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Technetium posted:I'm also going to sit down and watch Paranormal Activity 3 soonish with low expectations. I enjoyed the first and it scared me, I was entertained by the second but not scared because it's literally the same thing other than the kitchen explosion scene goddamn so I'm betting on being bored and not scared with the third. I saw it in the theater (I was bored OK) and it turned out to be pretty decent. Everyone I was with hated it, but none of them are regular consumers of horror entertainment. There's a couple cool scares involving a somewhat gimmicky "camera attached to an oscillating fan" that I thought were kind of clever. It's worth a rental, definitely. Although the ending is laughably ridiculous.
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Jan 19, 2012 15:41
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penismightier posted:I still maintain that that's the best thing about the movie. By far. So little happens in the PA movies that you actually appreciate that the "trailer" is just a teaser.
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Jan 19, 2012 16:18
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Defleshed posted:I saw it in the theater (I was bored OK) and it turned out to be pretty decent. Everyone I was with hated it, but none of them are regular consumers of horror entertainment. There's a couple cool scares involving a somewhat gimmicky "camera attached to an oscillating fan" that I thought were kind of clever. It's worth a rental, definitely. Although the ending is laughably ridiculous. Besides the ending, I thought number three was the best of them. The oscillating camera was great, so was that one bathroom scene with the dude and the girl playing bloody mary. The other movies had me jumping a few times, but I thought that bathroom scene was pretty tense.
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Jan 19, 2012 19:47
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Defleshed posted:I saw it in the theater (I was bored OK) and it turned out to be pretty decent. Everyone I was with hated it, but none of them are regular consumers of horror entertainment. There's a couple cool scares involving a somewhat gimmicky "camera attached to an oscillating fan" that I thought were kind of clever. It's worth a rental, definitely. Although the ending is laughably ridiculous. Yeah, I felt like PA3 was a bit more of a slow-burn than 1 or 2, but it was still decent. They're clearly recycling some of the same scares, but the last one in the main house in particular was pretty cool. If they end up making another, they'd better figure out something new, though. And yeah, saw Kill List myself recently. hosed. Up. It's over-the-top in every way possible, and ends up being a weird blur of Boondock Saints (namely its embracing of explicit violence...I actually covered my eyes at one portion, and gently caress, I didn't even do that for Martyrs or Inside) and the Wicker Man. If you can put up with an off-the-rails excessive third act, it's a pretty oppressive movie that never lets up.
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Jan 19, 2012 19:48
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Now I need to see this movie to find out why you would ever need to put a camera on a fan and how it could be even more of a slow-burn than the first two.
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Jan 19, 2012 21:14
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Just finished watching PA3 2 minutes ago. Better than 2 (I can't remember anything about that one) but still boring as all hell. At the very end it had a total of 2 minutes of suspense (with the old women in the garage and the fire in the yard) before collapsing in on itself and ending with the most redundant and uninspired jump scare in the series yet. I still say that Japanese spin-off of sorts is the least terrible, next to the first one.
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Jan 19, 2012 21:45
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Despite my saying that "nothing happens" in the PA movies, compared to 1, both sequels almost have way too much poo poo going on in them. PA2 in particular makes PA1 look like Warhol's Empire State.
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Jan 19, 2012 23:17
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When the guy explains that he's going to place the camera on an oscillating fan platform, he should have looked at the camera with an evil gleam to his eyes and said, "....for MAXIMUM terror!"
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Jan 19, 2012 23:39
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Technetium posted:This is like the fourth time Tucker and Dale has come up and everyone loved it so if YOU - the guy reading this right now - haven't seen it, go see it right now. It's hilarious and you will be a better person after watching it. I kept passing over it on Netflix going "Oh the guys in the horror thread love this movie, I will watch it eventually" and finally sat down to watch it last night and this this this this this I cannot say this enough. The quality of my life has improved dramatically with this movie in it.
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Jan 20, 2012 15:05
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I've said this more than once, but if you enjoyed Tucker and Dale or Troll Hunter you should track down Rare Exports. Its like Spielberg created a demented Christmas movie.
