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Franchescanado posted:
#11 The Hitcher (1986)  I didn't directly ask for this recommendation, but I think it counts? My roommate's coworker recommended this to him after finding out he'd never seen it, and then we watched it together based on that rec since I hadn't seen it either. I also like it for this challenge because it's literally about stranger danger. Feel free to call me out if it doesn't quite fit the spirit of things though and I'll figure out something else. This is one of those movies I'd been meaning to watch for a long time but just never quite got around to. After watching it, I can see why it gets brought up so much. The atmosphere in this movie is so excellent. Deserted roads, decrepit rest stops, dust storms, and downpours; it's both familiar and otherworldly, oppressive and unsympathetic. It's not actually labeled as horror on IMDB, but it absolutely is. Rutger Hauer plays one hell of a villain. He's a literal force of nature; seemingly unstoppable and remorseless but also infatuated with the main character, Jim Halsey, and constantly giving out second chances and evening up the odds. I'd almost call it a coming of age movie? Hauer's character has a death wish, and sees potential in Jim as his executioner. He wants to be killed, but only by someone who really deserves to kill him. He pushes Jim the entire movie and almost lovingly coaxes him along, consistently removing all "obstacles" to that goal and gradually ramping up Jim's motivation and desire to wipe him from the face of the earth. I liked this a lot. The pacing was a touch rocky for me, but there was so much great stuff here that I feel nitpicky for ragging on anything. Great stunts and action, creepy atmosphere and villain, and all around really enjoyable. Watched (11/15): #1 As Above, So Below (2014), #2 Shutter (2004), #3 A Dark Song (2016), #4 The Endless (2017), #5 Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell (1978), #6 Blade II (2002), #7 Tag (2015), #8 Tale of Tales (2015), #9 Under the Shadow (2016), #10 Blood Feast (1963), #11 The Hitcher (1986) Fran Challenges (4/10): #1,
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Oct 22, 2018 20:17
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I bought a Korean DVD on eBay that claimed to be in English. Gonna see how that worked out in a few days.
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Oct 22, 2018 20:19
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blood_dot_biz posted:#11 The Hitcher (1986) Yeah, this is cool.
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Oct 22, 2018 20:21
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On the subject of Possession, aside from just being a great movie it's got some really gorgeous releases in terms of packaging and and little physical extras and it's a real treat to own. 
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Oct 22, 2018 20:23
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31. Fermat's Room 2007 Cryptic invitations are sent to invite specific individuals to a secluded party. They quickly find themselves trapped in an ever-shrinking room, forced to solve Professor Layton-style puzzles to survive. It's a pretty competent and well-acted thriller. It ends up feeling a lot like a Saw movie, as everyone is there for a reason. Just with word puzzles instead of gory traps. Unfortunately, it leaves the most confusing mystery entirely unanswered: what kind of illegal boat things were they getting up to in international waters? Sorry. Second unanswered mystery: what happened to Poseidon brand hydraulic presses? In 2007 they were at the height of press game, so much so that they obviously sponsored a movie all about how good their machines are. And yet, here, just 11 years later, I can't find any evidence of their existence. Makes you think.  .5/532. High School Ghosthustlers 1995  If you are watching this, and at any minute someone comes into the room, you will have to repeatedly protest that this is not a porn movie. It isn't. Not really. Three high school girls are in their high school occult club, and they bust ghosts.  Sorry, ~hustle~ ghosts. They are on their way to local success when they accidentally release a pervy ghost who preys on their high school, causing the girls there to be overwhelmed with lust. So our ghost hustlers will have to mount up and hustle that ghost! I mean, there are ghost penis slugs and tentacles and penis monsters and nudity and maybe a little vore but again, not a porn! Why do you keep asking me if this is porn? It feels like a porn script a high school kid had to clean up so that he could film it and turn it in for an assignment. Cheap, painfully slow (impressive for a 70 minute film), and amateur, though the effects are pretty good. Still, incredibly quotable and the last 20 minutes or so probably makes it at least somewhat interesting. /5
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Oct 22, 2018 20:33
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graventy posted:...
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Oct 22, 2018 20:51
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Thirteen 2018 horror films on Tubi, if anyone's looking for some under-the-radar items to hit that challenge. Anne Another Soul Apartment 212 Asylum of Fear Attack of the Southern Fried Zombies Bad Apples Delirium Evil Bong 777 Headgame Lost Creek Moma's Spirit Party Bus to Hell Tempus Tormentum
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Oct 22, 2018 21:01
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blood_dot_biz posted:On the subject of Possession, aside from just being a great movie it's got some really gorgeous releases in terms of packaging and and little physical extras and it's a real treat to own. Looks nice but I really don't like that medusa cover art.
