|
A major part of my 31 Days of Horror this year is clearing out my Netflix queue of horror, so if you're interested in hearing about them look no further: 1. The Horror Express: This rules, in a very B-movie way. If you're a fan of Cushing and Lee, you can see them team up here. The plot itself is like a spin on The Thing/Who Goes There? and the way the monster gets around from host-to-host is unique, if not the most "realistic" idea. Also, Telly Savalas is a cossack or something.  /52. The Diabolical: The premise of The Diabolical is almost clever: it starts with a haunting that has clearly been going on for some time, with things like a small child just pretending the ghost is not there, but as the film progresses the manifestations begin to get violent and eventually we find out that (spoilers in case anyone cares about a huge swerve) the "hauntings" are the result of transporter technology test malfunctions. The company doing them isn't even aware this is happening, as the transporter is actually being used many years from the date of the film and is essentially ripping apart time and space. This is actually decently foreshadowed, too, with a man from the company stopping by to buy up property the characters live on for the future lab, etc. The problem is this twist happens at 75 minutes into a 90 minute film, when it should've come in at the halfway mark at latest. As is, it's just a "hey neat twist" moment when it could've led to a much more interesting story. It even has the gall to take that idea and then immediately launch into an endgame revolving around montage trapping the house. Like, seriously? You have the above spoiled premise and you use it on a stereotypical Home Invader Fight Back climax? A good comparison would be if Haunter saved its basic concept twist the family is dead, they're ghosts for the final 15 minutes. Also, the acting is sort of boilerplate average, no one trying too hard, the camera work outside of the opening shot is standard but with a few hilarious uses of slo-mo, and the special effects are some of the worst I've seen, with constant CGI smeared across the screen.  /53., FIRST TRY: The Hollow Continuing my Netflix queue purge, I at least learned to abandon a film if it didn't grab me. Tapped out of this one 30 minutes in due to being bored. The three main characters are Sister With Issue, Overachiever Sister, and Average Sister. I didn't know anything else about them. The CGI vine fire monster I briefly spotted did look kind of cool and fun, I admit, but not worth sticking out another hour. N/A, Tapped Out 30 Minutes In timeandtide fucked around with this message at 00:58 on Oct 11, 2016 |
#
¿
Oct 11, 2016 00:54
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 09:19 |
|
|
All of these are available on Netflix, for those inclined: 3. The Host: What can I say? This is great. Even though the CGI on the monster in the opening daylight scenes is not exactly super detailed, the sheer direction of the chaos unfolding is fascinating to watch: Bong Joon-Ho really has a way of being stylish without making it conscious. It was much more violent than I expected, as well, not to mention what seem to be digs at the typical White Male Action Hero. The film is doing quite a lot, as I didn't even get into what it has to say about mass hysteria or the comedy scenes or the cool action finale, so it's easy to see why it's not just a well-done monster movie but a Great one. I've only seen two of Joon-Ho's films now (this and Memories of Murder) and both have been truly excellent; I think I have to see the rest of what he's done now. /54. Baskin: This one gets by solely on moody atmosphere and one strong performance, a deranged and bizarre nightmare of a film with little logic until the end. For a debut film, it's particularly strong, so I look forward to seeing what this guy does next. There's hints of intentional 80s throwback in the synth score and some imagery, but it's not tongue-in-cheek, but more like Beyond the Black Rainbow (which isn't a bad comparison, really.) I don't want to spoil anything, even though there's little to traditionally spoil, so just see it for yourself. I do agree with others who say once the big ritual scene happens the film slows down too much, but it's still pretty interesting. .5/5Failed try at #5: Curve. From the director of the Skeleton Key!!! !! The basic setup is every incarnation of The Hitcher ever: someone (this time, a woman uncertain of her upcoming marriage) picks up a mysterious stranger (this time, a blond C level actor who is meant to be Very Hunky but just looks awkward) and they engage in a game of increasingly dangerous encounters. Except this one is across-the-board bland, has the gall to have half the film (but not all of it) be a "trapped in one location" movie (in this case, underneath a vehicle that has pinned the heroine to the desert floor) but not really commit to it. At least, that's what I learned from reading a review of it after tapping out 20 minutes in. Also, I hope you like Let Your Heart Decide because I heard it 3 times in the 20 minutes I watched and reviews say it's used about 5 more times in increasingly ironic situations. N/A, Tapped Out 20 Minutes In
|
|
#
¿
Oct 11, 2016 08:32
|
|
|
