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Work was a lot longer than expected today, so I only watched one movie. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) - it takes a little while to get going, but once it picks up steam, it's pretty relentless right up until the end credits. It's got some pacing issues and the characters are paper thin (the only one of the teenagers with a personality is Franklin, and he's annoying as gently caress), but I can absolutely see why the movie scared people silly - Leatherface chasing down Sally is tense as poo poo. The editing and shot composition felt very "1970s" to me. I can't really put my finger on why exactly, but the camera cuts and the use of zoom just felt like a lot of other 1970s movies I've seen (but not all of them). I'll watch the remake tomorrow. I've seen it before, but not since it was new.
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Oct 4, 2016 07:10
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3. The House of the Devil I don't mind slow burns, but this took just a bit too long to go anywhere and it started to feel like a chore. Climax was pretty great and I dug the old-school visuals so it wasn't a disappointment at all, but it could've been a little bit tighter.
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Oct 4, 2016 08:05
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1.1: Cloverfield 1.2: 10 Cloverfield Lane 2.1: The Thing 2.2: They Live 3.1: I think I'm gonna give Prince of Darkness more credit than it might deserve here. The "resolution"/conflict at the end fell a little flat for me, but only because the progression and escalation up to that point led me to believe that everyone was totally done for, and the various methods of influence were really compelling and creepy. At the same time, I"ll admit there had been a pattern established by that point of people solving problems by throwing demons through windows, so tackling one through a mirror seems like a pretty logical progression. Despite everything going down from the beginning I was basically still waiting around for things to really get going by the halfway point, and I wasn't disappointed; for whatever reason the unexplained dream broadcasts from the future brought me totally onboard. I think it was because the film keeps hammering "things don't have to make sense!" into your head from the start, but that was the first/only thing that really came out of left field. The film presents some interesting ideas about faith and denial that are not neatly drawn along the religion/science lines it could have easily stuck to. I think I'll start giving some basic ratings to these as I've filled my plate up so much I don't have too much time to write, so I'll give this one a 7.5/10. 3.2: I'm gonna go against Asiina here a bit and say I highly enjoyed In The Mouth of Madness. I found it plenty scary, mainly because of the lack of logical flow scene-to-scene and moment-to-moment keeping me on edge (though I'm sure this would not work nearly as well on subsequent viewings). I also thought it was quite clever that there's just a single moment in the film, pretty early on actually, where there's a fakeout just for the viewer: the person on the bike appearing just to the viewer as the old woman, while the characters see them as the teenage boy. Nice lead-in to the ending, which I should mention makes this the only film in the "Apocalypse Trilogy" that really follows through with the large-scale possibilities of its premise, rather than just hinting at what could be to come. As far as the premise not following through, maybe I'm a sucker for this sort of thing but I can't help but give respect to a film that ends with the main character watching himself in his own film along with the viewer. My rating would probably drop a point or two with a rewatch, but I'm probably going to let this one lie and leave it in my mind as a solid 8/10. It was also quite an experience to watch 4 Carpenter films in 2 days and see the large and small connections between each; I honestly couldn't justify drawing a border around the Apocalypse Trilogy that excludes They Live in any logical sense. VROOM VROOM fucked around with this message at 19:50 on Oct 4, 2016 |
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Oct 4, 2016 08:24
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October 3rd - Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989) Watched on Shudder  This is one of those shameful "how am I just now watching this?" movies for me. Everything about this was great. That pulsing industrial soundtrack, the grimy, lo-fi aesthetic, the sheer energy of the whole thing. The movie doesn't ever stop to take a breath, which might be a good and a bad thing. Lots of grotesque imagery, but it's not really gory, exactly - some of it is pretty Giger-ish. The arrhythmic editing and high contrast give it a really disorienting atmosphere that pulls a lot of weight when things get crazy, and boy do they get crazy. Things really start ramping up at the halfway point and never stop, and at times it becomes so frenetic that you can't even really digest the imagery, and it just starts hammering you. The acting is very expressive and almost stagelike, probably to make up for the fact that there's really very little dialogue. It must have been fun as poo poo to work on the set / costume design for this movie. A wonderful bit of post-industrial body horror. I give it  / 5Watched So Far: Dark Star (1974), The Strange Color of Your Body's Tears (2013), Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989)
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Oct 4, 2016 09:02
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 The ListProto-Slasher 1. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) 2. Fritz Lang's M (1931) 3. The Old Dark House (1932) 4. And Then There Were None (1945) 5. House of Wax (1953) 6. Night of the Hunter (1955) 7. Eyes Without a Face (1960) 8. Psycho (1960) 9. The Abominable Dr Phibes (1971) 10. Dr. Phibes Rises Again (1972) 11. Mario Bava's Bay of Blood (1971) 12. Torso (1973) 13. Profondo Rosso (1975) 14. Black Christmas (1974)  Classic. What I assume is the original poster.  Guess this is the US release. Personally, I think it's a bit more well done in a technical sense. So, I guess I'm kinda disappointed by this one. I can concede that it's fairly well done, occasionally coming through with some really great shots. Especially at the end when the film is at it's most tense. But I just kinda felt, not underwhelmed, but like my attention was drifting. It really starts getting into it at moment one, with the home invasion kicking off the film. At that point I was half expecting it to just start and keep on rolling for about 100 minutes. And it kinda does until just after the first kill. Before then, it was tense, it was jovial, and it was engaging. But afterwards, it kinda just drags out the point of there being a mystery, and the audience is pretty much ahead of everyone waiting for them to catch up. There's a couple of scenes that kinda amount to nothing. Like when everyone was unaware, there's a great camaraderie that energizes the picture. When somebody is terrified, the film will thrive off that energy to carry it along. But when they're in that nebulous zone, it's sort of like the