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Egbert Souse posted:It's only about 30 minutes long, but there's The Laurel-Hardy Murder Case that is absolutely appropriate Halloween viewing. Could double it up with the 15 min short film The Devil's Cabaret. For a little while when I couldn't find a movie I was comfortable calling a "horror" I was legitimately considering asking of Fran if 6 10 minute shorts would count since they make up much of IMDB's Top Horror for 1930 list.
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Oct 25, 2019 23:46
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Franchescanado posted:SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #12: Cavalcade of Creepiness  #149) The House that Dripped Blood (1971), a.k.a., Blood Zone Tubi. Four very British anthology segments, all written by Bloch. Is this the first anthology film I've watched this month? Nope, wait, there was Satan's Storybook. And the first two Ju-On, kind of. Anyway, we've got an author tormented by one of his characters, a stock-broker who finds a bewitching figure in a spooky wax museum, a young girl with an aversion to fire, and a horror actor in search of a satisfactory vampire costume. I liked this, overall, though there were some rough spots. The bones of the stories are generally familiar, but with a twist or two introduced, they led in curious directions. The framing device of a police inspector checking through case histories could have been more engaging, though his exasperation is finely played, and it did have a good wrap-up. Lots of fun, but I just kept feeling like it was missing something I couldn't place. Still worth a recommendation, with Cushing and Lee being their usual delightful selves.  rating: 7/10"You think of yourself as a kind and decent man." "She is beautiful, isn't she?" "Fire can never harm us, as long as we're careful." "In my films, there is nothing improper."
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Oct 26, 2019 00:18
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Watch an anthology film you haven’t seen.
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By the way: I love CineD and Halloween and Horror movies, and I love everyone in this thread. Halloween is awesome. 
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Oct 26, 2019 00:59
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One last challenge ruling question: Having not seen it, would 1935's The Raven count for the Edgar Allen Poe challenge, given that the impression that I get is that it makes heavy reference to Poe's work moreso than adapting something specific?Franchescanado posted:By the way: And we all love you and the insane amount of work you put into this challenge year in and out. 
Trash Boat fucked around with this message at 01:16 on Oct 26, 2019 |
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Oct 26, 2019 01:12
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It's going to be a busy weekend so I want to go into it without a backlog of write ups. 59. Black Christmas (1974) THE SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #8: Happy Holidays  It’s Christmas break and a sorority house starts getting obscene calls stranger than usual. Then its members start disappearing. It turns out the two are connected and in fact the calls are coming from inside the house! A good early slasher film with some nice drunk acting from Margot Kidder. 60. The Hunger (Theater) (1984)  David Bowie is the vampire lover of the much older vampire who turned him. Suddenly the weekly blood meals are no longer working and his 300 years catch up to him in a couple days. When it starts, he goes to a doctor working on reversing aging. When she goes to his vampire-wife to follow up, he has already been stored with her prior lovers and she sets her sights on the doctor as her next immortal lover. A very nicely shot movie and interesting love story. Just make sure to ignore the final scene as it was studio mandated, doesn’t make sense and ruins the final act. 61. Mind Warp (1992)  In the far off future a young woman is tired of living life in VR and also the constant harassment from the system operator. She eventually convinces the operator to release her into what remains of the real world. It turns out things have gotten a bit Mad Max-y out there and Bruce Campbell has to rescue her from a pair of cannibals. Rather boring and Bruce only got one freak out. 62. Brainscan (1994) THE SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #9: Hackers  Eddie Furlong is obsessed with horror movies and video games despite his principal thinking they are as worthless as smoking pot. In the latest issue of Fangoria he discovers an ad for a new horror game that uses hypnosis to create the most realistic murder/burglary simulator ever. After seeing the person he killed in the game show up actually dead on the news he discovers it’s not a simulator at all! Kind of ok, not sure if having a better actor than Furlong would’ve helped but it wouldn’t have hurt. 63. Vampyros Lesbos (German) (1971)  A female lawyer has to travel to the island of a woman who has recently inherited the estate from a certain Count Dracula to sort out the paperwork. She loses her memory of much of her time on the island except for the erotic dreams she is having of the Countess. It’s basically just a lesbian version of the story of Dracula that’s heavy on the eroticism. It was actually pretty ok for what it was, if it was a bit better technically it could easily be a decent movie. 1. Killer Workout (1987) 2. Ænigma (1987) 3. Killer Fish (1979) 4. Rear Window (Theater) (1954) 5. House on Haunted Hill (1959) 6. Nail Gun Massacre (1985) 7. Paranorman (2012) 8. Night of the Comet (1984) 9. Corpse Bride (2005) 10. 13 Ghosts (1960) 11. Vampyr (German) (1932) #1 12. Amuck (Italian) (1972) 13. Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man (1951) 14. Fascination (French) (1979) 15. Lake of Dracula (Japanese) (1971) 16. Sorority House Massacre (1986) 17. Prophecy (1979) 18. Sorority Massacre 2 (1990) 19. Leviathan (1989) 20. Night of the Lepus (1972) 21. Puppet Master (1989) 22. Ice Cream Man (1995) 23. Return of the Living Dead 2 (1988) 24. The Giant Claw (1957) 25. One Cut of the Dead (Japanese) (Theater) (2017) 26. Return of the Living Dead 3 (1993) 27. Return of the Living Dead: Necropolis (2005) 28. Spider Baby (1967) #2 29. Dollman (1991) 30. The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll (1960) 31. The Addams Family (Theater) (2019) 32. Return of the Living Dead: Rave to the Grave (2005) 33. Ganja & Hess (1973) #3 34. Arcade (1993) 35. Terrorvision (1986) 36. I, Frankenstein (2014) 37. Drácula (Spanish) (Theater) (1931) 38. The Snake Woman (1961) 39. The Bat (1959) 40. Witchfinder General (1968) 41. Homicidal (1961) 42. In the Mouth of Madness (1994) 43. Caltiki, the Immortal Monster (Italian) (1959) 44. House of Wax (1953) #4 45. Q: The Winged Serpent (1982) 46. Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988) 47. Mr. Sardonicus (1961) 48. Prince of Darkness (1987) 49. The Fog (1980) 50. Piranha 3DD (2012) 51. Rawhead Rex (1986) 52. Viy (1967) #5 53. Psycho Shark (2009) 54. Return to Nuke ‘Em High Volume 1 #6 55. Phantom of the Paradise (1974) 56. Return of the Killer Tomatoes (1988) 57. Memory: The Origins of Alien (Theater) (2019) 58. Monster Squad (1987) #7 59. Black Christmas (1974) #8 60. The Hunger (Theater) (1984) 61. Mind Warp (1992) 62. Brainscan (1994) #9 63. Vampyros Lesbos (German) (1971)
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Oct 26, 2019 01:20
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Trash Boat posted:One last challenge ruling question: Having not seen it, would 1935's The Raven count for the Edgar Allen Poe challenge, given that the impression that I get is that it makes heavy reference to Poe's work moreso than adapting something specific? Can I kinda wanna watch You Can't Kill Stephen King. Trash Boat posted:And we all love you and the insane amount of work you put into this challenge year in and out. This.
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Oct 26, 2019 01:21
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I think I'm gonna have to end up watching at least 32 movies, because I want to do the final challenge but also want to get 31 new-to-me watches in. I should be able to make it since I won't be working on Halloween and can marathon a few things to catch back up! I was having a tough time picking out a guilty pleasure, but after thinking for a bit I actually think I have a few options I'd be excited to revisit. Probably going to pick between Tokyo Gore Police, Martyrs, and Taxidermia. I really don't think they're bad movies but they are absolutely ones I'd feel weird talking about with or recommending to most people, so I think they fit the theme. Franchescanado posted:By the way: Thank you so much for running this! I love this season but I wouldn't be watching a fraction of the horror movies I currently am if this thread didn't exist.
