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I'll be quick again because I overindulged in St Patricks Day yesterday. But I got the last movie in first. Seance just really didn't do much for me. I was kind of really hyped for it since I love a good ghost story but I dunno. It had some good creepy moments but they felt few and far between. It felt like really meandered to the ghost story and instead spent a lot of time with this not very interesting couple melodrama. And it felt very cold and lifeless to me. I just couldn't engage and given the way things went I was kind of ok about that. I just didn't feel the film at all and I feel the same way I did with last year's Kurasawa entry Cure. Evil Dead I really like though. I've seen people call that lifeless but I don't see it. Yes, the characters are bit stock pretty young people and we don't get a ton of depth beyond the detox story but I think that's enough to get the ball rolling before all goes to hell. And everything goes to hell so fast that it quickly kind of doesn't matter what's going on in their lives because holy poo poo. Its just a go, go, go movie that I really enjoy and I love the way it remakes Raimi's film without trying to out Raimi Raimi. Alvarez knows what we expect with Evil Dead and he knows he can't outcamp it so instead he does what he can and just take the gore and effects to 11. He also plays around with expectations all over the place from the protagonist of the story to Chekhov's Chainsaw. I just have a real good time. So yeah, I'm going Evil Dead. But its usually a bad sign when I favor the mainstream US film over the international one.
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Mar 18, 2021 20:10
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It could end up being a close matchup. I voted Evil Dead, not really as a slight against Seance but I just really love Evil Dead. It's one of the few horror remakes that I feel not only justified it's existence but is completely worthy of being mentioned alongside the original trilogy.
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Mar 18, 2021 20:18
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STAC Goat posted:I'll be quick again because I overindulged in St Patricks Day yesterday. But I got the last movie in first. I will say that the relationship seems cold and lifeless at first because it is. The film is slowly revealing how hosed up the marriage is. At first, the wife's psychic abilities are shown to be "powerful", or at least consistent. We eventually can surmise that the wife does have psychic powers, but has absolutely no control over them, and they especially seem to recede when she tries to use them to make money and/or gain notoriety. It's only when things have gone too far with the kidnapped girl that you realize how much of a selfish person the wife has been in pursuing her career as a psychic, which she seems more interested in fame/fortune than helping people. You also start to see the husband's supportive facade get chipped away by this selfishness and you realize he's been playing a part of a good husband, but is actually incredibly burdened by his wife, who is for-sure bothered by spirits, but can't produce evidence of this at all. By the time the girl is dead, they are past the point of no return, and their relationship is dead as well. You're more prone to disliking distance and detatchment with characters, so the tone may service the plot and characters once it's revealed everything happening, but it's understandable that it does not serve someone with your specific wants in a film.
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Mar 18, 2021 20:25
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Basebf555 posted:It could end up being a close matchup. I voted Evil Dead, not really as a slight against Seance but I just really love Evil Dead. It's one of the few horror remakes that I feel not only justified it's existence but is completely worthy of being mentioned alongside the original trilogy. I also voted Evil Dead. As I mentioned, Evil Dead vs Seance is Remake/Reboot vs Remake/Re-Adaptation. I can't help but wonder how much different Seance is from Seance on a Wet Afternoon, because while Seance becomes a soft J-Horror ghost tale at the end, the first half still maintains that noir feel. And it's just not fair to say "Seance is more original", because it's no more original than Evil Dead's remake. It ultimately comes down to which one I want to own and throw on for a rewatch. After I watched Seance, I wanted to watch the original. After I watched Evil Dead, I wanted to watch all of the behind-the-scenes footage and rewatch the film with the director's commentary. That seems like my gut's answer, so I voted Evil Dead. I really liked Seance, and I really like Kiyoshi Kurosawa and want to see more of his films. If I'm being honest, I want there to be a tie so we can watch more of Kurosawa's films, cuz I've liked all of them. For me, I'm voting individual movies, not teams. If I were voting for a team or director, I'd give it to Kurosawa. But I'm voting movie against movie, and I liked Evil Dead and the experience and feelings it gave me more than Seance. They are such different movies that I like for different reasons. Toughest vote I've had to do this tournament. Franchescanado fucked around with this message at 20:32 on Mar 18, 2021 |
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Mar 18, 2021 20:29
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Franchescanado posted:I will say that the relationship seems cold and lifeless at first because it is. The film is slowly revealing how hosed up the marriage is. At first, the wife's psychic abilities are shown to be "powerful", or at least consistent. We eventually can surmise that the wife does have psychic powers, but has absolutely no control over them, and they especially seem to recede when she tries to use them to make money and/or gain notoriety. It's only when things have gone too far with the kidnapped girl that you realize how much of a selfish person the wife has been in pursuing her career as a psychic, which she seems more interested in fame/fortune than helping people. You also start to see the husband's supportive facade get chipped away by this selfishness and you realize he's been playing a part of a good husband, but is actually incredibly burdened by his wife, who is for-sure bothered by spirits, but can't produce evidence of this at all. By the time the girl is dead, they are past the point of no return, and their relationship is dead as well. Yeah, I definitely got that whole relationship drama of breaking down the facade of support by the stress of the event. The one story beat I think I really did appreciate was how the couple start in a fairly sympathetic place of worrying about getting in trouble unfairly to just very quickly working that sympathy away and showing how selfish they're truly being. But as you said, its probably just too detached a presentation to click with me personally.