5. Big Sky: This one turned out to not be horror and not even quite a thriller, but I'm counting it since I watched it. As stated, don't go into this for suspense, though it has several moments of that; this is much more of a quiet character study of a young girl facing fear of open spaces. When some violent men attempt to kidnap someone from her trip to a clinic while passing through the desert, she's left to fend for herself and confront her fears, etc. There's some sense of style and the acting is decent, so this makes a solid Netflix watch, but don't go into it for tension, though the few violent confrontations that happen are well-done, they're over quick (one in particular reminded me of a Fargo/Justified setup, with a Mexican standoff between men with guns going awry.) /5 First try at 6: Harbinger Down: gently caress. So bad I tapped out a literal 5 minutes into the movie. I knew I was in trouble when a film that trumpets how it uses practical effects started with a shot of space in 1982 with a CGI pod flying by filmed like it was in a JJ Abrams movie or Battlestar Galactica 2004, whip pan then a digital zoom with some bonus lights, but shot with all the CGI a million or two can afford. But what really tipped me off I'd be in for a bad time if I stuck around was a scene set in a car. There's no way I can describe this and give it justice, but just imagine an intro scene that's meant to show and explain a few main characters to us right at the start of the movie that's shot with low angle handheld, angles changing every two-to-five seconds, the color grading tinted BLUE and WHITE (maxmaxmax) to show how COLD it is outside, and for some reason there's a huge amount of grain over these shots and the saturation is down so low I checked my TV brightness. The craziest thing? Only that scene is shot with the grain and saturation, though the next scene gave me a subdued Lance Henriksen and some handheld camera work so bad it looked like parody of that sort of filmmaking, so I checked out. I know this was made by practical effects guys, but so was Pumpkinhead. Harbinger comes off like a loving student film that got a few million. Tapped Out 5 Minutes In For real, 6: Monsters: Maybe it's me, maybe it's the mood I was in, but this is flat-out boring. I watched the entire thing, but it never seemed to really "get going." About 40 minutes in, when they finally leave and stop talking about logistics, it caught my interest for about 10 minutes, then settled into some mind-numbing travel scenes. After that, it caught my interest again for 5-10 minutes, and at the very end I did enjoy the poetry of the two monsters communicating (used far more interestingly in the same director's Godzilla 2014), the military showing up like a wrap to the start, etc., but it all seemed like it would've worked better as a short film--or even with 15-20 minutes cut. Some of the commentary definitely came off as dated or too obvious, too. Not necessarily a bad movie, but dull. It even lacked Garreth Edwards' usual mastery of shots outside of a few minutes worth of footage. .5/5
|
|
#
¿
Oct 11, 2016 10:38
|
|
|
7. Haunter: After some letdowns, this was a breath of fresh air. From the director of Cube and Spliced, I had somehow never heard of this one, and if you're thinking of the director's other work it has the same stylish visuals and twisting narrative; Cube is actually a very good comparison, for a reason I'll put in black bars. It has a major twist on the typical haunted house story, but that comes early in the film so it can actually tell a story with it instead of saving up a big shock for the audience (see: The Diabolical). Spoilers for 20 minutes in: the protagonist and family we see experiencing spooky things are dead and are the ghosts. It goes from there with them trying to break out of the house/move on to the other side, so it becomes sort of a Cube-type story.. The actor they got to play the villain is nice and menacing and it all unfolds almost like a mystery potboiler. Definitely at least give Haunter a 30 minute try if you're on the fence due to all the low ratings on Netflix, I found it well worth it. Also one of the few places where obvious CGI just worked with the setting. /5 8. Bloody Muscle Builder to Hell or Jigoku No Chimidoro Muscle Builder: I can't find any existence of this on IMDB. The director's name gives me no relevant hits. Yet, it exists. This is a 63 minute movie with a 2009 release date that appears to have been shot in the early 1990s. It's a Japanese remake of Evil Dead 1+2, but Ash is a bodybuilder. That means that it ends with him not strapping on a chainsaw and shotgun, but montage building a weight set and using a barbell+plates as a weapon. Shockingly, the film actually goes great lengths to mimic Raimi's style while inventing its own gags. What I'm saying is if you can track this down, it's well worth watching for cheese value even if it doesn't have subtitles. /59. Phantasm Remastered: I loved Phantasm 1, 2, and 4 as an early horror fan, but going back into this incredible new edition really made the artistry put into the first one standout. The new sound in particular adds something: the old VHS and DVD releases I saw had a very quiet feel to the sound, and while the film does use vast stretches of silence to create a moody atmosphere, what was lost in the old prints was how loud, say, footsteps or opening a door would be. The ominous humming that overwhelms many scenes, as if the gates to the red planet are leaking everywhere, also didn't have the impact they do now. Someone mentioned how the interior set of the funeral home really pops, and they're right: I never noticed how Kubrickian it was, and while some said The Shining, it actually brought to mind the colder locations of 2001, which is pretty fitting. I also never realized how weird some things are: the franchise's silver spheres, probably the most iconic image beyond Scrimm as the Tall Man, aren't exactly given special intros, one just comes whizzing around a corner and it makes all the more impact for that. I couldn't imagine being in the audience for that in 1979, without any knowledge that we have today. I also never noticed the strange mannerism Scrimm gave to the Tall Man, where each time he needs to use his hands he needs to "ready" them like a robot - or someone uncomfortable in a human body. The bug still looks fake, but they've cleaned up a lot of effects across the board, covering up strings etc., without being intrusive. /5
|
|
#
¿
Oct 12, 2016 02:01
|
|
|
