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Burkion
May 10, 2012

by Fluffdaddy

TheOmegaWalrus posted:

Based on the trailer and the new Twilight Zone, I'm not holding my breath.

Separate the content from that "talent" and we'll see.

How much does Jordan even have to do with this series, compared to what he 'does' for Twilight Zone

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The_Doctor
Mar 29, 2007

"The entire history of this incarnation is one of temporal orbits, retcons, paradoxes, parallel time lines, reiterations, and divergences. How anyone can make head or tail of all this chaos, I don't know."

Burkion posted:

How much does Jordan even have to do with this series, compared to what he 'does' for Twilight Zone

He’s an Executive Producer, which means little to no involvement.

Burkion
May 10, 2012

by Fluffdaddy
I'll give the show a look when it comes out but I learned my lesson from Twilight Zone 2019. Just because Jordan Peele lets his name be stamped on something doesn't mean he'll have anything to do with the thing.

Kvlt!
May 19, 2012



I'm a big fan of Jordan Peele's comedy but I've only ever seen Get Out and I thought it was ok. The whole "sunken place" thing was really freaky and cool and unsettling, I thought he did a fantastic job of that and there were a lot of moments where I think you could see that Jordan Peele has a mind for writing some genuinely really good horror. I can't help but be disappointed at the finished product though, I don't know at the end of the day I thought it was a good movie but lacked something that made it a great movie. I think it needed to either be a horror movie or be a horror-comedy movie, but it was too serious to be a horror-comedy and too light to be a horror movie.

I remember walking out of the theater thinking "This is a really good start for a new part of his career" and was really excited to see what he did next but everyone tells me US was terrible and the Twilight Zone reboot is a nightmare :/

Shrecknet
Jan 2, 2005


Us was not terrible, it just had three distinct endings, in a row.

Kvlt!
May 19, 2012



that sounds terrible

STAC Goat
Mar 12, 2008

Watching you sleep.

Butt first, let's
check the feeds.

I didn't love either but describing Us as terrible and Twilight Zone as a nightmare feels vaguely hysterical.

Shrecknet
Jan 2, 2005


Kvlt! posted:

that sounds terrible

It was more of a "oh, what a nice ending!" And then the movie goes anither five minutes and you're like "oh, what a neat twist!" And then it goes on another five minutes and you're like "yes, of course, the ending!"

Its interesting because you can turn it off after any of the three endings and be satisfied, depending on if you like it or not.

gey muckle mowser
Aug 5, 2003

Do you know anything about...
witches?



Buglord
I've never heard anyone call Us terrible, in fact I've seen many people around here who think it's better than Get Out. I think it's very good but kinda flawed, maybe too ambitious for its own good. Still one of the better horror films of last year.

STAC Goat
Mar 12, 2008

Watching you sleep.

Butt first, let's
check the feeds.

I think the core concept was probably a little too weird for me. I think that might be my criticism of Peele. I feel like the actual horror element of his films might be a like a little too detailed or complicated and get weird. But I kind of want to go back and rewatch it (and I definitely want to rewatch Get Out) and see what comes next. There's some disconnect I have with Peele's stuff that I haven't quite put my finger on but there's a ton more I like about it.

Burkion
May 10, 2012

by Fluffdaddy

STAC Goat posted:

I didn't love either but describing Us as terrible and Twilight Zone as a nightmare feels vaguely hysterical.

If every episode was the loving President Kid episode maybe not, but thankfully it wasn't that bad. Twilight Zone 2019 was just a let down. Over long, over produced, but underwritten. The last episode almost managed to articulate what they were getting wrong, but itself suffered greatly from its own production and over use of style.

But the thing is, Peele isn't to blame for any of that because he just hosted the drat thing. This isn't condemning or absolving him either, if your name is slapped on a product you SHOULD have something to do with it, but it is what it is. I think Twilight Zone 2019 was too worried about being Relevant and Iconic that it forgot to just be good sci-fi in a modern context that can, and hopefully will, comment on relevant issue.

There's a lot of stuff in the original Twilight Zone that's just white noise or pure nonsense, and it was allowed that because each season was 20+ episodes and 25 minutes each. Slash the number of episodes and make them all longer than they need to be and have to hit a certain budget quota and you have the recipe for disaster.

The_Doctor
Mar 29, 2007

"The entire history of this incarnation is one of temporal orbits, retcons, paradoxes, parallel time lines, reiterations, and divergences. How anyone can make head or tail of all this chaos, I don't know."
US forces you to read it as metaphor, because the concept falls apart you put any sort of thought into it.