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Mar 18, 2021 20:34
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STAC Goat posted:Yeah, I definitely got that whole relationship drama of breaking down the facade of support by the stress of the event. The one story beat I think I really did appreciate was how the couple start in a fairly sympathetic place of worrying about getting in trouble unfairly to just very quickly working that sympathy away and showing how selfish they're truly being. But as you said, its probably just too detached a presentation to click with me personally. What I like specifically about this in retrospect is that the husband is worried as gently caress about getting wrongfully accused but still wants to call a hospital or the police. The wife tells him no because she's already formulating how she can manipulate this for her profit. The husband is for-sure at fault in all of this as well by the end, but he goes into it with decent-ish intentions and trusting his wife.
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Mar 18, 2021 20:40
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I'll be voting for Seance, simply because I felt nothing during Evil Dead. ED is a technically impressive film, but emotionally it feels completely hollow. Seance on the other hand delivers a complex emotional journey that Fran has touched on beautifully. I watched both films twice this week, and I was already bored of ED by the second viewing, whereas I think I could watch Seance again and still get something out of it.
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Mar 18, 2021 21:38
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Seance was dope. Several days later and I'm still thinking of some it's quieter moments between the couple.
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Mar 18, 2021 22:16
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I've been making a lot of excuses for Evil Dead's characters because like it is a big gore fest and mainstream US horror and all... but you know what? The more I think about it the more I just like the characters. Mia has clearly been through a lot. She clearly had to deal with her mom's stuff too early. And David obviously abandoned her. And he obviously feels guilty about that. Its a simple relationship but its one I'm invested in. They have history, they have love, they have resentment. Both are flawed, both are victims. I spend the film wanting to see David do right by Mia for once. I want to see him make amends as much as he does. Even the thin side characters are people I like. The fact that they're even here suggest they're decent people. They're not here to party or get laid. They're in an uncomfortable, difficult position all to try and help someone they love. Even if they have unresolved poo poo with David, or if they don't know anyone and are just here to support David. They all seem like they're genuinely trying to help and that makes them more sympathetic and compelling to me when they get victimized by this inconceivable evil poo poo. I dunno. I was just thinking about it and I wanted to say that before the week is done. Because I've kinda just been brushing off the critcism of the characters by comparing them to your typical paper thing pretty Friday the 13th teens. But like... I like them better than that. They have more than that.
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Mar 18, 2021 23:46
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STAC Goat posted:They're not here to party or get laid. Hmm, maybe that's why I didn't enjoy it 
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Mar 19, 2021 00:00
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Evil Dead is a movie that really shouldn't work for me. It's nasty and mean in its violence and it's an unnecessary, fanservice-y remake of a much beloved classic (or two). But there's an underlying love to it, a tiny twinkle somewhere that makes the violence not hit so hard, that even makes it funny. And the fanservice, it's actually cleverly done in a way to subvert a lot of expectations while still hitting familiar notes. It's all wrapped in a technically excellent package, it looks and sounds great, and the bloodrain chainsaw ending is just the bow on top of it all. Seance I didn't like. The entire story is set up with contrivances that for me would only work in a farce or a dark comedy. There's some good spooky scenes before the ghost appears, but the ghost itself is just the most generic J horror apparition. It's a tried and true formula with no originality and it's not getting any points for that. However the premise is interesting and I really want to watch the original now. Evil Dead, easy choice for me.