film doesn't know what to do. People just sorta lose their character, excluding the housemother and the boyfriend. The ostensible lead and the officer who lead the plot later on just don't really have the chops to carry the film, and I kinda wanna also blame the script they have. In the period between the beginning and the end, the only real highlights are the creepy phone calls and the kinda out of place humor scenes. The former does inject some creepyness into the flick, though after the first call they just sorta become annoying blabber whose importance is hidden behind some outputting cryptic garbage. And the latter gives some purpose and energy into the film. This is perhaps harsher than what I actually feel, but it's hard to write about how a movie is just 'okay' without seeming mean. And it especially feels mean when it's considered a classic of the genre from such a notable director. A few last thoughts, but it's interesting to see the film carry on a tone that's very similar to Giallo films. At it's center is a mystery that is to be uncovered. There's a notable amount of deaths, though not necessarily consecutive as would be more standard among slashers. The script takes a very twisty road, subverting and double subverting you're expectations as it goes along. All it's missing is some tits and Italian and it would've fit with the rest of them. However, it's big departure is in it's ending, and major spoilers if you haven't guessed yet, in that it never really gives any sort of conclusion on who the killer is. It's something of a subversion considering the series of film's I've been watching. Most of them either warns of the company you keep, or the places you go, and you might meet an untimely end. And this film seems to be going along with that sense, until it's unreveal. It's kind of a change of tide, as the killers stop being a mistake or wrong turn you made, but a force well beyond you're control. It's the change from the killer being the motel owner you got a little too friendly with, to the escaped maniac who's chosen your house, of all houses, to be his target. Next up: The Town That Dreaded Sundown
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Oct 4, 2016 10:18
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TrixRabbi posted:Waiting on Fridays VII through X from the library to come in. My condolences.
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Oct 4, 2016 13:40
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1. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2. Halloween 3. Halloween 2 4. We Are Still Here 5. The Church - It's shocking how little Soavi I've seen given how much I love Cemetery Man, and this seem like a good time to fix it. A cathedral is built on top of a mass grave containing an indeterminate number of witches, capped with a mask I'd really like to have hanging on my wall someday. The place's new librarian shows up for work and starts poking around based on his hunch that a cathedral without any kings buried in it must be guarding some great secret like a forgotten science that will let him become a god. A little silly, maybe, but he is a librarian and obviously he finds something pretty cool or it wouldn't be 80s Italian horror. The movie felt a little more polished and grounded than most of what I've seen from Fulci/Argento/Soavi, which was almost disappointing, but you could really only call it grounded within the context of the Italian camp. Some great practical effects, one really excellent costume, all the dream logic and dubbing you know and love. I think Stagefright is up next, and I really need to dive into Bava at some point this month.
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Oct 4, 2016 15:39
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I watched a bunch of stuff over the weekend. 10. Candyman I chose this as my first "official" October movie for a reason. I was too young for Jason and Freddy to really scare me all that much. By the time I was old enough for horror movies, Jason already had his own Nintendo game and Freddy had become a parody of himself. Candyman terrified me though. After this most recent viewing, I looked up Bernard Rose and was surprised to find that he really has done nothing of note since Candyman. I really don't understand it, because Candyman is masterfully directed. What Rose does with inner city project housing is pure genius, the idea that you can take that environment and make a gothic horror movie out of it would probably not occur to many people. I like that Helen's thesis is basically the thesis of the movie itself. It's a great exploration of myth, legend, and the power it has over people. Candyman lives forever through people who fear his legend, and he claims that this is just as good as actually being alive. This is an idea that's explored in a lot of movies, but in horror it can be used more literally. Obviously Tony Todd is amazing here, but I don't think I can say anything about his performance that hasn't already been said. It would have been so easy for it to be cheesy and just not scary, it takes a powerful presence to pull off the Candyman character. Todd is rightfully a horror legend based on this movie. The music also goes a looooong way towards creating the feel that Rose was going for, and I think it played a pretty big part in scaring the poo poo out of 10 year old me. 11.Poltergeist In my opinion this movie works so well because of the two lead performances. Nelson and Williams have great chemistry and they're able to sell the idyllic suburban family lifestyle 100%. The early scene where they are on the bed rolling joints is something that so many horror movies try and fail at, and its so important for setting up three dimensional characters that the audience can get invested in. I love how the movie does not gently caress around. There's very little doubt, once the weird poo poo starts happening the family knows right away that they are experiencing something extraordinary. And once their daughter is taken, its a non-stop roller coaster ride to the finish. Poltergeist was made during a time when it was still ok to make a family movie scary, and it really does get intense at certain moments. I'd say this is very close to a perfect film, so definitely a major accomplishment for Tobe Hooper regardless of what you think his actual role was. 12.House of 1000 Corpses Its been a few years since I've done a complete Zombie run, so here we go. I know this isn't the popular opinion, but I like this movie more each time I watch it. One thing that struck me this time(first time watching on blu ray) was how good looking it is. I'm not in a position to post screen shots, but there are a ton of great looking shots and interesting imagery in this movie. The plot is also a lot more coherent than it seems on first viewing, so if you've dismissed it as a jumbled mess, maybe give it another shot. The acting is probably the only thing holding it back, I love Sherri Moon in her more recent roles but in this you can tell she was still learning. I listened to the commentary track and even Rob Zombie says in certain scenes she was very nervous and hadn't really learned the ropes yet. Unfortunately the budget was so small and the schedule so tight that they couldn't really afford her all the time she needed to get comfortable. I think people who say they hate this movie should give it another chance, there's a lot of good stuff in it to appreciate. 