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Oct 22, 2018 21:03
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FancyMike posted:Looks nice but I really don't like that medusa cover art. Pick your poison:     There's also the classic, which I call "Booty Cover"  I dunno who's watching Possession and thinking to themselves "drat, this is erotic." Honestly, you know what would make a good cover that perfectly captures the film while spoiling nothing? (spoilered for  ; title is a separate spoiler from actual picture)Andres Serrano's "Blood & Semen" series. This one's labelled as #3, but I think it's actually #1 or #2 Link Franchescanado fucked around with this message at 04:08 on Oct 23, 2018 |
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Oct 22, 2018 21:18
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#22 They Live (1988) - this movie rules, everyone who has seen it knows it. And this is likely a tired and cliche observation to share, but this movie is timely as hell..... A huge strength of the film is the slow build-up to John Nada learning the truth, and that we learn with him. It is a creepy portion of the film before it changes it's tone to something more comedic once he puts on the shades and becomes an action hero, and I think the abrupt transition could have gone smoother. How to do so, I'm not sure - and I like both eerie and funny elements. The finale also felt a little low budget with the main characters gunning bad guys down in hallways. I also always thought Holly (the redhead woman, I believe that's her name) was a vacant and weird character, not sure if intentional. My only issues with the film. Isn't the fact that Wal-Mart sells They Live t-shirts kind of sad? Or how about that the alt-right co-opted it to their ideology? In this era, art can be distorted, exploited easily, and chop-suied into memes to fit an agenda. "If nothing is true, then anything is permitted." They live, and they're winning. 8/10
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Oct 23, 2018 00:27
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20. Ebola Syndrome (1996) Our hero Kai, after loving his boss' wife in their apartment and then murdering them all once discovered, runs off to hide in South Africa where he works as a chef in a Chinese restaurant. There, the daughter of the couple he murdered shows up for lunch completely coincidentally and can immediately smell his presence, though she doesn't recognize him by sight. On a trip back from procuring some pork from a local Zulu tribe, he snaps from being rejected even by whores all the time and rapes a dying African woman, getting infected with Ebola in the process. One thing leads to another and he kill the restaurant owners and escapes back to HK, where the police are trying to hunt him down with the help of the daughter. This is my second HK exploitation flick this year and while it started very strong, by about half-way it was getting a bit mundane and I was thinking how much more fun Eternal Evil was. However, all that setup is absolutely worth it and the final act really seals the deal. Production values aren't great but pretty much what you'd expect in this kind of movie, and they did actually film on location in SA, including some scenes with a cheetah threatening to bite off their dicks. There's some great black humor too, including wonderful dialog like "What are you doing? I am killing them, is that a problem?" or "Ebolaaaaaaaaa!!!!". The film is just the right balance of sleaze, violence, and otherwise disgusting poo poo. It also shows how the authorities might deal with a public health emergency, so you can think of it as a more fun Contagion. I didn't watch it on YT but it seems to be available in decent quality here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAjbwiv8iq8 /5Mokelumne Trekka posted:Isn't the fact that Wal-Mart sells They Live t-shirts kind of sad? Or how about that the alt-right co-opted it to their ideology? In this era, art can be distorted, exploited easily, and chop-suied into memes to fit an agenda. "If nothing is true, then anything is permitted." mobby_6kl fucked around with this message at 00:39 on Oct 23, 2018 |
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Oct 23, 2018 00:27
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Franchescanado posted:I'm posting this one a little early so as to give everyone some time to figure it out. I went with one my friend has been telling me to watch for a long time;  A mute makeup artist working on a movie in Russia gets locked the studio after hours, becomes a witness to a snuff film being made and spends the rest of the movie being chased. This movie didn't do much for me. The promo material (as above) and this being listed everywhere as a 'horror' is rather deceptive. Only early on in this movie does anything in this movie represent horror and the movie grows goofier as it goes on. I can just imagine the creators excitement as they decide to portray the star as a mute and film it in Russia as a way to make this stand out from being what it is, an unremarkable 90s thriller . .5/ 5 I really need to get to watching some good stuff, I've seen some real stinkers this month. Speaking of.... Fermat's Room , watched on Scream Stream. I know this one has a fan base, but it just wasn't my thing. I found it rather aggravating and it felt like it went on too long. The mathematicians that were eager and quick-witted enough to solve the math riddles in the newspaper sure went out of their way to avoid solving any math riddles once the room started getting smaller, instead usually trying to figure out a way to defeat 4 Poseidon presses which I think we all know is a fools task . /5
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Oct 23, 2018 00:28
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Franchescanado posted:
25. The Beyond (1981) Watched On: Shudder This is a 70s as hell movie despite being released in 1981 and an Italian as hell movie despite being shot in New Orleans. This is my first Fulci and I'm not sure what I was expecting going in. I knew it was going to be gory and I can see why it was so reviled at the time, but in hindsight it's really fun to see where special effects were in the early 80s and how far they've come since then. There were a lot of fun setpieces in this movie (the big fizzy pudle of dissolved lady, the tarantulas eating that guy, murder by seeing-eye dog and the best child's head exploding technology that 1981 could offer) and a surprisingly funky soundtrack. It's a shame that it devolves into a pretty standard zombie scenario in the last half an hour or so. The movie spends its previous run time building this hallucinatory world but as soon as they get to the hospital, it's shooting corpses in the chest and then head ad nauseum. Worth it for the special effects, if not the plot or performances.
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Oct 23, 2018 02:01
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Day 22 - Last House on the Left https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8W9KPhmYYtg I hated it. I've got enough good stuff lined up for the next nine days that this is almost definitely going to be the worst movie I watched this month. It was thoroughly unpleasant, poorly handled on all levels, and I can't even say it was a disappointment since I wasn't expecting anything great. Two teenagers go off with some strangers, but they're escaped convicts who proceed to torture them for a while before killing them. But uh-oh, they did it right next door to one of their victim's house and her parents are going to be pissed. I know that this is Wes Craven's first movie and I know it was shot on no budget with an extremely short time frame, but the direction in this movie is still terrible. There's a shot early on in the film that's a long piece of "happy home life" dressing and it's shot about 10° rotated. It gave me a headache. And its far from the only piece of sloppy direction in the movie. This is a movie with no visual style to it. And then there are the characters. I thought early on that they were setting the villains up to be absurdly over-the-top as the radio announces that they were in prison for killing a priest and two nuns as well as kicking a dog to death as they escaped. One of them pops a kids balloon with a cigarette as he walks past. So I was expecting them to be kind of interesting crazy assholes. All that goes away when it's time for them to torment and rape the teenagers, though. The best portions of the movie are the last act, which is usually the case with 70's exploitation revenge flicks. But the action doesn't make up for the previous hour of the movie. I watched Last House on the Left mainly to check off the box for having seen it. I would have been fine never seeing it, though.
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Oct 23, 2018 02:43
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 25)Chopping Mall (Tubi) This movie is super rad in the best possible way. It's crazy ridiculous paint doesn't work that way! and cheesy and I loved every minute. You can get political and read it is as a critique of late stage capitalism, and it'd be super valid, and that makes it even better in my eyes. But really this is one of those platonic ideal of an 80s b horror movie movies.  5/5
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Oct 23, 2018 02:51
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Franchescanado posted:Honestly, you know what would make a good cover that perfectly captures the film while spoiling nothing? (spoilered for Please put that behind a link.