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Mar 19, 2021 00:11
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Under 8 hours left to vote. I'll just say, its a close one. So don't forget to get your vote in. Vote until 3 AM EST Mar 19th (or when I wake up).
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Mar 19, 2021 00:23
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March Madness is truly here in basketball! And its time for us to wrap up another round and start a fresh one. So what are the results in a week where lots of people felt torn?  We have our first tie! And we nearly had two! It was a lower turnout this week than usual which made every vote even more critical, represented in Evil Dead just BARELY sneaking past Seance by just one vote! Wow. That sends Kurosawa home in the first round for the second year in a row. But he’s the only one getting eliminated this week because Bruiser and Phantom are TIED! That’s a bit of a shock since there was very little positive said about Bruiser but Phantom was certainly a bit of a wildcard entry as a lavish musical fairly loose in the horror category from a director fairly loosely associated to horror. Did Romero’s rep save him here? You know what might have saved him? The ONE PERSON who abstained from voting here but did in the other race. That one non vote sends both Romero and Schumacher into the second round with a threeway matchup with my Ghostbeaters team. That’s potentially a Romero/Schumacher/Raimi matchup or Romero/Schumacher/ROTLD matchup. Wha? Whoa! MARCH MADNESS BABY! And it as very nearly a 4 way. Whaaaaaaa... Its impressive how well the seeding has held up so far and is really a testament to people taking the voting seriously and our system, I think. We all love upsets but the truth is a higher seed is supposed to defeat a lower seed. That’s the point of the numbers. So now we’re into the the extremes of that. On one hand we’re gonna have 2/15 and 1/16 matchups where an upset would be huge since one side where hand top ranks and the other barely snuck in. On the other hand we’re dealing with 7/10s and 8/9s where the seeding is much closer and in some cases literally a coin flip. So awe have a mix of theoretically very even matchups or very uneven ones. But random draws are wildcards so who knows what the big guns will draw? Only one way to find out. 2. Shinya Tsukamoto’s Hiruko the Goblin vs. 15. Jean Rollin’s The Demoniacs  Tsukamoto was left out of last year’s tourney but grabbed an automatic seed this year. So now he gets his first go against another first timer in Jean Rollin perhaps known best to some as “coasting on boobs” genre. Its Japan vs France. Cyberpunk vs Fantisque. I gotta be honest, I really don’t know much about either of these directors as they really aren’t my thing. Both directors seem outside my comfort level but both films from reviews sound like something outside their comfort levels as well. Its very much a pretty wild card matchup for me but that’s kind of what’s been making the so much fun, no? Some real random movies and matchups that feel different every week and often twice in a week. Still, I dunno about that alleged 10 minute rape scene… Shinya Tsukamoto’s Hiruko the Goblin Jean Rollin’s The Demoniacs 7. (STAC Goat’s Creature Features) André Øvredal’s The Autopsy of Jane Doe vs. 10. Herschell Gordon Lewis’s A Taste of Blood  Guillermo del Toro went deep last year defeating Frank Henenlotter’s Basket Case 3, Tim Burton’s Frankenweenie, and Peter Jackson’s Bad Taste before falling to eventual winner Ken Russell’s big gun Devils. But that deep run drained his film pool so I had to pair him with a director he’s worked with and seems to have inspired in Øvredal. Autopsy of Jane Doe is a bit of a different kind of film from the Creature Feature label and while its got a lot of praise the consensus also seems to be that it really doesn’t nail the landing. Lewis on the flip side is the “Godfather of Gore” but he fell first round last year with is iffy Confederacy exploitation film Two Thousand Maniacs to Brian DePalma’s The Fury that proved quite a hit for its bizarre genre merging madness. This time he’s got some kind of weirdo Dracula epic film? It seems like a rough draw for him and for us. So who is gonna come out of this one? Two wildly different kinds of directors and films that both seem flawed. Could come down to tastes once again. André Øvredal’s The Autopsy of Jane Doe is on DirectTV and AMC+ in the US. Herschell Gordon Lewis’s A Taste of Blood is on Arrow in the US. That’s our week. Right as the real March Madness begins we get into the back half of our first round. Still a lot of movies to watch and a long way to go, but we’re now closer to the next round than the last. Progress. Vote until 3 AM EST Mar 26th (or when I wake up) Bracket & Noms Spreadsheet Letterboxd List Next Week! 2. STAC Goat’s Team Lankins aka Team “Dad Was Always Quiet” (Christopher Landon and Oz Perkins) vs. 15. Brian Yuzna 7. A Conglomerate of People Who Hate Me’s Team It's Not A Cartoon, Mom! It's Art! 😫 (Eiichi Yamamoto, Satoshi Kon, Toyoo Ashida, Hisayuki Toriumi, and Takayuki Hirao) vs. 10. STAC Goat’s Team XX (Karyn Kusama, Jovanka Vuckovic, Roxanne Benjamin, St. Vincent, & Coralie Fargeat) STAC Goat fucked around with this message at 11:25 on Mar 19, 2021 |
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Mar 19, 2021 08:09
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I'm assuming there's a lot of people who just can't stand musicals so Bruiser would have been an automatic vote for them. Really interested in this round, everything sounds really interesting. I've seen Autopsy of Jane Doe, it's solid so my vote here will really depend on how the other movie goes.
