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I forgot to mention that there's a part in The Pool where the protagonist smashes his way through a pipe and bursts out to find himself in a second giant empty pool.
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Oct 16, 2020 22:34
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The Berzerker posted:The Pool (2018) I love how dumb this movie was. I might have been cheering for the crocodile for a good chunk of the movie. That idiot did not deserve to survive. The Berzerker posted:I forgot to mention that there's a part in The Pool where the protagonist smashes his way through a pipe and bursts out to find himself in a second giant empty pool. This was an incredible moment and made me laugh out loud.
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Oct 16, 2020 22:37
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55. DAGON 2001  Fran Challenge # 7 Dearly Departed  Directed by Stuart Gordon. This is a excellent and probably the one of the best Lovecraft adaptations made. It oozes character just like the creatures on the scene. It follows the story of a couple who get into a boating accident off the coast of Spain? and then creepines ensues. The acting is all around excellent , the special effects are good, but with some bit shoddy CGI stuff in there that looks really out of place with all the tentacles. Its not a very light hearted film and doesn't really have the sense of humor that other Gordon films have. Everything is played fairly seriously , it could have been easy to have some jokes in this but it would have ultimately been at the expense of the movie. Overall its one of my favorite Gordon pics.
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Oct 16, 2020 22:38
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graventy posted:I love how dumb this movie was. I might have been cheering for the crocodile for a good chunk of the movie. That idiot did not deserve to survive. Toward the end, when the croc bit him, I was cheering out loud. Like gently caress it, this movie has been so mean and he's so dumb, just have it end with the girlfriend drowning in a pipe and the guy becoming croc chow who gives a poo poo. Definitely a number of moments where I just laughed at the insanity of it all
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Oct 16, 2020 22:41
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I originally watched it because I think the horror thread was talking about how loving absurd the whole thing was, and it just did not disappoint. It's great how every time he succeeds he fails, in increasingly dumb ways.
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Oct 16, 2020 22:43
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FRAN CHALLENGE: WHEN ANIMALS ATTACK:spooky 29)]uncaged-shudder  There's a lion on the loose in amsterdam, and only one veterinarian can stop it! Having worked in the veterinary field I like movies that focus on veterinarians. like this, and I guess RAW. Anyway veterinarian aside the lion runs around chomping people, though some of them kind of bring it on themselves. when you crash in a river after barely escaping the lion, dont climb up the same side you left the lion on. There are lots of parallels to jaws, because if it ain't broke don't fix it, but there are some nice twists to them . More than Jaws though it feels like a scandanavian detective show. The characters are all great and likable, and while the film doesn't skimp on the gore, it's not a particularly dark film either. /5
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Oct 16, 2020 22:46
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 "It's got a death curse!" 37. Friday the 13th (1980/USA) Fran Challenge #6 Tomb of the Blind Spots The first time I tried watching Friday the 13th I ditched out at the snake killing scene. It's brutal, it's senseless, it's an evil act of thoughtless destruction upon an innocent living being. I didn't like it is what I'm saying. I said to myself that I would never watch the film in full, because it didn't deserve my attention. I don't exactly know what it says about me that I'm now watching it today. Perhaps it's fear of missing out, or a self-destructive curiosity, but I want to watch all of the bad films now, and the worse they are, the stronger the urge to pick that scab open and look at the carnage the lurks beneath. Friday the 13th follows the now well-worn Friday plot. Some kids go Camp Crystal Lake, they get killed one by one, yada yada yada, the final survivor is rewarded with a lifetime of traumatic memories. We all know it, we all love it, let's move on. I honestly quite liked the film, beyond the snake killing. It does drag a little toward the last act, and the Giallo setup presents an unsolvable mystery, so it's unsuccessful in that sense. I do love the amateur vibe though, and the often charming young characters, who presumably adlibbed some or most of their lines. The Katherine Hepburn impression for instance must have been an adlib, I can't imagine any writer sliding that into the script. It's just a shame that Annie is killed so quickly because she's easily my favourite character. She's just a joyful children's entertainer trapped in a slasher film.  There's also something so strangely serene about setting a massacre in the pristine wilderness. The later films don't, from memory, really delve into how rural the setting is, and that's a shame really. It's also funny how many of the franchise tropes are present given that Jason isn't even really a factor yet. Mrs. Voorhees is barely a factor either, for that matter. She turns up in the last twenty minutes, and practically confesses to the killings instantly. She does pack a lot of personality into that short amount of time though, it's worth powering through the snake scene jsut to hear her whispering "Kill her, mommy!" in an adorable little Jason voice.  Having now watched the whole film, the most annoying thing about the snake scene is that it foreshadows Mrs. Voorhee's decapitation so perfectly. The same machete is used, the same clean chop across the neck and the same squirming death throes. It would actually be a nice touch if it wasn't such a loving callous and evil act. 0.5/5 with animal cruelty 3.5/5 without animal cruelty  "Well now we promised you gator wrasslin folks, and sometimes gators win!" 38. Alligator (1980/USA) Fran Challenge #8 When Animals Attack! The plot of Alligator roughly follows a "What if" scenario, regarding the urban legend of alligators living in the sewers, and becoming engorged on the awful substances we carelessly flush away, much like the plot of The Host now that I think about it. Robert Forster plays David, a streetwise cop with thinning hair, a tragic past, and a misogynistic streak a mile wide that's never really challenged. It is up to him to solve the disappearance of several pets and people, whose severed limbs have started to mysteriously appear at the local sewage treatment plant. What follows is actually a lot of fun, and very darkly comedic too.  I wouldn't go so far as to say that this is a good film, when it isn't being weird it does drag a little. When it gets going though, it's wonderful. I also appreciate that the villains are vivisectionists, big game hunters, and the wealthy. There's something poetic about a force rising from the literal gutters and rampaging through a bougie wedding. It's definitely a fun watch, especially with a few friends.  3.5/5 Total: 38 Queer Interest: 19 Scream Stream: 7 new, 3 rewatches Fran Challenges: 7 | Horror Noire | Short Cuts | Feardotcom | Scream, Queen! | Silent Scream | Tomb of the Blind Spots | When Animals Attack | Countries Visited: 18 | USA | Hungary | Portugal | Vietnam | Georgia | Switzerland | Nigeria | United Kingdom | Lithuania | Germany | Finland | France | Spain | Japan | Monaco | Ireland | West Germany | Czechoslovakia | Debbie Does Dagon fucked around with this message at 23:15 on Oct 16, 2020 |
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Oct 16, 2020 22:49
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18. The Old Dark House Watched On: Kanopy Fran Challenge #4: Scream, Queen (Watch a horror movie directed by an LGBQT+ filmmaker) It‘a always interesting watching pre-Code Hollywood films and this was no exception. The Old Dark House is a salacious and dramatic horror comedy, all in a package created 90 years ago and maybe 5 years after a lot of the cinematic tropes that it’s lampooning were invented. I had thought that camp was a 50s and 60s invention but it’s hard not to see the over the top dramatic/comedic performances of the Femm family as precursors. I definitely want to check out more of Whale’s work.