13.The Devil's Rejects This is the best kind of sequel because its a complete departure from the original. There are several scenes that are so intense that I still have a hard time watching them even after multiple viewings. Unlike House of 100 Corpses, Bill Moseley is the main draw here. His Otis is absolutely terrifying, a true monster that you'd never want to meet under any circumstances. When he says he's the Devil, I kinda believe him. Of course the real trick in this movie is how Zombie somehow figures out a way to make the Fireflys sympathetic, at least somewhat. By the end, there's some real feelings involved and most people agree its gotta be the best ever use of Freebird on film. One minor negative I did notice this time is how much CGI blood is used. Its one of the downsides of being a filmmaking outsider, Zombie very rarely is free of budget constraints. 14.Zombie's Halloween Despite a lot of complaints about the early Michael Myer's scenes, this is a very by the numbers remake. For that reason I consider it one of Zombie's weaker efforts(I haven't fully decided yet whether 31 is better), but its still very entertaining and features a great performance by Malcom McDowell. It(and the sequel) also has plenty of smaller roles for horror legends like Brad Dourif and Dee Wallace, which are fun to catch. We had just watched Dee Wallace in The Howling on the Scream Stream the night before, I hadn't realized she played Laurie's mom until this year. Not much else to say about this one, its not as interesting as Zombie's other work. 15.Zombie's Halloween II This is quite possibly Zombie's best film to date(I personally prefer Lords of Salem), and I see it as a true masterpiece of horror. The idea to make the original Hallween II into an opening dream sequence is really inspired, and once Zombie is off those rails he takes it to places that the originals never could. The best part of the movie is Michael's mother constantly lurking and motivating him to kill, Sherri Moon's got a hell of a death stare. Again, McDowell is great, but in a completely different way than the original. The ending to this movie hits me really hard every time I see it, and its yet another amazing use of music by Zombie. There's just something about the lyrics of "Love Hurts" that resonates with Laurie's tragic situation, and the mournful quality of this particular cover version makes me emotional every time. Visually you can see the seeds of Lords of Salem here. By this point Zombie had really developed his own unique style and really let loose with confidence. Its pretty impressive that Lords of Salem looks as good as it does though, considering this movie had a much bigger budget because of the Halloween name attached to it.
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Oct 4, 2016 16:34
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7. Dracula's Daughter (1936) A weird, lesbian-overtoned sequel to the Bela Lugosi classic. Dracula's daughter sees a therapist to try and get over wanting to suck the blood of her victims (Mostly young attractive women). She tries to do this without revealing her vampirism, though the doctor begins to suspect things after reuniting with his old professor- Dr. Van Helsing. I don't really know what else to say about this one. I think it's certainly better than it's 6.4 average rating on IMDb would suggest- perhaps it just isn't as popular because there's no Lugosi at all in the movie.
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Oct 5, 2016 01:45
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5. Night of the Creeps (1986) I really enjoyed this. Alien slugs take people over and turn them into zombies in a small town. Tom Atkins is awesome, as usual, and his subplot was fairly interesting. Also, the subtle reveal of him preparing to kill himself actually caught me off guard. The duct tape around the door didn't click with me until there's a quick scene of him turning off the gas on his stove. Did a surprisingly good job of making me feel for the guy. Detective Cameron: I got good news and bad news, girls. The good news is your dates are here. Sorority Sister: What's the bad news? Detective Cameron: They're dead. /56.House on Sorority Row (1983) This didn't keep my interest much, but was generally decent. Sorority girls commit a crime and go to various lengths to cover it up while getting picked off. I enjoyed watching it, but I'll probably forget everything about this movie in a week or two. I'm a sea pig!  /57. The Fog (1980) One of the few John Carpenter films I haven't seen and, honestly, I wasn't terrible impressed. It was another solid horror film but with nothing that particularly stood out to me. Everyone knows what The Fog is so I won't bother with a synopsis, but it's still worth watching. Elizabeth Solley: You are weird. Thank God you're weird. The last one was so normal, it was disgusting. /5
Several Goblins fucked around with this message at 02:42 on Oct 5, 2016 |
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Oct 5, 2016 02:35
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Day 4 - What the hell did I just watch? I mean, I know the title is Cemetery Man, or Dellemorte Dellemore if you're in Italy, but what the hell did I just watch? Francesco Dellemorte is the watchman at a cemetery that was built on the site of an ancient Etruscan burial ground that had gone bad (I'm assuming that last part since there are no Native Americans in Italy). Some of the people buried there wake up seven days after being put into the ground and rise to devour human flesh. Putting them back down is the only one of his job duties that he takes seriously. He's a scoundrel and a lazeabout. When he falls madly in lust with a young widow, his life gets complicated. No matter where you think this movie is going to go, I promise you that it's not. Things keep shifting, abruptly and without using a clutch. It's a wild ride from beginning to end. I really enjoyed the absolute absurdity in Cemetery Man. Things seem to become sane for about thirty seconds and then suddenly there's just an utterly insane scene. And it's played for comedy. At the one scene I initially recoiled at how gruesome it was, then started laughing when I realized what the consequences were going to be. Overall, very weird but also very good. Wreath of Barbs posted:5. Night of the Creeps (1986) Night of the Creeps is so much fun and that line is a highpoint of the film. Random Stranger fucked around with this message at 02:52 on Oct 5, 2016 |
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Oct 5, 2016 02:49
