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Us is really drat good. I think it could use another pass from an editor to tweak the pacing but it's got some great ideas and there's nothing in the world that Lupita Nyong'o can't do. The kids are outstanding as well and the soundtrack is perfect.
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Mar 21, 2019 05:10
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Us is really drat good. I think it could use another pass from an editor to tweak the pacing but it's got some great ideas and there's nothing in the world that Lupita Nyong'o can't do. The kids are outstanding as well and the soundtrack is perfect.
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Mar 21, 2019 05:11
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After a couple months with it on my watchlist (basically after googling "Prime movies like Savageland") I finally sat down and watched Hell House LLC. I haven't actually seen many found-footage movies, so maybe I'm just not viewing it with the right mindset, but I was pretty disappointed with it after the earlier movie. The early scene-setting and tension-building with the moving puppets honestly felt like the most effective part of the film, but when the climax hits the movie just kind of generically "ends" without much of a payoff. The movie begins by showing you that some scary poo poo's going down in the basement but not actually letting you see it, teasing you with the promise that what's happening down there will be revealed in the end. But in the end of the movie you still can't see anything, there's just the camera footage cutting out with occasional glimpses of spooky black figures slowly advancing on the camera. The buildup through the movie of "hmm, this house looks like it's haunted by evil ghosts" ends with "well, I guess the evil ghosts killed everyone" which was hardly satisfying. It's not like Savageland did much to explain what was happening either (and the final clip with the hiker getting attacked was probably the weakest part of that movie) but it still felt more like I was getting a complete story, even in documentary form. Meh. Anyway, I did a search for other similar "fake documentary" movies and most of the ones I'm seeing recommended aren't available on Prime. Afflicted is on my watchlist, and Lake Mungo looks like it might be worth springing for a rental on. We'll see. Seyser Koze fucked around with this message at 07:03 on Mar 21, 2019 |
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Mar 21, 2019 05:23
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EDIT: dumb internet post
Seyser Koze fucked around with this message at 06:58 on Mar 21, 2019 |
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Mar 21, 2019 05:34
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another dumb internet post
Seyser Koze fucked around with this message at 07:00 on Mar 21, 2019 |
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Mar 21, 2019 05:47
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I think low budget, found footage films like Hell House, Paranormal Activity, Grave Encounters, and Blair Witch basically rely on the scene setting rather than the payoff. I think Hell House TRIES to handle that by showing you the tape of that night from the start. We get some extra footage by the end but the movie is in everything that happened up to that. Movies like that rely more on the first person disorientation and lack of perfect knowledge to try and put you in the shoes of the people being terrorized. But I can't think of too many where the payoff really delivers at the end (I like all the ones I named, they just don't have some big reveal that is what you walk away with). Some of the Paranormal Activity sequels really go for at the end but with iffy results. The Last Exorcism. That's probably one I think comes through at the end. But I only saw it the once and have been meaning to do a rewatch.
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Mar 21, 2019 07:27
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STAC Goat posted:I think low budget, found footage films like Hell House, Paranormal Activity, Grave Encounters, and Blair Witch basically rely on the scene setting rather than the payoff. I think Hell House TRIES to handle that by showing you the tape of that night from the start. We get some extra footage by the end but the movie is in everything that happened up to that. Movies like that rely more on the first person disorientation and lack of perfect knowledge to try and put you in the shoes of the people being terrorized. But I can't think of too many where the payoff really delivers at the end (I like all the ones I named, they just don't have some big reveal that is what you walk away with). Blair Witch really benefited from the early internet viral campaign. The movie by itself is kinda meh, but back in the day, going to the website and watching the little clips of Rustin Parr or Kyle's footage in the asylum which always had the delay from dialup just gave you that feel of 'what if this might be legit' even though you knew if it was real it wouldn't be getting shown at a theatre. Even just sitting through the fauxcumentory on the Blair Witch before watching the movie proper improves it.
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Mar 21, 2019 08:33
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I've always found the primary appeal of found footage films to be reliant upon the psychological trick of how our brain has been trained to interpret "pov" footage. I think our brains are fundamentally tricked because we are so used to seeing footage like that in a news setting. Live from the scene, filmed by a person who was there, etc. For some reason I think our brains believe these kinds of images more on a subconscious level, because we usually see those kinds of images from a perspective that is authentic. Its why the best scene in Signs is the birthday video. Hell, there is even a scene in the first Transformers film that takes that pov vantage through an alleyway that I thought was unique in giving the audience a sense of horror and awe at giant wisecracking robots fighting. Its why Blair Witch and the first Paranormal Activity were so effective despite being pretty tame in terms of scares and imagery. They both effectively tapped into our subconscious belief that we are seeing something real. The reasons most of these films fall apart is because they become too reliant on telling a "movie" story than in playing with our subconscious.
