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Franchescanado posted:For the first challenge, you must watch a qualifying film that's been a CineD Movie of the Month that is new to you! I just watched The Battle of Culloden, so I might as well go for Punishment Park
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Oct 1, 2019 00:07
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 #20) Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest (1995) Hell yeah, that's the stuff. I've got a big soft spot for this movie, since in my later college years, this was the one that really kicked off me and some friends seeking out and enjoying 'bad movies' (the frame below was a big part of that). But for my money these days, this is some decent pre-Scream '90s horror. It's very loosely connected to the original; there's a town called Gatlin where some kids murdered their parents, corn is involved, there's a deity called He Who Walks Behind The Rows, and religion is getting weird somehow. Transplant that to Chicago, where the Nebraskan folksiness comes into conflict with 'modernity,' and things have much more life than they did in the first sequel. It also has one of the gnarliest decapitations of any horror movie I've seen, and an evil corn Bible. Daniel Cerny carries this entire movie on his back. Stellar performance as a confident and charismatic tool of evil, starting up a cult at his new school right in front of the priest principal (who gets a double-dream scene!). Similar to his role in Demonic Toys in that he plays a manifestation/possession of a vaguely defined force of evil, but freed from CBand association, he gets to really flex the role in several directions. It's a shame that he decided to drop out of acting, but he appears to have recently become a prolific short film director, so good for him. The other cast members are passable, but don't get nearly as much time or development, aside from the older brother, who retains his flat feel throughout (I'd put part of the blame for that on the script, but also some on the actor, as he seems to do best at happening to have his shirt come off for a scene). Subsequent sequels completely discard the continuity of this one, which is a shame, as they could have gone to some interesting places had the writers been forced to follow the 'evil corn has been shipped throughout the world' thread. Might have ended up something like the Resident Evil film series. But with killer kids. And no Wesker... well, probably no Wesker.   rating: 7/10
Darthemed fucked around with this message at 05:46 on Oct 30, 2019 |
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Oct 1, 2019 00:09
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Franchescanado posted:
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Oct 1, 2019 00:16
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: Okay, you're right. For THIS CHALLENGE ONLY, because it's the first week and October hasn't even begun, I will allow those who have already watched Viy to edit their entry and say you used it for the first Super Samhain Challenge.
: Aw, thank you Fran. I love you.
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Friends Are Evil posted:Ha, literally the day after I watch Viy, it shows up as challenge material. Editing my post now. I was reading your live posting on Discord while Machete Zombie was messaging me to proof-read his write-up.
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Oct 1, 2019 00:26
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1. The Dead Don't Die (2019) USA dir. Jim Jarmusch I had heard that The Dead Don't Die was bad so I went in with very low expectations but I still managed to be disappointed. I first became aware of Jim Jarmusch back in 2010 when he was the guest of honor during the Reykjavik International Film Festival. A friend of mine, who is a longtime fan of Jim's work, dragged me to a double feature screening of Down by Law and Limits of Control. Afterwards Jim gave one of the few genuinely interesting and enjoyable Q&A sessions I"ve ever been to. There were no awkward questions, or long rants poorly disguied as questions. In fact most of the talking was between the moderator and Jim in what felt more like watching a really interesting interview giving a real deep dive into his views on art and film along with funny anecdotes. Afterwards I made him sign my prosthetic leg. I am rambling about this because I don"t really have that much to say about The Dead Don"t Die. Which is fitting because The Dead Don"t Die doesn't have much to say about itself. It's a cast of amazing actors sleepwalking through zombie comedy 101 with such amazing insights as "people are on their phones too much these days" and a zombies as consumerism allegory that worked a lot better 40+ years ago in Dawn of the Dead. It's not funny enough to function as a good comedy and it's not visceral or scary enough to function as a horror film. The film feels wierdly drawn out and slow with no real threat or urgency to anything, possibly to the the very stoic deadpan performances a lot of the actors give. Ending up with something surprisingly bland for a film where Tilda Swindon fights zombies with a samurai sword and Tom Waits as the narrator/forest hermit. 