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Orchestrated Mess posted:27. Friday the 13th Part III (Steve Miner, 1982) [DVD, 5th+ viewing] Supposedly this was originally supposed to be a sexual assault, but the actress thought it was a bad idea, which is why the flashback cuts to 'I don't remember what happened after that'. Good save on her part.
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Oct 30, 2020 18:07
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# 31 THE HAUNTING (1963) Overall a faithful adaption to Shirley Jackson's book. The movie is so efficient, so restrained that it feels a bit "stiff in the joints", as one critic pointed out. The casting is mostly perfect. Russ Tamblyn as the wise-cracking Luke. The actor playing the good-natured amateur paranormal investigator is good, as well as the actress playing the catty Theo. Eleanor, however, I think falls victim to the movie's time period. While her vulnerability is essential to the story, Eleanor is portrayed as excessively jumpy and clingy and helpless. In the book, Eleanor is also clever and has a whimsical sense of humor. Too bad she was not portrayed with more nuance here, but this was the early 60s. My other observation is that inside the house, even at night, it is often TOO LIGHT. Where is the light coming from? I think the atmosphere would have been better with more shadows, more darkness. GRADE: B+ *** Well, that's a wrap for me. 100% new viewings. To keep my sanity I mostly avoided schlock in favor of quality horror filmmaking and this paid off immensely. First, the shlock. Congratulations to The Incredible Melting Man for winning WORST PICTURE, edging out the legendary Nicolas Cage film, The Wicker Man! Now the best, which is the majority. A trio of Japanese horror films smashed the competition, as listed below. Audition is my favorite. But they do not stand alone in top notch films. If there is one grade I would change, it's probably for The Frighteners. While I did not like the humor, it has warmed on me a bit. It should be in the 'B' tier, not 'C' tier.  As always, you all are great and I enjoy posting in these threads and reading your reviews. *** 'A' GRADE TIER 1. Audition (1999) 2. House (1977) 3. Kwaidan (1964) 4. Suspiria (1977) 5. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) 6. Cronos (1993) 7. Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) 8. Eraserhead (1977) 9. Dawn of the Dead (1978) 'B' GRADE TIER 1. The Brood (1979) 2. Hellraiser (1987) 3. The Wickerman (1973) 4. The Lighthouse (2019) 5. The Haunting (1963) 6. Christine (1983) 7. The Invisible Man (2020) 8. Apostle (2018) 9. Color Out of Space (2020) 'C" GRADE TIER 1. The Frighteners (1996) 2. 20 Million Miles to Earth (1957) 3. Child's Play (2019) 4. Leviathan (1989) 5. Fiend without a Face (1958) 6. Xtro (1982) 7. Alien 3 (1992) 8. The Giant Claw (1957) THE 'YIKES!' TIER 1. The Incredible Melting Man (1978) 2. The Wickerman (2006) OUTLIER: DID NOT RANK 1. Nosferatu (1922) 2. Various Short Films such as Blue Beard (1902) and Autumn Harvest (2014)
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Oct 30, 2020 18:17
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49. Murder Death Koreatown (2020) An excellent no-budget modern exploitation movie using the found footage/documentary style. The movie's basic plot uses an actual murder in a local neighborhood, which is pretty sketchy for a lot of viewers so if that bothers you I'd stop here. The main draw is to the protagonist and his state of mind. You learn early on that he's unemployed and feels without purpose. He struggles to motivate himself to find a job, and suddenly thrusts himself into this investigation to find meaning. It's a pretty interesting look at the mental struggles of the unemployed and that disconnect between doing work because we have to versus the work that gives us meaning/satisfaction. This is perfectly tense at points and there's a great bit of surrealism to it all. 4/5
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Oct 30, 2020 18:32
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30. Addams Family Vales Watched On: Amazon Prime My girlfriend put this on for some comforting background noise and I ended up watching most of it while assembling 40k models. God drat but did they get an amazing cast of character actors for this. Every scene was like "holy poo poo Christine Baranski's in this!" "wait is that Tony Shalhoub?" "wow young Cynthia Nixon!" But the highest honor in this movie goes to Joan Cusack, just acting up a storm as the black widow serial killer that marries Fester. Debbie Jellinsky is an absolute cartoon character, but Cusack (like Raul Julia and Angelica Huston as Gomez and Morticia) plays her with such dedication and verve that it's impossible to not get wrapped up in her performance. Also Tag Team earns the easiest five figures in their entire career with their ending credits theme. More movies should have raps that sum up the film you just saw.
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Oct 30, 2020 18:45
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graventy posted:Supposedly this was originally supposed to be a sexual assault, but the actress thought it was a bad idea, which is why the flashback cuts to 'I don't remember what happened after that'. Good save on her part. Wow, that is... kinda bizarre but interesting to know, thanks. I feel part 3 was the last movie where Jason has several little moments of behavior that seem out of the character defined in the rest of the series, so I can sort of understand it.
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Oct 30, 2020 19:36
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 “Ain’t no her, stop calling it female, that’s a human cage.” 87. Lo (2009/USA) https://youtu.be/msXze85GGHc How do I begin to describe Lo? It’s a comedy, I would call it Whedonesque but I don’t want to scare people away, it’s cute and charming and goofy and sweet, and, leave me alone, I like what I like. I’m not shouting, you are! There are also musical elements, there is camp, there are adorable twee little stage performances used as storytelling devices, it’s a romance, and one which made me actually cry at the finale, it’s also about summoning demons. In fact, the whole play, and play is an accurate description, takes place in a single locale, a black void, with one white pentagram’d-circle painted upon the floor, where our lead sits for protection. The plot follows our hapless human, Justin, as he summons the demon Lo from the depths of hell. He calls upon Lo for the most human of reasons, love, after his girlfriend’s disappearance, and tasks the demon with finding her. The film then becomes a battle of wits and wills, an exploration of love, of family, of fate, and also gender identity surprisingly. The whole film from start to finish is spellbinding, it is the definition of charming. You can tell that each actor was pouring themselves into their roles, having a tremendous amount of fun doing so, and chewing the scenery so completely that the black void set becomes instantly explained. It’s hard to judge how to rate a film like this. It’s a small production, with a small cast, smaller budget, but a big heart, and heart goes a long way in my book. I’ve seen other reviews give this as little as 1.5 stars, which is fair depending on your criteria. My criteria is simply would I recommend it to another like-minded person, and my answer is yes, a thousand times yes. I would consider this a must-see film. 5/5 Total: New 73, Overall 87 Queer Interest: 34 Scream Stream: 12 new, 8 rewatches Fran Challenges: 13 | Horror Noire | Short Cuts | Feardotcom | Scream, Queen! | Silent Scream | Tomb of the Blind Spots | Dearly Departed | When Animals Attack | TerrorVision | Öskur heyrðust um allan heim | Ouroboros | Run This poo poo Into the Ground | It's the Time of the Season for Spook-a-Doodles | Countries Visited: 31 | USA | Hungary | Portugal | Vietnam | Georgia | Switzerland | Nigeria | United Kingdom | Lithuania | Germany | Finland | France | Spain | Japan | Monaco | Ireland | West Germany | Czechoslovakia | India | Canada | Estonia | Hong Kong | Australia | Tunisia | New Zealand | Brazil | Greece | Laos | North Korea | Belgium | Poland | Debbie Does Dagon fucked around with this message at 20:38 on Oct 30, 2020 |
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Oct 30, 2020 20:35
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50. Doc. 33 (2011) An Italian styled Blair Witch Project. Loved the look and feel of the film. The aspect ratio gave this a great amount of claustrophobia. The audio design made the hair on my neck raise up. Well done haunted asylum spooky. I knocked this down because the characters are thin, even for this type of movie, but they did have good chemistry. The creature design has some neat details but is kinda underwhelming when you get fuller shots of it. But hey, I was creeped out watching this, so hell yeah good job. 3/5
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Oct 30, 2020 20:54
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52. Jennifer’s Body (2009) - Fran Challenge 4: Scream, Queen! An initially maligned film (bad marketing, too many women, etc) that I absolutely love. I’m not going to begrudge anyone who’s not into Diablo Cody’s dialogue writing. I just have a massive soft spot for quippy teen drama, and this plays right into that while also being a horror movie. You know, kind of like Buffy except the writer thinks the characters are cool instead of just wanting to gently caress them. It’s funny, it’s got good gore. The subtext is basically text but sometimes that’s just what I want from a horror movie. Amanda Seyfried is great as Needy, and while the casting here does suffer from that trope of a conventionally attractive woman is now a nerd because she wears glasses and dungarees, to be fair to the film it kind of subverts that a little by never trying to paint her as unattractive. She just doesn’t dress like Megan Fox. Speaking of, I think Megan is pretty decent here. As others have mentioned, she doesn’t have a massive range but this role is right in her wheelhouse and she does a good job. It shares some DNA with a Heathers, a stone cold classic that I adore. While it never reaches those heights it’s still cool to see the template updated for a new generation. Like Heathers, this is a film that absolutely nails the ridiculous atmosphere that can arise out of enforced mass grief. 53. The Phantom Carriage (1921) - Fran Challenge 5: Silent Scream Sleepy but foreboding and bleak atmosphere Interesting characters, and a large portion of the film is given over to a character study of David through the lens of some of the worst things he has done in his life. This is the kind of film that I just enjoyed letting wash over me, it’s really all about atmosphere. The score is my favourite of the silent films that I’ve watched for the challenge. My only quibble with the film is that the redemptive ending feels unearned, but here I’m really judging by modern standards where we’ve had time to accept films that end with a terrible protagonist getting what they deserve. 54. King Kong (1933) - Fran Challenge 6: Tomb of the Blind Spots One thing I really appreciate about these 30s movies is that they get to the point with minimal messing about. We’re on the island in double-quick time. Unfortunately our journey to the island and the introduction to the islanders is rife with sexism and racism that absolutely stands out from other films I’ve been watching from this era, and it made the film really difficult to watch. The stop-motion animation and effects are astonishing for the time, not least because of the amount of time that Kong is on-screen. The amount of work that must have gone into this is incredible. Watching the majority of the expedition get hosed up by dinos and by Kong is fun, but the film overall was a disappointment. 55. Dagon (2001) - Fran Challenge 7: Dearly Departed I love the look and atmosphere of this film. A few bits of slightly ropey early 2000s CGI aside, the effects and the sets combine to create one of the wettest and drippiest movies I’ve ever seen. The fish men are creepy with really effective make-up and they’re always lit in a way that complements that effect. I’m also a big fan of the fact that the protagonist is good at just barely surviving and not much else. He skates through the film by the skin of his teeth and it’s incredibly tense. I can see myself rewatching this in the future, it’s just a lot of fun. 56. The Fog (1980) This film feels like such a classic horror story: vengeful ghosts, a town with a dark secret, and a race to repair and atone for past wrongs. I expect Carpenter’s films from this era to look gorgeous, but this one is really top tier. The locations are fantastic, and the core of the relatively simple effects being used is excellent lighting and framing. Another classic Carpenter soundtrack here, that really complements the setting. With a tight runtime and efficient plotting, this was an easy and enjoyable watch. 57. Carnival of Souls (1962) This explores similar themes to a film I watched earlier this month, Repulsion. A study of female isolation in a world that seeks to infantilise women and make them dependent on the men around them. The organ-heavy score builds an eerie and oppressive atmosphere. The way the tension ramps up as the world becomes increasingly hostile to the protagonist is fantastic, and achieves significant horror with incredibly simple effects. 58. Rogue (2007) - Fran Challenge 8: When Animals Attack! This is a decent creature feature, and the crocodile is pretty cool. The locations are visually interesting, and the siege setup is a fun one. Radha Mitchell and Sam Worthington do a decent job with what the script gives them. Unfortunately Michael Vartan is not great, and hasn’t acquired much in the way of charisma since his time on Alias, and as our point of view for most of the film he kills a lot of the atmosphere. 