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Oct 16, 2020 22:50
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Ok break over, back to the movies and reviews. (44) The Last Man on Earth (1964) dir. Ubaldo Ragona, Sidney Salkow Vincent Price is the last man alive after a plague turns people into zombie-like creatures. He spends the days rebuilding his defenses, killing people who are trying to hide, burning the bodies and the nights hiding in terror from the attacks of the zombies. His read on the situation turns rather dramatically when he discovers a woman who isn’t a zombie. I like the story/situation of this one more than Omega Man but the production values are rather poor compared to it. I still need to give the Will Smith version a look to see if they do better.  (45) What Have They Done to Your Daughters? (1974) dir. Massimo Dallamano A polizia/giallo combo as the investigation into the death of a fifteen year old leads the police into an Epstein situation. Meanwhile someone is trying to cover the whole thing up by shoving meat cleavers into people’s faces. From the director of What Have You Done to Solange, this is a lot like that in both style and tone. A decent enough watch.  (46) The Iron Rose (1973) dir. Jean Rollin A couple take a first date bike riding. They then decided to stop at a cemetery and do some loving. With people being around they decide to descend into one of the crypts and do it there. Not coming back out until dark, they are stuck inside the cemetery and can’t find their way out. Neither takes it well and begin to freak out. An interesting Jean Rollin movie as it doesn’t involve nude women walking blissfully thru open fields. It’s a much more traditional horror film.  (47) Tremors: A Cold Day in Hell (2018) dir. Don Michael Paul Graboids have been spotted in Canada, above the arctic circle. Possibly due to global warming making the Canadian tundra look like the South African countryside and the snow look like sand with a blue filter applied to the lens. Burt gets convinced to go help due to problems with the tax man demanding he pay taxes. Usual tremors action occurs with graboids attacking people and cars from just below the camera. Jamie Kennedy is back as Burt’s son. Nothing too special about this one, it is #6 in the series after all.  (48) Tremors: Shrieker Island (2020) dir. Don Michael Paul A rich bioscience guy is breeding graboids on a Thai island so he and his rich friends can hunt them. Caroline Langrishe is a nearby researcher who is the woman Burt apparently hooked up with after Reba McEntire left him. She sends Napoleon Dynamite to go fetch Burt so he can convince the hunters that graboids are too dangerous. Naturally the graboids are too smart and kill off all the hunters and it’s up to Burt to wipe them all out again. Being filmed in Thailand, this movie looks a lot better than the previous two South African ones. Pretty much everything else is hilariously cheap though. One of the stunt women & featured extras has an undercut except for a scene in the middle of the film where suddenly she is wearing her hair pinned back in a way to resemble an undercut if you weren’t paying attention. Worth watching if you’ve already been watching the Tremors movies, not otherwise.  (49) Prom Night (1980) dir. Paul Lynch Some kids are playing a version of hide and seek where you scream the killer is coming to get you. When another kid who isn’t playing wanders into the abandoned building they were playing this in, they scream at her so hard she falls backwards out of a window and dies. Years later when these kids are having their prom night, they start getting picked off by a mysterious killer. It’s an alright slasher for 1980, it’s got Jamie Lee Curtis at least. Leslie Neilsen is also in it as her father & principal in a non-comedic role. Also I’m glad that one guy got his head chopped off.  Challenge #3 Feardotcom (50) Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970) dir. Joseph Sargent The USA has just activated an absolutely massive super computer that controls the entire offensive and defensive capabilities of the country. It detects the USSR also has done the same thing and demands to be connected to it or it will start nuking cities. The two supercomputers then combine their intelligence and decide to just take over the entire world. An odd movie back when people were fearful of how much human control was being ceded to computers. Presumably that premise is why the computer has so much control and why the humans had so little over it. Totals: (1) Tombs of the Blind Dead (Spanish) (1972) (2) Child’s Play 3 (1991) (3) The City of the Dead (1960) (4) Count Dracula’s Great Love (Spanish) (1973) (5) The Phantom Carriage (Swedish/Silent) (1921) (6) Dracula 2000 (2000) (7) BloodRayne: Deliverance (2007) (8) Slugs (1988) (9) Red Riding Hood (2011) (10) Thir13en Ghosts (2001) (11) Frankenweenie (2012) #1 (12) Blacula (1972) (13) BloodRayne: The Third Reich (2010) (14) Night of the Demons (1988) (15) City of the Living Dead (1980) (17) Ticks (1993) (18) The Pit and The Pendulum (1961) (19) The Nest (1988) (20) Zombeavers (2014) (21) Human Lanterns (1982) (22) The Phantom of the Opera (1962) (23) Tower of Evil (1972) (24) To the Devil a Daughter (1976) (25) Lake Placid (1999) (26) Deep Blue Sea (1999) (27) Anaconda (1997) (28) Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007) (29) Vampires (1998) (30) Bats (1999) #2 (31) Shorts Shorts Shorts! (32) Taste of Fear (1961) (33) Wishmaster (1997) (34) Sisters of Death (1976) (35) Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) (36) What Have You Done to Solange? (1972) (37) Death Line (1972) (38) Dr Jekyll & Sister Hyde (1971) (39) Cat Girl (1957) (40) Day of the Animals (1977) (41) The Haunted Palace (1963) (42) Requiem for a Vampire (French) (1971) (43) Return of the Blind Dead (Spanish) (1973) (44) The Last Man on Earth (1964) (45) What Have They Done to Your Daughters? (1974) (46) The Iron Rose (1973) (47) Tremors: A Cold Day in Hell (2018) (48) Tremors: Shrieker Island (2020) (49) Prom Night (1980) #3 (50) Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970) Computers: 1, Death: 1, Demons: 3, Ghosts: 2, Man: 8, Monsters: 13, Serial Killers: 7, Vampires: 7, Werewolves: 1, Witches: 1, Zombies: 5
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Oct 16, 2020 22:51