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Jan 20, 2012 15:47
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foodfight posted:I've said this more than once, but if you enjoyed Tucker and Dale or Troll Hunter you should track down Rare Exports. Its like Spielberg created a demented Christmas movie. This too, especially if you enjoyed Troll Hunter. And you should've. Both fantastic scandinavian films, both hilarious, both awesome. Rare Exports felt a lot like Let the Right One In to me, probably due to the cold isolated setting, the leads being kids and the supernatural monster, it just has a lot more humour than seriousness.
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Jan 20, 2012 22:53
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The best thing about T&DvsE beside the movie itself? They left a pretty big opening for a sequel!
C2C - 2.0 fucked around with this message at 09:44 on Jan 21, 2012 |
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Jan 21, 2012 09:42
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The Paranormal Activity movies make me angry. It's so much wasted potential. They're fine as horror movies, nothing outstanding, but the direction they took the sequels is completely contrary to the way the first movie was received. They shouldn't have made world-building sequels and prequels that focus on the same ghost, they should have made the series a sort of paranormal anthology series, with each movie tackling different "paranormal activity" in a similar manner! Imagine if they were like that, if it were an anthology horror series and the movies were only connected in that they were all found footage horror. Such a huge missed opportunity, and I think they would have made more money that way.
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Jan 21, 2012 10:17
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scary ghost dog posted:The Paranormal Activity movies make me angry. It's so much wasted potential. They're fine as horror movies, nothing outstanding, but the direction they took the sequels is completely contrary to the way the first movie was received. They shouldn't have made world-building sequels and prequels that focus on the same ghost, they should have made the series a sort of paranormal anthology series, with each movie tackling different "paranormal activity" in a similar manner! Imagine if they were like that, if it were an anthology horror series and the movies were only connected in that they were all found footage horror. Such a huge missed opportunity, and I think they would have made more money that way. Halloween would've been better this way as well.
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Jan 21, 2012 12:40
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scary ghost dog posted:The Paranormal Activity movies make me angry. It's so much wasted potential. They're fine as horror movies, nothing outstanding, but the direction they took the sequels is completely contrary to the way the first movie was received. They shouldn't have made world-building sequels and prequels that focus on the same ghost, they should have made the series a sort of paranormal anthology series, with each movie tackling different "paranormal activity" in a similar manner! Imagine if they were like that, if it were an anthology horror series and the movies were only connected in that they were all found footage horror. Such a huge missed opportunity, and I think they would have made more money that way. It's especially egregious when the Paranormal Activity sequels retain plot continuity (lil easter-eggs like the cross reappearing, and Micah showing up in PA2) but discard pretty much everything else. The aesthetics are different, the editing is different. Thematically, they're not very similar at all despite being in the same genre. The sequels also misunderstand Steven Spielberg's revised ending to PA1, which implied that the footage itself is what's haunted (and thus the 'haunting noise' infects the theater/your living room after the film has ostensibly ended). Paranormal Activity 1 wasn't even that great of a film. It's a chain of fitfully interesting setpieces without much in the way of a narrative that coasted on its novelty and its small-scale pluck. Turning it into the basis for some epic multigenerational horror story is backwards. not only that, but it's pushing the film's already-shaky adherence to the found-footage aesthetic to the breaking point. Each film is increasingly bad at emulating a documentary, and make no sense at all when considered as a whole. ("Wow, they discover new footage of this one family just in time for each October!") SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 13:26 on Jan 21, 2012 |
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Jan 21, 2012 13:23
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PriorMarcus posted:Halloween would've been better this way as well. Yeah, Season of The Witch was really entertaining and creepy.
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Jan 21, 2012 16:25
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Dissapointed Owl posted:Yeah, Season of The Witch was really entertaining and creepy. I could have done without the weird robots, but the Irish warlock wanting to destroy children thing was a great plotline for a film. I kind of want someone to do a new take on it outside of the Halloween franchise.