All Netflix films, for those curious: 10. The Stranger: Produced by Eli Roth, this is the sort of film where you're not even quite sure what the basic premise is for about 30 minutes, but all of the unexplained flashbacks and cryptic scenes do add up to something. Wisely, the film doesn't hold all of its cards to its chest until the end, but makes a major reveal about 30-40 minutes that gives you something to go on and then adds to that, leaving the climax free to be ramping action. If you want a hint, it's Secretly A Vampire Film and the titular stranger is one of the last remaining vampires, but not the bad guy. It's pretty solid, so bear with it until things start to click - I'll admit I considered switching it off 20 minutes in, though it hadn't done anything necessarily bad, but I was wondering if it actually would lead anywhere - and it's worth it. I'm just not sure if it was truly needed to be so cryptic to the degree it is. /511. The Silenced: A bit of a mystery going on in this one as well, this is a beautifully shot Korean film (imagine that!) set a private girls school in the woods. A mysterious new student shows up, strikes up a friendship with another girl, and some Carrie-esque shenanigans happen around her. The cinematography features brilliant colors and some surreal dream shots; the story focuses mostly (to its benefit) on school life, friendship, peer pressure, and all that sort of growing up angst; and when it hits, the action at the end is hard-hitting and well-directed. It's questionably horror, as while there are a few creepy scenes, it's more "supernatural" and science-based powers. 12. A Lonely Place to Die: Very good, very interesting film - for the first hour, I'd say this is definitely horror as we see a group of climbers stalked and picked off one-by-one after they find a small girl buried in a box in the woods, only a single pipe for air. At the hour mark, it makes a sudden, fun (to me) shift to being a crime/thriller movie with some stalking scenes as we find out the girl was a kidnapping ransom and a pair of efficient hitmen, one played by the villain from Rogue Nation, are stalking the hikers instead of the usual Crazed Rednecks. In other words, the villains have a specific goal and are only stalking/killing due to the climbers being in their way. I can't stress how good the cinematography is: the Scottish Highlands are used to maxim effect, emphasizing both the beauty of all the rocky crags and green hills and the extreme isolation the climbing group is in. The cast themselves are fairly stock characters, but well-acted, and the focus is on the tension and chase, which once it starts never really stops. /5
|
|
#
¿
Oct 12, 2016 10:04
|
|
|
13. Creep: Low key horror-comedy about a man going to do video work for an odd guy. I actually found Josef creepier due to his normalcy and the film's lack of chases or other amped up horror elements: things only technically get "spooky" in the final 25 minutes or so, but it doesn't slow the film down at all, as you have a two-man oddball comedy to keep you interested up to that point. The key to Creep is Duplass, who has to make his character seem slightly threatening but in a way that suggests he's more of a danger to himself; he's the kid you know who is, yes, odd and off but not someone to worry about. There's two moments in particular that stood out to me above the rest of the film as particularly masterful: 1. the "I raped my own wife" story, which uses the found footage aspect to give us total blackness as visuals and only the audio and 2. the killing at the end for putting it completely off-focus and in the distance, making use of the peace of the lake. One part that actually disappointed me was the reveal (last few minutes spoiler) that Josef was actually some very prolific killer with dozens upon dozens of victims, as that seemed to ruin the aspect of reality for the film, that this could straight up be a real "quiet one" who snapped for the first time and murdered someone. /5 14. Dead Space: Nothing to do with the video game, this movie is a 1991 Italian production starring Marc Singer and some unknown actor called Bryan Cranston. It's an Alien ripoff with a puppet that can barely move, but with added Star Wars ripoffs like a dogfight and a C-3POesque robot sidekick for the lead. If you're looking for cheese, this is it: there's a softly lit sex scene between the leads that is actually just a dream, everyone wears 80s leftovers like bright spandex, and the hostile exterior of the station is represented by filming in the Italian countryside where they would've shot Leone movies but slapping a blue filter over it, putting some smoke on, and using a fisheye lens. As a bonus, it's barely 70 minutes long, so it's cheese that gets right to the point. .5/515. The Ward: AKA John Carpenter's Identity 2003. Yep, I'm just going to put the plot twist right there, because it pisses over an OK Carpenter film with its total stupidity. Let me just start by saying as I watched the opening 10 minutes, I was into it: the shots of empty, shadow-filled asylum halls and the deafening noise of the building shifting feel like classic Carpenter, as do the credits, the simplicity of the protagonist's intro to us and to the hospital. So far so good. Then the film settles into a pattern of ghost attacks that aren't all that interesting (a ton of rapid cuts, some screams, and later on a hint of video game cutscene CGI for the ghost's rotten face) and some rote 60s Asylum cliches. A bit boring, sure, but there were still a few scenes in there that had some nice mood and I was interested in how Carpenter brought back his anti-establishment critiques, since the first act definitely had some feminist overtones to it. In the last act, which had a few decent, but not great, set pieces (and somehow the ghost makeup gets good? it looked like they did CGI or CGI touch ups for the earlier shots that resembled video game cutscenes pasted into the movie, but the end stuff has an actual actor with a make up job), he totally pisses away the entire movie. If you haven't seen 2003's Identity, it's this: a bunch of characters we've seen throughout a movie are not real, but mental projections of the lead! In this case, it's all the supporting characters murdered by the ghost and the ghost itself, who are all aspects of the protagonist's psyche. That's bad, right? It's delivered in burst of 5 minute long exposition that's barely disguised, making it worse. But it gets worse: Carpenter manages to wreck his own societal critique by having the lead doctor's therapy work. He's known about the personalities all along, and his rough therapy and shock treatment have been to help cure her, and they do in fact manage to off each of the personalities. In 2011, someone made a movie where shock therapy is Actually Very Good. The only way this is getting any points is for those scattered cool classic Carpenter moments. If you don't have a filmography list to check off, avoid this one. .5/5