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Oct 26, 2019 01:22
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31. Reanimator (1985) Watched On: Shudder SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #11: Watch an H.P. Lovecraft adaptation you haven't seen This movie is balls to the wall in the best way possible. It's gross, it's funny, it's intense and, unfortunately, real rapey. You can see how both Jeffrey Coombs and Stuart Gordon basically made their careers off of their respective roles in this production. Coombs as West adds these great little humanizing ticks to what might have been a very default mad scientist character in another movie. He's arrogant, yes, but he's also frustrated, he doesn't really understand how to talk to other human beings and he genuinely cannot help himself. The entire final act of the movie happens because he just can't resist the temptation to jam a needle full of reanimatin' juice into a head. The makeup effects are particularly well done, giving a dose of shocking realism to an otherwise cartoony world. There are just chunks and chunks of human viscera and gallons of blood hurled around in a very matter of fact way. My girlfriend also noticed that the score heavily cribs from Bernard Hermann's score for Psycho, but it really does tie the whole movie together. The only thing I really knew about the movie was the infamous severed head naked lady scene and, when it came around to it, I ended up skipping past it. It was too uncomfortable to watch and I don't think I really lost anything from the gory climax. I definitely enjoyed this movie, but I always think Barbara Crampton deserves better.
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Oct 26, 2019 01:55
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Franchescanado posted:By the way: Thanks for running this! I have been making an effort over the last couple of years to watch more horror movies as it was a genre I avoided for way too long and it turns out I like it a lot. This thread helps me find stuff I would never have a known about otherwise.
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Oct 26, 2019 01:57
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Franchescanado posted:SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #13: Maniac  #150) Ice Cream Man (1995) Tubi. Well, it was gonna be this or Arcade, and I've seen this fewer times. And I'm kind of sick of Full Moon for the moment. Unlike the last few Tubi films I've watched, they bothered to throw ads on this. Specifically, one Spanish ad for the Honda CR-V. ANYWAY. A young boy sees his local ice cream man get shot down by gangsters and is traumatized by it, growing up to be Clint Howard as a result. Those who screw with the ice cream man... get their just desserts. I'm honestly a little sad the Kickstarter for a sequel bombed so hard ($4,424 out of $300,000). Howard hams it up in wonderful form (and sparks a few moments of sympathetic pathos), David Warner plays a creepy reverend, and the assorted child actors all fit well enough with their roles. The movie plays well with kid logic for chases and motivations (not to mention a childish conception of mental illness), while also poking fun at the preoccupations of adults, and it keeps things cartoonish enough for the premise to hold together. Weirdly, this is pretty much the only non-porn film from this director (out of his 125 credits on IMDb). Though it doesn't rise to the levels Killer Klowns from Outer Space and Santa's Slay did in forming gags and tools of murder out of the trappings of their respective domains, Ice Cream Man puts in a good effort. There's a push-up pop switch-blade, feeding corpses into the ingredient grinder, a giant waffle cone, scoops for puppeteering severed heads, and a few other instances. My biggest problem with this ice cream man is his lack of commitment to proper food hygiene. He's got mice and roaches crawling around in the ice cream! And a corpse stuck in there, too, but at least that's frozen. Doesn't really reflect a love of the product, I'd say. It's filled with faults, but at the end of this, I was thinking 'I need to pick up a copy of Vinegar Syndrome's restoration.' The slice of people I'd be able to recommend this to with no caveats is a small one. You've got to like schlock, probably have a thing for the '90s, not mind child protagonists, and not want something that takes itself seriously. If you enjoy movies like Blood Diner and Meet the Feebles, and haven't seen this, you'd do well to give it a shot. rating: 6/10"You know, it's hard to make friends when you're always stuck on the inside." Franchescanado posted:By the way:
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Oct 26, 2019 01:58
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Watch your “guilty pleasure” horror film.
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 17: Black Christmas Challenge 8: Happy Holidays - Kinda surprised I had never heard of this one, picked it semi-randomly for having Christmas in the name, and it was pretty great. A killer hides in a sorority house at the start of winter break, and the police/residents simply assume the victims have already left on vacation. Very tense, and filled with details seen in dozens of later movies - the friend who's always missing when the killer takes an action, showing the killer's actions in first person, keeping somebody on the line to complete a trace (this movie actually shows exactly why that was needed back then), "the call's coming from inside the house"). It's very tense tear the end, a very masterfully done movie, and glad to have watched it. - 4/5Goals - 13/13 - 1: K-12 2: Gozu 3: The Wailing 4: Phantom of the Paradise 5: Viy (SC1) 6: One Cut of the Dead 7: Happiness of the Katakuris 8: Little Monsters 9: Shadow of the Vampire 10: Bone Tomahawk (SC2) 11: Ichi the Killer 12: The Witch 13: Hereditary 14: Tammy and the T-Rex (SC4) 15: The Purge: Anarchy (SC6) 16: Boa vs. Python (SC7) 17: Black Christmas (SC8) Rewatches - Event Horizon, In the Mouth of Madness, The Cell Lhet fucked around with this message at 02:18 on Oct 26, 2019 |
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Oct 26, 2019 01:59
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I never would have gotten into horror movies if it wasn't for this thread last year, thank you Fran. Now I'm going to make my girlfriend watch Spookies with me.
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Oct 26, 2019 02:04
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 SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #9: Hackers  28. Interface (1985) Interface is about a group of android LARPers whose prank game accidentally gets Lou Diamond Phillips killed. On the advice of their “master process” computer program, they decide to raise the stakes and murder people they think aren't good for society, which quickly turns into targeting people they dislike. When a comp-sci professor (Rex) and a young widow (Amy) fall under suspicion for a suspicious death, they have to investigate while ducking both the cops and the nerd herd. This one’s a student film, and that shows. But it’s also an example of how to make a surprisingly charming low-budget movie. Rex and Amy have a great screwball comedy dynamic, all fast patter dialogue and odd little moments that would sound stupid to describe but manage to fit the movie’s tone. She climbs out through his office’s drop ceiling the first time they meet, and instead of feeling “lol, so random,” it’s actually kind of cute. As you might expect, the student group is better with computers than Professor Rex, who’s so unsuccessful at tracking them that he pretty much just stumbles into their lair. The group runs into trouble when they’re not at their keyboards though, screwing up their attacks and failing to keep their grade-fixing business quiet enough to avoid unwanted attention. It’s also entertaining that they pride themselves on being guided by logic even as they get increasingly panicked and lash out at their enemies—and at one another. The movie’s biggest strength is probably its writing. The jokes land pretty well (I laughed out loud at the hackers charging more to get someone out of the Columbia Record Club than they did for a grade change), and the story is entertaining despite a few times when it seems unfocused. The overall fun factor makes it easy to overlook the occasionally shaky shots and tinfoil robo-people costumes. The horror elements could have been more intense (Letterboxd tags this as thriller, comedy and horror, though it slants more strongly towards the first two), but it was probably better for them to avoid trying to do too much. Watched: 1. Burn, Witch, Burn (1962); 2. TerrorVision (1986); 3. Evilspeak (1981) - Challenge #1; 4. Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971); 5. The City of the Dead (1960); 6. The Witches (1966); 7. The Crimson Cult (1968); 8. A Return to Salem’s Lot (1987) - Challenge #2; 9. Next of Kin (1982); 10. The Ritual (2017); 11. Def by Temptation (1990) - Challenge #3; 12. Halloween III (1982); 13. House by the Cemetery (1981); 14. The Dorm That Dripped Blood (1982); 15. Phenomena (1985); 16. Color Me Blood Red (1965) - Challenge #4; 17. Girls With Balls (2018); 18. Tarot (2009) - Challenge #5; 19. Jug Face (2013); 20. Wake Wood (2009); 21. Happy Death Day (2017); 22. Poltergeist II (1986) - Challenge #6; 23. Wolfman’s Got Nards (2018); 24. Spookies (1986); 25. The Midnight Hour (1985) - Challenge #7; 26. P2 (2007) Challenge #8; 27. Dan Curtis’s Dracula (1973); 28. Interface (1985) - Challenge #9
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Oct 26, 2019 02:17
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October 25 - The Phantom of the Opera https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gncmKoTXB8 Don't get too excited for Lon Chaney here, I'm back on my Hammer box set for this one. It's funny, but I have opera season tickets this year and two of the operas being performed are Lucia di Lammermoor, one of the few operas that could be categorized as horror, and The Shining. Yes, that The Shining; apparently only the second time it's been staged anywhere. But those operas aren't until next year so I can't argue that I should be able to count them toward my challenge. Strange things are afoot at the London opera. In the run up to the premier of a new opera, sabotage has been occurring. Then during the first performance, a hanged man drops through the scenery. The opera is shut down and the lead must be recast. Christine has a great but untrained voice and the owner of the opera wants to give her some "one-on-one vocal training", if you know what I mean. But there's a voice in her dressing room that offers to help her. So if you're familiar with the 1925 film, this one is almost unrecognizable. Hammer being Hammer, gothicked this up about 250% and Phantom of the Opera was already pretty gothic. As a result, the movie is a lot more lurid with extra sex and violence. The Phantom is also a victim of the owner of the opera house and is going after him as revenge for stealing his music. I liked that change since it gave him something more than being a creepy basement dwelling incel as his motivation. The opera in this movie is soooo bad. It's sounds like someone who hates opera just throwing something together to just fill it out. There was a world of brilliant music that they could have used and they composed something new and bad. Even the Phantom doesn't know his opera; he has a portrait of J.S. Bach up in his lair (though he does play Toccata and Fugue in D Minor and I guess he can be into two things). This is one of the better looking Hammer productions I have watched this month. The box set I'm watching these movies from cover a pretty narrow slice of Hammer, basically 1962 to 1964, so it was after they got a few hits under their belt and started making more and more elaborate productions. The Phantom's make up doesn't look great, but you can't have everything. Oddly enough in the box set, this movie is paired with the Night Creatures and the two were originally a double bill, though Phantom was the top half of it and on the disk it's the second half. Phantom of the Opera is a solid outing from Hammer, though it lacks any strong performances (no Cushing or Reed or Lee for this one). The biggest problem is that it has to stand beside an absolute classic of cinema and it can't really compare.