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Jan 21, 2012 17:15
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They should have just left PA at one movie. I thought the first one had a decent creepy factor (if nothing as earth shattering scary as hype made it out to be) but in my experience, the more information and backstory I get on a thing, the less frightening it is. I just want to be scared by scary movies again. 
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Jan 21, 2012 17:37
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Start looking beyond the movies that define themselves as 'scary movies'. Just a recent example would be Kill List.
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Jan 21, 2012 17:40
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scary ghost dog posted:The Paranormal Activity movies make me angry. It's so much wasted potential. They're fine as horror movies, nothing outstanding, but the direction they took the sequels is completely contrary to the way the first movie was received. They shouldn't have made world-building sequels and prequels that focus on the same ghost, they should have made the series a sort of paranormal anthology series, with each movie tackling different "paranormal activity" in a similar manner! Imagine if they were like that, if it were an anthology horror series and the movies were only connected in that they were all found footage horror. Such a huge missed opportunity, and I think they would have made more money that way. Completely agreed. These are pretty much my exact thoughts after watching PA3 - basically the immediate problem with that movie is that it has to tie into its prequels, when I really doubt anyone gives a poo poo.
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Jan 21, 2012 18:29
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I thought Paranormal Activity 2 was kind of clever in that the girl from the first one shows up and you can't figure out for a while whether her scenes are from before or after the first one ("my boyfriend is home sick today"), and then they gently caress you with that premise later on when she shows up and kills everybody. Then again, I don't remember a single character's name and the only part that I really remember very clearly is when everything in the kitchen opens. Now that I think about it, though, I also really enjoy the part where the dad leaves the daughter alone in the house with her possessed stepmom and she keeps popping up and being creepy. I also kind of like the idea that demonic possession might be a metaphor for postpartum depression, just like in the first one it's a metaphor for a codependent relationship. My joke suggestion for another one that clings tenuously to the plots of the others is that it follows the daughter as she uses the family fortune to assemble a ghost-hunting team to find her aunt and baby brother that includes Ron Perlman or Michael Ironside, and they're filmed by a Ghost-Hunters-style documentary team.
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Jan 21, 2012 19:05
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Since we are talking about the PA movies (and hopefully this derail is appropriate), I'm interested in seeing The River, the new tv show by Oren Peli. The plot seems to revolve around a family investigating their father's disappearance on the amazon. It seems to retain that documentary/found footage look of PA.
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Jan 21, 2012 19:09
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Dissapointed Owl posted:Start looking beyond the movies that define themselves as 'scary movies'.
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Jan 21, 2012 19:10
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foodfight posted:Since we are talking about the PA movies (and hopefully this derail is appropriate), I'm interested in seeing The River, the new tv show by Oren Peli. The plot seems to revolve around a family investigating their father's disappearance on the amazon. It seems to retain that documentary/found footage look of PA. This reminds me of his original followup to the first PA: Area 51: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1519461/ Literally the first thing he did after PA, completed three years ago and set to be released last year. I see there's now a release date in March, but I haven't heard anything since 2010. It may be his first truly found footage film in the sense that it will be lost in the studio archive and then rediscovered years later. Is The River straight-up documentary, like a fictional version of those ghost-hunter shows, or do they mix in traditional third-person shots? I can't imagine stretching the traditional found-footage formula out much past 90 minutes...
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Jan 21, 2012 19:27
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I found Kill List a bit of a disappointment, maybe because of all the hype on the board and also the buildup didn't pay off as I expected; but on the other hand, it was really thrilling and scary.
Honest Thief fucked around with this message at 22:26 on Jan 21, 2012 |
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Jan 21, 2012 22:24
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Jack Gladney posted:This reminds me of his original followup to the first PA: Area 51: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1519461/ The commercials for The River make it seems like it goes back and forth between FF stuff and Third Person narrative. Kill List... I'm still unsure on how to feel about it. I think it was awesomely made... but Im on the fence about liking it, leaning towards the positive. But I'll probably be watching it again with friends in a week or 2, so I can make a decision then.