timeandtide fucked around with this message at 04:07 on Oct 20, 2016 |
|
#
¿
Oct 12, 2016 23:13
|
|
|
Sacrifice (2016): Tapped out 15 minutes in, and probably gave it 7 minutes too many but I try to be fair. The opening scene is of the protagonist, a female doctor, overseeing a birth in the emergency room. The production makes sure to have a tasteful smear of blood on the woman giving birth's clothes crotch. You see, this is important, because what happens next is we see some blood splattering on the delivery room floor. The female doctor calls out that the pregnant woman is "leaking" and an offscreen voice shouts back UM, NO, IT'S YOU DOCTOR!!! and there's some awkward shots of the doctor's thighs as she crouches and bleeds. While this all might sound offensive and you might be ready to take me to task for being offended at a horror movie, I was fighting laughter by the end of the scene. The next scene has the doctor staring out pensively at the Irish coast, where she has retreated to from America. As she walks back with a man, they see stone ruins with strange markings and this scene happens: Doctor Woman: So what are those? Irish Man: Runes. Doctor Woman: No! The strange squiggly line things. It's airhead dialogue written for the protagonist, so literally the only two things I know about this person is that she bled out in a birthing room while looking 0 months pregnant and she's apparently stupid. I gave it another 9 minutes after that and all I got were some boring dinner table scenes, the film was shot like a standard TV project, and no actors I enjoy are in it, so I dropped it hard. timeandtide fucked around with this message at 04:59 on Oct 15, 2016 |
|
#
¿
Oct 15, 2016 04:49
|
|
|
Legendary: I keep wondering why I stuck it out through all of this boring and cheap (think SyFy Channel Original Movie) Chinese-funded creature feature, and its a single performance: Dolph Lundgren. Playing an antagonist, Lundgren shows up to threaten the lead scientists pursuing the monster, growling his lines; every single thing he says is a half-veiled threat or existentialist machoism about life. I.e., "Lying is a self-defense mechanism. A tool of SURVIVAL. But see, survival tools are only used in the face of a threat. DO YOU FEEL...THREATENED?" Oh, and one more thing: the head scientist is played by Scott Adkins, and he never throws a kick or punch. Someone cast Scott Adkins and had him rattle off exposition and fawn over nature, which is kind of incredible in-and-of-itself. The rest of the film is forgettable and the creature is bad even on a conceptual level: it's just a real life lizard done in CGI and the size of a few cars, no changes at all, so it mostly looks cute or doofy. If you watch it, you might want to just fast forward to Dolph's scenes. .5/5
|
|
#
¿
Oct 17, 2016 11:13
|
|
|
I watched a few 80s B-movies, since they tend to fly by and are usually at least entertaining: 17. The Brain is a bizarre and fun romp through Canada. Let me quote the Wiki summary here, which should tell you if you should check this out or not (you should): Dr. Blakely runs a TV show called "Independent Thinkers", which is a Scientology-like self-help/religion program. But he's not making his audience think any more independently - with the help of an alien organism he calls The Brain, he's using brainwashing and mind control. The only thing that stands between them and world domination is a brilliant but troubled high school student with a penchant for pranks. It doesn't have much in ways of stars, but David Gale (the bad guy from Reanimator) plays Dr. Blakely and the guy who voiced Hank McCoy/Beast is his henchman. On top of that, it's pretty bloody at times. And unlike a lot of other lesser known B-movies, which often have the flaw of a strong start/end with a flabby middle, The Brain hits the ground running with a scene of the titular monster coming through reality itself to eat one victim, set a room on fire, and send the other tumbling out of a second floor window to the pavement and basically never loving stops. There's maybe 5-10 minutes near the 1 hour mark that could qualify as downtime, but other than that its all surreal visions, awkward car chases, and heads getting punched off. Favorite line, from the stuffy principle to the prank loving high school student: "This isn't America! It's high school." /518. Cellar Dweller: Also quite strange, its biggest crime is having the climax sort of fall apart and hiring Jeffery Combs to do a single 9 minute scene at the beginning. (Maybe it's just me, but it seemed primed to have him show up in ghost/comic form at the end to help out.) On the plus side, its a lean 1 hour 15 minutes. Like a true 80s B-movie sort-of classic, there is a lot of gore, plenty of bizarre moments (one of the characters is a method actor who is trying to play a role in a crime film, so when someone disappears he starts sleuthing about, smoking cigars, and putting together a case), and not exactly a lot of sense being made. (Where did the book come from? What is the beast?) Written by Child Play's Don Macini under the pseudonym Kit Dur Bots, it has the sort of off-kilter dark humor that some of the better Chucky sequels display. The Blu-Ray that's available has excellent picture quality, if you can get ahold of that. /5
