received a limited release. It did not disappoint! Like several other films in this post, Dark Waters is like a surreal nightmare, brimming with grotesque imagery (particularly of note, a dream scene where the protagonist sees a corridor full of fog and two Shining-esque girls come out of the darkness, followed by a moving crucifix with a disfigured nun nailed to it) and fantastic looking shots. Like Fulci, there's a certain relentless fatalism, but also a beauty. It's hard to describe this plot-wise, as any little detail would ruin it - like all good nightmares/dreams, experience it for yourself. I saw this a week ago, and the labyrinth caverns of wall-to-wall candles and haunting final moments still stick with me. /5Eaten Alive Lurid. I cannot think of a better word to describe this than that. A second might be dreamy, with a hint of nightmarish fever hanging over proceedings. Remember the end of Texas Chainsaw, how it feels like a dream or a waking nightmare? The entire film is that. Filmed entirely on stages--including "exteriors"--the film is stronger for it: there is a strange artificial vibe about the production that increases the feeling of the nightmare, the cameras sticking close to the action and the sky never fully seen. Sunset is portrayed as a wash of red light covering over everything like an Argento film. As per Tobe Hooper's best, the film is set in the South and is full of oddball characters and sleaziness, like Robert Englund as a sex maniac. The story is essentially a telling of the legend of Joe Ball/Bluebeard, a hotel owner who killed many women and fed them to his alligator, who is here known as Judd and played by Neville Brand with an extremely convincing insanity: a lot of the kills come off as accidental, like he can barely help himself. As far as I know, his madness had no explanation in-film and is all the more terrifying for it. Forgotten about not long after release despite following the hit of Texas Chainsaw, Eaten Alive is a forgotten gem. /5The Hitcher Or, What happens when the guy you pick up is Rutger Hauer and he has a nice knife he'd like to introduce to you. Incredibly tightly wound, not a minute wasted as it blasts forward like a long drawn-out nightmare (a reoccurring theme of three of the films in this post), The Hitcher is not only a piece of horror but a decent action film as well, with several impressive car stunts. This is nicely shot, with a plenty of time given just to showing the vast openness of the desert, the light hitting canyons, or our protagonist wandering through nothingness. There's people here, but everyone is so isolated it hardly matters for help. Hauer says very few words, but like Mad Max or Arnold in T1, he does a lot with those few words; I almost wondered if some of the Joker from Nolan's Dark Knight came from here. The 2006 remake, which I had actually seen in theaters, does nothing to dilute this one's power and in fact gives a good lesson on how even a fundamentally similar movie can end up vastly different based on actors, shots picked, etc. The remake is slick and smooth, too artificial, and Sean Bean does a decent job but he's basically just playing a slasher villain who sometimes uses a gun. Hauer, due to both acting and the writing for the character, comes off as a force of nature. By the end of the movie, they don't even bother showing him escape from a situation: of course he does, it doesn't matter how. /5It's Alive The creature and stalking is decent, but the real horror--and the best parts of the film--comes when it's not even on-screen. At its heart, what makes It's Alive work so well is introducing a likable family and showing what happens when a natural act goes horrifically wrong. There are no ghosts or monsters involved, but the long scene before the birth, where the father sits with other expectant dads drinking coffee stirred with a lead pencil ("It won't matter, there's so much smog out there that it doesn't matter if you drink it in or breath it") draws out the tension masterfully. Something is going to happen, but meanwhile here is how horrific the world already is. The aftermath of the birth, following the baby creature murdering its way out of the hospital, is equally fantastic and I can see why it ends up on "best moments in horror" lists. The family drama remains a core of the film and its strength, with a focus on the media attempting to exploit the tragedy and the government refusing to see any option but to murder the infant. The tension between the family members as they all break down, the effects of the baby's existence fully shown instead of glossed over for more stalking/effects shots, makes the film. A mood paranoia fills the film and even without checking I could tell this was from the 70s: Nixon was in office, the country strained at the seams, and everyone was going crazy. The ending is not something I could have quite predicted, going for pathos and tragedy instead of a traditional suspense climax. (5/5) Total Films Watched: 20
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Oct 15, 2015 08:15
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Choco1980 posted:Who...who did you expect to direct it if not Miike? I've only seen 3 of his films and every one of them has been this crazy, ultraviolent, grim view on the world. To have him be behind a loving family musical, death or no death, weirded me out for a minute there.