2. Dachra (2018) Tunisia dir. Abdelhamid Bouchnak Three Tunisian journalism students: Yasmeen (who lives with her overprotective grandfather and has reoccurring dreams of a mysterious black clad woman), cameraman Balil, and soundman Walid (who is the worst) set out to do a documentary on a nameless mental patient who is rumored to be a witch. Their research eventually leads them to a secluded village deep in the woods where all the women wear black and there is always smoke in the air. It deploys a lot of very worn tropes: spooky rundown asylums with leering and cackling patients, dream sequences that look like they're actually real until something pops up and goes boo and the person having the dream wakes up screaming, people with strange and disgusting customs living in derelict houses in the backwoods, and phones that just can't get a signal when you need them to. However it handles them fairly well and the film kept me interested the entire time. Visually speaking it's a bit odd. The framing is often off kilter with characters placed on the very edge of the frame with tons of dead space on the other side, a liberal use of very shallow depth of field with the face of one character in sharp focus and the entire rest of the frame a blur, and several very large and dramatic camera movements where it tilts or spins at extreme angles at appropriately spooky or dramatic moments. I'm pretty sure all of this is a deliberate attempt to make the film feel more uncomfortable and disorienting since this even extends to the editing. There is a chase scene midway through where the characters switch directions several times sometimes even from one shot to another. Late in the film there is a scene of where the grandfather is traveling by bus where there's a very effective use of jump cuts where it cuts from the bus being somewhat cramped but all passangers keeping to themselves, to one where all the other passengers are laughing hysterically and grabbing the grandfather, and shots of him holding his head trying to block it out making it very unclear what, if anything, is actually going on. Curiously despite this being a film about journalism students making a documentary about the events it is not a found footage film. In fact there is exactly one (1) scene in the entire film that actually shows diagetic footage from the camera they're using. Of course I must ask myself how much of the appeal comes from it being a 'foreign' film. I have never seen a Tunisian film before which automatically makes this film more interesting. Likewise not speaking the language its hard for me to tell how good or bad the dialogue is, something that sounds clunky in the subtitles might just be the fault of the translator and not something present in the original dialogue or vice versa. I read a review on Letterboxd where a Tunisian user complained that the dialogue was stilted and that the accents of the village people, at least those heard in the trailer as he had not seen the film, were all obviously city accents from the capital. Of course since I don't understand Tunisian Arabic none of this was apparent to me. I am reminded of something Robert Rodriquez once said that the film of his that academics and critics had spent the most time analyzing was El Mariachi and that he had heard tons of long winded theory about the deeper meaning of things he just added because he thought it was cool or a fun gag. His theory was that because the film wasn't in English people went into it primed for something 'cultural' and 'deep' and not a silly action flick like he specializes in. I think there is actually some truth in that. Even here in Europe (sorta) American films are seen as more frivolous and empty but fun while European films tend to have a reputation of being pretentious and arty. Dachra is a pretty good film. It doesn't drag, I was startled by the jumpscares, and some of the twists were actually surprising. It's not the most original and it is a bit rough around the edges but I liked it. Warts and all. 3. The Prowler (1981) USA dir. Joeseph Zito The year is 1945. The war is over and Our Boys are coming home. A young couple sneaks away from the dance to make out only to be brutally murdered by a mysterious GI. Over three decades later the murders start again. A solid slasher from the same director as Friday the 13th: Part 4: The Final Chapter , the best F13 film. The Prowler isn't as good as The Final Chapter but it has it's share of good kills and a fantastic head explosion. I don't really have that much else to say about it. Aside from some of the kills and the exploding head I can't really remember that much about it, and I watched it yesterday. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gonna watch Viy later. I've read some folklore from eastern Europe about the necessity of staying up and guarding the corpses of witches before they can be buried. You know because of their tendency to rise from their graves as undead bloodthirsty monsters. In those stories you generally needed to have either a rooster with you since the undead apparently can't stand their crowing or a hammer (or sometimes axe) to smack the witch on the head with when she inevitably wakes up which immediately rekills her. Suppsoedly this dates back to some older pagan ritual as the hammer (or sometimes axe) is the symbol of Perun, the Slavic pantheon's equivalent of ThorZeus. FreudianSlippers fucked around with this message at 00:36 on Oct 1, 2019 |
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Oct 1, 2019 00:30
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FreudianSlippers posted:1. The Dead Don't Die (2019) I'm usually a fan of metafiction and meta-humor, but this movie's meta jokes and 4th wall breaking made me blush. I felt embarrassed for it. Swinton and Waits are good in it, though. I also liked Sevigny, despite her character being ruined by the end.
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Oct 1, 2019 00:36
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It's a strange film that has a lot of great actors in it and a lot of moments that are, on paper, funny or cool but nothing quite comes together. I did like the idea of the zombies spewing dust instead of blood when decapitated though it would've been more fitting if they'd looked more like dried out mummified husks.