59. Tourist Trap (1979) The opening scene of this film is wild and ridiculous. The film doesn’t quite manage to keep this up for the duration, but it does have some very effective scenes, in particular one where plastic is painted onto a human face while the killer monologues. The ending is mad and chaotic, just the way I like it. 60. Diabolique (1955) One of my favourites of the challenge! Right from the start the characters are intriguing and captured my attention. I really enjoyed spending time with the leads, and their developing and inherently unbalanced relationship is the beating heart of this film. Right from the opening scene, tension is hatched and never stops ratcheting up until the very end. It’s a beautiful looking film, and the black and white is incredibly striking. Highly recommended. 61. The Exorcist III (1990) I’ve known for years that this is a film held in high regard, and is the “true” sequel to The Exorcist being based on the sequel book Legion. Still, for some reason I just never got around to watching it. That was a mistake! This is a very different film to the original, but it absolutely has the same core idea of a malignant evil beyond human understanding. Seen through the eyes of a detective hunting a killer whose MO bears a striking resemblance to the now-dead Gemini killer, it posits that the killer was merely a vessel for this evil. This is a much “talkier” film than the original, but what talking! George C Scott, Brad Dourif, and Jason Miller are absolutely at the top of their game here and their big dialogue heavy scenes are absolutely mesmerising. Films Watched: Don’t Look Now | Frankenstein (1931) | Nosferatu | The Changeling | The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari | The Haunting | Cure | Freaks | Repulsion | Goodnight Mommy | Dracula (1931) | The Innocents | Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) | The Ruins | From Beyond | Black Sunday | Phantasm | Idle Hands (Rewatch) | The People Under the Stairs (FC1) | Spiral (2019) | Maniac (1980) | Ernest Scared Stupid | I Walked with a Zombie | The Amityville Horror | Ghoulies II | Chopping Mall | Over Your Dead Body | Gothic | As the Gods Will | Altered States | Them | City of the Living Dead | Alucarda | The Black Cat | Island of Lost Souls | Come to Daddy | Hider in the House | Halloween III: Season of the Witch | The Beyond | Deadly Friend | The Vanishing | Sleepwalkers | The Wolf Man | Splinter | The Old Dark House | Deep Red | The Brood | Eyes Without a Face | Eaten Alive | The Return of the Living Dead | Screamers | Jennifer’s Body | The Phantom Carriage | King Kong | Dagon | The Fog | Carnival of Souls | Rogue | Tourist Trap | Diabolique | The Exorcist III Rewatches: 1 Total: 61 They Shoot Zombies Don't They: 36% Fran’s Challenges:
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Oct 30, 2020 21:16
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Was hoping I wouldn't have to do another review dump, but I keep putting off writing reviews this year. Fran Challenge #4: Scream, Queen!30. Spiral (2019) Dir: Kurtis David Hacher Very hard to pin down what I think about this one. On the one hand, I guess I'm glad the film tries to handle queer representation in a thoughtful manner, but it's otherwise a very dry film. Not very interesting stylistically and while it does tackle otherization pretty well, it doesn't go as hard as it needs to to sell the central mystery. Also, it just ends kind of abruptly. Fran Challenge #5: Silent Scream31. L'Inferno (1911) Dir: Giuseppe de Liguoro, Francesco Bertolini, and Adolfo Padovan The first Italian feature film ever made! Also one of the earliest feature films that still survives fully intact. It doesn't really have a whole lot to say story-wise, it's mostly just a straight retelling of Dante's Inferno. A lot of the allure of this film comes down to seeing how it adapts some of the iconic imagery found in the poem, using Gustave Dore's engravings as an inspiration. The film still looks incredibly gorgeous and atmospheric today, at times looking like a direct recreation of those engravings. Beautiful stuff and highly recommended. . Fran Challenge #9: TerrorVision32. Cast A Deadly Spell (1991) Dir: Martin Campbell Kind of surprising we don't see more horror movies playing with the 50's noir setting, seems like mixing and matching pulp genres should be a natural fit. There's some fun beats and strong effects, but sadly, there's a lot of very uncomfortable bits that hold it back from being something I can recommend in good conscience. Now, I don't expect a TV movie from the 90's to have a nuanced take on trans folks, but it's still very uncomfortable seeing a trans character get belittled and beat up by the protag. The film also introduces the idea of zombie slaves as cheap labor or bodyguards, and it just so happens that a majority of the zombies we see on screen are Black. I think it's meant to parallel real slavery, but the film doesn't really comment on or even really challenge the idea. Not a good look! Fran Challenge #10: Run This poo poo Into The Ground33. Hellraiser: Inferno (2000) Dir: Scott Derrickson Oh joy, I finally watched a direct-to-video Hellraiser. Honestly, not as bad as you'd think given the circumstances (and how much worse I've heard these get). Still pretty bad, though! This has the stink of "promising first-time director being handed a thankless job" all over it. You can see Scott Derrickson try to introduce flourishes of noir and Jacob's Ladder into the mix, but either because of budget or clash with the source material, they don't really go anywhere. I haven't watched the rest of these (except for Judgment a couple of years ago), but it feels like in the DTV sequels, Doug Bradley just shows up for five minutes and lectures the camera about the morals of the film, like the Crypt-Keeper with a theater degree. Fran Challenge #8: When Animals Attack!34. Lake Placid Dir: Steve Miner It's fine? Absolutely filled with stock characters and tropes, but there's nothing particularly egregious about it other than the late-90s "women, am i right?" themes it gives one of our only named female characters. It's probably worth it, if only to see Betty White cursing some dudes out and Brendan Gleeson try to pull off a Maine accent. Fran Challenge #11: Öskur heyrðust um allan heim35. Save The Green Planet! Dir: Jang Joon-hwan Really into this one! It keeps up a very madcap pace throughout, shifting between tones and genres very fluidly. It's never afraid to let itself be goofy, but packs a punch when it needs to.
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Oct 30, 2020 21:30
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 31/31 The Cremator (1968) - rewatch One of the best Czechoslovak movies and actually a very good horror film. It's pretty much a character study of the protagonist Karel Kopfrkingl, a crematory worker in the late 30s Czechoslovakia with a passion for his job. He is seemingly an articulate, collected lover of beauty who cares for his family. However, he is also an impressionable liar, whose opinions change constantly, and his care for his family is actually a display of control. When he gets introduced to nazi ideology, he latches onto it, as it allows him to fulfil his ambitions and gives him a framework for his ideals. The fact that his wife and therefore also his children are jewish means they are now an obstacle that he needs to get rid off. The movie is shot in a dream like manner with a frequent use of fish eye effect, echoing sound effects or recurring opera music theme. There are also humorous elements, like a married couple where the husband is constantly frustrated with his confused wife, who reappear during the movie in various situations. Would recommend the movie to anybody who hasn't seen it yet. Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMOT553AyAE
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Oct 30, 2020 21:34
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Russian Guyovitch posted:1. Vampyr 27. FRAN CHALLENGE #11: ÖSKUR HEYRðUST UM ALLAN HEIM – Noroi: The Curse – Watched on Shudder. A documentary filmmaker, Masfumi Kobayashi, specializing in paranormal investigation goes missing after the filming of his most disturbing story yet. This is a really excellently crafted found-footage film. The way in which Kobayashi's initial investigation, starting with what seems like a minor occurrence of possible supernatural activity, starts to gain momentum feels very natural. Every little seemingly unrelated event gets caught up in the gravity of the one central mystery, and as things start spiraling toward the inevitable conclusion, it builds a pervasive sense of dread and panic. This was hands down the most genuinely frightening film that I've watched all month. 28. FRAN CHALLENGE #12: OUROBORUS – Bit – Watched on Tubi. A trans teen named Laurel leaves her small Oregon town after graduation to go spend the summer with her brother in Los Angeles. There, she falls in with a queer feminist vampire collective. Overall, this was an okay film, but not something that really grabbed me. It ultimately suffers from having just too much going on in it to spend enough time sufficiently developing any one story line. It feels more like an attempt at a series pilot, but when it was realized they'd never go to series, they just crammed all of the story in here, with story threads around Laurel's guilt over not keeping in touch with her friend back home, Laurel grappling with her need to feed versus her reticence to kill, the backstory of Duke, the existence of vampire hunters and conflict between them and the collective, and inter-collective conflict as well. It's just all too much for two hours, and it all winds up feeling a bit thin as a result. 29. FRAN CHALLENGE #13: IT'S THE TIME OF THE SEASON FOR SPOOK-A-DOODLES – Deadly Games – Watched on Shudder. Thomas, the child prodigy son of the head of a major French luxury department store is trying to reaffirm his faltering belief in Santa. In an effort to convince his skeptical friend of Santa's existence, he logs on to a bbs set-up to allow French children to speak directly with Father Christmas, but instead somehow ends up chatting with an unstable man obsessed with Christmas who gets enough information out of Thomas to track him down on Christmas eve. The tone of this movie is wild, just boomeranging back and forth between childish fantasy and grim home invasion. Thomas lives in the sort of ridiculous mansion that you only see in kids movies about ultra-wealthy child protagonists, with secret passages leading to cavernous toy-filled hidden rooms that are Thomas' secret, trap doors, and an over-the-top early nineties wrist computer that our capricious hero has built himself. All of this is then contrasted with a grim antagonist with the sole intent of doing grievous bodily harm to Thomas and his incredibly frail grandfather. It's basically if Home Alone and the Richie Rich movie had a love child that wound up getting raised by Funny Games. 30. Possession – Watched on Archive.org. An intelligence agent in West Berlin returns home from an assignment to his wife who has asked him for a divorce. While his initial suspicions of infidelity are confirmed, he can't possibly begin to suspect just what the true sinister nature of that affair is. I watched this a couple of days before writing this, and honestly, I'm still grappling with this film. Initially, when I watched it, I primarily came away with a take that it's about how the grief and heartbreak that people experience when a relationship deteriorates, but with even just a little distance, I can't help but feel that this is a film that has some downright unsettling gender politics. Specifically, spoilers to follow: with the whole doppelganger element to the story, Mark has in Helen an idealized version of his wife, a perfect woman who never challenges him in any way, but this is all destroyed by the doppelganger of Mark that Anna has created through her infidelity. It just has a real “it's not my fault my subsequent relationships failed, it's my ex's” kind of vibe, and that's made even worse by having Mark at one point savagely beat an obviously not mentally well Anna, and then later treat that like it was just a minor mistake because he lost his temper. All in all it was a very intense film with some great performances, but it left me mostly hoping that Andrzej Zulawski got some therapy. 