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Oct 15, 2015 09:59
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#14 Lord of Illusions This was more of a detective than a real horror movie and I don't think the transition between the genres at the end worked that well, but both parts were interesting so the tonal shift didn't kill it for me. It was a bit uneven, but enjoyable.
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Oct 15, 2015 10:50
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:I'm still unsure to this day of how I feel about 2 or 0. I always felt 2 had a more interesting concept (a crazier designed cube prison), but 0 had the better execution on it's own concept and theme. That said, I'll probably never re-watch either because they were mediocre at best.
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Oct 15, 2015 15:02
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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 19.The Howling 20. An American Werewolf In London Well I can see I'm not the only one who watched this in the past 24 hours so I'll keep it brief. This is the best werewolf movie of all-time for a bunch of different reasons. Great characters, amazing makeup effects by Rick Baker, the best transformation scene ever, an awesome soundtrack, and oh by the way its also hilarious. I'm pretty sure if you're posting in this thread you've seen this movie. So we're at the halfway point and I've got 20 movies down. I'm in kind of an unusual circumstance where I have the rest of my list laid out, but if I start watching that stuff now I could run out before October 31st. I need to fill in 3 or 4 days here with some stuff that I wasn't necessarily intending to watch this year. I'm thinking I'll add in a Fulci double-feature, maybe New York Ripper and The House by the Cemetery, and maybe a few extra Craven movies. I haven't watched Scream yet this year for example. So many choices!
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Oct 15, 2015 15:03
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1.The Sentinel (1977) 2.The Curse of King Tut's Tomb (1980) 3. The Pit (1981) 4. Beyond The Black Rainbow (2010) 5. Witchtrap 6. I Am Legend (2007) 7. Nosferatu The Vampyre (1979) 8. Drag Me To Hell (2009) 9. The Order (2003) 10. Anthropohagus (1980) 11. Chemical Wedding (2008) 12. Maniac (2012) 13. Deliver Us From Evil (2014) 14. Black Roses (1988) 15. GhostWatch (1992) 16. Dark Waters (1993) 17. The Haunted World of El Superbeasto (2009) 18. Body Parts (1991) 19. Let The Right One In (2008) 20. Spontaneous Combustion (1990) 21. Cellar Dweller (1988) 22. Guinea Pig (1985) 23. He Never Dies (1986) 24. Devil Doctor Woman (1986) 25. Android of Notre Dame (1987) 26. Mermaid in a Manhole (1988) 27. Warlock: Armageddon (1993) 28. Warlock 3: The End of Innocence (1999) #29. Shiver of the Vampire (1971) Isle and Antoine, a bride and groom on their honeymoon decide to make a detour to the castle belonging to her two cousins and only family whom she hasn't seen in some time. Whoops, turns out the former vampire hunters have recently become vamps themselves. Isolde, the woman who turned them, is there too. She begins seducing and turning Isle, while Antione begins investigating everything going on, thinking himself some sort of Johnathon Harker, while in reality he's terrible at it and almost seems to be cuckolded during his attempts. Will he be able to stop the monsters? Will he be able to save his bride? I must say, Jean Rollin's films are not for all tastes, but I enjoy them. He strangely straddles the line between high sophisticated art, and low brow sleaze in his horror. He has a masterful talent with the camera, capturing beautiful gothic decay everywhere, and also spends his films with beautiful women in constant undress. Characters seem to talk directly to the camera often, not out of amateur unknowing, but in Brechtian 4th wall breaking. They talk in odd, overly expositional ways, and rarely about themselves, causing strange dream atmospheres to his pictures, separating him from his contemporaries such as Jess Franco in the Eurosleaze circles. This film is no exception. I enjoyed it, finally watching it in a Redemption brand box set I had received from a parent years ago just because it was vampire related (Considering one of the titles proudly displayed on the cover is Rape of the Vampire, that was an uncomfortable gift to receive from my step-mom). If Rollin's artsy fartsy style is something you like, then this is definitely an exemplary film. .5/5#30. Monster of Frankenstein (1981) The story starts familiar enough, Dr. Victor Frankenstein creates a monster out of dead body parts. Electricity brings him to life. But then he gets struck by another bolt and set on fire, leading to him smashing the place in blind rage and in his escape attempts making the Doctor's assistant lose an eye. Victor then goes back home to his wife and daughter and suffers from PTSD over the whole thing. What doesn't help is the assistant tracks him down and begins blackmailing him. Of course, the monster starts wandering the countryside, causing trouble too. Eventually he befriends the doctor's blind father and his young daughter too, and they name him Franken (due to him just saying that) and realize he's innocent like a child, not knowing the world yet. Naturally nobody else knows that or can get past his ugly visage, and more trouble follows... This was one of two early 80s cheapjack animes made by Marvel based on their classic horror lines. It's an okay Frankenstein film, and it's very dark, despite not being graphic. I've heard the Dracula entry (which I plan on watching later) is a lot more crazy. This one has its odd moments, such as a random sidebar about Jesus that comes out of nowhere, but it's mostly middle of the road as far as adaptations of Shelly's story goes. I hope you like the doctor moaning in terror, and the phrase "Who could do such a thing?!" because you get a LOT of both. .5/5
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Oct 15, 2015 16:09
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So - I've been quietly updating my thread and reading with interest all the other postings as the month goes on, but had to make a new post for this one. Last night I watched "The Loved Ones". How the hell does this movie not get more attention? It is perhaps the most enjoyable, humorous, disturbing and fun little horror movie I've seen this decade. I'm not a huge fan of the whole "torture porn" genre (I liked the original "Saw", but didn't care much for the numerous sequels), but when the genre is done right, it can be one hell of a good time. Brief summary for those on the fence : Brent is approached by shy Lola to go to the prom with her, but he politely refuses as he already has a date lined up. Lola then persuades her unhinged father to kidnap Brent and bring him back to their isolated farmhouse for their own very special prom. From there, things get creepy. Lola is transcendent as the disturbed young girl - just the right mixture of childish naivete, psycho killer, and looney tunes riding a horse with only one rocker, and one of my favorite antagonists of all time is born. Anyhow - why haven't more people seen this? It's definitely my favorite film of the month so far.
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Oct 15, 2015 16:16
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wuLFe posted:So - I've been quietly updating my thread and reading with interest all the other postings as the month goes on, but had to make a new post for this one. It's worth mentioning that Paramount currently has this movie available for free on its Youtube channel.
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Oct 15, 2015 16:28
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#80. Heart of Midnight (1988). A woman inherits a night club. After moving in she is raped and begins to suspect that the night club is haunted. Well, this was a really strange movie. It's a little bit haunted house flick, character study, and tale of depravity. What the main a character experiences after her rape is pretty horrifying. It looked beautiful, and was shot amazing. Unfortunately, The plot fell apart towards the end in a bad way. Jennifer Jason Leigh is amazing in it. #81. The Last Slumber Party (1988). A patient from a mental hospital escapes and stalks his doctors family. This was colorful, and not in a good way. There were too many shots of the killer starting with is eyes wide open. The characters were all really angry, and I don't understand why. The whole movie was a waste because [spoiler]its all a dream[/b]. Yeah.
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Oct 15, 2015 16:30
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Choco1980 posted:This one has its odd moments, such as a random sidebar about Jesus that comes out of nowhere, but it's mostly middle of the road as far as adaptations of Shelly's story goes. Dracula: Sovereign of the Damned also has Jesus (well, God) literally come out of nowhere to do a literal deus ex machina. They must have have really liked that plot device.