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Oct 1, 2019 00:38
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One Cut of the Dead (2017, Shudder) I’m just going to echo what everyone else has said and just recommend that you go watch this blind. I’m not quite as enamoured with it as others but it’s still excellent and creative. Watched (5): Brightburn, Tales from the Hood, Pet Semetary 2, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, One Cut of the Dead
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Oct 1, 2019 00:42
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3. Night of the Comet Watched On: Amazon I watched this one because it was recommended to me as a fan of Night of the Demons, but man is it more than that. There’s a lot of craft and a surprising amount of heart to this movie, in between bowl-cut kid zombies and goofy one-liners. There’s a lot of production effort put into the little details, from piles of fake nails in the red dust to the radio station’s etched in neon contours. But the best part of the movie is the two lead performances of the Belmont sisters. They’re funny, they’re emotional and the whole movie works because these two siblings believably care about each other. The other performances are solid, don’t get me wrong, but the irrepressible sense of fun comes straight from Catherine Mary Stewart and Kelli Maroney. My girlfriend was yelling “this is my new favorite movie!” during the climax and eventual hilarious ending and I can’t say I disagree.
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Oct 1, 2019 00:48
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 #21) The Screaming Skull (1958) Don't you hate it when you marry someone, move into their house, and the ghost of their dead prior spouse starts haunting the poo poo out of you? That's the predicament faced by Jenni, played by Peggy Webber (The Wrong Man), in The Screaming Skull. Creepy gardeners, spooky paintings, surprise skulls, night-time knocking, and a solid score by Ernest Gold (who would later score both Judgment at Nuremberg and It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World) contribute to the atmosphere, which was undercut by the quality of the transfer on my DVD copy. Webber puts in some good work; the expression of startled revulsion when she first encounters the skull brings out some believably genuine horror from the actress, which surpassed most of the other performances. Framing and blocking were competent, but the camera-work didn't push the envelope much, and the stationary cut-back-and-forth dialogue scenes put me too much in mind of Revolt of the Zombies. The script may be derivative (I think I read that the film-maker got one actress on-board by telling her it was a remake of Hitchcock's Rebecca), but the gaslighting element gave it at least an appearance of more depth than most of the other '50s American horror films I've seen. The movie does drag in parts, the ending is abrupt, and there are plot holes to pick out, but come on, there's a hero skeleton. And the film-maker tried to pull a William Castle! Not one I would rewatch too often, but I have a hard time understanding how it's garnered so much vitriol and derision over the years, aside from popping up on MST3k. rating: 5/10
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Oct 1, 2019 01:06
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Finally, some free time to write up what I've been watching. 1. Killer Workout (1987)  A killer using a giant safety pin is killing people at a gym. Is it connected to the model who got stuck in a tanning bed at a different gym in the opening? Yes, of course it is, that is who the killer is and that is why they didn’t show her face. A giant safety pin doesn't result in very good kills but at least the killer is putting in an effort unlike the cop who is supposedly trying to stop the killings. Everything this movie wishes it was, Death Spa does much better two years later. Also the streaming version has VHS tracking errors. 2. Ænigma (1987)  An "unattractive" girl, Kathy, at a girls private school gets pranked by her classmates into thinking a boy wants to make out with her. The prank is revealed with cars which results in her ending up in a coma. Suddenly a new girl, Eva, enrolls at the school and she seemingly has some of Kathy's memories. The people involved with putting Kathy in a coma start dying in creative ways while Kathy’s medical equipment shows signs of psychic powers, your standard Carrie scenario. My first Lucio Fulci and it won't be my last this challenge. If the others are at this level, then I’ll consider my time not wasted. 3. Killer Fish (1979)  Lee Majors stars as a jewel thief in this Brazillian clone of Piranhas. After his team steal the jewels from a nice looking but obvious model of a gas plant, they hide them in a lake near a nice looking but obvious model of a dam. After a couple double crosses including discovering the lake is full of piranhas, the team decides to get the jewels ahead of schedule. Suddenly a storm appears which causes the gas plant to explode and the dam to rupture. The piranhas and death effects are hilariously bad but the actors really pull it all together and make it an enjoyable watch. 