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Xenomrph posted:Thanks for this review, I was curious about the two ABCs of Death movies that i saw were available on Netflix, I think I'll give them a shot after I exhaust some of the other movies in my library. #3.) El Barón Del Terror (1962), a.k.a., The Brainiac  Despite some clear issues with the monster effects (primarily with the head deflating and inflating, though that kind of worked to its alien nature), this was pretty enjoyable. Between this and The Vampire's Coffin, I feel like hunting down more horror movies with Abel Salazar, who's been wonderfully charismatic in a slightly sleazy way in the two that I've seen. Basic premise of this film is that a baron is charged by the Mexican Inquisition with various nefarious deeds, so he swears revenge upon their descendants (with a collection date of three hundred years later), and makes good on his threat, somehow becoming a shape-shifting alien brain-sucker in the process of hitching a round-trip ride on a comet. The costuming of the regular people in the main section of the movie was very stylish in that early '60s way, and Salazar's presence does a lot to raise the level of suave smoothness to his scenes right up to the point at which he turns into the brain-sucker. His contempt for the Inquisition in the intro is just charming, and his self-assured navigation of the world three centuries on is made fairly believable by that attitude. On the (very minor) down-side, there's an odd misunderstanding of whether a comet would be visible only from one country, but it's magic or something, so whatever; also, the Mexican police of the '60s apparently stored standard-issue flamethrowers at their headquarters. There was also a fairly abrupt ending, and while I was kind of expecting it to go that way, it still would have been nice to see how the survivors reacted to what they learn at the end. Overall, lots of fun, as long as you're in the mood for a black and white sci-fi/fantasy monster movie with some hamminess.  / 5
Darthemed fucked around with this message at 05:13 on Oct 5, 2016 |
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Oct 5, 2016 03:41
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K. Waste posted:Day 3 Day 4 The Wailing is one of the best films I've seen all year. Absolutely stellar, shocking, surprising, and nuanced film. And tomorrow's Neon Demon. I'm on a role this October.
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Oct 5, 2016 04:11
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1) The Witch 2) Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers 3) The Return of the Living Dead II Up for tonight was We Are Still Here. I'm still not sure what I felt about this one. What was there was okay, even good at times, but it was definitely not what I imagined it would be. I thought I would be getting something closer to Lake Mungo based on the Netflix description; what I got was something that veered between the "uh oh the ghost is making things hot" mechanic of Nightmare on Elm Street 2 to a seance scene in the vein of an Evil Dead movie to some kind of townie massacre scene out of something like Demons or something. This is even before we get into the whole village conspiracy subplot element. The film was kinda all over the place, is what I'm getting at. Really weirdly paced too, if you think about it; there's pretty much no standard Poltergeist-style "making contact" scene; the first time the ash ghosts make themselves known, they attack an electrician; the second time they murder the dead kid's college roommate and his girlfriend. What makes this odd from a story perspective is that the ghosts are always homicidal, but they never seem to be a danger to the actual parents living in the house; heck, they don't even make any real impact after killing the roommate and girlfriend, as everyone is sleeping in the house that very night. It seems like they were going for something where the ghost of the dead son ended up "changing" the nature of the ghosts in the house to protect his parents, but it's not explained very well. This was another short film, and could have benefited from more time for the story and plot to be better explained. I know that I've compared this film to a bunch of other, maybe better, films, and if you read through the spoilers that it sounds like I'm bashing this film. I'm not; I think what we're presented with is actually pretty fun - good to look at, good acting all around, etc. It's just a film that has some pretty obvious pacing and structural problems and I worry that the more I mull it over, the less I'm gonna like it. So I'll stop here and give it a solid 3 out of 5.
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Oct 5, 2016 04:39
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October 4th - Faces of Death (1978) Watched on Shudder  I saw this way back in middle school, recorded at double speed so that Cannibal Holocaust could also fit on the tape. Me and my friends argued about which parts were real for days, so when I saw this one I knew I had to rewatch it. Surprising probably no one, it has not held up well. A lot of the movie's "charm" (for lack of a better word) gets lost in translation when you're no longer watching it on a lovely VHS tape filtered through a tiny CRT screen. A lot of the use of stock footage and practical effects becomes much more obvious - my favorite is probably a few shots in the alligator attack scene where you can see that one of the news cameras is made of cardboard. There are definitely a few real bits in here, but the film has completely lost its shock value in that respect. Now its more of a curiosity than anything. As with Cannibal Holocaust, the hardest parts to watch are probably the scenes with animals, just because (aside from the famous monkey scene) they are real. The only interesting thing this movie really has going for it is the weirdly hopeful narrative vein running through it. There are seemingly sincere monologues about the possibility of life after death, environmental protection, and the way the prison system perpetuates violence that feel very out of place compared to how cynical and nihilistic a lot of other mondo films are. Of course they are juxtaposed with scenes that are supposed to be people slowly getting electrocuted to death and stuff, so. Honestly, I think a movie like this would have been more effective if it had been made a few decades later. That brief period of time where cell phones first got video capability but were still kinda grainy and lovely would have lent itself well to this (has any found footage film used that as its central conceit? I don't know much about the genre), especially when you start to wonder why, say, a random bear attack in the woods has a three-camera setup. Anyways, not a good movie. Mildly interesting in the historical context of cult films / the "video nasty" panic, and as a nostalgia trip for some people, but I can't think of any reason I'd ever watch it again. /5Watched So Far: Dark Star (1974), The Strange Color of Your Body's Tears (2013), Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989), Faces of Death (1978) Grizzled Patriarch fucked around with this message at 04:49 on Oct 5, 2016 |
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Oct 5, 2016 04:46
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8. Vice Presidential Debate (2016) I dunno why the media felt the need to hype up this movie so much for the last couple of days, to the point where it debuted on multiple channels at the same time. Despite being about very scary things in the real world, it somehow ended up being really boring to watch- there wasn't even any blood or anything. The obvious sequel baiting at the end was really annoying too. The 90+ minute uninterrupted long-take was kind of impressive I guess, though it felt kind of stagey after a while. Not really a movie I'd recommend for repeat viewings.