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Oct 15, 2015 16:30
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 #14. Aerobicide, a.k.a., Killer Workout (1987). Dumb but generally fun, from the meathead fight scene in the parking lot to the murder weapon being one of those hand-squeeze exercise devices. Shots of '80s ladies in tight spandex doing aerobics every ten minutes or so, with plenty of close-ups on their butts. None of the red herrings worked too well, though, and I wasn't invested enough in any of the characters to have much of a reaction to their deaths or the reveal at the very end. Not much variety to the kills, either, with very little use of the setting to influence the style. The score sounded as if the composer had one keyboard available to use, and while there were some inventive touches (even vaguely reminiscent of the Candyman theme in a couple of parts), it was a little too chintzy. A few instances of good framing for some shots, but when so much emphasis is on leotard bending, the DP must have either been having a lot of fun or wanting to bang his head against a wall. And lots of scenes where a bouncy '80s soundtrack distracted from being just a long stretch of dull dialogue. Kind of impressive for how evenly it balances silliness with dullness. 5/10.
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Oct 15, 2015 18:13
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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 [5/10] | 13. Prophecy [5/10] | 14. Species [7/10] Week 3: Technology 15. Skin I Live In In Spanish | Antonio Banderas | Skin Experiments This film is really loving strange. It isn't gory or suspensful, just kind of eerie. Everything's a bit clinical and off, like a newer Cronenberg film. Basically Antonio Banderas has created stronger, mosquito-repellent skin, and he's been testing it out on someone he's surgically made to look like his dead wife. The rest of the film flashes back to who that person really is, and then flashes forward to the aftermath of the incident that happens in the first section of the film. 7/10 16. Brainscan Killer Videogame | Edward Furlong Alert | Grunge Music What archetype is The Trickster in this film? What do you call, like, Pinhead in the later Hellraisers or Green Goblin's ghost in Spider-Man 2? I guess The Trickster is a decent name for that. He's kinda like a mix of Green Goblin and The Leprechaun. Your enjoyment of this film rests on whether you can stomach that guy and Furlong. It's basically a slightly better (very debatable), videogame version of Trick Or Treat. It's R, but I think only 13-16 year olds in 1993 would like this film at all. It does nothing to earn an R except for like 15 F bombs. 3/10 17. Virus Techno-organic monster | Creature on A Boat Another surprising cast of decent actors in a dumb creature feature. I really like the look of the creatures in this one. There's a lot of stretched-out, stitched skin over clunky random hunks of metal. or cameras coming out of people's heads. It's just so dumb. It has the same plot as any other film with a sentient monster on a boat or in an isolated lab and doesn't do anything beyond this. The aesthetic is wasted. There's nothing else out there that looks like this and it's a bit of a shame. 6/10
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Oct 15, 2015 18:54
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Skywalker OG posted:
I was 14 in 1993, and Brainscan was one of my favorite films back then ,so I think you might have hit the nail right on the head here. I've been too scared to rewatch it because "ouch... my childhood". Got burnt by trying to rewatch Thundercats a few years back and it turning out to be significantly less awesome than 7 year old me remembered it being...
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Oct 15, 2015 19:23
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20. The Pact (2012): There are a lot of things I liked about this movie, but I'm not too hot on it overall. This is a haunted house flick, or at least it starts out that way. This movie has a good script, and it goes in unexpected directions. I liked the unpredictability, as all too often haunted house movies rely on cliches. The acting is pretty good too, and the characterization was done well. What I didn't really care for was the overall level of direction and cinematography. There's a weird gold hue present throughout the movie, and everything is way too well lit. The shots are too wide as well. Horror films usually do better with close angles, as it invokes a sense of claustrophobia. The score was nothing special either. The end result of this is that the movie wasn't very scary, which is a shame as some of the scares were well thought out. Overall, I'd mildly recommend this one. Although it has its problems, the script itself is strong enough to justify its 90 minute run time.
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Oct 15, 2015 20:31
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Skywalker OG posted:17. Virus They thought they were making a big event film so there was actually a line of action figures for this movie including some really large ones (like a foot tall) for the big monster. They look pretty nifty but that's about the best thing about Virus.