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Mar 21, 2019 12:37
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Class3KillStorm posted:OK, Horror Thread. I just got back from an advance screening of Jordan Peele’s Us, and I hate to report that it’s pretty weaksauce. It’s never very scary, it undercuts its tensest moments at any given moment with corny dad jokes, and it spends so much time in the last 20 minutes elaborating on its stupid premise and explaining nothing. this post had the exact opposite effect of what i think you intended, i'm more hype to see it now
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Mar 21, 2019 12:38
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a few very spoilery thoughts about Us 1. The movie seems to ask some really interesting questions about free will that it doesn't even explore, especially when considering the twist ending. What does it mean that the undergrounders live so nearly exact of lives as the above grounders that they basically perfect mimic them for generations? What does it mean when there can be enough variance for the boy to have a scar when the above grounder boy doesn't? Especially what does it mean when the above and below switch places but still live identical lives even though they are in the wrong place? It reminds me of one of my favorite films, Another Earth, in this way. Although that movie brings is far more to the forefront. 2. I am having trouble finding a deeper meaning to Us that was found in Get Out. Are the holding hands supposed to represent that the underclass will be peaceful after violent overthrow of the upper class? That seems too simple and on the nose for Peele. Maybe its about our subconscious warring with our conscious? Not sure.
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Mar 21, 2019 13:40
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Mel Mudkiper posted:I've always found the primary appeal of found footage films to be reliant upon the psychological trick of how our brain has been trained to interpret "pov" footage. I remember doing my review for Grave Encounters and finding that one of its biggest flaws was the need to stick to the traditional length of a movie. All of the actually interesting character development and scares are bordered by long shots of people walking while nothing happens or spending a minute straight freaking out and flailing the camera everywhere so you can't tell what's going on. It's one of the things that makes me very tired of found footage movies. As long as you try to stick to a traditional film length and structure while throwing out every "cheat" that lets a normal movie compress time and visit other locations, you're almost never going to come up with enough interesting footage to fill 90+ minutes.
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Mar 21, 2019 14:16
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I've often felt Cloverfield should have been just the trailer and released as a short film The problem Cloverfield has is that the single most profound image is the basis for the trailer and the movie itself never tops it. The scene with the head of the statue of liberty, is, I think, brilliant. It takes what is an object that is fundamentally de-emphasized as existing in real space and making it a tangible physical object. ITs uniquely awe-inspiring and discomforting.
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Mar 21, 2019 14:31
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Mel Mudkiper posted:I've often felt Cloverfield should have been just the trailer and released as a short film Lizzie Caplan exploding in gore behind the white surgical shroud is excellent. I wish the movie did more of that weird body horror stuff.
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Mar 21, 2019 14:33
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Franchescanado posted:Lizzie Caplan exploding in gore behind the white surgical shroud is excellent. I wish the movie did more of that weird body horror stuff. I think that scene was always hampered by the fact it wasn't earned in the narrative. Its visually horrific, but it creates a reality in the fiction that is so absurd as to remove one from the fundamental reality that makes these films function best
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Mar 21, 2019 14:35
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I don't get to see Us until tomorrow night (tonight's my friend's birthday), so please keep any posts about it spoilered. Everyone's doing fine with it, just wanted to remind everyone. Maybe even make it clear it's a post about Us so people can keep scrolling past.
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Mar 21, 2019 14:36
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I've posted about this before, but the biggest advantage found footage has is that it puts you in the shoes of the character(s). So in order to be a worthy found footage film, for me, it has to use that to the fullest extent and take me somewhere outlandish that I'd never be able to go in real life. New York City during a kaiju attack, a troll's lair, an alien world, the depths of Hell itself, that's what gets me excited to watch found footage. Anything less is a waste of the format imo.
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Mar 21, 2019 14:39
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chitoryu12 posted:It's one of the things that makes me very tired of found footage movies. As long as you try to stick to a traditional film length and structure while throwing out every "cheat" that lets a normal movie compress time and visit other locations, you're almost never going to come up with enough interesting footage to fill 90+ minutes. I think this is why Creep and Creep 2 work so well, they're actually loving edited like real documentaries instead of just a collection of "found" footage. Every single shot in those movies is relevant and moves the narrative forward. Like, we don't need to see all the boring poo poo in-between things happening, we can fill in the gaps ourselves. The problem with found footage movies is too often people fall into the trap of "this is supposed to be 'raw' and 'unedited' so let's literally not bother to edit it", and it just makes for a really lovely movie. It's the same thing that sinks a lot of low budget productions, people forget that movies don't just happen when you point a camera at something and you really have to edit it properly before it turns into a movie.