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Oct 5, 2016 04:46
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Raxivace posted:8. Vice Presidential Debate (2016) I will say, the actor who played the villain was very convincing, I think he played an evil senator in one of the X-Men movies.
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Oct 5, 2016 05:07
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The List Proto-Slasher 1. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) 2. Fritz Lang's M (1931) 3. The Old Dark House (1932) 4. And Then There Were None (1945) 5. House of Wax (1953) 6. Night of the Hunter (1955) 7. Eyes Without a Face (1960) 8. Psycho (1960) 9. The Abominable Dr Phibes (1971) 10. Dr. Phibes Rises Again (1972) 11. Mario Bava's Bay of Blood (1971) 12. Torso (1973) 13. Profondo Rosso (1975) 14. Black Christmas (1974) 15. The Town that Dreaded Sundown (1976)  After this long string of movies, it's kinda nice to see something different. I don't regard it as great so much as it is acceptable. But it certainly did something to stick out from the rest of them. The humor is silly, pretty much stuff straight out of a crap Disney live action comedy. And that tone does pervade a decent amount of the film, making it seem almost like a family film until killing starts back up. I guess it helps make the twisted random violence stand out more, and it gives the film a character that separates it from contemporaries. That and the faithful 'based on true events' story, taking a not so clean story and making it work for cinema. Plus, I do like that it takes that step to remove the personifying aspect of the killer, from the bag over the killer's head and to never pinpoint an actual killer (much like the actual case). It's well acted by a great cast, and generally makes good use of the camera. However, I just can't really bring myself to care. It's okay, but not great. I'm sure it's been very influential on a lot of films, but it's not worth really caring if you haven't seen it at the right time in the right place in your life. If you do want to check it out, it's one of the top results on google. I do like to note that the goal of this list is to try and explore the slasher genre in order of release, though by the time I got to the 1970's things got a little screwy. I did want to keep this group of films separate, looking at those films that would influence what is going to be the big 4. Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Halloween, Friday the 13th, and Nightmare on Elm Street. And so, next I'll be looking back on a film that probably influenced this one, and the start of this experiment in earnest... Next up: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre SomeJazzyRat fucked around with this message at 09:37 on Oct 5, 2016 |
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Oct 5, 2016 06:57
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 3 (4). The Visit (2015) Oh, poo poo. M. Night Shyamalan. I went in cautious with the "M. Night Rules." I expected an interesting concept that stood a better than 50/50 chance of being ruined by a really stupid twist. I pretty much enjoyed this one. It wasn't great, but M. Night restrained himself from going crazy with the twist. He actually did a solid job hear of foreshadowing some much crazier twists and then settling on a totally reasonable and still horrifying twist. You could say it lacked punch but it worked for me because I wasn't exactly expecting it. I had so many truly insane M. Night ideas in my head (aliens like in the story; cult with the visitors) that when they went with the fairly obvious that totally lines up I said "Oh... that works. Oh poo poo..." So the "M. Night" stuff aside, it was just a pretty solid horror. It passed the "found footage" rules by having no "cheating" scenes that I noticed that wouldn't make sense being filmed (once we get past the idea that Becca would be finishing this thing after everything, which I buy based on her character). It had its tension and jump scares in the method. Enough to keep me in. The story moved along well. I guess if I'm going to criticize its that the end didn't have a ton of punch. But obviously Shyamalan went with a more emotional ending and it worked, I think, even though it felt like a slight tonal change (even though the whole movie was clearly working towards it, so I'm not too critical). Its not one I'll rewatch, but it worked for what it was. All in all a surprise since I guess I go into any M. Night Shyamalan movie on some level expecting to be watching The Happening or The Lady in the Water so otherwise probably mediocre films like this and Devil tend to come as pleasant surprises. I was hoping to sneak one more in and catch up but its late. drat politics and baseball. This is going to be a tough month with my interests divided as they are. October Tally - New (Total) - (1). 30 Days of Night (2007) / 1 (2). It Follows (2015) / 2 (3). Frankenstein (1931) / 3 (4). The Visit (2015)
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Oct 5, 2016 07:55
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4. Hausu Well that was certainly a trip. Cheerful, weird and unlike most other films. It was enjoyable, but I am not wild about it.
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Oct 5, 2016 08:41
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1.1: Cloverfield 1.2: 10 Cloverfield Lane 2.1: The Thing 2.2: They Live 3.1: Prince of Darkness 3.2: In the Mouth of Madness 4.1: Well, I'm certainly going to remember From Beyond the next time I read woo about manipulating the pineal gland. Somehow I managed to hear about this one without realizing it was a Lovecraft piece before I put it on. The BDSM factor felt at first a little sleazy? exploitative?, or maybe it was that plus the fact that it was the woman that caused everything to really go to hell, but it all came together with a nice exploration of themes of control, a truly compelling villain, and delightfully icky effects. In the end what really saved it for me was the line "Alright, come and get me, eunuch!". For now it gets a 7.5/10 as I experienced it, but that would probably go way up with a repeat viewing now that I get what it was going for. 4.2: It was a nice surprise to turn around and see Ken Foree pop up again, and it was a little refreshing at first after my previous entries to have a modern horror that aims to surprise and scare the viewer directly through multiple senses, but in the end The Lords of Salem really didn't do it for me. Sheri Moon did a fine job when she was allowed to act but spent half her time onscreen incapacitated, and the concept and first half of the runtime were solid, but after that it reallllly meandered getting to where it was going, and lacked a satisfying payoff. I wasn't too surprised to read afterward that it was filmed quickly and not to plan. The film had so much potential, but all its style and atmosphere were really wasted by not having much to hold it together. 6/10 but someone could probably cut 20 minutes out of it and make it an 8.