|
|
#
¿
Oct 19, 2016 12:05
|
|
|
Thirsty Girl posted:Cellar Dweller has an incredibly bizarre twist and if you liked The Brain, I would recommend Syngenor (also a great dumb movie with David Gale going absolutely apeshit). Thanks for the recommendation, I'll check that one out.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 19, 2016 21:40
|
|
|
SomeJazzyRat posted:
I just wanted to say I appreciate these lengthy write ups, they've been pretty interesting/entertaining. Keep them coming. Unfortunately, I'm going to say nothing more than if you think you've hit the bottom, there's still more beneath you. I've always wondered what the hell is up with Michael's mask post-2, and apparently the one in 2 is the original, but Debra Hill had it shoved under her bed for a bunch of years. After 2, they allowed the actor to keep it plus the costume, thinking they would never make a Michael Myers Halloween again. So for 4-on, they needed a new mask. I'm still not sure why they look so loving cheap, though - it's not even the same mask! 4, 5, and 6 all make new masks for Michael, so they managed to do three completely different ones that all look like they were bought at a knockoff costume store. From the background I've read, I am getting the vibe that everything past Halloween 2 but H20 had jack all effort or budget put into it, with the producer being a real carnie type of Hollywood producer. timeandtide fucked around with this message at 05:39 on Oct 21, 2016 |
|
#
¿
Oct 21, 2016 05:16
|
|
|
SomeJazzyRat posted:Thanks. And don't worry, I'm aware that it goes way down. You wanna know what I know about Freddy's Dead? There's a psychic lady, and that it's poo poo. Jason Goes to Hell? Great loving opening, awful loving rest of the movie. Halloween 6? Might be the worst reviewed movie on this list. The one thing keeping me going is both New Nightmare and Scream. Maybe H20, I'm trying to keep my expectations in check. I know there is a reason why horror kinda took a poo poo till Scream, and the reason is the loving movies I'm watching right now. I'm going to preemptively say Jason Goes To Hell rules. It's total trash, but its king of the trash. The unrated cut especially completely goes against the "slashers are getting bloodless" trend and is insanely violent and full of both female and male nudity, including some full frontal. There's also a Brian DePalma gunfight homage (?!?) and tributes to basically whatever the just-out-of-college writer/directors were into at the time. Final Friday is just excessive in every way.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 21, 2016 21:15
|
|
|
19. The Hallow: Not to be confused with The Hollow, The Hallow is the much superior film of the two. I have to admit, this one surprised me, and while I think it does have one flaw - the first 30 minutes or so feels too padded out and once I had finished I couldn't quite say it justified not having a snappier opening act (the first spooky goings-on don't even occur until about 20 minutes in, if you don't count the weird neighbor showing up) - it more than makes up for it by half the entire film essentially being Alien or Aliens with fairies/wood spirits. A surprisingly large chunk of the film is a house under siege segment, and I was surprised that when you do see the creatures they look pretty convincing from an effects standpoint and have almost Del Toroish designs. Also, slight spoiler, but there's a point in the film where a character takes a scythe and lights it on fire to fight them off, which is ridiculously cool and earns almost a full pumpkin on its own. Oh, there also manages to be some slight Deliverance/Wicker Man undertones about modern life vs. the woods, though I don't think its as developed or as good as in those two films, but it's trying something more. /5 Attempt at 20. Here Comes the Devil I shut this one off 49 minutes in. Before starting, I figured this would be a low key, atmospheric horror and was (pleasantly) surprised to find something completely different...for the first 15 minutes. We open with 70s exploitation guitar riffs and some throwback style quick cuts showcasing a lesbian sex scene, then one of these ladies gets attacked by a man with a machete, then we follow this man out into the badlands where he strips nude (showing off devilish tattoos) and opens a box of fingers (!!!!) he keeps from his victims. Cut to titles. This was all pretty out there, so I was looking forward to seeing where it went with that, and the next few scenes are more of what the description promises (two children go missing but then come back, but are they really the same kids or did something evil happen to them?) and there were one or two creepy moments but then suddenly the film grinds to a total halt. I reached minute 49 and things were still only threatening to happen, and gave up. The entire middle act had been a rotation of the father wandering around, asking if anyone had noticed anything strange about his kids, and the kids acting slightly off but not too spooky. And a major turnoff: the cinematography was shot in a very flat way, but without any stylistic motivation, like say a Wes Anderson, so it just has an unappealing brown flatness to it. According to the horror thread, I didn't really miss anything. Oh well. Tapped Out (49 minutes)
|
|
#
¿
Oct 22, 2016 23:01
|
|
|
SomeJazzyRat posted:
If you believe it, the unrated edition makes it more bloody and adds more nudity (male and female.) As for what the filmmakers intended, they basically got to do what they wanted. The idea, according to the writer/director, was to give the series a more epic myth arc, get Jason out of the hockey mask, and shake things up. I notice all of the final editions of the big 3 seem to go with adding really unnecessary origins grafted onto the characters (Freddy gets Greek Dream Demons, though those probably work the most of three; Jason is a worm monster and, sigh, as the director describes it "Hell's assassin!!!!"; Michael gets...well, I'll let you see.)
