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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 I adore The Creature From the Black Lagoon, and while unfortunately Gill Man spends a good deal of time chained up in an aquarium in this sequel, the joy of seeing him break out with the crowd scampering everywhere is great. There's a spectacular man-on-wire-because-he's-supposed-to-be-thrown shot. Right into a tree for a solid 3.5. 16. The Creature Walks Among Us (1956) 2/5 Jesus Christ. There's a great night hunt scene in the Everglades and a sequence with a sonar that Ridley Scott probably took notice of as a kid. And that's where the film ends because then the Creature turns into a sort of cross between the Beast of Yucca Flats and one of those fuckers from Enemy Mine. And he stands around in a cage before walking into the sea. The End.
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Oct 12, 2015 08:26
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#9 Hellraiser Pinhead was on the poster for nearly every hardcore party I saw as a kid. That and the gazillion sequels made me avoid anything Hellraiser related up until now. I always figured it was just torture-porn, so I very much enjoyed the smart, tight and interesting film this turned out to be. The cenobites were just a small part in a strong story with a great mood that manages to balance almost all moving parts very well. Didn't care much for the scorpion-like monster with arms on its tail, but everything else was pretty drat good. I have also never seen any Halloween, Friday the 13th or A Nightmore on Elm Street movies. Time to try and cram them into this October. #10 Lake Mungo This started off really strong, but I feel it lost steam after half an hour or so and just dragged itself towards the ending. They wrapped it up nicely, but most of the goodwill from the beginning was gone by then. I mean, what did the storylines about the psychic and the sex tape really add? It really felt like they were padding the concept because after the initial pitch they couldn't come up with anything else. Still, an interesting and original take on the subject, even if it was quite uneven. #11 Castle Freak This fell flat for me. There was barely enough material to make for a TV episode and it just went on and on and on without anything actually happening. It didn't use that emptiness to build atmosphere or dread, it just was. The idea has been done a thousand times and this movie does nothing original with it. Very disappointing.
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Oct 12, 2015 08:35
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12. Fiend Without a Face 6.5/10 A fun, classic 1950's 'fear of an atomic age' ride with brain monsters. I liked it. 13. Eraserhead 7.5/10 This could easily be cross-posted in the SHAMEFUL thread. After watching nearly every other Lynch feature, I finally watched Eraserhead. It sure was...something. I don't know what I can say about this movie that hasn't already been said, and better, by someone else. Jack Nance is great and the gross reptile baby thing is creepy as hell and very well done. I'm not sure if "enjoy" is something you're meant to do with Eraserhead, but it was time well spent. All that being said, I think the hype has been built up for too many years for me. This definitely isn't my favorite Lynch film by a long shot.
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Oct 12, 2015 10:43
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cthulusnewzulubbq posted:My fave Hammer film is Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires and I'm not ashamed. Nothing to be ashamed of there in the first place. It's the PERFECT example of two genres done by their best (hammer's vampires and shaw bros' kung fu) combined in a perfect "chocolate and peanut butter" surprising combo. Last night's scream stream featured "Let The Right One In", and I realized I thought I'd seen it and my memory was just hazy from watching the US remake quiet enough to need subtitles years ago. Good enough to count. I'll do an official write up later when I'm not on my phone.
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Oct 12, 2015 10:49
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Uncle Boogeyman posted:The Vampire Lovers is pretty drat great. I think when I watched it last year I said that if I was thirteen I would think it was an incredible movie, but I'm not thirteen.