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Jan 22, 2012 00:56
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Honest Thief posted:I found Kill List a bit of a disappointment, maybe because of all the hype on the board and also the buildup didn't pay off as I expected; but on the other hand, it was really thrilling and scary. Yeah, I try not to hype Kill List too much when I recommend it. I just say it's a well made thriller with a great atmosphere. I mean I think it's a bit more than that but it's not a film that is benefited by going into it with a huge sense of expectation because it's really quite small scale.
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Jan 22, 2012 05:04
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I have to say that the trailer for Kill List didn't really do it for me, but goons rarely let me down so I guess I'll give it a watch. Honestly if I hadn't seen it recommended here I would have written it off as another hit man movie.
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Jan 22, 2012 05:58
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I might be a tad bit late to the found footage discussion, but I watched a found footage horror movie recently on Netflix called Follow the Yellow Brick Road and I'd say it's definitely worth checking out. It honestly reminded me of some Junji Ito story with it's hopeless feel and just odd, horror situation (a small town just up and leaves in the middle of the night, most of them disappear completely, a few are found completely insane and covered with blood, so a research team goes to investigate it and find themselves following 1920's music originating from nowhere out into the forest....then poo poo happens?). It's hard to describe properly without giving too much away but the one thing I will say sometimes detracts from the movie is their audio choices. The movie kinda rapes your ears at points.
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Jan 22, 2012 06:27
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I watched Kill List due to this thread and it was great, but some of the interpretations of it floating around online seem to really miss the mark. I can't be the only one who thinks it's about a man's descent into madness brought on by PTSD, can I?
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Jan 22, 2012 07:57
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Has anyone here seen Battle of the Bone? It's an action-horror film from Northern Ireland, sorta similar premise to The Horde in that two groups in violent conflict (in this case, the backdrop is the Troubles) have to work together to deal with a zombie rampage. The most famous thing about it is probably that the director is the guy who made that "Charlie Chaplin Time Traveler" video a year or two ago, but it's apparently actually supposed to be a good entertaining film. Can anyone confirm or deny? Also, saw Let Me In a few days ago, having seen Let the Right One In when it first came out. The last time the films were brought up there was mention of the Abby/Eli character having different motivations in each version, would someone care to elaborate on the differences between the films that signaled that? It's probably largely due to not having seen LtROI for a few years, but my impression was that in that version it's treated as a mix of Eli legitimately liking Oskar but also definitely hoping to turn him into a replacement Hakan from the start. The situation with Abby didn't really strike me as different, maybe a little more on the "replacement blood source" side of the spectrum, especially as the film's final lines are Owen singing "Eat some now/save some for later". But yeah, overall, they seemed pretty similar in that regard, with the main difference I recall being that Let Me In has a lot more religious themes to it.
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Jan 22, 2012 09:12
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haunted sleep posted:I watched Kill List due to this thread and it was great, but some of the interpretations of it floating around online seem to really miss the mark. I've thought of that but the film doesn't seem to want support that. Also it deliberately sets pedophilia on its aim that I thought it would play out with his son relationship somehow.
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Jan 22, 2012 13:10
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Niggurath posted:I might be a tad bit late to the found footage discussion, but I watched a found footage horror movie recently on Netflix called Follow the Yellow Brick Road Yeah people mentioned it before, it's called YellowBrickRoad though if anyone tries to find it. I watched it and thought it was really cool but it just sort of trails off near the end and wastes all the truly bizarre atmosphere and suspense it had built up over the course of the movie. It's definitely an awesome concept and I think it could be a really awesome horror flick if it was rewritten by someone better and had a bigger budget. It gave off some real Lovecraftian vibes but it didn't really pay off in my view. C2C - 2.0 posted:The best thing about T&DvsE beside the movie itself? They left a pretty big opening for a sequel! They actually posted something on Facebook (or Magnet did, I can't remember) asking what should Tucker and Dale take on next now that they've defeated evil? haunted sleep posted:I watched Kill List due to this thread and it was great, but some of the interpretations of it floating around online seem to really miss the mark. It seemed a lot more straightforward than that but I usually take movies at face value anyway.