31. Bad Moon – Watched on Amazon Prime. A photographer returns to the Pacific Northwest to be close to his sister and her son after an animal attack while on an assignment in the Amazon kills the woman he loves and leaves him injured. I figured that I should finish up my challenge with a werewolf movie, what with there being a full moon on Halloween this year. This had some pluses to it. The practical effects and overall look of the werewolf were great, and breaking from traditional lore and having him transform any night on which the moon is visible rather then just the full moon allowed for the story to move a little quicker as you don't have to have gaps in the action to account for the month long gaps between the attacks. Still, the filmmakers couldn't quite seem to decide if they wanted to make their werewolf a more sympathetic character or just have him lean in to being the villain. Also, while the practical effects of the werewolf when it was on screen were good, the cgi transformation scene was rough. Overall, a good way to kill eighty minutes, but nothing I'd go out of my way to watch again. Bonus Time! FRAN CHALLENGE #2: SHORT CUTS The Hopewell Haunting – 33:45 – found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sImMmdeO0c A good old-fashioned ghost story, it's about a southern preacher asked to look into the evil goings-on in an abandoned house in rural Kentucky in the 1930's. It's got a solid atmosphere and the design on the ghost is sufficiently creepy, but the faux old-timey film look can make for some difficult to make out shots. Tuck Me In – 1:00 – found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNQIdEv-Emo A father looks under his son's bed to check for monsters and what he finds isn't anything he could have imagined. Short and effective, I appreciate that this didn't go for the obvious jump scare ending it could have and instead left you with the same feeling of dread and confusion that the father is feeling at that moment. Don't Look Away – 7:45 – found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4f3hG-5grlw&feature=youtu.be A teenage girl looks out her window to see a strange figure standing in the yard staring at her. Her father calls and tells her that whatever she does, she shouldn't look away from it. This was a fun premise that gets dragged down by spending too much of it's run time focusing on the rules of the situation, rather than on creating atmosphere. It just feels like someone saw Light's Out get picked up for a feature length and hoped they could replicate that success. Still Life – 7:00 – found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=La6T8Bq6CsU A man on a road trip finds himself in a desolate town being menaced by mannequins. I felt that his one did a good job of building some tension, even if you can see the twist coming a mile away. If anything, the predictability of the twist made the baby crying that much more tense. Bedfellows – 1:30 – found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQvGmMVBYMw A woman is woken up by a late night phone call from a surprising caller. It's pretty impressive that they were able to make a ninety second long short that ran about 25 seconds too long. Trim some of the establishing shots from the beginning and then end it about two seconds before they did (deleting the completely unnecessary jump scare as the credits begin) and you have a much better short. Also, the preview still on Youtube completely spoils the end. My House Walkthrough – 12:00 – found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWXnt2Z2D1E&feature=youtu.be A video tour of a bit of a fixer-upper, with some extra emphasis placed on the longest hallway in the house. This one is pure atmosphere, and for a little bit during the first five minutes or so I felt that it was really dragging. By the end, though, I was completely hooked and would highly recommend this one. Definitely the best of the shorts that I watched. There we have it. I've put in 31 first time viewings and managed to hit all of the Fran Challenges. And just in time, too, because I'm going to spend all day on Halloween working and definitely wouldn't have had the time to get these last reviews in. As with every year, it's been a blast, and I'm really blown away by the dedication of some of the folks in this thread, and am jealous of the time you have to enjoy as many spook-a-doodles as you do. Hopefully the world will have settled down enough by May that I'll be able to do the Spring challenge as well, seeing as how I wasn't able to this year. Thanks, Franchescanado, for running this challenge. I'm sure I speak for a lot of us when I say that I really appreciate all of the work that you put into this every year.
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Oct 30, 2020 21:39
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 48) Doom Asylum (1987) Trailer Seen on: Tubi A group of teens and a punk girl band converge on an abandoned hospital, where a lawyer was tragically disfigured after a car accident and went on a murder spree. The madman is still around, and one by one he picks off his victims... but he has a special connection with one of them. Doom Asylum is a horror comedy - although I use the term "comedy" in its loosest form - that parodies a lot of the slasher film tropes of the '80s. The characters all have a peculiar quirk to set them apart - there's the baseball-card obsessed nerd, the good girl who has psychiatrist parents and relates to everything though psychiatric diagnosis (Sex and the City's Kristin Davis in an early role, and who I didn't recognize for most of the film), etc. The only running joke that made me chuckle a bit was the hot girlfriend calling her boyfriend "mom" because it's such a non-sequitur (and not worth explaining in detail here). While the makeup and gore is ok, the film overall looks really cheap and the film is incredibly padded - it'll cut away from the action to show the villian watching old black and white films in his lair. I'm not enough of a film buff to recognize them, but it happens constantly - hell, the end of this film uses the "The End" sequence from one of the old movies as its end! It's a little too goofy and winking for its own good and not scary either, which is bad if you're making a horror comedy.  49) The Slumber Party Massacre (1982) Trailer Seen on: Tubi A group of high school students (and their surrounding neighbors and peeping toms) are preyed upon by an escaped mass murderer with a big drill. You gotta love the classics, you know? I went into this one blind, knowing only its title and reputation. After about 30 minutes in, I had to stop the movie and look up info on IMDB and Wikipedia to satisfy a curiosity of mine, and I was right. I was intrigued by the fact that the movie spends all the time with the girls, all the "handymen" who show up are girls, the boys get their asses kicked by the girls, the girls talk sports and all the poo poo the guys usually talk about in these films, and found it all to be kind of subversive for the time. Welp, the film was originally written by a woman as a feminist parody of slasher films and directed by a woman, but of course Roger Corman stepped in and added leering nudity and had the story mostly rewrote as a regular slasher to make it marketable. While you can definitely see the original DNA of the film here, I found that the enforced changes/rewrite made it just sort of okay and I wish they'd stuck with the original concept. As a side note, I think this movie must hold the record for number of fake jump scared inbetween real scares.  50) Slumber Party Massacre 2 (1987) Trailer Seen on: Tubi; One of the remaining characters from the original Slumber Party Massacre has survivor's guilt that manifests as a Freddy Kreuger-like Driller Killer, and when she goes away on a weekend trip with her friends and their boyfriends, the killer steps out of her dreams and into real life... After a couple of people talked this one up in the thread, I had to give it a watch. This one is way more entertaining than the first, if only because it has a totally surreal and supernatural take on the premise (it's funny that there's a slumber party in this movie, but it's in the first 30 minutes and nothing bad happens there). The filmmakers clearly were inspired by Nightmare on Elm Street and it shows. The Elvis-like rock'n'roll killer with an awesome guitar/drill combo and who mostly speaks in song lyrics is a hoot, it's too bad they don't give him more to do. I was surprised to see Wings' Crystal Bernard as the lead girl! My only real problem with the film is the first two thirds are repetitive, with the characters partying and Bernard having bad dream fakeouts, but when the killer shows up in the last act and all hell breaks loose, it gets way better. -- All right, that's 10 more movies than my original goal. I won't have anymore time to see anything else between now and Sunday so I'm gonna put a cap on it with a summary later.
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Oct 30, 2020 21:47
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29) FRAN CHALLENGE #11: Öskur heyrðust um allan heim - One Cut of the Dead (2017) Prime Video - First Watch Gotta say, I wasn't really feeling this one. I like a good low-budget horror film but this wasn't grabbing me at all. A lot of the acting seemed really wooden and the plot was pretty bare-bones. The one-shot gimmick was interesting, but I don't feel like they really did anything with it, and honestly it's a bit confusing as I wasn't sure if it was supposed to be a found footage film or not. Sometimes people react to the cameraman, and sometimes the camera actually interacts directly with the world, but most of the time people act like it's not there. I feel like the film-within-a-film reveal that happens at the start was actually pretty good, as you think "oh, the reason why the acting is stiff is because they were in a bad film", but then the acting is still still once we're out of the film. But when I was about 20 minutes in I was really starting to wonder how they were going to stretch this into 1hr40 as it was wearing thin already by then. Oh. Ooooohhhhh. OOOHHHHHHHHHHH. Wow, holy poo poo, I was not expecting where this film goes. When the credits ran at half an hour I was surprised, and then when it flashed back to the making of the film we just watched I had no idea what was actually happening - but I was interested! But it's when they actually start filming the (fake) film we have already watched where the (actual, real) film gets great. Then you realise that the weird mistakes and choices in the first half an hour were not only put there for a reason but were set-ups to jokes. And good jokes, too! This is a really funny film! I feel like someone could have made a film like this but made it too knowing and ironic, and it wouldn't have worked. Basically making us watch a bad film for 30 minutes and then spending the rest of the time going "Ha, we made a bad film on purpose! Aren't we clever?". Instead what this does - because it makes it a lightheaded comedy - is really pay tribute to the spirit and comradery that is behind a lot of these low-budget horror films. Seeing members of the crew pitch in, improvise and literally pile on top of each other to make shots work reminds me of the stories you hear about the making of films like The Evil Dead. If I had a main criticism it's that the first part of the film is so good at being a bad horror film that I think it's actually very easy to lose the audience who don't know where it's going to go. What I wrote in the unspoilered text was exactly what I was thinking at the time, and I was very much prepared to give this film a 2.5-3 rating. But the fact that the first half was as bad as it was really does make the rest of the film better. Very surprised by this film, in the best way. 4.5/5 Tomtrek fucked around with this message at 22:02 on Oct 30, 2020 |
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Oct 30, 2020 21:59
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Franchescanado posted:Fran Challenge #13: It's The Time of the Season for Spook-a-Doodles  #43. Halloween: Resurrection (AMC via YouTube TV) A year after Michael Myers killed Laurie Strode and disappeared, a group of people pull a reality TV stunt at the Myers home, live streamed over the internet. Unfortunately, Michael has also returned home, and he is not happy to have company... I wanted some easy background noise while I did some chores today, so I threw this one on, figuring it wouldn't matter if my attention wandered from it. I hadn't seen it since it was relatively new, but I remember hating it at the time. Re-watching it today, it's... still not good, but it also wasn't as bad as I was making it out to be, not as bad as Halloween 6 at least and debatably better than Halloween 5 as well. It still hasn't aged well, both due to the cheap and not-at-all representative "live streaming" aspect they were working with, plus Busta Rhymes'... everything, in this movie. (I vaguely remembered the dumb kung fu bits and the scene where he confronts Michael in costume and Michael just kinda walks away confused; I'd forgotten that he saves the day by electro-shocking Michael in the dick.) The movie likes to repeat the whole "Michael Myers is a killer shark" line, but that doesn't really explain anything about the character, even if they do little else with him besides making him a wall that moves around and occasionally mercs someone. Actually, that's not totally true. I did appreciate the moment at the end of the pre-title sequence, where, after killing Laurie, Michael willingly surrenders his knife to one of the inmates and goes on his way. It seems like a fitting character moment, that after finally achieving his goal after 20-something years that he has no more interest in killing random people until they start poking the bear. Speaking of the opening sequence, I think that's the best part of the film; certainly the section with the most energy and interest. I did like the revisit of the ending of Halloween: H20 and, as far as explanations for why Michael's back, I like this retcon more than the ones from Halloweens 4 and 5. (The best is still in Rob Zombie's Halloween II where he gets resurrected due to random, accidental violent death; that is his siren song, after all.) I don't agree with the mentality of bringing back Jamie Lee Curtis just to kill her off, but credit to her, she still gives the best performance in 10 minutes than anyone else did with 80+ to work with. In the end, I didn't hate this one, even if it left a lot to be desired. But I liked the idea of it all, even if I didn't like a lot of the execution. Still, it tried to shake up the formula, which is more than I can say for the latter day, pre-H20 sequels. Also, it shouted out Peeping Tom, which more movies should do. I mean, this one shouldn't, because the comparison was never going to do it any favors - same thing as referencing the original Halloween, too - but at least its heart is in the right place, I guess.  /5Watched so far: The Ghost of Frankenstein, The Happiness of the Katakuris, Rabid (1977), A Nightmare on Elm Street 4, Blacula, Night of the Demons (1988), The Phantom of the Opera (1943), The Mummy (1959), Over Your Dead Body, Halloween 4, Frankenstein (1931), The Ice Cream Man, multiple shorts and specials, Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde, Blood Quantum, The Hideous Sun Demon, The Raven (1935), Final Destination 2, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Invisible Man (2020), Countdown, Nosferatu (1922), Boar, Diabolique (1955), Bit, Friday the 13th Part IV, Needful Things, The Wasp Woman (1959), Arachnophobia, Maniac Cop 3, The Lure, Killer Klowns from Outer Space, Bride of Chucky, Angst, Prom Night II, Demon Knight, 3 From Hell, Dark Night of the Scarecrow, Dr. Giggles, Werewolf of London, The Wolf of Snow Hollow, The Mummy's Ghost, Halloween: Resurrection And with that, I've surpassed my original watch goal and all of the Fran challenges are complete. I have people visiting this weekend so I don't know if I'll get a chance to do any more write-ups, but I'll try to squeeze a few sentences in if I can.