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Mar 19, 2021 14:27
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Schumacher is going to be interesting in the next round though where something like The Lost Boys could come out and pull a big upset. His one musical is gone.
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Mar 19, 2021 14:48
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STAC Goat posted:You know what might have saved him? The ONE PERSON who abstained from voting here but did in the other race. That one non vote sends both Romero and Schumacher into the second round with a threeway matchup with my Ghostbeaters team. That’s potentially a Romero/Schumacher/Raimi matchup or Romero/Schumacher/ROTLD matchup. Wha? Whoa! MARCH MADNESS BABY! That was me, haha. I fell asleep during Phantom and didn't want to watch it again, so it felt unreasonable to vote for or against. I was so torn on Seance vs. Evil Dead that if I'd known my vote would swing that I'd have probably abstained there as well
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Mar 19, 2021 15:46
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I voted for Phantom because even if I don’t like ALW’s compositions minus the titular song, Schumacher was made for musicals and I wish he had more opportunities to flex that creative muscle in his career. We were robbed of Joel Schumacher’s Cats.
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Mar 19, 2021 15:49
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Schumacher's Cats could've been great but I truly think The Phantom of the Opera features the most obnoxious songs the stage musical has to offer.
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Mar 19, 2021 16:06
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TrixRabbi posted:Schumacher is going to be interesting in the next round though where something like The Lost Boys could come out and pull a big upset. His one musical is gone. There is a non zero chance for the next round to be Night of the Living Dead vs Lost Boys vs Evil Dead/Return of the Living Dead. Like it probably would have been more poetic if we were looking at a potential Night vs Return matchup. But still, that Lost Boys extra craziness is enough for me to appreciate Schumacher's place in this tournament.
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Mar 19, 2021 16:57
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7. (STAC Goat’s Creature Features) André Øvredal’s The Autopsy of Jane Doe vs. 10. Herschell Gordon Lewis’s A Taste of Blood A Taste of Blood is Lewis doing a pretty standard Dracula story with a fun opening where a descendant gets some
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Mar 19, 2021 19:02
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The Berzerker posted:I was going to rewatch The Autopsy of Jane Doe (and still might depending on when it streams) Is Saturday or Monday easier for you? I also tend to restream things on Wednesdays if that's convenient.
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Mar 19, 2021 19:37
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 Week 12 Bracketology Streams!  Only on the CineD Discord All times are in EST and may not reflect reality. Saturday, March 20th  1900 The Demoniacs 2055 Hiruko the Goblin Monday, March 22nd  1900 A Taste of Blood 2110 The Autopsy of Jane Doe Content Warnings Les Demoniaques - The Demoniacs Contains strong sex and sexual violence Hiruko The Goblin Contains bloody horror A Taste Of Blood strong injury detail The Autopsy Of Jane Doe strong bloody violence, gore, threat
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Mar 19, 2021 20:21
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So one of the matchups ended up being a pretty easy decision. I was actually enjoying The Demoniacs for a while. Like, yea there's an extended rape scene at the beginning, but I was ready to forgive that because it's the thing that kicks off the plot so it felt somewhat justified in the way that a lot of films use sexual assault at the beginning of a revenge story. And as usual with Rollin the movie looks nice, plus this is a pretty unusual setting and the production design gave it a familiar, yet still unique feel where I couldn't quite put my finger on exactly where and when this was all taking place. But Rollin just has no self control(which is probably a generous way to put it). Every scene involving nudity is so awkwardly drawn out to the point that you wonder what exactly he was after in these scenes. Plus, he throws in a bonus extended rape scene at the end that really just soured the whole experience because of how unnecessary it was and how much it ground the movie to a halt right at the point where you want an interesting resolution to the story. So at the mid-point I probably would've said the movie was headed for a solid 4 or 5 out of 10, but it dropped the ball and so I can't even score it that high. Hiruko The Goblin on the other hand, was just a lot of fun from start to finish. A lot of that is because of how many other great films you can clearly seen in it as inspiration, so if you want to dock it points for originality I guess you could. From scene to scene you've got Evil Dead, Ghostbusters, The Thing, Hausu, and more so it's a movie that really wears those influences on it's sleeve. It has some well done creature effects, the characters are well drawn, and it was a good combination of a fairly simple and easy to follow plot with some cultural elements that I wasn't really familiar with so it didn't feel like a stale exorcism/demon movie that I've seen a hundred times before. Certainly you could pick out some flaws and it's not a perfect film but as something I'd want to sit down and enjoy on a given night, it blows The Demoniacs out of the water.