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Oct 23, 2018 03:10
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 25. Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man (1943) We follow Larry Talbot on a quest for self-annihilation, as he wants to rid himself of the immortal curse of the werewolf. He journeys to see if the good Dr. Frankenstein can help him, only to discover the doctor is dead. At that point, about halfway, the movie really loses anything it had going on and becomes just a poor rehash of themes explored in previous Frankenstein movies. The pathos of the Wolf Man really drove this, so when we aren’t focused on that it’s a bit boring. I thought I saw Ghost of Frankenstein, which this follows, but I guess I haven’t, so I’ll have to add that to my list. Watched List (25): Savageland, Ghostbusters (2016), Creep, Vampyr, Hereditary, Frontier(s), Butterfly Effect 3, Only Lovers Left Alive, The Tenant, The Screaming Skull, Hell House LLC, Ringu 0, Cat People, Banshee Chapter, Critters 2, The Endless, The Witch Who Came From The Sea, Behind the Mask: The Rise Of Leslie Vernon, The Old Dark House, Cold Moon, Rec 2, Phenomena, Mandy, It (2017), Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man Fran Challenges Fulfilled(7): #1 Love Something You Hate: Only Lovers Left Alive, #2 Queer Horror: The Old Dark House, #3 Hometown Horror: Butterfly Effect 3, #5 Birth Of Horror: The Tenant, #6 Video Nasties: The Witch Who Came From The Sea, #7 The World Is A Scary Place: Ringu 0, #10 Fear And Now: Mandy
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Oct 23, 2018 03:12
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Waiting on a DVD from Netflix for the Stranger Danger challenge, so... 43. Horror of Dracula (1958). Directed by Terence Fisher. Watched via FilmStruck. My first exposure to Christopher Lee-era Dracula. This is by no means the best version of the story (I have a huge soft spot for Bram Stoker's Dracula), but there's still a whole lot to gain from this. Christopher Lee is such an imposing Dracula and I appreciate that his version is more feral than most Dracula's I've seen. Peter Cushing is the best Van Helsing there's ever been by a long shot. Dracula. Franchescanado posted:
 44. Apostle (2018). Directed by Gareth Evans. Watched via Netflix. Flawed, but I think I dug this more than many people in the thread. It takes a while to find it's footing, though. Around halfway through, the film turns itself from a competently-made, if unremarkable retread on The Wicker Man to some bonkers "Witchfinder General meets Ken Russell" poo poo. I'm still trying to figure out whether the film's attempts to talk about institutionalized misogyny and greed pan out. It's better than a lot of the stuff Netflix has been putting out.
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Oct 23, 2018 03:27
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        #68. Frankenstein, a.k.a., Dr. Frankenstein (1931) It's a great movie, of course, but I still have to whine about the divergences from the book. As with Dracula, I'm sure most of it can be chalked up to second-hand adaptation through the stage-play rendition, but I'm still miffed about missing out on an early-'30s Universal imagining of an ice-floe chase. And at pulling 'Victor' from Frankenstein's name and throwing it to some other character. And at having a terrible assistant be pretty much the only thing causing the creature to be a monster. I guess it's not a movie I really like that much when I'm thinking about it instead of watching it, but Karloff does put in a great performance, I love the odd angles of the lab castle's walls, the reanimation scene is golden, as is the mourning father passing through the celebrations. But so many of the original story's themes are gutted, there's not nearly enough build-up for the Frankenstein nuptials to develop into anything more than a celebration scene, and the happy ending (even if the Hays code mandated it) is incredibly out of place. In spite of all that, the atmosphere is darker and more effectively developed than in Dracula, and Karloff's work in his role is so good that the reports of people of the time fainting when his face looms up on-screen are easy to believe. / 10 #69. The Erotic Witch Project (2000) Three film-making friends head into the woods in investigation of a local legend, and soon find their behavior deteriorating, presumably under the effects of that legend's mysterious power. The early interviews with locals show some bad acting, really hamming it up. Good camaraderie between the leads, they seemed very fond of each other. The roaming gorilla was a bit of a loose thread, but I think I get what they intended with it, at least until the blow-up doll popped up. I guess that could have been scavenged from one of the piles left outside of the tents. The effects of the witch started hitting and escalating much more rapidly than in the original, and the characters went with the changes with hardly any shock or disorientation. Decent homage to the original ending, but the apology scene adaptation is a real step down. Could have used some sharper editing, too, trim out a few minutes of wandering in the woods footage. / 10  #70. Devil Times Five, a.k.a., The Horrible House on the Hill, a.k.a., Tantrums (1974) Killer kids find their way into a house of obnoxious adults, the obvious ensues. If not for a coating of mid-'70s grossness (like the woman who tries to seduce the mentally disabled man, Ralph, for minutes on end) and some really awkward editing (the slow-motion capabilities added about five minutes to the run-time on their own), this would be completely forgettable. Ralph was easily the most sympathetic character, but the script dumped him long before the half-assed conclusion. Gets points for a practical effect of someone being set on fire, I guess. / 10  #71. Guru, the Mad Monk, a.k.a., Garu, the Mad Monk (1970) I'm not sure where to begin with this one. The titular monk lives on an island housing a reformatory church (since there's no other monks, I guess you can't call it a proper monastery), and he's pretty much the only authority figure to be found. His hunchbacked assistant Igor handles the menial stuff, there's a woman with vampiric (delusional?) tendencies, an innocent young woman who's caught in the middle of all the nonsense, and the monk has mirror conversations with an evil presence within himself, one who's basically discarded after the mirror scene. Uh, the costumes were charming? The coloring had that tasty aged look, the lead actor was at least fairly earnest in the weirdness of his role, and the sets were suitably grimy. It left me curious to see more of Andy Milligan's work. / 10
Darthemed fucked around with this message at 05:29 on Oct 23, 2018 |
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Oct 23, 2018 03:39
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23. The Fall of the House of Usher (1960): I remember liking the short story when I read it many years ago, but I couldn’t really get into the movie. The romance plot felt a bit shoehorned in and the film takes a long time to get going. This is an 82 minute film with a drat overture. Vincent Price was fun, but that’s about it.
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Oct 23, 2018 04:04
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Lurdiak posted:Please put that behind a link. Good call.
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Oct 23, 2018 04:09
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 Body of the Prey a.k.a. The Revenge of Doctor X, 1970 I watch at least one movie I know is going to be poo poo every year, and boy, is this one poo poo. The script is written by no other than Ed wood and that the only noteworthy thing about this movie. And this scrip is poo poo even by Ed Wood standards. I'm sure someone is thinking this must be a fun shitfest as an result, but no, this movie is nothing but boring. The plot synopsis on imdb.com is "A mad scientist uses thunder and lightning to turn carnivorous plants into man-eating creatures." and that is as far as anyone could ever be bothered to write about this piece of poo poo. Nothing happens, the end. It takes 40 minutes that felt like it took 40 years off my life before we see any cool mad science stuff creating the monster, then a few pockets of the monster hardly doing something before both the scientist and monster just dies in the very last minute of the movie for no good reason. There's a reason of course, just not good or shown well. This is garbage from start to finish and not the good kind. Don't bother with this one. Hot Dog Day #89 fucked around with this message at 09:02 on Oct 23, 2018 |
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Oct 23, 2018 04:12
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33- Halloween 2018 A pure love letter to horror. I haven't seen any of the other ones so I'm sure some things were lost on me, but it seems to ignore everything but the first one anyways. Really solid, old school slasher with a few modern touches. I especially loved the little inversions with Laurie near the end there. One thing that did kind of take me out of it though, and I know this is dumb, but man if you have to move Michael, you can't wait a week and do it in November?