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 20. The Ape (1940) - Prime Fran Challenge #8: When Animals--- yeah, nevermindYou gotta love a movie billed with the antagonist as a "kindly mad scientist," especially when he's played by Boris Karloff. I was going to count this for the Fran Challenge - it's billed as a gorilla killing people followed by Karloff disguised as a gorilla killing people. If it was 50/50, I'd call it fair, but it's like 20/80. The killer gorilla is actually rather easily dispatched in hand-to-hand combat by Karloff, playing a senior citizen. Now, while not qualifying for that, it's really quite good. Karloff's m.o. here is to cure polio (this is 15 years before the Salk vaccine), which is an incredibly noble goal. Except his cure requires human pituitary glands, and when the naturally-occurring supply of corpses isn't sufficient, he disguises himself as the gorilla to generate some more. Great acting all around, and fast-paced plot that ably flips between the kindly doctor bits, the mad doctor bits, and giving the victims (most of whom have it coming) some background. 4/5  21. Man Eater of Kumaon (1948) - Archive.org Fran Challenge #8: When Animals Attack!"A great white hunter touring through India wounds a tiger, which seeks revenge by deciding to massacre India. The whole country. This thing makes the shark in Jaws 4 look reasonable. The focus here shifts a lot, but almost all of it is well done: It sets up the plot of the wounded tiger that's likely to seek slow-moving prey (i.e., humans), runs along an interesting parallel where the doctor is convalescing from malaria while the tiger is convalescing from the gunshot, turns into a nature documentary for 10 minutes, swings back around to the partially recovered tiger massacring a village, gets into family drama (and there are a couple of great scenes here of the white "I'm colorblind" being countered with the fact that that disrespects, through ignorance, people's cultures), gets back to the tiger murdering everyone it can get its paws on, throws in a red herring of a different tiger, and finally loops back around to the final, and fatal, encounter between the hunter and the tiger. 4/5  22. The Dark Mirror (1946) - Prime Fran Challenge #7: Dearly Departed"There outta be a state law against the sale of gloves to murders." Olivia de Havilland, who died on July 26, 2020 at the age of 104, stars as Terry Collins, alongside her twin Ruth Collins, also played by Olivia de Havilland, who also died on July 26, 2020 at the age of 104. The police are sure from the first moment that Terry has murdered her boyfriend, but the case rapidly becomes complicated when the two identical twins provide alibis for each other. (There's a great scene here: After they point out to the detective that he can't arrest them both for murder, he threatens to arrest them for obstruction, to which they point out that he doesn't know which one of them is obstructing either.) The world's least professional psychiatrist is assigned to psychoanalyze them and immediately begins dating both, despite knowing full well that one of them has murdered someone. This is an incredibly paced thriller. The audience is pretty well clued in on who did what at about the halfway point. I expected it to become more procedural at this point (we know, but can the police prove it?) but that detail ultimately becomes rather minor as it just starts continually ramping up from there. 5/5
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Oct 16, 2020 22:57
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23) The Cat O'Nine Tails (1971) Fran Challenge #7: Dearly Departed (Ennio Morricone) A blind guy and what I'm assuming is a journalist (because this is a giallo and it's always a journalist) investigate a series of murders, apparently. I say "apparently" because I watched this film an hour ago and already can't remember anything about it except that Morricone put in the worst score I've ever heard from him and the killer did it because they found out they had a "genetic predisposition" to violent crime. I think I'm done giving this genre chances.
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Oct 16, 2020 23:37
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I can't stop watching this
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Oct 16, 2020 23:54
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Mokelumne Trekka posted:I can't stop watching this After loving Crawl and enjoying Eaten Alive that gif is making me think of doing a Gator round with that one and something else I haven't seen like Lake Placid.
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Oct 16, 2020 23:57
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STAC Goat posted:After loving Crawl and enjoying Eaten Alive that gif is making me think of doing a Gator round with that one and something else I haven't seen like Lake Placid. You could actually do a triple feature , Alligator, Lake Placid, and Rogue (2007). Although Rogue is about a giant saltwater crocodile. Its' very good though.
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Oct 17, 2020 00:11
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Hollismason posted:You could actually do a triple feature You have no idea how much this gimmick has consumed me.
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Oct 17, 2020 00:12
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STAC Goat posted:That's not the gimmick! Ah well you should still watch all 3 of those films.
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Oct 17, 2020 00:13
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Hollismason posted:Ah well you should still watch all 3 of those films. STAC, add The Pool and do two crocodile-based double features.
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Oct 17, 2020 00:15
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Fran Challenge #8: When Animals Attack! #45) The Corpse Grinders (1972)  Nothing about this was very good. The idea here is that a cat food company starts adding human meat into the cat food, and therefore the cats get a taste for flesh and then the cats start attacking people. But the movie was mostly people talking, filmed out of focus, sounding like it was recorded on a handheld tape recorder. Technically it was just awful. And story wise it was pretty boring. Not recommended. 1 / 5 Total: 45 1. Don't Look Under the Bed (1999) / 2. Mom and Dad (2017) / 3. Daughters of Darkness (1971) / 4. Snuff (1975) / 5. Southbound (2015) / 6. The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue (1974) / 7. Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979) / 8. Last House on the Left (1972) / 9. The Happiness of the Katakuris (2001) / 10. Poltergeist (1982) / 11. Dead of Night (1974) / 12. The Shining (1980) / 13. Ganja & Hess (1973) / 14. Over Your Dead Body (2014) / 15. Phantasm (1979) / 16. Idle Hands (1999) / 17. Hocus Pocus (1993) / 18. The Amityville Horror (1979) / 19. Ghoulies II (1987) / 20. WNUF Halloween Special (2013) / 21. Verotika (2019) / 22. Scare Me (2020) / 23. August Underground's Penance (2007) / 24. S&Man (2006) / 25. Misc. Shorts / 26. Hubie Halloween (2020) / 27. Deranged (1974) / 28. Pumpkins (2018) / 29. The Masque of the Red Death (1964) / 30. Alleluia (2014) / 31. The Lair of the White Worm (1988) / 32. The Beyond (1981) / 33. Deadly Friend (1986) / 34. Vampires vs. The Bronx (2020) / 35. Books of Blood (2020) / 36. Return of the Living Dead (1985) / 37. Megan is Missing (2011) / 38. Chainsaw Sally (2004) / 39. Thelma (2017) / 40. Häxan (1922) / 41. Fright Night (1985) / 42. From Beyond (1986) / 43. The Fly (1986) / 44. Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975) / 45. The Corpse Grinders (1972) Fran Challenges Done: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
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Oct 17, 2020 00:20