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Oct 30, 2020 21:59
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 Fran Challenge #4 : The Perfection A young woman comes back into a teacher’s life after she was poised to be the best but had to leave to take care of her mother. Then things go off the rails. This was a strange movie. I think it still counts for the challenge, but there are some criticisms for how it entangles queerness, trauma and manipulation - and I can see that. It’s one of those movies where at the end, nobody is in a good place, not even the folk we’re rooting for, which maybe is expected with all the traumatic events they went through. I don’t know, I’ll need to let this one sit with me a bit longer.  Fran Challenge #11: House (1977) Wildly fun movie. It has a reputation for weirdness, I assumed that reputation would imply a basically nonsensical plot, like a Jodorowsky movie or something, but this surprised me with a fairly linear plot! It was the very stylized story of some girls who go to visit one of their aunts but the house is haunted. The strange style of the movie helped make the haunting a little weirder, and the movie a lot more fun to watch, and there are some really fantastic pieces in here that would go on to become staples of horror movies. A really fun watch, and I’ll definitely watch it again some time.  Fran Challenge #8 : Razorback (1984) A community is being terrorized by a giant razorback boar as well as a couple of good ‘ol boy locals. This movie had been mentioned so many times on the forums it was only a matter of time, and having seen Boar twice now, I thought it high time I saw where that movie came from. What I wasn’t expecting was this - an absolutely beautiful movie, full of sun and dust and rust. DDD already made the comparison to Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but this movie oozes with that style. It’s awesome. The boar is used sparingly, so whatever practical limitations they have with the actual creature aren’t really noticeable, and the characters are fine. It’s a movie where no one is safe, you feel like anyone could be gored at any moment. Highly recommend it! 1. Edge Of The Axe (1988), 2. Spiral (2019), 3. The Babysitter (2017), 4. The Babysitter: Killer Queen (2020), 5. Vampires Vs. The Bronx (2020), 6. Relic (2020), 7. November (2017), 8. Ginger Snaps 2 (2004), 9. The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957), 10. Scream 2 (1997), 11. Pumpkinhead (1988), 12. Get Duked (2019), 13. Dream Demon (1988), 14. Severance (2006), 15. It Chapter 2 (2019), 16. Dr. Sleep (2019), 17. Deadly Friend (1986), 18. Night Of The Demons (1988), 19. Brides Of Dracula (1960), 20. Djinn (2013), 21. Near Dark (1987), 22. The Wolf Of Snow Hollow (2020), 23. Knife+heart (2018), 24. Jennifer’s Body (2009), 25. The Gate (1987), 26. eXistenZ (1999), 27. Class of Nuke ‘Em High (1986), 28. Starfish (2020), 29. Metamorphosis (1990), 30. Terrorvision (1986), 31. Deathgasm (2015), 32. 976-Evil (1988), 33. Haunt (2019), 34. Hack-O-Lantern (1988), 35. The Burning (1981), 36. Demon Knight (1995), 37. Wishmaster (1997), 38. Thir13en Ghosts (2001), 39. Haxan (1922), 40. Dr. Phibes Rises Again (1972), 41. Critters 4 (1992), 42. Queen Of Blood (1966), 43. The Perfection (2020), 44. House (1977), 45. Razorback (1984) Fran Challenges: #1 Horror Noire - Vampires vs. The Bronx #3 feardotcom - Starfish #4 scream queen - The Perfection #5 Silent Scream - Haxan #7 Dearly Departed - Queen Of Blood #8 Animals Attack - Razorback #9 terrorvision - TerrorVision #10 run this poo poo into the ground - Critters 4 #11 Öskur heyrðust um allan heim - House #13 time of the season - Haunt
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Oct 30, 2020 23:03
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#31) They're Inside A woman takes her sister and a small film crew to a cabin to shoot a movie about her life. However, they run into another group making slightly different movies. So this is another low budget (I'm assuming?) found footage movie. Although this one has a real mean, nasty streak running through it that will likely turn some people off. There's some predictability with the scares, but it does have them. The actual "found footage" framing is a bit scattershot, although the movie does at least make some effort to explain why. But as I mentioned, there's a somewhat gross element that seems somewhat unnecessary and out of place that later takes on a bit more importance that some people I think will just not jive with at all. It also adds an undue weight to a lot of the proceedings, which makes the tone of everything feel a bit more dark than it "should" be. Although, it's entirely paid off in the end where you do see that the darkness was really maybe the point of the movie. The ending didn't entirely make sense, but it was fitting enough. 2 / 5 And, I made it! I've actually had a couple rewatches and other things mixed in that I didn't write up. As my avatar can attest to, I've tried and failed at the October version before so I'm pretty pleased. That said, I did do the March challenge this year, and although it was half the movies, the quality of things I saw seemed much better. Part was availability, part was me trying in some places to look for hidden gems or things I didn't already think I may like. My overall assessment would be: S Tier: Tenebrae, Egg, Halloween III A Tier: Scare Me, The Clovehitch Killer, Ganja and Hess, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Cleansing Hour, Threads, Frailty B Tier: i'm thinking of ending things, Trilogy of Terror, Boar, Splice, The Loved Ones, Haxan C Tier: In a Stranger's House, Alien Abduction: Incident in Lake County, Frankenstein '80, The Oily Maniac, The Triangle, Await Further Instructions, Severed Ties, Vampyres, They're Inside Yuck Tier: Megan is Missing, Scare Me, Feardotcom, Finding Randy, The Dinner Party, Hell House LLC III: Lake of Fire Fran Challenges: 1-Ganja and Hess 2-various shorts 3-Feardotcom 5-Haxan 6-Invasion of the Body Snatchers 7-Tenebrae 8-Boar 9-Threads 10-Hell House LLC III: Lake of Fire 11-The Oily Maniac 12-Frailty 13-Halloween III Total: 31 1. In a Stranger's House / 2. The Loved Ones / 3. Scare Me / 4. Scare Me / 5. Egg / 6. Alien Abduction: Incident In Lake County / 7. i'm thinking of ending things / 8. The Clovehitch Killer / 9. Ganja and Hess / 10. Trilogy of Terror / 11. Short films / 12. Feardotcom / 13. Frankenstein '80 / 14. Boar / 15. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) / 16. The Oily Maniac / 17. The Cleansing Hour / 18. The Triangle / 19. Threads / 20. Halloween III / 21. Frailty / 22. Await Further Instructions / 23. Finding Randy / 24. Severed Ties / 25. Vampyres / 26. Haxan / 27. Splice / 28. Tenebrae / 29. The Dinner Party / 30. Hell House LLC III: Lake of Fire / 31. They're Inside
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Oct 30, 2020 23:42
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Spook-a-Doodle Double Feature #46: Zombies and Demons Crunch time. I had to dramatically slash my list of movies which was heartbreaking. A lot of movies I really wanted to get to that I just won’t. Its hard to feel too bad considering I’m gunning for 100 films here so I put in the effort, but there’s always more. But I had to work it down to the handful of movies to the ones I absolutely wanted to get in and these two were quick on the line. White Zombie is just one I’ve meant to get to for years and didn’t make the cut last year when I was deep diving into that era, but a little Bela is perfect All Hallows’ Eve Eve fare. Plus it gives me my 11th decade covered this month. Neon Demon is another I’ve meant to get to for years. Its always kind of just been right on the bubble for this challenge or that pairing or someone’s recommendation and somehow always gets passed over. Even this month it kept getting paired with another film and sitting on deck and then it would get replaced or bounced for one reason or another. So its about time I just watch it as I keep working towards the end. 79 (91). White Zombie (1932) Directed by Victor Halperin, Written by Garnett Weston, Based on The Magic Island by William Seabrook. Watched on Prime, available on Tubi, Kanopy, Hoopla, a million other places, probably Youtube, I’m pretty sure its public domain. “You wife might be alive!” “And in the hands of natives!? Better dead!” Not cool, bro. I really dug that. It has a great setup. Great looking settings and castle, Bela being wonderfully spooky. I’ve heard people express the idea that Lugosi could only play Dracula and I disagree greatly. I’ve seen him in a few other things and it always strikes me that not only is he good in them but I barely recognize him as Dracula. Here I think he’s great as the voodoo master at the heart of all this and I love the idea of him having collecting a little army of zombies of all his past enemies. I wish a bit more had been done with that, and really Bela’s role as a whole. That’s the flaw of the film. The romance and the male lead at the core are dry and the secondary antagonist is pretty clearly a pawn the whole time so you just really want to spend more time with the main villain. And when Bela’s there he absolutely steals the show and elevates the film from a forgettable little piece to something worth seeing. If there had been more if him it might elevate even further into classic. Its got flaws of the era. Some bad over the top acting. Some really sloppy filming. In one scene a character bangs the table and appears to mess up the microphones for the rest of the scene and apparently no one cared. And then the scene ends with the other actor wandering into the shot and blocking its conclusion. Its honestly so bad I found it charming. But its loaded in atmosphere. Not quite up to the level of the Universal Classics or Jacques Tourneur’s films but I think it falls solidly middle of the road for the era. And like I said, Bela elevates it. Not all the way but enough to really make it worth seeing his voodoo witch doctor Murder play out his evil plans. And at under 70 minutes its a great little Halloweeny mood setter. 80 (92). The Neon Demon (2016) Written and directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, co-written by Mary Laws and Polly Stenham. Watched on Prime, also available on Hoopla. Huh. That wasn’t really at all what I was expecting. Or maybe it was? I’m honestly not even sure. Going in it very much appears to be the usual “innocent used by a snake of pits” story, and there’s certainly elements of that. But as it went on I was intrigued by the idea that it was playing with the “prey or predator?” question subtly. So subtly that I kind of wondered if I was a bad guy for thinking that. This was a child, being taken advantage of and in ways abused. Was I really going with “she’s asking for it?” I felt dirty. But as it goes on and on the idea that she’s got a power over people and she knows it and intentionally uses it becomes more relevant and revealed. It still feels very dirty to say. She’s still a child. Is a child using her beauty to get what she wants in control? Its a weird question which I think the movie intentionally plays with. It seems to purposely avoid the sexual Lolita places that could go, dancing around them but keeping it just this side of too creepy. But as she gets more and more success we see Jesse openly celebrating her narcissism and that she believes she’s in control. Of course the movie turns that on its head. And its funny, I went in thinking this was a movie about witches but not really knowing why. I kept having that idea the whole way and was just chalking that up to the style similarities to Suspiria and Argento works with the vivid colors and imagery. But then when the movie takes the turn it does that felt like what it was saying. That this whole time Jesse had been unknowingly getting stalked by a witch coven who may well have had a hand in some of the stuff that brought her closer to her end at the hotel? It wasn’t stated at all and the very ending of it felt like it threw some doubt on that idea entirely. In the end I honestly felt like I wanted to know more about Jena Malone and her friends and their story. Its an interesting film. It had me engaged the full 2 hour runtime and didn’t feel that long, which is impressive since its very shallow and loosely plotted and usually I don’t take to films like that. I do think it was shallow. I don’t think it really had anything terribly deep to say about superficiality or beauty or any of that. I do think there was that interesting element of “prey or predator” and I like the idea that we might have only seen a horror movie from the perspective of the clueless victim. But I’m not sure either of those elements were fleshed out enough to satisfy me. I’m left wondering if they existed at all or if I was just reading too much into the film looking for a deeper plot that wasn’t there. I have no familiarity at all with Refn so I have no idea what his style is. Is he the kind of director who enjoys messing with his audience and leaving questions? Is he just all style over substance? I have no idea. It was engaging in a way I don’t always engage with. It was well acted and shot with some of the scenes really standing out in my darkened room/quasi theater set up. It both interested me and frustrated me in the unanswered and possibly not there laments of the plot. I think it was a good film but I’m left too unsure of what I saw to call it a great one.