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Mar 22, 2021 17:10
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2. Shinya Tsukamoto’s Hiruko the Goblin vs. 15. Jean Rollin’s The Demoniacs Neither was really my thing, don’t have a ton to say about either. Hated Demoniacs. Tons of rape and brutality and cheap exploitation and just stuff that seemed like it was just there to try and get Rollin off. And not much in there otherwise besides some odd side weirdness that didn’t seem to fit or have much explanation. One of my worst watching experiences of this tournament or whatever that I can remember and I never would have sat through it if it wasn’t for this tourney and the group stream. Hiruko didn’t do a ton for me but I didn’t hate it either. I might have had a harder time connecting with it because of the previous movie bad experience. There’s a high energy that is somewhat reminiscent of Raimi or other things but also has a wavelength I don’t really click on. Still, it flowed, had some fun stuff, entertained a lot of people, was a better film. Voting Tsukamoto. 7. (STAC Goat’s Creature Features) André Øvredal’s The Autopsy of Jane Doe vs. 10. Herschell Gordon Lewis’s A Taste of Blood A Taste of Blood was one of the worst made films I’ve ever seen. Its too long and somehow also has almost nothing in it, its shot terribly with everything framed poorly and sometimes out of focus, its edited terribly and sparsely, its acted terribly with the worst dialogue and characters, every room shot weirdly has the exact same color scheme so it feels like everything was recorded in one motel room, it introduces a plot like 80 minutes in and then gets to a final act with like 8 minutes to go, when it randomly turns into a slapstick comedy. The only think of value this film seems to have is to serve as some kind of instructional video for how not to film a movie. Conversely I really dig Autopsy of Jane Doe. It builds tension great and consistently with its different take in a haunted house theme. It has really good and full feeling characters acted incredibly well by the Cox/Hirsch two man team. Deb pointed out that there’s a Fulci like feel to the building supernatural chaos and I think that was a great observation. I also think it speaks to what really makes the film work. You have these two very reasonable and level headed characters who react rationally to everything that happens and who’s job is to figure out what happened. They get sucked into the mystery of it and as things get crazier and crazier they try to make sense of it and figure out the rules as things just keep making less and less sense. To that end I think maybe the reason people react badly to the last act is because they wanted that Fulci madness to grow into something apocalyptic, but I really like that it stays with the tight 2 person story and focuses on evil loving with them. Its a bit mean but I think its an earned mean because the movie cares about its characters and takes the time to get you to care about them. Its a film I was worried wouldn’t hold up because of all the criticism but instead I loved it again and really just don’t agree at all that it blows the landing. So yeah, Im voting Jane Doe. If Taste of Blood wins I don’t understand anything. STAC Goat fucked around with this message at 06:52 on Mar 23, 2021 |
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Mar 23, 2021 06:45
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Autopsy of Jane Doe shows a lot of potential, has a fantastic buildup and great characters, then loses me on the mundane ending and the general mean-spiritedness of it all. Not in the nasty mean horror sort of way, but just likeable people failing at their task and dying. There’s movies that can pull it off, but in this one I overwhelmingly wanted a good ending and didn’t get it so I’m gonna be petulant about it. A Taste of Blood is very plainly not a good movie. It is shocklingly inept in almost every measure of moviemaking quality, both technically and artistically. You might say it does very little with a limited budget. But drat if I wasn’t entertained throughout. As the actors bumbled their way through the long winded script, I couldn’t help but admire the sets. Sets that the more you look at them, the more bizarre they get. They must have been assembled by asking everyone from the crew to contribute one piece of furniture. Hey I got a vase, hey I got a tiny box, hey I got a terrifying expressionist painting, this might be too distracting so let’s put a lampshade in front of the painting. For the next scene we will put a single matchlock pistol on the wall. Just that pistol, nothing else. Please don’t touch it, although it’s in the center of the frame we will never use it. This entertained me throughout the movie, but then when the ending featured an adorable vest-wearing dog with dense lore about him, I just completely lost it. I had tears streaming down my face from laughing. It’s an intentional joke, not necessarily effective in a better movie, but somehow I had been properly primed for this to be the funniest thing I’d seen in many months. It felt so good. Making me genuinely laugh is so much harder than scaring me, so I greatly respect any movie that manages that. I’ve seen many bad Dracula movies, and many were boring. This one isn’t boring at all. So while Jane Doe is the much, much better movie, A Taste of Blood is a rare gem of joy, and it’s got my vote.