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Mar 21, 2019 14:43
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That's why VHS is so good. The filler is kept to a minimum and nothing overstays it's welcome.
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Mar 21, 2019 14:46
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Mel Mudkiper posted:I think that scene was always hampered by the fact it wasn't earned in the narrative. Its visually horrific, but it creates a reality in the fiction that is so absurd as to remove one from the fundamental reality that makes these films function best I think Lizzie popping like a bloody boil fits within the film's absurdity more than the love interest being impaled on a piece of rebar, being pulled off, and being fine a few minutes later.
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Mar 21, 2019 14:47
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Drunkboxer posted:It's the Equinox I love Equinox, a lot.
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Mar 21, 2019 14:47
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TheKingslayer posted:That's why VHS is so good. The filler is kept to a minimum and nothing overstays it's welcome. I know people always rave about Safe Haven but I always thought The Sick Thing that Happened to Emily was the best segment for that very reason
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Mar 21, 2019 14:48
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Franchescanado posted:I think Lizzie popping like a bloody boil fits within the film's absurdity more than the love interest being impaled on a piece of rebar, being pulled off, and being fine a few minutes later. well yeah, but both are still events that consciously remind us we are watching a movie if that happens, the movie has failed
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Mar 21, 2019 14:49
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Mel Mudkiper posted:I know people always rave about Safe Haven but I always thought The Sick Thing that Happened to Emily was the best segment for that very reason That segment has a layer of tragedy to it that no other segment in the series came close to having. It's unnerving. Mel Mudkiper posted:well yeah, but both are still events that consciously remind us we are watching a movie Admittedly I'm an rear end in a top hat for this, but if a giant kaiju is destroying my city, I'm marking up all loved ones as dead and just getting the gently caress out.
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Mar 21, 2019 14:49
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Us is incredibly disappointing and the end makes no loving sense. Style over substance. I'm so confused. There's a government cloning facility under St Cruz? They can leave when they want? Humans built it, but then left them down there? Why? There's no information and it feels like it should be a big deal but it's ultimately confusing. The second it turned into a nationwide to epidemic the film took a nosedive. It started so well too
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Mar 21, 2019 14:51
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Franchescanado posted:That segment has a layer of tragedy to it that no other segment in the series came close to having. It's unnerving. I think a film genuinely shot in the style of eyes on the ground 9/11 footage about a Kaiju would be amazing and its a shame Cloverfield abandoned that idea almost immediately Like, it doesn't even have to be one story. Just make a series of interrelated vignettes of different people with different cameras around the city
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Mar 21, 2019 14:54
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Mel Mudkiper posted:I think a film genuinely shot in the style of eyes on the ground 9/11 footage about a Kaiju would be amazing and its a shame Cloverfield abandoned that idea almost immediately I dunno, the first half of Godzilla '14 was a lot like what you describe and a lot of people hated it.
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Mar 21, 2019 14:59
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Basebf555 posted:I dunno, the first half of Godzilla '14 was a lot like what you describe and a lot of people hated it. The first half wasn't found footage and didn't actually show the monster. There is a difference between "telling the story of a monster from a human perspective" which is what Cloverfield should have done and "making a story about a monster actually about humans" which is what Godzilla did. Also people who hate the first half of Godzilla 14 are philistines.
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Mar 21, 2019 15:01
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Also people who hate the first half of Godzilla 14 are philistines. Can't argue with you there. When you're right you're right.
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Mar 21, 2019 15:08
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Gareth Edwards is quickly becoming one of my favorite mainstream directors because the dude is an absolute genius of depicting scale and awe
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Mar 21, 2019 15:13
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I liked Us, but I think it could have done without the whole explanation at the end of what was happening. Why not just make it some unexplained Silent Hill dual world poo poo? A government cloning facility was... uh... pretty out of nowhere. I also ruined part of the final act for myself by looking up the Bible verse they kept namedropping when I went to the restroom, so uh, don't do that. Also, something minor that bothered me in retrospect was (mega spoiler) if the woman we were following was the tethered Lupita, it didn't really make a lot of sense for original Lupita to explain anything to her. She would know! All things considered though, I liked it. It had this weird Twilight Zone feel where it wasn't necessarily scary but played with a lot of weird ideas. I'm looking forward to the show. Mel Mudkiper posted:a few very spoilery thoughts about Us I think Peele said somewhere that for this film, he was leaning more towards making a horror story than doing social commentary a la Get Out, so I didn't even try to assign meaning to what was happening and more or less just took it at face value.