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Oct 12, 2015 12:02
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#65.Scream Dream (1989). A singer of a band is fired after being accused of witchcraft. However she really is a satanist/demon and is killing people. Her guitar player kills her and she possess the new singer and kills people. The move starts out with a scene that has nothing else to do with anything. Then it moves to a couple watching a music video. The couple go to the concert of the video (against the girlfriends protests, and the boyfriend taking her money). The concert is a 5 minute music video. After the concert the boyfriend goes back stage with his girlfriend and the singer offers to give the boyfriend head, which pisses off the girlfriend. The girlfriend leaves and he gets head. The singer then bites it off. The movie was shot entirely on video. The performances were beyond wooden. The script spelled everything out. The dialogue was forced. On the plus side, for what I imagine was a shoestring budget, the effects were decent. #66.House (1986). A Vietnam vet moves into a haunted house. It's not very creepy for being a haunted house movie. There really isn't much tension either. There is just a bunch of wacky haunting type shenanigans going on. I've seen it so many times, so it may have lost its effect. #67.Grotesque (1988). A group of "punkers" break into a house to steal some money. They kill all the family members except the daughter, who escapes. They chase her down, but her disfigured cousin chases them. The acting was really over the top. The punks were really angry, it felt like a "Reefer Madness" level of parody. The family wasn't in it enough to really comment on. The ending was loving stupid. It was obnoxiously bad. #68.Cassandra (1987). A woman has flash backs and begins to see killings from the killers perspective. This was fun. The acting was really good, especially for a slasher. The plot was ok, but predictable. My biggest annoyance came from the ominous high pitch whiney music that wore out its welcome five minute into the film, yet hung out for the duration. #69.Friday the 13th IV (1984). Jason kills a bunch of people staying at a lake. You get Jason killing Crispin Glover and Corey Feldman killing Jason. It's par for the course. You're going to get what you expect.
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Oct 12, 2015 15:32
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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 I saw Suspiria for the first time last year around Halloween, and it blew me away. I could have easily watched it three or four more times since then but I wanted to wait until October came around again. The use of color in this movie is unlike anything I've ever seen. There's a great shot at the beginning where the main character is riding in a cab at night during a rainstorm. As the cab rolls through puddles, the water splashes up the side of the car, and each splash is lit with a different color. There's color like that kind of artificially injected into every shot. The dance school is one of the more memorable settings in any horror movie I've seen, and its the main reason that the film has such a dreamlike quality. There is surprisingly little gore in Suspiria, but the few scenes that use it are pretty brutal. The story is pretty bare-bones as well, but what's there works just fine for me. The whole thing is held together by the Goblin soundtrack and the visuals, and I really don't need anything else. This is definitely one of the top two or three Italian horror movies I've seen. 12. Hellraiser As another poster said earlier on the page, the Cenobites work the best in this movie because they are used sparingly. When Pinhead shows up in this movie, its a Big Deal. They're used as big pay-off moments, and those moments("We'll tear your soul apart!") are great, but the movie is carried by Frank and Julia. The guy playing regular human Frank is perfect, even if his lines are dubbed, and of course reconstituted Frank does an amazing job with the physical acting he does. The way he squirms towards his victim is extremely unsettling. But if any one person could be said to carry the movie on their shoulders, its Clare Higgins as Julia. Its not surprising that she was brought back as the primary antagonist for the sequel, she's an actress that can do a whole lot with just a facial expression, and she's able to be extremely hateable and sexy at the same time. Julia shows up on most "greatest femme fatale/female villain" lists and for good reason. The movie wouldn't have any forward momentum if not for her character, and her arc is the primary one throughout. No other character undergoes as much change as Julia does, and because of that she's the most compelling to watch. 13. From Beyond I doubt there's anything new I can say about this one(or any of the movie I'm watching really), I'll say it anyway because it can't be said enough. If you are a Lovecraft fan on any level, if you enjoy gooey monster effects, if you like a horror movie with bright colors, if you're a fan of Jeffrey Combs or Barbara Crampton or Stuart Gordon, if you like horror that isn't afraid to have a good time STOP WHAT YOU'RE DOING IMMEDIATELY AND WATCH FROM BEYOND. About two minutes into this movie a an extra-dimensional eel bites a guy's face, and things never stop escalating from there. I don't really get into the whole CGI vs. practical debate, but this is a primary example of a film that could never be properly reproduced using CGI. If it were remade today, CGI would almost certainly be used extensively, and so much of the charm of the movie would be lost. There's always slime dripping, or flesh rippling, or some sort of physical effect that just doesn't translate if its not done practically. The climax of the film is pretty goofy and fun, but I can imagine that same scene being very blah and forgettable if were CGI. This is a Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Crampton team-up just like Re-Animator, but I enjoy this a lot more. Even if you're in it just for Crampton, I think she's hotter in this movie. Bottom line is there's absolutely nothing negative I can say about From Beyond, I consider it required viewing for any horror fan right up there with any of the other established classics. 14. & 15. Evil Dead and Evil Dead II I don't feel like these need separate entries, watching Evil Dead II directly after the first makes it very obvious that Raimi was going for a pseudo-remake. His way of making that clear to the audience is a scene where Ash's girlfriend is shown to be wearing the same exact necklace as the girl from Evil Dead. Regardless, I've always enjoyed Evil Dead II more. The tone of the first is undercut somewhat by the dated/cheap effects, and Evil Dead II drops the pretense and just goes all-out with the Looney-Tunes type stuff. The effects are better, but the key thing is there's more of them. It feels like every two minutes some new abomination pops up for Ash to deal with, and this is the film where his action-hero transition occurs, which is a lot of fun to watch. If I'm being honest Evil Dead isn't one of my all-time favorite horror series, but the sequel is too much fun to leave out of a Halloween season.