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Mar 23, 2021 14:58
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It really is amazing that HG Lewis literally hangs a gun in the center of a scene and then never uses it. Like... there's no way he did that intentionally. There's no way Lewis read Chekhov. Its too random and meaningless to have been a gag. Its way too clever to have been in this film. He just hung a gun on the wall as if possessed by the spirit of filmmaking mistakes.
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Mar 23, 2021 15:06
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Lewis is quite the jokester. He also made movies to kill time (his and yours)
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Mar 23, 2021 15:09
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I'll be voting for The Demoniacs and A Taste of Blood. While their opposites might be the better films technically, I feel like neither strayed too far from the path of what was expected of them, so the overall effect was good films but not particularly memorable ones, imho. Demoniacs and A Taste of Blood, on the other hand, are both wonderfully camp and unique experiences in bad taste and merciless mayhem. It's a combination that tickles me too much I'm afraid, I really have no other choice but to give them my stamp of approval.               
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Mar 24, 2021 02:53
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I made that joke before in the discord when someone mentioned that nobody has ever compared GHL to Kubrick, but look at the exquisite symmetry of that shot!
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Mar 24, 2021 15:58
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One symmetrical gun
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Mar 24, 2021 16:08
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I don't feel as strongly as STAC does about HGL and A Taste of Blood, but I'm about halfway through Autopsy of Jane Doe and yea there's no way I'm voting against something this atmospheric and creepy that stars Brian Cox in favor of HGL's amateurish shenanigans. And I appreciate HGL for his contributions to cult cinema and gore films and and all that stuff but the experience of sitting down and actually watching them hasn't ever quite matched the reputation. I do get the feeling that this might be another week of low turnout though, and we already know of two or three posters who are voting for A Taste of Blood. So it could be close.
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Mar 24, 2021 17:05
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I do worry that, because the vast majority of the discussion happens on Discord, we risk alienating SA-only users. I know my word count over here has nose-dived in comparison to the previous thread.
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Mar 24, 2021 18:02
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I don't really care so much about people doing extensive write-ups, I'm not doing that myself. But I'd like to see some more votes on a weekly basis just so the results are a little more unpredictable and it feels like more people are involved. When it comes up in the horror thread I try to emphasize that you really don't even have to actively participate in the discussion, you can just vote.
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Mar 24, 2021 18:03
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Yeah I mainly try and post my thoughts here after Discord and Letterboxd because I'm hoping to spark some conversation. Also why I try and get it in as early in the week as I can get my thoughts together. I'm not being too obsessive about our vote totals and I plan to keep doing this as long as people are on board but we have been trending down sadly. Speaking of, its that time. Just under 36 hours to go in this week's vote. It definitely seems like a close one with HG Lewis and Jean Rollin tapping into... something with some viewers. So whether you're with them and want to see the upset(s) or feel like the favorite should be an easy vote this another week where every vote will matter. Remember, last week came down to 1 vote in both matchups including an abstention. And Deb is doing a catchup stream in Discord tonight. Vote until 3 AM EST Mar 26th (or when I wake up) STAC Goat fucked around with this message at 20:45 on Mar 24, 2021 |
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Mar 24, 2021 20:39
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I'll be exercising my ultimate power two weeks in a row!