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Oct 23, 2018 04:44
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11 years, 10 days. Grind, grind, grind. 35 (37). The Oblong Box (1969) Available on Amazon Prime.  Vincent Price stars as a man attempting to protect his brother from a curse and disfigurement given to him from vengeful Africans they took advantage of and protect others from his brother’s madness and bloodlust as a result of it. Based on an Edgar Allen Poe story and co-starring Christopher Lee. Straight up, this was boring. It broke my heart to say that about a piece with so many great elements but they feel used all wrong. You have Vincent Price in a story about a deranged madman and you cast him as the madman’s reserved brother? You have Christopher Lee and you cast him as the reserved doctor being bullied by the madman? What the hell? Imagining either Price or Lee in the main role feels like this would have been such a completely different movie. I spent the entire movie thinking that so what do I find when I read the Wikipedia entry? The original script had Price playing both brothers. YOU SHOULD HAVE DONE THAT! That being said it might have still sucked since the murderous madman is kind of immensely boring. He doesn’t seem all that murderous or mad. He’s mostly just kind of a love sick sad guy wandering around and then getting into situations that kind of lead to him killing someone. Also its really weird seeing Price as not just the straight laced good guy but to see him with a 20something love interest. I mean, maybe that was even normal for the time period but it really never feels like a romance to me because when they first shared a scene I really thought he was her dad. That being said I thought Hilary Dwyer was oddly one of the better parts of the movie. I don’t know. There was a life in her that seemed utterly absent from the rest of the film. I mean, I think Lee might have been on medication or something. Lets see if he can show more life next time. 36 (38). Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966) DVD.  The third of Hammer’s Dracula films its the second to star Christopher Lee in the title role but Peter Cushing is sadly absent as Van Helsing. 10 years after Helsing killed Dracula many believe the vampire threat eradicated but still live in fear of the curse and Dracula’s castle. As well they should since the castle is magical and lures in a family of travelers with the intent to resurrect the Count. I think I enjoyed this the best of the three Hammer Draculas. Cushing’s absence is sad but without his sobering presence its actually a little more wacky and fun in the non-Dracula stuff. The magical castle was a hoot and I especially loved how the beautiful blonde just kind of embraced it as if this was the moment she was waiting for to become a Disney Princess with magical horse drawn carriages and dinner set by no one. The first part is absent of Lee but kind of makes up for it by being a fun little pseudo haunted house story with some likable victims and a solid minion. Then the second part gets way more actiony and is another cool movie. Father Sandor is a nice over the top replacement for Van Helsing and we get an even better minion. And we get a good amount of Lee. Still not as much as I’d like because his Dracula is awesome, but maybe its the right decision to limit it because they’ve got me wanting more. And he’s got so many fun minions including his Bride that the story kept moving in a way it kind of dragged in the earlier two when all the humans are just kind of standing around talking half the time. I’m definitely starting to “get” Hammer, I think. Great, garish settings. Just slightly over the top characters. Holding back enough on Dracula to keep me wanting more. Pretty ladies. And an ever growing list of ways to kill Dracula. I kind of want to watch the next one just to see how they kill him next time. I’m just sad no one threw a candlestick. 9 years, 9 days. Gonna watch at least one more movie tonight but think I’m going more modern so I don’t burn out. I also wonder if I can turn it on hard enough to match my 60 from last year. That seems like it will be tough, but not totally impossible if I can average 3 a day. The World Series might have to take a back seat for awhile. 
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Oct 23, 2018 05:40
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I was going to sit on this review until I hit the 2010s on my viewing, but with more Fran challenges coming up I figured I might as well post it now.Franchescanado posted:
 169- Witch in the Window 2018 - SHUDDER I've had this sitting on my watchlist for a while. Pretty much when I saw who was the director and since YellowBrickRoad really didn't click with me, I wasn't in a hurry to sit through this. I was also a little iffy about this being a grinding slow burn to a fizzle like I am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House was. Since others have already sat through it, figured I might as well too. Wow, I can't remember the last time I sat through a movie with this much to unpack, and I'll likely have to sit through it again because it's that dense. A father and son go to Vermont to renovate a house to flip. The son doesn't really want to be there, but because he was caught watching something on the Internet, his mother's so upset she can't have him around for now. Of course the house they're renovating is haunted. I don't know if it's because my perspective's different from age or life experience, but my take on things was that while relationships tend to be fragile unless they're tended to, in a world where we can still bury ourselves in work, everyone's 24/7 constantly connected to the Internet, blitzed with clickbait headlines from every direction that it's easy to get overwhelmed which makes relationships all the more fragile. In the beginning, Beverly's practically hysterical that she can't keep Finn 100% safe 24/7 in a world with things like school shootings, God knows what on the Internet, and our current President existing. She reminds me of friends on Facebook who'd get so worked up over every single headline/scare that they got mentally burnt out and had to walk away from all social media. I do empathize with her to a point, after all, I had two kids. Maybe because the world I parented in wasn't 24/7 connected online like today, it was generally expected that you can't ensure your kids will be 100% safe 24/7. All you can do is your best, handle the curveballs as they happen, and how you handle things matters very much. Beverly's wanting Finn out of her sight for whatever he was watching on the Internet smacks more of her treating him like an object, not a person. Of course this has me REALLY wanting to know what the hell was he watching that wasn't porn that prompts this sort of reaction. From the comments later between Simon and Finn, I get the feeling that Beverly's been the sort who's hypervigilant to the dangers of the world. While yeah, flipping houses is a gamble, looking at that house in Vermont of all places, that place is definitely going to flip. Seriously, I'd love a place like that. The cats would have a blast tearing up and down those stairs. Simon's relationship with Finn's the standard 'Dad wasn't around too much and now realizing how much time's past is desperate to reconnect'. We also see that his being not around so much was a definite factor with his separation. He's trying to make things right while he can. It's not without its bumps, but there is some reconnecting. Which now brings us to our ghost, Lydia. It's refreshing to see a ghost who's not all make the walls bleed ragey or weepy waily. She's just been listening to everything going on and when she's able to, speaks out about it because of the similarities to what she went through. Spatulater was bang on about the phone call. I had to pause the movie for a bit because it got to me that much. The ending at this point was pretty obvious, and I can't see any other way the film could've ended satisfactorily. Seeing how Beverly was so dramatically different in the house compared to when we first see her in New York, it brings up the point of needing to disconnect to reconnect if that makes sense. The world's still the same, but away from the constant reminders of every danger hyped up, she's able to start building a better relationship with her son. And Simon's hopes for reconnecting and being there for his family does happen, just not like he was probably expecting. Overall, this film's a bit of a slow burn in parts, but it definitely makes up for it when things really ramp up.