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Oct 15, 2015 21:00
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Random Stranger posted:They thought they were making a big event film so there was actually a line of action figures for this movie including some really large ones (like a foot tall) for the big monster. They look pretty nifty but that's about the best thing about Virus. I have an acquaintance who loves Virus and that would probably give him a cardiac.
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Oct 15, 2015 21:24
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Yeah I remember when it was coming out in theaters it got some big hollywood blitz of ads, and then noone I knew cared one iota about it and that shut down real fast.
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Oct 15, 2015 22:08
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Sarchasm posted:It's worth mentioning that Paramount currently has this movie available for free on its Youtube channel. Cool, thanks. I remember people talking that one up last year. I know what I'm watching tonight. 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) / 11 (16). Haunter (2013) 12 (17). The Lazarus Effect (2015) - Scientists attempt to perfect a serum that will "prolong the time health professionals have to save lives", a noble and just cause. So naturally one of them really wants to "play God" by resurrecting the dead. And boy, when has that ever gone well?  I was kind of excited when I logged into Netflix and saw this on. It must have been just added since I was looking for it at the start of the month and it wasn't even named properly. I think the fact that I couldn't find access to it short of buying it at the start of the month is what made me excited. It had a solid advertising campaign but I didn't really expect that much going in. Still, a solid cast and a budget that looks like it should handle the effects. And I love me a good possession flick. So lets do it. It was alright. I think the film had a pacing issue. Nothing scary really happens for 2 acts and then all hell breaks loose in the third act over the span of like an hour in movie time. It was odd pacing because for the first hour the movie was moving around apartments and offices and labs and then all of a sudden it tried to be a claustrophobic haunted house film in the last half hour. The result is everything feels really rushed and has no time to sink in. The film could have done with less setup and more time having Olivia Wilde just have to try and act the terror of what was happening to her or Mark Duplas, Donald Glover, and the people I didn't recognize act the guilt and fear of what they were doing. Instead it happens at a breakneck pace after largely unnecessary storylines of corporate takeovers and evil drug companies. Seriously, they're totally unnecessary. The plot of this movie is essentially "doctors develop a drug that resurrects people, it gets stolen by Big Pharma so they try a desperate attempt to replicate the experiment only for it to go wrong and result in someone's death, which then leads them to use it on her." Why couldn't that story have just been told without the Pharma subplot? Why couldn't there have just been an accident anyway and then the ACTUAL possession story might have had time to breath instead of being supplanted by a pointless excuse to get there that was never really asked for? Still, it wasn't a bad film. It kept me engaged and there was some solid imagery and tone. It just could have been a much, much better film. This is what happens when so many horror films are made by first time directors. 3/5 13 (18). Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones (2014)  So last year I watched the first four Paranormal Activity movies. I loved the first one and while there were some diminishing returns and questionable decisions in the sequel in general the movies all managed to maintain an uncomfortable, spooky atmosphere using the found footage style to enhance the haunted house story. Paranormal Activity isn't anything revolutionary, its just an old song played in a new way and sometimes that works just fine. So while I wasn't expecting The Marked Ones to be anything special I figured it would be a solid haunted house tale. Whoops. Apparently someone watched four Paranormal Activity movies and decided to discard the sympathetic women and children victims, the spooky haunted house atmosphere, and the building terror of not being safe in your own home... and instead embrace the kind of flimsy and nonsensical witch coven raising an army of demonic children plot the sequels built. Beyond a doubt the introduction of that was the weakest part of the sequels to me as I thought the simple idea of something evil haunting random people was way scarier than some weird plot of cults and curses. I mean, I have nothing against a cult and curse movie but since you're not going to focus on that why bother with it? And yet that's what The Marked Ones does. No spooky house. No sympathetic family. Just a fairly unlikable teenager and his really annoying stoner friend who don't seem alarmed when their Simon starts working like a Ouija board or their invisible friend starts doing trust falls with them. At least Marked Ones keeps up the PA tradition of a male lead who kind of deserves what's happening to him because like the male leads before him Jesse is basically unphased by an hour of reasons to be scared shitless. And the fact that he and his friends really aren't scared basically kills the movie. The power of Paranormal Activity was really in how scared Katie was and how you really sympathized with her growing fear even as Micah basically ignored it until it was too late. But in this sequel/spinoff no one seems concerned at all except for Grandma who shows up for like 5 minutes in the movie. Hell, there's a sister and father that I kind of forgot even existed. Just a couple of kind of annoying dudes who almost want to see Toby bite their heads off. And then the last act is just an incoherent mess. Sudden effects that feel out of place in the franchise since I don't remember the previous films going for big flashy stuff. A weird subplot where bangers are recruited into the story just because. And the weirdest drat plot where they just suddenly get transported back to the first movie by a magic door that was briefly mentioned earlier in the film. Was there even a point to that? Did it add anything to anything? I'm confused. Like I said, I wasn't expecting anything great but I was expecting a competent haunted house tale. Instead I got an overly long bad VHS skit. 1/5 From a quick look at Wiki it looks like the writer/director is the same guy who wrote the previous 3 sequels so I guess this whole convoluted demon and witches plotline is his baby and he probably really wanted to make this film or something. I don't know. It does give me a little hope for the Ghost Dimension since it doesn't seem to involve him. Next October I expect to be watching that one to close out this franchise, and probably not a moment too soon.