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Mar 24, 2021 20:45
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married but discreet posted:Autopsy of Jane Doe shows a lot of potential, has a fantastic buildup and great characters, then loses me on the mundane ending and the general mean-spiritedness of it all. Not in the nasty mean horror sort of way, but just likeable people failing at their task and dying. There’s movies that can pull it off, but in this one I overwhelmingly wanted a good ending and didn’t get it so I’m gonna be petulant about it. Now having finished the movie, I can definitely agree with this. I still really enjoyed it, and it's not making me change my vote, but I'd have preferred something more than the ending we got. Like you said, I'm not a huge fan of "...and then the ghost/witch/demon decided to kill everyone" endings, it feels lazy to me. I feel the same way about Ti West's The Innkeepers.
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Mar 25, 2021 15:07
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Hiruko the Goblin demonstrates once again how hard it is to capture the energy of Evil Dead and, to some degree, Hausu. You can go through the motions and do everything right on paper, but on film it falls through for reasons that can’t be easily explained. Hiruko sadly is one of the movies. Just didn’t work for me. There’s good elements of course – the effects are fun, Shinto is a refreshing change from the usual supernatural fare (the I loved the prayers!), the entire ending was quite fun too. Still, it just wasn’t that interesting to actually watch, and the casual suicide was quite offputting. Les Demoniaques Speaking of offputting, here’s some erotic rape! However, as a horny French fairy-tale cum Christian morality play, it actually works. Yes, it does walk a tight rope with the gratuitously titillating rape, but I actually think the whole moral of the movie would not really have worked without it. On screen murder, nobody cares about that. Dying for your friends or strangers in a movie has no effect. Jesus dying on the cross, it’s been done. A titillating rape of Jesus or Jesus-like figure, now that’s a whole other story. It’s gross, it’s shocking, it implicates the viewer. To knowingly subject yourself to this fate after having been tempted by Satan, it’s admirable. The whole thing makes complete sense to me. It’s definitely a movie that’s going to stay in my mind, not only for the story but for the fantastic atmosphere. I want to live in this RPG Town that’s next to a ship graveyard, a cursed swamp and a haunted graveyard, taking quests from the psychic bartender! Voting Demoniaques.
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Mar 25, 2021 18:33
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I do think the rape is an important part of the story (especially juxtaposed with the other sexual activity going on those scenes), but I still think there's a fair amount of gratuitous nudity in other points that don't contribute much. I didn't hate Demoniaques but I found Hiruko to be fun, even if it's not terribly original. The upcoming match-ups look to be tough. A probably underseeded Brian Yuzna, and the 7-10 match-up is two teams I don't want to see leave so early.
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Mar 26, 2021 07:54
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Before i show the results a quick spreadsheet note. I’ve added some new notes keeping track of the movies/directors’ vote totals. Right now its just numbers and there’s not a little interesting. A few things like the fact that while Joe Dante’s Gremlins 2 was our only shutout it wasn’t 100% of the votes since there was an abstanation, that Romero’s Bruiser and Schumacher’s Phantom of the Opera have advanced despite getting less votes than 3 teams eliminated, and that Duccio Tessari’s The Bloodstained Butterfly had more votes than those films and Fede Alvarez’s Evil Dead but is still out of this tourney. But as the tournament rolls on it should be curious to see what directors or teams rack up the votes and see which directors are really dominating and which are just kind of sneaking through. I’ve also added a Top 5 Movies, Movies by percentage, and Directors to the main sheet with the other counting stats. Its all a work in progress. Always tinkering. This was all inspired by Franchescanado so thank him if you like it. Still improving the place, mod or not.  Ok, lets get to the votes.   