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Oct 5, 2016 09:26
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The List Proto-Slasher 1. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) 2. Fritz Lang's M (1931) 3. The Old Dark House (1932) 4. And Then There Were None (1945) 5. House of Wax (1953) 6. Night of the Hunter (1955) 7. Eyes Without a Face (1960) 8. Psycho (1960) 9. The Abominable Dr Phibes (1971) 10. Dr. Phibes Rises Again (1972) 11. Mario Bava's Bay of Blood (1971) 12. Torso (1973) 13. Profondo Rosso (1975) 14. Black Christmas (1974) 15. The Town that Dreaded Sundown (1976) The Big Four 16. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre  Perhaps horror's second most iconic poster. Though I do think that the British release perhaps matches it in sheer quality.  I like thinking of this film as the transition point between the proto-Slasher, and the start of the Slasher as a genre. It ended up being so influential, and yet was made without presumptions of franchisability or with the expectations of cliches. Though it did become franchised, and it's sequels did succumb to the fallback of cliches and tropes of the slasher film. So, it's kind of a ethereal connecting point between the 'artistically' made films of the 70's, and the crass commercial film making of the 80's. That said, this film may be one of my favorite all time films. Maybe not number 1, but it's up there. This time may be my 4th or 5th time watching it, and I'm always finding a thing or two that I've forgotten about. Especially watching this after The Town that Dreaded Sundown, it's always surprising the amount of creepiness and naturalism the film contains. The creepy, grimy photography done in such an imperfect and somewhat unnatural way just adds a sense of realism a lot of films I've been watching up to this point didn't have. Plus giving the characters a natural ugliness that separated it from the rest of the more Hollywood features. And saying that, I do think that Edwin Neal's hitchhiker is perhaps the most interesting character in horror. Especially the realistic way he presents his confusing and obfuscated train of thought. Though he may be rivaled by Jim Siedow's Proprietor character, whose able to switch from hospitable to menacingly abusive on a switch. Though both of them, and really the entire cast, are given a lot of room to let their characters breath, develop, and react due to the story's relative simplicity. Especially in the way it's able to tie together so much of previous actions and the backstory through ancillary dialogue. Every time I rewatch it, I've come to love it more and more. I have heard argument about how Black Christmas is the first Slasher film, though I argue this film is. And I do for a lot of minute, hard to defend issues. Though I mainly think so because it was released in the US on October 4 1974, and Black Christmas was October 11 in Canada the same year (December 20 in the US). Next up: Halloween
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Oct 5, 2016 09:36
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Wreath of Barbs posted:5. Night of the Creeps (1986) If you like this you'll love Slither.
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Oct 5, 2016 15:07
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#10: The Black Cat aka Demons 6 aka di Profundus (1989) Marc Ravena is the hottest name in Italian horror. He's working on a new film that is set to be a sequel to Dario Argento's Supsiria (!) and will have his wife, Anne, in the lead. The film is about the third of the "three mothers", named Lavinna, who Anne will play. Lavinna meanwhile is a real centuries old witch, and she had other ideas about Anne portraying her. Slowly she finds herself seeing more and more disturbing sights, and trusting those around her less and less. Is Anne just losing her mind and hallucinating, or is the witch for real, and how does Anne and Marc's baby fit in to all of this? Luigi Cozzi is an interesting guy. He mostly directed in the 80s, but was notorious for his ripping off of other material (he first got his name on the map in 1977, taking the original Godzilla film and adding psychedelic colorization to it). However, I would argue watching this particular film that shameless doesn't mean talentless. Cozzi could have picked a worse role model than Dario Argento to ape (after retiring from film, Cozzi now runs a museum and gift shop dedicated to Italian horror, and Argento in particular, located in Rome), as much of the auteur's style is copied here, from daring use of color to long ambitious tracking shots. Even much of the music is borrowed from other sources (including the score of Suspiria itself! ) However, what we have here is a movie with an unpredictable story and striking visuals, and surprisingly realistic acting coming from Italy, especially with how the ADR sounds. If you're a fan of Italian supernatural horror, I recommend this not be ignored. I give The Black Cat  out of 5
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Oct 5, 2016 15:20
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16. Lords of Salem I'll keep this one brief because I see someone else wrote about it earlier on the page. I feel a lot differently about the movie than they did though, I think its basically a perfect horror movie. I really don't think I'd change a single thing about it. For me this is definitely Sherri Moon's best performance to date, yea I suppose she doesn't talk much past a certain point but she plays the downward spiral very convincingly regardless. I love the look of this movie more than any of Zombie's other films, specifically the way he shot Heidi's apartment building. I know this will come off as hyperbole, but I think it has a similar quality to how Kubrick turned the Overlook into its own character, or how distinctive the dance school in Suspiria was and how it defines the entire film. That's why I enjoy the slow burn and I guess have never been as focused on how satisfying or definitive the ending is. Like House of 1000 Corpses, if you saw this once and came away feeling like it was an incoherent mess, give it a second shot. Everything that happens is pretty clearly explained but its all more in the background compared to Heidi's struggle so it can be very easy to miss on first viewing.