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Oct 23, 2018 05:49
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 48. Godzilla 2000: Millennium (1999) Apparently this film was created partly in order to help bring back a positive view of the character after Roland Emmerich's 1998 film didn't leave many fans happy. In my opinion Godzilla 2000 is a failure because they didn't just keep it simple stupid. The overuse of bad CG that probably already looked dated in 1999 gives the film an overall cheap feel. I think if they would have stuck to practical effects (which are excellent) and focused more on the father-daughter Godzilla club investigating the return of the monster it would have made for an interesting, grounded Godzilla film. Ultimately what we get is a pretty boring story about an ancient alien using our technology against us to take over. It just failed to grab me and I was never invested in much of anything except for the previously mentioned Godzilla club. I would totally pay their fee for up to date information on the big lizard, but I'm not sure I would pay to see this movie again.  49. Godzilla vs. Megaguirus (2000) Godzilla vs. Megaguirus is a pretty mediocre Godzilla film. The main character is a soldier who lost her commander at the claws of Godzilla and she wants revenge on the atomic beast. Okay sure, but I kinda wished it would have been the bug obsessed kid that's only in the first fourth of the film. Military scientists create a black hole weapon to suck up Godzilla but when testing they end up creating giant versions of prehistoric (I think) dragonflies. The big rear end bugs are featured in a couple cool horror scenes, that are actually quite violent, but the bugs look kinda bad due to dated CG. I really wish they would have tried making the bugs with practical effects but it would have probably been too expensive because of how many bugs are on screen at a time. Still, I think the blending of CG and practical effects looked bad and just bummed me out. Don't get me wrong, there are some cool moments. I liked the black hole weapon, the sexual tension between the main character and the young confident scientist, the design of Megaguirus final form, and did I mention the black hole weapon?  50. Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (2001) Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack hits the reset button on the series again and does so not for arbitrary reasons, but because Shusuke Kaneko needed to in order to give his unique take on the age old monster. The excellent director of the 90s Gamera series brings his wonderful aesthetics and storytelling skills to the Godzilla series and what we get is one of the best films in the series. The designs are excellent all around, vehicles, monsters and effects are all top notch. Finally the blending of CG and practical effects pays off in a big way and doesn't look too cheap and dated. All the action is shot expertly and bleeds that over the top anime style that Kaneko brought to his Gamera trilogy. Giant Monsters All-Out Attack features maybe the most villainous Godzilla ever. He is the embodiment of the pain and suffering caused by the military and political decisions of Japan. This time around the creature isn't just a force of nature, it's a hateful creature that seems to want nothing more than to cause destruction on a large scale. This may take some getting used to for long time fans of the series, those who like the heroic/chaotic neutral versions of Godzilla, but ultimately it's a change that is essential to the metaphor. Mothra, Baragon and King Ghidorah are all present to fend off the atomic monster, not for the military, government or even the people. They are here to literally protect the land, trees and animals of Japan. The protection of the people seems to simply be a side effect of protecting their motherland. I highly recommend this film. It stands out from the crowd in so many ways and further proves the amount of flexibility there is with the Godzilla mythology. My favorites from the series have all been from directors bringing their unique styles and world views and injecting them into stories featuring Godzilla. Give this one a look, it's something special.
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Oct 23, 2018 06:26
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Halloween (2018) Uh, holy poo poo. Some quibbles to be had (not a fan of the opening, needed more time with the central family) but I'm mostly just in awe that someone made a slasher movie with inventive (but grounded by the standards of the genre) setpieces involving characters that the film makes us root for. I kept being skeptical of choices it was about to make and it kept winning me back over. A real flex would be if the actual title was "David Gordon Green's Halloween" 4/5 sThe Curse of Frankenstein (1957)  Cushing's doing incredibly nuanced work in a role that deliberately strips out much of the nuance from the original text in favor of making Frankenstein into a total bastard. His facial microexpressions suggesting excitement, fear, and regret, even as the consequences of his actions are onscreen in glorious Technicolor. Meanwhile, Lee's silent monster, while having less to do than Karloff's did, is memorable for how pitiable it is, its "murders" coming across more like accidents. I like how much this plays up "Baron" Frankenstein's position as a man of wealth as much as he is a man of science, to the point where the final shot is him being led to a guillotine. 4/5  s
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Oct 23, 2018 07:02
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Time for some more catch-up! 14 - Curse of Chunky This movie is just great. Almost a soft reboot to the franchise, this movie strips everything back down to the original Child's Play: there's a house, there's people in the house, and there's an evil doll killing them all off. The cinematography in this film is hands down the best the series has ever had, full of very obvious Giallo inspired editing and blocking, some wonderful lighting, and some very artistic use of blood. The entire film's structure is (nearly) a Giallo as well, as no one is aware there's a killer doll on the loose except the audience for the longest time, and when the protagonist (the extremely talented Fiona Dourif) finally finds out, no one else believes her. Despite beginning completely stripped down, the film does slowly reveal its ties to the franchise, from using footage from the original film in a flashback to bringing up many of Chunky's past victims, even featuring some awesome bit parts and cameos. The movie isn't quite perfect, there's a little bit of very bad CG here and there, and the ending is a bit convoluted, but it's definitely a very refreshing entry in a franchise that most people had written off by 2013. Definitely one of the better killer doll films out there. Watch out for Chunky! 15 - Puppet Master Oh my god. Talk about burying the lede. This movie opens on the iconic killer puppets being created, and then we barely see them again for an entire hour. Almost the entire central cast is horrible and soporific, their characters are unlikeable and not developed enough, and the plot hides itself behind a last minute twist that leaves the viewer feeling like nothing at all is happening for any reason whatsoever for most of the running time. Demonic Toys is so creative, action-packed and interesting compared to this slog. A very bad start to the little horror franchise that could. 16 - Fermat's Room A very fun and simple Spanish whodunnit escape the room situation. Various mathematicians find out the gathering they've been invited to is a death trap, and the room shrinks on them if they don't answer riddles in time. This movie has several very creative shots and flowing camera movement, appropriately frenetic acting, and great, believable characters. Due to the very simple premise, it's not quite as striking as a Cube or a Saw film, which are packed with creative traps and kills, but it's still interesting to see the cast try and figure out how to survive and escape the singular trap they're in. Also, cops ruin everything. This movie is very briskly paced and relatively tame, I recommend it to basically anyone, except people who hate subtitles. 