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Oct 12, 2015 15:53
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BioTech posted:#10 Lake Mungo Don't make me scream at you. cthulusnewzulubbq posted:16. The Creature Walks Among Us (1956) 2/5 I'm sorry you didn't like it!
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Oct 12, 2015 15:56
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#19. Let the Right One In (2008) Oskar is a bit of a loner. He gets picked on by (shockingly violent) bullies, and mostly spends time reading about true crime and collecting knives, despite not being violent himself. Moving in next door is Eli, who I won't mince words on since the film doesn't either--she's a vampire stuck being in a 12 year old body, living with her manservant Hakan. Hakan is obviously starting to outlive his usefulness, becoming more and more clumsy and inept as he ages. Oskar and Eli begin a tenderly innocent romance as they start to get to know one another. And now Oskar and Eli have to decide if he can be spared her brutal and violent world, or if he will become a key part of it. I started watching this last night online with friends in a stream, and at first I thought I had seen it before. Then I realized that I had seen the US remake, "Let Me In" (also good) some time ago with the volume so low in the house (due to sleepers) that I needed subtitles on. So this counts in the new tally. It's an incredibly beautiful, melancholy film. Throughout the film, the camerawork creates a paradox of claustrophobia through wide open spaces creating secrecy via nobody caring to look. Regularly the camera peers at the action through windows and doorways. The action on screen is often quite graphic, but without moral comment positive or negative. Eli is simply a predator that needs to eat, there is no order to her victims or "just desserts" to set against. It's no more good or evil than a lion taking down a gazelle. At the same time, the romance between her and Oskar is remarkably sweet and childlike and pure. It's a very moving juxtaposition. This movie is just all around great.  /5
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Oct 12, 2015 16:00
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:Don't make me scream at you. Like most of the stuff I'm watching this month it was recommended somewhere here and I can see why, but it doesn't do it for me. I didn't care much for The Babadook either, so it is probably me. I'd love to talk about it in the October thread, maybe you can shed some light on what I'm missing?
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Oct 12, 2015 16:01
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Basebf555 posted: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 Have you seen Inferno yet? It's the sort-of sequel to Suspiria. If not, I suggest you dive in. It's on Hulu.
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Oct 12, 2015 16:21
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Watrick posted:Have you seen Inferno yet? It's the sort-of sequel to Suspiria. If not, I suggest you dive in. It's on Hulu. It's about as good too, unlike most of his films. Deep Red is decent as well.
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Oct 12, 2015 16:26
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Watrick posted:Have you seen Inferno yet? It's the sort-of sequel to Suspiria. If not, I suggest you dive in. It's on Hulu. Oh yes, most definitely. I just watched it about three months ago so I may skip it this October. The reason I watched it a few months ago is because I bought this set which I highly recommend to any Argento fan: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00R55U198?keywords=Argento%20blu%20ray&qid=1444663636&ref_=sr_1_1&sr=8-1 Cat O Nine tails was a pleasant surprise for me. I'd read that it wasn't very good but I enjoyed it a lot. Inferno and Deep Red are must owns though, and the price is right.
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Oct 12, 2015 16:28
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:I'm sorry you didn't like it! I'm probably being too harsh, but I'll have to trust my gut until the eventual re-watch. Maybe the Creature as an Atomic Age Frankenstein's Monster will grow on me but it seemed to just kill the vitality of the thing.