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Oct 5, 2016 15:32
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al-azad posted:If you like this you'll love Slither. I've actually seen Slither and did love it. You've reminded me that it's time for a re-watch though!
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Oct 5, 2016 19:30
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10/3 - Candyman. I'd seen this once, probably 10 years ago in a film class. And I'd enjoyed it then, but it didn't really stick with me. I've been meaning to come back around to it and now I finally gave it another watch, and I haven't really been able to get it out of my head. The visuals, the music, Todd's voice. I can't stop thinking about it. Critical consensus on the sequels seems to be pretty scattered, but I think I'm at least gonna check out the second one. I just want more of this character, haha. 10/4 - The Drownsman. Wasn't expecting too much from this one aside from a neat premise. And on that it delivers, but the flick is pretty run-of-the-mill. Nothing that will have you clawing your eyes out, but nothing that will have you paying close attention either. One thing I dug is that they really go out of their way to give the characters some actual, like, character here. The effort is appreciated, even if the execution leaves a lot to be desired. 10/5 - The People Under The Stairs. This is a wonky one for me. I really enjoyed this movie for about an hour or so, and then when it makes its turn into the finale it kinda lost my excitement. Not that the finale is bad, but the pacing just didn't work for me and I found it testing my patience. I feel like a tighter edit of the same movie would really knock my socks off.
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Oct 5, 2016 20:06
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Hibernator posted:10/3 - Candyman. I'd seen this once, probably 10 years ago in a film class. And I'd enjoyed it then, but it didn't really stick with me. I've been meaning to come back around to it and now I finally gave it another watch, and I haven't really been able to get it out of my head. The visuals, the music, Todd's voice. I can't stop thinking about it. Critical consensus on the sequels seems to be pretty scattered, but I think I'm at least gonna check out the second one. I just want more of this character, haha. Definitely do check out the second one. Its definitely not as good as the first but still a lot of fun and it takes place in New Orleans.
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Oct 5, 2016 20:20
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8. Tales From The Crypt: Demon Knight (1995) Holy hell, why haven't I watched this sooner? It was a blast. A man is on the run from "The Collector" and takes refuge in a mission/brothel/restaurant/motel(?) and makes a stand with the residents to protect a mysterious key. The cast was great, the practical effects were very impressive and Billy Zane obviously had a blast with his role. Also, this month is quickly becoming the "Tom Atkins & Dick Miller Show" for me, as one of the two of them is in nearly everything I've watched. And a vaya con diablos to you, too, sir. /59. Belladonna of Sadness (1973) Gorgeous animation and interesting visuals and  Go in blind. (insert orgy here) /5
Several Goblins fucked around with this message at 00:00 on Oct 7, 2016 |
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Oct 5, 2016 21:10
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Basebf555 posted:Definitely do check out the second one. Its definitely not as good as the first but still a lot of fun and it takes place in New Orleans. I even kinda liked the third one. Like, you could tell they were at least trying to make a good film, even if often they fell short on the effort. I did like the idea of the death cult worshipping Candyman from afar, trying to keep his legend alive.
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Oct 5, 2016 21:19
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Wreath of Barbs posted:8. Tales From The Crypt: Demon Knight (1995) Thanks for reminding me to rewatch Demon Knight. Totally hilarious and fun. Is Belladonna of Sadness horror/thriller/spook-em-ups? I'd heard it was like fantasy or something.
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Oct 6, 2016 00:16
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#11 Timecrimes aka Los Cronocrimenes (2007) Hector and his wife have recently started moving into a new home they're renovating. One day while looking through binoculars at the forest behind his home, he sees a strange woman. when he goes to investigate, a man with his head wrapped in pink bandages stabs his arm with a pair of scissors. Running from the man, he finds himself at a nearby science institute where he accidentally ends up in a time machine, going backwards a few hours. Now he has to try to make sure he doesn't break his own space-time continuum and ruin everything, while still trying to figure out the mystery in the woods. I had heard for some time that this little Mexican made film was quite good. I'm glad to say the reputation was not in vain. This is a fun little mystery horror, with lots of time travel shenanigans to mess with things. It's definitely the sort of movie where everything makes perfect sense retroactively. I enjoyed this cerebral sci-fi thriller and recommend it. I give Timecrimes  out of Five
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Oct 6, 2016 00:24
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mary had a little clam posted:Thanks for reminding me to rewatch Demon Knight. Totally hilarious and fun. I went in thinking it was horror and it's definitely not. More like a really unsettling fable with lots of psychedelic weird imagery and poo poo. I'm still counting it because I was spooked by the seizure-inducing flashing light scenes and memories of bad acid trips.
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Oct 6, 2016 00:37
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Day 5 - Maybe it's the goon face blindness talking, but I swear that the main character in Vampyr looks just like H. P. Lovecraft. Are we absolutely sure that he didn't take a trip to Europe to star in a movie? On a visit to the countryside, an occultist stumbles onto supernatural happenings surrounding a dying girl. Care to guess what type of monster is involved? The Vampyr had some very striking images, but I could definitely feel the seams from it being a lost film stitched together from scraps. Some scenes really needed the missing audio to support them and the transitions were often rough. I can't really blame the movie for this, though. I liked the vampire lore in this movie, which is from that special time when vampires hadn't penetrated pop culture so deeply to have their rules firmly set. In this movie, the vampire is trying to drive its victim to suicide. Also, the servants were much more of a threat than the actual vampire. One of the servants gets one of the weirdest film deaths I've seen, buried alive by a flour mill. As you might expect, Carl Dreyer gets some great performances out of most of his cast, though I did not like the main character. Turns out he was a rich guy who funded the movie as long as he got to be the star.