|
|
#
¿
Oct 24, 2016 10:12
|
|
|
SomeJazzyRat posted:
Are you aware of the producer's cut? You might want to seek that out for curiosity's sake, but neither version is good - producer's is more coherent, but removes a lot of the violence.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 25, 2016 09:47
|
|
|
SomeJazzyRat posted:
Halloween H20: I think this one is unfairly looked over. Weird to be defending it, as I think it's probably a 7/10 at best, but it has some strong moments (pre-credits scene, the elevator kill, the big confrontation at the end, and LL Cool J's subplot about being an erotica writer) and, as you said, is miles above Halloweens 3-6. It's definitely a Scream clone, but as far as those goes, it's pretty solid, maybe thanks to having a first draft by Williamson himself. Honestly, as an ender to the series, it does a job at being a climax - it's only too bad that the producers would not let it be the climax and reboot right after that. Fun fact about the mask looking bad in some shots: there are three different masks in this movie. One that looks good, one designed by effects studio that has too wide eyeholes but is OK, and one they had to CGI in during post-production due to changing the mask design and not being able to reshoot the scene. Yes, there is a CGI Michael Myers mask in H20. Yes, it's terrible. Have you considered throwing in a few other slasher ripoffs/side projects into this? Obviously, you're already overstuffed and have a ton to get through if you're ending October 31st, but it would be fun to see some others caused by the 80s boom like The Prowler (my personal favorite of those), Madman, or The Burning and a 90s Scream boom like Valentine (which, as I recall, is almost more of an H20 ripoff: set in school, killer patterned after Myers in terms of mask and holiday gimmick, elements of a thriller; not a good movie, of course.) Scream 3: Part of me wants you to watch Scream: The TV Series. It's definitely better than Screams 3 or 4, and takes a balancing wire tone where the violence is extremely bloody (in a mid-season episode, someone gets fed to farm equipment and the lead gets splashed in blood from head-to-toe while screaming), the drama is meant to be serious, but there's a strange campiness to everything. I haven't seen the second season to see if it manages to improve or get worse than the first season, but it was a fun little series that takes a Scream formula and adds things like the legacy of similar murders that happened in the 80s, a Jason-esque boy drowned in a camp lake, a spooky asylum, etc.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 29, 2016 00:24
|
|
|
20. Fear City: Abel Ferra and made in the early 80s, so you know it's going to get grimy. A serial killer stalks exotic dancers in New York, and in a twist he's a martial artist. A very young Tom Bergener is a dance company manager who used to box until he killed a man in the ring, so when one of his girls is killed it sets the two on an inevitable showdown and oh boy does the showdown deliver. The ending is martial arts vs. rough street style boxing as the two just unload on each other for 5 full minutes in an alleyway, a la They Live, and Ferra rarely cuts away. Throughout there's plenty of stalking to qualify it as horror and even a Black Christmas style twist on the killer we never find out his name or fully why he is killing beyond some creepy narration by him about cleaning up the streets and he's not even credited in the film, so even the actor's identity is unknown. Along the way you get plenty of that early 80s NYC atmosphere that was such a huge aid to films like New York Ripper, as Ferra definitely knows how to soak up all the dirt and neon signs in ways that are both disturbing and sometimes beautiful (a murder cuts to the morning after, which is a big wide shot of the city skyline at dawn, mostly silent). Also, Billy Dee Williams shows up to insult Italians. /521. Burial Ground: Nights of Terror: An early 80s Italian zombie pic, sometimes accused of ripping off Zombi 1, and possibly an influence for the original Resident Evil game. (I watched it based on the last one: it's definitely a contender in terms of the setting being a mansion in the woods and the interiors being similar, though not much else.) Directed by the guy behind the sleazy Strip Nude for Your Killer, this is an effective 1 hour 15 minute movie that is about the most stripped down a zombie film can possibly be: there is 0 explanation for the zombies or mythology about them beyond a short prologue where a professor studying at the manor chips open a stone door in an underground tunnel, causing the dead buried inside to rise, and a fake quotation on the end shot. We have nudity 8 minutes in and a first kill all of 12 minutes in, with the siege situation starting around 20 minutes. One thing I ding it for and that hurts it from joining other high-rank schlock: the score. It's horrible, and very repetitive. If you can imagine a 50s sci-fi film and that sort of buzzing outer space noise used as backing when an alien appears, imagine that playing over 60% of a movie's running time, sometimes non-stop for minutes at a time. Somehow, it has two credited composers. The 1.5 points I'm taking off are almost entirely all for the score; if you made a new cut with Goblin playing over it, I could easily give it a 4/5 or higher. .5/5
timeandtide fucked around with this message at 02:04 on Oct 29, 2016 |
|
#
¿