TheOmegaWalrus
Feb 3, 2007

by Hand Knit
Being honest I'm even more weary of JJ Abrams than Peele at this point.

His whole "mystery box" technique is just synthetic content with a small promise to flesh it out at some later point.

It's an unsatisfying cheap trick that once you learn it, you can spot it a mile off and recognize it for the shoddy storytelling that it is.

Gaz2k21
Sep 1, 2006

MEGALA---WHO??!!??
Today I received a copy of the Nekromantik sequel comic....I’m still not sure why I bought it.

DeimosRising
Oct 17, 2005

¡Hola SEA!


Gaz2k21 posted:

Today I received a copy of the Nekromantik sequel comic....I’m still not sure why I bought it.

Liar

ruddiger
Jun 3, 2004

Gaz2k21 posted:

Today I received a copy of the Nekromantik sequel comic....I’m still not sure why I bought it.

Is it a sequel to the first movie or the second movie?

WeaponX
Jul 28, 2008



Us is really good, it’s not better than Get Out but it has great visuals and a fantastic soundtrack. I also thought some parts were funnier than anything in Get Out. Calling it terrible is crazy hyperbolic.

flashy_mcflash
Feb 7, 2011

WeaponX posted:

Us is really good, it’s not better than Get Out but it has great visuals and a fantastic soundtrack. I also thought some parts were funnier than anything in Get Out. Calling it terrible is crazy hyperbolic.

Agree. And Us's main failing over Get Out is maybe biting off more than it can chew. It aims to address huge societal issues in a metaphor that can't quite contain it and feels thin at points. But the only way I can see someone describing it as terrible is if they are obsessed with tactical realism issues.

Timeless Appeal
May 28, 2006
Part of what hangs people up on US is the whole reveal about the scientists ignoring that the person who reveals this information believes she is a messenger of God who is going to deliver her people by roughly remaking the Thriller video and Hands Across America. There's really no reason to believe Red--she just wants things to have a purpose. In that way, conspiracy theories and God are doing the same thing, giving some design to nonsense.

The opening quote about the tunnels fades out to this segment to hang on its "Many have no known purpose at all." The fade is because the opening quote is a bit of a red herring. It acts like it's justifying the plot of the movie, but it's not really. The abandoned tunnels and mine shifts present you with this image of abandonment and nation in decay. When the quote fades out and we're left with "Many have no known purpose at all," it's clear it's not talking about tunnels.

I think that US is this weird metaphor for America where I can't really synthesize what exactly it's saying, but it all feels very true and recognizable when I watch it.

Get Out is kind of like that as well. I think it has this very surface level "So-called Liberal Whites can be racists too" which is there, but what makes Get Out good is that it's not a morality tale. it's not scolding white people or telling them how to act--Peele's films have functionally cast white people as a lost cause at best. It's about taking the feeling of something (In Get Out, the mechanization, policing, and commodifying of black bodies; in US, the search for meaning in a decaying nation) and portraying it in its most grotesque extreme.

Timeless Appeal fucked around with this message at 21:02 on May 4, 2020

WeaponX
Jul 28, 2008



flashy_mcflash posted:

Agree. And Us's main failing over Get Out is maybe biting off more than it can chew. It aims to address huge societal issues in a metaphor that can't quite contain it and feels thin at points. But the only way I can see someone describing it as terrible is if they are obsessed with tactical realism issues.

Yeah I don’t want to start a derail but I already have a large tolerance for what some see as “plot holes” when a film is really working metaphorically and thematically. It just doesn’t bother me, crazier poo poo than fiction could ever dream up has happened in reality so nothing is really that unrealistic to me.

Not to say that some of the metaphorical and thematic aspects of Us weren’t clunky and dumb at times. But it really worked on a visceral level for me and like I said, audio and visually it was really really loving good.

Gaz2k21
Sep 1, 2006

MEGALA---WHO??!!??

ruddiger posted:

Is it a sequel to the first movie or the second movie?

My understanding is it’s a sequel to both and set some time after the events of the second film

WeedlordGoku69
Feb 12, 2015

by Cyrano4747

Kvlt! posted:

everyone tells me US was terrible

Us is solid as hell. I'm not entirely sure it'll be your bag in particular, especially if you weren't crazy about Get Out, but it's good.

It kind of feels like a weird middle ground between mainstream studio horror and dream-logic Italian stuff, and that personally worked incredibly well for me.

e: Like, the best way I can put it without going into at least mild spoiler territory is, Us has a lot of really loving unnerving and cool ideas and images, that also pretty much require you to toss realism entirely out the window for them to make any sense whatsoever. It's a movie almost tailor-made to infuriate CinemaSins.