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Oct 12, 2015 16:47
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T Bowl posted:It's about as good too, unlike most of his films. Deep Red is decent as well. I enjoy Opera a lot, Tenebre too. Almost everything after 2000 is trash though, sans Sleepless, although it wasn't as good as his 80's stuff. Oh man, I forgot how lovely the Mother of Tears was. The first 10 minutes are great, then it's just plain terrible.
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Oct 12, 2015 16:51
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Meh, I didn't mind Mother of Tears (the third and final bit in the Susperia trilogy, made much later) but it certainly wasn't great at all. It still kept some of the same notes of the other films at least. You could definitely tell Argento didn't write it though.
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Oct 12, 2015 17:03
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Choco1980 posted:#19. Let the Right One In (2008) Yeah, this movie rules the school.
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Oct 12, 2015 17:08
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 #11. Cat's Eye (1985). Ehhhh. This was a pretty underwhelming anthology, built around short stories by Stephen King. Some decent performances, some nice casting (James Woods and Mike Starr stand out), but it amounts to a wet flop as a whole. Three stories in all, but too much silliness, even by King's standards. Too many holes and leaps of 'don't apply reason here' to the first story, though it had a nice hallucination scene from a guy trying to quit smoking. The second story felt the most solid, and had a nice Creepshow-like ending with some bitter vengefulness after being tormented by a rich fat man who laughs a lot. Third story is the one which got the cover art spot, because it's the only one in which the cat of the framing story plays a pivotal role, but it's a dumb dive into a fairy-tale/suburbia cross-over with a little breath-stealing goblin living in the wall of Drew Barrymore's room. The best thing I can say about this movie is that Creepshow 2 could have been improved by swapping out the wooden Indian story for the second story from this. And it was better than Creepshow 3. 5/10.
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Oct 12, 2015 17:08
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BioTech posted:Like most of the stuff I'm watching this month it was recommended somewhere here and I can see why, but it doesn't do it for me. I didn't care much for The Babadook either, so it is probably me. I'd love to talk about it in the October thread, maybe you can shed some light on what I'm missing? I'm just going from memory here but specifically about the two things you mentioned: the sex tape. This is the hinge on which the entire film turns, because we get the reactions from the dad and the brother that they really didn't know who Alice was, and finally an insight into the mom. The film's not just about what happened to Alice, but these strange reactions that her surviving family has had to her death. Alice's mom is probably the most interesting character of all, emotionally attuned, yet distant and enigmatic. She's also the character most like Alice. With the psychic, she directly identifies with her daughter. She sees herself in the past, just as Alice catches a (terrifying) glimpse of herself in the future. There's that emotional linkage but no real connection, almost like her mother overvalued her independence to the point they had no conscious, outward relationship. So on the one hand, you have this almost clinical empathy from the mother, like understanding without love, and the dad is the total opposite. He does not understand her at all but loves her anyhow. I find that interplay very moving because there are no film-like outbursts, just these kind of quiet re-enactments of trauma and resentment. What is a ghost, after all, but unresolved emotional tension? cthulusnewzulubbq posted:I'm probably being too harsh, but I'll have to trust my gut until the eventual re-watch. Maybe the Creature as an Atomic Age Frankenstein's Monster will grow on me but it seemed to just kill the vitality of the thing. Nah, it's honestly not that great. None of the Creature movies are, really, outside of the novel location and great effects. They're kind of like The Mummy in that way. I just find the scenario of Walks Among Us quite evocative and melancholy for some reason.
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Oct 12, 2015 17:27
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Creepshow 3 is a fake movie.