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3. The Golden Glove (2019) - Shudder Hooptober Challenge: Films From 6 Different Countries 1 of 6 - Germany    "People don't drink when the sun is shining." - Herbert Nürnberg Based on a book with the same title, this movie deals with Fritz Honka, an alcoholic German serial killer active in the 1970s, and the bar where he met most of his victims, The Golden Glove. This is one of those movies such as The Greasy Strangler where almost every frame is unpleasant to look at in one way or another. This is not intended as a criticism, it's somewhat impressive. From the patrons of the Golden Glove bar, to Honka's dismal apartment, to the appearance of Honka himself there isn't much pretty on display. In particular it shows some of the effects of alcoholism, where most of the characters are motivated by nothing else but getting their next drink and putting up with abuse and degradation to get it. Despite it being not the most aesthetic movie I, for the most part, enjoyed it. I like the straight-forward approach to the killings, where nothing is really glorified. I also liked how there was some (dark) humor here and there. 3.5/5 4. Play or Die (2019) - DVR (Showtime) Hooptober Challenge: Films From 6 Different Countries 2 of 6 - Belgium  I randomly recorded this one day since I generally like things dealing with escape rooms. This movie was okay with the escape room and ARG elements and not that great with the rest. The story (based on a novel that I haven't read) concerns a man named Lucas who gets brought back into an ARG called Paranoia by his ex. The prize for finishing the game is a million euros to the first two players who finish. Those who have solved the puzzles end up at an asylum where some of the participants had previously spent some time, and they find out that some of the puzzles end up in fatalities. The story was progressing decently,, but unfortunately this movie had one of those twists that render the rest of the movie incoherent. (The worst I can think of since High Tension: it turns out that Lucas was the mastermind behind everything, without his knowledge, after enduring extreme abuse at the hands of his mother. He has a psychotic break where he doesn't realize until the end of the movie he actually set everything up.) Ultimately there isn't much redeeming here. 1.5/5
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Oct 17, 2020 00:26
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October 16 - Splice I've been meaning to get around to this one for a while and I guess this is just my time for movies about children that also include infamous sex scenes...  Some scientists play modern Prometheus and pepper in God's lo mein to create a baby that's part-human, part-animal I'm poking fun a bit because Splice takes all the obvious story beats. Even the ones that aren't obvious make you go, "Well then this is going to happen," and it does. That's not a complaint, though, since Splice is kind of the idealized form of the classic creature feature. You've seen these cliches before but rarely done this well and that made it a pretty enjoyable movie. A perfect example of this is the first half of the movie where the scientists are dealing with the infant creature. One is treating it like their baby while the other is treating it as a lab experiment and then the story hits all the beats that you'd expect based on that. But watching their roles reverse and the creature grow is neat. I think it's the actors who manage to pull it off. Delphine Chanéac plays a good monster, and Sarah Polley and Adrien Brody sell the hell out of what could have been nothing roles. It's a small enough movie that if they hadn't been great, the whole thing would have fallen apart. The creature effects are pretty good, too, especially for a no budget horror movie. I was impressed at how good it looked a lot of the time. It struck me as a mix of CGI and practical that was done very smoothly. So a pretty cool movie that manages to keep its odd balance of disturbing and sympathetic going up to the final scene.
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Oct 17, 2020 00:30
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NUMBER 1 FULCI FAN posted:
Haha, I watched this today for the challenge too. For a movie that promises in its advertising that it has cats that want to eat human flesh, it's a big letdown. The one good thing I can say about it is I thought it was going to look and sound worse
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Oct 17, 2020 00:33
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 15. The Lodge (2020) dir. Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala I think this movie is for me what people experience when they watch Hereditary. It's absolutely brutal and nihilistic, but with characters who both feel relatable despite the awful mistakes they make. It's still fresh with me and after a first watch, I'm not sure I can read clear depth into it. There are obviously strong religious motifs and questions around assumptions and privilege. There are a few moments like the son looking at the stepmother nude that in the end stand separate from the overall plot, potentially revealing more about the characters than we assume. There are also a lot of questions around the father that I have left unresolved like who his wife was too him, was she a religious nut? What does it say that he joined these two separate women with religious paths who self-destructed? What does this say about his son and his relationship with women? I find it interesting how the film keeps you off kilter to who you're following. It pulls a Psycho/Scream and then shrouds our main character in mystery. It's definitely breaking some narrative rules, but in a way that really serves its plot. It's the type of movie I can only talk about vaguely because no deeper assessment can exist without spoiling it and of all the movies I've watched, it's the one that left me mulling over and questioning what I saw. I wonder if I'll eventually arrive on it being a brutal but empty experience, but I think how striking I found it at first watch says something. /5
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Oct 17, 2020 01:04
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18. Gekijo-ban: Zero / Fatal Frame (2014) A boarding school student locks herself in her room... with spooky results. This was really surprisingly good! All I knew was that it's an adaptation of the games, so I expected very little. Turns out it has nothing to do with the games, really only including ghosts and photos. It seems like a basic ghost story, but it has enough twists in it to be unique and interesting. It's very well shot and includes lots of spooky images. The score is haunting. It's even pro-gay. The story gets a little bloated by the end, and there's one character that I just didn't understand why they were there, but overall it's quite good. 4/5
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Oct 17, 2020 01:16
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Wet Tie Affair posted:3. The Golden Glove (2019) - Shudder Not only that but Fritz Honka was an actual serial killer with a weird face! It wasn't too far off from the real events, all things considered.