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Oct 30, 2020 23:52
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Well I totally let these logs get away from this year so here my list with short notes: 1.The Puppet Masters Man this wants to be invasion of body snatchers so bad its got Donald Sutherland. Its not bad in that 90s outbreak movie type of way. {b]Watch It[/b] 2.Halloween 6 Didn't get a chance to watch this last year, probably should have left it that way. I feel like missed a plot point about Mike Myers niece jumping from like 6 to however old she is in this one. Pass 3.Phantasm I absolutely love this movie. It's weird and nice to look at and feels like a great adventure. Watch It 4.Idle Hands Something about this movie just grates on me, maybe I'm just too old for it (even though I did originally see it as a teen and didn't like it then either)Pass 5.Maniac I feel like I was expecting worse from this gritty slasher. It was nice to see some '80s NYC and honest I loved the ending. Watch It 6.Ernest Scared Stupid I feel like missed out on this not seeing it as a child, I think I would have loved it. As an adult its okay. Watch It 7.The Amityville Horror How did this become a series with like 9 official movies and 10 other knockoffs? Pass 8.Ghoulies II I had fun with this one. A bunch of monsters terrorize a carnival how can you complain. Watch It 9.Deep Red This is probably my least favorite Argento movie I've seen. Really thought this was going to be about a psychic or something based on the beginning. Pass 10.Monster Party I wanted to like this movie but in the end it didn't really scratch itch. If you want to watch a movie about people breaking into worse peoples house watch Don't Breathe instead. Neutral 11.Haunt I think this is my favorite movie of the season, it did everything I want. Kids go to a haunted house thats real. Reminded me of something I watched last year Hell Fest except good. Watch It 12.Hider in the House This isn't deep or anything. It's pretty much a lifetime, but drat do I love some crazy Gary Busey. Watch It 13.Halloween III: Season of the Witch This isn't bad it just isn't Mike Myers. I think I would have liked it more if it had a little more going on. Watch It 14.The Beyond I really dislike this movie. Man nothing makes sense, and I get that, thats how Fulci films work, I prefer The Sentinel which has a similar idea. Pass 15.Deadly Friend Hey its a movie about a boy his cute robot and his next door neighbor whose being abused by her dad and their struggles. Oh now heads are exploding. Neutral 16.Sleepwalkers Incestious werewolf energy vampires terrorize a virgin. This is okay, I've honestly seen worse Stephen King movies. Neutral 17.Lord of Illusion Scott Bakula is some sort of paranormal detective who gets involved in some demon cult with a magician or something. This one just slid off me. Pass 18.Scream Maybe because I've never seen this previously but pretty much knew the plot it did nothing for me. None of the meta stuff really landed. Neutral 19.In the Mouth of Madness There's parts of this I like a lot, it just takes a bit too long to get there. Watch It 20.The Gate I saw this a few years back originally and loved it. Another movie I think kid me would have loved. Watch It 21.Humanoids From the Deep This is surprisingly entertain. Its exploitive trash but kept me interested. Watch It 22.Class of Nukem High I don't think I picked up on the plot to this one. Nuclear waste turned students into monsters and now we get to watch how they deal with it? Neutral 23.Sea Fever A new virus breaks out on a boat and now its up to the people on the boat to deal with it or die trying. Neutral 24.Prince of Darkness Similar to In The Mouth of Madness I liked this a lot more once it got going. Watch It 25.Happy Halloween Scooby-Doo! This has some nice cameos and some callbacks to other Scooby Doo series, but in the end becomes just a long car chase. Neutral 26.Body Bags A really solid horror anthology. I think I enjoyed the 2nd story about the hair transplant the most. Watch It 27.Village of the Damned This was another case of me expecting a different movie. I thought this was going to be someone entering the village of the damned rather than be about a dude whose kid is one of them. Pass 28.The Ritual Dudes get lost in the forest and get taken out one by one. Didn't do much for me. Pass 29.Verotika Yikes. This is not even fun bad, scenes go on way too long and none of the stories really have a plot outside of the first story with the spider. Mega Pass 30.Zombieland: Double Tap I think this would be better in a world where the first one didn't exist its just the whole time I was comparing it to the first one. I liked it though. Watch It 31.Dog Soldiers This is a pretty fun middle of the road scifi channel tv movie. Really scratched the itch. I think this might be my favorite werewolf movie. Watch It 32.Ready or Not Maybe I shouldn't have been amping up this movie since last year, a perfectly comptent movie outside the main character making a few dumb horror movie moves at some points. Watch It
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Oct 30, 2020 23:55
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A double feature of sort, with similar themes: Killer Vehicles, Diners, 80s Soundtracks, and Martin Sheen's kids. First up: Maximum Overdrive (1986) Starring Emilio Estevez. I'm sure on paper this must have looked like a home run for ol' Dino De Laurentiis: get America's premiere and best selling horror author to write and direct a horror film? He was probably already buying another mansion off of what he imagined the profits from this film would be. Unfortunately, King was coked out of his head, had never directed before, and out of all his stories, decided to do the one about killer trucks. The resulting film is not good. Since this is pure, unadulterated King, you get characters spouting dialogue that you always roll you eyes at when you read one of his books. Characters with names like "Deke" and "Handy" and "Bubba". You get a lecherous Bible salesman. You get a kid in peril. On the plus side, you do get several good explosions, as the owner of a diner happens to have an arsenal, including rocket launchers, underneath his business. The actors try to make this work, but there really isn't anything there for them to work with, because King didn't know what he was doing. This could have been, at least, as campy classic, but it never finds the right tone. Also, the movie basically just ends. Our survivors are on a boat, and an on-screen text tells us a UFO was blown up, and days later everything went back to normal. The End. (One little thing I did find interesting was the iconic "villain" truck. Everyone remembers the giant Green Goblin head on the front. In fact, that design is probably the only good thing about the film. But painted on the doors of its trailer, was the face of a clown, with shocks of red hair and silver eyes.) One out Five Bubbas. Watched on Amazon Prime. The Wraith (1986) Starring Charlie Sheen, Sherilyn Fenn, Randy Quaid, Nick Cassavetes, and an Eraserhead looking Clint Howard. You know what the problem with most ghost movies are? All the ghosts do is haunt some old house. BORING. Not The Wraith. This guy's got a sweet rear end ride. This movie is pure 80s, and god bless it. It also makes very little sense, and doesn't care to. Is The Wraith supernatural or alien? It looks like it came from space, but every time it kills one of the villains in a fiery crash, it leaves behind their unburnt corpse, untouched except for their missing eyes (Why the eyes? Who knows? Who cares!) The villains are a 1980s street racing gang, with names like Oogie, Skank, Gutterboy, and Raghead. They're led by the evil Packard, who has a thing for drive-in diner waitress Keri, who's boyfriend Jamie was killed by the gang. The gang make a living by bulling people into putting up their cars in illegal street races, then chop the cars up for parts. New guy in town, Jake (played by Sheen) shows up, and he and Keri immediately take a liking to one another. Packard's the jealous type, constantly threaten Keri, and everyone else, with his switchblade, but soon he's too consumed by THE WRAITH, whose supernatural/alien Dodge Interceptor kills members of his gang by challenging them to races, and then causing them to crash into him, resulting in a spectacular explosion. This movie came out on the heels of things like Knight Rider and Street Hawk, and wanted to tap into some of that sweet, sweet , super-vehicle money. It also felt like in a way, a modern version of High Plains Drifter, with Sheen's character riding into town, and befriending the people close to the murder victim. The car stunts aren't bad, but despite being the "star", Sheen really isn't in it that much. The film is much more interested in the street gang, who are given more screen time than characters in similar films. Skank and Gutterboy, particularly, end up forming some sort of double act that at times, almost border on amusing. I also appreciate that despite being murderous thieves, at least the gang wear crash helmets when street racing. You don't see that in Fast and the Furious! Randy Quaid plays a sheriff, but honestly, brings nothing to the role. He also appears to be the only "adult" around, since the film really never establishes how old the characters Sheen, Fenn, etc are playing are supposed to be. But hey, none of that matters because the car is sweet. Three out of Five Dodge Interceptors Watched on Tubi. 1. Deep Rising 2. The Night Stalker 3. The Car 4. Land of the Dead 5. Bug (1975) 6. The Addams Family (2020) 7. The Gorgon 8. The Initiation 9. Sweet Sixteen 10. The Addams Family (1990) 11. Addams Family Values 12. Hubie Halloween 13. Trucks 14. Eaten Alive 15. Bigfoot (1970) 16. Night of the Lepus 17. Tremors 18. Army of Darkness (Theatrical Version) 19. Leatherface 20. Texas Chainsaw
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Oct 31, 2020 00:12
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Debbie Does Dagon posted:
Lo is awesome- I saw it during the early days of streaming and while it wasn’t at all what I thought it would be, it’s stuck with me a long time
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Oct 31, 2020 00:16
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38. Godzilla (1954) An army performs some poorly thought out weapons tests... with spooky results. The thought of watching Godzilla never even crossed my mind until people in the horror thread started talking about how it's legitimately good and paced like a modern movie. They were right. Godzilla is an actual good movie. I had just assumed it was a rubber monster suit stomping on some buildings and some people running in horror. It's a serious movie about the reality of war and its consequences. It gets a bit anime in the last 20 minute or so, but only in its story. It spends time with different people's perspectives on the monster. It shows an accurate portrayal of how a government would react. You see people affected by the aftermath of the monster's attacks. It also takes itself 100% seriously, but never in a way that feels like too much. The effects are pretty good. The Godzilla suit looks a bit silly but all the miniatures are very convincing. 4.5/5
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Oct 31, 2020 00:27
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Starting my computer rebuild so I'll get my backlog posted when I'm back up. For now, here's this. 179) Hack-o-lantern - 1988 - Shudder I remember seeing this on the video rental shelves, but for some reason I never rented it. Did watch it with my local horror host and it was a blast. Satanic grandpa tries to get his grandson into the cult and murders abound. It's exactly what you expect and I recommend this for a group watch with ample beer on hand.  180) Beach House - 2019 - Shudder A couple staying a beach house ends up dealing with strange events. This one was okay, I felt it was a bit draggy at the start and once the fog happens, it starts picking up. There's a fair amount of goopy body horror here and there. Overall, this was pretty decent. It's kinda a Lovecraft lite.