WeedlordGoku69 fucked around with this message at 22:22 on May 4, 2020

Origami Dali
Jan 7, 2005

Get ready to fuck!
You fucker's fucker!
You fucker!
I said this in another thread, but Peele probably had more to do with Twilight Zone than just hosting, considering the majority of the crew making it are people who work at/for his company Monkey Paw, people he's worked with on other projects, comedy writers, and network tv directing regulars. There are a couple of directors for a couple of episodes that did horror/sci-fi previously, but I don't think the writers have done much horror/scifi besides this and it shows. Peele is writing at least one episode for season 2, and even though the reception was lackluster, the crew is largely the same. I didn't like what I saw of the first season at all and couldn't finish it. They should give their budget to the guys making Creepshow.

Also, if Peele isn't careful with his endorsements, he may turn his brand into a "Wes Craven / Clive Barker Presents" kind of situation.

Burkion
May 10, 2012

by Fluffdaddy
You should absolutely watch the last episode of the first season, I think anyone who likes Twilight Zone should

I'm not saying that it's good but it's not bad either. It's more...an exercise in frustration. They very clearly seem to understand what some of their issues were, but they also fall short, VERY short, of grasping the totality of the problem. It's...I'd rather not spoil it, but it's one of those episodes that leave me conflicted. I can see, so much, what they wanted to do. But they also just didn't get there. It's the most Twilight Zone 2019 that Twilight Zone 2019 could ever be

The_Doctor
Mar 29, 2007

"The entire history of this incarnation is one of temporal orbits, retcons, paradoxes, parallel time lines, reiterations, and divergences. How anyone can make head or tail of all this chaos, I don't know."
I watched the first episode, with Kumail Nanjiani, and its worst crime was that it was achingly dull, and got the twist across within minutes. But then you have to sit through the rest of the episode as it all plays out glacially slowly.

TheOmegaWalrus
Feb 3, 2007

by Hand Knit
I caught the first two episodes of Twilight Zone '19 and as a huge fan of the Rod Serling original, couldn't continue.

The original were mind-teasing pot broilers of stories. Here's a fantastical premise, here's a little social commentary, let that bake for 20 minutes but don't overcook it and it leaves the viewers with an interesting little thought experiment.

Twilight '19 is both overcooked and underthought. Here's some fiction, here's some famous faces, we'll explain every nuance of the story to you and with the half hour that remains subject the audience to a self-congratulatory victory lap.

Were the new series called something else, it wouldn't have been so offensive.

married but discreet
May 7, 2005


Taco Defender
I can almost guarantee that all the people who say Us is terrible are CinemaSins devotees.

In retrospect, for me Us is much better than Get Out, and probably one of the best and most interesting horrors of the last couple years.

Irony.or.Death
Apr 1, 2009


I think Get Out was put together more carefully and in most individual ways probably the better movie, but I'd be much more excited to watch Us again - I like the giallo comparison, and I hope he keeps leaning further into that.

Burkion
May 10, 2012

by Fluffdaddy

The_Doctor posted:

I watched the first episode, with Kumail Nanjiani, and its worst crime was that it was achingly dull, and got the twist across within minutes. But then you have to sit through the rest of the episode as it all plays out glacially slowly.

That's gonna come up again.

Some episodes are bad in other ways. Some just...feel like they needed another pass or three. The second episode is just a good ole fashioned idiot plot, where nothing would happen if the main character wasn't an idiot. The third episode really needed to rethink what it wanted to be about- it has a great message about the strength of family and community that comes in WAY too late after loving around with a ground hog day loop for no good reason. The Kid President episode is an SNL sketch that goes on for an hour and forgets to be funny, inciteful or actually mean anything.

And so on. Even the best episode of the season to me has an ending that goes on too long that robs it of all momentum.

dorium
Nov 5, 2009

If it gets in your eyes
Just look into mine
Just look into dreams
and you'll be alright
I'll be alright




I dont think I liked Saw or Saw 2. I may have actively hated Saw 2 actually. Welp, nowhere else to go but Saw 3!

WeaponX
Jul 28, 2008



Twilight Zone is something that just doesn’t need to be remade and every attempt has hinted at that fact yet still ignores it in the end.

We have plenty of old Twilight Zone episode and they all work great in their place and time.

I think of something weird and new like Channel Zero and I want more of that to replace the Twilight Zone shaped hole in my heart, not a bad pastiche.

King of Bleh
Mar 3, 2007

A kingdom of rats.