Oct 29, 2016 02:02
|
|
|
22. Splinter Pretty entertaining creature feature, watched due to it popping up a lot in this thread. Two escaped cons waylay a couple on their way to a vacation in the woods and force them to stop at a gas station, where the four run into a parasitical monster. Ending up trapped inside the gas station, they're forced to work together to survive against the creature. I love trapped in single location movies, so this earns points just for that, and the monster they came up with (important in movies like this, as it's where they can vary and stand out) is pretty cool: it manifests as black spikes that sprout out of victims skin and later begins to strand all of its victims together into an uber-monster. Unfortunately, due to either stylistic choice or budget (I think it's the later), a lot of the creature shots are shown with rapid-fire edits and twitch camera moves, even during the big action climax. That's a bit irritating and takes away from some otherwise effective scenes. The third area creature features define themselves by is in stars - in a way, they're one of a few horror subgenera that can get away with putting in known actors, i.e., Tremors is no less good with Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward as the leads, but is in fact better for it, and there's fun to be had in spotting character actors like Ray Wise appear in these things, especially if they get a fun death. Splinter appears to be a cast of indie actors, and they do a good enough job with what they're given. In the film's favor is its pacing, which is so fast that when I paused it and expected to see the 20 minute mark, I was over halfway in. Definitely a solid, fun watch. .5/523. Lake of Dracula Have you ever wanted to see Japan do a Hammer film? Lake of Dracula is the second part of a trilogy (only loosely, in that they're all done by the same crew and involve vampires) of horror films made in 70s Japan that very effectively channel Hammer Horror atmosphere. Each entry of the trilogy increases in quality, with the first being mediocre but so boring that even at 70 it's a chore, Lake of Dracula, which is pretty entertaining, and Evil of Dracula, which is very good. These are all well-directed, despite being made-for-TV movies. In this one, a woman who encountered Dracula as a child relives her traumatic memories when he returns to claim her as his own. .5/5
|
|
#
¿
Oct 29, 2016 13:32
|
|
|
24. Crystal Lake Memories: A 7 hour documentary on the entire Friday the 13th series, including a small segment on the TV series, done by the crew behind Never Sleep Again. If that doesn't indicate it to you, yes it's high quality, with plenty of detailed behind the scenes info, funny tidbits, and in-depth coverage of cuts made to the film. Find out about the creation of the first entry in detail (it takes over an hour of the doc), see Cory Feldman recreate the campfire scene from Part 2 as an intro, and find out what the heck the Jason Goes to Hell guys were thinking. Highly recommended. /5 25. A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night: I'm going to be plain: at times I was fascinated by this film, but for the most part I was bored. It really doesn't justify 1 hour 40+ minutes of runtime (and this is from the guy that just watched a 7 hour Jason documentary) and really should have been trimmed back by 10-20 minutes. Even then, I found the strongest sections were the Jim Jarmusch style dialogue scenes, not the horror aspect. The black and white was an interesting choice to heighten shadows and make it more like a quote-unquote monster movie, and probably lets me give it a bit higher regard than I would otherwise. /5
|
|
#
¿
Oct 29, 2016 23:48
|
|
|
For a chance of pace, I watched two anime horror films from the late 1980s: 26. Lily-C.A.T.: A take on both Alien and The Thing, with the unique twist of the alien not being a cheap Geiger ripoff but rather disease/bacteria-based. There's several other nice twists on the formula, but I don't want to spoil those. The 80s animation has quite a lot of flair to it, giving us (once they finally decide to show the monster - wisely, they follow the advice of keeping horror off-screen or in the shadows for the first half of the movie) some really quite grotesque transformations. Despite being made in that period where brutal films like Wicked City and Doomed Megapolis were hitting the video store, Lily-C.A.T. holds off on showing real gore or violence until poo poo hits the fan for everyone, so the moment is doubly shocking as the first sight of gore is combined with the characters figuring out there is an alien presence on-board. There was a moment where the characters start to fight to an escape and an 80s rock song kicks in, which I suppose some can consider cheesy in an otherwise suspenseful movie, but for me that's just a bonus. Best of all, its not even 70 minutes long. /527. Vampire Wars: 55 minute film about a vampire biting a woman and a French spy investigating, getting mixed up with the CIA in the processes. Overall, I didn't like this one as much as Lily-C.A.T.: the story was a mess and it seemed particularly cruel against women (every single female character except the lead dies horribly and/or gets nude for the lead), but the action, of which there is a lot, is pretty cooly animated. Unlike Lily-C.A.T., this one loves brutal violence. It has a nice eye for detail, like when the main character drives a motorcycle at a barricade of armed men, we see the headlight as a straight white streak and the tail light as a zigzagging, dream-like red trail ghosting after him. Honestly, I'm surprised it wasn't made into a series sometime over the last 20+ years; the background story we're info dumped late in the movie sounds like it needs at least a 2 hour film to digest if not a season, and I'm spoil you and tell you the ending is non-conclusive and very sudden. /5, but only for some badass action and nice animation.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 30, 2016 12:43