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Oct 17, 2020 01:17
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Fran Challenge #3: Feardotcom #48: 2002 Feardotcom  After jumping backwards in time to do Fran Challenge #5, I thought I'd treat myself and jump forward to knock out #3. I will resume my regularly scheduled movement through time tomorrow. Man, what a time capsule this is. A movie that's trying to be both The Ring and Se7en about a haunted website. There is a very narrow stretch of time where this could've been made. Unfortunately, that's the only real value Feardotcom has. It's a great way to remember when that's what culture was like. But as a movie its not very good. It's trying so hard to be cool. The sassy stubbled cop, the spectacularly beautiful adorkable lady-scientist-cop, the smart cold-blooded killer, they aren't characters, they're ideas of characters. Theoretically the actors could've given the characters depths, but it seems like they were specifically told not to. Don't give the characters depth give them height! Do everything 10% bigger than you normally would. We're trying to out-Se7en Se7en here, you don't do that with subtle. Even the whole haunted website thing is muddled because there's two evil websites. The haunted website and a normal website where somebody is livestreaming torture and murders. But that's just character backstory, the cops aren't investigating that one. They make a big deal that the girl was afraid of knives and pointy things because she was a hemophiliac and terrified of bleeding to death, but she also loved to play down at the old abandoned factory? One thing I have to give them credit for though is the design of feardotcom.com(yes that is the actual URL, you see it get typed in). It's not what the internet looked like back then, but it's what we thought the internet should look like back then. In 2002 a well designed website had animated gifs of fire and auto playing MIDIs. It was a better time. Feardotcom isn't good. I don't recommend it. 48 Movies Watched: Dracula, Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy, King Kong, Son of Kong, The Bride of Frankenstein, Werewolf of London, Dracula's Daughter, Son of Frankenstein, The Mummy's Hand, Son of Ingagi 1, The Wolf Man, The Corpse Vanishes, The Ghost of Frankenstein, The Mummy's Tomb, Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man, Son of Dracula, The Mummy's Ghost, The House of Frankenstein, The Mummy's Curse, The House of Dracula, She-Wolf of London, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Godzilla, Godzilla: King of the Monsters, Godzilla Raids Again, Five Short Films About Bigfoot2, Abbot and Costello Meet The Mummy, Horror of Dracula, Psycho, King Kong vs Godzilla, Blood Feast, Mothra vs Godzilla, The Creeping Terror, Ghidorah The Three-Headed Monster, Orgy of the Dead, Invasion of Astro-Monster, Ghidorah Horror of the Deep, Berserk!, Son of Godzilla, Destroy All Monsters, Dracula Has Risen From The Grave, All Monsters Attack, Taste The Blood of Dracula, Godzilla vs Hedorah, Nosferatu5, Feardotcom3
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Oct 17, 2020 01:42
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56. Dial Code Santa Claus (French 3615 code Père Noël) (1989)  This is the best Christmas horror movie you've probably never seen. Its a French film. First off its Home Alone before Home Alone. I can't encourage you to seek out this film as best you can because it is amazing. If you watch this and don't fall in love with it in the first 10 minutes I don't know what to tell you. Its that drat good. The plot is pretty straightforward in the old days of BBS and pre internet a young kid gets in touch with "Santa Claus" over a BBC Teletype machine and invites him to his home. Turns out though this "Santa Claus" is a total insane person. A game of cat and mouse ensues. The charm of this film cannot be understated. Easily in my top 5 Christmas Horror movies ever made.
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Oct 17, 2020 02:12
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Fran Challenge #5 - Silent Scream - L'Inferno I had two more silent films on my list to watch this month so I might as well use this one for the Fran Challenge and free up one of my daily slots.  It's been a long time since I read Dante's poem. And let's be serious here, you really only need to read Inferno and get all the stuff with Dante being lovely toward everyone he hated in the thirteenth century. Purgatorio and Paradiso are so tepid in comparison to the bitter pettiness that was putting everyone he considered an rear end in a top hat in hell and describing what he wanted to happen to them. I'm a little surprised that it's been adapted so few times. There's no actual story, of course, but that just makes it a blank canvas for the filmmaker to make whatever they want. The plot: Dante gets a guided tour of the downside of the afterlife by the poet Virgil. I have to compare this movie to Jigoku. In Jigoku, the last act of the film takes place in the afterlife and we watch the punishments visited upon the damned. But what Jigoku does is give us a long portion of seeing those damned in life. We get to know why they should be there. L'Inferno suffers because the filmmakers treated it as moving illustrations of the poem rather than a film. Now some of that is due to long form narrative in film being brand new in 1911, it takes a few more years for some really great examples of it to develop. I noticed that there was almost no editing in the movie, for example. Everything was interstitial card and then one long short and then the next interstitial card to introduce the next scene. There's also a strong adherence to the text; while 95% of Dante hearing out a dead person's story is cut and that's the bulk of the poem, anything that could be thought of as a plot element is left in. They do this even when they're handled in the most perfunctory of ways. The result is a film that's a lot of long shots of naked people writhing on the ground as Virgil and Dante walk by. There are plenty of striking images in the movie. The lustful dead being a prime example of this early on. When they get to satan, he looks pretty good (though the shot lingers a long time). But it makes me feel like I'd like to see this in gif form alongside the poem rather than presented as a film. Which adds up to a historically important movie but not one that really needs to be revisited unless you're diving deep into genre history. Gripweed posted:One thing I have to give them credit for though is the design of feardotcom.com(yes that is the actual URL, you see it get typed in). It's not what the internet looked like back then, but it's what we thought the internet should look like back then. In 2002 a well designed website had animated gifs of fire and auto playing MIDIs. It was a better time. 2002 was kind of the height of Flash website design, so yeah, the Internet actually did kind of look that stupid at the time (unless you quickly clicked on the link to the non-Flash version of the site  ). You're thinking of 1996 web design and things moved past that pretty quickly.
Random Stranger fucked around with this message at 02:26 on Oct 17, 2020 |
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Oct 17, 2020 02:23
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Hollismason posted:56. Dial Code Santa Claus (French 3615 code Père Noël) (1989) Vinegar Syndrome is releasing this on blu and UHD this Black Friday, I’m excited! I saw it for the first time last year and it’s definitely going in my holiday horror rotation
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Oct 17, 2020 02:48
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Mokelumne Trekka posted:I can't stop watching this I like to think it's because the alligator sees the cake, and is like "Oh, I'm taking that cake out." And then launches someone into that cake.
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Oct 17, 2020 02:52
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 Ilsa the Tigress of Siberia, 1977 The last movie of the Ilsa DVD set. This one taking place in a Stalinist Gulag in 1953 and probably the least sexualized setting of the three movies. It just goes straight to brutal poo poo with one prisoner killed trying to escape, then his corpse mutilated in front of other prisoners to make sure he is dead and to instill fear in them. The camp is run by Ilsa and her Cossack henchmen, who live quite the luxurious life of getting wasted and having sex every night while the prisoners of the camp suffers. The prisoners gets killed off or tortured for the smallest reasons, like one being too sick with a fever to work getting drowned in ice water and one prisoner fed to Ilsa's Siberian tiger. So far, I was on board. They are sort of doing the first movie without the rape and showing titties all the time, making it more of a proper historical horror about torture and mutilations. Then half way through, you get that action segment that's was saved for the end of the previous two. Stalin died (for some reason, the movie says he got executed when that's not what happened), so they decide to burn up the camp with all the prisoners locked up in their barracks and kill off the guards who aren't Cossack in order to cover up all the needless abuse that went on. There's a bit of a shoot-out where everyone dies apart from Ilsa, the head torturer and some Cossack henchmen. One prisoner survives and we jump ahead to to 1977. It is completely different movie at that point. At one side, I'm disappointed as I was all in for Gulag torture porn at that point. On the other hand, it was nice to see them break the formula established in the previous two movies to do something new. The surviving prisoner is security for the top Soviet ice hockey players who are playing in Montreal, who wants to get some hookers before going back to the U.S.S.R. and guess who runs the brother they go to. Ilsa sees him over the security cameras and kidnap him to finish the job. The rest of a movie is more of a crime thriller/action film with some gore and horror elements after that. At least it was entertaining, so I can't complain. It is neat to finally seen the Ilsa movies and I might revisit them again at some point, but it is back to more regular horror for the rest of the marathon for me.