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Oct 31, 2020 00:35
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38) Us (2019) Most of this is going to be spoilered, because I feel like anything I say about the plot will give too much away. Literally everything to do with the Tethered is complete nonsense, and it's not so much a question of if you guessed the final twist as when you guessed it. I could easily believe that this was a mid-career M Night Shyamalan movie if I didn't know better. Summary: everything about it is done well (with one exception), but as a whole it is far less than the sum of its parts.
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Oct 31, 2020 00:42
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STAC Goat posted:80 (92). The Neon Demon (2016) I'm glad you picked up on that, I like to think of The Neon Demon as the unofficial fourth entry into the Three Mothers films.
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Oct 31, 2020 00:43
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30. The Babysitter: Killer Queen (2020) - Netflix Hooptober Challenge: 2 Films From This Year 1 of 2    "Could this night get any more erotic?" - Cole This sequel to The Babysitter continues the story of Cole, who successfully avoided becoming the victim of a murderous cult. Unfortunately for him there were more members than it seemed and the cult is back to continue what it started. I liked the first movie and this has much of the same feel, with lots of awkward sexual humor and moments of gory violence. The choice to bring back the antagonists from the first movie was an interesting choice but at least had a decent explanation. There is no new ground broken here, but overall this was fine. 3/5 31. The Mortuary Collection (2020) - Shudder Hooptober Challenge: 2 Films From This Year 2 of 2    Another surprisingly decent modern anthology. In the frame story Clancy Brown plays a mortician who tells stories to a young woman (Sam) who has come to apply for a job. Segment 1 (1950s): A pickpocket finds something unexpected in the bathroom at a party. Very short but effective. Segment 2 (1960s): In this story a frat boy focused on growing the notches on his belt has an encounter with a different sort of girl. This takes the question "what if men were responsible for birth control" and takes it to its logical conclusion. A little humorous but definitely gross, I appreciated the guy's water breaking and the brief but terrifying exploding penis. Segment 3 (1970s): A man is stuck taking care of his ill wife who is non-verbal and mostly non-responsive. After taking his doctor's "advice" he decides to end her life. This story went on a little too long and was a little one note but was okay with how things just kept getting worse and worse. Segment 4 (1980s): The only one with a name as far as I could tell (The Babysitter Murders) this story is told by Sam. She is babysitting while there is a news bulletin regarding an escaped mental patient. Shortly after she finds a man in the house bleeding from his head and acting strange. Of course it turns out Sam is the mental patient and she ends up killing who we find out is the real babysitter. This was pretty good as well but very foreshadowed. 3/5 32. Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III (1990) - DVR Fran Challenge 10: Run This poo poo Into the Ground The first entry in the franchise not directed by Tobe Hooper, this movie was intended to bring a more serious and brutal tone back to the series in contrast to the more comical second entry. There is plenty of chainsaw action here as various people encounter Leatherface's family. Lacking the subtlety of the first movie and the crazy action of the second, Leatherface contains a lot of violence but it isn't really that much fun. 2/5 33. Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation (1995) - DVR  In contrast to Leatherface, this fourth entry in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre series is actively terrible. Here we are introduced to even more members of Leatherface's family, including Vilmer, played by Matthew McConaughey. His character has a bizarre leg brace that is somewhat controlled by TV remotes, leading to one of the movie's best moments as a potential victim repeatedly turns off the leg. One of the more bizarre choice is the character of Leatherface, who is usually a terrifying presence. Here he mostly screams incoherently while on screen and doesn't actually use his chainsaw to kill anyone. 1.5/5
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Oct 31, 2020 00:51
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 27.) Evil: In the Time of Heroes Yorgos Noussias | 2009 | Kanopy The sequel to Evil (2005). It picks up immediately after the first one left off, and it somewhat follows the plot of the first film: a malevolent force turns people in Greece into zombie-like creatures and a group of uninfected have to fight their way through Athens to survive. However, we also get flashbacks to Ancient Athens, when the evil force first began turning people into zombies and the Ancient Greeks who had to fight them off. I said in my writeup for Evil that it felt like the filmmakers wanted to put everything into it, in case they never made another film. The same is true for this one as well, because on top of a regular zombie film, there’s also Ancient Greek warriors and a storyline involving a prophesied hero returning. In the first film, the mysterious force only served as a way to get the zombie apocalypse started. Here, it is finally addressed, albeit vaguely. This film overall has more polish than its predecessor, with computer effects and a big American movie star (Billy Zane!) but honestly I found it to be much weaker. The Run Lola Run-inspired techniques from the first film are unfortunately gone. the computer effects look awful, but there are some cool practical effects. The film also tries to juggle the dual storylines but does a poor job of it. I can’t hate on it too much. The premise is interesting and there are some funny moments. Also, it was really interesting to see (though I’m sure other zombie films have done it before or since) the infected get cured and become human again. Overall, I respect the ambition more than the end result. 3/5Total: 27/20 New: 21 Rewatches: 6 Fran Challenges (not in order): 1. Horror Noire (Horror Noire) 6. Tomb of the Blind Spots (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre) 7. Dearly Departed (From Beyond) 11. Öskur heyrðust um allan heim (Evil) My Letterboxd list (in progress)
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Oct 31, 2020 00:52
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13. The Brides of Dracula (1960) Despite Dracula not actually appearing in this film, I think it's one of my favorites in the Dracula series. Cushing is an absolute badass in this and it's a shame we don't see more than a couple of minutes of this version of Van Helsing in future installments. He's also surprisingly physical, jumping around and grappling with vampires in the finale. This is also one of the best looking Hammer films I've seen yet. The castle to the countryside is all very atmospheric and a bit more moodily lit than is usual in these movies. I also enjoyed Baron Meinster as the lead vampire. He's much chattier than Dracula and thus gives him a much prettier, human feel as a villain that is a fun contrast to the other films. If you're going through Hammer Dracula stuff don't skip this one just because Lee isn't in it, it's better than most of the ones that come after this. Speaking of, I also watched... Fran Challenge: Run This poo poo Into The Ground14. Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968)  While this has the best ever poster for any Dracula movie, this is only ok. Dracula seeks revenge on the priest who consecrated his castle while he was temporarily dead. Lee is as imposing as ever.and gets a lot of shots of him standing menacingly while his cool cape blows in the wind and that honestly is enough for me for most of this. This is otherwise pretty slow paced without as much vampire stuff as I'd like. I'll give credit to the last act though for ramping things up. There is a moment where I'm pretty sure Lee's hair is briefly on fire and the way they take out Dracula is very cool visually. And that's one over my goal of 13! I plan for one more tomorrow, maybe two.
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Oct 31, 2020 01:30
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Franchescanado posted:Fran Challenge #11: Öskur heyrðust um allan heim https://i.imgur.com/9lb0R2S.gifv This one has a little bit of English in it with the two American characters, but it feels in the spirit of the challenge. A relatively slow and thoughtful movie focused on a few characters and what price they'll pay for immortality, as told through the story of a man who turns into a low-key vampire after being bitten by a magic bug trapped in a larger, fake bug. Vivid characters, beautifully shot, and some very nice production design are all things familiar from Guillermo del Toro's later works, because I guess he's actually a really talented filmmaker and was killing it from the start. Every character is both compellingly cinematic while also being someone who you can believe has a full life outside the movie. I found this one really magical.