The_Doctor posted:

I watched the first episode, with Kumail Nanjiani, and its worst crime was that it was achingly dull, and got the twist across within minutes. But then you have to sit through the rest of the episode as it all plays out glacially slowly.


Sounds like they were extremely faithful to the bad episodes of the original series!

Neo Rasa
Mar 8, 2007
Everyone should play DUKE games.

:dukedog:

dorium posted:

I dont think I liked Saw or Saw 2. I may have actively hated Saw 2 actually. Welp, nowhere else to go but Saw 3!

I haven't seen them in forever but I definitely remember as they dropped Saw 2 being considered particularly bad among them.

FreudianSlippers
Apr 12, 2010

Shooting and Fucking
are the same thing!

OpenSourceBurger posted:

So I'm sure this comes up every so often but, what is everyone here's dream horror project?

Let's say you are given absolute funding, told to go wild and you can work with any property you choose, what is the one horror film you want to make?

A feature length adaptation of this 16th century painting:

FreudianSlippers
Apr 12, 2010

Shooting and Fucking
are the same thing!

alternatively:

FreudianSlippers posted:

Movie idea:

Vampire Rashomon based on the old folkloric vampires. The nature of the vampire changes from story to story. A revenant with iron teeth that it uses to chew through doors and walls since it can't use doorknobs due to severe rigor mortis in the hands, a boneless bag of blood that floats around causing mischief, a undead sorcerer with a long sharp tongue that it stabs into its victims to drain them of all blood, a living mass of humanoid blood created from the remains of a murder victim that can not move from the spot but calls the name of the murderer and kills anyone that comes near and can only be killed with the same type of weapon as was used in the murder, a Bulgarian vampire revolting against death itself that loves wrestling and eats poop. Etc. etc. etc.

The vampire slayers involved could also be different archetypes of the era. The son of a vampire, a Islamic dervish from the Bektashi order, a Roma guy who is called in because everyone just assumes he knows poo poo about the supernatural simply from being Romani, a dude who is born on a Saturday and can therefore see invisible vampires, a guy who has a dog that can smell vampires.

or honestly just an actual film from this fake trailer I did aeons ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXMbR0LhC1A

Timeless Appeal
May 28, 2006
I gave up on TZ '09, but I feel like it would actually be well liked if they ditched the unnecessary cursing that CBS All-Access pushes with their shows and were 25 minute short films.

The Adam Scott episode is super clever albeit on the nose as is the camera episode. But it all becomes pretty belabored.

OG TZ was good because Sterling had a clear point of view and even brought some of his trauma to the show. And I think New TZ almost gets there, but makes these huge fumbles.

Origami Dali
Jan 7, 2005

Get ready to fuck!
You fucker's fucker!
You fucker!
I got a weird soft spot for Twilight Zone '85. There's some heavy duty talent on that show.

dorium
Nov 5, 2009

If it gets in your eyes
Just look into mine
Just look into dreams
and you'll be alright
I'll be alright




Neo Rasa posted:

I haven't seen them in forever but I definitely remember as they dropped Saw 2 being considered particularly bad among them.

I’m right at the end of Saw 3 and I didn’t hate it as much as Saw 2, but it’s still not anywhere near good. I think the worst of it has to be the melodrama. It’s some 2nd rate CW tier writing wrapped in really cool gore effects and production work. Tho the camera work would make Paul Greengrass puke.

Gunna take a break from watching these movies till tomorrow and binge a bunch of Fresh Prince of Bel-Air instead.

Serious Party Gods
Apr 2, 2009

WeedlordGoku69 posted:

It kind of feels like a weird middle ground between mainstream studio horror and dream-logic Italian stuff, and that personally worked incredibly well for me.

Ehhh, you're giving 'US' far too much credit.
It was a mess of half-baked ideas....Sameies with 'Get Out'. They aren't that good.

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Jezebel
Sep 6, 2004

Skal!

Horror goons, help me out. I need recommendations for the jump-scariest (but preferably not terrible) films you can think of for me to watch tomorrow- I've increased my anti-anxiety meds but I'm concerned we've gone too high on the dose. I'm watching It Chapter 2 now and barely blinking at scary poo poo. In comparison, when I watched The Borderlands last year I had to mute the sound and partially cover my eyes during parts of it. I've seen [Rec], Hereditary, The Descent, The Conjuring... (https://letterboxd.com/katef/films/genre/horror/) I guess I could always rewatch the Descent cuz it's been a long time, but I feel like that would taint the experiment. Should I go for Paranormal Activity or something?

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