|
|
|
28. The Seventh Curse 75 minutes of insanity from the director of Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky, about two doctors (one played by Chow Yun-Fat) fighting the occult. Features a Hong Kong style gun fight, martial arts, unnecessary nudity, rocket launchers, the power of Buddha, a fight against a skeleton puppet, a villain that carries a monster baby under his cape, and an alien ripoff monster. I don't need to formally review this film, I think the previous sentences can tell you if you need to see this or not (yes.) Somehow, it has an even more insane looking sequel, The Cat 1992, but I can't track it down with subtitles in time for tomorrow, sadly. /5
|
|
#
¿
Oct 31, 2016 07:24
|
|
|
Watrick posted:#7. Dust Devil (1992). A killer hitchhiker is picked up by a woman who is fleeing her abusive husband. If you have the collector's DVD, be sure to check out the 30 minute making of doc to hear about such production problems as finding a dead body on location and sets burning down.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 1, 2016 03:23
|
|
|
Put on two more short anime films earlier today:  29. Digital Devil Monogatari Megami Tensei: Yes, like the video game series. But not based on it. In fact, it turns out the Shin Megami and Digital Devil Story games come from a series of novels that are very different from the games. There's a high school setting, there are demons, but this is more outright hosed up until the final 10 minutes, when it turns into an epic battle to save Japan/the world. The plot is basically Evilspeak (bullied kid summons a demon using a computer), but it's considerably more nightmarish due to being disjointed and told out-of-order in parts (with some dreams included as bonus) to fit the short 50 minute runtime. As you can tell by the two screenshots above, the art is very moody and stylish the entire time (I couldn't find shots of my favorite scene, when the protagonist wakes up and his room is blue except for blinding solid white light from the outside, with blue bars from the slats crossing the room like a film noir shot) and the presentation saves what could have been a silly premise. There is also some Akira-esque "absorbing horror", which I guess was popular at the time. .5/5 30. Hell Target: As the cover art proclaims, this is "SF Psycho Horror Animation". The lousy cover pulled my interest, but the movie matches it: incoherent, this one is a feature film's worth of content shoved into 42 minutes that batter you senseless. Kill after kill happens, and none of it matters. I have no idea who any of the people in this are. I can appreciate the wild kills and hallucinogenic visuals on their own - a lot of detail here - but it doesn't add up to much of a movie. Essentially, in this one an expedition lands on a red planet. They're killed, and send out a distress signal. A crew comes to rescue them, but they get killed expect for one person. A third crew comes to retrieve some data with the help of the survivor, then they all get killed and it turns out the planet might actually be hell and they wanted to find Earth's location (???) (I don't know, this all came from like two lines of dialogue at the end). .5/5And now I'm off to start #31, just two hours before Halloween ends.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 1, 2016 04:43
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 09:19 |
|
|
31. Madman: Has the decency to end with a song referencing the title and events of the film and nothing else. I've heard this referenced alongside The Prowler and The Burning as decent-to-good slasher boom films spurned by Friday the 13th, but this was incredibly boring. Some of the kills are theoretically good, but they have none of Savini's art to them and the direction in the lead up seems to be to eat up as much minutes of film as possible per kill for "suspense"; every slasher film has that one kill where the build up lasts for minutes while someone wanders around and shouts, the music mounting, but every single kill is like that. It wrecks the pacing of the film entirely. Also, let's talk about this killer: he doesn't shut up. Is there any wonder he didn't catch on? See, this guy's deal is that he's dead, so he grunts and goes "Brrrrr!!" to everything. It's unintentionally hilarious. Unlike Jason, Michael, the Prowler, etc. Madman Marz has a face, but he looks like a cartoon old prospector that took a gash across the cheek. By the end, I was at least hoping for a good slasher chase finale, but they robbed me even of that. The Madman comes out of the dark, gets the final girl, imitates Leatherface by throwing her on a hook, she stabs him knocking over a candle which starts a fire in the corner of a room, ????? cue the the end theme. Thanks. I could have watched The Wailing instead of this, and now I just feel like I wasted my time. /5
|
|
#
¿
Nov 1, 2016 06:02
|
|