4. Rear Window (1954) (theater)  Jimmy Stewart is an action photographer with a broken leg who has nothing to do but watch his neighbors live their lives while his leg heals. Suddenly a murder mystery begins as he’s sure he heard a neighbor kill his wife but everything that could be evidence also has a reasonable explanation. It's always fun watching a movie that The Simpsons copied for an episode. A wonderful Hitchcock film with an amazing set and it looked wonderful on the big screen. 5. House on Haunted Hill (1959)  Vincent Price is a millionaire that offers 5 people $10,000 to spend the night in a haunted house. That’s almost $90k in today's money. The guests are given a tour of the acid pit in the basement that's still full of real acid and certainly won’t be used in the third act. Vincent Price's wife wants him to die so she can inherit his estate and he wants her dead because she won't divorce him so they double cross each other with the help of the people spending the night. Then they triple cross each other. Kind of pedestrian for a William Castle movie but still a decent watch. Will see how it fares compared to the remake and other William Castle movies later in the challenge. 6. Nail Gun Massacre (1985)  The opening scene is a woman being raped at a construction site by a bunch of construction workers, so there's at least one reason not to watch this. Sometime later a person in camo and wearing a motorcycle helmet covered in the amount of tap you would need to hide the reflection of the camera lens starts attacking construction workers with a portable nail gun. Overdubbed with an effects heavy voice, the nail gun killer makes a couple puns before and after serving up the death blow, like they had been coming up with lines to say and couldn't decide which one to use so they just said them all. Even my love of puns couldn't help here and everything about this was just lackluster. 1. Killer Workout (1987) 2. Ænigma (1987) 3. Killer Fish (1979) 4. Rear Window (1954) 5. House on Haunted Hill (1959) 6. Nail Gun Massacre (1985)
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Oct 1, 2019 01:13
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Franchescanado posted:SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #1: The Best Month So does John Wick count as a slasher?
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Oct 1, 2019 01:18
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Five Eyes posted:So does John Wick count as a slasher? Nah. There's plenty of interesting choices available, like the actual thriller The Vanishing.
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Oct 1, 2019 01:22
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Franchescanado posted:SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #1: The Best Month Does White God count? Listed as a drama there but I have seen it on shudder I'm pretty sure
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Oct 1, 2019 01:24
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Fine, I'll sign up for Shudder for October so I can watch Viy. Is there any reason not to do it through Amazon?
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Oct 1, 2019 01:36
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FreudianSlippers posted:------------------- I think you're going to like it. The author of the short story Viy wrote it heavily influenced by local folk lore and the film doesn't stray too far from it.
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Oct 1, 2019 02:07
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Retro Futurist posted:Does White God count? Listed as a drama there but I have seen it on shudder I'm pretty sure IMDb lists it as a thriller & horror, as well as drama, so I guess go for it.
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Oct 1, 2019 02:09
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Sir Kodiak posted:Fine, I'll sign up for Shudder for October so I can watch Viy. I'm really trying to resist doing this. I have more than enough on my list without adding my Shudder playlist.
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Oct 1, 2019 02:14
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Gearing up for Zardoz, since Letterboxd says it’s a thriller.
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Oct 1, 2019 02:16
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Y'all really shouldn't sleep on The Vanishing (Spoorloos) tho
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Oct 1, 2019 02:24
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Darthemed posted:Gearing up for Zardoz, since Letterboxd says it’s a thriller. There are actual horror movies and real thrillers on the list. Zardoz is a fantasy/sci-if adventure. married but discreet posted:Y'all really shouldn't sleep on The Vanishing (Spoorloos) tho Seriously. One of my favorite first-watches last year. Thought about it for days.
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Oct 1, 2019 02:32
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I'm debating burning a Kanopy borrow on Vanishing. Autopsy of Jane Doe would be the easiest thing to watch but its also probably the lamest thing to watch. Otherwise maybe Vampyr but it feels a tad redundant with my years (I already have 3 other must watches from 1932). Decisions, decisions. edit: Check it. Vanishing is one of those "Criterion not actually available in your country Kanopy ones." Ok, decision made easier. STAC Goat fucked around with this message at 02:50 on Oct 1, 2019 |
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Oct 1, 2019 02:43
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Scooby-Doo movies are cool, though, right?