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Oct 12, 2015 17:27
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Darthemed posted:#11. Cat's Eye (1985). Ehhhh. This was a pretty underwhelming anthology, built around short stories by Stephen King. Some decent performances, some nice casting (James Woods and Mike Starr stand out), but it amounts to a wet flop as a whole. Three stories in all, but too much silliness, even by King's standards. Too many holes and leaps of 'don't apply reason here' to the first story, though it had a nice hallucination scene from a guy trying to quit smoking. The second story felt the most solid, and had a nice Creepshow-like ending with some bitter vengefulness after being tormented by a rich fat man who laughs a lot. Third story is the one which got the cover art spot, because it's the only one in which the cat of the framing story plays a pivotal role, but it's a dumb dive into a fairy-tale/suburbia cross-over with a little breath-stealing goblin living in the wall of Drew Barrymore's room. The best thing I can say about this movie is that Creepshow 2 could have been improved by swapping out the wooden Indian story for the second story from this. And it was better than Creepshow 3. 5/10. I revisited Cat's Eye a couple years ago after not having seen it since I was quite small and it was pretty new. What really struck me is how uneven in tone it is. The first two stories feel close enough to each other tonally: They're kinda grounded in real life (relatively speaking) they're also jet black dark with a mean spirited sense of humor to them. Also their relatively low-budget almost makes them feel like testing out the grounds for an anthology show of that tone. Then the third story is all big budget effects, and childlike wonder and zaniness and is not at all like the other two. It totally doesn't belong in the same film as they are. In fact, it feels like someone wanted to make a movie about the cat and goblin story but realized it was too short too late, and just threw on those other stories, which again, would have worked in a tv anthology format. HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:Creepshow 3 is a fake movie. Well it exists if that's what you're trying to say. It was made around a decade ago, after the title was bought out by the same losers that bought out the title to Day of the Dead and made an apparently godawful "part 2" of that as well at the time.
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Oct 12, 2015 20:39
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Choco1980 posted:Well it exists if that's what you're trying to say. It was made around a decade ago, after the title was bought out by the same losers that bought out the title to Day of the Dead and made an apparently godawful "part 2" of that as well at the time. I think he means in the way that it's been claimed Jack and Jill is a fake movie.
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Oct 12, 2015 20:55
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:Creepshow 3 is a fake movie. It's probably one of the worst things I have ever seen and I'm aghast at the idea there is a Creepshow 4 floating around somewhere.
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Oct 12, 2015 21:00
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It makes me feel the way many people feel about remakes.
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Oct 12, 2015 21:13
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I'm probably as big a fan of Creepshow 1 & 2 as you're likely to meet, yet I've never tried to track down Creepshow 3 because every single opinion I've ever heard on it says its totally worthless.
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Oct 12, 2015 21:30
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Basebf555 posted:I'm probably as big a fan of Creepshow 1 & 2 as you're likely to meet, yet I've never tried to track down Creepshow 3 because every single opinion I've ever heard on it says its totally worthless. Everybody talks about the The Raft in Creepshow 2 but, to me, the final tale is the real stand-out. e: Raft is still really good, though.
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Oct 12, 2015 21:40
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cthulusnewzulubbq posted:Everybody talks about the The Raft in Creepshow 2 but, to me, the final tale is the real stand-out. I loving love the hitch-hiker. Creepshow 2 is weaker than 1 to me because it only has 3 stories and the wooden indian one is way longer than it needs to be, but the hitch-hiker might be my favorite segment in both films.
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Oct 12, 2015 21:44
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The final one is The Hitchhiker right? That one is shockingly gruesome.
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Oct 12, 2015 21:44
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Basebf555 posted:I'm probably as big a fan of Creepshow 1 & 2 as you're likely to meet, yet I've never tried to track down Creepshow 3 because every single opinion I've ever heard on it says its totally worthless. Creepshow 1 & 2 are great. Have you, or anyone else for that matter, seen Deadtime Stories? I've always enjoyed that anthology.
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Oct 12, 2015 21:46
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Watrick posted:Have you, or anyone else for that matter, seen Deadtime Stories? I've always enjoyed that anthology. I have not. Always on the lookout for anthologies though, I'll keep it in mind. I saw Black Sabbath and The House that Dripped Blood for the first time recently and enjoyed both a lot.
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Oct 12, 2015 21:48
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Watch Body Bags, in which John Carpenter introduces the vignettes as a hippy morgue attendant.