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Oct 17, 2020 03:04
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 Fran Challenge #4: Scream, Queen! #18 The Skin I Live In Pedro Almodóvar , 2011 Blu-ray (Netflix)  Wow. This is my first Almodóvar movie, and now I understand what all the praise is about. This film is a perfect demonstration of how a premise lives or dies by the skill of its writer and director. I won't describe the plot because this is NOT a film that should be spoiled. I'll just say that the premise, if handled by a less adept director, could very easily have been little but laughable dreck. But Almodóvar executes it with the utmost care and precision, making for an ostensibly ludicrous plot that both takes itself seriously and that we, miraculously, take seriously. It loving GLUED me in. I hung on every moment, every line of dialogue, every plot detail. It's structured brilliantly, with an enigmatic first act that both confounded and fascinated me, and a story that gradually reveals itself in ingenious ways. This is how you elevate high-concept horror schlock into respectable art. 4.5/5 Spatulater bro! fucked around with this message at 22:04 on Oct 17, 2020 |
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Oct 17, 2020 04:12
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Franchescanado posted:Fran Challenge #8: When Animals Attack! Challenge Movie #1: Crawl (2019) A competitive swimmer (Kaya Scodelario) tries to rescue her father (Barry Pepper) from a basement crawl space, rapidly flooding in an oncoming hurricane, that is being patrolled by a couple alligators. The animals in this are just animals and are preventing the people from crossing no more than thirty feet of space, but the movie really sells the physical constraints the characters are under. Every injury, every piece of equipment lost, every avenue denied is clear and precise. I'm familiar with Kaya Scodelario from Tiger House, a different sort of trapped-in-a-house movie, and she's similarly intense here, with the movie making as much of the competitive part of competitive swimming as the swimming part. Barry Pepper is similarly convincing as a dad who's more concerned with getting his daughter out of the house than himself. I watched this because it fit the challenge and I hadn't managed to get to any of them yet, and I'm glad I did. I frequently tend towards the sci-fi and fantasy sides of horror and having a reason to check out something less convoluted was rewarding.
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Oct 17, 2020 04:21
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Fran Challenge #5: Silent Scream 20. The Man Who Laughs Whenever I watch a silent film, I'm always surprised by how much I enjoy it. You'd think I'd get the hint by now. The Man Who Laughs is based on a Victor Hugo novel of the same name. While I consider it to be as much of a horror movie as I would The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Victor Hugo has a thing for disfigurement), it apparently paved the way for the genre as a whole. I really enjoyed its expressionist aesthetic. Every character is so compelling to watch. They all give such good face. The expressive acting somehow makes it easier to let yourself be carried away by the emotion of the scene. Gwynplaine's face is so striking; it's no wonder it’s become so iconic. What a tragic character. As someone who has dealt with a lot of self-hatred related to thinking no one would ever love me because I was different, I couldn’t help but feel compassion for him and the cruel irony of his disability causing him so much pain, yet also being his only livelihood. The pacing wasn’t so bad. So many silent films seem to move at a glacial pace. The soundtrack was serviceable, but the “sound effects” were very loud and repetitive. The plot held my attention until the last act. I suppose I was expecting something more tragic. Random notes: - Props to Homo the dog for being the goodest of boys. - Is it just me or is naughty minx Duchess Josiana the spitting image of Madonna? Say, just how old is the cover girl exactly? 
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Oct 17, 2020 04:55
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33. Alligator (1980) - Fran Challenge 8 A smarter than it seems at first glance creature feature. Robert Forster does a good job with the role, though there is that 80's tinge of tough guy misogynist to his character. At least they tried to balance it out by making fun of his hairline. It isn't afraid to play things straight at times, but also knows when to lean into the humor, including a few very dark jokes I wasn't expecting which I loved. I also enjoyed the sewer setting, it's a place that gives me the heebie jeebies naturally so I was already bought into this spookie the moment the movie stepped foot down there. 3.5
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Oct 17, 2020 05:15
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#20: Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning (Courtesy the Scream Stream) Seeing more and more of this series, I'm surprised at its consistency. It's rarely great, and often doesn't seem to be trying to be particularly scary, but there's usually something to like. Years after the events of The Final Chapter, Tommy Jarvis is haunted by visions of Jason, and goes to live at a halfway house for troubled teens. It gets off to an inauspicious start when one of the kids, annoyed by another, hacks him up with an axe (one of the rare times a murder in a slasher movie is committed by someone else), and gets worse when an apparently alive and well Jason starts hacking up folks nearby. This is one of the least-well-regarded films in the franchise, for one very obvious reason: It's not Jason. It's some guy wearing the mask who's in like two scenes beforehand and they shoehorn in his motivation at the end Psycho-style. Knowing this ahead of time I wasn't opposed to the idea of making the killer someone else, but they could have done a lot more with this idea. They even play around with faking out that it's Tommy but if you're going to go this route, have fun with the mystery. Instead it's just sort of a letdown. Beyond all that, this one feels a little slack compared to the entries immediately before and after it- the kills feel even more disconnected than usual and there's a lot of wandering around and goofy scenes that don't go anywhere. That's sorta the eternal problem of the Friday the 13th films- how to keep people interested when Jason isn't killing people- and they throw everything at the wall here, wacky rednecks, a lot of attempted comedy, a lot of sex, another kid to put in peril, etc. The film's still introducing characters (well, victims) over 30 minutes in, but at the same time it has one of the more protracted "only the main characters left, time for the big chase" scenes. And even the finale is needlessly drawn out. That said, it's not terrible, and there are plenty of goofy and enjoyable bits in it. I enjoyed this one more than, say, the New Blood or Jason Goes to Hell. An interesting attempt at changing things up, not entirely successful.