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Oct 1, 2019 02:47
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 Friday the 13th Part 2, 1981 I'm starting my all October marathon with something classy. Or maybe the lack of it. Last year, I saw the first Friday the 13th, so I figured I'd watch part 2 this year and just watch one every year from now on. Even the most casual horror fan know the first one is the one without Jason as the killer, and we all know the second one is the one without the hockey mask. It's starts with some atmospheric shot and a bit clumsy flashback sequence of the main character dreaming about the ending of the first movie before she gets killed. We cut back to the town of the first movie and there's a training camp for summer camp counselors right next to Camp Crystal. Apparently this is five years after the first movie or something, but not like that matters. You know what will happen if you even heard about this movie. Bunch of young adults making out, then get stabbed or slashed. The whole rewriting of the Jason mythos about him living out in the forest is clunky as gently caress and make no sense, but it paved the way for the rest of the series, so I won't complain. And believe it or not, the black guy don't die first or even at all. Not that he had any lines in the movie to begin with. I had a great time watching this. The kills weren't that brutal, but still fun and the jump scares were well earned (not that I was ever scared, just that I felt they landed a lot better than any modern movie I can think of). A good start on this marathon. Hot Dog Day #89 fucked around with this message at 03:01 on Oct 1, 2019 |
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Oct 1, 2019 02:57
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Oh, and watching redneck Jason and his flannel covered arm from his POV shots gave me serious Mr. Plinkett vibes. I half expected to hear Mr. Plinkett's voice in those shots.
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Oct 1, 2019 03:03
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 SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #1: The Best MonthMy plan was to do threequels as one of the cycles, and conveniently enough here's the third installment in the Universal Frankenstein franchise, which I've never seen before and which (unless I'm mistaken) is also on the MotM list. 3.) Son of "Why, nine out of ten people call that misshapen creature of my father's experiments -" Frankenstein  MCMXXXIX, first watch, Amazon rental I'd like to ramble about the setting for a bit here. The junior Frankenstein (Rathbone) arrives at his familial estate, set into a burgh still bearing the wounds of his father's monstrous experiments. The traditional eerie and paranoid village of early horror is not simply a part of the stock milieu here - we are told that the people of the barony were happy and prosperous before the Gothic curse of the Frankenstein lineage settled in over them like a miasma. The stark and looming Castle Frankenstein looks ill-suited to human habitation - look at how dwarfed the Frankensteins are at their breakfast table, for instance, and there's a wonderful shot where the exaggerated scale places Heinrich's portrait, half out of frame, hovering ominously over the head of his descendant. Rathbone's Wolf considers himself a reasonable man coming to a medieval backwater, but his detached intellectualism rockets him into troubles the "backwards" locals saw coming a mile away. He imagines knowledge can banish fear, but it's because he doesn't actually know what he's getting into. The other pole here is Lugosi's Ygor, who - to contrast Wolf's foolish intelligence - isn't as dumb as he seems, toying with the burg council, manipulating Wolf, and scheming to get his revenge. Son of Frankenstein is 20-30 minutes longer than its storied predecessors, but it uses its time well - what's not essential is entertaining, and there's not really anything I'd cut. He'll find no friends here. Nothing but locked doors and darkened windows, locked hearts and bitter hatred. Let that, too, be a part of the Frankenstein heritage. Watched: 1.) Cabinet of Dr. Caligari [Classics], 2.) Occult [J- and K-horror], 3.) Son of Frankenstein [Threequels, Samhain Challenge #1]
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Oct 1, 2019 03:33
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 #3 Zombie (aka Zombi 2) 1979 Hulu It’s easy to see why this is a classic of the zombie genre. All of the archetypical elements are here, and done well, before they were ossified into cliche. The makeup and effects are great- many of the zombies seem weirdly crispy and juicy, like roast chicken, but it plays up the visceral feeling of the violence. A lot of the soundtrack was funky and moody at the same time, much like Romero’s pictures, and the photography of the zombies really serves to make them feel like an inescapable, unstoppable tide. One distinctive element of this film is the focus, at least early on, of solving the zombie crisis. That’s sometimes a plot element in zombie pictures, but it feels both more important and more distant here. Because the heroes really haven’t the first clue of what is happening, and because their failure to make any scientific progress has the shadow of a curse hanging over it, it’s not a challenge of finding a particular pathogen or antibody, but a greater question as to the nature and meaning of suffering. For better or worse, you won’t find any answers in Zombie. It’s a bleak and nihilistic picture, again in keeping with its reputation as an emblem of its genre. The hopelessness certainly builds the mood, but I also tend to bounce off movies like this. They don’t serve any purpose to me. There’s nothing specific in Zombie that I would’ve wanted to rework to make it a more valuable picture- it is what it is, and it’s technically competent and a solid example of that type. But I don’t believe that I’ll cleave to it as I do more personally resonant films. 3/5
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Oct 1, 2019 03:54