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Oct 26, 2019 02:28
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SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #9: Hackers #57: Nightmare Weekend  I'm not gonna lie, I haven't always been giving all of the movies I've watched for this challenge my 100% undivided attention. Most of the later Puppet Masters I had open in one window while I posted in another. I assumed Nightmare Weekend would be one of those movies. i quickly started to doubt that assumption. Things kept happening that confused me and made me think I needed to be paying closer attention. Wait, why are they in a pool now? What are they doing to that dog? How is she controlling a real car through an Amiga racing game? Why the gently caress is that man drinking from a flask hidden in a sandwich? I had to keep my eyes on the screen to keep from feeling completely lost. But as I did pay attention, I quickly discovered that in a way, my original assumption was correct. It doesn't really matter how scenes in Nightmare Weekend connect together. Sometimes they don't. What matters is that there's always something going on. Often it's a babe in revealing/wet/tight/no clothing. Sometimes it's some kind of baffling computer thing written by someone who only vaguely knows what a computer is. Sometimes it's dreadful dialogue. A knife fight. Orbs. A guy's head... explodes? I think? Don't like this sex scene? Oh hey there's a tarantula. Tarantula not doing it for you? Orb. No wait someone's dancing- no we're back at the sex sceneAND HER PANTIES ARE LETHAL! I know that a lot of robots in movies are actually puppets, but it takes balls to use a literal cloth hand puppet and just say it's a robot. Nightmare Weekend is a carousel of constant low grade novelty.
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Oct 26, 2019 02:47
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#22: Castle Freak (1995) Watched on Tubi Another from the Gordon, Crampton, Combs gang! Castle Freak feels like a fairly traditional horror plot, man inherits castle in faraway land, only to discover something lurks within. The first half of the movie moves along with fairly decent family melodrama, with the back half holding more of the chills and thrills. The titular freak is actually well made-up and gruesome, as are most of the scares. There's a bit of graphic violence with a prostitute that comparatively gets a bit overlong and out of place with the rest of the movie, but for the most part, it's rather good. .5/5#23: Suspiria (1977) Watched on Prime This was my first time watching this, and I'm sorry to say, I found it a bit lacking. Aside from the bold color use in lighting and set design and the wire bit, there's very little that I want to take away from this. I feel like it might be a case of a towering reputation exceeding the actual film for me; I've seen it praised so lavishly that I don't quite know what I think would have lived up to it. I still liked it, but I was expecting something I would regard as an all-time great rather than merely good. Great style, not enough substance. /5#24: Suspiria (2018) Watched on Prime This on the other hand, this is my kinda movie. Yes, it's overlong and could do with filing down some of the more peripheral bits, but Guadagnino's remake absolutely stands by itself as a separate work of art. It's mutely gorgeous, Yorke's soundtrack is ethereal and haunting, and the performances are quite striking. Also, for a movie that centers on a dance studio, holy hell does it actually follow through with dance, violent, sexual, dance that isn't window dressing but actually drives the narrative. Some pretty great... moments of horror, if not necessarily scares, is you like a patient, thoughtful spookadoodle, Suspiria '18 is a moody good time. .5/5#25: Chopping Mall (1986) Watched on Prime Didn't do it for me, not even the blessed Crampton could turn it around. In a sea of whitebread slashers, Chopping Mall does little to distinguish itself, excepting sweet poster art that has nothing to do with the actual content. Security robots run amok in suburban mall while teens have bang party in the furniture store sounds mildly interesting, but Chopping Mall can't even live up to that! It looks so so, the acting is on the downside of schlocky, the security robots look like over-engineered garbage cans, and the kills are rather dull, barring a highly comedic head explosion. Nothing is a greater horror sin than wanting the drat movie to just end, but Chopping Mall found a way. .5/5Watched: 1. From Beyond 2. Evil Dead 3. Phantasm 4. Candyman 5. Phenomena 6. Boar 7. Mandy 8. A Quiet Place 9. The Crazies 10. Friday the 13th 11. Ginger Snaps 12. The Collector 13. Body Bags 14. The Lost Boys 15. The Devil's Rejects 16. Slugs 17. The Midnight Meat Train 18. House of 1000 Corpses 19. Final Prayer/The Borderlands 20. Lake Mungo 21. High Tension 22. Castle Freak 23. Suspiria 24. Suspiria 25. Chopping Mall
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Oct 26, 2019 03:29
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 #151) The Legend of Bloody Jack (2007), a.k.a., Jack the Reaper Returns Tubi. Standard low-grade slasher. Idiots go in the woods, get bumped off by a semi-mythic entity. The killer wears a normal hunter's outfit. He's got some scar tissue around his eyes, too, I guess, and he carries an axe. That's pretty much it for distinguishing traits. Nothing cool or interesting happens in this movie. It's filmed and mic'ed well enough. Acting is OK. Gore is sub-par, but not to a distracting degree, unlike the stock sound effects. Just very boring, minimal effort slasher. Actually, you know those gifs that are like a dog sitting somewhere, and then it just fades out of existence? There was a shot like that, but with the killer retrieving his axe from a corpse, and then they held on the still, empty shot for like five seconds after he'd vanished. So I guess you could make that into a gasp of internet amusement. That's about the best this movie has to offer. I was gonna say 'I don't know why this was in my watchlist,' but a quick check shows that this is from the director of Thumbtanic and The Blair Thumb, Todd Portugal. Not that I've seen either of those, but at least there's a tenuous morbid curiosity connection. Oh, poo poo, it was from The Asylum, that explains a lot. Don't watch this. rating: 3/10"Great trick, Carol, thanks for that, I ALMOST poo poo MY PANTS!"