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Oct 15, 2015 22:56
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The second episode of my October Horror Podcast is finally live. Turns out editing multiple tracks of 3 hours of audio takes a lot longer than I thought it would. This week we talked about : The Blair Witch Project + Curse of the Blair witch; As Above, So Below, Noroi, WNUF Halloween Special, Ghostwatch, and The Bay. Here's the episode As always any suggestions or constructive criticisms are welcome. You can also get an audio only version here ir on iTunes under "Pod Kiwi."
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Oct 15, 2015 23:48
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I'm glad I front loaded because I have been swamped this week. All I have watched is: Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed And that he must. There is no questioning Dr. Frankenstein's evilness in this one. Not as fun as the other films, but very good none the less. Cool ending. .5/5
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Oct 15, 2015 23:58
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27. Vampire in Brooklyn (1995) This is the story of how Eddie Murphy slowly turns into a Klingon while some other guy slowly turns into the Cryptkeeper. Double whammy of bad Wes Craven movie and bad Eddie Murphy movie. Everyone once in a while a character says something amusing, but mostly this is just bad. 28. The People Under the Stairs (1991) Weird. Twin Peaks weird (and not just because of the cast crossover). One of Wes Craven's better movies, but still not terribly well done and feels a lot like a well-crafted made-for-tv movie (possibly because of the number of times I caught parts of it on TNT or TBS back in the 90s). 29. My Soul To Take (2010) UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU UUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. Topper Harley fucked around with this message at 05:13 on Oct 16, 2015 |
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Oct 16, 2015 01:18
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CopywrightMMXI posted:The shots [in The Pact] are too wide as well. Horror films usually do better with close angles, as it invokes a sense of claustrophobia. Aw, I dug some of the wides, like the long take where she's pacing/running all through the house. It Follows and The Strangers are jumping to mind as other horror flicks whose wide shots I thought worked particularly well.
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Oct 16, 2015 02:45
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marblize posted:Aw, I dug some of the wides, like the long take where she's pacing/running all through the house. It Follows and The Strangers are jumping to mind as other horror flicks whose wide shots I thought worked particularly well. Some of the wides are five, in particular the scene you just mentioned. I just felt it was overdone.
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Oct 16, 2015 04:00
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Day 15 - The House at the End of Time God drat this was way better than I thought it was going to be from just watching the trailer which made it seem like a total paint-by-numbers haunted house movie. Well written, well directed, acting was fine. The old person make-up they used left something to be desired but I can forgive that. The review is in podcast form but if you want to listen I definitely suggest watching the movie first since we get super spoilery. Full Review 9 out of 10
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Oct 16, 2015 05:12
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Grnegsnspm posted:Day 15 - The House at the End of Time Awesome! I've been on the fence about checking this out. I love a good haunted house flick.