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Oct 17, 2020 06:06
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22: Anacondas: Hunt for the Blood Orchid Challenge 8: When animals attack Just the blandest thing. A bunch of people you don’t really care about trek through the jungle and get picked off by terrible cgi giant snakes. I don’t think there was a single practical effect in any of the snakes, none of the cast are particularly likable or rise above their archetypes, and every story beat is telegraphed a mile away. It’s got enough Hollywood polish on it to not be terrible, but there’s no real reason to see this unless you’re a huge anaconda fan or a huge Morris Chestnut fan. The standout is a monkey who’s a surprisingly good monkey actor, I assume it’s the same one from Outbreak or maybe Friends
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Oct 17, 2020 06:34
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25. The Cleansing Hour, for Fran Challenge #3: Feardotcom, take 2 - I have been informed by a good friend that we did, in fact, watch Virus back when it released in 1999 and I just didn't remember it at all. So it's disqualified from the challenge and I'm taking the lazy way out with new Shudder drop to fix things. I would have skipped this one completely if not for the combination of challenge need and a few people saying things like "give it a shot if you're tired of Exorcism movies" since they generally bore me to death, so special thanks to everyone in the thread who plugged this - it was really fun! There are a few minor points where the script whiffs; I'm sort of unclear on why it's some sort of betrayal to not disclose sexual relationships from before you met your current partner, and it seemed like they did a bunch of goofy contortion to make sure we thought Max was the only bad person in the situation and the big finish is kind of stupid in many of the same ways all exorcism movies are stupid, but it's a different spin on things and I appreciate the attempt to insert some mystery into the proceedings. And it's a fun ride all the way through instead of 45 minutes to set up exactly the same exorcism movie scenes everyone has seen a billion times, which counts for a lot. A good movie.
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Oct 17, 2020 08:17
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Fran Challenge #3: Feardotcom 7. Videodrome (1983) - Watched on The Criterion Channel  One of the most glaring holes in my horror movie repertoire, mostly from a combination of it seemingly never being available on any streaming services and me being put off by what a smarmy rear end in a top hat James Woods is. Finally showed up on The Criterion Channel and now I can say that I've seen all of Cronenberg's films, and that I feel stupid for waiting so long because this is definitely one of his best. The practical effects are really amazing, and hold up even in high definition, with the exception of a strangely crude prosthetic hand when the gun starts drilling into his skin. Part of me does wish I'd had a chance to see this on a grainy VHS tape back in the day because it almost feels suited to that - the Videodrome channel itself reminds me of all the similar urban legends I heard growing up, or how it felt when a friend in middle school snuck over his dad's copy of Faces of Death. I think the most interesting thing about this film is just how intensely paranoiac it is. It might actually be unrivalled in that regard - this is a world where you can't trust inanimate objects, your thoughts, your eyes, your own flesh. It's relatively tame body horror by Cronenberg standards, but one of the most genuinely creepy premises. 4.5 / 5 8. The Ninth Configuration (1980) - Watched on Mubi  This is a very hard film to classify - Mubi categorizes it as a Horror / Drama / Comedy, which is as good a descriptor as any I suppose. The first ten minutes are borderline farcical, and then we get introduced to the core cast in a series of brief but intense interactions between residents of a psychiatric hospital for Vietnam veterans and their new psychiatrist, which gives a great cast the opportunity to take turns chewing the scenery. The horror trappings start showing up soon after - you've got a fog-cloaked European castle, an "inmates running the asylum" type narrative unfolds, and the film's central conflict - essentially a series of dueling monologues on the nature of God, selflessness, and humanity - plays out. There are a few genuinely creepy moments (the Killer Kane reveal is very effective, and while it's not scary exactly, the famous moon scene is weirdly eerie), but the bulk of the horror here is existential. One of the strangest parts about this already bizarre film is that it's technically a sequel to The Exorcist- the astronaut at the dinner party that Regan says is going to die in space is sent to this film's asylum after aborting a launch right before takeoff, and we discover that he has been thrown into a crisis of faith by the idea that if God is not real and he did die in space, he would be alone in the most genuine sense. The film's climax is a very grimy, sexually charged barfight that would make Roger Corman proud, and then we get an answer of sorts to the question that the film has been posing. I enjoyed this a lot more than I expected, and it would make a great double feature with Jacob's Ladder. There's absolutely zero chance this movie would have gotten made today, and those are always a fun experience. 4 / 5 9. The Changeling (1980) - Watched on Shudder  I'll admit that I'm not really big on haunted house horror - they all seem to live or die on the strength of their central performances while the narrative bounces around the same few tired tropes. This one pleasantly surprised me, especially since I had some early misgivings after the first supernatural event we see is preceded by possibly the most egregious "something spooky is about to happen" zoom I've ever seen. George C. Scott is a treat, and he's got a certain energy that is just perfectly suited to this film. This is a slightly atypical haunting story given that Scott never really feels like he's in any danger - weird things are constantly going on around him, but you get the impression almost immediately that the ghost is just looking for help and doesn't mean him any harm. If I had a complaint it would be that despite a longer-than-average runtime, the lead up to the ending feels a little rushed - the closest thing to an actual antagonist gets very little screen time, his minions pop up to make a quick threat and then get disposed of, and Scott's character does some pretty impressive deduction that would probably feel like a plot hole if it wasn't so breezy. Still, this is rightfully regarded as a classic of the genre, and if you're looking for a good haunting this will absolutely scratch that itch. 4 / 5 Total Watched: 9 - Ganja & Hess | L'Inferno | Mandy | A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night | Phantasm: Remastered | Tigers Are Not Afraid | Videodrome | The Ninth Configuration | The Changeling Fran Challenges Complete: 1, 2, 3 Decades Covered: 1910s, 1970s, 1980s, 2010s Countries Visited: United States, Italy, Iran, Mexico, Canada Grizzled Patriarch fucked around with this message at 08:31 on Oct 17, 2020 |
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Oct 17, 2020 08:28