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Oct 26, 2019 03:50
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 SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE 7 MONSTER MASH-UPゴジラvsビオランテ  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qnclpYUmx8 I have been wanting to see this one for a while. It has a reputation as one of the best Godzilla movies, and the only one of the Heisei movies I've seen is Godzilla 1984. And I haven't seen that in a long, long time. In fact, the only things I distinctly remember from it are the weird flying spaceship and that Godzilla really loves Dr. Pepper. Five years after the second Godzilla attack on Tokyo, private companies are fighting over the cells left behind to use in genetic engineering experiments. One scientist has determined a way to use those cells to make bacteria that devours nuclear energy and it's usefulness in defending against nuclear weapons makes him a target for espionage. The scientist has a hidden scheme, however, to use those same cells to make super plant. The plant gets made, Godzilla gets unleashed from the volcano he was entombed in, and the two are on a collision course. Biollante is a great monster. It looks like three way collaboration between Georgia O'Keefe, HR Giger, and Frank Oz. You've got the suggestive plant, with plenty of teeth including ones at the ends of its phallic tentacles, and it's a massively elaborate puppet that must have had a huge team operating it. It's a shame that it was used so little through the film. There's never as much giant monster action as you want in these movies but in this case it feels like Biollante has about two minutes of active screentime total. And it doesn't help that the final fight between the title monsters almost feels like an afterthought with Biollante just showing up out of nowhere for a quick throwdown. Despite that, the human storyline felt a bit better than normal here. In this case you've got the US and Saudi Arabia fighting with Japan and that gives the story something for the people to do instead of watch monsters run around. Even the military seems almost competent n\in this one; I'm used to seeing them so totally outclassed by the giant monsters that they're basically speedbumps. In this movie their plans seem to almost work. I couldn't help but notice that there was a lot of actors who seemed to learn their English lines phonetically in this film. It's like taking the bad dubbing to the next level. Overall, it's a pretty good outing for the big G. It could have done with a bit more monster on monster action, but that's standard for these movies. I've actually went ahead and ordered the next couple Heisei films; I want to work my way through that portion of the series now. Random Stranger fucked around with this message at 21:10 on Oct 26, 2019 |
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Oct 26, 2019 04:47
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SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #7: Monster Mash-up #28) The Monster Squad (1987)  This is such a FUN movie. I used to always mix it up with Little Monsters, and while Howie Mandel is wonderful in that weird movie, I think the Monster Squad is the better kid's monster movie. Every monster in this movie feels like the budget ripoff version of the real deal, but I think that adds to its charm. If you're looking for silly Halloween fun, you can't go wrong with this one. 3/5Challenges completed: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Challenges not completed: 8 9 10 11 12 13
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Oct 26, 2019 05:11
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Super Samhain Challenge #10: Navel Gazing 25. One Cut of the Dead (2017): I hadn’t heard of this before this month but the effusive praise in this thread got me to check it out. I’ll just echo what everyone else said: go in blind. Really fun film, strong recommend.
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Oct 26, 2019 05:53
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Almost there, going to be busy this weekend plus my night shifts are finishing up at the same time. I'm going to try to pound out a few more before Halloween itself. The next few films are going to be me finishing up the challenges then we'll see how it goes. I am close to breaking my record from last year (44 films) which I now want to do (already crossed my initial goal of 31).SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #9: Hackers Watch a horror movie you haven't seen adaptated from a video game39. Resident Evil: Extinction (2007)  I saw the first two Resident Evil movies a long time ago. All I remember is the first one is mediocre and the second was was a pile of crap. I never watched them beyond that because, why? They don’t follow the video games at all (albeit open about not doing so) and yeah just stopped watching. This one is better than those two I watched. It follows Alice from the first two films who lives in a post-apocalyptic landscape where the zombies have taken over. Umbrella is hunting her because they believe she is the source of a cure for everything plus can put zombies under their control. It’s a cheesy action movie in a post-apocalyptic setting with really forced introductions of video game characters like Wesker and Claire. Except, you know, they made no effort to follow the games so its so much more of a “huh, hey” moment. I don’t know what more to really say: it’s got some zombie action but after watching Train to Busan earlier I knew there is better. Also, does anyone else recall any sound issues with this film? I watched it on Amazon Prime and it’s incredibly quiet during dialogue parts and explosively loud on action parts (played the old “adjust speaker volume” game every few minutes because of it). It isn’t the speakers or my computer either, here, I tried some other films on Amazon Prime and no issues. /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), 7. Frankenstein (1931), 8. The Monster Squad (1987), 9. All Hallow’s Eve (2013), 10. The Addams Family (1991), 11. Grizzly (1976), 12. The Mummy (1932), 13. See No Evil (2006), 14. The Invisible Man (1933), 15. Why Horror? (2014), 16. Bad Moon (1996), 17. Head Count (2018), 18. The Bride of Frankenstein (1935), 19. House of 1000 Corpses, 20. The Wolfman (1941), 21. Body Bags (1993). 22. Us (2019), 23. The Craft (1996), 24. Thankskilling (2008), 25. Beetlejuice (1988), 26. Psycho (1960), 27. Gacy (2003), 28. Malevolent (2018), 29, Day of the Animals (1977), 30. Overlord (2018), 31. Train to Busan (2016), 32. Brightburn (2019), 33. Mayhem (2017), 34. 3 From Hell (2019), 35. Scream (1996), 36. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986), 37. Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman (1943), 38. Christmas Evil (1980), 39. Resident Evil: Extinction (2007) Super Samhain Challenges:
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Oct 26, 2019 06:13
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FYI, the Universal Monsters Blu Rays are currently on sale on Amazon for $15 per Monster, cheaper than the DVDs which I’m watching them on. I don’t know how much difference the quality would make but its one of those “drat” consumer moments. But I thought I’d mention it if anyone else might be interested in getting some of these classic sets. Not a year I need (poor planning strikes) but a movie I definitely want to see as part of this. Probably should have done it for Monster Mashup but I gotta make things harder.  46 (58). Frankenstein Meets Wolf Man (1943) Watched on DVD, available on Hoopla. Lon Chaney Jr is back as the Wolf Man when… his grave is exposed under a full moon? Ok. Anyway, seeking either a cure for his curse or a way to end his seemingly immortal life Larry Talbot sets out in search of the one doctor with rue experience with monsters. Dr. Frankenstein (III). One of them, anyway way. But instead he finds the Monster. I love crossovers/shared universes. I always did, even as a little kid. When Scooby Doo met the Harlem Globetrotters I was excited. When Yogi Bear spent Christmas with Huckleberry Hound I was giddy. When Batman is climbing up a building and the Green Hornet is there, I light up. I just always loved that stuff. So I was hyped for this one and moved it up on a day I should be filling some years. Sadly, this was a disappointment. Its not a terrible movie but like, an incredible amount of the movie is spent on watching police investigations that amount to nothing and towns folks discussing the Frankenstein Problem. The Monster’s barely even in the movie. Chaney had good charm in The Wolf Man and he still does but since he spends the whole film understandably freaked out there’s not a ton of that on display. Lugosi was… fine as the Monster. To be honest on the 3rd Monster its starting to get a little towards that place I grew up with where like it was just an infinite number of dudes who all look like Herman Munster. When I saw that Bela takes over the role for this I thought for sure that meant we were getting Ygor-Monster, which sounded like an awesome foil for Larry/Wolf Man. I’m very sad they decided to just make the Monster mute and simple again. I guess he did speak and they edited out because of bad feedback, but just the Karloff style and not Ygor. What’s the point of using a 60 year old Bela in that way? Especially since it reads like Bela was too old to even do the role without stand ins. I don’t get it. Was it just to give him a thrill or say he played the Monster after passing? Or to put his name on the marquee? I guess, it’s just lame and I think that’s the first time I’ve said that about one of these Universal films. I was also kind of disappointed that they brought back Elsa Frankenstein (II) but not Evelyn Ankers. That seems like another completely lost opportunity for something fun. Partly I just liked her and thought she had good chemistry with Chaney in The Wolf Man but the fact that she played Elsa in Ghost of Frankenstein seemed like such a fun and natural connection to bring her back in the role and reunite her with Chaney/Talbot. By now it seems obvious Universal just didn’t really care that much about its female characters but like the Bela thing it seemed like such an obvious and easy thing that I had my hopes up and was disappointed. Ok, maybe I have a crush on an actress who died when I was a toddler. What’s it to you? Things get fun once everything gets going and the monsters finally fight (along with all the other action in the film) but that happens soooooooo late. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t hate the film. There’s half a good Wolf Man movie and maybe half a good Frankenstein movie, but instead of working them together they just told half the story of each of them. Which was… disappointing. Franchescanado posted:SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #10: Navel Gazing blood_dot_biz posted:Haha, poo poo.   47 (59). Bug (2006) Watched on Starz Ashley Judd is a withdraw, grieving addict who meets Micheal Shannon, a paranoid, drifting conspiracy theorist. They make an unexpected connection and she begins to spiral down his ever increasing series of conspiracies or delusions. “Did you order a pizza?” Woah. Act 1: “An interesting character piece, I wonder where this is going.” Act 2: “Ohhhh, its one of those are they insane or is it really happening things.” Act 3:  Even when I kind of knew where everything was going I had absolutely no idea how far everything would go. That entire third act just had my eyes bugging out of my skull just trying to keep up. Its a really good directorial choice (by William Friedkin, he of The Exorcist) to sort of jump time between acts. By not letting us see every stop of the progression it comes as a pretty huge shock when we rejoin and catch up. We know how they got there, but we had no idea how far they had gotten since last we saw them. And dear god they get far. I can’t remember the last time I saw Ashley Judd in something and its weird since I think she’s always delivered when I have. Michael Shannon I haven’t really seen in much that I can remember. I know his name and face but I just can’t think of any roles I remember seeing him in. But both did a pretty remarkable job of showing two differently damaged people spiraling in two different ways. Peter is obviously kind of off to begin with but is keeping it in check but Agnes is just lonely, grieving, and depressed. But as he starts to open up and spiral she just keeps getting dragged deeper and deeper because she makes the mistake of reaching out to a drowning man. That entire final sequence where Peter just rants psychotically and pushes Agnes to draw up her own conspiracy theories and connect random dots. I can’t say I’ve ever had a lot of experience with paranoid delusion or schizophrenia or something but it came off like a pretty authentic display of how someone gets lost and confused. It was at least pretty convincing to me. I don’t know what more I can say about it. Its not a movie that leave a lot to be talked about or has questions or anything. The last two acts are basically 2 long scenes. I use the Three Acts idea a lot in these reviews and it doesn’t always apply cleanly but this really did play out in a lot of ways like a stage play with two actors in a room going through 3 different scenes to tell a story. And again, both actors just hit it completely out of the park. Excellent recommendation, blood_dot_biz. This isn’t a movie that was on my list. Its one I’ve kind of passed over a ton over the years but I was never really sure what to make of it or if it was me. Thank you very much.
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Oct 26, 2019 06:44
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22: Godzilla vs Megalon Challenge 7: monster mash This one owns. The human storyline is fairly interesting, and also as insane as a lot of later Toho stuff, but we're here for giant monsters and you get them. Megalon is really cool and it's nice to see something different like him, Gigan is one of my favourite kaiju designs, and Jet Jaguar kicks all kinds of rear end. Godzilla's hyped up intro and goofy WWE moves only add to the charm
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Oct 26, 2019 07:05
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Super Samhain Challenge #12: Cavalcade of Creepiness 28. Screamtime An early 80s British anthology, but with linking segments filmed in New York. The framing device is pretty perfunctory, a couple of guys shoplift some horror videos, which comprise the three stories. The first is about an old man who runs a Punch and Judy show, and the family who nag him about it and want him to give it up. What happens next is perhaps inevitable, and this one can't quite get past the silliness of its core idea. The second segment is actually pretty spooky though, it's newlyweds moving into a house and the woman starts seeing things. The third story involves a man going to work as a gardener for two old ladies who love talking about the faeries in their garden- this one also ends up a bit silly but it's endearingly so, and overall, the charm offensive works. There are times when the whole thing is let down by amateurish production- shots of a man "stabbing" someone who's obviously just sort of brushing the knife against them- but I think this one honestly deserves a little more attention. It has a certain wry British charm.
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Oct 26, 2019 08:25
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SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #11: All Hail The King Watch a Stephen King adaptation that you haven't seen.#35: Gerald's Game (2017)  I'm a huge Stephen King fan, but this story has always been a huge blind spot. I've known what it was about since I was in high school, I just never got around to reading it. I'm kind of glad I didn't and just knew the barebones elements of the plot, because goddamn this goes places. And it's Stephen King as poo poo. I loved it, every cringe-inducing, spine-tingling creepy and uncomfortable moment of it. Carla Gugino and Bruce Greenwood play Jessie and Gerald Burlingame (hah?), a wealthy couple with a secluded lake house who take a private trip to try and save their marriage. Gerald is much older than Jessie, so to save their sex life he handcuffs his wife to the bed and she isn't into it. They get into an argument (while she's still handcuffed to the bed) and he suffers a legitimate heart attack and dies, leaving her alone and unable to free herself chained to a bed in a secluded cabin in the middle of nowhere. That's not a spoiler, that's just the setup. What happens is a series of events, both real and imagined, where a woman tries to free herself from an absolute nightmare scenario. It goes into hallucinogenic places and still takes time to pay attention to realistic details, which is what makes me think of older King stories like "The Long Walk." This is the kind of thing that makes the man the most successful American author in history (financially speaking, it's not a subjective opinion it's a fact) and the entire movie is backed up by fantastic performances that totally deliver. I'm in the middle of my first reading of "The Talisman" right now, but once I finish it I'm going to hunt down "Gerald's Game" and see how the actual book compares. King has had an obscene number of movies adapted from his stories, and even though I haven't read the the source material yet I know from the praise its already received and my own viewing that it's a Good One. 4/5 Watched: Midsommar; One Cut of the Dead; Apostle; Wolf Creek; Lake Mungo; Viy (Challenge #1); Demon Knight; Witchfinder General; Razorback; Joker; A Quiet Place; Spider Baby, or the Maddest Story Ever Told (Challenge #2); Hereditary; The First Purge (Challenge #3); Killer Condom; Road Games; Next of Kin; Zombie aka Zombi 2; Suspiria (1977) (Challenge #4); Phantom of the Paradise; In Her Skin; Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon; Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead; Troll Hunter aka Trollhunter (Challenge #5); The Tunnel; Profondo Rossa aka Deep Red; Body Melt; Suspiria (2018) (Challenge #6); Sadako vs. Kayako (Challenge #7); Black Christmas (Challenge #8); Unfriended (Challenge #9); Unfriended: Dark Web; Triangle; The Wailing (Challenge #10); Gerald's Game (Challenge #11) Total: 35 T3hRen3gade fucked around with this message at 08:53 on Oct 26, 2019 |
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Oct 26, 2019 08:50
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Lumbermouth posted:
In case you're curious, West interrupts before it happens.
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Oct 26, 2019 09:08
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 It Came from Outer Space, 1953 You can't go wrong with some 50s sci-fi horror. It's either gonna be a shitfest you can make fun of or an actually good movie, so it's a win-win either way. It Came from Outer Space is the later type. It got an interesting mystery going and it don't feel as dumb as most of these low budged alien movies. What appears to be an meteorite is actually a spaceship crash landing on earth. The first to investigate the crater sees that, but the ship gets buried soon after and no one believes him. Strange poo poo starts to happen and people go missing. It's surprisingly well done and feels eerie in some scenes. It Came from Outer Space is not as stiff or cheesy as you'd expect it to be. The aliens look very much alien and they way they imitates humans are creepy enough. It's a slow movie like most from this time, but never boring. No forced romance plot and not filled with scenes of people just talking about stuff to pad the run time. If you've gotten the taste for 50s sci-fi horror, then you should watch It Came from Outer Space.