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Oct 12, 2015 21:54
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:Watch Body Bags, in which John Carpenter introduces the vignettes as a hippy morgue attendant. I blind bought the Shout Factory blu ray last year and was not disappointed. Will be watching it again this year along with both Creepshows, Necronomicon(on tap for tonight), and Trick R Treat. I'm eyeing up this one too: http://www.amazon.com/Tales-Crypt-V...+from+the+Crypt Basebf555 fucked around with this message at 21:59 on Oct 12, 2015 |
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Oct 12, 2015 21:56
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I only watched Necronomicon once but don't remember a thing about it.
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Oct 12, 2015 21:59
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Vault of Horror is an acceptable anthology, too. It's no Creepshow, but it ain't bad.
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Oct 12, 2015 22:00
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:I only watched Necronomicon once but don't remember a thing about it. It has its flaws but I still love it. It's hard to believe you forgot Jeffrey Combs wearing a prosthetic Lovecraft chin.
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Oct 12, 2015 22:01
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:I only watched Necronomicon once but don't remember a thing about it. Screaming Mad George and company bring some cool effects to the party.
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Oct 12, 2015 22:02
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Day 12 - Prince of Darkness I was super excited when I saw that this was a Joh Carpenter film. I am a big fan of his work with a few notable exceptions *cough* Ghosts of Mars *cough*. Even better was that I didn’t actually know anything about the movie. I think in my head I kept confusing Prince of Darkness with another late 80s horror movie, Warlock. Anyone who has seen both of those movies will understand that I was initially quite confused about what was going on. If I’m being honest, even when I realized my stupid mistake, the confusion was not noticeably lessened. Full Review 3 out of 5
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Oct 12, 2015 22:07
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:Watch Body Bags, in which John Carpenter introduces the vignettes as a hippy morgue attendant. I'm really looking forward to watching this one in a couple weeks.
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Oct 12, 2015 22:15
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mikeycp posted:I'm really looking forward to watching this one in a couple weeks. It's pretty good overall, but the whole thing is brought up a level by Carpenter's wrap around segments. I remember being a little bored by the first segment actually, but the others were much better.
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Oct 12, 2015 22:17
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| # ? Jun 15, 2024 10:19 |
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11. Halloween: Resurrection (2002): I gotta confess something. As much as I like the original Halloween, I don't really care for the sequels (aside from Part 3). I don't find this series as entertaining as other franchises. Still, this is one of the 2 original series ones I haven't seen (the other being H20), so I thought I'd give it a go. The premise is intriguing, as a reality show is being shot in the Myers' old residence. Little do the producers realize that Michael Myers is on the loose again. I tried to like this one, but I really couldn't get into it. Everything seemed repetitive, and this was just generic. The movie may start with a shocking death, but what's not shocking is that this one killed the origina franchise. 12: House of 1000 Corpses (2003): This is a pretty divisive movie around these parts. I like this one, but I know a lot of the horror posters don't. This movie is essentially Rob Zombie's tribute to the horror genre, and to the Texas Chainsaw Massacre series in particular. There's certainly some questionable editing, and a lot of the non-sequitur cutaway scenes are borderline irrelevant on a thematic basis, but this one is full of such amazing and bizarre imagery that I can't help but like it. Zombie's enthusiasm is contagious, and he tries to cram as much Halloween and horror-related images into this as possible. He has some really good shots as well. I think Zombie would go on to improve, but this really isn't a bad freshman effort. 13: The Haunting of Molly Hartley (2008): This is a crappy demonic possession movie that doesn't even deserve a recap. It's very dull, and comes across as something made for TV. There's no scares to be had in this one, let's move along. 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. 15: House of Frankenstein (1944): I'm skipping over Frankenstein vs The Wolfman, because I don't care for that one. This one adds Dracula to the mix, although he's portrayed by John Carradine, rather than Bela Lugosi. With World War 2 taking place, traditional horror was struggling. Universal was having their characters cross over to help appeal to wider audiences. This is a decent film, but we really don't get much interaction between the monsters. 16: House of Dracula (1945): This is the second to last of the Universal monster rallies. Like House of Frankenstein, there really isn't a lot of interaction between the monsters. This one focuses ona fairly convoluted pot involving curing the wolf man and curing Dracula of his vampirism. It's a little too jam-packed for it's short run time (67 minutes!). The Frankenstein monster feels really shoe-horned in.
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Oct 12, 2015 22:54
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