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Oct 6, 2016 01:08
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Wreath of Barbs posted:I went in thinking it was horror and it's definitely not. More like a really unsettling fable with lots of psychedelic weird imagery and poo poo. I'm still counting it because I was spooked by the seizure-inducing flashing light scenes and memories of bad acid trips. It's coming to Shudder on the 17th, so I'm eagerly awaiting giving it a go the moment it shows up there. Haven't bothered cataloging the movies I've seen thus far, so I'll give some quick thoughts on each: #1: Frankenstein (1931) It's Frankenstein, what more is there to say? Perhaps not as shocking as it was in 1931, and it shows it's origins as a stage play at points, but still a classic. #2: Ghostwatch (1992) Wasn't up for watching Bride when it was on TCM or the next day, so I decided to cross this one off my to-watch list, and boy, am I happy I did. The way they kept up the facade throughout the picture up until the final moments was fantastic. Track down a copy on Youtube and enjoy. #3: Bride of Frankenstein (1935) Here's my most recent watch, not counting a partial watch of Der Samurai (2014; very strange and interesting; I may give it a proper watch later this month). For the most part, it holds up very well compared to its predecessor. Much more effective use of shadows compared to the original, Dr. Pretorius makes for a charming and effective villain, and the hermit scene remains touching and sad (even if the part where the hermit and the Monster share a smoke brings Young Frankenstein a bit too close to the mind). That said, some things haven't aged well at all, namely the goofy opening scene where Gavin Gordon as Lord Byron rrrrrrrrrrolls his r's while devouring the scenery, the bizarre scene with Pretorius' little people, and in general, Una O'Connor's ridiculously campy maid, who is a general pest to everyone she shares the screen with, and who I had managed to block out of my memory along with the previous scenes from my previous watch of the film. Still a great film, I was just taken aback by the amount of camp present (not that I didn't know it was campy of course, just that I had forgotten just how campy it really was)!
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Oct 6, 2016 01:32
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11Stoker Dark, unsettling, and expertly crafted by Park. It's not my favorite film of his, but it might have gotten under my skin the most, with all of its weird sexual undercurrents.
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Oct 6, 2016 01:40
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Hey OP if you want, you can add the https://www.dashradio.com Halloween station. It is pretty good. I am starting my 13 films tonight with the Purge: Anarchy. Never saw the first and probably don't intend to. But it doesn't really feel like a horror movie?
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Oct 6, 2016 02:45
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K. Waste posted:Day 4 Day 5 The Neon Demon is good, an interesting progression for Refn. It's a very 'slight' movie, so I think it was kind of doomed to compare to The Wailing, but it's cruising in its own different zone and manages to be refreshing and imaginative in its own right, even if it remains consistently abrasive throughout. Refn has definitely found his aesthetic, but I like that he seems to never be consciously "refining" it. It's honestly trashier than I was expecting it to be, but that's good, I love Showgirls. Now I just need to figure out what I'm watching tomorrow. I've had a good run so far this year, so I need to go off the beaten track a little if I wanna find films that I know probably won't match up to The Wailing, but would at least be in good company with The Wailing (and all the other good poo poo). So I guess I'm watching Cannibal Corpse - Eats Moscow Alive (1993) since I don't feel like renting another movie this week.
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Oct 6, 2016 02:58
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#4.) Creep (2014) This is the best movie in my run for this October so far. Fairly short at 77 minutes, but it had me pretty tense for the majority of that time. General summary would be that a video guy gets hired to come up and do some filming in the mountains for a day, and things get out of hand. It wasn't so much found footage as presented footage, but the first-person perspective was used well, and (for me) enhanced the tension more than a third-person view of the same events would have. There's some Blair Witch Project comparisons to be made, and I guess the movie falls into the mumblecore category with its trail-off dialogue and emphasis on making the characters seem natural (in the context of who they are) in their responses to what's going on. I had some friends in the room who were chatting for the first half or so, but once the antagonist silently blocked the door out while wearing a wolf mask, they got drawn in and focused on just the movie. That fit with the shift from kind of genial to more intense that the movie nicely employs, with little crumbs of weirdness leading to the really bizarre. Virtually every time I expected the movie to go one way, it went in a different one, but without seeming like things were getting screwy just for the sake of unpredictability. Things got weirder and weirder, and having just two on-screen people helped maintain momentum while keeping the sense of pressure between them accessible from an outsider's perspective. I feel like there's not that much more that I can say about the events of the movie without moving into spoilers territory, given that so much of it is built around the character interactions, but I do recommend it to anyone looking for a fairly slow-burning experience that goes for a skewed take on the usual horror/thriller trappings. / 5
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Oct 6, 2016 03:45
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I'm a little behind, watched 4 movies so far. The Cabinet of Dr Caligari - honestly I'm not into silent movies so it's best I don't even try to review it. Don't Torture a Duckling - Also not into Fulci but every year I give it another shot. The Witch was tense, I really liked it but couldn't understand a drat thing the father said the whole movie. He talked like someone cut the tip of his tongue off. Really I kinda struggled a bit understanding the other characters too. So I feel I missed out on some important plot points like whatever the conversation in the woods was all about. The Returned 2013, a different take on the zombie apocalypse that doesn't involve the fall of society. It's a zombie movie in the same way a video about car repair would be a zombie video because there was a Night of the Living Dead poster in the background. With a minor rewrite it could have been about any infectious disease. Starred Jennifer Goines from 12 Monkeys. Parts were good, parts were way over played (music room), and parts were flat out ridiculous like her boss's reaction to her falling on the ground and crying.
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Oct 6, 2016 04:01
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