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Oct 26, 2019 10:44
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Hi, Did 36 movies last year and have done a few this year. Real life and a new job catching up to me, so going to get nowhere near 31. Friday the 13th Re-Watch Binge 1. Friday the 13th 2. Friday the 13th Part 2 3. Friday the 13th Part III 4. Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter 5. Friday the 13th: A New Beginning 6. Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives 7. Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood Re-watching these with my girlfriend to get her take (she's watching for the first time) and make it a little more fun. Not that anyone well-versed in horror needed to know this, but these are mostly gutter-tier movies that are a total slog in particular to binge. I would say 3, 4, 6, and 7 are pretty good. Haven't gotten around to re-watching Part 8. It would have been nice if the people putting one of these out every year had enough foresight and reputation to attract returning actors and put together a coherent multi-movie narrative, instead of almost every movie either being a re-tread or based around a gimmick. Though there are flashes of effort early on in 3 and 4, Jason Lives is the first one that attempts throughout to be a near-decent movie with a three-act structure, instead of just an incredibly slow and lame porno. The worst is when you get one like A New Beginning where it's not even gory and the filmmaking is complete trash from people who would rather be doing anything else with their careers. I haven't gotten back to finish this binge, and I just realized today that there is a 2009 entry and a fan film, so technically I have six more if I want to get this done right. 8. Halloween (1978) (Re-Watch) Even Pauline Kael criticized this movie for being a tad slow, but it's good, especially compared to literally any Friday the 13th movie. The mask is just... Perfect, and it's filmed effectively and is scary in a way that other movies in the genre would take years to catch up to. The silly cross-eyed kills and Donald Pleasence sitting behind a bush for an hour waiting for the plot to catch up to him do not hold up well though. 9. Halloween (2018) (Re-Watch) Despite being a reboot where Michael has been sitting listlessly in a funny farm for 40 years, still treats him as an unstoppable legendary killer to add gravitas. 10. Child's Play (1988) Still a legitimately great movie that showcases great practical effects work over a production with some effort put into it. I feel like they could have gotten more out of mixing masked actors with animatronic sequences, as when Chucky has full freedom of movement he's legitimately terrifying. 11. Child's Play (2019) I knew I was going to like what this movie was going for when it began with a cold open introducing the Alexabuddi and then a smash cut to a bolt of lightning and an Asian sweatshop worker being slapped in the face. It's really funny, if you go for its particular sort of black humor, but it loses some steam during the driverless car sequence, which just meanders and is unclever. It's at its best when it's channeling Chappie, The Terminator, Saw, and Stranger Things, and letting Mark Hamill go all ham on everything. Its best moments shouldn't be given away. It was definitely the right movie for them to do their own thing entirely, setting aside the Brad Dourif stuff and making a different kind of story. I thought it generally worked for most of the run-time and was laugh-out loud funny. 12. Hellboy (2019) David Harbour is a perfectly good Hellboy (though no Ron Perlman) and Milla Jovovich is doing her level best. It's a shame about literally everything else, but the script that doesn't know if it's supposed to be a hard R or a preteen kids movie is the worst part. It's pretty hard to make Ian McShane tiresome but they did it and then some. If we had 90 minutes of the Baba Yaga sequence we would almost be talking about a decent movie, almost. But in general the effects compare poorly to CG from 15-20 years ago and the script is so unfocused in both tone and plot that it's painful.
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Oct 26, 2019 11:15
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STAC Goat posted:
I probably wouldn’t surprised you to know that it was originally a stage play before being adapted into a film. I saw it off-Broadway in like 2005 or so in a tiny little theater, it was pretty intense. Also the actors spent the entire last act 100% naked on stage which was a little awkward because I went with my parents.
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Oct 26, 2019 13:05
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Movies 12, 13, and 14 out of 31 12: Mama  Purchased: I bought it at release because Guillermo Del Toro produced it. Status: Actually opened and been watched a couple times. Mama is where Andy Muschietti really showcased his talent for having Javier Botet move at a camera doing contortionist poo poo and then speeding it up. Jokes aside I very much enjoy this movie. It has that dark fantasy feel of something very Guillermo Del Toro. A fairly straightforward ghost story that by the end, I'm never scared, just sad. It starts as a jumpscare fest but you leave it feeling melancholy. Props to Javier Botet tho. Dude can fuckin contort like no other. 4 "Victoria! Mama! Come!" Out of 5 13: The Thing (1982)  Purchased: After my wife watched The Thing (2011) and wanted to see what happened next. Status: Used well. I love this movie. The Thing is one of maybe 5 good sci-fi horror movies. There's The Thing, Cube, Event Horizon, and actually there's only 3 good sci-fi horror movies. This movie earns it's scares through subtle foreshadowing and paranoia. I wish I could watch this for the first time again because the practical effects are just so on point. Either way, at the end we learned The Thing was the friend we made along the way. 5 "Få faen der ute. Det er ikke en hund, det er en slags ting! Den etterligner en hund, den er ikke ekte! Kom deg bort, idioter! "" Out of 5. 14: The Thing (2011) See above photo Purchased: On Amazon at some point after my wife had seen it on TV. I actually had never seen this one. I am aware that they scrapped a bunch of amazing practical effects for cheap CG so point off for that already. Status: Opened. Guess my wife has watched it. Bigger and wilder than it's predecessor, The Thing 2011 just doesn't do it for me. I wish they would have stuck with the practical effects and the creeping dread building up to some Thing shenanigans. Some of the sneaky reveals like how The Thing can't replicate non-organic stuff was kinda neat, but then was tasked with carrying the plot forward. Not a lot of tension in this one either. Its pretty clear who is and isn't safe. Just watch the remake of the original. 2 "burn it" out of 5
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Oct 26, 2019 13:22
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STAC Goat posted:FYI, the Universal Monsters Blu Rays are currently on sale on Amazon for $15 per Monster, cheaper than the DVDs which I’m watching them on. I don’t know how much difference the quality would make but its one of those “drat” consumer moments. But I thought I’d mention it if anyone else might be interested in getting some of these classic sets. Thanks for the heads up. As the guy watching all the box sets this year I had to grab it and it'll even be delivered Sunday so I'll probably watch one or two movies out of it for the challenge. That takes care of my gap day on Monday nicely. And speaking of challenges. I'm probably going to get to the Naval Gazing challenge today and my time constraints are so rough that I want to get the suggestion out of the way now so I can jump into it straight from the previous movie. The streaming services available to me are Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu, plus anything that's freely available of course. The only thing I'm going to overrule are any movies I have watched this month or movies in the three box sets I'm working through for my daily challenge (don't worry too much about that; I'll just shoot it down if you hit one of those four remaining movies somehow). Edit: I'll be watching The First Purge for this one. Random Stranger fucked around with this message at 19:17 on Oct 26, 2019 |
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Oct 26, 2019 13:34
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 108) Friday the 13th - 2009 - DVD As far as the remake bandwagon of the time went, this one was pretty decent in my opinion. Not so much as a remake of the original film, but a reimagining incorporating elements of the first four films. Nana Visitor pulls off a good version of Pamela Voorhees. The box office numbers were good for the film. There were plans to have this film springboard off a revitalized franchise but the Victor Miller lawsuit currently has it dead in the water at this time. Final Thoughts: Looking at how extensive the franchise is, it's impressive. There's several non-novelization books that have been published. While some are hard to find, The 80's Slasher Librarian on Youtube has done audiobook versions of them along with other horror franchise books such as the ones for Final Destination and Nightmare on Elm Street. Games have ranged from the one on NES what was infuriatingly difficult to the free on Steam Friday the 13th Killer Puzzle to Friday the 13th: The Game. While Tommy Jarvis was only in three of the franchise's films, he's a main character in the comic books and novels, and at one point teaming up with Ash Williams and the survivors of Freddy Krueger (They're pretty much a shared universe of what feels like every horror movie). Unfortunately due to the Victor Miller lawsuit, the entire franchise is trapped in limbo, and in some instances killed aspects of the franchise. In light of how much interest in the franchise is still out there, we can but hope there will be some meeting of the minds with the assorted rightsholders and the franchise can rise again.  Franchise: Halloween Might as well wrap up my franchise watching with the one named for the holiday. While slasher films existed before Halloween, this was the one that grabbed the public attention by the short and curlies. While not as diverse a franchise as Friday the 13th is, Halloween has spawned books, comics, a game, and toys. Interestingly enough, this franchise is one that has spun out into differing continuities.  109) Halloween - 1978 - Shudder Plotwise, it's pretty much a template as Friday the 13th is. What made it scary was there being no apparent reason for Michael to become a killer. In the TV edit and the novelization, we're given a backstory of sorts with a druid curse placed on a Celt who murdered the chieftain's daughter and over the centuries members of the Myers family occasionally hear voices or act strange. Interestingly many of the critics who praised this film would promptly hate on all other slasher films. The film has been preserved by the Library of Congress' National Film Registry for its significance.  110) Halloween II - 1981 - Prime This one picks up right after the first one, and is the film that introduces the Laurie's related to Michael angle. It's pretty much what one could expect from a sequel and the novelization's pretty good. There is a TV edit version I've not seen in years that I remember having a slightly different ending. Notably, this film was sited in a murder trial where the defendant's lawyers stated their client while under the influence of drugs and alcohol was reenacting the movie. It was enough to get the bandwagon rolling on the claim by 'experts' that horror movies turn people into killers.