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Jan 22, 2012 15:49
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Generally if your theory on any movie is "It was all in the main character's head." then you need a new theory.
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Jan 22, 2012 15:52
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frozenpeas posted:Generally if your theory on any movie is "It was all in the main character's head." then you need a new theory. What about Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, huh smarty pants? 
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Jan 22, 2012 15:58
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frozenpeas posted:Generally if your theory on any movie is "It was all in the main character's head." then you need a new theory. American Psycho.
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Jan 22, 2012 15:59
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Technetium posted:American Psycho. Generally. Also American Psycho offers extensive thematic and textual evidence to suggest that it IS in his head. You could say that almost any protagonist is imagining their entire story because that's how movies work. Any movie with a strong protagonist creates a somewhat unreliable narrator. The solipsistic view of storytelling fails to differentiate between the literal and symbolic value of whatever it discusses. Movies are portable fugue states that we willingly enter into for the purpose of entertainment. Action movies allow us to experience liberation/empowerment fantasies, horror movies allow us to explore/overcome our fear of death and the unknown. To take Kill List Yes, in a sense he is fighting the ghosts of his past, because it is his past actions that delivered him to whatever evil that has chosen to make him its avatar. The film also deals with literal problems of perception - darkness, the need to stay concealed etc, and it uses that to create tension between the hunter and prey. Hiding yourself can keep you safe, but it can also obscure imminent danger. He is literally and symbolically in the dark at times but that doesn't mean we can just disregard everything that is happening on screen. To obsess over one bit of backstory really devalues the rest of the film. Yes, something bad happened in the past, yes, by the end he's almost certainly gone mad but that was because of the JOURNEY WE JUST SAW HIM TAKE. Here's the solipsistic version of Kill List. Ex Soldier goes mad. Kills people. Nothing in the movie matters because your free to just make up the entire story as you go along. Spermanent Record fucked around with this message at 16:32 on Jan 22, 2012 |
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Jan 22, 2012 16:08
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Jonny Angel posted:
I'm not sure her motivations were any different, they were just a little more overt in Let Me In.
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Jan 22, 2012 16:08
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frozenpeas posted:The solipsistic view of storytelling fails to differentiate between the literal and symbolic value of whatever it discusses. Movies are portable fugue states that we willingly enter into for the purpose of entertainment. Action movies allow us to experience liberation/empowerment fantasies, horror movies allow us to explore/overcome our fear of death and the unknown. This has turned into a much heavier conversation than I thought it would and I agree with what you say anyway. You shouldn't assume that the movie or story is all in the protagonist's mind unless the film gives you some sort of clue to say it is. Kill List, as far as I remember, doesn't give any clues to that effect and I'm not sure where people got that from. Also I don't care because I thought Kill List was Not Good.
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Jan 22, 2012 16:56
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Technetium posted:This has turned into a much heavier conversation than I thought it would and I agree with what you say anyway. You shouldn't assume that the movie or story is all in the protagonist's mind unless the film gives you some sort of clue to say it is. Kill List, as far as I remember, doesn't give any clues to that effect and I'm not sure where people got that from. Also I don't care because I thought Kill List was Not Good. The movie is faux intellectual and the story looks like it was written out of a mad libs book. The director constantly prompts in every interview that you need to go back and piece it all together, but he just jumbled that poo poo out of a Wicker Man inspiration. Seems more like he wrote stream of consciousness style, realized that nothing tied together and said gently caress it, I'll just say its too deep for the average man to comprehend and that they didn't watch close enough. For example: The reason he states that the wife is laughing at the end is because of the irony of her son being stabbed to death. Watch it over and over and I'm pretty sure there is only one person that would claim how that makes a lot of sense. I don't need a movie spoon fed to me, but I'm not going to follow a trail of bread crumbs that a writer throws all over the place , finally leading to a wall with a big middle finger crudely drawn on it and expects me to call it art. Mouser.. fucked around with this message at 20:49 on Jan 22, 2012 |
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Jan 22, 2012 20:45
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