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2. Maximum Overdrive All of the movies I’m watching during this challenge are new to me, so when I saw that my local Alamo Drafthouse was showing this on the big screen I didn’t want to miss out. I remember being intrigued this movie’s VHS box in my local video rental store back in the day. Overall the movie was absurd and fun as long as you don’t think too hard about it. It featured Stephen King’s trademark of a group of people huddled together for survival against some external threat. My biggest fault against this movie is that it suffered from not really having a finale. It just kind of felt like King couldn’t come up with an ending so he was just like “gently caress it, let’s blow stuff up.” Most Manly: A Bible salesman with a huge stache who sexually assaulted the leading lady. Sad to say, I’ve met one of these in real life. (He’s in jail now – yay!) Favorite Fashion: A white denim skirt, a bold choice for Laura Harrington
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Oct 1, 2019 03:55
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Leatherface (1990, library) This is aka The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3. The first 2 entries in this series are both classics and both have their own distinct style and identity. This one...not so much. It just seems like a remix of what we’ve already seen. This ignores the events of part 2. We get a hitchhiker and a creepy red neck family of course. The familiar elements are done well. We get a survivalist character played by Ken Foree as well and while he puts in a good performance his scenes all take place at night and it’s so poorly lit you can’t tell what the hell is going on half the time. Viggo Mortenson is also in this and he puts in a good performance. Overall this is a pretty skipable movie and I’d only recommend watching it for completionists. Watched (6): Brightburn, Tales from the Hood, Pet Semetary 2, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, One Cut of the Dead, Leatherface (1990)
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Oct 1, 2019 04:02
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4. Chopping Mall (1986) Watched On: Amazon This movie is 75 minutes of Grade B 80s teen schlock and I was here for it. The whole premise is absurd, the robots look like fancy mobility scooters and everyone spends the movie doing a whole lot of nothing (horny nothing pre-robot and ineffective nothing post-robot) It was also interesting watching this directly after Night of the Comet, because Kelli Maroney is in this too, but she has absolutely nothing to do. Everyone makes the best with a bad script and makes big broad dumb choices, particularly of the gum chewing variety. All in all, a fine bad movie. Some memorable lines (“but babe, I LIKE pepperoni”) and it didn’t overstay its welcome.
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Oct 1, 2019 04:09
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STAC Goat posted:I'm debating burning a Kanopy borrow on Vanishing. Autopsy of Jane Doe would be the easiest thing to watch but its also probably the lamest thing to watch. Otherwise maybe Vampyr but it feels a tad redundant with my years (I already have 3 other must watches from 1932). Jane Doe is actually really good
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Oct 1, 2019 04:30
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5) Spookies gently caress off with this poo poo. Half a star for some effects that would look cool in a haunted house I guess. You know that board game Betrayal at the House on the Hill? It's a game where a bunch of people go to a haunted house and explore and then one of the players betrays the group and becomes a monster. It's different every game - could be a werewolf, zombies, swamp things, evil plants, a slasher. This is a film adaptation of that written by aliens who only vaguely understand human behavior. Werewolf dressed like a birthday party magician is my least favorite character in anything ever. 0.5/5 1) One Cut of the Dead 2) Castle Freak 3) The Void 4) Knife + Heart 5) Spookies
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Oct 1, 2019 04:31
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Hot Dog Day #89 posted:
It's got one of most amazing kills in the entire franchise, when the dude in the wheelchair gets machete'd in the face and kicked down a huge flight of stairs! F13 Part 2 is maybe my favorite of the whole series, possibly rivaled only by Part 4.
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Oct 1, 2019 04:41
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2. The House of the Devil - 5/5quote:I love love love this film. It's such an authentic depiction of late fall New England vibes that it's got me feelin homesick—and I still live here! Every little detail feels perfect. At one point they call out a Volvo that looks exactly like the one my dad used to drive. Just a coincidence, but if there was ever a movie meant just for me... 3. Hostel - 4/5 quote:lmao. as a Knock Knock stan, i'm pleased to learn that roth's spitefulness and misanthrophy are a running theme. pitch perfect horror comedy. 4. Hostel: Part II - 4/5 quote:spring break forever / haneke could never 5. Cabin Fever (2002) - 2.5/5 quote:OH ANGELO! 6. Cannibal Holocaust - 2/5 quote:held off on this for a long time because of the animal cruelty, but now that i've seen it, i can say my biggest issue is with how boring it is. a hideously X-ist movie that criticizes its very existence, both within and outside the film itself, should be more interesting to me. riz ortolani slaps though. 7. The Green Inferno - 3/5 quote:lol this movie's attitude feels more like lefty twitter accounts dunking on DSA types than it does roth making an anti-sjw crusade or whatever. i don't want to give him too much credit, because this movie is still insanely racist, but i think people jumped on a spicy headline when really he was just making fun #KONY2012 weirdos. (also, boy does his definition of "SJW" seem quaint now. 4-6 years is a long time.)