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Spook-a-Doodle Double Feature #22: Scream, Queens and Vamps I’m having the same personal introspection I had with Horror Noire. Why are there so few movies already on my list that fit under this criteria? Why am I juggling between half a dozen movies that fit the criteria as if they can only fill one or two slots while there’s so many other films that could get cut? So just like with Horror Noire I decided to put every movie that interested me for whatever reason on my list I’m doing the same with this. Now I could double up here but I’m also trying to fill challenges and fit what I’m in the mood for. I have at least 5 other movies I could have filled for the challenge and I intend to get through the same way I intended to watch the half dozen Horror Noire qualifiers when that came. So I’m doing one of them now to fill a challenge and I’ll keep diversifying my watchlist as I go. Meanwhile I’ll have a nice little vampire double feature that for once isn’t some rich white dude. 38 (43). Scream Blacula Scream (1973) Directed by Bob Kelljan, Written by Joan Torres, Raymond Koenig, & Maurice Jules. Watched on Tubi, available on Shudder. Hooptober Se7en: 6/7 2nd films of franchises You gotta love that when Dracula gets resurrected its just because some guy fell down and got a cut in the wrong place or something but it takes a full on voodoo ritual to bring Blacula back into play. Excuse me. Mamuwalde. Not his slave name. One of my sole complaints about the first film was that Mamuwalde’s minions don’t do anything and that’s a key strength of Dracula that a lot of the remakes and knockoffs miss. So I was pumped when right out of the gate Mamuwalde turns the main villain and they start bantering it up. Its so rare that you get your requests so directly and quickly answered in a sequel. Richard Lawson strutting around in Mamuwalde’s cape talking tough and then wilting when daddy comes home is an absolute highlight of the movie as is just the whole look at Mamuwalde’s influence and power over his minions. I think that’s a key part of what makes Dracula Dracula, the master of vampires and not just a vampire. The best versions of him establish him as the top of hierarchy of evil characters and this does the same a bit for Mamuwalde. Fun fact; Richard Lawson, who played Willis the voodoo villain, is the father of Bianca Lawson who appeared in Bones and Buffy the Vampire Slayer as Kendra (amongst other stuff) and he’s the stepdad to a lady who goes by the name Beyonce. And yes, that makes Bianca step-sister to Beyonce. Also Bianca’s mom is Berry Gordy’s niece and is also the mother to Marvin Gaye III. Which I guess makes Marvin Gaye Beyonce’s step uncle twice removed? Or something? I digress. The movie really carries on William Marshall’s charm and savoir faire. He is by far the coolest Dracula I’ve seen and its really compelling not just how he ostensibly is drawn to the idea of being freed of this curse that was thrust upon him but also how he’s clearly not exactly fighting the power and bloodlust it gives him. Mamuwalde just kind of makes passing excuses for it when Pam Grier objects and when she’s confronted by him in his full evil form and rejects him he embraces “Blacula” and the role Dracula forced on him, wanting to victimize others in the same way. Its a very interesting story that I don’t think the script or film really fully take advantage of at all, but I think Marshall and the overall vibe of the film really help carry home. A better movie exists here. A great one even. There’s all the elements in play from Marshall’s great Mamawulde, a compelling and sympathetic backstory, great support players in Pam Grier and Richard Lawson, a voodoo element in play. It just never really comes together enough to elevate it to that next level. But at the same time its all very cool and good and a nice, easy, fun watch that I wish there was another sequel of. Cause drat Mamuwalde is a cool vampire.  39 (44). Bit (2019) Written and directed by Brad Michael Elmore Watched on Tubi, available on Hoopla. Fran Challenge #4: Scream, Queen! “Don’t even turn a man into a vampire because he’ll get power and become a monster eventually because they always do.” Well… I can’t really make a counter. This actually fell low key on my radar before this because I’m familiar with Nicole Maines form Supergirl and kind of had a crush on her. So I became aware of it and threw it on my Hoopla watchlist but kind of forgot about it when I was putting my list together for this month until someone else watched it. Early on I was thinking it was gonna be a pretty generic vampire story. You know the one. New kid comes to town, meets sexy vampires, gets turned, seems fun and rebellious, oops maybe the cabal of remorseless murderers are bad guys I’ll need to fight. Then it throws a hell of a curveball that got my attention. It still wasn’t exactly groundbreaking and kind of got into the general vicinity eventually but it was a different little path there and story than most of the countless vampire stories. It was clumsy. A bit like a bad CW pilot. Some questionable acting and directing choices. The idea doesn’t feel completely fully realized or know what exactly its trying to do or say. But there’s a charm in that. Its not a message movie, its just a bunch of ideas and thoughts kind of aired out over the course of a few fateful days in some vampires lives. I mean, you can’t go wrong with eating chuds you find on reddit. Its fun and light and sometimes a little silly unintentionally and sometimes intentionally and sometimes you’re not exactly sure which one. And there’s this one scene where a song is playing in the background that just repeats the refrain over and over and now I’ll never get that out of my head ever and it will just eat at me and drive me insane like a bloodlust until I snap and kill someone! I liked it. But I’m gonna die humming that song I kind of hate.
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Oct 17, 2020 08:42
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 25) Bride of Frankenstein (1935) Trailer Seen on: copy on Vimeo Fran Challenge #4: Scream, Queen!Watch a horror movie directed by an LGBQT+ filmmaker - directed by James Whale Picking up in the immediate aftermath of the events of the first film, Dr. Frankenstein realizes the error of his ways and pledges not to meddle with the forces of creation again, but the strange Dr. Pretorius forces Frankenstein's hand in helping him create a mate for the Creature. I was originally going to slot this into the Blind Spot challenge, but I realized while there are tons of horror movies that I still have yet to see, there are many less that fit this category. As a kid, I watched most of the original Universal monster films on Chiller Theater, including the original Frankenstein, but I never saw this one - instead I was exposed to it via the cultural osmosis of parody and homage for decades. I decided to give this a shot, and as it went on, I started to get that same feeling I did when I watched The Texas Chainsaw Massacre for my first October challenge a few years ago: "Why didn't I watch this sooner?!" This is just a really great film all around, and I'm generally not a fan (or at least appreciative of filmmaking) of movies from this era. The biggest surprise for me was how darkly funny the movie is, just even in the first 10 minutes alone. Ernest Thesiger's Pretorius is a great hammy villain, and I wasn't prepared for the straight-up weirdness of the scene with his small creations. This sucker flies, too - there wasn't a dull moment, with great editing and performances. Karloff is fantastic as the Creature, and it's amazing how he makes a character as murderous as he is just be so emminently pitiable. Elsa Lanchester's Bride is only on screen for like five minutes, but what an impact she makes - her strange, birdlike movement and shrieks really make her inhuman. At the end, I thought about how thoroughly modern this movie felt and realized it's because so many other movies since have been taking all the best parts from THIS one. Really, really glad I watched this.  26) The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari Trailer Seen on: free with Amazon Prime; also on Tubi, the copy there seemed slightly less good. Fran Challenge #5: Silent ScreamWatch a silent horror / thriller film. After the strange Dr. Caligari and the hypnotized Somnambulist, Cesare, arrive in Holstenwall, murders follow. But how can a man who sleeps eternally be a murderer? I'm going to admit that I didn't really care for this movie and I don't have much to say about it. To be sure, the visuals are great - the sets look like a surreal funhouse mirror world, with painted shadows and strange angles. I like the way Dr. Caligari and Cesare are made up, too. But as a silent film, I felt like there wasn't much else it had to offer. I think the thing was the plot didn't really grab me and the performances didn't really stand out for me either (unlike in Nosferatu, which I watched in a previous challenge), and the film spends a lot of time on characters I didn't find interesting. Ah well.
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Oct 17, 2020 10:51
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