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Mar 21, 2019 16:51
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Mel Mudkiper posted:well yeah, but both are still events that consciously remind us we are watching a movie “Immersion” haha are you for real?
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Mar 21, 2019 16:54
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DeimosRising posted:“Immersion” haha are you for real? is there a reason you quoted "immersion" when I never said immersion
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Mar 21, 2019 16:59
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Argue posted:
I think it ended up getting linked earlier in the thread, but Peele was bothered that people were debating Get Out as a horror film even when he was saying it's a horror film so with Us he was going to go the full on no questions about it horror route.
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Mar 21, 2019 17:02
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Mel Mudkiper posted:is there a reason you quoted "immersion" when I never said immersion Because people complaining about their immersion in the film being ruined has a long rear end history on this forum and sarcastic scare quotes is a cheap joke
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Mar 21, 2019 17:03
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DeimosRising posted:Because people complaining about their immersion in the film being ruined has a long rear end history on this forum and sarcastic scare quotes is a cheap joke I wasn't talking about immersion though, I was talking about the cognitive trick that found footage plays on the audience.
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Mar 21, 2019 17:04
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HERE IS A POST ABOUT USAlan_Shore posted:Us is incredibly disappointing and the end makes no loving sense. Style over substance. I'm so confused. There's a government cloning facility under St Cruz? They can leave when they want? Humans built it, but then left them down there? Why? Yes, No, Yes, it's not important the film, to me, is mainly about how we abandon our history as individuals and a nation at our peril. the details of the experiment aren't that important, and it feeds from a ton of American scientific lore like MK Ultra where projects were just abandoned when they became unjustifiably risky or unnecessary, while abandoning it's subjects who were physically and mentally broken. Argue posted:
the whole movie was making clear the fact that Surface Lupita does not know or remember. Red picks up on that from the living room scene onwards, and it becomes clear that it very much does need to be explained. flashy_mcflash fucked around with this message at 18:31 on Mar 21, 2019 |
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Mar 21, 2019 18:05
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to me a big part of the fun of found footage is the idea of watching something you definitely shouldn't be watching that's why i feel really low budget stuff like Blair Witch or Tokyo Videos of Horror works and stuff with money behind it tends to whiff. there's such a thing as too polished then of course you have poo poo like Noroi that's expertly written in addition to being believably shot and god Koji Shiraishi is good at that style why does he keep making normal films he's way less good at it
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Mar 21, 2019 18:49
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mikeycp posted:to me a big part of the fun of found footage is the idea of watching something you definitely shouldn't be watching Second time bringing it up today, but that's another reason why VHS 1 and 2 work so well. You're with people finding these sketchy tapes full of horrors. The Den has that same effect too. Though the Den has a much more... voyeuristic feel to it if that's an appropriate word?
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Mar 21, 2019 19:02
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mikeycp posted:to me a big part of the fun of found footage is the idea of watching something you definitely shouldn't be watching This and the earlier mention of immersion's had me thinking about what makes a found footage work for me. What makes it click to me is having some degree of believability. Why is this being filmed, and why is the filming still going on when poo poo's getting crazy? How does the dialog come across? Is it what you'd reasonably expect people in an insane situation to say or react, or does it come across like a STDH.txt where the storyteller is able to flawlessly come up with a lengthy comeback that has everyone in the checkout line applauding when the reality is if it did happen, the teller just said nothing? When those bits click in place, you've got me hooked into the campfire tales vibe well enough I'm going to jump if one of the cats hops up near me. Savageland worked since it was shown as a documentary and taking pictures was the only way the survivor could be able to relate what he's seeing to anyone else. Blair Witch worked with the mythos buildup beforehand so the film itself's flaws worked out. Hellhouse LLC worked with everything's being filmed for the website, though it did have some weak moments. But for each good found footage, there's a good dozen or so that are crap. Stuff starts looking too polished or is too much for my very exercised suspension of disbelief will have me putting something else on.
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Mar 21, 2019 20:21
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Fart City posted:So I was cleaning up some old folders and came across something from years ago that I can only assume I drew while blasted-rear end drunk. Felt it was appropriate to post here. Forgot to respond to this, this is awesome, I did a similar cover for a 24-hour comic I did back in 2011(!!!).  If you want to read it, I have the entire thing scanned to my old rear end deviantart account. https://www.deviantart.com/elsound/gallery/32466947/Robot-High
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Mar 21, 2019 23:50
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