17 - High School Ghostbusters aka High School Ghostbusters Uh, ok. So the bones of a much more interesting film are here. A shinto priestess in training, an atheltic girl with a black belt in karate, and a tech nerd into paranormal research form a high school occult club. After solving a few problems at the urging of their comic relief teacher, they become mildly famous ghost hunters, until a much more serious supernatural threat that they inadvertently released descends upon their school and threatens the entire student body. Coupled with goofy outfits, charmingly stupid low budget effects, and a lighthearted tone, this sounds like a great time, right? Well, it's not. The low budget manifests itself in incredibly bad editing and cinematography most of the time, as various scenes are shot with one or at best two flat camera angles, many of which are too far away or too low in the frame or just generally not good. Each scene goes on much longer than it needs to to make its point, not even for any particularly good reason, but mostly because people inexplicably stand around a long time between their lines or because the cuts don't happen soon enough to progress the scene. While the effects in this movie are amusing, the ghost shenanigans are really poorly distributed. There's one very short adventure early on, then a very rapid montage that consists only of newspaper headlines, then the rest of the film is dealing with the main threat for what feels like way too long. Even though I don't speak Japanese, I can tell that most of the acting in this is very bad, especially from the leads, who were mildly famous swimsuit models with little acting experience. The score's poorly implemented too, starting and stopping awkwardly and often not matching the tone of what's going on at all. And of course, there's the fact that this movie is just full of gratuitous, awkward, creepy sex and nudity. There's not as much as you might expect, but what is there is so flatly shot and lingered on that it really feels gross to watch. The entire main threat (as well as the opening stinger) comes from people and ghosts who just want to molest high school girls, so even when nothing creepy's happening there's this gross vibe in the background. Girls get possessed and turn into mega-sluts that have graphic sex, ghosts appear and fondle girls, weird penis slugs crawl up people's skirts, and a gigantic slimy monster pokes at unconscious girls' panties and breasts while cocooning them in Cronenberg bits. Add that to the camera man just randomly aiming at people's skirts during action scenes, and this entire movie feels incredibly skeevy, and no perfectly timed joke, hilarious puppet or fun costume can get past that. I get that they were going for fun and sexy, but instead they ended up with gross and rapey. 18 - Ghostwatch  Fran Challenge: Love Something You HateI despise found footage horror. I truly do. I feel like that, far from being more "realistic" than a traditional film, the found footage format is constantly drawing attention to the artificiality of the experience, much in the same way that a novel that reads "By the way this is real and not fiction" every few paragraphs would. A good film creates an atmosphere, a tone, a world that draws you in and allows you to take in the experience and feel emotionally connected to it. The handheld camera/security footage/abrupt cut style of found footage lacks any real cinematography that could pull you into the experience, the acting is rarely naturalistic enough to pass as "real conversations", the lack of score means an ambience can't be created, and the shaky cam and grainy video mean I can't see the things I'm meant to be frightened of. I think that with very few exception, making your film found footage is an excuse to lower the budget and have bad acting and not much of a script. It turns out there isn't that much of a found footage element to Ghostwatch, but lucky for me, it was still an artificial, unsatisfying experience. I'm going to spoil the poo poo out of both it and another film now, so don't read ahead if you've never watched Ghostwatch or the WNUF Halloween Special. The WNUF Halloween Special is one of my favorite films ever. It's a flawless period piece that completely pulls you into the world of 1987 small town America, and manages to use its fake commercials to both foreshadow the plot and construct the period and setting. Through the dumb political ads, interviews with policemen about Halloween safety, arcade commercials, etc. you come to learn about the character of the small town, the personalities of the news casters and more, and it all prepares you perfectly for the admittedly simple horror story that follows. Though some accuse it of leaning a bit too hard into the satirical angle and playing up the low budget and phony attitude of the news crew, I think it adds more personality and charm to the entire affair. I felt like I was truly transported to the local broadcasting scene I remembered from the 80s. By contrast, Ghostwatch doesn't have any actors playing perfectly corny and hypocritical news anchors. Instead, most of the central cast are actual BBC news staff. While I'm sure this lent much credence to the special when it actually aired, the simple fact is none of these people can act. Whenever they switch from "presenter mode" to "real person mode", it's like being doused with cold water. They're incredibly unconvincing at all times and it's incredibly difficult to suspend your disbelief even for a moment. The actual actors, with the exception of Gilian Bevan as Dr Lin Pascoe, aren't much better. They all aim for "real normal british civilian" but they instead end up feeling like people from a toothpaste commercial or bad soap opera. The mother's performance is especially horrible, as she seems to have no emotion or personality beyond mild concern. Lots of time is spent just awkwardly walking from room to room in the small two-floor house that's supposedly haunted, or running up and down the street to go talk to eyewitnesses of other paranormal events, which is both uninteresting to watch and completely shatters the illusion that you're watching a real professional broadcast. Like you didn't have anything to cut to while these buffoons jog around? You couldn't cut to them after they've ran all the way down the street? The crew is visible in almost every shot, which is once again one of those "make it look realer by making it way faker" tricks that annoys me so much. The structure of the special is basically every stupid found footage horror movie. People claim there's a spook-a-doodle, the people filming don't see a spook-a-doodle, then the spook-a-doodle manifests itself more and more and then the camera explodes or falls down and it abruptly ends. Unlike most of those films, this special does do some clever things, most of them relating to audience participation. The reason the ghost gets stronger is because broadcasting its presence and having people call in created a nation-wide seance that powered it up. There's many panicked phone calls from "listeners" throughout the program about paranormal events reaching their own house. Much is made of a person some viewers can see in the footage and others can't, and then it shows up in the actual broadcast without comment from anyone, presumably leading the viewer to think now THEY can see it. There's a few neat effects, most to do with wind, but also some fairly convincing cuts appearing on one of the girls. But overall the entire affair is poorly paced, corny, unconvincing, meandering, stupid, and very poorly shot. Very little happens and when things do happen, you're left wondering why you should care. I suppose part of it is regional differences. While I'm not American, my local news in the 80s and early 90s looked very much like what I saw on WNUF. I remember commercials for dumb local tv shows, toys, restaurants that were all exactly as stupid as the fake ads they filmed for that. But I've never really watched the BBC. Maybe the sets, incredibly bored-looking presenters, the stupid phone room and the terrible camera work are exactly how THEY were in 1992. Maybe if I'd been exposed to BBC programming as child this would bring back a rush of nostalgia. Maybe if I'd seen it live I would've believed it. But I didn't, and I don't. This was just a bad fake news broadcast with fake ghosts. I can only respect it as a prank they pulled on the nation, not as a viewing experience. What a waste of a TV license. Lurdiak fucked around with this message at 07:18 on Oct 23, 2018 |
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Oct 23, 2018 07:15
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Halloween (1978): The local theatre was doing a 40th anniversary screening, and so went with a friend of mine who hadn't seen it before to lead into the new film. And yeah, this movie still loving rules. An absolute masterclass in gradual building of tension and managing to do a lot with relatively little, be it gore, set locations and budget, just to name a few things. Franchescanado posted:
Halloween (2018): This one also ruled. Not just content to serve as a sheer love-letter to the original filled with visual homages, and a solid modern-day slasher in its own right (though it is certainly all of those things), but also furthers the character dynamic between Laurie and Michael, and serves as a solid character study on the effects that Michael's attacks would have on a person. Definitely gorier than the original, but smartly doesn't linger on things too much, and often leaves it up to the viewer's imagination on how things played out based on the aftermath. Franchescanado posted:
The Evil Dead: Revisited both Evil Dead 2 and Army of Darkness in recent years, but haven't watched the original in decidedly longer, my main lingering memory being the pencil scene. I had the memory of the original film being more straight-up horror than the films that follow (and it certainly is mind you), but on revisiting it, I was surprised to see it fit in with the other two much more than I had remembered. The cellar sequence in particular with the film projector and record player could easily fit right into Evil Dead 2 without me batting an eye, as could the Deadite's taunting of Ash and the usage of stop motion in the film's climax (albeit in that case, more gruesomely than the films that follow). Movies Watched (18): Mandy, Hobgoblins (MST3K), American Psycho, Mimic, Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, The World's End, Carnosaur, Lake Mungo, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, Dracula, Gorgo (MST3K), Monsters, Inc., Halloween (1978), Halloween (2018), The Evil Dead Challenges Completed: #2 (Frankenstein), #3 (American Psycho), #4 (Mimic), #5 (Carnosaur), #6 (The Evil Dead) #7 (Gorgo (MST3K)), #10 (Halloween (2018))
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Oct 23, 2018 07:22
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#24- The Shining For years I'd wanted to see this film on the big screen but I kept missing the opportunity. I'm glad I did eventually, though, because this is meant to be an overwhelming, enveloping experience. A sort of haunted house movie (some argue that it's really psychological, but the same is basically true of all haunted house movies), this eschews most of the traditional trappings in favor of brightly lit, clean, elegant spaces where bad things are clearly going to happen, or have always happened. It almost loses something once Jack picks up the axe and actually starts rampaging, but there's still plenty of weirdness left. Honestly, I think arguing how much of the film's ghosts and demons are internal or external- whether it's all in Torrance the whole time- misses the point, sorta, since they're one and the same. That's how genre movies work as metaphor, they embody concepts that you can't embody in a realistic milieu, and the results, in their ambiguity, touch on a lot of things- alcoholism, abusive relationships, the corruption of wealth and power, and those stories you read about where someone seemingly normal suddenly does something horrifying. Horrors like this can never be fully understood, and so the movie itself refuses full explication.
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Oct 23, 2018 08:05
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37 (39). Ex Machina (2015) Available on Netflix.  Caleb wins a prize to spend a week at the extravagant home/research facility/island of wealthy and brilliant tech CEO Nathan Bateman. But Nathan has actually selected Caleb to come and test his newest invention, a robot/AI named Ava, and judge if she has true consciousness. But things get complicated when you question the nature of existence, and raises all kinds of other questions like could Ava develop a crush, why did Nathan make her capable of being a sex bot, and why is he acting like a megalomaniacal Bond villain? I dug that. I suspect I had a different perspective than a lot of goons because I’m not a tech guy really much at all. Not a sci-fi guy really, either. I’ve never thought about AI much beyond watching Watson on Jeopardy or seeing how dumb Alexa or Siri are. I’m not exactly afraid of the Skynet war but I’m also not excited by the idea of AI becoming a reality. I sorta knew what the Turing Test was but I might have just guessed at it from context clues. So like I went into this viewing it as basically a Frankenstein story rather than… I don’t know. What I imagine some did. To that end I thought there was a lot of mutual tension both ways for me from very early on. Nathan obviously seemed a moment away from shooting a laser beam at the moon and I totally empathized with the ethical questions of “turning off” Ava or reformatting her. At the same time I definitely was never really at ease with Ava either and maybe suspected her of possibly manipulating things before i was supposed to? Or at least before Caleb did. I thought it was a very interesting and tense dichotomy that Caleb found himself trapped in the middle of and it kept me on the edge of my seat. The conversations with Caleb and Nathan sometimes lost me a little. Not in terms of not following, but rather just threatening to zone out. Maybe that was a run time thing. The movie feels a tad long, but not to any real detriment. I never got bored but you know that thing where you’re reading a book and you finish a page and then you kind of realize that you don’t really know what happened? You read the words and understood them but you were kind of on autopilot or distracted so you have to go back and digest it properly? That happened a couple of times. That was super, super minor though and probably comes back to me not being a sci-fi/tech/Asimov/robot/whatever guy. But I don’t think that really matters. This movie works on a very basic level, like I said in a lot of the same ways a lot of stories - horror and otherwise - deal with creator and creation stories. It was a captivating watch and while maybe not a pure horror I think definitely had enough to qualify for the countdown. It was a gothic monster story in a high tech setting. It is super late but I'm not really tired and I'm debating another... September Tally - New (Total) 1. A Cure For Wellness (2016) / - (2). Slither (2006) / 2 (3). Castle Rock (2018) / - (4). The Forsaken (2001) / 3 (5). The Night Eats the World (2018) / 4 (6). The Girl With All The Gifts (2016) / 5 (7). The Voices (2014) / 6 (8). Beyond the Black Rainbow (2010) / 7 (9). Jug Face (2013) / 8 (10). Coherence (2013) / 9 (11). A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night (2014) / - (12). Vampire in Brooklyn (1995) / 10 (13). Excision (2012) / 11 (14). Spring (2014) October Tally - New (Total) 1. Suspiria (1977) / 2. It (2017) / 3. The Beyond (1981) / 4. Trilogy of Terror (1979) / 5. House on Haunted Hill (1959) / 6. Demons (1985) / Fran’s Challenge #1: 7. The Green Inferno (2013) / 8. Martin (1978) / 9. Malevolent (2018) / - (10). Dead and Breakfast (2004) / 10 (11). Night of the Comet (1984) / 11 (12). Jaws (1975) / 12 (13). Black Swan (2010) / Fran’s Challenge #2: 13 (14). Happy Death Day (2017) / - (15). Hell House, LLC (2015) / Fran’s Challenge #3: 14 (16). Hell House, LLC 2: The Abaddon Hotel (2018) / 15 (17). Carnival of Souls (1962) / 16 (18). The Last House on the Left (1972) / 17 (19). The Haunting of Hill House (2018) / Fran’s Challenge #4: 18 (20). My Soul To Take (2010) / Fran’s Challenge #5: 19 (21). Motel Hell (1980) / 20 (22). The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) / Fran’s Challenge #6: 21 (23). Don’t Look In The Basement (1973) / 22 (24). All Cheerleaders Die (2013) / 23 (25). Sleepaway Camp (1983) / 24 (26). The House That Dripped Blood (1971) / 25 (27). The Little Girl Who Lives Down The Lane (1976) / 26 (28). Friday the 13th Part III (1982) / Fran’s Challenge #7: 27 (29). November (2017) / Fran’s Challenge #8: 28 (30). Escape From Tomorrow (2013) / 29 (31). Horror of Dracula (1958) / Fran’s Challenge #9: 30 (32). The Open House (2018) / 31 (33). The Innocents (1961) / 32 (34). The Brides of Dracula (1960) / 33 (35). Resolution (2012) / Fran’s Challenge #10: 34 (36). The Endless (2018) / 35 (37). The Oblong Box (1969) / 36 (38). Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966) / 37 (39). Ex Machina (2015)
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Oct 23, 2018 08:55
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31. Silver Bullet I like werewolves and this had some weird tonal shifts that I really dug. On the one hand it is about a kid with a high power wheelchair using fireworks to fend off a werewolf and having his favorite uncle help him out, but on the other hand it involves some really brutal kills, a stronger focus on losing loved ones than most horror movies and some pretty mature themes. Loved the pulsating transformation and the nightmare about the whole congregation turning into werewolves was very well done. Dug this. With that I made it to 31 movies, however, it is still October and I will just keep watching more horror movies.