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Oct 31, 2020 02:18
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39. The Hunger (1983) A scientist studying aging meets a vampire... with spooky results. A whole lot of nothing happens very slowly in this movie. It has some style, but not enough. It combines Gothic with an 80's music video in a way that didn't work for me. You'd think a movie with David Bowie in it would have a good soundtrack, but it just has this noisy dissonance that screams "THIS IS SPOOKY AND IMPORTANT" but is just lame. There's a kind of interesting idea here with a vampire suddenly dying of old age but the movie doesn't do anything with it. It doesn't even seem like the movie's interested in it. It just wanted rid of one vampire so it could sexfully make another. 2/5
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Oct 31, 2020 02:33
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October 30 - Deathdream I hadn't heard of this at all until this month but it intrigued me so I added it to my list. Fingers crossed that it's worth it.  One sad evening, Andy's family gets a knock at the door and it's an army officer with some bad news: Andy died in Vietnam. So they're very surprised when Andy shows up a few days later. Andy is back from the war, but he's not the same. He's colder and prone to violence. And there's murders that are occurring. On the one hand, I'm impressed that a film about how the Vietnam war was scarring a generation was made while the war was still going. It's not subtle about it's themes as the proud people at home fail to understand how war has changed someone. And Andy could easy be suffering from PTSD. Deathdream is really trying to grapple with some heady themes through the lens of horror. The problem is that there's a lot of rough edges here. Some are due to low budget filmmaking, but Bob Clark made some real missteps in how he was shooting and lighting scenes to account for that budget. Some scenes are super dark to hide the seams, but they're plot scenes where the murkiness makes it hard to tell what's happening. Other scenes are brightly lit despite having make up on camera that isn't designed to be seen clearly. The other rough edge is the acting. Nobody is great, but Andy in particular is problem since he has to carry the film. I get what they were trying for with his unresponsive behavior switching to enflamed, but Richard Backus has absolutely no screen presence so it just doesn't work. This is the film debut of Tom Savini and there's a lot he does well when it's lit properly. I'll even forgive the stuffed pair of pants getting "run over" by the car since it would have been Clark who set up that shot and made it so visible. It's a solid start to an amazing career. I'm glad I watched Deathdream, it was an interesting film even if it didn't entirely work. I'd much rather watch a dozen ambitious films with major flaws than one by the numbers monster movie. Wow, one more day and two films to go. I'm legit excited for both of them, too. I didn't realize I was setting something up by watching Deathdream tonight, and my October 31 film is one I've been trying to see for a long time.
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Oct 31, 2020 02:37
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Russian Guyovitch posted:I'm guessing Cannibals in the Streets for this one. Yep, all pictures have been guessed so far. Nice job on the Spook-a-doodles! Spook-a-doodle guesser league of winners: 9 - Darthemed 8 - The Berzerker 6 - DebbieDoesDagon 5 - gey muckle mowser 2 - Maxwell Lord 2 - bitterandtwisted 2 - Kvlt! 2 - Gripweed 2 - Sono 1 - szary 1 - Irony.or.Death 1 - Iron Crowned 1- Russian Guyovitch 43/31 - 25th-30th October - These last few days I have mostly been Fran Challenging and drat has it been fun. It is officially Halloween here in Glasgow, Happy Spooks to everyone! 34 -  Tales from the Dark Side guessed by Sono A horror portmanteau with some cool moments - Debbie Harry as a witch in the wraparound story is a highlight but we also get one of the most amazing Cats to ever grace the silver screen - Mr. Kill Kill Murder (vs. a professional hitman!) with fantastic story and effects. I also really liked the love story featuring a Gorgoyle attack and James Remar. The one story that only stands out due it's insane cast is sadly the one about a Mummy (which should have been great) - Steve Buscemi, Christian Slater and Julianne Moore as college kid rivals. Very fun watch. 35 -  Fran Challenge #9: TerrorVision Dark Night of the Scarecrow guessed by Darthemed A very cool little classic horror tale of revenge coming to some country hicks who murder a mentally challenged man on the presumption he's a child abuser. It's made-for-TV from the late 1970's so has a certain charm to it featuring faces you'll recognise from all over. I really liked the character of the scarecrow who feels a little bit like a mix of Frankenstein and Jason - great outfit, too! 36 -  Fran Challenge #10: Run This poo poo Into The Ground Godzilla vs. Mothra guessed by Sono So this is 4th in the franchise of the big rear end monster daddy. I have to admit I wasn't quite in the mood for miniature ladies singing about wanting an egg back or the zaniness but somehow this film won me over. I loved the idea of bargaining with a giant butterfly to come help you out from having your poo poo kicked over by a moody bitch of a lizard. Appreciate. 37 -  Fran Challenge #8: When Animals Attack! This fairly modern killer wasp film has some really great special effects and monster designs as a mutant wasp nest attacks a fancy garden party attended by Mayor Lance Henrikson. Big The Thing effects vibes deserve kudos but the film is sadly dragged down by some bad cgi scenes, characters who are barely likable and a turgid love story. Fran Challenge #2: Short Cuts (Total Runtime: 64m) Suckablood (6m) A fantastic little gothic style horror that reads like an Edgar Allan Poe story, it is short and sweet and has some really scary monster designs I absolutely loved. And the ending ties it all together in a fantastic way. He Took His Skin Off For Me (11m) A very good little curiosity I really liked a lot. It's about the little sacrifices we make in relationships, feelings and sacrifices and how they effect us as individuals or together. This film could have been very obvious and shocking but focuses on tiny little moments that build to create something very interesting. Dawn of the Deaf (12m) I thought this was a really clever little idea about the prejudice deaf people have and in the short run time it created some characters I really felt for and wanted to spend more time with. If it was a feature I would hope it wouldn't be the same old zombie invasion film but studios would probably demand that. Red Balloon (13m) This was a very basic, old skit about a babysitter and an escaped lunatic on a dark rainy night. It doesn't attempt to twist it or put a spin on it so I was a bit bored - might be good for young teenagers or kids who can sit still. The Killing Joke (16m) I very much hated this style with no substance. A loving clown with an uzi, who cares? It looked like a lot of money had been spent here and the cinematography was very good but was just annoyed, said so little despite being the longest film of the bunch. Night of the Slasher (12m) Very fun little slasher riff, it has enough of it's tongue in cheek and clever ideas to really work. Payoff is fun and didn't feel like it was overstaying it's welcome. 38 -  Jigoku guessed by Darthemed Alexa, show me a movie that offers a depiction of hell and does NOT gently caress around. Wow, thanks. This 1960's Japanese mystery/horror shows how quickly a perfect life can slide into misery with just one bad decision and fate deciding to fall against your plans. This film is loving hosed up and I really liked it - yes, there is a full sequence of a character descending through layers of hell and it rocks. 39 -  Body Snatchers guessed by Darthemed Abel Ferrara gives the 1990's it's remake of this sci-fi story and outside of some very fantastic special effects I have to say this was a big ol' turd. It takes place on an army base as pod people overtake people at the base as they sleep but one brave rock and roll daughter of a scientist is here and she won't be as easy to capture as R. Lee Ermey. Forest Whittaker gives a pretty good unhinged monologue tho'. 40 -  Antiviral guessed by Darthemed A body horror film debut puts a lot onto the shoulders of the very talented Caleb Landry Jones; you can almost feel his knees buckling. A story about the extremes of celebrity obsession which feels a little dated only a few years later and it is a little one-note. There are plenty of gross body things going on here; the conceit of paying to be infected by a virus from the same cells as a celeb certainly is horrible but it isn't enough to keep interest up for almost 2 hours. Caleb Landry Jones does a really good job considering. 41 -  Fran Challenge #3: Feardotcom The Video Dead guessed by Darthemed This is a straight to VHS delight! I don't know if I actually ever did see it in my local video store as I was growing up but mymy does it feel like I have. The artwork on the cover is iconic, the story is about an Occult TV that brings zombies from an old zombie movie to our world (as well as a weird sexy woman demon as was law in the 1980's) and mass murder ensues. The zombie designs in particular are very, very cool and they manage to do a little gore twist on the classic zombie - when a head meets a clothing iron is particularly a great scene. Oh and also the chainsaw scene. Actually, 2 chainsaw scenes. Very satisfied with this watch! 42 -  Fran Challenge #12: Ourorboros Bit guessed by DebbieDoesDagon I'm not quite sure what I expected from a feminist vampire film starring a trans actor in a lead role directed by a straight white guy.... but it wasn't as lame as it could have been and actually it could be quite cool at times. Doesn't nail the premise as well as it could have been and really would have preferred a female director calling the shots on Bite Club but here we are. It has elements to it that are quite commendable but maybe frustratingly enough one of them is the introduction of the male "master" vampire which is done through a montage to Boney M's Rasputin and is cool as gently caress. Learned about this from this thread and glad I watched so thanks! 43 -  Fran Challenge #4: Scream, Queen! Multiple Maniacs guessed by Darthemed John Waters and Divine early film which turns into a Godzilla movie for the last 10 minutes which was hilarious. An amped up Divine discovering how cool murder is just hours after her first lesbian experience (in a church). Mink Stole and David Lochary were treasures to this world alongside Divine. John Waters is a sick, filthy pig and I absolutely worship him. Fran Challenges Completed! (13/13) #1 Horror Noire, #2 Short Cuts, #3 Feardotcom, #4 Scream, Queen!, #5 Silent Scream, #6 Tomb of the Blind Spots, #7 Dearly Departed, #8 When Animals Attack!, #9 TerrorVision, #10 Run This poo poo Into The Ground, #11: Öskur heyrðust um allan heim, #12: Ouroboros, #13: It's the Time of the Season for Spook-a-Doodles The Hausu Usher fucked around with this message at 03:33 on Oct 31, 2020 |
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Oct 31, 2020 02:44
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34. The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) - DVR (TCM) Hooptober Challenge: 1 Non-Dracula Hammer Film  After looking at what movies were eligible for this challenge I realized this is only the second Hammer film I've watched, with the only other one being the 1959 Mummy. In general I'm not too enthused with "classic" movie monsters just due to over-saturation. That being said, I'm sure there are some that are decent and I'll have to get on watching more. The Curse of Frankenstein was apparently the film that really launched Peter Cushing's movie career, despite him acting for 20 or so years previously. The story here is pretty simple and makes some changes to the source material, most notably that Frankenstein's Monster doesn't speak. This didn't exactly ignite an interest in me to seek out any of the sequels but I'm sure I'll watch them some day. 3/5 35. Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954) - DVR (TCM) Hooptober Challenge: Highest Rated Movie From the 1950s You Can Access  Another movie about a classic monster I had avoided until now, Creature From the Black Lagoon deals with a group of scientists trying to find hard evidence of a missing evolutionary link between sea and land animals. They encounter the Creature and they don't get along very well with each other. This is competently made and the story is fine but it just doesn't do much for me. 2.5/5 36. Hell House LLC II: The Abbadon Hotel (2018) - Shudder Hooptober Challenge: 7 Second Films of Franchises 5 of 7    I didn't really like the first Hell House LLC, but needing more movies for the challenge led me clicking on this one. I actually liked this better than the first movie because there seemed to be more going on. I'm still not big on found footage (my second screenshot mirrors my expressions watching most found footage movies) but this wasn't completely terrible. It adds another layer to the story of the Abbadon Hotel and against my better judgment I may end up watching the third entry just to complete the series. 2/5 37. Zombieland: Double Tap (2019) - DVR (Showtime) Hooptober Challenge: 7 Second Films of Franchises 6 of 7  For the most part I do not enjoy zombie movies (with a few exceptions) but the ones that add humor and in general okay. This sequel to Zombieland picks up ten years after the end of the first movie, with the main characters now living in the White House and having to contend with new types of zombies. There's nothing super new here compared to the first movie but the scenes with the mirror characters of Albuquerque and Flagstaff are pretty funny. 3/5
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Oct 31, 2020 02:45
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59. The Strange Case of Dr. RX (1942, Peacock) Perfectly serviceable film about a police investigating a serial killer who's murdering murderers who are found not guilty, with the most "that's an hour. Movie over." ending I've ever seen. The hero is captured by the villain, who's about to transplant his brain with a gorilla. The lights go out, and the hero is in the hospital, where another policeman nonchalantly announces that they've caught the killer. Then they do a quick "how I figured it out" recap, except the hero can't even be bothered to remember how he escaped. 3/5 60. Dr. Cyclops (1940, Peacock) Mad scientist invites his colleagues down to the jungle to... check a couple of slides, because his vision is failing. He gets angry, the get shrunk to 1' tall, and it's a nice little adventure. 3.5/5 61. Night Monster (1942, Peacock) Bela Lugosi is in a movie... and he's not the villain. I don't understand. Whodunit maybe... the description on Peacock makes it quite clear who the killer is. Maybe a "howdunit" instead since he's a triple amputee. The answer is that, apparently, according to this movie, Hindus are capable of regrowing limbs. 3/5
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Oct 31, 2020 03:03
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35: Dark Night of the Scarecrow 38: Jigoku? 39: Body Snatchers 40: Antiviral 41: The Video Dead 43: Multiple Maniacs? Darthemed fucked around with this message at 03:13 on Oct 31, 2020 |
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Oct 31, 2020 03:05
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#34 is Tales from the Dark Side, and #36 is Godzilla vs. Mothra.