Autopsy of Jane Doe survives, BARELY. A Taste of Blood struck a chord with a lot of people for a reason I don’t get but it did and very nearly pulled this out. I even had a super whiny paragraph written about it earlier in the week when I was real down for other reasons. Like this one was 1 vote until a couple of hours ago. But Øvredal’s voters came in late and just barely snuck him past the goal line. HG Lewis nearly picked up only the second upset of this tournament but instead gets eliminated first round once again. Meanwhile Guillermo del Toro narrowly avoids an embarrassing drop from Elite 8 last year to first round knockout without ever even taking the court. But my Creature Features team advances another round to face off with the #2 seed Shinya Tsukamoto after Hiroku the Goblin barrels over Demoniacs, justifying Tsukamoto’s #2 seeding in his first go in the tournament, and sending Jean Rollins pack. 2. (STAC Goat’s Daddy Issues) Christopher Landon’s Scouts Guide to the Apocalypse vs. 15. Brian Yuzna’s Beneath Still Waters  Brian Yuzna was one of the cinderella stories of last year’s tournament riding a 6 seed all the way to the Championships knocking off Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Cure, Tobe Hooper’s Salem’s Lot, Ridley Scott’s Hannibal, and Chuck Russell’s Nightmare on Elm Street 3 before finally falling to the OTHER cinderella of the tournament and eventual champion, 11 seed Ken Russell. It was an awe inspiring run but did it take too much out of Yuzna’s catalogue for a repeat performance? He fell all the way to a 15 seed this year but he might have gotten lucky because he draws probably the most questionable automatic seed of the 1/2s in Team Daddy Issues. Perkins Jr. sits this one out and Landon Jr.’s Scouts Guide to the Apocalypse takes the shot against Yuzna’s Beneath Still waters. For Yuzna’s its another Lovecraftian practical effects film that isn’t terribly well regarded or known but they’ve been proven crowd pleasers in this tournament. Landon’s Scouts Guide is a middle of the road sophomoric zombie comedy that I’ve seen but remember nothing about and where half the reviews for it are just lusting for the lead actor. So it seems open for Yuzna to steal his biggest upset yet. Does the dream remain alive for the old guard or is it time for a new generation? Scouts Guide to the Apocalypse Beneath Still Waters 7. (A Conglomerate of People Who Hate Me’s Team It's Not A Cartoon, Mom! It's Art! 😫) Satoshi Kon’s Perfect Blue vs. 10. (STAC Goat’s Team XX) Karyn Kusama’s Jennifer’s Body  I sincerely do not know who formed this team. I searched, I asked around, I got nothing. It speaks to the collaborative truth of this tournament which has been one big friendly group effort from the start. Or to me making dumb jokes too often. Either way it draws one of the most well regarded anime around that just going by reviews pushes all kind s of bounds of taste and art. I think. I really don’t know. Its anime. I avoid it like the plague. But i guess I can’t do that this time as it continues to torment me by going against one of my two remaining ladies teams and Karyn Kusama in her second go around after falling first round last year with her own genre pushing entry Destroyer, falling to George Romero’s cult classic Martin. Now Kusama draws her own cult classic that has very polarizing opinions but absolutely no lack of fans who absolutely love it as a film somehow both ahead of its time and of its time like few others. I myself couldn’t even post a quote from my own review because it was such a confused rambling essay on the film’s many contradictions and elements. But it creates for a very interesting matchup on paper. I could have pulled 100 quotes that were just pithy loving one liners for both of these films so it will be interesting to see which cult classic wins over this crowd. Perfect Blue is free on Hoopla in the US. Jennifer’s Body is on DirectTV, Fubo, and Starz in the US. That’s our week. An anime, a teen boy zombie comedy, a LGBTQ modern cult classic, and Lovecraftian Yuzna effects. The random number generator continues to mix it up and be weird. Vote until 3 AM EST Apr 2nd (or when I wake up) Bracket & Noms Spreadsheet Letterboxd List Next Week! 2. Wes Craven vs. 15. Lloyd Kaufman 7. Debbie Does Dagon’s Family Friendly (Hayao Miyazaki, Jim Henson, & Don Bluth) vs. 10. Kangra’s Team Sister Act (Kim Jee-woon, John Fawcett, & Andres Muschietti)
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Mar 26, 2021 08:02
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Week 13 Bracketology Streams! Only on the CineD Discord All times are in EST and may not reflect reality. Saturday, March 27th  1900 Jennifer's Body (Unrated) 2055 Perfect Blue Monday, March 29th  1900 Scouts Guide to the Apocalypse 2045 Beneath Still Waters Content Warnings Jennifer's Body (2009) Contains very strong language, bloody horror, sex references and drug use Perfect Blue (1997) Animated sequences of violence and nudity, and for brief language Scouts Guide To The Zombie Apocalypse (2015) Strong bloody violence, gore, sex references, nudity, strong language Beneath Still Waters (2005) Strong horror violence and gore, sexual content, nudity and some language
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Mar 26, 2021 08:36
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