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Oct 26, 2019 14:45
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SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #11: All Hail The King #58: Children of the Corn  Yay, Linda Hamilton! My original plan for this challenge was to watch Leprechaun, because I had always heard that it was inspired by HP Lovecraft's description of an Irishman. But I couldn't find any proof of that online so I guess that's just an urban legend. Like half this movie is a couple driving around corn fields, slowly getting more annoyed. When they finally get to the evil kid town it picks up, because there's some kind of actual peril. The wandering around town scenes could've been really creepy and effective. Unfortunately, what's going on with the town was thoroughly explained to the audience very early on, so there's no mystery. Children of the Corn seems to have a hold on some kind of moral with the whole, "bad religions are bad" thing. But it's not very well done or fleshed out at all. And the part where the guy owns the kids with facts and logic is terrible. That kid is good at yelling "Outlander!". There's a pretty big gap in talent between the two evil kid actors and the two good kid actors. I'm not sure why they gave the voice over job to the good kid, who is not great at it. Let the evil priest kid do the voice over, that would've been fantastic. Hell, leave the good kids out altogether and the movie would be stronger for it imo. I like that there's an actual monster, and I really like how the monster is depicted. The weird static effect let's you know this is something weird, something we can't understand. Slightly ruined when it attacks the guy by bashing him with corn stalks, but whatevs The premise is great, Linda Hamilton is always good, the creepy corn church is creepy, and the evil kid actors do a great job. But the first half is dull and overall I just don't think Children of the Corn has enough meat on it's bones to fill the running time. This became a franchise?
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Oct 26, 2019 14:55
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And now, the final installment of... HOUSE, HOME and/or ROOM OF HORROR with special bonus AMITYVILLE ENNUI  29) Hausu (House; 1977) - watched on Scream Stream Trailer Rather than spend her summer with her father and his new wife, a Japanese schoolgirl and several of her friends instead opt to visit her aunt, who lives alone in a house in the countryside. Once the friends arrive, however, they discover that things are not as they seem and that their aunt is...hungry. I started this challenge with the 1986 movie House, which is also sort of a horror-comedy, but I chose this to be the bookend because these two movies are so far removed from one another it's insane. Hausu is a psychadelic child's storybook fever dream - and it makes a lot of sense when you read that director Nobuhiko Obayashi got a lot of the ideas of what's in the film from his young daughter. Sudden shifts in camera style and movement; mixing of stage sets, painted backdrops and lush, live scenery; black and white photographs and flashbacks brought to life with stylized titles; cartoonish, lo-fi special effects - I was taken pretty early on by the audacity of it and how well it pulls it off. There's scary stuff here but it's presented in such a kid's nightmare way that it can't be scary...but at the same time what we're shown is so unsettling you can't quite laugh it off. But there's a lot of beauty in it, too, as well as an eclectic soundtrack filled with pop songs, earworm piano themes, and, well, Kung Fu's action music, we can't forget that. To say more would be giving it away - you really should watch this if you get the chance. It's a one-of-a-kind film. AMITYVILLE ENNUI  30) Amityville Dollhouse (1996) - I actually had to watch this on a questionable movie site because I couldn't find it streaming anywhere else Trailer A newly married construction guy builds his dream house on the lot where a house previously burned down, apparently in the middle of nowhere. In the nearby shed, he finds a dollhouse that happens to look like the house at 112 Ocean Ave. Unfortunately for he and his family, it's a spoopy dollhouse! Soon after, unfortunate things begin to happen to his family and the dollhouse is playing for keeps! So the only connection this one has to the franchise is the dollhouse looks like the iconic Amityville home, but that's it - no mention of Amityville, no mention of the DeFeo murders. But you know what? It doesn't really matter, because I found this to be a pretty entertaining little haunted house movie. It carries some of the hallmarks of the franchise - like in the original, the family here is newly married, but the wrinkle is both families have kids - the dad has a rebellious older son who is still traumatized by his parents' divorce, and a young daughter, and the wife has a nerdy son (the older son likes to pick on the younger one, we soon learn) with a dead military dad (shades of Amityville 4). The dollhouse gets down to business pretty quickly - it gets itself into the house by possessing dad's pickup truck and making it smoosh the bike he was going to give his daughter, so the dollhouse is a substitute present. What follows is the usual hijinks - windows won't close, the fireplace comes on at all the wrong times, it's too hot or cold, and there are demonic bugs in the house that attack people. We're also shown that things that happen in the dollhouse begin to reflect what's going on in the real house (the young son's pet mouse find this out the hard way). The dollhouse makes the mom horny for the older son, there are evil voodoo dolls, but probably the best element of the film is the zombified dead dad of the younger son, who keeps coming back in more decrepit condition and urges his son to kill the new dad. The makeup FX on this guy is great and he's a good actor and villain at the end - in fact, the climax of the film has several full-body monster suits, I was suitably impressed. Also, there's no religion or priests to help out this time - the dad's brother and his wife are psychic pagan investigators or something, and the brother saves the day at the end of the movie with wards and spells! This movie actually feels like it cribs a lot from the Poltergeist films and even the 1986 House, but it picks most of the best parts to steal.  31) The Amityville Horror (2005) - watched on Amazon Prime Trailer A year after the murder of the DeFeo family by Ronald DeFeo Jr. at 112 Ocean Avenue, newlyweds George and Kathy Lutz (Ryan Reynolds and Melissa George) move their family into the house. They soon beging to experience terrifying events over the course of the following 28 days that eventually force them to flee. So here we are, the end of the Amityville portion of my challenge (watching the nine movies from the original 1979 film through the 2005 remake). And how does AH 2005 stack up? Well, I'll give it this - it's a better film than the 1979 original, but to contemporary horror film watchers, it feels like everything you've seen before (and since). It's...just okay? There are several weird things about it. Reynolds and George are an appealing couple, but that's kind of the problem - I like Ryan Reynolds a lot in other roles but I think he's miscast as George Lutz. He's way too jokey and it offsets the sort of underlying "is George actually a good guy?" feeling that the original plays heavily off of. In the original, their children are mere props and window dressing; in this version, they're given much, much more to do (the young daughter is played by Chloë Grace Moretz in an early role) and their relationships to the parents are explored more, so overall there's more empathy here with the cast than in the original. The original is shot in a leaden, matter-of-fact tone that does it no favors. Conversely, this one just feels too flashy. We get more action and still get blood and slime leaking from walls and faucets and furniture moving on its own; the hidden room in the basement; the priest being chased from the house - but we now also have mid-'00s horror film editing and sensibilities at play, so there's rapid flash cuts, cheesy-as-poo poo jump scares, fake-out scares and it's much, much more up front with "Jody" (they ditched the demon pig and now we have a sullen ghost girl and other decayed specters clearly influenced by The Ring). The "babysitter trapped in the closet scene" is here, except this time it's built around a whole comedic segment with a hot pot-smoking babysitter (the original was the polar opposite) that is played for laughs, and it just makes me think "why is this movie trying to be funny?" Because it's a modern horror movie, it also has to explain what is haunting the house, which is a big misstep (it's very reminiscent of Poltergeist 2, a priest tortured and murdered Indians under the house and then killed himself so he'd be there forever and he's the one doing the haunting) and an excuse to throw in some gore at the end - the