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Oct 16, 2015 06:14
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19. Halloween 5 (1989) 3/5 It's almost as if the director decided that he absolutely hated the fourth movie but then went ahead and just made a shittier version of it. How does the Sheriff of Haddonfield manage to make the same stupid mistake twice in two scripts? If you are in the witness protection program, don't seek help from Haddonfield PD. The only true highlight elevating the movie is Donald Pleasance acting even crazier than before.
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Oct 16, 2015 07:18
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Day 15 - The Revenge of Frankenstein was a much better sequel than Brides of Dracula. For one thing, it actually featured its title character. After narrowly escaping death, Baron Frankenstein moves to a new city and sets up a medical practice under the not at all suspicious name "Dr. Stein". A medical student figures out who he is and joins in on his new experiment, creating a perfect body to transplant a living brain into. Shockingly, things go wrong for him again, but Frankenstein still does not learn a lesson about peppering in God's lo mein. This is an engrossing sequel, but it appears that Baron Frankenstein decided to go for the best Revenge: living well. Despite the title, there's zero actual revenge going on. He isn't even as nasty or malevolent was he was in the first film. He's still a jerk, it's just downplayed a lot from the first movie..
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Oct 16, 2015 14:18
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Random Stranger posted:He isn't even as nasty or malevolent was he was in the first film. He's still a jerk, it's just downplayed a lot from the first movie.. Don't worry, a few sequels later he'll be using his status as a respected physician to get a good man wrongfully convicted and executed for murder just so he can use his brain. What does he need his brain for you ask? To implant into the body of the man's already dead girlfriend of course!. Its just science, nothing wrong with that!
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Oct 16, 2015 14:22
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14) The Taking of Deborah Logan This movie rules. Found footage done really well, there's a great blend of 'how much of this is her being a crazy old lady and how much is supernatural' even when the supernatural stuff comes out. Genuine creepy moments, an interesting angle for the supernatural stuff, and a realistic mix of lovely and entertaining 'amateur documentary maker' types make it a very good watch. /515) I, Frankenstein poo poo's bad, poo poo's real bad. Even by supernatural action movie standards the plot makes no sense, the acting sucks, the entire conflict is poorly explained so it's just Frankenstein wandering around beating up gargoyles for reasons. Movie baaaad! /5
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Oct 16, 2015 19:07
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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 19. The Howling 20. An American Werewolf in London 21. Poltergeist Movies like this aren't really made anymore. The balance that Poltergeist maintains between family-friendly scares and legitimately disturbing imagery is something that most horror movies these days don't even attempt. The scene at the end when JoBeth Williams falls into the swimming pool absolutely terrified me as a kid, and its still just as effective today. Its been discussed to death, but yes the movie is extremely Spielbergian. It gets a little bit annoying at one specific point where the special effects seem to have been ripped straight from Close Encounters, but overall I think his influence makes the film what it is, so no complaints. The way the house looks, the way the family interacts with each other, and the way they react to whats happening around them are the core of the movie, and all of that is just oozing Spielberg in almost every single scene. The pacing is perfect, we're shown just enough to spark our curiosity, and then just a bit more, and a bit more until all the sudden whoa there's a gigantic skull-face thing coming through a portal! For someone watching it for the first time there's no way of predicting just how far things are going to go, and that the charming little stuff like chair stacking is just the tremor preceding a massive volcanic eruption. There's a procession of moments where you go "oh poo poo now what?", and it keeps going and going, much further than you might expect from a movie about a poltergeist(the movie really isn't about a poltergeist). Could Tobe Hooper have pulled this off on own? Probably not. My guess is if not for Spielberg's influence, Poltergeist wouldn't have been nearly as restrained(Exhibit A: Lifeforce), and the end result would have been much, much different. Maybe not even worse, just different.
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Oct 16, 2015 19:08
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| # ? May 22, 2024 16:19 |
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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 - 2/5 ||||| 9: Tales from the Darkside: The Movie - 2.45/5 10: The Nightmare Pretty decent doc! I dug the shooting style, and the variety of stories was nice. A couple of them were pretty terrifying. It actually kind of made me miss my bouts of sleep paralysis, lol. 3.215/5
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Oct 16, 2015 19:31
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