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Oct 1, 2019 04:42
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 2. TerrorVision (1986) My original plan for the night was to put on another witch movie, but my husband suggested a horror comedy instead. As someone who didn’t start watching horror until he was older, he has no Empire Pictures nostalgia. So I don’t think he had as good a time with this as I did. The overall story is kind of dumb, but that doesn’t necessarily bother me when a movie has this much style. The 80s touches are so exaggerated that it could almost pass for a more recent movie that's shooting for a throwback feel. The hair, the clothes, and the house’s sex palace decor all make for exactly the kind of world that you want a tentacled toad-puppy from outer space to rampage through. And having the kids' only hope of a rescue get killed by a drunk horror host because they'd been in a hurry to cash in made for a great ending. Most of my memories of TerrorVision were about the kids trying to teach and then fight the monster. I’d completely forgotten just how sleazy some of the rest of it is though. The swinging subplot is funny enough, but it also limits who I’d recommend this to. It’s a little too kiddish for some of my friends but not child-friendly enough to suggest to the parents looking for entry level horror to show their tweens. It would probably go over best as a group watch, especially if alcohol is involved. Although even then, I’m not sure I’d pick TerrorVision unless we’d already watched The Stuff and Night of the Comet together. Watched: 1. Burn, Witch, Burn (1962) 2. TerrorVision (1986)
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Oct 1, 2019 05:11
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4. Creepshow 2 (1987) Last year I watched the original Creepshow film (highly recommended) and figured I might as well check out the sequel. It’s of course a horror anthology but sheds a few stories for the sequel (3 instead of 5). I think this was a good move, it gives the stories more to breathe and develop (still cheesy horror, nothing wrong with that). I have to say the first two stories were great but the third, eh, it kind of went into cliche urban legend territory and lost me. I still prefer the original though this one gave it a solid effort. /55. Black Christmas (1974)  It’s funny how I talked about Christmas horror earlier and just totally overlooked this one (kind of the original in the subgenre). Black Christmas is also considered the first slasher movie about a mysterious killer that stalks the cast and kills them one by one (predating Halloween by 4 years). It’s got an ultra-low budget vibe with some chilling and raw moments with the killer. The phone calls he gives as he stalks his prey are steeped in urban legends but the voice at the other end is performed so well. Halloween got all the glory because, honestly, it had such a raw artistic idea that it set forth to do. Black Christmas just feels like this mix of exploitation film (some brutal kills) and murder mystery that comes off as unfocused at times. Like, it’s got ideas but only get some of them right. /56. Dracula (1931)  Yeah, confession time: I have never seen this one. Now I am glad I did. This is a damned masterpiece of cinematic horror with atmosphere, aesthetics and just vibe all throughout. It’s also a piece of cinematic history because it came at this interesting time where movies were still looking to theatre for reference. It’s also an adaptation of a play version of the classic novel. Because of this Dracula is paced so very differently than you would expect with more focus on scenes and characters’ performance in them individually. It’s fascinating and the groundbreaking use of sets and atmosphere still holds up. /5Total: 1. One Cut of the Dead (2017), 2. Chopping Mall (1986), 3. All the Creatures Were Stirring (2018), 4. Creepshow 2 (1987), 5. Black Christmas (1974), 6. Dracula (1931) Justin Godscock fucked around with this message at 06:05 on Oct 2, 2019 |
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Oct 1, 2019 05:12
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#5: Dark Water (2002) Dark Water is another ghost story directed by Hideo Nakata of Ringu fame. Both films are based on novels by author Koji Suzuki. I didn't know this going in, but there were a ton of similarities between the two stories and the common source is extremely felt. The movie follows a recently divorced mother, Yoshimi, and her 6 year old daughter, Ikuko, as they move into a new apartment and try to restart their life. It's probably obvious given the title, but water is quite the force in this movie. During the first half an hour or so there basically isn't a single shot that water isn't in some way a part of. When there's not rain, there are raincoats and umbrellas, leaky ceilings, puddles, or baths. This doesn't quite keep up throughout the entire thing, but I'd say you probably feel water's presence in about 3/4ths of the film's shot list at least. This movie is isolating. It's exhausting, and for a movie about divorce and child custody, that feels appropriate. Even when the characters are together and seemingly safe, there's still a looming threat of separation, and that's nearly always what drives the film's conflicts. There's obviously the high level threat of losing custody of Ikuko, but there's also the