original is at least sort of creepy because we're never told or shown what's doing the haunting, but I'm guessing this is just what's going to happen when you update this for a modern audience. ***** And that's 31 movies, satisfying my original part of the challenge - watching a bunch of horror films with houses, homes or rooms in the title and the first nine Amityville films. I still have six or seven to go to meet all the Samhain Challenges, but I'm not holding those to the criteria I picked here. I just hope I have enough time to fit them all in! Watched so far: 1) House (1985) 2) Demon House (2018) 3) The Amityville Horror (1979) 4) Madhouse (1981) 5) Ghosthouse (1988) 6) Amityville 2: The Possession (1982) 7) Evilspeak (1981) SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #1: The Best Month8) The House of Seven Corpses (1974) 9) House of Exorcism (1975) 10) Amityville 3-D (1983) 11) Les Affames (The Ravenous, 2017) 12) Dead Snow (2009) 13) Alucarda (1977) 14) What We Do in the Shadows (2014) 15) The Horrible House on the Hill (1974) 16) The House That Dripped Blood (1971) 17) Amityville: The Evil Escapes (1989) SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #2: Dead & Buried18) The House That Screamed (1969) 19) The House Where Hell Froze Over (1974) 20) The Amityville Curse (1990) 21) Horror Noire (2019) SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #3: Horror Noire22) Amityville: It's About Time (1992) SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #6: Sometimes They Come Back23) Amityville: A New Generation (1993) SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #4: Inktober24) Don't Open the Door (1974) 25) Don't Go in the House (1979) 26) Don't Look in the Attic (1981) 27) Don't Look in the Cellar (2008) 28) Don't Look in the Basement (1973) 29) Hausu (1977) 30) Amityville Dollhouse (1996) 31) The Amityville Horror (2005)
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Oct 26, 2019 15:09
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38. Dracula's Daughter (1936, Lambert Hillyer) Blu-ray As I'm watching the classic Universal monster cycle in chronological order, it only makes sense that after a sequel to Frankenstein, they'd do one for Dracula. How does one follow that up five years later and within Bela Lugosi? While I don't think this comes close to the greatness of Bride, this has some neat themes in itself. This literally begins minutes after the '31 films ends, though with the oddness that none of the surviving characters except for Edward Van Sloan as Van Helsing (called Von Helsing here for whatever reason) appear. The police show up (one of them played by E.E. Clive, of course) and arrest Von Helsing for murder. Of course, his argument is how could he have killed Dracula when he died 500 years ago? The other main plot thread has to do with the titular character. There's a pretty clear homosexual subtext to this - the Countess preys mostly on women, with the occasional man, plus her aversion to carrying out her vampiric urges. This is magnificently shot and the dialogue seems right out of a radio play, with nary a wasted moment. 3.5/5
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Oct 26, 2019 15:18
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October 26 - The Purge: Election Year https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXMp9fBomJw I've reached the end of my purging for the year. I know there's one more movie in the series, but this is what I had in the Blumhouse box set. Once again all crime is legal for a night, but this year is different. A presidential candidate is running on a platform of ending the purge. In response, the government changes the purge rules so that political figures are fair game and then tries to assassinate her during the purge. So she goes on the run and has to survive the night to have a chance of ending the madness. I was wondering if the series was going full action movie after Anarchy leaned heavily into that, but Election Year worked in more horror elements. It still dropped heavily into action movie tropes by the end, but it was a better mix of the two than Anarchy. On the other hand, for all of the wrapping about the fate of the country at stake, this was the exact same story as Anarchy. On the run through the city (with one of the same characters!) and being hunted by the government. At least this time there were some rich assholes getting massacred at what was basically the exact same set up in Anarchy. It makes it feel like the series is already running out of steam despite having a wide open concept. Something mentioned early on in the movie is purge insurance and I'm really wondering how that works. Since insurance fraud is legal in the purge, why not insure your stuff for a huge amount and then burn it down yourself? It seems like a real loser of a business. They spent a lot of money on squibs for this outing. There's fountains of blood everywhere in the gun fights. So after three purges, I think I'll pass on The First Purge. While they've been improving, the movies still aren't thrilling me. Election Year was decent, but nothing I'd go out of my way for. I think I'd prefer smaller, more personal stories about what happens that night instead of these stories about people getting into one incident after another all night. Maybe an anthology film would work for this series. FWIW, I'm still waiting for my wild card suggestion...
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Oct 26, 2019 15:33
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Random Stranger posted:So after three purges, I think I'll pass on The First Purge. I can't do it because I've already given a Wild Card suggestion, but someone please say The First Purge
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Oct 26, 2019 15:37
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SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #8: Happy Holidays! #29) Black Christmas (1974)  Wow, I'm ashamed that I called myself a horror nerd before I saw this. Black Christmas is the progenitor of the entire slasher subgenre. You can distinctly see the lineage from earlier giallo films like Blood and Black Lace (1964), straight through to later slashers like Halloween (1978). However, Black Christmas is where a lot of the modern tropes started - a sorority, a hidden killer we see through his point of view, the call coming from inside the house, etc. There's surprisingly little to no gore or violence shown, telling the story instead through a whodunnit mystery to find a missing girl. The pacing is great, with some great humor sprinkled throughout to break up the feeling of dread. Absolutely a fantastic film I'm going to have to add to my repertoire. 4/5Challenges completed: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Challenges not completed: 9 10 11 12 13
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Oct 26, 2019 16:15
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 35 Nudist Colony of the Dead (1991) [???] When religious zealots force a nudist colony to be shut-down, the nudists see only one way out: committing mass suicide. When several years later the local church holds a Jesus camp on the old camp ground, its previous residents come with a vengeance. Being a no-budget zombie comedy-musical should’ve raised some red flags, but since the theme song was so drat catchy, I was hoping this might actually be good. Sadly, it’s not. Even besides the very questionable ethnic stereotypes, the humor does not land at all. There is also very little actual zombie action or gore, and, contrary to what might be expected from the title, very little nudity. The only half decent thing in the movie are the songs, which are quite catchy and the dumb humor is somehow more tolerable when sung an combined with terrible dance routines.  36 Creep 2 (2017) SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #6: Sometimes They Come Back [California] I liked Creep and even though I heard many people say that this one was even better, I never got around to it. I was expecting more of the same, so I was surprised with the direction this took right from the start. The idea of a serial killer with a mid-life crisis is great, and I like how meta it got and how different it felt from its predecessor while staying true to it nevertheless.  37 Death Bed: The Bed that Eats (1977) [Michigan] There’s a bed. It eats people. The title pretty much covers it. This was not what I expected of a movie with such a gimmicky premise. Much more of a philosophical experimental art house film than a schlocky B-movie, this was surprisingly watchable with some interesting visuals.
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Oct 26, 2019 16:20
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Random Stranger posted:FWIW, I'm still waiting for my wild card suggestion... Yep, you need to watch The First Purge. Probably the best of the series. Your work isn't done yet.
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Oct 26, 2019 16:31
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