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Oct 23, 2018 09:06
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Darthemed posted:It left me curious to see more of Andy Milligan's work. BFI have an edition of Nighthawks, start there. Don't watch The Ghastly Ones, it's... well, ghastly. Nicolas Winding Refn's sole contribution to cinema is rescuing Milligan's work. It was nearly all lost until Refn paid £25k for a bunch of prints that were going to be destroyed.
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Oct 23, 2018 10:24
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M_Sinistrari posted:
I was trying to watch that last night but I guess Amazon Prime doesn’t have it listed. It’s convenient, but sometimes I regret getting Shudder through Prime.
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Oct 23, 2018 12:30
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FRAN CHALLENGE #11: Dead & Buried  Watch a film made by a director who is now deceased.or Watch the film Dead & Buried
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Oct 23, 2018 12:33
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 32. The Quatermass Xperiment (aka The Creeping Unknown) (1955) (blu-ray) In a daring experiment, the first ever manned rocket ship is launched into space. Something goes wrong, and contact with it is lost for nearly three days before it crash lands in a field in England. Of the three crew members, only one has survived, and he is... changed. Professor Bernard Quatermass, the scientific mastermind behind the mission, must figure out what happened and fix it before it is too late. This was the first Quatermass film produced by Hammer, based on a popular BBC serial. This feels a lot like a proto-Doctor Who, on which it was highly influential. It is basically a scientific procedural, and despite some dubious science it is a relatively intelligent story. Quatermass himself is maybe the least interesting part of the movie - he is portrayed as a brilliant scientist, but the actor who plays him has very little charisma. Supposedly the creator of the serials was not happy with the portrayal, which I can definitely understand. As far as '50s sci-fi films go, this is a pretty good one. It has some goofy moments, but overall it is smarter than the average movie about aliens from this era, even if it isn't an essential classic. Recommended. Movies Seen: The Witching Season | Lifeforce | Terrifier | Unsane | I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House | From Beyond | 13 Ghosts | The Ritual | Child's Play | Twice-Told Tales | Beyond the Gates | Cat People (1982) | Fright Night | The Vampire Lovers | The Vampire Doll | Frightmare | Honeybee | Murder Party | Child's Play 2 | The Beyond | The Night of a Thousand Cats | Mandy | My Soul to Take | Apostle | Near Dark | Child's Play 3 | The Phantom Carriage | Halloween (1978) | Halloween II (1981) | Halloween (2018) | Creep 2 | The Quatermass Xperiment Total: 32 Fran challenges:
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Oct 23, 2018 13:57
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Truth or Dare (2017) Watched this for the hell of it. It's a pretty fast paced movie, at the expense of character development or giving much hint at what's going on. Thus, it has to stop the action for a few minutes so Heather Langenkamp can infodump about what the rules are. It's also one of those movies that doesn't souch end as it just stops, leaving the fates of two characters up in the air. Not as horrid and inept as Slender Man, but forgettable. 1.5/5
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Oct 23, 2018 14:19
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 170- Psycho 1998 - VUDU This one's proof of take a classic script, a solid cast of proven talent, a successful director along with practically shooting the film shot for shot to the original and completely fail in capturing what made the original a classic. Poster's nice though. If you want to watch Psycho, just go with Hitchcock's.  171- Jack Frost 1997 - PRIME Oh God...I gave out so many credits at Blockbuster for this one getting mixed up with the Michael Keaton one. Even after I wrote in big letters "HORROR" on multiple spots on the rental insert with highlighter outline to draw attention to it, I still gave out a shitload of credits. You have to appreciate a horror film that doesn't take itself seriously, and this is definitely one of those. Here a convicted serial killer gets turned into a killer snowman when there's an accident while he's getting transported, and he decides to go after the cop that arrested him. This film's pure b-movie cheese. The scene that usually gets mentioned the most is Shannon Elizabeth's when the killer snowman gets her in the bathroom when she's taking a bath. There is a sequel to this which is just as cheesy, not sure yet if I'll be reviewing it for the challenge.
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Oct 23, 2018 14:58
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Franchescanado posted:
I feel like this is the "How is Roger Corman still alive?!" challenge.
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Oct 23, 2018 15:15
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M_Sinistrari posted:
Excellent write up. One important thing you mentioned that I failed to, is that the film is actually a very slow burner despite putting (most of) its cards on the table in the first act. I reread my write up and it may have come across like the film is a rip roaring scare fest, which it is most definitely NOT. And I keep thinking about that phone call scene. It's one of the best fake out scenes I've ever seen. It's not just an effective scare, but it's an emotional gut punch learning that the kid pouring his heart out was fake. We're just starting to feel a sense of reconciliation, and then nope.
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Oct 23, 2018 15:20
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