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Oct 31, 2020 03:13
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BisonDollah posted:42 - Bit? Which I still need to watch, it sounds like exactly my thing
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Oct 31, 2020 03:24
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Franchescanado posted:Fran Challenge #2: Short Cuts The Sky (11:13) More atmospheric than anything and probably a bit long given nothing much happened, but the effects on the sky were nice. Toby (2:33) Somehow wears out its welcome in 2:33. video man (0:35) Lightly creepy, which fits the running time. Vanilla Cake (7:47) Has the feeling of visiting people in the middle of an awkward argument and just wanting to leave. Your Date is Here (6:14) It's not like it's hard to see where this one is going, but it builds up, waits a beat, then actually ends on something. Nice little short. The Strange Things About the Johnsons (29:06) Relentlessly miserable without ever being interesting. Felt like a bad student film version of an Ari Aster movie, which the credits revealed it was! Lights Out (2:41) The full movie version of this is pretty lousy, but the short's a lot of fun. Probably the ideal of these for me. Get in, do your trick, get out.
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Oct 31, 2020 04:15
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Short updates as I try not to get behind so close to the end. (91) Demons of the Mind (1972) dir. Peter Sykes A man is convinced his bloodline is cursed. He keeps his twin son and daughter locked up because of it. The son has an explosively violent temper and the daughter is being drugged by her father to keep her under control while he studies the curse. Both the son and father kill local women for various reasons. It’s a lesser Hammer Horror film with a vague, meandering plot.  (92) Queen of the Damned (2002) dir. Michael Rymer The vampire Lestat, now played by Stuart Townsend instead of Tom Cruise, is awoken from his slumber by nu metal. The vampire likes what he hears and decides to take over a nearby nu metal band. He decides to openly flaunt that he is a vampire in the hopes of drawing out other vampires. Meanwhile the queen of the vampires has left her stone slumber, possibly because of Lestat’s nu metal. As the queen, she knows all vampires and has a special connection with Lestat and decides she wants him as her new king. All the nu metal in this invites comparison with Dracula 2000. The acting is better but the action isn’t nearly as engaging. 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) (51) From Beyond (1986) (52) Scanners II: The New Order (1991) #4 (53) Bit (2019) #5 (54) The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog #6 (1927) (55) The Exorcist (1973) #7 (56) Queen of Blood (1966) #8 (57) Frogs (1972) (58) Warlock (1989) (59) The Dead Zone (1983) (60) Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008) (61) Body Snatchers (1993) (62) Phantasm II (1988) (63) Ghosts of Mars (2001) (64) The Plague of the Zombies (1966) (65) Doom: Annihilation (2019) (66) Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead (67) Scanners III: The Takeover #9 (68) The Night Stalker (1972) (69) Elvira, Mistress of the Dark (1988) #10 (70) Bride of Chucky (1998) (71) The Masque of the Red Death (1964) (72) Coraline (2009) (73) Castle Freak (1995) (74) Uninvited (1988) (75) Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors (1965) (76) Body Melt (1993) #11 (78) The Lure (Polish) (2015) (79) Creepozoids (1987) (80) Sleepy Hollow (1999) #12 (81) Wishmaster 2: Evil Never Dies (1999) #13 (82) Silent Night, Deadly Night 2 (1987) (83) Van Helsing (2004) (84) She Killed in Ecstasy (German) (1971) (85) The Night of the Hunter (1955) (86) Looker (1981) (87) Phantasm IV: Oblivion (1998) (88) StageFright: Aquarius (1987) (89) Blind Woman’s Curse (1970) (90) House of the Long Shadows (1983) (91) Demons of the Mind (1972) (92) Queen of the Damned (2002) Computers: 1, Death: 2, Demons: 6, Ghosts: 3, Man: 21, Monsters: 23, Serial Killers: 13, Vampires: 12, Werewolves: 1, Witches: 2, Zombies: 6
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Oct 31, 2020 04:17
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WeaponX posted:Lo is awesome- I saw it during the early days of streaming and while it wasn’t at all what I thought it would be, it’s stuck with me a long time Yeah same I actually completely forgot it existed until right now and I'm excited to revisit it. Tubiween 2020 Part 6: The Curse of Tubi - I finished 31+ today it's just about writing them out and blaaaaaaaaaaaaah. Definitely found one or two new movies that I'll be revisiting but oh my lord I've see some poo poo. 21) Stage Fright: Aquarius: It's the age of aquarius and I don't know why it's called that. Frankly I don't care. This slaps. A lot of great kills, love a good slasher that takes place in one location, an incredible mask. The whole [spoiler]escaped lunatic[/b] is a little lame but, again, no care movie still rules. Slashers get extra points with me based on how badly the killer gets owned at the end and while this isn't the best of Tubiween, this is top tier ownage. 4/5 22) Slugs: There's a definite lazy dad sunday vibe that a lot of 70s small town horror movies have that I just can't vibe with. Slugs is icky and gross and fun when it's doing something but that is few and far between for a movie about Slugs that eat flesh. Definitely has that 70s pulp horror vibe like that series about the giant crabs that has like 15 books and it turns out yeah this is also based on a book. Gotta say I never really got on the giant animal train, doesn't do a lot for me. 2.5/5 23) Don't Go Into The Woods!: Saw this cover all the time in Blockbuster as a kid and wow I'm sad I never saw it. This movie is NOT good but it is pants on head slasher silly. Serious Friday Part 5 energy with people just showing up and dying. The deaths aren't very good and there's large chunks of the movie that are just people walking around yelling someone's name, but you could do a lot worse with slashers. Bonus points for one of the most owned slasher villains of Tubiween. 2/5 24) The Monster Club: Speaking of silly, this little anthology is part Spirit Halloween Spooky Music Cassette and part Vincent Price hamming it up with a bunch of the worst costumed monsters you've ever seen. Much like "Dont Go Into The Woods," this isn't very good but there's enough what the gently caress going on that it's worth a "on while making dinner" watch. You can never go truly wrong with Vincent Price.2.5/5 25) Lace Crater: For a while I thought I was just going to write this off and not call it a horror movie but it definitely is. It's also definitely a mumblecore movie and it definitely thinks it's about something, and don't get me wrong, the theme is obvious, but it does it in such a clunky way and wraps up with such a mumblecore-rear end ending that you don't have any idea what it's actually trying to say. It needed to lean harder into horror or comedy and not just brush against both while being very little else. It's a brisk 85 minutes but it feels a lot longer. I can't say I hated my time with this because I was at least intrigued until the movie just stopped all of a sudden. Not going to be for everyone. If you like movies with Joe Swanberg go for it.2.5/5 26) Things: Someone got fuckin naked for this movie jesus christ. Known about this one for a while as a legendary bad movie and holy poo poo this thing is so Canadian I started smelling maple syrup and a Stanley Cup grew out of my head. Lots of denim and mullets, lots of ADR, zero budget. This is not something I'll go back and revisit. It's baffling and incompetent which I guess you could argue gives it """dream logic""" but really this is just some dudes hopped up on Michelob having fun and somehow it ended up in video stores. Bad Movie Night/5 weekly font fucked around with this message at 04:33 on Oct 31, 2020 |
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Oct 31, 2020 04:18
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29. Maniac Cop (1988) Challenge #13: It's The Time of the Season for Spook-a-DoodlesThis doesn't hit close to home at all in 2020! This one benefits from a cast stacked with character actors (Robert Z'Dar, Tom Atkins, Bruce Campbell), slick but sleazy direction from Maniac's Bill Lustig, and a clever but stripped down script from the great Larry Cohen, who apparently loves loving up Saint Patrick's Day parades.This almost works as political commentary with its bureaucrats closing ranks against the idea a cop could possibly be a killer to the killer's backstory as a cop who violated suspects' rights. But this is really more about an aesthetic than a theme, and it nails it, full of good cheap thrills. Pretty much the definition of a candidate for a remake, although there are also plenty of ways that could go wrong. 3.5/5  30. Maniac Cop 2 (1990)  Hahahaha, okay what if we did that again but completely loving insane. This starts with the climax of the last movie and escalates from there. "The same but more" is a sequel formula that's gone wrong many times, but here the higher budget and greater ambition leads to everything you could possibly want from a movie about a Maniac Cop. Wild murders, including of main characters! Insane car chases! More than one serial killer! Gratuitous nudity! Maniac Cop catching a chainsaw blade in his bare hands!!!! It's pretty clear that someone had been watching Hong Kong movies and decided to bring the "gently caress it, more sleaze, more stunts, more civilian endangerment" sensibility to America, and I for one could not be happier. The climactic firefight (literal) is truly insane, maybe the Fury Road of exploitation sleaze. There's not much difference between a cop and a maniac cop 4/5
Dr. Puppykicker fucked around with this message at 04:50 on Oct 31, 2020 |
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Oct 31, 2020 04:33
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