ever present moment to moment threat to Yoshimi of her little girl wandering off and getting lost or hurt. Bad things happen when the characters lose track of each other, no matter how brief that lapse, and as a result you never really feel comfortable even when superficially everything seems to be going just fine. All it takes is a turn of the head and the happy facade comes crashing down. I have mixed feelings about the actual ghost story part of the film. The ghost is creepy, and there are several extremely effective moments involving it, but I never quite felt like everything fit together in a satisfying way. I get the broad strokes, and I understand the spirit's motivation and story, but the individual actions didn't always quite tie in to it all as much as I wanted them too. Sometimes it just felt like the ghost was being spooky for spooky's sake, which isn't necessarily bad except that we're also presented with a very sad little mystery and corresponding backstory and the emotional impact of all that was lessened a little as a result, at least for me. It's hard for me to not just compare this to The Orphanage , which I think deals with some similar themes in a more affecting way. Despite all that, I did still really enjoy this, and I'd definitely still recommend it. It's a moody little ghost mystery with some legitimately creepy moments. The last 20 minutes or so particularly had me shivering several times, and I'm glad I finally checked this out! Watched (5/31): #1 Gozu (2003), #2 Spider Baby or, the Maddest Story Ever Told (1967), #3 Viy (1967), #4 Mondo Cane (1962), #5 Dark Water (2002) Challenges (1/1):
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Oct 1, 2019 06:34
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 #2. Excision (2012) dir. Richard Bates Jr. A disturbed and delusional high school student with aspirations of a career in medicine goes to extremes to earn the approval of her controlling mother. This was a decent, disturbing coming of age movie in the vein of "May". It's got problems, the first of which is that it feels like short film that was padded out to a feature, so things start getting either very repetitive or seem oddly out of place. This results in tonal irregularities, where one scene you feel like you're watching an edgier "Ghost World" or a "Heathers" type comedy about being an outcast, and the next it comes off like a dead serious film about psychopathy. AnnaLynne McCord's performance is good, even despite some of the poor, quippy dialogue. Traci Lords plays the overbearing mother as best she can, but the role is such a caricature of a prim control-freak suburbanite that it feels like it's trying way too hard to earn our hatred. Making her a more sympathetic character would have made the impact of this hit much harder. There are hallucinogenic sexual fantasy segments in here that are straight out of Tarsem Singh, so that's cool. Ray Wise makes a brief appearance, and John Waters shows up as a priest too. And the ending is quite a punch. But overall, it feels like they were scraping for extra content for an idea that would have worked best as a short. 1/2, out of 5Watched: 1. The Black Room (2017), 2. Excision (2012)
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Oct 1, 2019 06:38
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2: Anguish (2015) ABCs: A  A young girl dealing with some mental health issues may actually be possessed. This was a little frustrating, as it’s one of those movies that comes close to being really good but just doesn’t stick the landing. The first half or so is pretty slow and boring, with a few decent jump scares and not much else, then it has a bit of a twist and sets up an interesting premise, but it really doesn’t follow through. I’m guessing due to budget concerns, as this was pretty clearly made without one. There’s also some weird ambiguity around a few things, especially the ending. All in all it’s far from the worst movie I’ve ever seen, but there are so many movies that do everything this one tried to do better that I don’t think I could recommend it to anyone.
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Oct 1, 2019 06:40
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| # ? May 12, 2024 17:21 |
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 #1. The Evil (1978). (First watch) A psychiatrist buys a civil war era house to turn it into a drug rehab center. Some friends and volunteers show up to help get the place set up. Well, its haunted. For late 70's this has a pretty brisk pace to it. It spends the first half trying to give the characters what depth it can until the obligatory "house locking them in" montage. After that, they actually don't do anything stupid that gets them killed. They realize right off that they shouldn't split up, but it's their continuous attempts at evacuation that tend to be their downfall. I love haunted house flicks, but it felt more of one during the first half with the second half being more of an energetic escape plan with lots of screaming. I would say it worth a watch. Rating: Why are there so many goddamn electrocutions in house with no electricity out of The stuntmans name is Buddy Joe Hooker. Behind Maslow fucked around with this message at 17:17 on Oct 1, 2019 |
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Oct 1, 2019 06:41
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